"Do you mean that another of the inhabitants of Sodom has met with the reward of her misdeeds? Well? God has judged!"
"Oh, papa, don't talk like that! The poor creature has been almost cut to pieces, it is dreadful! The whole place is in excitement, we are afraid there'll be a riot. Do open the door!"
"Have you yet to learn that, under no circumstances, do I allow secular matters to interfere with the due performance of my spiritual duties on the Lord's own day? If the woman is dead, she is dead. I am no trafficker in horrors. To-morrow I shall hear all that I need to hear. Go. I am engaged."
The girl went. The Rev. Simon listened to her retreating footsteps. And, as she went, there was heard a sound which was very like the sound of a woman's sobbing.
The Incumbent of St Ursula's stood with his hands clasped in front of him, his eyes turned upwards. He quoted scripture.
"'The adulterers shall surely be put to death!' 'It is the day of the Lord's vengeance!' 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord!' And am I not thy minister, O God, that Thou hast appointed to work Thy will?' The harlot's house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death!' Yea, O God, yea! 'So let the wicked perish!'"
The Rev. Simon took a crucifix, which dangled from the cord of his cassock, and held it in front of him. He crossed himself. He pressed the crucifix to his lips. He seemed, for some seconds, to be engaged in silent prayer. Then, very methodically, he removed the evidences of his having been engaged so recently in the manufacture of cigars. The cigars themselves, oddly enough, he slipped, case and all, into an inner pocket of his cassock.
All at once there was borne on some current of the air the distant murmur of a crowd. He stood and listened. The sound grew louder; it seemed to be coming nearer. The light faded from the Rev. Simon's eyes; every faculty was absorbed in the act of listening. The sound was approaching; it rose and fell; now dying away in a sullen murmur, now rising to a startling yell. His hand stole into his bosom. When it reappeared it held a knife, shaped something like a surgeon's scalpel.
"'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.'"
Again that chuckle, the revelation of the lunatic.