Next morning, Roland was in attendance at the police court, and succeeded in procuring the release of the so-called "Mrs. Travers," by the payment of a fine, thereby saving the poor victim of a hereditary craving from a period of humiliating confinement in gaol, among criminals of the lowest class. His interference called forth sneering and ill-natured comments from some of the low bystanders, of a type whose natural tendency is to put the worst possible construction on every action. But for this he cared little, putting the unhappy young woman into a cab, and sending her to the hospital, while he himself hurried back to his office-work, satisfied with having rescued one sufferer from further degradation.
Miss Spencer was ready to receive her without a reference to this miserable episode. But when, exhausted and miserable, her beauty quite obscured by the effects of the intoxication and of her wretched night, the poor girl, as she still seemed, was led back into the peaceful retreat she had so insanely left, she threw one look around her, and then cast herself at the nurse's feet in a passion of tears and sobs. And in the same spirit in which the Man of Sorrows had comforted and encouraged the repentant Magdalen, did the tender-hearted Christian nurse comfort and encourage this poor penitent. This, at least, was the thought that passed through the mind of Nora, who, having come early to the hospital to inquire whether the wanderer had returned, was an unnoticed but deeply interested spectator of the scene.
Nora never knew how she got through the performance of the oratorio that evening. The brilliancy of the scene, the dress-display, the crowded audience, distasteful as they were in her present mood, were powerless to banish oppressive thoughts, and that scene in the hospital, which stood before her, as the touching chorus rose in all the tender beauty of the music:—
"Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed."
As she stood singing these words with her heart in her voice, and that sad scene before her, she caught Roland's earnest absorbed eyes, lighted with a softened emotion that made her for the moment wonder whether he, too, had the same thought in his mind. But she carefully avoided looking at Mr. Chillingworth, who, with an unusually bright and animated expression, was enjoying to the full both the music and the "success" which every one declared the oratorio to be. The soloists were admirable both in voice and manner, the choruses had been carefully practised and were remarkably well rendered, the "Halellujah Chorus" in particular, bursting forth with great effect, and, as the Minton Minerva expressed it, "taking the house by storm." It seemed to thrill through every nerve of Roland Graeme, as he caught the grand old words:
"The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever!"
In his own sense he could profoundly sympathize with the glorious hope.
Mr. Chillingworth sang in this and some other choruses, though he preferred to be a listener and spectator through the greater part of it. He naturally sought Miss Blanchard at the close, to exchange congratulations on the result of the long preparation. But her response was not the natural, enthusiastic one he expected, and he noticed her unusual paleness, attributing it to over-fatigue, a plea she was very ready to adopt, as an excuse for getting off to her cab, with her sister-in-law, as soon as possible.
It often happens, when we are thinking with dread and anxiety how some particular crisis is to be passed, that the "logic of events" settles it for us in a totally unexpected manner. While Nora was perplexing herself as to what was to be done with this secret, of which Mr. Chillingworth ought to be told, circumstances arose that gave her thoughts a new direction, and took matters for the present entirely out of her hands.