“Only a lay brother, you say, Rosa?”
“Yes, a poor half-witted soul apparently—must have been, to imagine that a subterfuge like that would succeed in London.”
Glory's eyes were gleaming. “Rosa,” she said, “I would rather have done what he did than play the greatest part in the world.”
She wished to be present at the trial, and proposed to Rosa that she should go with her.
“But dare you, my child? Considering your old friendship, dare you see him——”
“Dare I?” said Glory. “Dare I stand in the dock by his side!”
But when she got to Bow Street and saw the crowds in the court, the line of distinguished persons of both sexes allowed to sit on the bench, the army of reporters and newspaper artists, and all the mass of smiling and eager faces, without ruth or pity, gathered together as for a show, her heart sickened and she crept out of the place before the prisoner was brought into the dock.
Walking to and fro in the corridor, she waited the result of the trial. It was not a long one. The charge was that of causing people unlawfully to assemble to the danger of the public peace. There was no defence. A man with a bandaged forehead was the first of the witnesses. He was a publican, who lived in Brown's Square and had been a friend of the soldier Wilkes. The injury to his forehead was the result of a blow from a stick given by the prisoner's lay brother on the night of the Derby, when, with the help of the deceased, he had attempted to liberate the bloodhound. He had much to say of the Father's sermons, his speeches, his predictions, his slanders, and his disloyalty. Other witnesses were Pincher and Hawkins. They were in a state of abject fear at the fate hanging over their own heads, and tried to save their own skins by laying the blame of their own conduct upon the Father. The last witness was Brother Andrew, and he broke down utterly. Within an hour Rosa came out to say that John Storm had been committed for trial. Bail was not asked for, and the prisoner, who had not uttered a word from first to last, had been taken back to the cells.
Glory hurried home and shut herself in her room. The newsboys in the street were shouting, “Father Storm in the dock!” and filling the air with their cries. She covered her ears with her hands, and made noises in her throat that she might not hear.
John Storm's career was at an end. It was all her fault. If she had yielded to his desire to leave London, or if she had joined him there, how different everything must have been! But she had broken in upon his life and wrecked it. She had sinned against him who had given her everything that one human soul can give another.