The newcomer was a tall young man in a greatcoat, palpably a gentleman; to any instructed eye a soldier, but not—though this would have taken some discernment to detect—an Englishman. To the children he was merely a swell, and his passage heralded as such by cries that rang along the street, bringing a slatternly woman or two from an alley, and rousing occasional comment from male loungers. But the young man exhibited no sign of embarrassment at these attentions, and, stranger still, he seemed to know his way in his surroundings. Indeed, on the open-mouthed Victorier he bestowed, so she declared for days afterwards, "a lovely smile" and a "Time you were in bed, little girl," ere he passed out of sight into the ill-lighted gloom.
As the street left the Dockers' Arms behind, it became slightly more respectable, and signs of some agency at work began to appear, for though the uninformed might not have known that a nondescript building on the left was a school, no one could have mistaken that it was a Sister of Mercy who suddenly emerged from one of the houses near. But the swell evidently did not need these tokens to guide him towards his objective, and, indeed, as the street turned a little, it was before him—a big church, lighted up. When he realised this latter fact the young man hesitated a moment; then he made his way, as one who knows his whereabouts, to a small door, and pushing it cautiously open, went through.
An intense, almost strained silence reigned within, so that for a moment it was difficult to realise how large a congregation was there, and how varied—clerks, dockers, women with shawls over their heads, women in fashionable bonnets, ragged boys, a few sailors. The great gilt cross suspended from the roof over the chancel steps glimmered faintly in the lowered lights. From the screened-off door by which he had entered, Maurice de la Roche-Guyon could have seen a section of the great raised choir, and half the altar, severe and simple, even on a festival, but it was not in this direction that he looked. He looked at the pulpit.
He saw there a spare, rather shrunken figure that rested both thin hands—and not without a suggestion of leaning for physical support—on the edge of the stone. Then he checked an exclamation. Not since the days after Balaclava had he seen anything like this. Across the preacher's forehead, from grey hair to eyebrow, ran a terrible scar, red and puckered, straight as a swordcut but not so clean-edged, showing the worn and thoughtful face to be as much that of a soldier as of a priest.
"Children," said the slow, very clear voice, "I commend you from the bottom of my heart into the captivity of the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." The tension was lifted, the lights went up, and the voice that Maurice was waiting for gave out the first lines of a hymn;
"Spouse of Christ, in arms contending
O'er each clime beneath the sun..."
So he was there! The young Frenchman slipped out, and went round to the clergy-house.
Mrs. Squire, the housekeeper, a small wiry lady of varied, and especially of conversational gifts, opened the door herself.
"Lor bless me!" she exclaimed exhibiting much surprise. "Well, I never! Fancy you poppin' in like this, Sir, and all the way from foreign parts, too, I suppose. They're all in the church, Sir; been at it this long time.—But come in; I hope you're well, Sir—your Grace, as I should say. You must be tired, and want some supper, I'm sure."
"Thank you, Mrs. Squire, I am very well, and I've had supper," responded the young man, following her into the narrow hall. "But I do want a bed for the night, and to-morrow night, too, if you have a room."