David got away as quickly as he could, a mighty, quivering warmth within him. On the other side of the street, he gave a parting glance over his shoulder at the chapel. He stopped short, and stared. While they had talked, the director of the Mission had turned on additional lights, among which had been an arc-light before the great stained-glass window at the street end of the chapel. The window was now a splendid glow of red and blue and purple, and printed upon its colours was this legend:
David stared at the window, weak, dizzy. There was a momentary pang of bitterness that Morton should be so honoured, and he be what he was. Then the glow that had possessed him in the chapel flowed back upon him in even greater warmth. The window seemed to David, in his then mood, to be the perpetuation in glowing colour of Morton's influence. It seemed to throw forth into the street, upon the chance passer-by, the inspiration of Morton's life.
Yes,—his four years had counted!
Half an hour later he took his stand against the shadowed stoop of an empty mansion in Madison Avenue, and gazed across at a great square three-story stone house, with a bulging conservatory running along its left side—the only residence in the block that had re-opened for the autumn. All thought of Morton and the Mission was gone from him. His mind was filled only with the other great fear of his last four years. If she came out of the door he watched, if he glimpsed her beneath a window shade, then probably she still belonged in her father's house—was still unmarried.
A cold drizzle had begun to fall. He drew his head down into his upturned collar, and though his weakened body shivered, he noticed neither the rain nor the protest of his flesh. His whole being was directed at the house across the way. Slow minute followed slow minute. The door did not open, and he saw no one inside the windows. His heart beat as though it would shake his body apart. The sum of four years suspense so weakened him that he could hardly stand. Yet he stood and waited, waited; and he realised more keenly than ever how dear she was to him—though to possess her was beyond his wildest dreams, and perhaps he might not even speak to her again.
At length a nearby steeple called the hour of ten. Presently a carriage began to turn in towards the opposite sidewalk. David, all a-tremble, his great suspense now at its climax, stepped forth from his shadow. The carriage stopped before the Chambers home. He hurried across the street, and a dozen paces away from the carriage he stooped and made pretense of tying his shoe-lace; but all the while his eyes were on the carriage door, which the footman had thrown open. First a man stepped forth, back to David, and raised an umbrella. Who? The next instant David caught the profile. It was Mr. Chambers. After him came an ample, middle-aged woman, brilliantly attired—Mrs. Bosworth, Mr. Chambers's widowed sister, who had been living with him since his wife's death.
A moment later Mr. Chambers was helping a second woman from the carriage. The umbrella cut her face from David's gaze, but there was no mistaking her. So she still lived in the house of her father!
She paused an instant to speak to the footman. For a second a new fear lived in David: might she not come with her father to her father's house, and still be married? But at the second's end the fear was destroyed by the conventional three-word response of the footman. David watched her go up the steps, her face hidden by the umbrella, watched her enter and the door close behind her. Then, collapsed by the vast relief which followed upon his vast suspense, he sank down upon the stoop, and the three words of the footman maintained a thrilling iteration in his ears.
The three words were: "Thank you, Miss."