A chord had been touched which vibrated keenly in this mysterious breast. I saw his hand go to his throat and fall again quickly. Meantime the Captain went on:
"We are not frightened by sin and we hold out our hands to sinners; but we have no use for a man who prays in New York and has his pleasure on the other side of the North River. It shows hypocrisy, sir, and hypocrisy is the enemy of religion."
A smile, whose dark depths betrayed anything but hypocrisy at that moment, crossed Leighton's pale lips as he remarked without anger (which I could not but consider strange in a man so openly attacked):
"That little house is empty now. Has the thought struck you that my heart might be so too?"
The Captain, who evidently did not like his task, seemed to experience some difficulty in answering; but when he had settled upon his reply, spoke both clearly and with resolution:
"The house of which you speak may lack its occupant just now, but everything goes to show she is always expected. Or why are the lamps invariably lighted there at nightfall, the rooms kept warm, and the larder replenished? Some birds in flitting come round again to their forsaken nest. Your bird may; meanwhile the nest remains ready."
"Enough!" The tone was sharp now, the words cutting. "You do not understand me nor my interest in the poor and forsaken. As for my place among you, let it be filled by whom you will. I have my own griefs, and they are not light, and I have anxieties such as visit few men. A ban is upon me and upon all who bear the name of Gillespie. This is known to you and possibly to every man and woman soon to assemble here. Perhaps you do well not to submit me to their curiosity. But there is something you can do for me—something which you will do for me, I am sure; something which would place me under lasting obligation to you without doing you or anyone else the least harm in the world. A woman may come in here; a woman, wild-eyed, unkempt, but with a look—I am sure you will know her. There is an unearthly loveliness in her wan features. She has—But what use is there in my attempting to describe her? If she answers to the name of Mille-fleurs—some persons call her Millie—she is the woman I seek. Will you give her this?" (He had torn the edge off a newspaper lying near and was rapidly writing on it a few words.) "It will do no harm to the cause for which you are working, and it may save a most unhappy woman. Of myself I make no count, yet it might save me, too."
He handed over to the Captain the slip carelessly folded. It was received with reluctance. Mr. Gillespie, noting this, observed with some agitation:
"You are here to do God's work. Sometimes you are called upon to do it blindly and without full enlightenment." And having emphasised this with a bow of remarkable dignity he went out, little realising that the possible clue to his own future fate lay in the hands of one he at that moment passed without a look.
"These are the crosses we are called upon to bear," spoke up the Salvation Army Captain as the door closed upon the man they had once held in deepest reverence. "Now, what am I to do with this?" he added, turning over in his hands the half-rolled-up slip which had just been given into his charge.