CHAPTER VII
THE VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP ALBATROSS
This is where Destiny and the long arm of Coincidence play a part in the making of all Romance. One quality surely there must be in such matters, far more essential than that happiness ever after which the sentimentalist so clamours for. That quality, it is, of Destiny, which makes one know that, whatever renunciation and despair may follow, such things were meant to be. Coincidence combines to make them so, and, you may be sure, for a very good reason. And is it so long a stretch of the arm from Sardinia Street Chapel to Kensington Gardens? Hardly! In fiction, and along the high-road, perhaps it might be; but then this is not fiction. This is true.
Romance then--let us get an entirely new definition for it--is a chain of Circumstances which out of the infinite chaos links two living things together for a definite end--that end which is a pendant upon the chain itself and may be a heart with a lock of hair inside, or it may be a cross, or a dagger, or a crown--you never know till the last link is forged.
When he looked into the eyes of the lady of St. Joseph--so he had, since that incident, called her in his mind--John knew that Destiny had a hand in the matter.
He told me afterwards----
"You only meet the people in this world whom you are meant to meet. Whether you want to meet them or not is another matter, and has no power to bribe the hand of Circumstance."
He was generalising certainly, but that is the cloak under which a man speaks of himself.
However that may be, and whether the law holds good or not, they met. He saw the look of recognition that passed across her eyes; then he rose to his feet.
The knowledge that you are in the hands of Destiny gives you boldness. John marched directly across to her and lifted his hat.