But at the fatal hour she faces
Her victim, folds him in embraces,
With dainty teeth in lieu of knife
Bites through the crimson thread of life!
Mayfair: a Medley.
The next day was Sunday, and one of those golden days when all things seem to keep the happy Sabbath. The chestnuts in the great avenue of Regent’s Park were in full bloom, and happy throngs were wandering in their shade. On the open green spaces pale children of the great city were playing in the sunlight, and filling the air with their cries.
There was a large attendance at the temple of the New Church that morning. It had been whispered about that the Prime Minister was coming to hear the new preacher for the first time; and sure enough he came, sitting, the observed of all observers, with his grave keen eyes on the preacher, and holding his hand to his ear to catch each syllable. Sprinkled among the ordinary congregation were well-known politicians, authors, artists, actors, journalists.
Bradley’s text that day was a significant and, as it ultimately turned out, an ominous one. It was this—‘What God has joined, let no man put asunder.’
Not every day did the preacher take his text from the Christian “Bible” frequently enough, he chose a passage from the Greek tragedians, or from Shakespeare, or from Wordsworth; on the previous Sunday, indeed, he had scandalised many people by opening with a quotation from the eccentric American, Walt Whitman—of whose rhapsodies he was an ardent admirer.
As he entered the pulpit, he glanced down and met the earnest gaze of the Prime Minister. Curiously enough, he had that very morning, when revising his sermon, been reading the great statesman’s ‘Ecclesiastical Essays,’ and more particularly the famous essay on ‘Divorce’—wherein it is shown by numberless illustrations, chiefly from the Christian fathers, that marriage is a permanent sacrament between man and woman, not under any circumstances to be broken, and that men like Milton, who have pleaded so eloquently for the privilege of divorce, are hopelessly committed to Antichrist. Now, as the reader doubtless guesses, Bradley ranged himself on the side of the blind Puritan and endeavoured to show that marriage, although indeed a sacrament, was one which could be performed more than once in a lifetime. He argued the matter on theological, on moral, and as far as he could on physiological, grounds; and he illustrated his argument by glancing at the lives of Milton himself and even of Shelley. As his theme became more and more delicate, and his treatment of it more fearless, he saw the face of the great politician kindle almost angrily. For a moment, indeed, the Prime Minister seemed about to spring to his feet and begin an impassioned reply, but suddenly remembering that he was in a church, and not in the House of Commons, he relapsed into his seat and listened with a gloomy smile.