Only on the day before, a West End clergyman had come to Hampson with detailed statistics of the vice in his own parish in the neighborhood of Piccadilly. The vicar's statements were horrible. To some people they would have sounded incredible. Yet they were absolutely true, as Hampson was very well aware—naked, shameful horrors in Christian London.
"Ah," the clergyman said, "if only Our Lord came to London now how awful would His condemnation be!"
As the editor looked out upon the gloom he felt that the material darkness was symbolic of a spiritual darkness which sometimes appalled him when he realized it.
The door opened, and the sub-editor came in with "pulls" of the final sheets of the paper. Hampson had to read these carefully, initial them, and send them to the composing-room marked as ready for the printing-machines. Then his work was done for the day.
At lunch time, the fog still continuing, he left the office. An idea had come to him which might be of service in obtaining news of Joseph.
He would take a cab down to the East End Hospital, and ask Mary Lys if she knew anything about his friend. Probably she would know something, her brother, Lluellyn Lys, would almost certainly have written to her.
Hampson had met Mary two or three times during the last weeks. He reverenced the beautiful girl who had saved him from the consequences of his sudden madness, with all the force of his nature.
In her he saw a simple and serene holiness, an absolute abnegation of self which was unique in his experience. She represented to him all that was finest, noblest, and best in Christian womanhood.
Since his appointment to the editorial chair he had gloried in the fact that he had been able to send her various sums of money for distribution among the most destitute of the patients under her charge.
At four o'clock he had an appointment with the clerk of the works at St. Paul's Cathedral, but until then he was free. The Sunday Friend covered a very wide field, and hardly any question of interest to religious people was left untouched. At the moment grave fears were entertained as to the safety of the huge building upon Ludgate Hill. The continual burrowing for various purposes beneath the fabric had caused a slight subsidence of one of the great central piers. A minute crack had made its appearance in the dome itself.