The young man, however, had returned with the news that Joseph and his companions had left the house by a back entrance during the afternoon, and that nothing was known of their whereabouts.
During the day of Sunday Mr. Persse, though he wore an expression of pious and sanctified expectation, found his uneasiness and alarm increase. He showed nothing of it at the luncheon party which he attended after morning service, and answered the excited inquiries of the other guests with suavity and aplomb. But as the hour of eight drew near and no word had been received from the Teacher, all the mean fears and worries that must ever be the portion of the popularity-hunter assailed him with disconcerting violence.
At eight o'clock that evening there was probably no more nervous and frightened man in the West End of London than this priest.
The stately ritual of evensong was over. The celebrated choir, in their scarlet cassocks and lace cottas, had filed away into the vestry, preceded by the great silver-gilt cross which Lady Kirwan had given to the church, and followed by the clergy in their copes and birettas.
A faint sweet smell of incense lingered about the great arched aisles, and an acolyte was putting out the candles on the High Altar with a long brass extinguisher.
It was a quarter before nine, and the church was filling rapidly. The vergers in their gowns of black velvet were showing the ticket-holders to their seats; on all sides were the rustle of silk, the gleam of jewels, breaths of faint, rare perfumes.
Mr. Persse always encouraged people to come to his church in evening dress. He said, and quite rightly, that there was no possible reason why people who belonged to a class which changes its costume in the evening as a matter of course should be prevented from coming together to worship God by that circumstance.
Nevertheless, the sight was a curious one, in comparison with that seen at the same hour in most other churches. The women wore black mantillas over their elaborate coiffures—just as the poorer class do at church in Italy—but the sparkle of diamonds and the dull sheen of the pearls were but hardly veiled. Fans moved incessantly, and there was a continuous sound of whispering, like the wind in the reeds on the bank of a river.
Mr. Persse was in the inner vestry with his two curates. His face was pale, and little beads of perspiration were beginning to start out upon it.