“Yes,” said Glory in a low voice, and then there was silence, and when she lifted her head Drake was gone and Rosa was wiping her eyes.
“It was all for love of you, Glory. A woman can't hate a man when he does wrong for love of herself.”
John Storm came in later the same day, when Rosa had gone out and Glory was alone. He was a different man entirely. His face looked round and his dark eyes sparkled. The clouds of his soul seemed to have drifted away, and he was boiling over with enthusiasm. He laughed constantly, and there was something almost depressing in the lumbering attempts at humour of the serious man.
“What do you think has happened? The Bishop sent for me and offered me a living in Westminster. It turns out to being the gift of Lord Robert Ure; but no thanks to him for it. Lady Robert was at the bottom of everything. She had called on the Bishop. He remembered me at the Brotherhood, and told me all about it. St. Jude's, Brown's Square, on the edge of the worst quarter in Christendom! It seems the Archdeacon expected it for Golightly, his son-in-law. The Reverend Joshua called on me this morning and tried to bully me, but I soon bundled him off to Botany Bay. Said the living had been promised to him—a lie, of course. I soon found that out. A lie is well named, you know—it hasn't a leg—to stand upon. Ha, ha, ha!”
Nothing would serve but that they should go to look at the scene of their future life, and with Don—he had brought his dog; it had to be held back from the pug under the table—they set off immediately. It was Saturday night, and as they dipped down into the slums that lie under the shadow of the Abbey, Old Pye Street, Peter's Street, and Duck Lane were aflare with the coarse lights of open naphtha lamps, and all but impassable with costers' barrows. There were the husky voices of the street hawkers, the hoarse laughter, the quarrelling, the oaths, the rasping shouts of the butcher selling chunks of dark joints by auction, the screeches of the roast-potato man, and the smell of stale vegetables and fried fish. “Jow, 'ow much a pound for yer turmaters?” “Three pence; I gave mor'n that for 'em myself.” “Garn!” “S'elp me, Gawd, I did, mum!”
“Isn't it a glorious scene?” said John; and Glory, who felt chilled and sickened, recalled herself from some dream of different things altogether and said, “Isn't it?”
“Sanctuary, too! What human cats we are! The poor sinners cling to the place still!”
He took her into the alleys and courts that score and wrinkle the map of Westminster like an old man's face, and showed her the “model” lodging-houses and the gaudily decorated hells where young girls and soldiers danced and drank.
“What's the use of saying to these people, 'Don't drink; don't steal'? They'll answer, 'If you lived in these slums you would drink too.' But we'll show them that we can live here and do neither—that will be the true preaching.”
And then he pictured a life of absolute self-sacrifice, which she was to share with him. “You'll manage all money matters, Glory. You can't think how I'm swindled. And then I'm such a donkey as far as money goes—that's not far with me, you know. Ha, ha, ha! Who's to find it? Ah, God pays his own debts. He'll see to that.”