"I do not know why this assails me," the Teacher answered; "but it does, and it is there. I cannot help it."
David Owen shut the Bible on the table in front of him, and rose to his feet.
"Dear Master," he said, "the Son of God was also troubled, in the Desert and in the Garden. But it is well—all is well. All is part of the beneficent ordering of the Father. There is but one medicine for your black thoughts, dear Master, and after you've taken it you'll let come what may."
"And that is, old friend?"
"The Lord's Prayer," answered the old gentleman, taking off his horn spectacles and placing them upon the table.
And, kneeling down, they said it together.
It was the middle of the morning and a dull, leaden day. There was no fog down in the breathing areas of town, but high above a leaden pall hung over the City of Dreadful Night, shutting out the clear light of the sun, livid, sinister and hopeless.
In the big room of the house in Bloomsbury a dozen people were gathered together. Sir Augustus Kirwan was talking to The Duke, a thick-set, clean-shaven man with a strong watchful face. Sir Thomas Ducaine and Eric Black the journalist stood together.
Several other notabilities stood in the big, bare room, and there were also three unobtrusive men with pointed beards, who stood together a little apart from the others. Detective-inspectors Alpha, Beta and Gamma, the real satraps and rulers of the lawless districts of Whitechapel and its environs.