Chapter Eighteen. The Chalice.

Early in September my chambers were insufferably hot and dusty. In the road below the eternal turmoil was increased every hour, as the presses of the Pall Mall Gazette turned out their various editions, which were loaded into the carts by an army of shouting men and boys. The club was deserted; most men I knew were out of town, and I felt utterly lonely and miserable.

A fortnight before I had received a letter from Jack Yelverton, saying that he had resigned the curacy of Duddington, and was about to return at once to St. Peter’s, Walworth, he having been appointed vicar of the parish. I replied congratulating him, and expressing a hope that he would call as soon as he returned to town. But I had seen nothing of him. Had the offer of a good living proved too tempting to him, I wondered; or had he resolved to abandon the curious theory he held regarding marriage? I was intensely anxious to ascertain the truth.

Since that afternoon when I had met Aline at Ludgate Circus and been induced to relinquish myself into her hands, I had seen nothing of her. She had refused me her address, and had not called. Yet, strange to relate, I had experienced some delusions unaccountable, for once or twice there seemed conjured in my vision vague scenes of terror and hideousness which held me in a kind of indefinite fear which was utterly indescribable. To attribute these experiences to Aline’s influence was, of course, impossible. Yet the strangest fact was that in such moments there invariably arose, side by side with the woman I loved, the countenance of the woman of mystery distorted by hate until its hideousness appalled me.

I attributed these experiences to the disordered state of my mind and the constant tension consequent upon Muriel’s waywardness; nevertheless, so remarkable were the powers possessed by Aline that I admit wondering whether the distressing visions which arose before me so vividly as to become almost hallucinations were actually due to the influence she possessed over me.

I am no believer in the so-called mesmeric power, in hypnotism, or any of the quack influences by which charlatans seek to impose upon the public, therefore I philosophically attributed the visions to severe mental strain; for I had read somewhere that such hallucinations were very often precursory of madness.

Fully a month passed, from the night when I had vainly implored Muriel to give me hope, until late one afternoon Simes ushered in Aline.

So changed was she that I rose and regarded her with speechless astonishment. Her face was thin and drawn, her cheeks hollow, her eyebrows twitching and nervous, while her clear, blue eyes themselves seemed to have lost all the brightness and cheerful light which had given such animation to her face. She was dressed in deep black, and wore no jewellery except a golden bracelet shaped as a snake, the sombreness of her costume heightening the deathlike refinement and pallor of her countenance.

As she stepped across to me quickly, and held out her gloved hand, I exclaimed concernedly—

“Why, what has occurred?”

“I have been ill,” she answered vaguely, and she sank into a chair and placed her hand to her heart, panting for the exertion of walking had been too great for her.

“I’m exceedingly sorry,” I replied. “I’ve been expecting you for several weeks. Why did you not leave your address with me last time?”

“A letter would not have found me,” she answered. “When I pass from sight of my friends I pass beyond reach of their messages.”

I drew forth a footstool for her, and noting how wild and strange was her manner, seated myself near her. The thought that she was insane came upon me, but I set aside such an idea as ridiculous. She was as sane as myself. There was nevertheless in her appearance an indescribable mysteriousness. She bore no resemblance to any other woman, so frail were her limbs, so thin and fine her features, so graceful all her movements. No illness could have imparted to her face that curious Sphinx-like look which it assumed when her countenance was not relaxed in conversing with me.

And her eyes. They were not the eyes of a person suffering from insanity. They possessed a bewitching fascination which was not human. Nay, it was Satanic.

I shuddered, as I always did when she were present. The touch of that slim hand covered by its neat, black glove was fatal. This visitor of mine was the Daughter of Evil; the woman of whom Muriel’s lover had said, that the people of London would, if they knew the mysterious truth, rend her limb from limb!

She put up her flimsy veil and raised a tiny lace handkerchief to her face. From it was diffused a perfume of lilies—those flowers the odour of which is so essentially the scent of the death-chamber.

“Well?” she asked at last, in that curious, far-distant voice, which sounded so musical, yet so unusual. “And your love? Did you discover her, as I had said?”

“I did,” I answered in sorrow. “But it is useless. Another has snatched her from me.”

She knit her brows, regarding me with quick, genuine astonishment.

“Has she forgotten you?”

“Yes,” I answered in despair. “My dream of felicity is over. She has cast me aside in favour of one who cannot love her as I have done.”

“But she loves you!” my monitress exclaimed.

“All that is of the past,” I replied. “She is now infatuated with this man who has recently come into her life. In this world of London she, calm, patient, trusting in the religious truth taught at her mother’s knee, was as my beacon, guiding me upon the upward path which, alas! is so very hard to keep aright. But all is over, and,” I added with a sigh, “the sun of my happiness has gone down ere I have reached the meridian of life.”

“But what have you done to cause her to doubt you?” she asked in a voice more kindly than ever before.

“Nothing! Absolutely nothing!” I declared. “We have been friends through years, and knowing how pure, how honest, how upright she is, I am ready at this moment to make her my wife.”

“Remember,” she said, warningly, “you have position, while she is a mere shop-assistant, to whom your friends would probably take exception.”

“It matters not,” I exclaimed vehemently. “I love her. Is not that quite sufficient?”

“Quite!” she said. Then a silence fell between us.

Suddenly she looked up and inquired whether I knew this man who was now her lover.

“Only by sight,” I answered. “I have no faith in him.”

“Why?” she inquired eagerly.

“Because his face shows him to be cold and crafty, designing and relentless,” I answered, recollecting how this woman now before me had once walked with him in the Park, and the curious influence he had apparently held over her.

She smiled bitterly, and her eyes for a moment flashed. I saw in them a glance of hatred.

“And you still love Muriel?” she inquired quite calmly, repressing in an instant the secret thoughts which were within her, whatever they might have been.

“I still love her,” I admitted. “She is my life, my soul.”

She hesitated, undecided whether to proceed. She was wavering. At length, with sudden resolve, she asked—

“And you still have confidence in me?”

“In what way?” I inquired, rather surprised.

“That I possess a power unknown to others,” she answered, bending to me and speaking in a hoarse half-whisper. “That the power of evil is irresistible!”

“Certainly!” I answered, glaring at her, so strangely transformed her face appeared. That glitter of hate was again in her eyes, which had fixed themselves upon me, causing me to quiver beneath their deadly gaze.

“You believe what I have already confessed to you, here, in this room?” she went on. “You believe that I can work evil at will—an evil which is overwhelming?”

“Already I have had optical illustration of your extraordinary powers,” I answered, dumbfounded, drawing back with a feeling something akin to terror. “No doubt whatever remains now in my mind. I believe, Aline, that within your human shape there dwells the Spirit of Evil, its hideousness hidden from the world beneath the beauty of your form and face.”

“Then if you thus believe in me,” she murmured, in a soft, crooning voice, as one speaking to a wayward child; “if you thus place your trust implicitly in me, I will give you further proof of my power, I will fulfil the compact made between us. Muriel shall love you?”

“And you will use your influence to secure my happiness?” I cried, jumping up enthusiastically.

“I will cause her to return to you,” the strange woman answered. “The affection she entertains for this man shall wane and fade ere another day has passed. At my will she will hate him, and again love you.”

“Truly, I believe your power to be irresistible,” I observed with bowed head.

It was on my tongue to confess how I had watched her walking on that night in Hyde Park with the man whom Muriel loved, but fearing she might be wrathful that I had acted as eavesdropper, I held my secret.

She smiled with an air of gratification at my words.

“Keep faith with me,” she answered, “and you shall ere long be afforded illustration of a volition which will amaze you. The Empire of Evil is great, and its ruler is absolute.”

If she could direct the destinies of Muriel at will, compel her to abandon this man with whom she was infatuated, and cause her to return to me repentant, then that, indeed, would be proof conclusive that she were something more than human. I had implored of Muriel to give me hope, and had used upon her all the persuasive power at my command to induce her to think more kindly of me, yet without avail. An influence which would cause her to return to my side must be irresistible, and therefore an exercise of the all-ruling power of evil.

“And when may I expect her to relinquish this man?” I inquired eagerly.

She rose slowly, a strange, rather tragic-looking figure, so slim, pale-faced and fragile that she seemed almost as one from whom the flush of life had faded. Her brows contracted, her thin lips twitched, and the magnificent marquise ring of turquoises and diamonds upon her ungloved hand seemed to glitter with an iridescence that was dazzling.

She raised her hand with an imperious gesture, describing a semicircle, while I stood aghast watching her.

“I have commanded!” she said a moment later, in that curious far-off tone. “At this instant the change is effected. She no longer loves that man who came between you!”

“And she loves me?” I cried, incredible that she could at will effect such changes in the affections of any person. Truly her power was demoniacal.

“Yes,” she answered. “She will be penitent.”

“And she will come to me?”

“Wait in patience,” the mysterious woman answered. “You must allow time for the thoughts of regret now arising within her to mature. When they have done so, then will she seek your forgiveness.”

“Why have you done me this service, Aline?” I asked, utterly mystified. “It is a service which I can never repay.”

“We are friends,” she responded simply. “Not enemies.”

Then for the first time the terrible thought flashed upon me that by making the agreement I had made with her I might be aiding the murderer of poor Roddy to escape. She had set a seal upon my lips.

Next day was Sunday, and as Jack Yelverton had not called upon me, and I did not know his address, I suddenly, early in the evening, resolved to go down to Walworth and see whether I could find him.

Having no idea where the church of St. Peter was situated, I took a cab through Newington to a point halfway along the Walworth Road, that great artery of Transpontine London, and there alighted. Some of those who read these lines may know that road, one of the busiest in the whole metropolis. Even on a Sunday evening, when the shops are closed, the traffic in that broad thoroughfare never ceases. From the overcrowded districts of Peckham and Camberwell, districts which within my own memory were semi-rural, this road is the main highway to the City, and while on week-days it is crowded with those hurrying thousands of daily workers who earn their bread beyond the river, on Sunday evenings those same workers take out their wives and families for a breath of air on Camberwell Green, Peckham Eye, or some other of those open spaces which have aptly been termed “the lungs of London.” Only the worker knows the felicity of the Sunday rest. People of means and leisure may talk of the pleasure and brightness of the Continental Sunday, but for the worker in the great city it would be a sad day indeed if the present custom were altered. It is now a day of rest; and assuredly rest and relaxation are required in the ceaseless, frantic hurry of the life of London’s toilers. The opening of places of amusement would be but the thin end of the wedge. It would be followed, as in France and Italy, by the opening of shops until noon, and later, most probably, by the half-day working of factories.

The leisure of the English Sunday was well illustrated in the Walworth Road, that centre of lower and middle-class life, on that evening, as I walked alone until, by direction, I entered a narrow, rather uninviting-looking turning, and proceeding some distance came to a large, old-fashioned church with pointed spire, surrounded by a spacious, disused burying-ground, where the gravestones were blackening. The bell, of peculiarly doleful tone, was quite in keeping with the character of the neighbourhood, for the houses in the vicinity were mostly one-storied, dingy abodes, little more than cottages, let out in floors, many of their inhabitants being costermongers and factory hands. The old church, cracked and smoke-blackened, was a substantial and imposing relic of bygone times. Once, as was shown by the blackened, rain-stained tombstones in God’s-acre, the residents in that parish were well-to-do citizens, who had their rural residences in that quarter; but during the past half-century or so a poor, squalid parish had sprung up in the market gardens which surrounded it, one of those gloomy, miserable, mean, and dreary districts wherein life seems so full of sadness, and disease stalks hand-in-hand with direst poverty.

I was shown by the verger to a pew well in front, and found that the congregation was by no means a small one, comprising many who appeared to be tradespeople from the Walworth Road. Yet there was about the place a damp, mouldy smell, which rendered it a very depressing place of worship.

As I had hoped, my friend, Yelverton, conducted the service, and afterwards preached a striking sermon upon “Brotherliness,” a discourse so brilliant that he held his not too educated congregation breathless in attention.

At length, when the Benediction had been pronounced, and the congregation rose to leave, I made my way into the vestry, where I found him taking off his surplice.

“Hulloa, Clifton!” he cried, welcoming me warmly, “so you’ve found me out, eh?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Why haven’t you called, as you promised?”

I simply uttered the first words that arose to my lips, for truth to tell, I had a moment before made a surprising and unexpected discovery. As I had risen from my seat I saw behind me a tall, thin lady in deep mourning, wearing a veil.

I could not see the face, but by her figure and her gait as she turned to make her way out I recognised her.

It was Aline Cloud. She had come there to listen to the preaching of the man she loved. Once again, then, had she come into the life of this man who had fled from her as from a temptress.

The verger went back into the church, and my friend pushed to the door in order that whoever remained should not witness us, then answered—

“I’ve been busy—terribly busy, my dear fellow. Forgive me.”

“Of course,” I answered. “But it was a surprise to me to hear that you had left Duddington, although, of course, we couldn’t expect you to bury yourself down there altogether.”

“Well, I had this offer,” he answered, hanging up his surplice in the cupboard, “and being so much interested in the work here, I couldn’t refuse.”

“It seems a dismal place,” I observed, “a terribly dismal place.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “There’s more misery and poverty here than even in the East End. Here we have the deserving poor—the people who are too proud to throw themselves on the parish, yet they haven’t a few coppers to get the bare necessaries of life with. If you came one round with me, Clifton, you’d witness scenes which would cause your heart to bleed. And this in London—the richest city in the world! While at the Café Royal or Jimmy’s you will cheerfully give a couple or three pounds for a dinner with a friend, here, within fifty yards of this place, are people actually starving because they can’t get a herring and a pennyworth of bread. Ah! you who have had no experience in the homes of these people can’t know how despairing, how cheerless, is the life of the deserving poor.”

“And you live here?” I asked. “You prefer this cramped, gloomy place to the fresh air and free life of the country? You would rather visit these overcrowded slums than the homely cottages of the agricultural labourer?”

“Certainly,” he responded simply. “I entered the Church with the object of serving the Master, and I intend to do so.”

“And the lady who was once a parish-worker here,” I said, with some hesitancy. “Have you seen her?”

“Ah!” he sighed, as a dark shadow crossed his thoughtful brow, and his lips compressed. “You alone know my secret, old fellow, you alone are aware of the torment I am suffering.”

“What torment?” I inquired, surprised.

At that instant, however, the old verger, a man who spoke with a pronounced South London drawl, interrupted by dashing in alarmed and pale-faced, saying—

“There’s been a robbery, sir—an awful sacrilege!”

“Sacrilege!” echoed Yelverton, starting up.

“Yes, sir. The chalice you used this morning at Communion I put in the niche beside the organ, meaning to clean it to-night. I’ve always put it there these twelve years. But it’s gone.”

My friend went forth into the church, and I followed until we came to the niche which the old verger indicated.

There was no chalice there, but in its place only white ashes and a few pieces of metal melted out of all recognition.

All three of us stood gazing at the fused fragments of the sacramental cup, astonished and amazed.