“You are too good, uncle, and if I had once thought you wished to see more of me——”
“Ah, I know, I know. It was a wise man who said it was hard to love a woman and do anything else, even to love God himself.”
John dropped his head and turned to go.
“But come again before you leave London—if you do leave it—and now good-bye, and God bless you!”
The news of John Storm's intention to follow Father Damien had touched and thrilled the heart of London, and the streets and courts about St. Mary Magdalene's were thronged with people. In their eyes he was about to fulfil a glorious mission, and ought to be encouraged and sustained. “Good-bye, Father!” cried one. “God bless you!” cried another. A young woman with timid eyes stretched out her hand to him, and then everybody attempted to do the same. He tried to answer cheerfully, but was conscious that his throat was thick and his voice was husky. Mrs. Pincher was at the door of the clergy-house, crying openly and wiping her eyes. “Ain't there lepers enough in London, sir, without goin' to the ends of the earth for 'em?” He laughed and made an effort to answer her humorously, but for some reason both words and ideas failed him.
The club-room was crowded, and among the girls and the Sisters there were several strange faces. Mrs. Callender sat at one end of the little platform, and she was glowering across at the other end, where the Father Superior stood in his black cassock, quiet and watchful, and with the sprawling, smiling face of Brother Andrew by his side. The girls were singing when John entered, and their voices swelled out as they saw him pushing his way through. When the hymn ended there was silence for a moment as if it was expected that he would speak, but he did not rise, and the lady at the harmonium began again. Some of the young mothers from the shelter above had brought down their little ones, and the thin, tuneless voices could be heard among the rest:
There's a Friend for little children
Above the bright blue sky.
John had made a brave fight for it, but he was beginning to break down. Everybody else had risen, he could not rise. An expression of fear and at the same time of shame had come into his face. Vaguely, half-consciously, half-reproachfully, he began to review the situation. After all, he was deserting his post, he was running away. This was his true scene, his true work, and if he turned his back upon it he would be pursued by eternal regrets. And yet he must go, he must leave everything—that alone he understood and felt.
All at once, God knows why, he began to think of something which had happened when he was a boy. With his father he was crossing the Duddon Sands. The tide was out, far out, but it had turned, it was galloping toward them, and they could hear the champing waves on the beach behind. “Run, boy, run! Give me your hand and run!”
Then he resumed the current of his former thoughts. “What was I thinking about?” he asked himself; and when he remembered, he thought, “I will give my hand to the heavenly Father and go on without fear.” At the second verse he rallied, rose to his feet, and joined in the singing. It was said afterward that his deep voice rang out above all the other voices, and that he sang in rapid and irregular time, going faster and faster at every line.