I could not trust myself to speak again and undeceive her. I kissed her and did not look at her any more. I heard her room-door close, and, after standing a long time where she left me, I followed her up-stairs. I stole to my father’s door and listened. I could hear his regular breathing; he was sound asleep. I do not know how long I listened, but at length I crept away to my own room. My resolution was terribly shaken by Nellie’s innocent confidence in me. It is so much easier to endure harshness or suspicion from persons to whom you know you are about to give pain. Why didn’t she scold me, or turn up her pretty nose at me, or stick a pin in me, or do something dreadful to me—anything rather than believe me the best fellow in the world? But, after all, could I not return when I pleased? I had often been away before for a month or more on a visit to some friends—for months together at college. Why should I hesitate to go now?
Poor Nellie’s book was placed in the very bottom of my bag, and then I sat down and wrote the following letter:
“Nellie: I am going away for a little while—for a month or more, probably. You must not expect to hear anything of me within that time. If you do hear of me, it will probably be through Kenneth Goodal. Indeed, I leave England on Monday, and my return will depend altogether upon circumstances. Nobody knows of my going or of my destination—not even Kenneth; so that it will be useless to make any inquiries. Give my love to my dear father, and tell him that, wherever I may be, the thought of him will always accompany me and prevent me from doing anything unworthy his son and your loving brother,
Roger.
“P.S.—I will keep my promise.”
This note, sealed and addressed to Nellie, I left upon my table. I waited until not a sound was to be heard through all the house, and again left my room to listen at my father’s door. I listened at Nellie’s also. Nothing could be heard in either. They were sound asleep—dreaming, perhaps, of me. My window overlooked the garden, and a soft grass-plot beneath received myself and my bag noiselessly, as I made the drop I had so often done in play, to the mingled alarm and admiration of Fairy. After a walk of about five minutes I lit a cigar, and felt somewhat more companionable than before. The moon had gone down long since, and a faint flush in the east low down on the horizon betokened the dawn. There was a keenness in the air and a freshness all around that quickened the blood and inspirited the faint heart. The sense of freedom awoke in me with every stride that carried me away from my father’s house out into the world, whose largeness I was beginning to feel for the first time. There was something about the whole enterprise of novelty and boldness and change that grew on me every mile of the way. I thought less and less of the consternation and grief I might occasion to those I left behind me, and whose existence was bound up in mine. And striding along in this frame of mind, I reached Gnaresbridge, where I was not known. My walk of eight miles had given me a tremendous appetite. I entered the railway hotel, and, by way of beginning at once my life of privation and economy, ordered a right royal breakfast, the best the railway hotel could offer. I then took a first-class ticket for London, engaged a room for one night at the Charing Cross Hotel, and, finding my own company not of the liveliest, strolled out into the streets.
The London streets are beyond measure dull on a Sunday. There is a constrained air of good-behavior and drilled respectability about the crowds going to and coming from church at the stated hours that strikes one with a chill after the bustle and noise of the other six days of the week. Religion looks so oppressively dull and hopelessly solemn. The citizens seem to run up the shutters in front of their own persons as well as of their goods; to bolt and bar and case themselves in a wooden stolidity of dull propriety that is mistaken for religion. I do not say that it is not well done; I only say that to me, at least, on this occasion it was disagreeable. The light spirits I had picked up on the road dwindled down immediately at sight of the solemn city, with its solemn crowds. The sombre gray of my surroundings seemed to settle on my mind and heart like ashes from which every spark had gone out. I fell a-musing, and involuntarily followed one of the streams of people that were moving along slowly to some place of worship. I felt sick at heart, and wished for the morrow to come that was to bear me away somewhere out of this tame and conventional life, where religion as well as business followed a fixed routine. Before I knew or had time to think how I had got there, I found myself in a Catholic church. I knew it to be a Catholic church by the altar, and the crucifixes, and the Stations of the Cross around the walls, and the general appearance of the congregation. There is something about a Catholic congregation that distinguishes it at once from all others. Heaven seems a happier place somehow from a Catholic point of view. I had visited Catholic churches before, but was never present at the Mass, and was about to retire as soon as I discovered my whereabouts, when curiosity, mingled with the conviction that I might be as comfortably miserable there as outside, detained me, and I remained. Somebody directed me to a seat close to the altar, where I could see everything perfectly.
The service was varied and full of dignified movements, but I could not understand its meaning. The singing was good, it seemed to my poor ear; but I could not say the same for the sermon. A quiet, pious-looking gentleman preached from the altar a long and, to me, tedious discourse. He seemed in earnest, however, and now and then his pale, worn face would light up—once or twice especially when he spoke of the “Mother of God.” Indeed, I found myself just becoming interested when the sermon concluded. There was something far more impressive to me than the priest’s discourse, than the solemn music, than the gleaming lights, than the slow and reverent movements at the altar, in the congregation itself. The people preached a silent but most telling sermon. I looked furtively around, and watched them. Whether they were mistaken or not, whether they were idolaters or not, there was certainly no sham about them; after all, there was something thorough about this Religion of Rags. Beyond doubt they prayed in real, downright earnest. One man differed from another; one woman from her sister; this one was in rags, that in silks; this man might be a lord, and his neighbor a beggar; but there was something common to them all. They seemed, as they knelt there, possessed of one heart and one soul. They appeared even one body. Their prayer seemed universal and to pass from one to another out and up to God. All seemed to feel an Invisible Presence, which, from association, doubtless, I could have persuaded myself that I also felt. A bell tinkles, once, twice, thrice; once, twice, thrice again. There is an instantaneous hush; the low breathing of the organ has ceased; and every head and heart is bowed down in silent and awful adoration. Involuntarily I also knelt and bowed.
Deeply impressed, I left the church at the conclusion of the service, and seemed to be walking in a dream, when a light touch on my shoulder startled and recalled me to my senses, while a voice whispered in my ear:
“Heretic, heretic! what dost thou here?”