“A month ago I asked you to set your face as a clergyman against the shameful and immoral marriage of a man of scandalous reputation, but you refused; you excused the man and sided with him. This morning you thought it necessary to investigate in public the case of one of that man's victims, and you sided with the man again--you denied to the girl the right even to mention the scoundrel's name!” “How differently we see things! Do you know I thought my examination of the poor young thing was merciful to the point of gentleness! And that, I may tell you--notwithstanding the female volcano who came down on me--was the view of the board and of his lordship the chairman.” “Then I am sorry to differ from them. I thought it unnecessary and unmanly and brutal, and even blasphemous!” “Mr. Storm! Do you know what you are saying?” “Perfectly, and I came to say it.” His eyes were wild, his voice was hoarse; he was like a man breaking the bonds of a tyrannical slavery. “You called that poor child a prostitute because she had wasted the good gifts which God had given her. But God has given good gifts to you also--gifts of intellect and eloquence with which you might have raised the fallen and supported the weak, and defended the downtrodden and comforted the broken-hearted--and what have you done with them? You have bartered them for benefices, and peddled them for popularity; you have given them in exchange for money, for houses, for furniture, for things like this--and this--and this! You have sold your birthright for a mess of pottage, therefore _you_ are the prostitute!” “You're not yourself, sir; leave me,” and, crossing the room, the canon touched the bell. “Yes, ten thousand times more the prostitute than that poor fallen girl with her taint of blood and will! There would be no such women as she is to fall victims to evil companionship if there were no such men as you are to excuse their betrayers and to side with them. Who is most the prostitute--the woman who sells her body, or the man who sells his soul?” “You're mad, sir! But I want no scene----” “You are the worst prostitute on the streets of London, and yet you are in the Church, in the pulpit, and you call yourself a follower of the One who forgave the woman and shamed the hypocrites, and had not where to lay his head!” But the canon had faced about and fled out of the room. The footman came in answer to the bell, and, finding no one but John Storm, he told him that a lady was waiting for him in a carriage at the door. It was Mrs. Callender. She had come to say that she had called at the hospital for Polly Love, and the girl had refused to go to the home at Soho. “But whatever's amiss with ye, man?” she said. “You might have seen a ghost!” He had come out bareheaded, carrying his hat in his hand. “It's all over,” he said. “I've waited weeks and weeks for it, but it's over at last. It was of no use mincing matters, so I spoke out.”