The Advent

: THE ENCOUNTER

CHAPTER I



I



Oliver Brand, the new member for Croydon (4), sat in his study, looking

out of the window over the top of his typewriter.



His house stood facing northwards at the extreme end of a spur of the

Surrey Hills, now cut and tunnelled out of all recognition; only to a

Communist the view was an inspiriting one. Immediately below the wide

windows the embanked gr und fell away rapidly for perhaps a hundred

feet, ending in a high wall, and beyond that the world and works of men

were triumphant as far as eye could see. Two vast tracks like streaked

race-courses, each not less than a quarter of a mile in width, and sunk

twenty feet below the surface of the ground, swept up to a meeting a

mile ahead at the huge junction. Of those, that on his left was the

First Trunk road to Brighton, inscribed in capital letters in the

Railroad Guide, that to the right the Second Trunk to the Tunbridge and

Hastings district. Each was divided length-ways by a cement wall, on one

side of which, on steel rails, ran the electric trams, and on the other

lay the motor-track itself again divided into three, on which ran, first

the Government coaches at a speed of one hundred and fifty miles an

hour, second the private motors at not more than sixty, third the cheap

Government line at thirty, with stations every five miles. This was

further bordered by a road confined to pedestrians, cyclists and

ordinary cars on which no vehicle was allowed to move at more than

twelve miles an hour.



Beyond these great tracks lay an immense plain of house-roofs, with

short towers here and there marking public buildings, from the Caterham

district on the left to Croydon in front, all clear and bright in

smokeless air; and far away to the west and north showed the low

suburban hills against the April sky.



There was surprisingly little sound, considering the pressure of the

population; and, with the exception of the buzz of the steel rails as a

train fled north or south, and the occasional sweet chord of the great

motors as they neared or left the junction, there was little to be heard

in this study except a smooth, soothing murmur that filled the air like

the murmur of bees in a garden.



Oliver loved every hint of human life--all busy sights and sounds--and

was listening now, smiling faintly to himself as he stared out into the

clear air. Then he set his lips, laid his fingers on the keys once more,

and went on speech-constructing.



* * * * *



He was very fortunate in the situation of his house. It stood in an

angle of one of those huge spider-webs with which the country was

covered, and for his purposes was all that he could expect. It was close

enough to London to be extremely cheap, for all wealthy persons had

retired at least a hundred miles from the throbbing heart of England;

and yet it was as quiet as he could wish. He was within ten minutes of

Westminster on the one side, and twenty minutes of the sea on the other,

and his constituency lay before him like a raised map. Further, since

the great London termini were but ten minutes away, there were at his

disposal the First Trunk lines to every big town in England. For a

politician of no great means, who was asked to speak at Edinburgh on one

evening and in Marseilles on the next, he was as well placed as any man

in Europe.



He was a pleasant-looking man, not much over thirty years old; black

wire-haired, clean-shaven, thin, virile, magnetic, blue-eyed and

white-skinned; and he appeared this day extremely content with himself

and the world. His lips moved slightly as he worked, his eyes enlarged

and diminished with excitement, and more than once he paused and stared

out again, smiling and flushed.



Then a door opened; a middle-aged man came nervously in with a bundle of

papers, laid them down on the table without a word, and turned to go

out. Oliver lifted his hand for attention, snapped a lever, and spoke.



"Well, Mr. Phillips?" he said.



"There is news from the East, sir," said the secretary.



Oliver shot a glance sideways, and laid his hand on the bundle.



"Any complete message?" he asked.



"No, sir; it is interrupted again. Mr. Felsenburgh's name is mentioned."



Oliver did not seem to hear; he lifted the flimsy printed sheets with a

sudden movement, and began turning them.



"The fourth from the top, Mr. Brand," said the secretary.



Oliver jerked his head impatiently, and the other went out as if at a

signal.



The fourth sheet from the top, printed in red on green, seemed to absorb

Oliver's attention altogether, for he read it through two or three

times, leaning back motionless in his chair. Then he sighed, and stared

again through the window.



Then once more the door opened, and a tall girl came in.



"Well, my dear?" she observed.



Oliver shook his head, with compressed lips.



"Nothing definite," he said. "Even less than usual. Listen."



He took up the green sheet and began to read aloud as the girl sat down

in a window-seat on his left.



She was a very charming-looking creature, tall and slender, with

serious, ardent grey eyes, firm red lips, and a beautiful carriage of

head and shoulders. She had walked slowly across the room as Oliver took

up the paper, and now sat back in her brown dress in a very graceful and

stately attitude. She seemed to listen with a deliberate kind of

patience; but her eyes flickered with interest.



"'Irkutsk--April fourteen--Yesterday--as--usual--But--rumoured--

defection--from--Sufi--party--Troops--continue--gathering--

Felsenburgh--addressed--Buddhist--crowd--Attempt--on--Llama--last--

Friday--work--of--Anarchists--Felsenburgh--leaving--for--Moscow--as

--arranged--he....' There--that is absolutely all," ended Oliver

dispiritedly. "It's interrupted as usual."



The girl began to swing a foot.



"I don't understand in the least," she said. "Who is Felsenburgh, after

all?"



"My dear child, that is what all the world is asking. Nothing is known

except that he was included in the American deputation at the last

moment. The Herald published his life last week; but it has been

contradicted. It is certain that he is quite a young man, and that he

has been quite obscure until now."



"Well, he is not obscure now," observed the girl.



"I know; it seems as if he were running the whole thing. One never hears

a word of the others. It's lucky he's on the right side."



"And what do you think?"



Oliver turned vacant eyes again out of the window.



"I think it is touch and go," he said. "The only remarkable thing is

that here hardly anybody seems to realise it. It's too big for the

imagination, I suppose. There is no doubt that the East has been

preparing for a descent on Europe for these last five years. They have

only been checked by America; and this is one last attempt to stop them.

But why Felsenburgh should come to the front---" he broke off. "He must

be a good linguist, at any rate. This is at least the fifth crowd he has

addressed; perhaps he is just the American interpreter. Christ! I wonder

who he is."



"Has he any other name?"



"Julian, I believe. One message said so."



"How did this come through?"



Oliver shook his head.



"Private enterprise," he said. "The European agencies have stopped work.

Every telegraph station is guarded night and day. There are lines of

volors strung out on every frontier. The Empire means to settle this

business without us."



"And if it goes wrong?"



"My dear Mabel--if hell breaks loose---" he threw out his hands

deprecatingly.



"And what is the Government doing?"



"Working night and day; so is the rest of Europe. It'll be Armageddon

with a vengeance if it comes to war."



"What chance do you see?"



"I see two chances," said Oliver slowly: "one, that they may be afraid

of America, and may hold their hands from sheer fear; the other that

they may be induced to hold their hands from charity; if only they can

be made to understand that co-operation is the one hope of the world.

But those damned religions of theirs---"



The girl sighed, and looked out again on to the wide plain of

house-roofs below the window.



The situation was indeed as serious as it could be. That huge Empire,

consisting of a federalism of States under the Son of Heaven (made

possible by the merging of the Japanese and Chinese dynasties and the

fall of Russia), had been consolidating its forces and learning its own

power during the last thirty-five years, ever since, in fact, it had

laid its lean yellow hands upon Australia and India. While the rest of

the world had learned the folly of war, ever since the fall of the

Russian republic under the combined attack of the yellow races, the last

had grasped its possibilities. It seemed now as if the civilisation of

the last century was to be swept back once more into chaos. It was not

that the mob of the East cared very greatly; it was their rulers who had

begun to stretch themselves after an almost eternal lethargy, and it was

hard to imagine how they could be checked at this point. There was a

touch of grimness too in the rumour that religious fanaticism was behind

the movement, and that the patient East proposed at last to proselytise

by the modern equivalents of fire and sword those who had laid aside for

the most part all religious beliefs except that in Humanity. To Oliver

it was simply maddening. As he looked from his window and saw that vast

limit of London laid peaceably before him, as his imagination ran out

over Europe and saw everywhere that steady triumph of common sense and

fact over the wild fairy-stories of Christianity, it seemed intolerable

that there should be even a possibility that all this should be swept

back again into the barbarous turmoil of sects and dogmas; for no less

than this would be the result if the East laid hands on Europe. Even

Catholicism would revive, he told himself, that strange faith that had

blazed so often as persecution had been dashed to quench it; and, of all

forms of faith, to Oliver's mind Catholicism was the most grotesque and

enslaving. And the prospect of all this honestly troubled him, far more

than the thought of the physical catastrophe and bloodshed that would

fall on Europe with the advent of the East. There was but one hope on

the religious side, as he had told Mabel a dozen times, and that was

that the Quietistic Pantheism which for the last century had made such

giant strides in East and West alike, among Mohammedans, Buddhists,

Hindus, Confucianists and the rest, should avail to check the

supernatural frenzy that inspired their exoteric brethren. Pantheism, he

understood, was what he held himself; for him "God" was the developing

sum of created life, and impersonal Unity was the essence of His being;

competition then was the great heresy that set men one against another

and delayed all progress; for, to his mind, progress lay in the merging

of the individual in the family, of the family in the commonwealth, of

the commonwealth in the continent, and of the continent in the world.

Finally, the world itself at any moment was no more than the mood of

impersonal life. It was, in fact, the Catholic idea with the

supernatural left out, a union of earthly fortunes, an abandonment of

individualism on the one side, and of supernaturalism on the other. It

was treason to appeal from God Immanent to God Transcendent; there was

no God transcendent; God, so far as He could be known, was man.



Yet these two, husband and wife after a fashion--for they had entered

into that terminable contract now recognised explicitly by the

State--these two were very far from sharing in the usual heavy dulness

of mere materialists. The world, for them, beat with one ardent life

blossoming in flower and beast and man, a torrent of beautiful vigour

flowing from a deep source and irrigating all that moved or felt. Its

romance was the more appreciable because it was comprehensible to the

minds that sprang from it; there were mysteries in it, but mysteries

that enticed rather than baffled, for they unfolded new glories with

every discovery that man could make; even inanimate objects, the fossil,

the electric current, the far-off stars, these were dust thrown off by

the Spirit of the World--fragrant with His Presence and eloquent of His

Nature. For example, the announcement made by Klein, the astronomer,

twenty years before, that the inhabitation of certain planets had become

a certified fact--how vastly this had altered men's views of themselves.

But the one condition of progress and the building of Jerusalem, on the

planet that happened to be men's dwelling place, was peace, not the

sword which Christ brought or that which Mahomet wielded; but peace that

arose from, not passed, understanding; the peace that sprang from a

knowledge that man was all and was able to develop himself only by

sympathy with his fellows. To Oliver and his wife, then, the last

century seemed like a revelation; little by little the old superstitions

had died, and the new light broadened; the Spirit of the World had

roused Himself, the sun had dawned in the west; and now with horror and

loathing they had seen the clouds gather once more in the quarter whence

all superstition had had its birth.



* * * * *



Mabel got up presently and came across to her husband.



"My dear," she said, "you must not be downhearted. It all may pass as it

passed before. It is a great thing that they are listening to America at

all. And this Mr. Felsenburgh seems to be on the right side."



Oliver took her hand and kissed it.







II



Oliver seemed altogether depressed at breakfast, half an hour later. His

mother, an old lady of nearly eighty, who never appeared till noon,

seemed to see it at once, for after a look or two at him and a word, she

subsided into silence behind her plate.



It was a pleasant little room in which they sat, immediately behind

Oliver's own, and was furnished, according to universal custom, in light

green. Its windows looked out upon a strip of garden at the back, and

the high creeper-grown wall that separated that domain from the next.

The furniture, too, was of the usual sort; a sensible round table stood

in the middle, with three tall arm-chairs, with the proper angles and

rests, drawn up to it; and the centre of it, resting apparently on a

broad round column, held the dishes. It was thirty years now since the

practice of placing the dining-room above the kitchen, and of raising

and lowering the courses by hydraulic power into the centre of the

dining-table, had become universal in the houses of the well-to-do. The

floor consisted entirely of the asbestos cork preparation invented in

America, noiseless, clean, and pleasant to both foot and eye.



Mabel broke the silence.



"And your speech to-morrow?" she asked, taking up her fork.



Oliver brightened a little, and began to discourse.



It seemed that Birmingham was beginning to fret. They were crying out

once more for free trade with America: European facilities were not

enough, and it was Oliver's business to keep them quiet. It was useless,

he proposed to tell them, to agitate until the Eastern business was

settled: they must not bother the Government with such details just now.

He was to tell them, too, that the Government was wholly on their side;

that it was bound to come soon.



"They are pig-headed," he added fiercely; "pig-headed and selfish; they

are like children who cry for food ten minutes before dinner-time: it is

bound to come if they will wait a little."



"And you will tell them so?"



"That they are pig-headed? Certainly."



Mabel looked at her husband with a pleased twinkle in her eyes. She knew

perfectly well that his popularity rested largely on his outspokenness:

folks liked to be scolded and abused by a genial bold man who danced and

gesticulated in a magnetic fury; she liked it herself.



"How shall you go?" she asked.



"Volor. I shall catch the eighteen o'clock at Blackfriars; the meeting

is at nineteen, and I shall be back at twenty-one."



He addressed himself vigorously to his entree, and his mother looked

up with a patient, old-woman smile.



Mabel began to drum her fingers softly on the damask.



"Please make haste, my dear," she said; "I have to be at Brighton at

three."



Oliver gulped his last mouthful, pushed his plate over the line, glanced

to see if all plates were there, and then put his hand beneath the

table.



Instantly, without a sound, the centre-piece vanished, and the three

waited unconcernedly while the clink of dishes came from beneath.



Old Mrs. Brand was a hale-looking old lady, rosy and wrinkled, with the

mantilla head-dress of fifty years ago; but she, too, looked a little

depressed this morning. The entree was not very successful, she

thought; the new food-stuff was not up to the old, it was a trifle

gritty: she would see about it afterwards. There was a clink, a soft

sound like a push, and the centre-piece snapped into its place, bearing

an admirable imitation of a roasted fowl.



Oliver and his wife were alone again for a minute or two after breakfast

before Mabel started down the path to catch the 14-1/2 o'clock 4th grade

sub-trunk line to the junction.



"What's the matter with mother?" he said.



"Oh! it's the food-stuff again: she's never got accustomed to it; she

says it doesn't suit her."



"Nothing else?"



"No, my dear, I am sure of it. She hasn't said a word lately."



Oliver watched his wife go down the path, reassured. He had been a

little troubled once or twice lately by an odd word or two that his

mother had let fall. She had been brought up a Christian for a few

years, and it seemed to him sometimes as if it had left a taint. There

was an old "Garden of the Soul" that she liked to keep by her, though

she always protested with an appearance of scorn that it was nothing but

nonsense. Still, Oliver would have preferred that she had burned it:

superstition was a desperate thing for retaining life, and, as the brain

weakened, might conceivably reassert itself. Christianity was both wild

and dull, he told himself, wild because of its obvious grotesqueness and

impossibility, and dull because it was so utterly apart from the

exhilarating stream of human life; it crept dustily about still, he

knew, in little dark churches here and there; it screamed with

hysterical sentimentality in Westminster Cathedral which he had once

entered and looked upon with a kind of disgusted fury; it gabbled

strange, false words to the incompetent and the old and the half-witted.

But it would be too dreadful if his own mother ever looked upon it again

with favour.



Oliver himself, ever since he could remember, had been violently opposed

to the concessions to Rome and Ireland. It was intolerable that these

two places should be definitely yielded up to this foolish, treacherous

nonsense: they were hot-beds of sedition; plague-spots on the face of

humanity. He had never agreed with those who said that it was better

that all the poison of the West should be gathered rather than

dispersed. But, at any rate, there it was. Rome had been given up wholly

to that old man in white in exchange for all the parish churches and

cathedrals of Italy, and it was understood that mediaeval darkness

reigned there supreme; and Ireland, after receiving Home Rule thirty

years before, had declared for Catholicism, and opened her arms to

Individualism in its most virulent form. England had laughed and

assented, for she was saved from a quantity of agitation by the

immediate departure of half her Catholic population for that island, and

had, consistently with her Communist-colonial policy, granted every

facility for Individualism to reduce itself there ad absurdum. All

kinds of funny things were happening there: Oliver had read with a

bitter amusement of new appearances there, of a Woman in Blue and

shrines raised where her feet had rested; but he was scarcely amused at

Rome, for the movement to Turin of the Italian Government had deprived

the Republic of quite a quantity of sentimental prestige, and had haloed

the old religious nonsense with all the meretriciousness of historical

association. However, it obviously could not last much longer: the world

was beginning to understand at last.



He stood a moment or two at the door after his wife had gone, drinking

in reassurance from that glorious vision of solid sense that spread

itself before his eyes: the endless house-roofs; the high glass vaults

of the public baths and gymnasiums; the pinnacled schools where

Citizenship was taught each morning; the spider-like cranes and

scaffoldings that rose here and there; and even the few pricking spires

did not disconcert him. There it stretched away into the grey haze of

London, really beautiful, this vast hive of men and women who had

learned at least the primary lesson of the gospel that there was no God

but man, no priest but the politician, no prophet but the schoolmaster.



Then he went back once more to his speech-constructing.



* * * * *



Mabel, too, was a little thoughtful as she sat with her paper on her

lap, spinning down the broad line to Brighton. This Eastern news was

more disconcerting to her than she allowed her husband to see; yet it

seemed incredible that there could be any real danger of invasion. This

Western life was so sensible and peaceful; folks had their feet at last

upon the rock, and it was unthinkable that they could ever be forced

back on to the mud-flats: it was contrary to the whole law of

development. Yet she could not but recognise that catastrophe seemed one

of nature's methods....



She sat very quiet, glancing once or twice at the meagre little scrap

of news, and read the leading article upon it: that too seemed

significant of dismay. A couple of men were talking in the

half-compartment beyond on the same subject; one described the

Government engineering works that he had visited, the breathless haste

that dominated them; the other put in interrogations and questions.

There was not much comfort there. There were no windows through which

she could look; on the main lines the speed was too great for the eyes;

the long compartment flooded with soft light bounded her horizon. She

stared at the moulded white ceiling, the delicious oak-framed paintings,

the deep spring-seats, the mellow globes overhead that poured out

radiance, at a mother and child diagonally opposite her. Then the great

chord sounded; the faint vibration increased ever so slightly; and an

instant later the automatic doors ran back, and she stepped out on to

the platform of Brighton station.



As she went down the steps leading to the station square she noticed a

priest going before her. He seemed a very upright and sturdy old man,

for though his hair was white he walked steadily and strongly. At the

foot of the steps he stopped and half turned, and then, to her surprise,

she saw that his face was that of a young man, fine-featured and strong,

with black eyebrows and very bright grey eyes. Then she passed on and

began to cross the square in the direction of her aunt's house.



Then without the slightest warning, except one shrill hoot from

overhead, a number of things happened.



A great shadow whirled across the sunlight at her feet, a sound of

rending tore the air, and a noise like a giant's sigh; and, as she

stopped bewildered, with a noise like ten thousand smashed kettles, a

huge thing crashed on the rubber pavement before her, where it lay,

filling half the square, writhing long wings on its upper side that beat

and whirled like the flappers of some ghastly extinct monster, pouring

out human screams, and beginning almost instantly to crawl with broken

life.



Mabel scarcely knew what happened next; but she found herself a moment

later forced forward by some violent pressure from behind, till she

stood shaking from head to foot, with some kind of smashed body of a man

moaning and stretching at her feet. There was a sort of articulate

language coming from it; she caught distinctly the names of Jesus and

Mary; then a voice hissed suddenly in her ears:



"Let me through. I am a priest."



She stood there a moment longer, dazed by the suddenness of the whole

affair, and watched almost unintelligently the grey-haired young priest

on his knees, with his coat torn open, and a crucifix out; she saw him

bend close, wave his hand in a swift sign, and heard a murmur of a

language she did not know. Then he was up again, holding the crucifix

before him, and she saw him begin to move forward into the midst of the

red-flooded pavement, looking this way and that as if for a signal. Down

the steps of the great hospital on her right came figures running now,

hatless, each carrying what looked like an old-fashioned camera. She

knew what those men were, and her heart leaped in relief. They were the

ministers of euthanasia. Then she felt herself taken by the shoulder and

pulled back, and immediately found herself in the front rank of a crowd

that was swaying and crying out, and behind a line of police and

civilians who had formed themselves into a cordon to keep the pressure

back.





III



Oliver was in a panic of terror as his mother, half an hour later, ran

in with the news that one of the Government volors had fallen in the

station square at Brighton just after the 14-1/2 train had discharged

its passengers. He knew quite well what that meant, for be remembered

one such accident ten years before, just after the law forbidding

private volors had been passed. It meant that every living creature in

it was killed and probably many more in the place where it fell--and

what then? The message was clear enough; she would certainly be in the

square at that time.



He sent a desperate wire to her aunt asking for news; and sat, shaking

in his chair, awaiting the answer. His mother sat by him.



"Please God---" she sobbed out once, and stopped confounded as he turned

on her.



But Fate was merciful, and three minutes before Mr. Phillips toiled up

the path with the answer, Mabel herself came into the room, rather pale

and smiling.



"Christ!" cried Oliver, and gave one huge sob as he sprang up.



She had not a great deal to tell him. There was no explanation of the

disaster published as yet; it seemed that the wings on one side had

simply ceased to work.



She described the shadow, the hiss of sound, and the crash.



Then she stopped.



"Well, my dear?" said her husband, still rather white beneath the eyes

as he sat close to her patting her hand.



"There was a priest there," said Mabel. "I saw him before, at the

station."



Oliver gave a little hysterical snort of laughter.



"He was on his knees at once," she said, "with his crucifix, even before

the doctors came. My dear, do people really believe all that?"





"Why, they think they do," said her husband.



"It was all so--so sudden; and there he was, just as if he had been

expecting it all. Oliver, how can they?"



"Why, people will believe anything if they begin early enough."



"And the man seemed to believe it, too--the dying man, I mean. I saw his

eyes."



She stopped.



"Well, my dear?"



"Oliver, what do you say to people when they are dying?"



"Say! Why, nothing! What can I say? But I don't think I've ever seen any

one die."



"Nor have I till to-day," said the girl, and shivered a little. "The

euthanasia people were soon at work."



Oliver took her hand gently.



"My darling, it must have been frightful. Why, you're trembling still."



"No; but listen.... You know, if I had had anything to say I could have

said it too. They were all just in front of me: I wondered; then I knew

I hadn't. I couldn't possibly have talked about Humanity."



"My dear, it's all very sad; but you know it doesn't really matter. It's

all over."



"And--and they've just stopped?"



"Why, yes."



Mabel compressed her lips a little; then she sighed. She had an agitated

sort of meditation in the train. She knew perfectly that it was sheer

nerves; but she could not just yet shake them off. As she had said, it

was the first time she had seen death.



"And that priest--that priest doesn't think so?"



"My dear, I'll tell you what he believes. He believes that that man whom

he showed the crucifix to, and said those words over, is alive

somewhere, in spite of his brain being dead: he is not quite sure where;

but he is either in a kind of smelting works being slowly burned; or, if

he is very lucky, and that piece of wood took effect, he is somewhere

beyond the clouds, before Three Persons who are only One although They

are Three; that there are quantities of other people there, a Woman in

Blue, a great many others in white with their heads under their arms,

and still more with their heads on one side; and that they've all got

harps and go on singing for ever and ever, and walking about on the

clouds, and liking it very much indeed. He thinks, too, that all these

nice people are perpetually looking down upon the aforesaid

smelting-works, and praising the Three Great Persons for making them.

That's what the priest believes. Now you know it's not likely; that kind

of thing may be very nice, but it isn't true."



Mabel smiled pleasantly. She had never heard it put so well.



"No, my dear, you're quite right. That sort of thing isn't true. How can

he believe it? He looked quite intelligent!"



"My dear girl, if I had told you in your cradle that the moon was green

cheese, and had hammered at you ever since, every day and all day, that

it was, you'd very nearly believe it by now. Why, you know in your heart

that the euthanatisers are the real priests. Of course you do."



Mabel sighed with satisfaction and stood up.



"Oliver, you're a most comforting person. I do like you! There! I must

go to my room: I'm all shaky still."



Half across the room she stopped and put out a shoe.



"Why---" she began faintly.



There was a curious rusty-looking splash upon it; and her husband saw

her turn white. He rose abruptly.



"My dear," he said, "don't be foolish."



She looked at him, smiled bravely, and went out.



* * * * *



When she was gone, he still sat on a moment where she bad left him. Dear

me! how pleased he was! He did not like to think of what life would have

been without her. He had known her since she was twelve--that was seven

years ago-and last year they had gone together to the district official

to make their contract. She had really become very necessary to him. Of

course the world could get on without her, and he supposed that he could

too; but he did not want to have to try. He knew perfectly well, for it

was his creed of human love, that there was between them a double

affection, of mind as well as body; and there was absolutely nothing

else: but he loved her quick intuitions, and to hear his own thought

echoed so perfectly. It was like two flames added together to make a

third taller than either: of course one flame could burn without the

other--in fact, one would have to, one day--but meantime the warmth and

light were exhilarating. Yes, he was delighted that she happened to be

clear of the falling volor.



He gave no more thought to his exposition of the Christian creed; it was

a mere commonplace to him that Catholics believed that kind of thing; it

was no more blasphemous to his mind so to describe it, than it would be

to laugh at a Fijian idol with mother-of-pearl eyes, and a horse-hair

wig; it was simply impossible to treat it seriously. He, too, had

wondered once or twice in his life how human beings could believe such

rubbish; but psychology had helped him, and he knew now well enough that

suggestion will do almost anything. And it was this hateful thing that

had so long restrained the euthanasia movement with all its splendid

mercy.



His brows wrinkled a little as he remembered his mother's exclamation,

"Please God"; then he smiled at the poor old thing and her pathetic

childishness, and turned once more to his table, thinking in spite of

himself of his wife's hesitation as she had seen the splash of blood on

her shoe. Blood! Yes; that was as much a fact as anything else. How was

it to be dealt with? Why, by the glorious creed of Humanity--that

splendid God who died and rose again ten thousand times a day, who had

died daily like the old cracked fanatic Saul of Tarsus, ever since the

world began, and who rose again, not once like the Carpenter's Son, but

with every child that came into the world. That was the answer; and was

it not overwhelmingly sufficient?



Mr. Phillips came in an hour later with another bundle of papers.



"No more news from the East, sir," he said.







CHAPTER II



I



Percy Franklin's correspondence with the Cardinal-Protector of England

occupied him directly for at least two hours every day, and for nearly

eight hours indirectly.



For the past eight years the methods of the Holy See had once more been

revised with a view to modern needs, and now every important province

throughout the world possessed not only an administrative metropolitan

but a representative in Rome whose business it was to be in touch with

the Pope on the one side and the people he represented on the other. In

other words, centralisation had gone forward rapidly, in accordance with

the laws of life; and, with centralisation, freedom of method and

expansion of power. England's Cardinal-Protector was one Abbot Martin, a

Benedictine, and it was Percy's business, as of a dozen more bishops,

priests and laymen (with whom, by the way, he was forbidden to hold any

formal consultation), to write a long daily letter to him on affairs

that came under his notice.



It was a curious life, therefore, that Percy led. He had a couple of

rooms assigned to him in Archbishop's House at Westminster, and was

attached loosely to the Cathedral staff, although with considerable

liberty. He rose early, and went to meditation for an hour, after which

he said his mass. He took his coffee soon after, said a little office,

and then settled down to map out his letter. At ten o'clock he was ready

to receive callers, and till noon he was generally busy with both those

who came to see him on their own responsibility and his staff of

half-a-dozen reporters whose business it was to bring him marked

paragraphs in the newspapers and their own comments. He then breakfasted

with the other priests in the house, and set out soon after to call on

people whose opinion was necessary, returning for a cup of tea soon

after sixteen o'clock. Then he settled down, after the rest of his

office and a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, to compose his letter,

which though short, needed a great deal of care and sifting. After

dinner he made a few notes for next day, received visitors again, and

went to bed soon after twenty-two o'clock. Twice a week it was his

business to assist at Vespers in the afternoon, and he usually sang high

mass on Saturdays.



It was, therefore, a curiously distracting life, with peculiar dangers.



It was one day, a week or two after his visit to Brighton, that he was

just finishing his letter, when his servant looked in to tell him that

Father Francis was below.



"In ten minutes," said Percy, without looking up.



He snapped off his last lines, drew out the sheet, and settled down to

read it over, translating it unconsciously from Latin to English.



"WESTMINSTER, May 14th.



"EMINENCE: Since yesterday I have a little more information. It appears

certain that the Bill establishing Esperanto for all State purposes will

be brought in in June. I have had this from Johnson. This, as I have

pointed out before, is the very last stone in our consolidation with the

continent, which, at present, is to be regretted.... A great access of

Jews to Freemasonry is to be expected; hitherto they have held aloof to

some extent, but the 'abolition of the Idea of God' is tending to draw

in those Jews, now greatly on the increase once more, who repudiate all

notion of a personal Messiah. It is 'Humanity' here, too, that is at

work. To-day I heard the Rabbi Simeon speak to this effect in the City,

and was impressed by the applause he received.... Yet among others an

expectation is growing that a man will presently be found to lead the

Communist movement and unite their forces more closely. I enclose a

verbose cutting from the New People to that effect; and it is echoed

everywhere. They say that the cause must give birth to one such soon;

that they have had prophets and precursors for a hundred years past, and

lately a cessation of them. It is strange how this coincides

superficially with Christian ideas. Your Eminence will observe that a

simile of the 'ninth wave' is used with some eloquence.... I hear to-day

of the secession of an old Catholic family, the Wargraves of Norfolk,

with their chaplain Micklem, who it seems has been busy in this

direction for some while. The Epoch announces it with satisfaction,

owing to the peculiar circumstances; but unhappily such events are not

uncommon now.... There is much distrust among the laity. Seven priests

in Westminster diocese have left us within the last three months; on the

other hand, I have pleasure in telling your Eminence that his Grace

received into Catholic Communion this morning the ex-Anglican Bishop of

Carlisle, with half-a-dozen of his clergy. This has been expected for

some weeks past. I append also cuttings from the Tribune, the London

Trumpet, and the Observer, with my comments upon them. Your Eminence

will see how great the excitement is with regard to the last.



"Recommendation. That formal excommunication of the Wargraves and

these eight priests should be issued in Norfolk and Westminster

respectively, and no further notice taken."



Percy laid down the sheet, gathered up the half dozen other papers that

contained his extracts and running commentary, signed the last, and

slipped the whole into the printed envelope that lay ready.



Then he took up his biretta and went to the lift.



* * * * *



The moment he came into the glass-doored parlour he saw that the crisis

was come, if not passed already. Father Francis looked miserably ill,

but there was a curious hardness, too, about his eyes and mouth, as he

stood waiting. He shook his head abruptly.



"I have come to say good-bye, father. I can bear it no more."



Percy was careful to show no emotion at all. He made a little sign to a

chair, and himself sat down too. "It is an end of everything," said the

other again in a perfectly steady voice. "I believe nothing. I have

believed nothing for a year now."



"You have felt nothing, you mean," said Percy.



"That won't do, father," went on the other. "I tell you there is nothing

left. I can't even argue now. It is just good-bye."



Percy had nothing to say. He had talked to this man during a period of

over eight months, ever since Father Francis had first confided in him

that his faith was going. He understood perfectly what a strain it had

been; he felt bitterly compassionate towards this poor creature who had

become caught up somehow into the dizzy triumphant whirl of the New

Humanity. External facts were horribly strong just now; and faith,

except to one who had learned that Will and Grace were all and emotion

nothing, was as a child crawling about in the midst of some huge

machinery: it might survive or it might not; but it required nerves of

steel to keep steady. It was hard to know where blame could be assigned;

yet Percy's faith told him that there was blame due. In the ages of

faith a very inadequate grasp of religion would pass muster; in these

searching days none but the humble and the pure could stand the test for

long, unless indeed they were protected by a miracle of ignorance. The

alliance of Psychology and Materialism did indeed seem, looked at from

one angle, to account for everything; it needed a robust supernatural

perception to understand their practical inadequacy. And as regards

Father Francis's personal responsibility, he could not help feeling that

the other had allowed ceremonial to play too great a part in his

religion, and prayer too little. In him the external had absorbed the

internal.



So he did not allow his sympathy to show itself in his bright eyes.



"You think it my fault, of course," said the other sharply.



"My dear father," said Percy, motionless in his chair, "I know it is

your fault. Listen to me. You say Christianity is absurd and impossible.

Now, you know, it cannot be that! It may be untrue--I am not speaking of

that now, even though I am perfectly certain that it is absolutely

true--but it cannot be absurd so long as educated and virtuous people

continue to hold it. To say that it is absurd is simple pride; it is to

dismiss all who believe in it as not merely mistaken, but unintelligent

as well---"



"Very well, then," interrupted the other; "then suppose I withdraw that,

and simply say that I do not believe it to be true."



"You do not withdraw it," continued Percy serenely; "you still really

believe it to be absurd: you have told me so a dozen times. Well, I

repeat, that is pride, and quite sufficient to account for it all. It is

the moral attitude that matters. There may be other things too---"



Father Francis looked up sharply.



"Oh! the old story!" he said sneeringly.



"If you tell me on your word of honour that there is no woman in the

case, or no particular programme of sin you propose to work out, I shall

believe you. But it is an old story, as you say."



"I swear to you there is not," cried the other.



"Thank God then!" said Percy. "There are fewer obstacles to a return of

faith."



There was silence for a moment after that. Percy had really no more to

say. He had talked to him of the inner life again and again, in which

verities are seen to be true, and acts of faith are ratified; he had

urged prayer and humility till he was almost weary of the names; and had

been met by the retort that this was to advise sheer self-hypnotism; and

he had despaired of making clear to one who did not see it for himself

that while Love and Faith may be called self-hypnotism from one angle,

yet from another they are as much realities as, for example, artistic

faculties, and need similar cultivation; that they produce a conviction

that they are convictions, that they handle and taste things which when

handled and tasted are overwhelmingly more real and objective than the

things of sense. Evidences seemed to mean nothing to this man.



So he was silent now, chilled himself by the presence of this crisis,

looking unseeingly out upon the plain, little old-world parlour, its

tall window, its strip of matting, conscious chiefly of the dreary

hopelessness of this human brother of his who had eyes but did not see,

ears and was deaf. He wished he would say good-bye, and go. There was no

more to be done.



Father Francis, who had been sitting in a lax kind of huddle, seemed to

know his thoughts, and sat up suddenly.



"You are tired of me," he said. "I will go."



"I am not tired of you, my dear father," said Percy simply. "I am only

terribly sorry. You see I know that it is all true."



The other looked at him heavily.



"And I know that it is not," he said. "It is very beautiful; I wish I

could believe it. I don't think I shall be ever happy again--but--but

there it is."



Percy sighed. He had told him so often that the heart is as divine a

gift as the mind, and that to neglect it in the search for God is to

seek ruin, but this priest had scarcely seen the application to himself.

He had answered with the old psychological arguments that the

suggestions of education accounted for everything.



"I suppose you will cast me off," said the other.



"It is you who are leaving me," said Percy. "I cannot follow, if you

mean that."



"But--but cannot we be friends?"



A sudden heat touched the elder priest's heart.



"Friends?" he said. "Is sentimentality all you mean by friendship? What

kind of friends can we be?"



The other's face became suddenly heavy.



"I thought so."



"John!" cried Percy. "You see that, do you not? How can we pretend

anything when you do not believe in God? For I do you the honour of

thinking that you do not."



Francis sprang up.



"Well---" he snapped. "I could not have believed--I am going."



He wheeled towards the door.



"John!" said Percy again. "Are you going like this? Can you not shake

hands?"



The other wheeled again, with heavy anger in his face.



"Why, you said you could not be friends with me!"



Percy's mouth opened. Then he understood, and smiled. "Oh! that is all

you mean by friendship, is it?--I beg your pardon. Oh! we can be polite

to one another, if you like."



He still stood holding out his hand. Father Francis looked at it a

moment, his lips shook: then once more he turned, and went out without a

word.







II



Percy stood motionless until he heard the automatic bell outside tell

him that Father Francis was really gone, then he went out himself and

turned towards the long passage leading to the Cathedral. As he passed

out through the sacristy he heard far in front the murmur of an organ,

and on coming through into the chapel used as a parish church he

perceived that Vespers were not yet over in the great choir. He came

straight down the aisle, turned to the right, crossed the centre and

knelt down.



It was drawing on towards sunset, and the huge dark place was lighted

here and there by patches of ruddy London light that lay on the gorgeous

marble and gildings finished at last by a wealthy convert. In front of

him rose up the choir, with a line of white surpliced and furred canons

on either side, and the vast baldachino in the midst, beneath which

burned the six lights as they had burned day by day for more than a

century; behind that again lay the high line of the apse-choir with the

dim, window-pierced vault above where Christ reigned in majesty. He let

his eyes wander round for a few moments before beginning his deliberate

prayer, drinking in the glory of the place, listening to the thunderous

chorus, the peal of the organ, and the thin mellow voice of the priest.

There on the left shone the refracted glow of the lamps that burned

before the Lord in the Sacrament, on the right a dozen candles winked

here and there at the foot of the gaunt images, high overhead hung the

gigantic cross with that lean, emaciated Poor Man Who called all who

looked on Him to the embraces of a God.



Then he hid his face in his hands, drew a couple of long breaths, and

set to work.



He began, as his custom was in mental prayer, by a deliberate act of

self-exclusion from the world of sense. Under the image of sinking

beneath a surface he forced himself downwards and inwards, till the peal

of the organ, the shuffle of footsteps, the rigidity of the chair-back

beneath his wrists--all seemed apart and external, and he was left a

single person with a beating heart, an intellect that suggested image

after image, and emotions that were too languid to stir themselves. Then

he made his second descent, renounced all that he possessed and was, and

became conscious that even the body was left behind, and that his mind

and heart, awed by the Presence in which they found themselves, clung

close and obedient to the will which was their lord and protector. He

drew another long breath, or two, as he felt that Presence surge about

him; he repeated a few mechanical words, and sank to that peace which

follows the relinquishment of thought.



There he rested for a while. Far above him sounded the ecstatic music,

the cry of trumpets and the shrilling of the flutes; but they were as

insignificant street-noises to one who was falling asleep. He was within

the veil of things now, beyond the barriers of sense and reflection, in

that secret place to which he had learned the road by endless effort, in

that strange region where realities are evident, where perceptions go to

and fro with the swiftness of light, where the swaying will catches now

this, now that act, moulds it and speeds it; where all things meet,

where truth is known and handled and tasted, where God Immanent is one

with God Transcendent, where the meaning of the external world is

evident through its inner side, and the Church and its mysteries are

seen from within a haze of glory.



So he lay a few moments, absorbing and resting.



Then he aroused himself to consciousness and began to speak.



"Lord, I am here, and Thou art here. I know Thee. There is nothing else

but Thou and I.... I lay this all in Thy hands--Thy apostate priest, Thy

people, the world, and myself. I spread it before Thee--I spread it

before Thee."



He paused, poised in the act, till all of which he thought lay like a

plain before a peak.



... "Myself, Lord--there but for Thy grace should I be going, in

darkness and misery. It is Thou Who dost preserve me. Maintain and

finish Thy work within my soul. Let me not falter for one instant. If

Thou withdraw Thy hand I fall into utter nothingness."



So his soul stood a moment, with outstretched appealing hands, helpless

and confident. Then the will flickered in self-consciousness, and he

repeated acts of faith, hope and love to steady it. Then he drew another

long breath, feeling the Presence tingle and shake about him, and began

again.



"Lord; look on Thy people. Many are falling from Thee. Ne in aeternum

irascaris nobis. Ne in aeternum irascaris nobis.... I unite myself with

all saints and angels and Mary Queen of Heaven; look on them and me, and

hear us. Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam. Thy light and Thy truth!

Lay not on us heavier burdens than we can bear. Lord, why dost Thou not

speak!"



He writhed himself forward in a passion of expectant desire, hearing his

muscles crack in the effort. Once more he relaxed himself; and the swift

play of wordless acts began which he knew to be the very heart of

prayer. The eyes of his soul flew hither and thither, from Calvary to

heaven and back again to the tossing troubled earth. He saw Christ dying

of desolation while the earth rocked and groaned; Christ reigning as a

priest upon His Throne in robes of light, Christ patient and inexorably

silent within the Sacramental species; and to each in turn he directed

the eyes of the Eternal Father....



Then he waited for communications, and they came, so soft and delicate,

passing like shadows, that his will sweated blood and tears in the

effort to catch and fix them and correspond....



He saw the Body Mystical in its agony, strained over the world as on a

cross, silent with pain; he saw this and that nerve wrenched and

twisted, till pain presented it to himself as under the guise of flashes

of colour; he saw the life-blood drop by drop run down from His head and

hands and feet. The world was gathered mocking and good-humoured

beneath. "He saved others: Himself He cannot save.... Let Christ come

dozen from the Cross and we will believe." Far away behind bushes and

in holes of the ground the friends of Jesus peeped and sobbed; Mary

herself was silent, pierced by seven swords; the disciple whom He loved

had no words of comfort.



He saw, too, how no word would be spoken from heaven; the angels

themselves were bidden to put sword into sheath, and wait on the eternal

patience of God, for the agony was hardly yet begun; there were a

thousand horrors yet before the end could come, that final sum of

crucifixion.... He must wait and watch, content to stand there and do

nothing; and the Resurrection must seem to him no more than a dreamed-of

hope. There was the Sabbath yet to come, while the Body Mystical must

lie in its sepulchre cut off from light, and even the dignity of the

Cross must be withdrawn and the knowledge that Jesus lived. That inner

world, to which by long effort he had learned the way, was all alight

with agony; it was bitter as brine, it was of that pale luminosity that

is the utmost product of pain, it hummed in his ears with a note that

rose to a scream ... it pressed upon him, penetrated him, stretched him

as on a rack.... And with that his will grew sick and nerveless.



"Lord! I cannot bear it!" he moaned....



In an instant he was back again, drawing long breaths of misery. He

passed his tongue over his lips, and opened his eyes on the darkening

apse before him. The organ was silent now, and the choir was gone, and

the lights out. The sunset colour, too, had faded from the walls, and

grim cold faces looked down on him from wall and vault. He was back

again on the surface of life; the vision had melted; he scarcely knew

what it was that he had seen.



But he must gather up the threads, and by sheer effort absorb them. He

must pay his duty, too, to the Lord that gave Himself to the senses as

well as to the inner spirit. So he rose, stiff and constrained, and

passed across to the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament.



As he came out from the block of chairs, very upright and tall, with his

biretta once more on his white hair, he saw an old woman watching him

very closely. He hesitated an instant, wondering whether she were a

penitent, and as he hesitated she made a movement towards him.



"I beg your pardon, sir," she began.



She was not a Catholic then. He lifted his biretta.



"Can I do anything for you?" he asked.



"I beg your pardon, sir, but were you at Brighton, at the accident two

months ago?"



"I was."



"Ah! I thought so: my daughter-in-law saw you then."



Percy had a spasm of impatience: he was a little tired of being

identified by his white hair and young face.



"Were you there, madam?"



She looked at him doubtfully and curiously, moving her old, eyes up and

down his figure. Then she recollected herself.



"No, sir; it was my daughter-in-law--I beg your pardon, sir, but---"



"Well?" asked Percy, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.



"Are you the Archbishop, sir?"



The priest smiled, showing his white teeth.



"No, madam; I am just a poor priest. Dr. Cholmondeley is Archbishop. I

am Father Percy Franklin."



She said nothing, but still looking at him made a little old-world

movement of a bow; and Percy passed on to the dim, splendid chapel to

pay his devotions.







III



There was great talk that night at dinner among the priests as to the

extraordinary spread of Freemasonry. It had been going on for many years

now, and Catholics perfectly recognised its dangers, for the profession

of Masonry had been for some centuries rendered incompatible with

religion through the Church's unswerving condemnation of it. A man must

choose between that and his faith. Things had developed extraordinarily

during the last century. First there had been the organised assault upon

the Church in France; and what Catholics had always suspected then

became a certainty in the revelations of 1918, when P. Gerome, the

Dominican and ex-Mason, had made his disclosures with regard to the

Mark-Masons. It had become evident then that Catholics had been right,

and that Masonry, in its higher grades at least, had been responsible

throughout the world for the strange movement against religion. But he

had died in his bed, and the public had been impressed by that fact.

Then came the splendid donations in France and Italy--to hospitals,

orphanages, and the like; and once more suspicion began to disappear.

After all, it seemed--and continued to seem--for seventy years and more

that Masonry was nothing more than a vast philanthropical society. Now

once more men had their doubts.



"I hear that Felsenburgh is a Mason," observed Monsignor Macintosh, the

Cathedral Administrator. "A Grand-Master or something."



"But who is Felsenburgh?" put in a young priest.



Monsignor pursed his lips and shook his head. He was one of those humble

persons as proud of ignorance as others of knowledge. He boasted that he

never read the papers nor any book except those that had received the

imprimatur; it was a priest's business, he often remarked, to preserve

the faith, not to acquire worldly knowledge. Percy had occasionally

rather envied his point of view.



"He's a mystery," said another priest, Father Blackmore; "but he seems

to be causing great excitement. They were selling his 'Life' to-day on

the Embankment."



"I met an American senator," put in Percy, "three days ago, who told me

that even there they know nothing of him, except his extraordinary

eloquence. He only appeared last year, and seems to have carried

everything before him by quite unusual methods. He is a great linguist,

too. That is why they took him to Irkutsk."



"Well, the Masons---" went on Monsignor. "It is very serious. In the

last month four of my penitents have left me because of it."



"Their inclusion of women was their master-stroke," growled Father

Blackmore, helping himself to claret.



"It is extraordinary that they hesitated so long about that," observed

Percy.



A couple of the others added their evidence. It appeared that they, too,

had lost penitents lately through the spread of Masonry. It was rumoured

that a Pastoral was a-preparing upstairs on the subject.



Monsignor shook his head ominously.



"More is wanted than that," he said.



Percy pointed out that the Church had said her last word several

centuries ago. She had laid her excommunication on all members of secret

societies, and there was really no more that she could do.



"Except bring it before her children again and again," put in Monsignor.

"I shall preach on it next Sunday."



* * * * *



Percy dotted down a note when he reached his room, determining to say

another word or two on the subject to the Cardinal-Protector. He had

mentioned Freemasonry often before, but it seemed time for another

remark. Then he opened his letters, first turning to one which he

recognised as from the Cardinal.



It seemed a curious coincidence, as he read a series of questions that

Cardinal Martin's letter contained, that one of them should be on this

very subject. It ran as follows:



"What of Masonry? Felsenburgh is said to be one. Gather all the gossip

you can about him. Send any English or American biographies of him. Are

you still losing Catholics through Masonry?"



He ran his eyes down the rest of the questions. They chiefly referred to

previous remarks of his own, but twice, even in them, Felsenburgh's name

appeared.



He laid the paper down and considered a little.



It was very curious, he thought, how this man's name was in every one's

mouth, in spite of the fact that so little was known about him. He had

bought in the streets, out of curiosity, three photographs that

professed to represent this strange person, and though one of them might

be genuine they all three could not be. He drew them out of a

pigeon-hole, and spread them before him.



One represented a fierce, bearded creature like a Cossack, with round

staring eyes. No; intrinsic evidence condemned this: it was exactly how

a coarse imagination would have pictured a man who seemed to be having a

great influence in the East.



The second showed a fat face with little eyes and a chin-beard. That

might conceivably be genuine: he turned it over and saw the name of a

New York firm on the back. Then he turned to the third. This presented a

long, clean-shaven face with pince-nez, undeniably clever, but scarcely

strong: and Felsenburgh was obviously a strong man.



Percy inclined to think the second was the most probable; but they were

all unconvincing; and he shuffled them carelessly together and replaced

them.



Then he put his elbows on the table, and began to think.



He tried to remember what Mr. Varhaus, the American senator, had told

him of Felsenburgh; yet it did not seem sufficient to account for the

facts. Felsenburgh, it seemed, had employed none of those methods common

in modern politics. He controlled no newspapers, vituperated nobody,

championed nobody: he had no picked underlings; he used no bribes; there

were no monstrous crimes alleged against him. It seemed rather as if his

originality lay in his clean hands and his stainless past--that, and his

magnetic character. He was the kind of figure that belonged rather to

the age of chivalry: a pure, clean, compelling personality, like a

radiant child. He had taken people by surprise, then, rising out of the

heaving dun-coloured waters of American socialism like a vision--from

those waters so fiercely restrained from breaking into storm over since

the extraordinary social revolution under Mr. Hearst's disciples, a

century ago. That had been the end of plutocracy; the famous old laws of

1914 had burst some of the stinking bubbles of the time; and the

enactments of 1916 and 1917 had prevented their forming again in any

thing like their previous force. It had been the salvation of America,

undoubtedly, even if that salvation were of a dreary and uninspiring

description; and now out of the flat socialistic level had arisen this

romantic figure utterly unlike any that had preceded it.... So the

senator had hinted.... It was too complicated for Percy just now, and he

gave it up.



It was a weary world, he told himself, turning his eyes homewards.

Everything seemed so hopeless and ineffective. He tried not to reflect

on his fellow-priests, but for the fiftieth time he could not help

seeing that they were not the men for the present situation. It was not

that he preferred himself; he knew perfectly well that he, too, was

fully as incompetent: had he not proved to be so with poor Father

Francis, and scores of others who had clutched at him in their agony

during the last ten years? Even the Archbishop, holy man as he was, with

all his childlike faith--was that the man to lead English Catholics and

confound their enemies? There seemed no giants on the earth in these

days. What in the world was to be done? He buried his face in his

hands....



Yes; what was wanted was a new Order in the Church; the old ones were

rule-bound through no fault of their own. An Order was wanted without

habit or tonsure, without traditions or customs, an Order with nothing

but entire and whole-hearted devotion, without pride even in their most

sacred privileges, without a past history in which they might take

complacent refuge. They must be franc-tireurs of Christ's Army; like

the Jesuits, but without their fatal reputation, which, again, was no

fault of their own. ... But there must be a Founder--Who, in God's Name?

--a Founder nudus sequens Christum nudum.... Yes--Franc-tireurs

--priests, bishops, laymen and women--with the three vows of course, and

a special clause forbidding utterly and for ever their ownership of

corporate wealth.--Every gift received must be handed to the bishop of

the diocese in which it was given, who must provide them himself with

necessaries of life and travel. Oh!--what could they not do?... He was

off in a rhapsody.



Presently he recovered, and called himself a fool. Was not that scheme

as old as the eternal hills, and as useless for practical purposes? Why,

it had been the dream of every zealous man since the First Year of

Salvation that such an Order should be founded!... He was a fool....



Then once more he began to think of it all over again.



Surely it was this which was wanted against the Masons; and women,

too.--Had not scheme after scheme broken down because men had forgotten

the power of women? It was that lack that had ruined Napoleon: he had

trusted Josephine, and she had failed him; so he had trusted no other

woman. In the Catholic Church, too, woman had been given no active work

but either menial or connected with education: and was there not room

for other activities than those? Well, it was useless to think of it. It

was not his affair. If Papa Angelicus who now reigned in Rome had not

thought of it, why should a foolish, conceited priest in Westminster set

himself up to do so?



So he beat himself on the breast once more, and took up his office-book.



He finished in half an hour, and again sat thinking; but this time it

was of poor Father Francis. He wondered what he was doing now; whether

he had taken off the Roman collar of Christ's familiar slaves? The poor

devil! And how far was he, Percy Franklin, responsible?



When a tap came at his door presently, and Father Blackmore looked in

for a talk before going to bed, Percy told him what had happened.



Father Blackmore removed his pipe and sighed deliberately.



"I knew it was coming," he said. "Well, well."



"He has been honest enough," explained Percy. "He told me eight months

ago he was in trouble."



Father Blackmore drew upon his pipe thoughtfully.



"Father Franklin," he said, "things are really very serious. There is

the same story everywhere. What in the world is happening?"



Percy paused before answering.



"I think these things go in waves,"