“Johnny, are all your places to sleep like my stairs? I mean, haven’t you any regular place?”
The boy gave him a quick glance and decided that this was not the time for lies.
“Lor-gordy—them stairs ain’t bad—on’y wen it’s wery cold. Naw, I ain’t got nothink reg’lar.”
“There’s a bit of a room just your size, Johnny, in the back-hall,” the man said. “I’m going away again to-day, and these rooms will be locked up for a long time, but I’ll be back, I think. If I were to fix it with the good landlady for you to have that little room—and I’ll give you a regular army blanket like the soldiers have, to curl up in when it’s cold, and a little cot, and all the things you need—would you use it every night?”
“Lor’! Say, Mister, honest?”
He nodded. “Run along then, Johnny, and get a good breakfast, and I’ll have it arranged when you get back.”
Routledge came to an agreement with the woman of the house; carried from his own rooms blankets, soap, towels, pictures, a pair of military brushes, an unused pocket-knife, a package of candles, and many other little things to the wee box of a room in the hall, taking much pleasure in the outfitting.... He had not yet brought his own baggage from Charing Cross, and was glad now. London had become to him like a plague quarantine, a smothering menace. He would leave London to-day, and Noreen Cardinegh, without daring to see her again. His every movement, he realized, was watched. Even to take her hand for a moment would reflect evil upon her. The White Mustache, or one of his kind, would observe, and a lasting record would be made. He paced the floor swiftly, murdering the biggest thing in his life.
... He could go to Rawder. There was healing in that. Perhaps the old Sannyasi would take him for the chela of his chela. He could hide in England’s India, which only a few of the secret service knew so well as he.... Could he put all the wars and illusions of matter away, drink of the ancient wisdom, wander beneficently until the end, with two holy men, in the midst of God’s humblest poor? Could he put behind him all that was supreme and lovely of his life this hour, sink it in the graveyard of his past with other dead desires?
It was just a rush of vague, vain thoughts. Had he been pure as the boy, twelve years ago, and wise as the man now, and if he had never known Noreen Cardinegh, possibly then the old Sannyasi might say, “Be the disciple of my disciple; and, free from all the illusions of the flesh, journey with us up into the silence of the goodly mountains.”...
But this life would never know freedom from that thrilling, beautiful memory. He could sacrifice a union with Noreen Cardinegh, but never renounce her from the high place of his heart. She was wedded to the source and centre of his life, and no asceticism could shrive her from him. He might put half the planet’s curve between, but the bride the world had formed for him would be the eternal crying voice in the wilderness; and until they were mated in this or another life, the Wheel of Births and Deaths would never whirl him free from love, the loftiest of all illusions. Though he sat in a temple upon the roof of the world, holding his thoughts among the stars until the kusa grass beneath him was blown like dust away, and his body petrified upon the naked rock, the last breath from the ruin would stir his lips to the name of the world’s bright gift to him—Noreen.