The short night seemed as if it would never end. When daylight came the cheerless place was cleared of its refuse—its withered roses, its cigarette ends and its heaps of left-off clothing. Toward eight o'clock Glory hurried back to the Orphanage, leaving Aggie and Mrs. Pincher in charge. John had been muttering the whole night, through, but he had never once moved and he was still unconscious.
“Good-morning, Sister!”
“Good-morning, children!”
The little faces, fresh and bright from sleep, were waiting for their breakfast. When the meal was over Glory wrote by express to Mrs. Callender and to the Father Superior of the Brotherhood, then put on her bonnet and cloak and turned toward Downing Street.
The Prime Minister had held an early Cabinet Council that morning. It was observed by his colleagues that he looked depressed and preoccupied. When the business of the day was done he rose to his feet rather feebly and said:
“My lords and gentlemen, I have long had it in mind to say something—something of importance—and I feel the impulse to say it now. We have been doing our best with legislation affecting the Church, to give due reality and true life to its relation with the State. But the longer I live the more I feel that that relation is in itself a false one, injurious and even dangerous to both alike. Never in history, so far as I know, and certainly never within my own experience, has it been possible to maintain the union of Church and State without frequent adultery and corruption. The effort to do so has resulted in manifest impostures in sacred things, in ceremonies without spiritual significance, and in gross travesties of the solemn, worship of God. Speaking of our own Church, I will not disguise my belief that, but for the good and true men who are always to be found within its pale, it could not survive the frequent disregard of principles which lie deep in the theory of Christianity. Its epicureanism, its regard for the interests of the purse, its tendency to rank the administrator above the apostle, are weeds that spring up out of the soil of its marriage with the State. And when I think of the anomalies and inequalities of its internal government, of its countless poor clergy, and of its lords and princes, above all when I remember its apostolic pretensions and the certainty that he who attempts to live within the Church the real life of the apostles will incur the risk of that martyrdom which it has always pronounced against innovators, I can not but believe that the consciences of many Churchmen would be glad to be relieved of a burden of State temptation which they feel to be hurtful and intolerable—to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. Be that as it may, I have now to tell you that feeling this question to be paramount, yet despairing of dealing with it in the few years that old age has left to me, I have concluded to resign my office. It is for some younger statesman to fight this battle of the separation between the spiritual and the temporal in the interests of true religion and true civilization. God grant he may be a Christian man, and God speed and bless him!”
The cabinet broke up with many unwonted expressions of affection for the old leader, and many requests that he should “think again” over the step he contemplated. But every one knew that he had set his heart on an impossible enterprise, and every one felt that behind it lay the painful impulse of an incident reported at length in the newspapers that morning.
Left alone in the cabinet room, the Prime Minister drew up his chair before the empty grate and gave way to tender memories. He thought of John Storm and the wreck his life had fallen to; of John's mother and her brave renunciation of love; and finally of himself and his near retirement. A spasm of the old lust of power came over him, and he saw himself—to-morrow, next day, next week—delivering up his seals of office to the Queen, and then—the next day after that—getting up from this chair for the last time and going out of this room to return to it no more—his work done, his life ended.
It was at that moment the footman came to say that a young lady in the dress of a nurse was waiting in the hall. “A messenger from John,” he thought. And, as he rose to receive her, heavily, wearily, and with the burden of his years upon him, Glory came into the room with her quivering face and two great tear-drops standing in her eyes, but glowing with youth and health and courage.