“Kinder than God” he repeated to himself. He was now mounting the granite steps to the bridge. “Of course, one knows better; yet how difficult of proof it would become, if one had to explain it to that poor soul, and to the thousands like her in this great city!”
For the first time since leaving Sir Archibald his own joy was forgotten. The awful problem of London’s destitution had supplanted London’s beauty in his thoughts.
CHAPTER III.
FLOTSAM.
“Only nine hours!”
Tom Hammond laughed amusedly at his own murmured thought. It seemed ridiculous almost to try to believe that only nine hours before he had been a discharged journalist, while now he was at the head of what he knew would be the greatest journalistic venture London—yea, the world—had ever seen.
He had just dined. He felt that he wanted some kind of movement, some distraction, to relieve the tension. He was in that frame of mind when some kind of adventure was necessary, although he did not tell himself this, being hardly conscious of his own need. He knew that the haunts of his fellows—club, theatre, music-hall—would only serve to irritate him. Some instinct turned his feet riverwards.
It was now a quarter past seven o’clock. Night had fallen upon London. Tom Hammond crossed the great Holborn thoroughfare. The heavier traffic of London’s commercial life had almost ceased. The omnibuses going west were filled with theatregoers, and other pleasure-seekers. Hansoms flitted swiftly either way, each holding a man and a woman in evening dress.
Having crossed the roadway, he paused for a moment at the corner of Chancery Lane, and let his eye take in all the scene. And again Le Gallienne came to his mind, and he softly murmured: