An hour later, when the Judge had been and gone again, Madge Finisterre was the wife of the pastor.
CHAPTER XVII.
CASTING A SHOE.
It was two hours after midnight when Tom Hammond was free at last. But he did not go to bed. His soul was disturbed. What he had heard at the major’s meeting had stirred a myriad disquieting thoughts within him, and now that he was clear to do it, he shut himself up alone with a Bible, and began to go over every point of the major’s address. He had taken copious notes in shorthand, paying especial attention to the texts quoted and referred to.
At the end of an hour he looked up from his Bible. There was a wondering amaze in his eyes, a strange, perplexed knitting of his brows.
“It is all most marvellous!” he murmured. “There is not a flaw or hitch anywhere in the major’s statements or reasoning. The Scriptures prove, to the hilt, every word that he uttered.”
He smiled to himself as, rising to his feet, he said aloud,
“I should not sleep if I went to bed; I will go out.”
There are ways of getting into some of the London parks before the regulation hour for opening the gates. Tom Hammond had often found a way to forestall the park-opener.
Ten minutes after leaving his chambers he was inside the park he loved best. Everything was eerily still and silent. The calm suited his mood. He wanted to feel, as well as to be, absolutely alone. He had his desire. There had been a thick mist over London overnight, but the atmosphere was as clear as a bell now. The air was as balmy as a morning in May or September.