p
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 OF CALIF. LIBHAHY, LOS

 
 THE MIRROR AND 
 THE LAMP 
 
 By 
 
 W. B. MAXWELL 
 
 Author of 
 
 THE DEVIL'S GARDEN, IN COTTON WOOL 
 MRS. THOMPSON, THE RAGGED MESSENGER, ETC. 
 
 O3J 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1918 
 THE BOBBS-MERRIU. COMPANY 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH fc CO. 
 
 ..Oi K MANUFACTURER! 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. V.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 2131122
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 ROME resembled Athens, Brussels was just a smaller 
 Paris, one country town is very like another; but St. Dun- 
 stan's is like nothing except itself. 
 
 Even the idlest tourist at once recognises the spell, and in 
 every minute that he lingers he submits to its deepening 
 force. He is not so much affected by what he sees as by 
 what he feels. The place is old, the streets are narrow, and 
 over all the clustered roofs rises the splendour of the church 
 of Christ ; here one pauses with bowed head to gaze at hal- 
 lowed ground, here one strains lifted eyes to catch the sun- 
 light on stones that look like lace hung as a curtain in the 
 sky; under that archway used to ride mailed warriors; 
 round those cloisters came lines of singing monks ; and over 
 the marshy plain, through the night of history, from cities 
 that are dust and lands that have long since lost a name, 
 wended their way century after century the endless pilgrim 
 horde but all this is nothing, the drone of hireling guides, 
 the tale of a three-penny book, the echo of memory's sleepy 
 tongue. What is real is the faith that clings to the faithful 
 spot. Here men believed ; here men are still believing. 
 
 It is less than nothing that all which was material should 
 perish and decay, if all that was spiritual and impalpable 
 may continue to live. This is the third church that has 
 stood in the meadow blessed by the saint, and if this too 
 falls a fourth shall take its place ; but, new or old, it would 
 always be the same church the self -same church wherein 
 conquering lords of a savage isle craved pardon from the 
 God-man whom their ancestors had killed, wherein sun- 
 beams slanting down from lofty windows made tremulous 
 tinted halos for a martyr's brow; wherein foreign refugees 
 crept underground to worship in darkness, and praise the 
 maiden queen whose hand was strong enough to hold them 
 safe. 
 
 1
 
 And so it is with the whole town. Time cannot truly 
 touch it, and change leaves it unchanged. Where fierce- 
 eyed Romans used to buy and sell their slaves, bland traders 
 now assemble with samples of hops and grain; the Nor- 
 man keep is a gas-work, the dungeon mound a nursemaid's 
 garden; the pilgrims' inn and its hundred beds have van- 
 ished in flame; carved scrolls and polished stone are suc- 
 ceeded by slates and bricks and plate glass; the vulgar 
 music-hall brings ruin to the legitimate theatre, and in its 
 turn is destroyed by the lantern-flash of a cinema show; 
 boat expresses sweep through iron girders, screaming in the 
 silence of night and belching out foul clouds by day; look 
 where you will, you can see the ugliness of an ugly age, the 
 cynical contempt for grace, the unfaltering grasp at gain ; 
 railway companies and jerry-builders, municipal committees 
 and gentlemen speculators, have all tried to spoil the grey 
 old city; and yet still the air that blows across its three 
 towers is holy, the smoke that rises from its hearths has a 
 perfume of incense, and the murmur of its river is a prayer. 
 
 Such and so great has proved the persistent force of the 
 spell.
 
 II 
 
 MRS. CHURCHILL used to tell her sons that when their 
 father died she felt utterly lost. She was overwhelmed by 
 fear as well as by grief. It seemed such a tremendous task 
 that Providence had set before her to watch over three 
 little fatherless boys all the time while they were changing 
 into three wise good men, ready to fight life's battle, sound 
 of limb and clean of mind. 
 
 She further told them that at this period she might have 
 lightened her burden by marrying again ; the husband who 
 was in heaven would have understood and approved; only 
 for their sake she had abstained from a second marriage. 
 There and then that is to say, as soon as the first agony of 
 sorrow had abated and prayer had begun to fortify her 
 she had made a solemn vow to dedicate herself to their 
 service as long as they should need her. And this they were 
 always to remember bearing it in mind if the time came 
 when she grew to be a clog rather than a prop that she had 
 been brave for them when they were small and helpless, 
 and so they must deal gently with her in her old age. 
 
 She told them also and they loved to hear it how in 
 her perplexity, surrounded by the illimitable callousness of 
 London, when measuring her narrow means and realising 
 that there would be only just enough money to enable them 
 to live decently in some modest remote neighborhood, she 
 had been suddenly inspired to bring them to St. Dunstan's, 
 where they could obtain excellent cheap education at the 
 ancient school, where rents would be low, and where, be- 
 cause of the traditional Christian feeling of cathedral towns, 
 poor gentlefolk may be secretly pitied, but are never openly 
 despised. She said she firmly believed that the idea of 
 coming here to St. Dunstan's had been a veritable inspira- 
 tion, a guidance by that invisible hand which takes especial 
 pleasure in directing widows and orphans. For see how 
 kind people had been to them down here, and how they had 
 thriven. 
 
 3
 
 4 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 These matters, well remembered and often pondered on, 
 became a sort of primal legend for the boys, their story of 
 origin, rich in wonder and mystery as any historical page or 
 romantic song the journey with divine finger-posts point- 
 ing a way out of the labyrinth, the woman braving all things 
 for love, the weak little children that were to grow strong 
 enough to protect instead of being protected. The legend 
 appealed to all that was chivalrous in their natures; it 
 formed the basis of their mother's unquestioned authority ; 
 it served, and a hundred times more effectually, for all that 
 in households ruled by men is represented to rebellious 
 youths by stern frowns, angry growling voices, and the 
 dancing torment of a cane. 
 
 Whenever severe reproof became necessary Mrs. Churchill 
 adverted to the legend, never failing on these occasions par- 
 ticularly to point out the extent of her sacrifice in absten- 
 tion from giving them a stepfather. 
 
 "You must remember, Tom," she would say to her eldest 
 boy, when he had really disgraced himself, "I was much 
 younger. You must not judge what I was then by what I 
 am now. There were plenty willing to tempt me to do what 
 no one would ever have blamed me for doing." 
 
 "And it was ripping of you not to do it," Tom blurted 
 out hotly and eagerly. "Mother, I swear I'll never forget 
 it We'll none of us forget it." 
 
 Charles, the second son, contorted his face and writhed his 
 body when this picture of a possible stepfather was conjured 
 up before him. 
 
 "Mother, I simply couldn't have stood it. I should have 
 run away to sea or else murdered him. We couldn't have 
 stood any one between you and us." 
 
 "No, Charles, that is what I felt myself. We four must 
 hold together and be all in all to one another." 
 
 |]Yes, yes." 
 
 "Then why cannot you behave yourself, Charles? Do 
 you think it is gentlemanly, or Christian, or even clever, to 
 utter horrid words that a poor neglected street-boy might be 
 ashamed to speak?" 
 
 "No, I don't," said Charles, with a fervour of shame and 
 contrition. "I think it was beastly of me." 
 
 Once, when she had chidden her youngest boy, Edward,
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 5 
 
 for quite a slight fault, and the bogy second father had been 
 almost automatically paraded, she got an answer that queerly 
 changed the orbit of confusion and brought swift moisture 
 to the wrong pair of eyes. 
 
 "Suppose I had married again, Edward where would 
 you have been then ? How would you have liked that ? You 
 wouldn't have been here not being pleaded with by the 
 mother who loves and comprehends you, but being blown-up 
 and punished by a comparative stranger. I saved you from 
 that at some sacrifice to myself. I resisted temptation. I 
 was different then, you know. People said and I don't 
 think it was a very great exaggeration no, I think it was 
 true in those days I was pretty." 
 
 "But, mother," said the little boy firmly, "you are pretty 
 now. You are the prettiest person I have ever seen." 
 
 And perhaps then for who can say what tiny tortuous 
 paths will one day make the widest roadway to a woman's 
 heart ? Mrs. Churchill for the first time was plainly aware 
 that she loved this boy more tenderly than she loved the 
 other two. 
 
 Neither Tom nor Charles could have made such an an- 
 swer ; neither could as yet have dimly guessed that out of all 
 the possible things that might be said this was the right 
 thing to say, the only thing that, from boy or man, would 
 at that moment give exquisite pleasure. Edward was more 
 sensitive than the other two, a finer organism, a more com- 
 plex instrument that responded to a fainter stimulus : he was 
 going to be very clever and to make his mother very proud. 
 
 She folded him in her arms, and held her head above his 
 head so that he should not see her tears. 
 
 They lived in one of the old streets near the market-place, 
 and their narrow little house was just large enough to con- 
 tain them and their single servant. When the wind set from 
 the south the cathedral bells made the window-glass vibrate, 
 and when it set from the east you could hear the clock at 
 St. Martyr's school chiming the hours. In summer the 
 Churchill boys did their "preparation" at home and were 
 not particular about supper ; but in winter they always went 
 to evening school, and regularly brought back with them 
 three hearty schoolboy appetites. The two elders especially 
 made the cold meat and pickles fly. Maria, the staunch
 
 6 THE MIRROR AND .THE LAMP 
 
 and trusted maid to whom every liberty or privilege was 
 permitted except that of giving notice to leave freely com- 
 mented on their voracious powers. 
 
 11 More mutton?" she would say, affecting incredulity, 
 as Tom brought his plate once again to the sideboard. "You 
 astound me, Mr. Thomas." And she laughed and whis- 
 pered as she carved. "I see it's to be Red Riding Hood 
 for the pantomime at 'The Royal,' and I'm thinking they 
 wouldn't be far wrong to engage you for the wolf." 
 
 "And you for Granny," said Tom. "In the revised ver- 
 sion, you know, where the old woman is so ugly she fright- 
 ens the wolf to death." 
 
 Tom resumed his seat at the table opposite to his mother, 
 and Charles rose, plate in hand. Then there was more 
 bantering of honest, faithful Maria. 
 
 "Another slice, madam." 
 
 "Oh, do take the whole joint, Mr. Charles, and save me 
 trouble." 
 
 "Buck up, you old slacker or I'll recite the poem you 
 don't like." 
 
 "No, I do not like it," said Maria indignantly. 
 
 To Mrs. Churchill this supper hour was always extraor- 
 dinarily pleasant. All day long she had been toiling, and 
 now the friendly night brought rest ; she was tired, she was 
 happy. Once again her loved ones were gathered under the 
 roof-tree ; all was well, since they were well ; the work of 
 her life was safely progressing. 
 
 Truly it made a pretty picture: the snug lamp-lit room, 
 the shining young faces, the close-drawn circle of home, and 
 the presiding genius sending out beams to meet each glance 
 that came her way. She was unquestionably still good- 
 looking in a gentle, sedate manner, with a girlish figure, a 
 pale, calm face, and dark hair pulled trimly back from the 
 rigid central parting, but making graceful waves about her 
 ears. 
 
 When their meal was nearly over she left the table and 
 began to help the maid in clearing things away ; but, while 
 passing to and fro, she watched and listened and smiled, and 
 each night her heart was full of thankfulness and hope. 
 Tom, though only just fifteen, is so big and strong already,
 
 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 7 
 
 with such noble shoulders, such a broad chin, and such deep 
 notes in his voice; Charles is splendidly robust also; and 
 Edward whose finely-chiselled features, beautiful mouth, 
 and thoughtful brow she has now paused to admire does 
 not, praise be to God, look in the least delicate. 
 
 Their appetites appeased, the two elders talked volubly, 
 while Edward attended to their discourse and seemed to feel 
 that as a junior it would be presumptuous to introduce fresh 
 topics or to lead a line of argument. But in fact the talk was 
 all schoolboy chatter and schoolboy slang, with little per- 
 ceptible sequence as, for instance, of how "the Head" en- 
 deavoured to be funny and failed ; of what Sergeant Miller 
 said to Mr. Westford outside the gymnasium door; of a 
 saloon pistol exhibited with delicious daring by Gordon 
 Secundus under a desk-lid in class. 
 
 "The pistol is no use," said Tom disparagingly. "It's not 
 a real weapon. I bet the sergeant would laugh at it as just 
 a toy." 
 
 "I bet he wouldn't. It would put a bullet through a man 
 at two hundred yards." 
 
 "Rot!" Tom said the word with force, but he continued 
 more doubtfully. "How did Gordon come by it if it's any- 
 thing more than a popgun?" 
 
 "Swop from Richardson." 
 
 "What was the swop?" 
 
 "Gordon's entire stamp collection, his stationary engine, 
 and five bob ready." 
 
 "Oh! That shows Gordon believes in it but it doesn't 
 show anything else. If I was going to risk swishing for a 
 pistol I'd want to be sure it was the real thing." 
 
 "Gordon Secundus won't be swished. He's too jolly 
 artful. He'll enjoy that pistol until he twigs it's being too 
 much talked about, and then you see he'll swop it on to 
 Saunders, Chuff Brown, or one of that lot, and let them take 
 any swishing that's required." 
 
 And at this shrewd prophecy they roared with laughter. 
 
 Mrs. Churchill loved that sound of hearty laughter, al- 
 though evoked by jokes that often seemed pointless to her, 
 and she never checked the high spirits of her boys if she 
 could avoid doing so. But they must of course be consid-
 
 8 
 
 erate for the feelings of others, show respect where respect 
 is due, and above all be gentlemanly, however wild their 
 fun. 
 
 Thus to-night she called Tom to order when he began to 
 mock at their vulgar but valuable friend Mr. Barrett; and 
 she also cut short the delayed recitation that Charles was 
 delivering to poor Maria. 
 
 "Maria, Maria, with her nose on fire, 
 
 Put on her Sunday clothes. 
 
 She'd powdered her cheek for the end of the week, 
 But quite forgot her nose." 
 
 "Charles, be silent. . . . Good-night, Maria. Don't be 
 vexed with such silly nonsense." 
 
 "I don't like it, ma'am," said Maria. "I've told him so." 
 
 "But you know he doesn't mean to be unkind. You know 
 he is fond of you that we are all fond grateful too very 
 grateful," and Mrs. Churchill followed Maria to the kitchen, 
 soothing her all the way. 
 
 Lastly, when she returned to the room again, she was 
 compelled to administer a more serious rebuke ; and now the 
 offender was the one who scarcely ever offended her own 
 dear Edward. 
 
 All in a moment, during her absence, the boys had begun 
 to talk of Christ, and the recent alleged discovery of an en- 
 tirely new and authentic Gospel. 
 
 "It's fudge," said Tom. "Mr. Sedley doesn't credit a word 
 of it. He says the newspapers start such stories. He 
 says they've done it again and again." 
 
 "But what a lark," said Charles, "if it was true this time. 
 How sick the beastly atheists would be." 
 
 "Yes, it'd let the bounce out of 'em nicely if what was 
 dug up was proof positive." 
 
 "It might be only corroborative evidence," said Charles, 
 obviously quoting a master; "but there would be satisfac- 
 tion in that." 
 
 They talked on, speaking exactly as they had spoken of 
 the gymnasium or the saloon pistol, but with keener interest 
 and an even more noisy enthusiasm ; and presently Edward,
 
 THE MIEKOR AND THE LAMP 9 
 
 by reason of his vivacious suggestions, was controlling this 
 debate. 
 
 "I wish He'd break His rule and do one miracle just 
 one." 
 
 "So do I. But what?" 
 
 "I don't know something that would be a knock-down 
 blow to unbelievers. Suppose, when one of them was lectur- 
 ing you know, lecturing against God, as Mr. Nicholson 
 says they do in London suppose all the lights went out." 
 
 "I don't see much in that," said Tom, 
 
 "Jolly tame miracle that'd be," said Charles. 
 
 "But I mean all over London," said Edward eagerly. 
 "The railway stations everywhere so that nobody could 
 go anywhere. And when all the workmen tried to mend 
 the gas-pipes and the electric wires, they couldn't." 
 
 "Yes," said Charles, taking to the idea, "that would be 
 rather a suck and a sell." 
 
 "And it would mean," Edward went on intensely, " 'Let 
 those who have refused the light remain in darkness !' And 
 they'd find out that the churches could be lit up just the same 
 as ever people would see the lighted windows. And even 
 the atheists would understand the meaning of the miracle." 
 
 "What a funk they'd be in!" 
 
 "But would they really twig He'd done it?" 
 
 "The crowd would hang them on the lamp-posts." 
 
 "No," said Edward, "He wouldn't let it go as far as that. 
 He'd frighten them half out of their wits, but He'd save 
 their lives. He wouldn't do a miracle with death in it." 
 
 "What price the swine? I call atheists the dirtiest sort 
 of swine." 
 
 "Or suppose," cried Edward excitedly, "He just burned 
 up every unbelieving book as fast as the printers could print 
 it. Or suppose He rang all the bells in the world without a 
 human hand touching them ; or " 
 
 And then Mrs. Churchill interposed. 
 
 "Edward," she said crushingly, "of whom are you speak- 
 ing in that flippant irreverent tone? You have pained me 
 inexpressibly ;" and truly she was both grieved and shocked. 
 
 Edward was overcome by confusion. He could but mur- 
 mur that he meant no irreverence ; he did not know that it 
 was wrong.
 
 10 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 "But Edward," said Mrs. Churchill sadly, "you ought to 
 know. 'You have surprised me. I will say no more. . . . 
 Tom, have you any further work to do for to-morrow i 
 
 "No, mother." 
 
 "Very well. Then we will have prayers at once and all 
 
 of us go to bed." 
 
 With a grave voice and unusually solemn manner, she reaa 
 a chapter from the New Testament ; and after that they all 
 four knelt, bending over the seats of their chairs, to say the 
 lovely evening hymn. 
 
 "Teach me to live, that I may dread 
 The grave as little as my bed ; 
 Teach me to die, that so I may 
 Rise glorious at the awful day." 
 
 Edward's face was white and his lips trembled, but his 
 ears showed crimson in the lamplight as he knelt before his 
 chair. He did feel so dreadfully ashamed of himself. 
 
 "You little ass," said Charles, when he and Edward 
 reached their joint bedroom, "you have fairly upset the 
 mater. I haven't seen her so upset for ages." 
 
 The wind was in the east, and when the clock above St. 
 Martyr's gatehouse chimed the next quarter Charles was 
 soundly sleeping. In his room on the other side of the land- 
 ing Tom snored comfortably. But for a long while Edward 
 lay wide awake. 
 
 Shame and regret tortured him. He thought of himself 
 as many million times worse than a little ass. A double hor- 
 ror made him hot and cold, sending waves of pins and 
 needles along his spine and producing clammy dampness on 
 his neck. He had wounded the mother he fondly adored 
 and insulted the God he devoutly worshipped. 
 
 Inadvertently ; yes, but that was no excuse, and not for a 
 moment did he attempt to console himself with it. He 
 ought to have known better. Christians, gentlemen, boys 
 whose dim beginnings are like a Bible chapter or a chanted 
 psalm, should not commit such brutal ignorances. 
 
 A restless, unappeasable activity of thought made him feel 
 as if he would never sleep again ; his eyes in this dark room 
 saw vivid pictures; memory and imagination worked to-
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 11 
 
 gether to show him all that he had truly seen or merely 
 dreamed of; space and time seemed nothing, the present 
 and the past were one. He was here tossing on his bed ; he 
 was hundreds of miles away. Thus he saw the sunlight on 
 distempered walls, a trapeze and iron bars, and the bare- 
 armed sergeant swinging Indian clubs ; and in the very same 
 minute he saw the white- robed figure 'of a bearded man 
 standing in a moonlit garden and leaning outstretched open 
 hands against the horizontal branches of a tree. One pic- 
 ture belonged to yesterday and close by Miller in the school 
 gymnasium. The other picture was recorded in a distant 
 land nearly two thousand years ago the Redeemer of Man- 
 kind making the shadow of His cross fall on the moonlit 
 ground of Palestine. The first picture was a memory, the 
 second an imagination ; but to Edward Churchill one was as 
 absolutely real as the other.
 
 Ill 
 
 IT is proper that boys should feel a glowing pride in their 
 school, and the Churchills, together with their two hundred 
 fellow-pupils, were proud of St. Martyr's. It was not Eton 
 or Winchester ; but it was grand and old, perhaps the oldest 
 foundation in England indeed, it was claimed to be so. 
 Moreover, as all things are relative and comparison is the 
 only firm base on which young minds can frame their rough 
 and ready estimates, the fact that the city of St. Dunstan's 
 contained two other palpably inferior schools helped to puff 
 up all happy Martyrites with a becoming self-glory. 
 
 Day boys were numerous, and, far from being looked 
 down upon, had rather the upper hand. Some element of 
 charity that entered into the boarding arrangement nomina- 
 tions, presentations, and so forth proved slightly injurious 
 to social prestige ; for, again as is probably proper or at least 
 inevitable to what has always been admired as the healthy 
 public school spirit, in these halls erected by the order of 
 kind King Henry a certain savage snobbishness of youth 
 made itself plainly perceptible. 
 
 It showed itself with strength in the general attitude 
 towards the half-dozen boys who avowedly received food 
 and erudition "free gratis and for nothing." These were the 
 six poor scholars perpetually dowered by the royal founder 
 "six lads of ample brow but narrow purse," spoken of in 
 the famous poem or "Henry's paupers," as they were 
 called in the school. No one was unkind to them, but all 
 considered them as fitting targets for shafts of wit; and 
 continued jokes were made at the expense of the six, not- 
 withstanding recurrent commands from the authorities. 
 
 Quite lately the present "Head" had delivered a public 
 homily on the subject, linking it with the wider topic of good 
 taste, comradeship, and esprit de corps. "Let me tell you," 
 he said, "that if I began to mock at poor scholars, I could 
 name a hundred in this establishment scholars who are 
 poor in scholarship, poor in the sense of humour, poor in 
 
 12
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 13 
 
 industry; intellectual paupers, mendicants of other folk's 
 ideas, outcasts from the fair temple of true learning." 
 
 The boys enjoyed this, felt that "Whiskers" had distinctly 
 scored, and, had they not been in chapel, would have loudly 
 applauded. They always liked rhetorical invective when 
 addressed to their mass. Only when called upon to bear the 
 brunt of it individually, did it ever disturb them and then 
 not too painfully. 
 
 Day boys gained importance and boarders lost it by the 
 circumstance that the school's greatest day of the year oc- 
 curred in the holidays just after Christmas. This was the 
 Martyr's Feast, and as the boarders had all scattered to 
 their respective homes, only residents were left at St. Dun- 
 stan's for the grand celebration. They told boarders all 
 about it with a most patronising care the glorious gather- 
 ing in the school hall ; the reading of the Archbishop's an- 
 nual letter, which always began with the time-honoured 
 words, "Boys of St. Martyr's, greeting and good-will ;" the 
 recitation of a poem first in Latin, then in English, on the 
 subject of one of the noble virtues; and, finally, the proces- 
 sion to the cathedral and special service there. 
 
 "Dickson, I'm describing it rottenly, but it was really 
 ripping best Feast I've seen. Every one said so." 
 
 "Sorry you chaps are shut out of it all." 
 
 "Wonder your governor didn't bring you down for it. 
 If I was you, I should have told him I'd rather see the Feast 
 than forty blooming pantomimes." 
 
 Naturally this sort of thing made the absentees feel rather 
 small, until echoes of the Feast faded out of the residential 
 chatter. 
 
 Now and then there were added to the school roll a boy or 
 two from a higher, if not necessarily a superior, stratum 
 of society than that to which the rest belonged. These were 
 generally sons of soldiers quartered at the cavalry barracks ; 
 and they sometimes incautiously explained their presence as 
 an accident, saying that in the ordinary course of events, if 
 it had not proved more convenient to follow the rattle of 
 their parents' kettledrums, they would have gone to aristo- 
 cratic establishments where noble lords their cousins were 
 all ready to welcome them. For such siding and bounce, 
 until they dropped the practice of both vices, their lives
 
 14 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 were made a burden; but on these occasions it was cer- 
 tainly an insidious, although unacknowledged, comfort to 
 Tom and Charles Churchill to be able to take very high 
 ground in condemning the glorification of rank and pedigree. 
 ' For really, if one wanted to brag about one's family, they 
 themselves were better qualified than anybody else to do it. 
 Their mother had always allowed them to understand that 
 they could claim kinship with the Churchills. She used to 
 talk in a vague yet satisfying fashion of cadets of noble 
 houses going out into the world to earn their livelihood, of 
 great families getting enormously widespread, of some 
 members going up and others going down. They were not, 
 of course, descendants of the illustrious duke, but they were 
 of his house. There was no reason why they shouldn't be. 
 
 But Charles and Tom often joked about the large hoard- 
 ing advertisements of "Churchill's popular boot-paste." The 
 pictorial posters of the commodity were well displayed at 
 St. Dunstan's, as everywhere else. "No relation to us ; but 
 dash the bounder's cheek for using our name without by 
 your leave or for your leave." 
 
 Once when Tom had been pestered by a crest-collector to 
 produce examples of the Churchill coat-of-arms, Mrs. 
 Churchill told him that his father never troubled about 
 heraldic devices. Being in business, he did not think it 
 necessary. She added that all his branch of the family 
 was commercial. 
 
 "Not the boot-paste, mother?" 
 
 "Oh, no, nothing whatever to do with the boot-paste. I 
 feel sure those people are not real Churchills." 
 
 There was nothing derogatory in commerce for cadets of 
 noble houses, but Tom felt exceedingly glad it didn't mean 
 the boot-paste ; and if he never boasted of his fine connec- 
 tions, perhaps secret thought of them made him rather in- 
 tolerant of open, unquestionable plebeianism. For instance, 
 he and Charles loathed that vulgarian Mr. Barrett, and noth- 
 ing but respect for their mother's wishes enabled them to be 
 decently civil to him. 
 
 Mr. Barrett was the auctioneer of Halberd Street, through 
 whose agency Mrs. Churchill had originally taken her house ; 
 and since then he had been useful to her in arranging for 
 renewals of the tenancy, and even in advising her on general
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 15 
 
 business matters. To the boys he seemed a common, en- 
 croaching person : a sandy, flabby creature, with a sycophan- 
 tic manner that changed in a moment to gross familiarity 
 if you weren't on your guard with him; a horrid Low 
 Church believer, who went to Holy Trinity instead of to St. 
 Alban's or the cathedral, who spoke of the deity as "Him 
 who" and of his invalid wife as "pore Mrs. Barrett." 
 
 His only mitigating attribute was the reverential respect 
 that he professed to entertain for Mrs. Churchill. He would 
 stand on the pavement bare-headed, as though uncovered 
 before a queen, until she said, "Oh, do please put on your 
 hat;" and even then he apologised for obeying her. 
 
 That the young Mr. Churchills liked but they did not like 
 his coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky- 
 and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and 
 corporation loans. They did not like his making their 
 mother visit the sick wife. They preferred that she should 
 consort only with the wives of the masters, the clergy, the 
 medical profession in a word, with the gentry. Mr. Bar- 
 rett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to 
 make not only Mrs. Churchill but everybody else do what 
 he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he 
 overcame you by sheer impudence. 
 
 Thus, meeting Tom one day in the open street, he offered 
 him half-a-crown as a tip. Think of it ! A tip from a trades- 
 man to a gentleman a tip to a fifth form boy, who was a 
 member of the football team and a tip of two shillings an,d 
 sixpence. Tom nearly suffocated. He didn't know what to 
 do ; he thought he was going to knock Mr. Barrett down ; 
 and in the end as he himself said, ruefully repeating the 
 ancient facetiousness he pocketed the insult. 
 
 "There," said Mr. Barrett, "don't stand on ceremony. 
 See, it's a bright new one, and will burn a hole in your 
 pocket before you can look round. Go on," and he laughed 
 in an oily maddening way. "I've bin a boy myself." 
 
 When Tom described this incident to his brothers, Charles 
 said, rather cynically, "Well, if you didn't punch his head, 
 I don't see what else you could do but take his money." 
 
 And Edward said it was quite right to take it. Anything 
 was better than hurting people's feelings. 
 
 But now, before long, something occurred to give Tom a
 
 16 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 wider and more philanthropic view of that immense ma- 
 jority of mankind called vulgar, middle-class, humbly born, 
 and other ugly names by the exclusive, aristocratic, grandly 
 descended few. 
 
 During the Easter holidays he and the others had a glimpse 
 of their great-aunt. 
 
 Never till now had they heard of the existence of this old 
 lady, and they were indignant, and disposed to be implacable 
 towards her, when their mother told them that she had been 
 far from kind or considerate in the past. But at present it 
 seemed that she was contrite for ancient unkindness, she 
 wanted bygones to be begones, and she longed to make the 
 acquaintance of her great-nephews. Mrs. Churchill said 
 that one must forget and forgive ; adding that the poor old 
 soul, although rich, was probably sad and lonely, and 
 further warning them that she might appear to their eyes 
 a little eccentric and they were on no account to laugh at her. 
 
 That warning was not unneeded; for Aunt Jane struck 
 them as being the most tremendous joke that had as yet ever 
 come to enliven them. When presented to her in her sitting- 
 room at the Rose Hotel, where she had taken up her 
 quarters for a few days with her maid and her lap-dog, 
 they really wanted to lie on the floor in order to laugh at 
 their ease. 
 
 She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in 
 velvet and lace, with all sorts of golden and jewelled orna- 
 ments; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the 
 way she talked to the waiters and the maid, the way she tried 
 to make the dog jump through her arms, waddling about the 
 room after him, and tripping on her rich skirts all these 
 unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and 
 made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as 
 Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher. 
 
 "My dears, you're welcome," she said hospitably; "and 
 your dear Ma I must kiss again. Edith, my dear, I am so 
 glad to make it up at last;" and then she shouted to the 
 waiter to hurry with dinner. 
 
 They were to dine in the sitting-room, and the table was 
 alUet out and ready on their arrival. 
 
 "More cosy," she said, "more homey, more kumm-il-fo 
 than downstairs in that horrid big kaffy-room. . . . Well,
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 17 
 
 Tom you are Tom ? what are you going to be all in good 
 time one of these days when you're quite grown up?" 
 
 Tom replied that he was going to be a clergyman. 
 
 "That's right. Very nice, I'm sure. I like clergymen 
 not all, but some. The Reverend Canon Forster, of Hove, 
 is a very old friend of mine. . . . And Charles this is 
 Charles, isn't it ? what are you to be ?" 
 
 Charles said that he also was going into the Church. 
 
 "Oh, bless us and save us!" cried Aunt Jane. "How 
 good we all are !" 
 
 Mrs. Churchill explained that it was a vocation with both 
 of them ; they had never deviated in their wish to enter holy 
 orders, and as well as making her happy it was working out 
 very conveniently, because they could remain at school until 
 they were nineteen and then pass on to the theological col- 
 lege in this very town. There would thus be no disruption 
 of home life in the early stages of their careers. 
 
 "And how about young hopeful? What does Number 
 Three intend to be?" 
 
 Edward said that he had not yet made up his mind. 
 
 "An excellent answer too," and Aunt Jane gave her side- 
 splitting imitation of poultry. "P'raps you haven't got a 
 mind to make up yet awhile, Teddy Teddy's right, eh? 
 And take Auntie's advice. When you feel it's there, all 
 waiting to be made up well, do it yourself, Teddy, and don't 
 expect or allow other people to do it for you. . . . But 
 there, I shall be putting my foot in it. Merest fun, Edith, 
 . . . Come! To table! And let me have Mr. Teddy on 
 my right hand." 
 
 She was disconcertingly vulgar, and one could see that 
 Mrs. Churchill felt constraint in her company. But the 
 hearts of the boys rapidly warmed to her ; and, although it 
 made Tom shiver when he thought of possibly having to 
 show her round St. Martyr's, yet he began to recognise in 
 her " a real good old gump." She meant well ; she was ami- 
 able, if vain and silly ; and she certainly gave them what in 
 school jargon might be termed a gloriosum festum atque 
 multum vinum fizzibum. 
 
 "I know boys like pop," she said, as the first cork was 
 discharged; "and it can't hurt them, Edith, once in a way. 
 Have another cutlet, Charles. Cutlets drive away growing
 
 18 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 pains. There's roast turkey and plum pudding to follow. 
 They told me downstairs the menoo wasn't seasonable, but 
 I said 'Bother the seasons.' ... My dears, it does me 
 good to have you all around me and I hope you'll visit me 
 at my little house in Montagu Square. I'll take you to the 
 theatres, and show you Madame Toosso's." 
 
 It was after dinner that the great discovery occurred. 
 
 Tom, cheered and replenished with the good fare, and 
 becoming expansive, persisted in talking of "the family," 
 asking many questions, to which his hostess replied quite 
 readily. 
 
 All those grandeurs were a myth or at least an hypo- 
 thesis deduced from very slender materials. The boys' 
 father and Aunt Jane's late husband belonged to Midland 
 folk who for three generations had been engaged in the 
 wholesale hardware trade. There were, it appeared, many 
 of these hardware Churchills, some prospering, some doing 
 little beyond keeping their heads above water. 
 
 "Your papa," said Aunt Jane, "offended us but that's 
 an old story, and far too much was made of it at the time. 
 But, as no doubt mamma has told you, he represented the 
 original house in London and if he didn't make a success 
 of the London agency, I dare say that was no fault of his. 
 Times were beginning to change. We were getting behind 
 them." 
 
 Mrs. Churchill sat in silence during all this talk, neither 
 endorsing anything nor contradicting anything ; but Edward, 
 watching her, saw that she stirred uneasily and bit her lip 
 when they came to speak of boot-paste. 
 
 "No, I'm sure I wish we were the 'boot-paste Churchills,' " 
 said Aunt Jane. "No such luck ! What that firm must have 
 piled up!" 
 
 And at last Tom tackled the question of the ducal leader 
 of the clan. Could Aunt Jane trace the links between us and 
 him? 
 
 Aunt Jane cackled. "Oh, no doubt we're all one lot if 
 you go back far enough. Yes, there's the best authority for 
 that;" and she cackled most merrily. "We all come down 
 from the same couple the man and woman who started the 
 biggest family on record. You know who I mean." 
 
 "Adam and Eve ?" said Tom, after a long pause.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 19 
 
 "Just so," said Aunt Jane. 
 
 Not even cadets of the boot-paste just nobodies. Tom, 
 returning to the subject that night after he and his brothers 
 had gone up to bed, said he felt glad he- was past his seven- 
 teenth birthday, and therefore strong enough to stand the 
 shock. 
 
 "I don't mind twopence," said Charles; "but it is a bit 
 of a suck and a sell." 
 
 Edward said nothing, and neither of the other two asked 
 his opinion. He had gone to the bedroom window, and he 
 stood with his back to the room. It was a clear still night, 
 a touch of late frost in the air ; and he looked sadly and wist- 
 fully upward at the fixed stars one of which was shining 
 with a much diminished brightness. His mother had de- 
 ceived him.
 
 IV 
 
 "MOTHER dear, everything else you ever told us is true, 
 
 isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes, every word every smallest word. Oh, Edward. 
 And Mrs. Churchill began to cry. 
 
 Aunt Jane had gone back to London, and Edward for the 
 first time had spoken to anybody about that trifling dis- 
 illusionment. 
 
 "Oh, oh, oh!" And Mrs. Churchill sobbed hysterically. 
 "I hope I may never set eyes on her again I don't want her 
 money, none of it. I hate her a horrid, wicked old woman 
 to come between my dearest son and me." 
 
 "Nothing can come between us," said Edward wildly. 
 "Oh, mother, forgive me for what I said." 
 
 It was terrible to him to see that dear face convulsed with 
 grief, the venerated head bowed down, the gentle delicate 
 fingers opening and shutting themselves spasmodically. 
 In a frenzy of self-reproach he begged her to forget his rash 
 and foolish words. But for a while she would not be con- 
 soled. 
 
 They were alone in her room a place that had been to 
 him like the storehouse of his earliest, most tender memories, 
 and that was now with increasing intelligence and imagina- 
 tion as sacred to him as a shrine. 
 
 "My darling my darling mother." 
 
 Presently they sat in the cushioned window seat where she 
 used to teach him his first lessons, and he held her with his 
 arm about her waist, kissing her wet eyelids, imploring 
 pardon, feeling half dead with love and pain. 
 
 The spring sunbeams came softly above their heads, shed- 
 ding a delicate radiance throughout the room, lighting up 
 solid objects, and seeming to touch with a tremulous rever- 
 ence all pretty, fragile things. He looked at her writing- 
 desk and thought of how she had sat there hour after hour 
 struggling to learn a little Latin so as to be able to help him 
 in his work ; at the curtains that hid the alcove and her bed : 
 
 20
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 21 
 
 at the bedside table standing outside the curtains. The sight 
 of this table used to affect him with a sense of awe and 
 mystery. It always carried a small pile of her devotional 
 books; above the books, fixed to the wall, there was a 
 crucifix made of ivory and black wood; and above that, 
 again, hung his father's photograph. All this was quite 
 unchanged, exactly as he had always seen it ; but he noticed, 
 by the books, a green twig of spruce that she had brought 
 away with her from St. Alban's church on Palm Sunday. 
 
 "Edward, I'll explain, so that you'll understand and not 
 blame me." 
 
 "Mother!" 
 
 "It was silly but I didn't want to practise any unworthy 
 deception." She had dried her eyes now, and was speaking 
 calmly; only her voice shook, and her hands, clasping his, 
 were hot and limp. "It came from my pride and love in 
 the beginning from nothing else." 
 
 Then she told him that her marriage was a love match, 
 a runaway match, and that it created an irrevocable breach 
 with her own family as well as with the Churchill family. 
 The Churchills wanted her husband to marry somebody else, 
 a rich unattractive hardware cousin, and they never forgave 
 him for not doing so ; while her people, who were well-born, 
 poor, old-fashioned, and stupidly, obstinately narrow- 
 minded, looked down on trade, said that young Mr. Churchill 
 was common, and sternly forbade her to encourage his ad- 
 dresses. She herself, brought up among those who esteemed 
 rank and valued gentle blood, could not eradicate all false 
 pride; and she suffered greatly because of the contempt 
 poured out upon the man she loved. She denied what her 
 parents said, she vowed that he was not only a gentleman, 
 but a very fine gentleman. 
 
 "And, Edward, I used to pray that, some day, somehow, 
 we should be able to prove it to show that he was really 
 better born than I was. I loved him so was so proud of 
 him himself, and it broke my heart to think of others scorn- 
 ing him. 
 
 "And, Edward," she went on, with a burst of enthusiasm, 
 "I know he must have descended from rulers and not from 
 slaves. You had but to look at him. Come now look for 
 yourself ;" and they went across the room, and stood before
 
 22 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 the fading photograph. "Look at his mouth and chin and 
 the way his hair grew ; not rough and coarse in a tuft above 
 his forehead, as you see in common people. Observe the 
 nose well-modelled just like a Greek statue. And his 
 hands were beautiful not common hands. In everything 
 he showed race really and truly. 
 
 "And so I carried on my fiction no, not fiction, my 
 belief when my father and mother were gone, when all 
 were gone, and I was left quite alone with you three. You 
 all show the same signs. I couldn't let you think if I 
 could help it that your father was beneath anybody or 
 anything. Do you understand? 
 
 "You are like him, Edward. You have beautiful hands 
 like his. And your forehead is noble." As she spoke she 
 pushed back his hair, and brought her face close to his. "You 
 are my beautiful son beautiful in mind and body. And you 
 might be a prince all the world would proclaim it. Kiss 
 me, and say that you understand." 
 
 "Yes, yes quite." 
 
 Then they sat again in the window. They were happy 
 now, both of them, drawn nearer together than they had ever 
 yet been. 
 
 "I couldn't bear it, Edward, if you lost confidence in me. 
 I'd rather you knew me for just exactly what I am so that 
 you wouldn't expect too much of me. Heavens knows I 
 have put duty before pleasure. I have tried to be good." 
 
 "You are as good as the angels." 
 
 "I have tried to make myself stronger and stronger, but 
 there are weaknesses in my nature. I am weak in many 
 ways about myself as weak as lots of women I despise. 
 Sometimes I long for worthless evanescent things praise, 
 flattery even, the encouragement of other people's good 
 opinion. But all that will soon be over. Soon I shall 
 scarcely be a woman at all I shall be old and ugly, grey 
 and bloodless " 
 
 "No, never." 
 
 "Yes. But what does it matter so that my children 
 are contented? I shall live again in their lives. . . There 
 my boy must go out now, and play his games and be joyous 
 and free." 
 
 After this day the bond between mother and son was
 
 23 
 
 always growing in strength. It was as though something 
 new within him had been born at the sight of the tears that 
 he himself had caused. Something had died too; but that 
 which he had gained was infinitely more precious than what 
 had been taken away from him. 
 
 And there were things that he had hitherto been able to 
 do with great enjoyment that he could never do again. Before 
 this it had seemed perfectly natural that he and his brothers 
 should leave her altogether to her own devices while they 
 sought pleasure far away ; that she should stand on a door- 
 step kissing her hand in farewell, and then vanish from one's 
 thought, almost fade from the zone of memory, during long 
 hours and even whole days ; until, tired and hungry, one came 
 lounging home and she resumed existence in a welcoming 
 smile. But now he thought of her, carried her image with 
 him, whether far or near. 
 
 Once, when an unexpected half-holiday befell the school, 
 and games were impossible by reason of the flooded condition 
 of both playing-fields, he started in congenial company for a 
 long ramble. His party meant to push far out into the 
 country; the sun shone; all the voices rang out loud and 
 clear; and there was joy in walking fast, in looking at distant 
 horizons, in shaking off the insipidity of too familiar sur- 
 roundings. Then all at once, only a mile out on the western 
 road, his spirits suddenly sank. He thought of his mother 
 alone in the empty house. She had declared that there were 
 a lot of odds and ends she wished to attend to, that she would 
 be busy and contented, that the time would fly ; nevertheless 
 he could not escape from the mental picture of loneliness and 
 sadness. It was spoiling all his pleasure. 
 
 He gave some excuse for deserting the noisy band, and 
 hurried home. His mother uttered an exclamation of delight 
 when, hot and flushed and eager, he burst in upon her and 
 said that he had returned to take her for a stroll. 
 
 They spent the whole afternoon together, taking tea at a 
 little shop in Abbot's Lane, sauntering on the old walls, 
 sitting on benches in the public garden, talking with open 
 hearts. And he never thought of his late companions rang- 
 ing wide over the hillsides and through the vales. He was at 
 peace and felt no regrets. 
 
 "But I don't want to tie you to my apron-strings," she
 
 24 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 said, with the utmost sincerity. "I have always kept it 
 before me, that as my boys grew up I must to a certain 
 extent lose them. All I have hoped is that none of you would 
 desire to leave me absolutely to put seas and continents 
 between us to go right to the other side of the world." 
 
 And Edward said that he would never do that, whatever 
 happened. If they could not always live under the same roof, 
 at least he would never go far away. He would stay within 
 reach. "I swear it, mother. I swear it, as a vow." 
 
 "Ah, Edward, my altruist." 
 
 "No," he said emphatically, "it is not altruism it is 
 selfishness. I could not be happy otherwise." 
 
 And, not for the first time, she sounded him this afternoon 
 about his ideas in regard to the future. Had he any inclina- 
 tion to do what his brothers had decided upon doing ? 
 
 "Mr. Jennings says he sees in you many qualities that 
 suggest the Church as perhaps the profession that would 
 best suit you." 
 
 "Mr. Jennings doesn't really know me. Mother, I don't 
 know myself. Sometimes I think Oh, a man ought to 
 be very good to be a priest. I could not trust myself to say 
 I'm too young to know myself." 
 
 She expressed approval of these words. They were so 
 wise. One must, of course, wait until one felt quite sure. 
 Nothing could be more dreadful than to make a mistake 
 about so sacred a step. 
 
 "Because it is for all time, Edward. Once a priest always 
 a priest." 
 
 They had come along the path upon the wall and were 
 entering the outer precincts of the cathedral. The sun was 
 down now, and all about them the greyness of dusk spread 
 fast. Vague and tremendous, the great church loomed like 
 a cliff in front of them, with jagged broken summits that 
 glowed redly in the last light of the day. 
 
 "But, whatever you decide, Edward, I shall approve. 
 I d never oppose your wish or even try to guide it. I place 
 a confidence in you that I cannot in dear Tom or Charles 
 You understand me, as they never did;" and she leaned 
 upon his arm, joining her hands about it, as they walked 
 beneath the darkness of an arch. "You are more to me 
 much more than the others. You know it, my dearest ; so
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 25 
 
 why shouldn't I confess it ? I am just to them, and always 
 will be making no outward difference. I know you would 
 be miserable if I did. But God pours the measure of love 
 into our hearts. It is His measure, not ours, and we cannot 
 alter it." 
 
 In the lamplight of their home he used to observe her 
 when she fancied herself unobserved, searching her face for 
 any lines or wrinkles that might hint at age, thrilling with 
 joy when she looked young and fresh, feeling cold dread 
 when she looked weary and pale. He wished to toil for her, 
 fight for her, die for her if by death he could save her from 
 peril and pain. Even when on his knees, praying to the throne 
 of grace, angry revolt rushed into his mind as he remem- 
 bered the shortness of this mortal life, the terrific edict that 
 spares neither the virtuous nor the wicked. He prayed night 
 and day that she might be given long years in which he 
 could guard and cherish her, and that when at last she died 
 his life might soon be done. 
 
 It was a great love, and yet few people guessed at its 
 existence, and she herself never knew a hundredth part of its 
 power. He could not tell all of it to her, and to no one else 
 could he even speak of it. It made no external change in 
 him ; at school he was just what he had always been, working 
 hard enough to please the masters, but not so hard as to 
 offend the boys. He did not shine at games, although he 
 showed a sort of fitful ardent aptitude in every game they 
 played. He was not anyhow conspicuous ; yet gradually all 
 recognised that in a progressive, unobtrusive, inexplicable 
 way he had become astoundingly popular. He was the boy 
 that no one spoke of and the boy that every one liked. 
 
 If any envious schoolmate, chancing to fathom his secret, 
 had said, "You fellows are deceived in this third Churchill. 
 He is nothing but a milksop and a mammy's darling" well, 
 that boy would have been called a liar, a sneak, a dirty chuff. 
 
 Yet it was a very great love, although throughout the 
 dawn of adolescence Edward Churchill contrived to hold it 
 sacred and secret, a splendid mystery far down beneath the 
 surface of things. His love for his mother and his ever- 
 deepening religious faith mingled and became one. She was 
 his Madonna all that the Blessed Virgin can be to the most 
 transcendentally fervid Catholics.
 
 V 
 
 Bur in spite of fervours of religious emotion that thus 
 were fed from a dual source, he showed a curious sort of re- 
 luctance against becoming a full and accredited member of 
 the Church. When contemporaries were being confirmed he 
 obtained a year's postponement, and for a second time, not 
 without difficulty, his confirmation was delayed. 
 
 He did not feel ready. With this explanation Mrs. 
 Churchill succeeded in satisfying herself and the authorities. 
 Truly it was not the ceremony of laying on of hands that he 
 shrank from, but the rite that must follow it. Lying awake 
 at night he used to think of our Lord's last supper, seeing in 
 imagination the actual feast, hearing the wonderful words 
 that instituted for all time that shadow of the reality which 
 was to bind men together in holy communion ; and it seemed 
 to him that this, the most mysterious and soul-stirring of all 
 sacraments, should have been reserved as a reward for tried 
 virtue, and not be lightly and presumptuously approached 
 by the young and untested. He felt that participation in it 
 should be the end of one's youth and the beginning of a life- 
 long enterprise; and some voice of instinct seemed to warn 
 him, to try to appal him, as though saying in a distorted echo 
 of his mother's words : "It is once and always. Keep your 
 liberty of choice as long as you can. You are still free, but 
 when the consecrated cup is held towards you in the mo- 
 ment when your lips touch the red shadow of His blood 
 your freedom will be gone for ever." 
 
 One saint's day in mid-term, a certain newly-appointed 
 suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there 
 preached on "The Inner Life." He at once secured attention 
 by his informal method, and when presently the coughing 
 of Jarvis and another boy interrupted the sermon, he al- 
 together captivated his audience with a remark about cough 
 lozenges being cheap and easily procurable. All then lis- 
 tened; but Edward Churchill, listening with the rest, could 
 scarcely believe his. ears. For it was as though this man had 
 
 26
 
 THE MIRROR AND, THE LAMP 
 
 been sent to preach to him alone and to answer half his 
 secret thoughts. 
 
 The preacher told him that every one is apparently offered 
 the choice of two lives, either of which he may live the 
 inner life or the outer life ; but that eventually, in old age, 
 we find that only one of these lives is possible the inner 
 life. 
 
 "That is a simple fact," he said; "with nothing about 
 it that need frighten or even worry us. The dwelling-place 
 wherein we all must dwell, when our wanderings are over, 
 when we have exhausted our physical energy and can no 
 longer strive and fight or love or hate as we used to do, is 
 our own mind. There is the palace or the hovel in which 
 we are to finish our days. And the queston that I am going 
 to ask you, the question of paramount importance that I 
 pray you to ask yourselves, is, What are you going to make 
 of this last resort, this place to which you will be forced to 
 withdraw sooner or later? You can make of it what you 
 will; but you must begin the making now. It can truly be 
 a palace, a glorious, noble home where you may sit enthroned 
 as a king, and look through crystal-clear windows at floods 
 of heavenly light ; or it can be a black and dismal dungeon, 
 windowless, airless, foul. There are the two extremes. 
 Which do you choose? Boys of St. Martyr's, I mean to ham- 
 mer this question at you. I mean to rub it into you as I 
 believe you would elegantly express it. This is your real 
 choice. The other choice is only apparent not real. Your 
 real choice and freedom lies in what you are going to make 
 of the minds that God has given you." 
 
 And then, after speaking with great earnestness, he re- 
 sumed his genial chatty tone, and told the boys how they 
 were to set about improving their minds without an hour's 
 delay. He gave them rudimentary notions of psychology, 
 quoted natural philosophers, and gossiped and almost chaffed 
 about metaphysical speculation and all the time Edward 
 Churchill was thinking: "This is true. . . . This is solid. 
 . . . This is based on unchanging laws. . . . These are things 
 that have confused me, and now I begin to understand them." 
 
 Then the preacher again used for the human mind that 
 image of a place which one could build oneself. He said that 
 one should visit it frequently, inspect it carefully, see for
 
 28 
 
 oneself that the building process was going on all right. He 
 said that, unlike houses made by hands, it should always be 
 comfortable and dwellable throughout its course of construc- 
 tion. And it should be used as a church too: the con- 
 venient and accessible place into which one can go at any 
 moment for rest and peace. 
 
 He said that the saints and fathers habitually spoke ot 
 "prayer and meditation," linking the two words together as 
 if they symbolised things of almost equal value ; but in the 
 hurry and bustle of modern life there seemed only time for 
 prayer, and people were tempted to ignore the necessity of 
 meditation also. He told the boys to let no day pass without 
 meditation. "Retire into yourselves, if only for five minutes, 
 and just think quietly." 
 
 Then he wound up with "a really jolly bit" about good 
 resolutions ; and the way people make them on New Year's 
 Day and break them before Twelfth Night. "We all do it," 
 he said, beaming down on the rows and rows of upturned 
 faces ; "and he would be a poor-spirited dull dog who didn't 
 do it. I mean the making of good resolves, not their break- 
 ing, of course. We say to ourselves, 'In this year that begins 
 to-day I am going to be a better, kinder, cleverer boy than I 
 was in the year that's ending to-day.' Believe me, such 
 resolutions are worth making ; while their influence lasts they 
 effect something; and it's a fatal mistake to suppose that, 
 even when we fail to continue acting up to the fixed ideal, we 
 are worse off than if we had never tried to succeed. Now 
 take this from me as what the sportsmen call a straight tip. 
 Don't reserve such resolutions for the first of January. A 
 year may begin on any date in the almanac. Let a year 
 begin for you every morning. Make every day your New 
 Year's Day. . . ." 
 
 This sermon created a great impression on the school. 
 There were boys here and there who distinctly modified their 
 conduct, and wrestled with the thraldom of old-established 
 habits. On all sides one heard scraps of talk about the 
 Inner Life, and for some little time "A happy new year to 
 you," was quite the fashionable thing as a morning saluta- 
 tion. 
 
 Curiously enough, the boy who seemed to be most pro- 
 foundly affected was the last one in the world from whom
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 29 
 
 you would have anticipated any reaction at all from such 
 a stimulus. Yet Jarvis, to everybody's surprise, stoutly 
 declared that the bishop-suffragan had revolutionised his 
 entire view of existence. 
 
 Jarvis was an odd, blinkng, shambling boarder, who more 
 than once had been publicly denounced as incorrigibly lazy 
 and faint-hearted at his work, but who nevertheless had, to 
 his present age of eighteen, escaped the often imminent 
 catastrophe of "supersession." He was a boy who drifted 
 on the surface of things and seemed incapable of taking a 
 dive into the deeps of thought; he loved tittle-tattle not 
 sneaking, of course, but foolish chatter about individuals; 
 he read trashy novelettes; and last, but not least, gave 
 frequent performances of his famous graveyard cough. 
 
 At request, he would stand in King Henry's corridor and 
 cough until the old stone walls seemed to shake with hollow 
 thunder. Once after thus rousing the echoes to his ugly 
 music, he spat some blood upon the stone pavement; and 
 since then he had pleaded, "No encores. I'll do it with 
 pleasure. But you chaps really mustn't encore me." 
 
 Generally the school tolerated him as an amiable, in- 
 offensive person who had been there for a prodigious long 
 time, but of late sixth form boys had complained of his 
 shabby appearance. "I wish," they used to say, "that Jarvis 
 would treat himself to a new suit. Speak to him, somebody. 
 Tell him that he is beginning to look like a scarecrow, and 
 that it won't do." 
 
 If spoken to by somebody, Jarvis flushed and made ex- 
 cuses, referred vaguely to his aunt at Dover, and treated 
 himself to the graveyard cough instead of to the new suit. 
 
 Nowadays he used to come limping after Edward 
 Churchill on his way to the gymnasium or the library, and 
 babble of the Inner Life. 
 
 ". . . Yesterday evening I meditated thirty-seven minutes 
 by the clock, and all the time I didn't know where I was. 
 I'd like to do it with you one evening, Churchill. Give me an 
 appointment and we'll do it one against the other. . . . 
 Going in there? Then good-bye for the present." 
 
 Edward Churchill had been drawn to explore the school 
 library in search of books that purported to describe the 
 workings of the human mind, and his form-master had fur-
 
 30 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 nished him with a short list of philosophers whom he ought 
 to consult. 
 
 "It's all antiquated stuff, you know. So don't go swallow- 
 ing it wholesale. If you ever want to study psychology, you 
 must begin with physiology. . . . And by the way," said 
 Mr. Sedley, "don't be introspective." 
 
 "No, sir?" 
 
 "Introspection is the curse of the present age. There is 
 too much thinking and dreaming, and not enough doing in 
 this old England of ours. When you've finished mugging 
 over the stuff up there, get the taste of dust out of your 
 mouth by reading Carlyle." 
 
 "I have read some of him, sir." 
 
 "Then read some more. Read his Heroes and Hero 
 Worship. History is made by people who go about and act, 
 not by people who sit brooding and weighing consequences, 
 and examining their personal motives. A healthy man 
 oughtn't to be conscious of his inside whether it's his 
 tummy or his mind." 
 
 Edward Churchill had a high respect for Mr. Sedley's 
 judgment, but this advice, coming so soon after the bishop's 
 sermon, jarred strangely. 
 
 He returned again and again to the library, and, stirring 
 the dust of rarely-turned pages, soon made a startling dis- 
 covery. Just as that sermon had seemed to be specially 
 addressed to him, so these old books seemed to have been 
 written solely for his benefit. There was, he found, nothing 
 new in his thoughts, nothing unusual. Others had felt what 
 he felt, had felt it more strongly, and had expressed it in the 
 boldest and plainest language. This notion of the unreality, 
 the dreamlike and intangible character of the whole world in 
 which one lived, was probably as old as thought itself. It 
 was a consequence of primeval wonder, when men began to 
 recognise the marvellous scope of their mental powers. When 
 for the first time men carried home with them into the dark- 
 ness of their caves all the sunlit extent of the hills and plains 
 they had hunted over during the day, they must have asked 
 themselves, "Which, then, is real what I have seen or what 
 I am seeing?" And with the growth of imagination the 
 doubt would naturally increase instead of diminish, until 
 noble learned students solemnly began to deny the existence
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 31 
 
 of all things external to themselves. That, of course, was a 
 reductio ad absurdum; and yet the longer one brooded upon 
 it the less flagrant appeared to be the absurdity. 
 
 He sat thinking deeply, doing exactly what Mr. Sedley 
 had declared to be injudicious : staring at the self-contained 
 mystery with introspective eyes, examining his motives, 
 saying to himself, "A life without action is a poor thing, but 
 a life without thought would be nothing at all. One would 
 not even know that one had lived it. And merely to perform 
 actions cannot make one happy; it is only the afterglow of 
 thought in which they are performed again that brings one 
 any peace or joy. And the actions that one performs must 
 not only be good in themselves and done for a good purpose 
 to others, they must be exactly what one wanted and longed 
 to do. Otherwise the horrible restlessness of thought is 
 greater than if one had refused to do them, and had wilfully 
 ignored one's duty." 
 
 The room, with its low beamed ceiling and narrow mul- 
 lioned window, was dimly lit, full of silence and motionless 
 shadow ; and when one looked out through the small latticed 
 panes of glass one saw the grass plot, a corner of the head- 
 master's house, and boys passing singly or in groups all 
 very vivid and bright and solid. The silent shadowy room 
 seemed to symbolise thought; and all that one could see 
 through the window represented life. When one thought 
 intently a grey curtain came down upon the leaded glass, 
 and, though one had not turned one's head, everything out- 
 side the window had gone. 
 
 Edward Churchill said to himself, "Suppose it is true, and 
 not an absurdity. The inner or the outer life? What if, 
 after all, there is no outer life? Suppose it is nothing but 
 thought." 
 
 For a time now he was always haunted by such ideas. 
 He could not get away from them. They came back, incon- 
 gruously obtruding themselves, no matter what he was doing 
 even when he was going to the gymnasium to box. 
 
 Mrs. Churchill had wished that her boys should receive 
 instruction in the art of self-defence, and, following his 
 brothers, Edward duly became a pupil of the illustrious 
 Sergeant Miller. This great man took considerable pains 
 with him, teaching him how to use his feet, how to put
 
 32 
 
 "stingo" into head blows by aiming always to hit right 
 through people's faces to the back of their skulls, and give 
 "beef" to body blows by imagining that you were inserting 
 your arm up to the elbow through people's ribs. He expressed 
 regret that Edward's lessons were so soon coming to an end. 
 
 Here was a man of action if you like, and one might safely 
 say that the better part of all the hero-worship practised at 
 St. Martyr's was evoked by Sergeant Miller. Little boys saw 
 in him the perfect type of manhood, and he made them at 
 once worship and despair. They felt that as the cruel years 
 dragged by they would be able to shout without squeaking, 
 to smoke without being sick ; they might be heavy and hairy 
 as Mr. Westford or Mr. Jennings ; they might grow up into 
 masters, but never, never could they grow up into sergeants. 
 The biggest and most athletic boys regarded him as their 
 dearest friend; but friendship did not lessen their venera- 
 tion. The lightest word that fell from his lips was precious. 
 They worshipped his neck and chest, his cast-iron cheeks, 
 his steel-cased limbs his laugh, his stare, his frown, even his 
 smell, that strange odour of nuts, and oil that seemed as the 
 very essence of his stupendous strength. 
 
 It was an immense privilege to be admitted to his room 
 behind the gym., and to be shown his museum of personal 
 trophies and treasures the box that held his medals, the 
 photographic groups of officers, sergeants, band of the 140th 
 regiment, the presentation bowl, the illuminated testimonial, 
 and so on. Beyond this room there was a sort of carpenter's 
 shop with bench and lathe and soldering apparatus, where the 
 sergeant's assistant, Dick, worked all day fashioning clubs 
 and single sticks, or binding and glueing leather grips round 
 dumb-bells ; and it was pleasant to linger here also, watching 
 Dick, and asking innumerable questions about the largest 
 dumb-bells ever lifted and the lightest gloves permissible in 
 the prize ring. Indeed, the charm of the gym. and its de- 
 pendencies was very suave and penetrating, and Edward 
 Churchill, as well as everybody else, surrendered himself to 
 it with satisfaction. 
 
 Naturally, the sergeant could not actually box with one. 
 He invited you to hit him as hard as you were able, standing 
 to take his buffet like the knight in Ivanhoe, and merely 
 flicking you with an open hand, here, there, and everywhere,
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 33 
 
 to indicate that you were exposing yourself. But if he wished 
 to test a pupil's proficiency, he would call Dick from the shop 
 and tell him to put on his gloves and spar lightly with the 
 gentleman. And he called for Dick now, at Edward 
 Churchill's last lesson. 
 
 Dick untied his apron, wiped his sticky hands on a bit of 
 rag, and hurried to the call, snatching up a pair of gloves as 
 he came. 
 
 A weedy lad of uncertain age, with large feet and long thin 
 arms, he looked just as weak as water, and yet, mirabile 
 dictu, his skill made him more than a match for the biggest 
 boy in the school. No one had ever seen the sergeant give 
 Dick a lesson; he had no practice except when summoned 
 thus from the glue-pots ; but it was as though merely living 
 under the eye of the sergeant had been sufficient. Virtue 
 and force had been imparted to him in the atmosphere that 
 he daily breathed. 
 
 "No hitting, you understand," said the sergeant severely. 
 "Just spar." 
 
 "All right," said Dick, after adjusting with his teeth the 
 wrist elastic of his right glove. And the sparring began. 
 
 "Steady, sir," said the sergeant. "Don't rush. Take 
 your time. . . . You see how easy he avoids you. His desire 
 being to let you tire yourself without troubling him. . . . 
 Very good, Dick. . . . Very nice indeed. . . . Now take a 
 breather, sir." 
 
 Then they sparred again; and Edward, warming to the 
 exercise, acquitted himself better. Consciousness of sur- 
 roundings lessened, the circle of interest narrowed to a 
 smaller and smaller space, in another moment he and Dick 
 were isolated from all the rest of humanity; and it was as if 
 feet and hands could think, and were thinking, as effectively 
 as brains. Edward's mind and body had but one concen- 
 trated wish : to do what ages ago was a precept and now had 
 become an instinct that is, to put stingo and beef into the 
 gloves. 
 
 "Balance," cried the sergeant, "balance. Damme, keep 
 your balance." 
 
 But he was speaking to Dick and Edward felt a suffusion 
 of pleasure rather than an analysable thought. Dick had 
 staggered, not he.
 
 34 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 When they were commanded to stop for another breather, 
 the sergeant rebuked Dick, and Dick answered somewhat 
 morosely. 
 
 "Yes, I know but it's all mighty fine. I m to play, and 
 he's to slog and yet I'm not to break away an inch." 
 
 "Is he putting anything into it?" asked the sergeant, 
 with tender and solicitous interest. 
 
 "Course he is," said Dick. "But I mustn't stop him for 
 fear of hurting him. ... All right, sir. Come on ;" and he 
 gave Edward a sickly but good-natured smile. "I'm paid 
 { or it so don't you mind. But I shall expect a shilling in- 
 stead of sixpence off you this time." 
 
 Then Edward insisted that every embargo should be 
 removed from Dick. Nothing would content him. but that 
 Dick should deal with him on equal terms. 
 
 "D'you mean it?" asked the sergeant. 
 
 "Yes, I do. I want it just to see." 
 
 "Very well," said the sergeant indulgently. "You hear, 
 Dick? Let it be give and take till I stop you." 
 
 The long bout that followed was like drinking deep of a 
 fiery potent wine but a wine that did one good, not harm. 
 Sensation now was certainly the same thing as thought ; or, 
 at least, all that might be traced to a lightningly rapid cogi- 
 tative process was the joy in finding that one could take all 
 that Dick could give. Each smack in the face exhilarated 
 and refreshed one, and of itself produced the appropriately- 
 placed reply. To stagger was a frenzied agony, but to recover 
 was a wild thrill of delight. To take and to give to give 
 like that, and like that. . . . 
 
 "Good. Very good." The sergeant's voice was a remote 
 sweet music a melody that cheered and never disturbed. 
 "Good again. There, stop. That's enough. You've had 
 best part of three minutes." 
 
 They had stopped, and they stood smiling at each other, 
 and breathing hard through distended nostrils. 
 
 "Give him his bob, sir, and let him go. Get back to your 
 work, Dick." 
 
 Then he paid Edward a most gratifying complimejnt. 
 "You have pleased me, sir" and he said it with genuine 
 cordiality. "You have surprised and pleased me. Con- 
 sidering the few opportunities you have been enabled to put
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 35 
 
 at my disposal, you do me true credit." These words from 
 the sergeant meant a great deal. And he went on to talk very 
 seriously, telling Edward that no one, of course, can learn 
 boxing in a dozen lessons, and that he ought to have further 
 lessons whenever he could conveniently arrange to obtain 
 them. "If not from me, sir, then from some other party." 
 
 And Edward, standing there, proud and contented after 
 the immense enjoyment both of his exercise and the com- 
 pliment, felt more conscious than ever of the dreamlike 
 unsubstantial nature of the whole thing. The idea came to 
 him in a moment, from nowhere : "All this is fading fast. 
 In a little while the sergeant will be gone; not a boy that I 
 know will be here ; all will have vanished. It will be another 
 generation and boys like myself will go to the library and 
 sit reading the thoughts of dead men. Only that room will 
 be full of life the thought that alone has survived. Then 
 thought must be everything, and action nothing in com- 
 parison." This seemed to him a flash of inexorable logic. 
 
 "Have I your attention, sir?" said the sergeant, in a tone 
 that betrayed slightly offended dignity. "I was telling you 
 a street row is not a sparring match. I tell all my gentlemen : 
 'Tf you get drawn into a wrangle with one of the bullying 
 fraternity, your best and p'raps your only chance is to knock 
 him down. Don't argue, don't waste time in inviting him 
 to put his hands up hit him as hard as you can, before he 
 knows what's coming. Step back for room, and knock him 
 down.' And in this respect I b'lieve there's a fallacy that 
 underlies the preaching of the left hand on all occasions. 
 Certainly if like us professional chaps your left hand 
 drive is better than your right, why, by all means use it. But 
 is that probable ? No. It stands to reason, with nine ordi- 
 nary gentlemen out of ten, the right arm and the entire right 
 side of the boy is more strongly developed than the other. 
 Then I say to you, as I would to any other ordinary gentle- 
 man " 
 
 And the sergeant went on talking very seriously indeed.
 
 VI 
 
 ALL at once the school was shaken by a terrible and scan- 
 dalous affair. Jarvis, who had left at the spring half-term, 
 was seen acting as an assistant at the glass and china shop in 
 Mitre Street. He wore a black apron and stood outside the 
 shop dusting the common earthenware that was exposed for 
 sale on the pavement ; or he swept straw away with a broom ; 
 or he helped to unload packing-cases. He had been seen 
 doing these things. 
 
 Evidently his sense of shame and degradation was very 
 great, for he looked up and down the street, blinking his 
 eyes, and peering timorously; and when one passed, he 
 flushed, turned his head away, and shambled into the shop. 
 But the horror of the St. Martyr's boys was greater than 
 Jarvis's shame. They said it was a disgrace to the school. 
 Such things probably happened often enough to the other 
 two schools in the town, but never before had the prestige 
 and reputation of St. Martyr's suffered thus. 
 
 Nothing else was talked of. Scarcely a word of pity for 
 Jarvis himself was uttered, because, although the boys no 
 doubt were sorry for him, they were sorrier for themselves. 
 And, moreover, the thing was so abnormal that it removed 
 itself from all recognised categories of form, conduct, and 
 sympathetic feeling. Thus small boys frequented Mitre 
 Street merely to stare at Jarvis in fascinated awe, and large 
 boys, walking by the shop, no more thought of greeting 
 Jarvis than he thought of greeting them. 
 
 Edward Churchill could not stand the painfulness of all 
 this. Jarvis's black apron and dusting brush had formed a 
 mental picture of misery that interfered with his sleep ; and 
 nevertheless he was aware of the instinctive shirking and 
 shrinking, the resistance of immediate inclination, the dead 
 weight of adverse public opinion that had to be overcome on 
 the day when he went down Mitre Street and talked to Jarvis 
 outside the shop. It was difficult even then, and Jarvis did 
 not make it easier. He kept flushing and coughing; but at 
 
 36
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 37 
 
 last he agreed to the arrangement that they should spend 
 next Saturday afternoon together. 
 
 They met accordingly when Saturday came and slunk out 
 of the town, over the meadows and far away from all other 
 boys. Jarvis led, and by the time they had gone a couple of 
 miles he was tired. 
 
 "Let's cross the railway," he said, "and find somewhere 
 sheltered where we can sit a bit." 
 
 There was a level crossing close to them, and a footbridge 
 two or three hundred yards farther up the line. 
 
 "Let's make for the bridge," said Jarvis; and they 
 accordingly did so. 
 
 "Now let's stop a minute," he said, when they were on 
 top of the bridge, and he looked up and down the line. "No 
 train coming so we can't treat ourselves to a nerve- 
 shocker." 
 
 The bridge was well known and highly esteemed by St. 
 Marytr boys for two reasons: first, because the story ran 
 that it had been erected after three haymakers had met 
 their death one night at the level crossing, and secondly, 
 because it afforded a pleasurable test of the steadiness of 
 one's nerves. 
 
 When you stood upon it and watched an approaching 
 train, you had, just at the last moment, an extraordinarily 
 powerful illusion that the engine was too big to get through 
 and that you and the whole bridge were going to be smashed 
 into smithereens. Really it was a remarkable illusion ; and 
 little boys, treating themselves to the nerve-shocker, had 
 been known to crouch and emit a squeal of terror as the white 
 bath of steam enveloped them and the thunder of the iron 
 mass swept beneath their feet. 
 
 "Here," said Jarvis presently, "let's rest our bones here." 
 
 A March wind was blowing in a cold bright sky, but its 
 nip was not felt under the cliff of the chalk quarry into which 
 Jarvis conducted his companion ; and here, sitting on a pile 
 of timber props, they had a long talk. 
 
 "Churchill, I love you for this." 
 
 'Tor what, Jarvis old fellow?" 
 
 "For doing what you've done to-day. But don't do it 
 again." 
 
 "Why not?"
 
 38 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 "It's no use. It only upsets me makes things harder to 
 bear," and Jarvis began to cough. 
 
 "Jarvis!" Edward Churchill laid a hand upon his arm, 
 and kept it there till he ceased coughing. 
 
 "You see," said Jarvis, "I always knew that something 
 like this was hanging over me. Father and mother dead 
 and only my aunt to look to. She always put it before me 
 that the advantages of a good education were all she could 
 promise, and I must therefore work hard at school so as to 
 make my way in the world afterwards." 
 
 "Then why didn't you work, Jarvis ?" 
 
 "I don't know. I ought to have." 
 
 Then, talking in just the same fussy hurried way that 
 used to be habitual to him when he gossiped about the captain 
 of the cricket eleven or the matron's sailor cousin, he told 
 Edward Churchill all that could possibly be told about him- 
 self from childhood onwards. 
 
 "But I couldn't act in harmony with the facts of my true 
 position," he said, when he had reached the present stage of 
 his life history. "I seemed to think that school would go 
 on for ever and no one more surprised than myself at its 
 ending. Then when the blow fell, and Aunt said she'd 
 settled with Wilson's to start me there on the Monday morn- 
 ing, I made up my mind there was only one way out for me. 
 Yes, Churchill, I made up my mind to commit suicide." 
 
 "Jarvis, you can't really mean what you're saying." 
 
 "On my word of honour as a gentlemen " and Jarvis 
 laughed and coughed. "As a gentleman! That's funny. 
 How the old words slip out unawares. Rum word for me 
 to use nowadays. But I do assure you, Churchill, I did 
 really and truly mean to do it." 
 
 "But you don't mean it any longer?" 
 
 "No. I soon abandoned the intention." 
 
 "Jarvis dear old fellow it would have been a very 
 wicked and cowardly act." 
 
 "Yes, I see that now ; but I didn't see it at first. I thought 
 I'd come out here after dark and do it on the line near the 
 bridge. That's why I chose this direction for our walk. I 
 wanted to have a look." 
 
 And then, in the same tone, without any increase of earn-
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 39 
 
 estness or solemnity, he said that he had been saved from 
 suicide by religious meditation and thoughts of Christ. 
 
 "It came while I was asleep, Churchill. No dream that I 
 could remember, but a sort of message." 
 
 "What was the message, Jarvis?" 
 
 " 'I carried my cross, and you must carry yours.' An' I 
 mean to do it. Perhaps it won't be for long. I'm not strong 
 never was. There's something queer with my right hip, 
 as well as the ankle. And, you know, my chest ! My famous 
 graveyard cough. It tears me to pieces at night some- 
 times;" and he smiled. "You bet, the two fellows who 
 sleep in the same room with me don't trouble me for 
 encores." 
 
 "You'll let me come and see you pretty often, Jarvis ?" 
 
 "No. But thank you all the same." 
 
 "Let me come once in a way." 
 
 "No," said Jarvis. "But, Churchill, what a brick you 
 are! No wonder fellows are fond of you. Of course I'd 
 like to see you only it's not a bit of good." And he added 
 that soon he would leave St. Dunstan's altogether. He was 
 merely learning the trade in Mitre Street, and after that he 
 was going to a shop at Sittingbourne, a branch of the same 
 establishment. "So you'd best leave me alone. You see, 
 it's no use my hankering after you chaps. If I live, I must 
 settle down to the new level the common beggars who've 
 never had a chance of learning Latin or Greek. Common ! 
 After all, aren't we all one brotherhood ? And if you don't 
 like your company, you can always retire into yourself. 
 That's what I do half the time I'm on duty." 
 
 They were silent as they walked back to the town, and 
 just before they reached the western gate Jarvis insisted 
 upon saying good-bye. 
 
 "Yes, I'd sooner go on by myself now." 
 
 "Do let me see you to your door, Jarvis." 
 
 "No. Many thanks, Churchill. I shan't forget you, you 
 know." 
 
 "And I shan't forget you either." 
 
 "Good-bye." 
 
 It was really good-bye, because they never spoke to each
 
 40 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 other again. By Easter Jarvis had disappeared, and the 
 school scandal being over, no one talked of him any more. 
 
 Edward Churchill had thought of him frequently, and had 
 written to him several times, but without receiving an 
 answer. Indeed, perhaps it was something in his thoughts 
 about Jarvis that laid the train of other thoughts and made 
 him now as eager for his confirmation as he had previously 
 been anxious to delay it. 
 
 Together, then, with twelve other boys from St. Martyr's 
 and innumerable boys from the town, he duly renewed the 
 solemn promise and vow that had been made for him at his 
 baptism, answering audibly "I do" at the proper moment, 
 and thinking throughout the very long ceremony, "All this 
 is but a preparation for what will now happen to me in three 
 days. This is nothing: that is all." 
 
 His mother was kneeling and praying among the other 
 mothers, and he would have liked to spend the rest of the 
 day with her, but the newly-confirmed were enjoined to keep 
 together in a kind of sacred good-fellowship until the evening 
 came.
 
 VII 
 
 AT first gradually, and then with dreadful swiftness, 
 changes came into the quiet home life of Mrs. Churchill and 
 her sons. Tom Churchill was nineteen now, and it was more 
 than time for him to begin his studies at the Theological 
 College; but one night after supper, without preliminary 
 warning, he told his mother that he did not think he was 
 suited for the Church. He felt acute longings for a career of 
 adventure, and, as she couldn't afford to make him a soldier, 
 he fancied he had better go out to the Colonies. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Churchill was thunderstruck. "What has put 
 this into your head?" she asked. "You were so sure of 
 yourself. It is some bad influence." 
 
 Tom did not answer. 
 
 But he shocked Charles, and utterly disgusted Edward, 
 by the explanation he gave to them when Mrs. Churchill's 
 pale sad face was no longer there, to check his tongue. 
 
 "What could I say to her without offending her ?" he asked 
 bluntly. "For of course this upset if she chooses to make 
 it an upset is her fault, not mine." 
 
 "How dare you speak of her like that?" said Edward 
 hotly. 
 
 "Don't you try to teach me manners," said Tom. "Dash 
 your impudence, who do you think you are?" 
 
 "If it's anything against the mater," said Charles, with 
 righteous indignation, "I stand shoulder to shoulder with 
 Edward." 
 
 Then Tom laughed in good-humoured contempt. "Look 
 here, my dear innocent babes, I know my duty to the 
 mater just as well as you do, and I am just as fond of 
 her as either of you. But I have reached years of discre- 
 tion, and things that are still dark to you have become 
 painfully clear to me." 
 
 And he went on to say that it was his mother and not he 
 who had chosen the Church as his profession. Any man of 
 the world would have seen with half an eye that he did not 
 
 41
 
 42 
 
 show the slightest fitness for the Church. He himself would 
 have seen it, if he hadn't been rendered almost blind, deaf, 
 and dumb by the dear mater's unceasing "pi" talk. Before 
 he had begun to understand what was what, the mater had 
 got to work "pumping religion" into him. She never 
 stopped doing it. Bless her heart, she couldn't help doing 
 so ; it was her nature. 
 
 "I suppose," he said, with the same horrible bluntness, 
 "there never was anybody quite so much stuffed up with 
 the Church as she is. I admire her for it only so far as I 
 am concerned, well, my case is : You can take a horse to the 
 water, but you can't always make him drink." 
 
 Then there were some warm passages between him and the 
 other two; but he put forward an argument that carried 
 weight. He said that he had a right to speak openly and it 
 was their duty to listen to anything he had to say. He was 
 their senior, he was the eldest son. 
 
 "We'll listen," said Edward, "so long as you don't speak 
 disrespectfully of our mother." 
 
 "Who wants to speak disrespectfully of her? Not I. 
 God bless her. I know her only thought has been to do 
 what's best for us. But one can't get away from facts. 
 With the best intentions in the world, the dear mater has 
 been trying for I don't know how many years to turn us 
 into the three largest Al copper-plated prigs that the universe 
 has ever contained." 
 
 "The mater loathes priggishness." 
 
 "Does she?" said Tom drily. 
 
 This was terrible to Edward. That Tom should renounce 
 all hope of entering the Church if he did not feel good 
 enough for a priestly life was without doubt the right thing 
 to do ; but that he should speak thus of his mother was unfor- 
 givable. Here, then, was the brutal conclusion of that beau- 
 tiful legend. In the fullness of time, one of the weak little 
 children had become strong, big, hardy, able to begin to 
 repay; and this is how he talked of the protector of his 
 weakness. 
 
 A week or two passed, and Tom formulated proposals. 
 A St. Martyr's boy called Venables, the son of a New Zea- 
 land farmer, was now returning to the Antipodes, and Tom 
 would like to go with him.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 43 
 
 Mrs. Churchill refused to hear of it. She said, "Would 
 you put the whole world between us, Tom?" 
 
 "Oh, it's nothing nowadays," said Tom cheerfully. "Why, 
 look at Venables two years younger than me, and he's been 
 there and back three times already. If I make money, you 
 can all come out for your summer holiday." 
 
 "I will never consent," said Mrs. Churchill. "When you 
 are of age, you will be your own master ; but till then you 
 cannot be so cruel, so unfilial as to defy my authority." 
 
 In fact, she felt that her authority had ceased to exist; 
 and this was what others told her. She went about asking 
 advice from everybody the headmaster, the form masters, 
 the vicar of St. Alban's, and Mr. Barrett. 
 
 Mr. Barrett, the auctioneer, was not a person that Edward 
 would have wished his mother to introduce into these most 
 intimate troubles and perplexities. Truly, any snobbish- 
 ness that perhaps once flourished in a childish mind had 
 long since died. Had it at all survived to a later period, the 
 episode of Jarvis would have been a grand and final uproot- 
 ing of this noxious weed from the mental garden. Edward 
 did not therefore object to Mr. Barrett because of any caste 
 prejudices, but because the man himself seemed quite 
 unworthy of Mrs. Churchill's countenance and favour. 
 
 It was especially distasteful to see him ensconced in a 
 large rocking-chair that had belonged to the late Mr. 
 Churchill, a chair that the boys had been accustomed to 
 consider as an almost sacred piece of furniture, so hallowed 
 was it by sentimental memories. 
 
 "Don't go away, Edward," said Mrs. Churchill. He had 
 opened the drawing-room door, and, at the unwelcome sight 
 of Mr. Barrett, was about to close the door again. 
 
 "Mr. Barrett takes your view, Edward that it is much 
 better all this should happen now than later, and that I 
 must not be angry with poor Tom." 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Barrett, "I tell your dear mamma these 
 little accidents will happen in the best regulated families;" 
 and, joining his fat finger tips together, he uttered a string of 
 the tritest possible platitudes. "That is my advice to your 
 dear mamma," he concluded. "We can't any of us afford 
 to see her wearing herself to a shadow with the annoyance of 
 it. No, no. That wouldn't do," and he smiled, and nodded
 
 44 THE MIRROR AND THE LAME 
 
 his head "We also have to remember/' and he ceased 
 smiling and turned up his eyes: "The ways of Him who 
 preordains these small rubs and discomfitures are always 
 inscrutable, and we may therefore hope that everything will 
 turn out for the best in the long run." 
 
 Whatever one thought of Mr. Barrett, and however much 
 one disliked the manner in which his advice was tendered, 
 its matter was no doubt wise enough. In substance it was 
 what every one said, and Edward among the rest. Very 
 little reflection had shown him his clear and obvious duty. 
 He must, by making open rebellion appear something quite 
 natural to the ordinary course of events, save his mother 
 from grief and sorrow. An actual quarrel between her and 
 Tom must be avoided at all costs. 
 
 The quarrel, however, came. 
 
 For Tom presently absented himself for a day or two 
 without leave, merely sending a message to say that business 
 affairs had called him to London. When he returned, 
 although he spoke in what purported to be an apologetic 
 tone, he unfortunately gave one an impression of being in 
 fact almost truculently triumphant. Acting on what he con- 
 sidered to be a brilliant idea, he had hunted up their funny 
 old Aunt Jane, and she had consented to act as capitalist 
 at this crisis of his affairs. In other words, she would pro- 
 vide money for sufficient outfit and pay his passage to New 
 Zealand. This arrangement, Tom said, gave him great 
 pleasure, because it would relieve his mother from expense, 
 and she need not worry about things any more. Indeed she 
 might consider the whole thing as finally settled, because he 
 had received a most gratifying letter from Venables senior, 
 offering him employment on a sheep farm immediately after 
 his arrival. But far from sharing the satisfaction of Tom, 
 Mrs. Churchill was bitterly wounded by what he had done. 
 It cut her to the quick to think that he had appealed for 
 assistance to anybody but herself ; that he should have done 
 this without her permission, and, above all, that he should 
 have made the unauthorised appeal to Aunt Jane. Since 
 that visit to the Rose Hotel years ago, there had been no 
 further intercourse between the Churchills and their aunt. 
 Auntie had indeed made further overtures of good will, but 
 Mrs. Churchill, actuated by pride that was perhaps not
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 45 
 
 logically defensible, had discouraged them, and now for a 
 long time there had been silence. 
 
 With flashing eyes and blazing cheeks, she told Tom that 
 she would never pardon such an act of treachery; that 
 henceforth he might do what he pleased; that it did not 
 matter to her whether he went or stayed, because she felt 
 that she had already lost the son whom she had loved and 
 trusted. And, perhaps for the first time in her life, she 
 banged a door instead of closing it quietly behind her. 
 
 Tom looked very sheepish at the sound of this domestic 
 thunder, but he presently whistled and shrugged his 
 shoulders and said, "Of course she doesn't mean it. She'll 
 come round before I go. But now, as the fat seems to be in 
 the fire, the sooner I go the better." 
 
 Later on he asked Charles to tell him, as brother to brother, 
 whether he thought that there had really been such mon- 
 strous gilt in "biting the ear of old Janie." To which 
 question Charles replied guardedly that he really did not 
 like to pronounce an opinion, but that he honestly felt that 
 Tom was behaving very badly, and sacrificing every one's 
 feelings to his own whims and fancies. The ardour of Tom 
 seemed slightly damped by this reply, but presently rallying, 
 he said it was all a storm in a teacup, and that he thought the 
 world had gone mad to make such a fuss about nothing ; he 
 added that he felt it his duty to give both Charles and 
 Edward a faithful report of his visit to Aunt Jane, as it 
 might be useful to them for their future guidance. 
 
 "Between you and me and the post," he said, "the old 
 lady didn't welcome me, and I had to return to the charge 
 again and again before I could screw her up to parting point. 
 You never saw such a rummy house or such a queer way of 
 going on. Heaps of pictures and furniture and all that, but 
 the whole place looked beastly dirty. I saw at least half a 
 dozen cats, and she told me that since her dog died she had 
 taken to cats, but they could never make up to her for the 
 loss of Fluffy-face. Her maid not the one she brought 
 here seemed to boss the whole show, and to have the old 
 lady completely under her thumb. Anyhow, I persuaded 
 her at last to do the handsome, and she wrote a cheque while 
 the maid was out of the room, and told me to put it in my 
 pocket and say nothing about it. She said, too," and Tom
 
 46 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 laughed cheerily, "that it was all I need ever expect from 
 her; that none of us had any claim upon her; that all her 
 money was her very own, and that she could do what she 
 liked with it. I tell you this," he said, "for what it's worth. 
 I don't know whether you or Charles have ever built castles 
 in the air, but I often used to think myself that when the 
 old dame turned up her toes, something might come our 
 
 way." 
 
 In the days that followed, home ceased to be home. Tom 
 was busily occupied in his preparations, and Mrs. Churchill 
 rigorously ignored him. She refused to listen to any account 
 of his proceedings. At meal-time she would talk to him only 
 on indifferent subjects, and in the cold manner and tone of a 
 reserved and unbending stranger. 
 
 But of course Tom had diagnosed the situation correctly. 
 She did not really mean it. On the last evening that he was 
 to spend under the maternal roof her resolve broke down ; 
 she wept upon his shoulder, clinging to him. and calling him 
 her firstborn, begging that they might part as friends, assur- 
 ing him that she only desired his happiness, and promising 
 to pray for him night after night while he was crossing 
 the waste of waters. 
 
 Next morning early she and his brothers went to the rail- 
 way station to see him off. After he and his friend, young 
 Venables, had got into their compartment in the Dover 
 train, there were more tears and clinging during the pause 
 before the wheels moved and the train began to roll away. 
 Mrs. Churchill, supporting herself on Edward's arm, and 
 still sobbing, waited till the train vanished from, sight. 
 Charles stood a few paces from them, and slowly and 
 solemnly waved his pocket handkerchief. He still seemed to 
 be inexpressibly shocked by the whole of this affair. 
 
 Tom had gone, and for two months there was comparative 
 peace. 
 
 Then Charles, who had recently been growing moodier and 
 moodier, pushed his plate away from him at the supper table, 
 and spoke explosively. 
 
 "Tom was right. Tom was right all through. And 
 what's more, I'm not a bit better suited to be a sky-pilot 
 than he was."
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 47 
 
 Mrs. Churchill rose from her chair with such haste that it 
 fell over. Her lips trembled, and she became so white that 
 Edward sprang to her side, believing that she was about to 
 faint. 
 
 "Charles," she gasped, "what do you mean by such 
 blasphemy ?" 
 
 "I used a wrong word," cried Charles excitedly. "I in- 
 tended to say clergyman, and I said the other by accident. 
 But, mother, the fact remains. As Tom said, one can't get 
 away from facts. It would be madness it would be a crime 
 for me to go into the Church. I'm not good far from it. 
 I should be a slimy hypocrite if I pretended otherwise. I 
 should be a rotter of the deepest dye if I went on with the 
 'pi' programme any longer." 
 
 After this the trouble began all o/ver again, and Charles 
 caused more anguish than had been caused by Tom. Tom, 
 at least, had definite proposals to submit; whereas Charles 
 did not know what he wanted to do, beyond not wanting 
 to be a clergyman. For the second time Edward acted as 
 buffer, struggled to make rough things smooth, pleaded for 
 the rebel and sheltered the deposed ruler. But to Mrs. 
 Churchill it seemed like the solid work of her life going to 
 water before her eyes. It was monstrous and unbelievable 
 as though a smiling fertile landscape had been devastated by 
 a whirlwind, as though all the pleasant tranquil hillsides 
 had changed to roaring volcanoes, as though evil suffocating 
 fires had burst forth from fields of daisies and cowslips. 
 
 The headmaster of St. Martyr's, being again solicited to 
 give his advice, told her that only one thing was certain to 
 his mind Charles must leave the school. He had suddenly 
 developed unsatisfactory habits; he was becoming a bad 
 example to others ; he was "out of hand," and it would be 
 wise to remove him before he committed some flagrant 
 enormity. 
 
 "But what then what am I to do next?" asked Mrs. 
 Churchill. "Can you not help me with suggestions? You 
 have such great knowledge and I am only an ignorant 
 woman." 
 
 The Head, however, was empty of practical hints. Nor 
 did he for a moment appear to think that there was anything 
 unusual or surprising in his confession that a young gentle-
 
 48 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 man who had enjoyed his training for a considerable num- 
 ber of years might finally turn out rather badly. 
 
 "Possibly," he said, "a course of strong physical labour 
 such as may be obtained in, ah, an engineer's works, or, ah, 
 one of these experimental farms one reads of would dis- 
 sipate your son's sloth and stimulate his more healthful 
 energies." 
 
 While gravely escorting Mrs. Churchill to his front door, 
 he spoke with high approval of Edward, no doubt feeling 
 glad to pay a compliment after giving voice to censure. 
 
 "In the opinion of Mr. Jennings and I may say also in 
 my own opinion, so far as I have had a chance of judging 
 your third son exhibits very promising mental gifts. His 
 essays, especially, indicate, ah, high imagination, and a great 
 propriety of language. He is painstaking and orderly. If 
 I may say so, he strikes me as obviously being more the 
 material out of which clergymen are made than either of 
 the other two." 
 
 "Ah, yes," said Mrs. Churchill, sighing. 
 
 "Had you also thought of the Church for him?" 
 
 "Yes, constantly always." 
 
 "And he himself?" 
 
 "He thinks of it but that is all, so far." 
 
 Charles then ceased to be a St. Martyr's boy. He strolled 
 about the town in a perpetual holiday, smoked a meerschaum 
 pipe, made the acquaintance of the barmaid at the Crosier 
 saloon, and became the bosom friend of the marker at Kent's 
 Billiard Rooms. The vicar of St. Alban's told his mother 
 that she should not allow him to stay out so late at night, 
 and Mr. Barrett told her he had been seen talking to some 
 very undesirable companions in the lounge of the music- 
 hall. Lastly, she told herself that his manner of fixedly 
 regarding Maria's niece was not quite nice. 
 
 Maria, their still loyal and faithful servant, growing no 
 younger with the passing years, had come to need some slight 
 assistance in the household drudgery, and this young relative 
 had been introduced on probation. She was a black-haired, 
 red-cheeked, untidy girl, very avid for evenings out, and 
 inclined to be sulky to her mistress as well as impudent to 
 her aunt. Mrs. Churchill had already decided that somehow 
 without wounding Maria's feelings, she must be sent back to
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 49 
 
 her parents; and she was more sure than ever when she 
 observed Charles's idle eyes pertinaciously following her. 
 
 Alas, neither Maria's nor anybody's else feelings could be 
 spared. 
 
 Mrs. Churchill, entering her rarely-used drawing-room at 
 dusk, found Charles in the big swing chair with Maria's niece 
 on his knee. They were gently rocking the chair and whis- 
 pering to each other dreamily, as though they had already 
 rocked themselves to a kind of beatific waking trance that 
 might now at any moment change to sleep. 
 
 "Charles!" said Mrs. Churchill. 
 
 Charles, roused from his state of oblivion, made frantic 
 efforts to get rid of his burden and bring the chair to a stand- 
 still ; and the girl, disengaging herself without haste, put a 
 careless hand to her tumbled black hair, looked impudent, 
 and slipped away downstairs to tell Aunt Maria that she was 
 passionately fond of the young master and would marry him 
 to-morrow if he asked her. 
 
 She left for home the same evening. And three or four 
 days afterwards Charles went to London en route for Bir- 
 mingham, in order to begin his studies as an electrical 
 engineer in the workshops of a highly esteemed and go-ahead 
 firm. 
 
 It was Mr. Barrett to whom Mrs. Churchill had turned 
 in her utter despair who discovered this opening and 
 negotiated all the arrangements for the reception of the pupil, 
 the payment of the premium, and everything else. 
 
 "I don't know what I could have done without you/' said 
 Mrs. Churchill gratefully. 
 
 "Don't mention it," said Mr. Barrett. "There's nothing 
 I wouldn't do for you, if it was in my power."
 
 VIII 
 
 EDWARD and his mother were alone now. A delicious quiet 
 filled their home, and the only trouble was occasional scarcity 
 of money. 
 
 Tom, sheep-farming in New Zealand, wrote long letters 
 of which the unvaried gist was : This is a wonderful country ; 
 it affords great chances for capitalists, but is rough for 
 working men, and unfortunately life is very expensive. Mrs. 
 Churchill was sending him as an allowance exactly what he 
 would have cost at home, and he never asked for rr ^re ; but 
 each letter was a long rambling hint that he would 1 K:C some 
 more. 
 
 Charles, too, was a drain upon his mother's slender re- 
 sources, costing much more than one had hoped. He did not 
 get on well with the Birmingham firm, and another premium 
 was required to establish him at Manchester. Then he 
 moved to Edinburgh. From Edinburgh he launched unusu- 
 ally heavy demands; and Mrs. Churchill, revolting, told 
 Edward, "It isn't fair to you, or to me either. It is like 
 blackmail." The end of the debate, however, was always 
 the same : on Edward's advice, she sent the money. She and 
 he were happy together, and perhaps she secretly thought 
 that, if the absent ones were blackmailers, it was worth pay- 
 ing to be rid of them. Edward reminded her always of their 
 sterling virtues; but truly, though thinking of them with 
 tenderness, he felt that they had become strangers. They 
 had themselves wilfully broken the legend of love. 
 
 The most inopportune claim made by Charles was when 
 he found it necessary to visit the electrical works of Lyons 
 and Paris ; but once again the money was sent to him the 
 money that should have taken Mrs. Churchill and Edward 
 for a long summer holiday at a farmhouse in Cornwall. 
 
 It did not matter. They were so happy together, any- 
 where. They told each other that they did not need change 
 of air. St. Dunstan's was sufficiently near the sea. They 
 went out for days in the country, ate their luncheon on the 
 
 50
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 51 
 
 grass, had tea at pretty little roadside cottages; and the 
 people of St. Dunstan's who saw them coming home of an 
 evening said they were more like sweethearts than mother 
 and son. 
 
 So the years passed for Edward, with a happiness only 
 disturbed by self-questionings, until he came to be nineteen 
 years of age. 
 
 For the last time he had attended the Martyr's Feast as 
 a member of the school. His boyhood was over, but as yet 
 all that makes up the life of men remained uncertain. 
 
 One winter's evening, not long after the Celebration of the 
 Feast, he persuaded his mother to come to the service at the 
 cathedral instead of going to her favourite St. Alban's. She 
 went with him readily enough, and to have her by his side 
 added sweetness to the music and softness to the lamps. 
 
 Yet presently, when all rose to sing the Magnificat, he 
 forgot that she was there, and it was as if he stood quite 
 alone. 
 
 "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath 
 rejoiced in God my Saviour." 
 
 He was thinking ; but the glory of the song, the swell from 
 the great organ, the clustered lights, the grey columns that 
 lifted themselves out of shadow and hid their heads in dark- 
 ness, the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity 
 and its strength all these things seemed to have their part 
 as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his 
 thoughts. 
 
 It had been twilight when they came in, and the whole 
 fabric of carved and cut stone looked like a rich sepia draw- 
 ing of a church, with the painted windows faintly tinted by 
 the external light and giving one an impression of ghostliness 
 and mystery, while monuments at a distance gleamed 
 whitely and seemed to whisper of the dead. Now rapidly the 
 twilight deepened ; night began to flood the farther parts of 
 the church; the ghostly windows faded, the white tombs 
 vanished, great walls of shadow advanced until the worship- 
 pers seemed to be in a little church within the great one. 
 Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being 
 held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing
 
 52 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular 
 chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' 
 desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep 
 linen collars, and red neckbands. 
 
 Soon the song was over and Edward Churchill knelt, not 
 listening to the well-known words, but lost in meditation. 
 
 The inner and the outer life. An existence crowded with 
 incessant and meaningless action would make him the most 
 miserable of human beings he was, of course, certain of 
 that. He was sure of himself also to this extent : he would 
 infallibly forfeit real happiness if he merely strove for the 
 exaltation that comes from individual success. It would 
 be nothing to him ; for instance, to be a great soldier who led 
 armies to conquest and added whole continents to his native 
 land, unless he knew that he had been fighting for an altru- 
 istic cause. He thought of all the prizes that the world can 
 ever offer to what are commonly called men of action, and 
 they seemed to him worse than dust and ashes when com- 
 pared with the peace of mind that is sometimes gained by 
 humbly obliterating oneself for the good of others. 
 
 And yet action is inexorably ordained. That marvellous 
 inward stream of imagination, memory, hope, fear, frets 
 and rages against every barrier that shuts it from a seeming 
 issue into the great ocean of material facts. And the neces- 
 sity of action is constant. Quiet thoughts whose aim is 
 merely quiet change to storms of passion and revolt. Quiet 
 thoughts are rewards, not objects; and restlessness can be 
 banished only by fatigue. We must spend ourselves in 
 action and in thought. We must use every fibre of bodies, 
 exhaust each drop of blood, work till the work kills us, or 
 we do not live to the full. That is the second half of the 
 great enigma. He had been wrong in all his guesses ; the 
 bishop-suffragan was wrong; those old philosophers were 
 wrong. For neither the inner life nor the outer life is 
 One must live both, or one does not live at all. The 
 lying man must still fight life with action, or he will not 
 conquer death with thought. 
 
 And his ideas seemed in a moment to crystallise and 
 from many facets one splendid gleam of truth. 
 
 Christ offered the life of mental peace. Only by follow- 
 ing Him could one blend action and thought in a perfect
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 53 
 
 schema If on. ated as His faithful messenger one would 
 use all one's * jngth; one would fight and yet rest; and 
 even in hour ,v-hen the struggle was fiercest, when all that 
 the eye co.u.r' see was ugly and all that the hand could 
 touch was \ ^e, amidst brutal violence and wanton sin, with 
 the whole external picture changed to a huge kaleidoscope 
 of hell, the stream of one's inward thought would flow deep 
 and still as a river that glides invisible at night, as a river 
 moving calmly through the darkness to meet the light of 
 dawn. 
 
 "Teach me to live, that I may dread 
 The grave as little as my bed ; 
 Teach me to die, that so I may 
 Rise glorious at the awful day." 
 
 Slow waves of melody rolled from the great organ, rilling 
 the air with majesty and awe; the chorus of young voices 
 rose sweetly and clearly; each believing heart vibrated in 
 the song of praise. 
 
 And Edward Churchill whispered to himself, "This is my 
 call. This is my hour. This is all that I have been humbly 
 waiting for. Poor, weak, and vain as I am, my service is 
 accepted." 
 
 He thought of the grandeur of Christ, and of His cour- 
 age. He was braver than all the warriors the world has 
 ever seen. As highest possible commendation of the heroes 
 and war leaders of history, it is said that when enemies fell 
 into their power, they were lenient; sparing many. But 
 the whole human race were His captives, and He spared 
 them all ; for their sake He renounced the use of His infi- 
 nite power; and when He might have shattered the uni- 
 verse with one word of just anger. He accepted death and 
 torment at the hands of those whom He had come to save. 
 He was the Great Captain, the Hero of Heroes. What 
 other leader should a brave man want to follow? 
 
 Throughout the final verse of the hymn, Mrs. Churchill 
 was looking at her son and admiring his profile. He stood 
 very erect, with head well back, his lips shut, and his eyes 
 fixed on the cross above the altar. 
 
 Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing 
 was pronounced. The choir and the clergy trooped out
 
 54 
 
 slowly, through the open screen, down the nave to the west- 
 ern door. Two stately vergers with lanterns accompanied 
 them; and, as the glow of the lanterns passed on, the vast 
 nave seemed to spring into existence again, to become a 
 magnificent, a fabulous avenue leading far away into ^ the 
 night. At a seemingly immense distance the surpliced 
 group stopped to say the last prayer. No words reached 
 one; it was like an echo of the blessing. There came a 
 faint burst of song, a movement in which the stupendous 
 fabric seemed to join; then the lantern gleams vanished, 
 and all was dark and still. 
 
 A light covering of snow lay upon the ground, and as 
 Edward and his mother walked along a narrow swept path 
 the music of the voluntary followed them a little way and 
 kept them silent. 
 
 Then, when they had reached the streets and she had 
 taken his arm, he told her that he felt decided at last. He 
 no longer doubted himself. He had heard the call. 
 
 Mrs. Churchill could scarcely speak for joy. 
 
 "Oh, my son my true son. Oh, how I have prayed for 
 this ! You crown my life with gladness." 
 
 And that night she made their supper a feast; telling 
 old Maria that it was a never-to-be-forgotten occasion, that 
 hot dishes were to be cooked and confectionery purchased, 
 that the candles in the chimney sconces were to be lighted 
 as well as all the lamps. She wore her finest dress, put on 
 every one of her poor little ornaments, and looked radiant, 
 grand, and at least ten years younger than before. She 
 treated Edward as though he had been an august, illus- 
 trious visitor, bowing with a smile as she took his hand to 
 lead him to the supper table, and saying when he pro- 
 tested, "Do you realise that before long I shall be doing 
 more than bow? I shall have to kneel while you give me 
 your blessing." 
 
 And he, lending himself to her humour, ate the unusual 
 dainties, drank wine, and talked lightly, although, perhaps 
 just then a graver kind of festival would have suited him 
 better. 
 
 But after their meal they talked more seriously, and on 
 his side with a deepening sense of joy. That evening his
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 55 
 
 whole future was mapped out. The difficulty of ways and 
 means governed all their plans, and, indeed, little choice of 
 detail seemed possible. He would be ordained without any 
 avoidable delay, but in the four years that must intervene 
 he would try to be self-supporting. He would teach, write, 
 somehow earn some money; and, although they might 
 necessarily be separated for short periods, he would come 
 back here each time that he could. Then as soon as pos- 
 sible they would be united for ever. It was a hard life 
 that he traced so cheerfully; seeing himself in imagination 
 the vicar of some overcrowded London parish, who might 
 remain poor and obscure to the end of the chapter. But 
 he and she would be together, and they would be very 
 happy. 
 
 "That's a promise, mother, isn't it? You won't mind 
 leaving St. Dunstan's?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "And you'll stay with me always?" 
 
 "Yes," and, smiling, she spoke rather sadly. "I'll stay 
 until you have a wife to look after you instead of a mother." 
 
 "I shall never marry." 
 
 "Oh, that would be unnatural. / could not wish for that 
 greedy as I am for all your love." 
 
 But he told her that a priest did not need a wife. "Priests 
 should be celibates. I have always admired the Roman rule 
 of celibacy." 
 
 Mrs. Churchill shook her head. "No, marriage is a holy 
 and beautiful ordinance. A happy marriage can even raise 
 a priest." 
 
 "Mother, believe me. I want no one but you." 
 
 He had no dreams to-night. Directly he lay down in his 
 bed, where so often the nights had been more tiring than 
 the days, where as a child he had seen visions and heard 
 voices, where he had felt the pain of others so keenly that 
 it seemed his own, he sank into deep, untroubled sleep.
 
 IX 
 
 HE was roused next morning by his mother knocking at 
 the door. The post had brought her a summons to London, 
 and she wanted him to come with her. He must dress and 
 get some breakfast at once, and they would catch an early 
 train. 
 
 She appeared nervous and fluttered, but as she offered no 
 further explanation he did not question her. As they hur- 
 ried to the railway station, she told him breathlessly that 
 she had in fact been much agitated by the receipt of unex- 
 pected news. As always happens on these occasions, they 
 had time to spare at the station, and while waiting on the 
 platform she informed him that the principal part of the 
 tidings related to their Aunt Jane. 
 
 "Edward, she is dead. Her solicitors have written to 
 me, saying she died a week ago. That is not all but we 
 are to go and see them. Messrs. Joyce & Burdett in Gray's 
 Inn. They speak of legacies. Oh, I can't say more. But I 
 hope. I hope. I am in a fever to know the truth." 
 
 There were other people in their compartment, and 
 she was silent all the way to London. 
 
 At the solicitors' offices they were told that Mr. Joyce 
 would see them at once in his own room, but nevertheless 
 they were kept waiting in an outer apartment for a period 
 that to Mrs. Churchill seemed endless. Then at last, after 
 some compliments and civilities unendurably spun out, they 
 were seated in front of Mr. Joyce's writing-table listening 
 to the words that might change the whole current of their 
 lives. 
 
 "As I had the pleasure of advising you," said Mr. Joyce, 
 "the residue of the property is left in equal shares to your 
 three sons, Thomas, Charles, and Edward." 
 
 Mrs. Churchill was trembling so that she had difficulty in 
 asking her one great question. What did this mean exactly ? 
 How much money or how little was coming to her three 
 boys? "Please, don't keep me in suspense." 
 
 56
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 57 
 
 Mr. Joyce, a genial old fellow, laughed good-humouredly. 
 "Well, my dear madam, it is not El Dorado ; but it is a nice, 
 comfortable sum for young gentlemen beginning life. 
 Roughly, each share should bring in an income of six hun- 
 dred a year perhaps a little over." 
 
 And he explained that the capital sum would be handed 
 over to each of the young gentlemen on attaining his ma- 
 jority. But meantime the executors were empowered to 
 pay out income for maintenance, education, and advance- 
 ment. 
 
 "As you know, Mrs. Churchill, your relative was not 
 exactly like everybody else. I say it in no disrespect no, 
 certainly not but she was odd especially of late. I men- 
 tion it merely for this reason. I do not think you need 
 apprehend any trouble on that scorce on the validity of 
 the will. I thought you would be glad to know it. Yes, I 
 think I can safely assure you that everything is in order." 
 
 And he went on to say that the will, drafted by himself, 
 had been executed several years ago, and that quite re- 
 cently a codicil had been added. 
 
 "Yes," and he laughed again, "substantial provision was 
 then made for a servant, and for the guardianship and ade- 
 quate support of certain cats nine cats for the remainder 
 of their days. I dare say those cats may not live as long as 
 the testator hoped for the capital devoted to their en- 
 dowment does not return to the estate, but passes to their 
 guardian. Well, I welcomed that codicil for this reason. 
 From the legal point of view, it tended to strengthen the 
 will. Do you see, it not only brought the will up-to-date, it 
 also " 
 
 For a little while neither Mrs. Churchill nor Edward 
 found it possible to listen with attention. They were en- 
 tirely engrossed by rapid and quite uncontrollable thoughts. 
 
 Edward's first feeling was one of sorrow sorrow for 
 the queer, kind old woman who had died. He saw her in 
 imagination as he had seen her at the St. Dunstan's hotel, 
 jingling trinkets, chattering, fussing, tripping on her velvet 
 dress, and fondling the little dog. She was kind and gen- 
 erous. Why might she not enjoy a little longer the strange, 
 confused dream that her life had probably become? Then 
 immediately he was thinking, Why had she not died
 
 58 
 
 sooner? If the money had come sooner, Tom need not 
 have gone to rough it as a farmer. Charles, too Charles 
 could have been started on a prosperous course. Tom 
 would come racing home to claim his own he was already 
 of age. But it was too late for him to go into the Army. 
 If the money had come sooner, he and Charles could have 
 done what they liked. 
 
 And then, swift and unintelligible as lightning in a cloud- 
 less sky, he had a totally illogical thought about himself. 
 "Has the money come too late for me also? If I had 
 known of it, I could have done what / liked." But imme- 
 diately he recognised the folly of this reflection. "Why did 
 I think that?" he asked himself. "For I am doing what I 
 like. The money could have made no difference. Indeed, 
 in my case it has come at the very moment, the first mo- 
 ment, I wanted it." 
 
 Mrs. Churchill's thoughts were more completely jubi- 
 lant. 
 
 "'By the way, which of the three are you?" 
 
 Mrs. Churchill and Edward both roused themselves to 
 answer this direct question. 
 
 "The youngest? Really? And how old, may I ask?" 
 
 "A little over nineteen." 
 
 "You surprise me. I should have guessed your age as 
 more;" and Mr. Joyce looked at Edward with a studious 
 and kindly interest. "Yes, you look to my eye consid- 
 erably older." 
 
 "He does," said Mrs. Churchill, fondly. "Everybody says 
 so. It is his strength of character." 
 
 "I am glad to hear that," said Mr. Joyce genially; "be- 
 cause strength of character is an uncommonly useful thing; 
 and, if I may take the liberty of speaking with frankness, 
 you and your brothers may need it just now." 
 
 Then he offered Edward the wise advice that, as he ex- 
 plained, he would give to a son of his own if analogously 
 situated. 
 
 "For your sakes, I am inclined to wish that it had been 
 left in trust for you yes, I do. You see, the danger is 
 that young men not accustomed to manage money are apt 
 to fancy that six hundred a year is inexhaustible. But not
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 59 
 
 at all. Nothing of the sort. It is not nearly enough to live 
 on in idlessness. But mark this" and he became impres- 
 sive. "It is a golden key to almost any career you please 
 to choose. That is what you should keep before you : This 
 will be magnificent odds in my favour this lifts me above 
 the struggle that crushes the hearts out of so many able 
 men. I can work in comfort I can afford to bide my 
 time, if the work is not immediately remunerative. It 
 opens the world to me." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Churchill fervently. "That is what I 
 felt at once." 
 
 "And," asked Mr. Joyce, "have you as yet formed any 
 plans?" 
 
 Edward replied that he was going into the Church. 
 
 "Yes," said his mother, "he is going into the Church." 
 
 "The Church!" echoed Mr. Joyce. "Oh. Well, as 
 you're still so young, you have ample leisure. I should 
 not finally make up my mind too soon." 
 
 "It is quite made up," said Edward. 
 
 "But you may change it." 
 
 "That is not likely." 
 
 As he said this, Edward had a vivid memory of his bene- 
 factress as she came forward welcoming them in the hotel 
 room. Then he understood why he had thought of her 
 again so suddenly. She also had advised him to be careful 
 about making up his mind. And he had been careful. He 
 had waited until he felt the call. 
 
 "Well, if it is to be the Church," continued Mr. Joyce, 
 "independent means is everything there too. Starting with 
 six hundred a year, you ought to be a bishop before you're 
 fifty. I should keep that before myself. I should say reso- 
 lutely: With six hundred a year to help me along, if I 
 don't become a bishop at the least I shall have failed." 
 
 Then they talked a little business, and after that Mr. 
 Joyce bade them good-bye. 
 
 "One last word, Mr. Churchill. Never, on any pretence, 
 touch your capital. Consider it as a trust to pass on in- 
 tact. Make it a trust in your own mind, since my late 
 client didn't do it for you." 
 
 They walked away together through the crowded streets,
 
 60 THE MIRROR AND 1 THE LAMP 
 
 not knowing whither they directed their steps, and not really 
 caring. The sun shone upon them: all the world seemed 
 bright and gay and full of hope. 
 
 Mrs. Churchill felt an almost irresistible desire to spend 
 some money at once, in order to prove that the wonderful 
 change of fortune was real and not imaginary. An hour 
 ago cab fares were matters of great importance ; now walk- 
 ing instead of driving was a whim, an eccentricity, or an 
 amiable condescension on their part. Since the boys were 
 opulent personages, they would want no money from her, 
 and so she had become as rich as they. But it was solely 
 for them that in truth she rejoiced and above all oh, infi- 
 nitely above all she rejoiced for Edward. She kept 
 squeezing his arm, and murmuring. "Edward, do you 
 even now see what it means to you?" 
 
 "Yes, yes," he answered from time to time. He was 
 asking himself, "Why am I so glad? Surely I ought to feel 
 that it is nothing to me ? Why should I be puffed up with 
 this vainglory?" 
 
 In spite of their affluent circumstances, they had a frugal, 
 inexpensive luncheon, and they travelled back on the rail- 
 way, as they had come, third-class. But on the return 
 journey they obtained a compartment to themselves, and 
 this was just as satisfactory as if they had taken a special 
 train and sat in a richly upholstered saloon. 
 
 They sat side by side, he looking out of the window, 
 watching the trim landscape rush towards him and drop 
 behind, like a thing that one carelessly uses a moment, 
 then throws away and forgets; and she with her hands 
 clasped on his shoulder, looking up at his face, and talking 
 with the almost passionate admiration of a silly girl for 
 the strong silent man she loves. 
 
 "My darling, I glory in it. My dreams have come true. 
 In all my rejoicing yesterday there was just that drop of 
 bitterness what every mother would feel, but no one quite 
 so much as I. Do you understand? It made my heart ache 
 even while you talked so bravely that you would not 
 have what is given to so many : a grand and stately prepar- 
 ation the university foreign tours. And I thought: He 
 will be obliged to stint himself in garments, food, and lodg- 
 ing; he will be unable to pick and choose his curacies; he
 
 [THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 61 
 
 will always be driven by necessity to take what other men 
 leave;" and she raised herself to touch his chin with her 
 lips. "But now now you can have all. You shall be 
 surrounded with beautiful things the frame shall be 
 worthy of the picture. And all things will be easy for 
 you as Mr. Joyce said. You shall be a Prince of the 
 Church and as a very, very old woman, I will come and 
 receive your blessing on the cathedral steps. And people 
 will say, 'Who was it that the Archbishop spoke to so 
 gently?' And some one will answer, 'It was his mother. 
 . . .' Oh, my boy my own idolised boy, I'm so happy ;" 
 and resting her forehead on her hands, she burst into 
 tears. 
 
 He kissed and soothed her, holding her close to his 
 heart, as the train sped onward and the river, the shipping, 
 and the castle of Rochester swung into view. She was pas- 
 sive in the delight of his embrace for a little while, then 
 released herself and sat silent by his side. But it seemed 
 as if her emotion and excitement had been flowing out of 
 her into him. 
 
 His eyes brightened and he drew deep breaths. 
 
 Was she right to rejoice so greatly? Had he been timid 
 and lacking in faith when he fancied that his own elation 
 was vainglory? It seemed to him now, with the echo of 
 her fond words still sounding in his ears, that veritably this 
 money had come to him by divine design immediately upon 
 his vowing himself to Christ. He felt a thrill of immense 
 pride. The money implied that he was going to be used for 
 more delicate work than he had dared hope. Not only was 
 he chosen, but chosen for special purposes. He was not 
 merely to be one of the rank and file : he was to be a leader. 
 
 And he, too, thought of a splendid preparation for his 
 splendid task. University training! Yes, he must go to 
 Oxford, and stay there as long as possible. A priest should 
 not be too young. Entire freedom from hurry, intercourse 
 with polished intelligences, the opportunity of studying at 
 one's ease men as well as books all this he might enjoy 
 without fear, because it was appointed. 
 
 His ambition widened every moment. That dream of 
 the humdrum toil of crowded parishes seemed to be gone 
 forever; he must fit himself for the world-arena; he must
 
 62 
 
 learn to walk with dignity and confidence in palaces as 
 well as in cottages ; he must make himself an influence and 
 force. i 
 
 That was what the money meant to him. In this sense 
 it was a trust a sacred trust. After his preparation he 
 could deal with the money more freely. Even if he used 
 much of it for others, there would always be more than 
 enough left for himself. 
 
 And he thought of a claim upon his trust fund that must 
 be satisfied at once. For the rest of the journey he stren- 
 uously considered this first claim, making arithmetical 
 calculations in regard to incomes. He thought, "Six hun- 
 dred a year is almost twelve pounds a week. That is pre- 
 posterously too much for any one man. It is exactly six 
 times as much as is necessary. With two pounds a week, 
 even a man who was not capable of work would live in 
 comfort and ease. I myself should never need more, for 
 myself. Why, whole families often have less, and yet get 
 along all right. If now I have ten pounds a week instead 
 of twelve pounds, I can never know the difference." And 
 he determined that he would spend two pounds a week on 
 some one else ; he would secure it to that other person abso- 
 lutely; as soon as possible he would break into his capital 
 to this extent.
 
 NEXT day, while Mrs. Churchill was telling the wonder- 
 ful news to her friends and receiving their congratulations, 
 Edward went over to Sittingbourne to pay a call at a china 
 shop. 
 
 Common and ugly as was Wilson's establishment at St. 
 Dunstan's, this Sittingbourne branch was worse truly a 
 wretched place, dark, stuffy, with scarce space for the 
 humble customers to move among the piles of cheap 
 crockery. 
 
 "Can I see Mr. Jarvis?" asked Edward. 
 
 "What Mr. Jarvis ?" 
 
 "An assistant here." 
 
 "Oh, well," and the shopkeeper looked hard at Edward. 
 "He was an assistant here. That's true enough. Were you 
 a friend of his?" 
 
 "Yes, a great friend." 
 
 The shopkeeper seemed to search for appropriate words 
 before he said sympathetically, "Then, being a great friend, 
 how is it you don't know he's been dead better part of two 
 years ?" 
 
 The money had come too late for Jarvis. 
 
 Edward Churchill stayed in Sittingbourne till nightfall. 
 He went to the cemetery where his dead friend lay buried, 
 but sought vainly for the grave. A sexton at last showed 
 him the spot. There was nothing to mark it not a trace 
 of decayed flowers, not a rusted strand of wire, to say 
 that wreaths and crosses had ever been laid above the 
 sleeping head. 
 
 "But it's here or hereabouts," said the sexton, "and 
 there'll be no difficulty in locating it to an inch. I've only 
 to get the plan and the number, you know. And if, as 
 you say, you're wishing to put up a monument, why, come 
 straight along with me now. I don't know if there's any 
 firm you regularly patronise ; but, if not, can safely recom- 
 
 63
 
 64 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 mend Banks in Station Road. See that marble cross? It 
 came from Banks's. You can examine it as a sample of 
 what they turn out. And I've never heard their prices are 
 excessive." 
 
 Edward Churchill finished his business with the sexton 
 and the stonemasons, wandered about the town making 
 many inquiries, and quite late succeeded in obtaining an 
 interview with a clergyman who had known Jarvis well. 
 He could not have gone home without seeing this man. He 
 felt an imperative necessity to learn how Jarvis died. 
 
 "I fear I have kept you a long time," said Mr. Merrick, 
 as he entered the dull, cheerless room where his visitor had 
 been patiently waiting for nearly an hour. "Please be 
 seated." 
 
 He was an old, white-haired man with a thin face and 
 shaky hands, but directly Edward Churchill heard his voice 
 he knew that he was a faithful servant of God. 
 
 "Pray tell me how I can serve you, Mr. Churchill." 
 
 Then, after saying that he and Jarvis had been,,school 
 friends, Edward asked those questions to which, as it 
 proved, Mr. Merrick was able to give the ardently desired 
 answers. 
 
 Mr. Merrick had been with Jarvis several times before 
 the end, and at the end. 
 
 "And he received the consolation of the Church?" 
 
 "Yes, I administered the Sacrament for the last time 
 only a little while before he died." 
 
 "And you say you don't think he suffered much physi- 
 cally?" 
 
 "I think he suffered very little, scarcely ajt all." 
 
 "And in his mind? He was calm quite prepared?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "His faith never wavered ? He died in full belief ?" 
 
 "It was a beautiful death perhaps the most beautiful 
 death I ever witnessed." 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Merrick," and Edward got up from 
 his chair. "It is most kind of you to have let me see you. 
 But I know perfectly well that I need not apologise for 
 troubling you. I had a great respect and admiration for 
 Jarvis and you will understand my regret. Truly I am 
 so sorry so bitterly sorry for him."
 
 [THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 65 
 
 "Don't be sorry," said the old man, shaking hands with 
 Edward. "Why should you be sorry for him? Be glad 
 be very glad." 
 
 As he said this, his eyes glowed and his voice seemed to 
 strengthen ; indeed for a moment his whole aspect changed, 
 and one thought instinctively that only a few years ago he 
 had been a man in the prime of life, robust, vigorous, able 
 to bear fatigues and hardships. Next moment the light 
 faded out of his eyes, and, as he came shuffling through 
 the hall to the outer door, he was a feeble, worn-out old 
 man. 
 
 "Good-bye, Mr. Churchill." 
 
 "Good-bye, sir." 
 
 And Edward went away thinking, "Yes, one should re- 
 joice rather than grieve." But nevertheless sorrow re- 
 mained with him. 
 
 Thy will be done. 
 
 During the fully occupied weeks that followed he ceased 
 to think of his friend with such poignant regret. He and 
 his mother were continuously busy. Together they spent 
 nearly a fortnight at Oxford, making all arrangements for 
 his collegiate career. He was to go to a really good col- 
 lege, to have handsome, spacious rooms, to buy books, fur- 
 niture, and ornaments, on a liberal scale of expenditure. 
 Mrs. Churchill insisted upon all these matters, and indeed 
 took them out of his control entirely. 
 
 And so the time slipped by until the day came for him to 
 leave St. Dunstan's and go into residence at the Univer- 
 sity. That morning he felt both elation and sadness. He 
 was breaking away from his mother's home; he was turn- 
 ing his back on the ancient city that had sheltered his 
 youth. He would return again and again and again, but 
 perhaps St. Dunstan's would never seem to him quite the 
 same. 
 
 As he and Mrs. Churchill drove to the station, he looked 
 with loving, grateful eyes at the familiar streets and dear 
 old houses. It was a fine spring day, with every open space 
 full of strong light, and each shadow falling dark and firm. 
 The market looked like a garden of many colours ; and next 
 minute all the gaiety, noise, and crowd had changed to sol-
 
 66 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 emn peacefulness, as they passed beneath medieval walls 
 and narrow barred windows, and heard a faint bell-music 
 whisper in the air; and never till now had the spell exer- 
 cised by the whole place seemed so gently soothing and so 
 invincibly strong. 
 
 Even at the railway station he could feel it lingering, 
 holding. Only when he had waved his last good-bye, and 
 the train was bearing him away more swiftly every moment, 
 could he cease to feel it or think of it. 
 
 But no, the spell was not quite broken yet. Looking out 
 from his corner seat, he saw the city once more. How small 
 it appeared at this distance just a patch of buildings in the 
 waste of chalky slope and marshy plain, with its medley of 
 roofs mysteriously softened instead of illuminated by the 
 sunlight, and the three towers seeming to swim in a golden 
 mist. 
 
 "Small as it looks," thought Edward Churchill, "it is 
 great and must ever be great to an Englishman's heart. To 
 England, to all the western world, it is Christ's own metro- 
 polis, His court and palace, the inviolate home that we 
 built for Him with our hands." 
 
 And the full force of the spell was upon him for a little 
 while, even after the place itself had vanished.
 
 XI 
 
 EDWARD CHURCHILL passed five years at Oxford, and 
 throughout this time his confidence in himself was increas- 
 ing, his faith solidifying, and his ambition becoming more 
 definite. He was young, strong, with almost perfect physi- 
 cal health, and he believed that he was authorised to enjoy 
 to the full every innocent pleasure that offered itself 
 that is, if never for a single hour he forgot the solemn char- 
 acter of the task for which all this was a preparation. And 
 truly he never did forget. 
 
 Here in the wider sphere of University life, as in the 
 small world of school, he became popular. It was the same 
 gradual progress of increasing regard given to him without 
 effort or solicitation on his part. The dons liked him. The 
 college servants liked him. A constantly recruited army 
 of undergraduates liked him. 
 
 Little by little he grew to be a personage of estab- 
 lished position, a man of many friends, who belonged to no 
 particular set, but who passed freely through all the in- 
 visible barriers of social existence, by no means a great 
 'varsity light, but a quiet, unostentatious wielder of con- 
 siderable influence. He himself was but very vaguely 
 aware that he exercised any influence at all; but he was 
 quite conscious of the kindly feeling that so many people 
 showed him, and he welcomed the obvious fact with de- 
 light, thinking, "This is a good sign. The power to win 
 friendship or trust is what may prove of great value when 
 I begin my appointed work." 
 
 He had written in his diary, as a guiding note > 
 
 "A priest should be able to imagine all that others 
 can feel, to be acquainted with all that they can know, 
 to forgive all that they can do." 
 
 More and more surely he felt himself reserved for grand 
 and important things. Perhaps who knows? even his 
 
 67
 
 68 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 mother's dreams would come true. Everything at Oxford 
 fostered the largeness of ambition. It was the ancient 
 storehouse of intellectual force; every stone whispered of 
 ecclesiastical pomp ; the spirit of the place was aristocratic. 
 
 During his third year he deliberately abandoned any 
 chance of securing a high place in the Honours List. 
 
 He felt the necessity of a wider range of reading. He 
 studied biology, psychology, natural science. A priest 
 should not be afraid of "scientific truths," as they are so 
 pompously called. A priest should know as soon as possible 
 all that can be said against the real, living, imperishable 
 truth that it is his proud duty to expound and maintain. 
 To this end, also, he read not only all the most famous at- 
 tacks on the validity of the historical evidence supporting 
 the Christian faith, but the critical works of avowed 
 atheists. 
 
 Nothing that he read thus of set purpose moved him to 
 anything stronger than a faint contemptuous wonder that 
 men of powerful intellect, men trained in logic, should so 
 pitifully fail. The whole arguments of the materialists, 
 especially when supporting their disbelief in the immor- 
 tality of the soul, even in the existence of the soul, struck 
 him as peculiarly childish and absurd. Truly he felt sorry 
 for such people, saying in regard to revealed religion, "I 
 can accept nothing that you do not prove to me. I can 
 only advance in my belief step by step, after assuring my- 
 self that at every step I stand on solid ground;" and wil- 
 fully no, not wilfully, but blindly and insanely ignoring 
 the fact that their entire life in regard to matters other 
 than religion was composed of thousands of unquestioning 
 beliefs, of acceptances from moment to moment of the un- 
 proved and the unprovable. 
 
 Poor little people, who might have been big, but of 
 their own free will choose to be small ; who, as heirs to the 
 splendid heritage of a universe, renounce their succession, 
 and say, "This glimpse of daylight is all I ask, this bit of 
 earth which seems my birthplace I claim as my tomb, this 
 dim dream of trouble I hold and cherish, and cannot 
 barter against the unfolding pageant of eternity." 
 
 But just as he felt a sorrowful contempt for the folly of 
 those who try to trace bounds to the infinite with a yard
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 69 
 
 measure that is marked off to the tiny scale of inductive 
 reasoning, he was sometimes filled with admiration of their 
 patient research and the ingenious devices of experimental 
 investigation. Above all, he admired the courage of men 
 who had devoted what they thought was their all this 
 earthly life to examination of the human brain. Failing, 
 these said that failure was inevitable. It is in the nature 
 of things. Mind, according to them, is a function of the 
 brain. But thought and consciousness must ever remain 
 inexplicable. 
 
 And he thought, "No, one day we may know that also. 
 But the knowledge will flash into us from what these men 
 call the great void, and we shall recognise then, by 'the 
 irrefutable logic of facts,' that all we have prized and cher- 
 ished as the best of ourselves is outside us and not inside 
 us. Our brains are not apparatus that create thought, but 
 as yet imperfect instruments that impede thought. Thought, 
 as we know it, is a poor thing, yes. But the essence of 
 thought, the vital unchanging principle of our finite intelli- 
 gences, comes pouring through starlit immensity to fill us 
 with the potentialities of glory and force. In that sense 
 there is no end nor beginning to human thought." 
 
 All this seemed to Edward Churchill obvious and inde- 
 structible. The doubt of others confirmed his own convic- 
 tions. And he recognised the peculiar strength and virtue 
 of faith, by the beam of light, the bright dissolving ray, 
 that he, a humble but faithful believer, could cast upon the 
 dark confusion that had been left by the strenuous labours 
 of some of the greatest minds of the age. 
 
 Although his study of modern philosophy left him emo- 
 tionally calm, it was the stimulus that set him writing. He 
 had for a long time been making copious notes, and now he 
 attempted, as a regular exercise, to give expression to his 
 reflections or criticism. The guiding note in his diary was 
 a quotation from a treatise on psychology : "Be very doubt- 
 ful of the value of any of your thoughts unless you can 
 express it in explicit language;" and, guided by this severe 
 advice, he wrestled resolutely with the vagaries of a too 
 exuberant pen. Graces of diction, rhythm of construction, 
 and style, were to be of no account. One must say what 
 one had to say simply and forcibly: if one couldn't do so,
 
 70 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 the inference was that one really had nothing to say that 
 was worth saying. 
 
 Thus he wrote a series of essays linked together with the 
 main idea and purpose of utterly demolishing all those blind 
 and deaf scientists, their specious arguments and faulty 
 logic. He called them Builders on Sand, and thought that 
 one day he might publish a book with this title, or perhaps 
 only use his manuscript materials for sermons. At any 
 rate, he had no intention of publishing anything at present. 
 The writing was merely an exercise. 
 
 A pleasant and most engrossing exercise the hours that 
 he spent sitting with sported oak, hammering hard at his 
 main idea, squeezing it till it distilled itself in little rivulets 
 of ink, were altogether happy. Young men would beat upon 
 the door, shout, and laugh ; but presently his eyes returned 
 to the paper, and soon he did not hear a sound. Or when 
 he stood at his window, manuscript in hand, they called up 
 to him. "Churchill, you villain. You were there all the 
 time. Come down." He smiled and nodded his head to 
 them, for a few moments saw them, joyous and frank and 
 kind, with sunlight on their faces; he noticed the peaceful 
 beauty of the court, with its mellow red buildings, a spire 
 rising above the further roofs and black slow-flying rooks 
 in the sky and then after another moment he ceased to see 
 anything. That main idea had resumed its dominion; it 
 was clamouring to be expressed explicitly. 
 
 In his fourth year the writing habit had become so strong 
 that he determined that it was time to break it. But, before 
 bidding adieu to the attractions of foolscap paper, he could 
 not resist the temptation of testing in a practical manner 
 the value of what he had so far done. Taking, therefore, 
 his notes as a foundation, he completed two or three ar- 
 ticles and sent them to the editors of London reviews. To 
 his great pleasure one of these contributions was imme- 
 diately accepted by the editor of the Nineteenth Century, 
 and in the course of a few months he saw himself in print. 
 A further pleasure was given him by the receipt of three 
 or four letters from strangers who had read his article and 
 approved of the opinions that it contained. The college 
 dons also talked about it, and for a little while he enjoyed
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 71 
 
 the gratifying sensations of a successful author. Then, 
 just when he was forgetting all about the matter, he re- 
 ceived a final and astounding letter from some one to 
 whom he had never spoken, but who yet was not altogether 
 a stranger. He could scarcely believe his eyes when he 
 opened the envelope and read the address Lambeth Palace. 
 Those two words made him thrill with excitement. 
 
 "My dear sir," the letter began, "I have been very much 
 struck with the arguments for toleration which you so ably 
 put forward in your article, 'Ritual and Symbolism' in the 
 Nineteenth Century for July. It has only now been brought 
 to my notice, and I take the liberty of writing directly to 
 you." And his Grace, taking it for granted that the writer 
 of the article was a man of considerable experience in 
 Church discipline, went on to recite some of his own diffi- 
 culties as head of a not too obedient priesthood. 
 
 Edward Churchill replied to this letter, telling the Arch- 
 bishop that he was a St. Martyr's boy; and in due course 
 he received a second letter, in which his Grace said that he 
 would be glad to make his acquaintance should Mr. 
 Churchill be ever able to make an opportunity of going as 
 far as Lambeth. 
 
 Trifling as was this little incident, it was accepted by Ed- 
 ward as another omen of future grandeurs. It seemed to 
 him a wonderful and splendid thing that he should have 
 thus brought himself into touch with the Primate. He 
 showed the letter to his mother and to no one else ; and to 
 her it seemed like a definite promise of rapid advancement. 
 As Edward folded and unfolded the treasured document, 
 she seemed to hear the delicate rustle of the lawn sleeves 
 that he would one day wear. 
 
 That year they spent the Long Vacation on the Continent, 
 and really their tour was one long day-dream. Day after 
 day they talked of the gracious, dignified life that they 
 would lead together, as Edward rose from rank to rank in 
 the hierarchy of the Church. 
 
 It was rather a blow to her when he told her he had made 
 up his mind that, after all, that phase of work in a poor 
 and crowded parish must not be dropped out of the scheme 
 altogether. He considered it necessary. But now it would 
 merely be a further period of training another opportu-
 
 72 THE MIRROR AND" THE LAMP 
 
 nity of studying human nature a period in which he could 
 practise the art of preaching. Of course he would not stop 
 in humble or obscure surroundings a minute longer than 
 might be needed for his higher purposes. He would go into 
 the realm of cultivated people as soon as possible, and then 
 without an hour's delay he would provide a home for his 
 mother as well as for himself. 
 
 More and more she seemed to look to him as the well- 
 spring of all her joy. Indeed, pour soul, she had no other 
 source from which she could extract any comfort. Her two 
 other sons provided her with nothing but disappointment 
 and anxiety. Except for Edward, all the money seemed 
 worse than useless a cause of absolute distress. Thomas 
 Churchill, instead of coming home, had remained in Aus- 
 tralasia, wandering about those vast territories, squander- 
 ing his substance in stupid speculations, and, as she feared, 
 indulging in far from reputable amusements. She gathered 
 from guarded statements in his letters that he had a female 
 companion with him on these wanderings, and that if he 
 had not already married this person, he really ought to 
 have done so. Charles Churchill, without any shilly-shally, 
 had made a most imprudent marriage, allying himself with 
 a music-hall artist of worse than doubtful reputation. He 
 had said himself that, since his mother could not approve 
 of the marriage, he preferred not to introduce his wife to 
 the family circle. 
 
 Talking of these unhappy entanglements, Mrs. Churchill 
 often told Edward that they had made her very desirous of 
 seeing him suitably married in due course. She said that 
 when the time came and he found a really nice good wife, 
 she would welcome her with ardent delight, not only as a 
 daughter, but as a safeguard against the possibility of acci- 
 dents. In fact, she harped on this talk about his marriage 
 in a way that became painful to him. The idea coming 
 from her seemed strange and unnatural. Were they not all 
 in all to each other? He understood that his mother, in 
 talking thus, proved the depth and purity of her unselfish- 
 ness, but somehow it jarred upon him; he could not quite 
 understand it. 
 
 "But, Edward," she said, "you will fall in love one day. 
 It cannot be otherwise ; love is a divine law."
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 73 
 
 And he thought, "Yes, but not that kind of love." 
 Indeed, he had reached his present age without the faint- 
 est awakening of those normal instincts that usually have 
 such tremendous power, in spite of their vagueness, during 
 adolescence and early manhood. In regard to the other 
 sex, his thoughts and his feelings remained almost exactly 
 what they had been when he was a boy of twelve. In those 
 days he had admired little girls at juvenile parties for their 
 slenderness and grace and silky hair and pretty frocks. But 
 he had never cared for dancing with them ; and in anything 
 like a game they were simply a nuisance, by reason of their 
 incompetence and feebleness. He could not be bothered 
 with them. Considered merely from the point of view of 
 their weakness, they did arouse a sort of chivalrous im- 
 pulse a dim idea that if, for instance, they fell into water, 
 one would dive in and rescue them ; but as soon as one had 
 fetched them out and handed them over to their stupid and 
 inattentive guardians, one would say "Good afternoon," 
 and never see them again. Now, as then, in spite of his 
 strong sense of beauty, the living presentment of matured 
 feminine charms filled him with distaste. Standing by his 
 mother's side in these foreign picture galleries, he could 
 admire and feel something like reverential awe at the per- 
 fect symmetry, the life-like flesh tints, the sweeping curves 
 of the antique nude, but all such pleasure was entirely in- 
 tellectual; interest in the age of the picture, thoughts of 
 the patient painter whose hand had grown cold and stiff 
 hundreds of years ago, mingled with the appreciation of 
 a piece of art, and perhaps as an essential factor in this 
 pleasure lay the fact that what he gazed at was not alive 
 and real, but merely a coloured shadow upon a wall. If he 
 turned from the lifeless picture to some young and good- 
 looking woman at a few yards distance, the sight of this 
 live modern nymph immediately evoked a faint revulsion 
 of thought. The rounded solid forms of life, draped in 
 costly fashionable garments, were vulgar, disenchanting, 
 almost gross. 
 
 Towards the end of his last year at Oxford he took to 
 writing again, but now it was on a different plan. A con- 
 versation with his tutor had driven him back to psychology,
 
 74 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 and, after reading some of the most recently published 
 books of the Continental and American schools, he found 
 himself compelled to change his own instinctive views upon 
 the mystery of consciousness. Why? Only a year and a 
 half had passed since he was so absolutely firm in his stock 
 of broad ideas, and so confident in the solidity of their log- 
 ical sequence. Now he suddenly became aware of discon- 
 nected links, confusions, partial if not general fogginess. 
 Then he thought, "I have been reading too much I have 
 been absorbing too readily." Diffusive reading is perhaps 
 always destructive to individual originality, and he began 
 instinctively to dread the thought of others, as killing one's 
 own thought. Perhaps already he knew enough for his 
 purpose; he had made a wide foundation, he must begin 
 now to build for himself, or he would never do so. And he 
 determined that henceforth, except in regard to specialised 
 work, such as his theology, he would read only for recrea- 
 tion and not for the purpose of opening his mind. 
 
 It is better to make one's own discoveries, even though 
 they prove to be as old as the hills. Setting himself, there- 
 fore, the most difficult of all tasks to think for one's self 
 he tried to put down on paper a plain statement of his be- 
 lief in regard to the soul, the mind, and the human brain, 
 and he found that he could not do it. Tested by that 
 standard, the possibility of explicit expression, his thoughts 
 were too vague his thoughts were of no value. 
 
 Day after day, he struggled to express what he felt most 
 strongly, even if he could not translate his feelings into 
 set terms of belief ; but here again he failed, and failed in a 
 curious manner. For now each time that he turned to 
 spiritual explanations, material facts suggested themselves 
 vividly, and when he started from the basis of matter the 
 overwhelming claims of spirit asserted themselves. 
 
 But he could think allegorically and find ready words, a 
 hundred rapid turns of phrase, so long as he did not attempt 
 to combine the two methods of explanation. 
 
 At last he accepted his inability, and said "It is of no 
 moment. I will take mental sensation as I find it, and be 
 content with the certainties of faith." 
 
 Then he became comfortable, and he left his notes incon- 
 secutive or broken as they fell upon the paper.
 
 75 
 
 Meditating on the ceaseless activity of thought or con- 
 sciousness that goes with us almost from the cradle to the 
 grave, he said to himself, "Only in its restlessness can it 
 ever truly seem a reflection or even a parallel progress with 
 the incessant motions, the modecular readjustments of our 
 brain-material. But doubtless the entire substance of our 
 bodies is drawn upon to support this almost merciless activ- 
 ity of the inner unappeasable self the something that 
 knows no real respite even in sleep, that is at once a passive 
 spectator and an active controller, that makes the thought- 
 pictures which it sees and yet suffers because the subjects 
 of the pictures bring torment and despair more often than 
 peace and hope." 
 
 At this point he felt the break in the sequence of his 
 ideas; and he began to think of the soul as a lamp which 
 burns bright and clear, illuminating the mirror which is the 
 mind and for perfect peace the mirror should show noth- 
 ing but the steady flame of the contented soul. And think- 
 ing again of the ugly pictures that are memories, coming 
 unbidden, not to be driven away, shown to us by the 
 mirror whether we will or no, and causing a sickness of dis- 
 satisfaction with self, he said, "Yes, I know that this at 
 least is true." Then, as if automatically, his pen made a 
 note 
 
 "And God means men to realise the necessity of 
 goodness teaches them by mirror and lamp." 
 
 He thought, "Perhaps wicked men, sunk in sensual vice, 
 have veiled the mirror with encrusted dirt, so that they see 
 no glimmer of the lamp. But probably not. Glimpses of 
 light they still have : sufficient to make them suffer transient 
 remorse." Then he wrote another note 
 
 "Or the flame of the lamp may burn low and dim 
 in its thought-cavern, and all may seem smoky and 
 obscure when the thoughts are bad, unhappy, foolish. 
 But happy, innocent thought feeds the flame, and the 
 breath of the flame is thought-vapour that rises, and 
 can rise as high as heaven a fragrant incense for the 
 throne of grace."
 
 76 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 He went back to theological studies, and left his notes 
 untouched; but out of them there had come, most strongly, 
 that image of the' mirror and the lamp an image that pre- 
 sented itself again and again, until he came to use it as a 
 thought-token or symbol always, saying to himself: "It 
 shall be my guide, and I will trust to none other. Whether 
 I stand or fall, I will live by the Mirror and the Lamp,"
 
 XII 
 
 WITH some of it on the south and more of it on the north 
 of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and 
 the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history 
 was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the 
 East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the but- 
 tressed height of railway viaducts, rendered airless by huge 
 walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a 
 stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit. 
 It was forlorn without being tragic, hideous and yet not 
 thrillingly terrific; it had no salient features; it was not 
 picturesque like Limehouse, not maritime like Poplar ; there 
 was none of the gaiety and squabbling good-fellowship of 
 Jewish districts ; there came into it no colour or relief 
 from strangely garbed Asiatics. Dusty and grey in sun- 
 shine, black and sinister at twilight, it seemed to be the 
 place of work without hope, vice without joy, pain that has 
 become so much a habit that it is no longer felt. 
 
 If those who knew the parish best had desired to claim 
 for it a single distinguishing characteristic, they would 
 probably have put forward the attribute of unusual noise. 
 Generally the sounds of the East End are mechanically 
 produced the rattle of trams, the murmur of moving 
 wheels, the scroop and jar of swing bridges opening and 
 shutting, the fussy clamour of steam cranes; but, except 
 in the big streets, people do not themselves contribute 
 largely to the babel. They go about their work, never as 
 elsewhere stopping to stare or lingering to wonder. There 
 is neither idleness nor curiosity. But in St. Bede's the 
 racket of mechanism seemed all day long to concentrate it- 
 self, and at dark the human voice grew loud in meaningless 
 chorus. 
 
 And from various causes the home of religion appeared 
 to be the very heart or focal point of St. Bede's noisiness. 
 The church, the vicarage, and dependent buildings, had for 
 companions a ginger beer manufactory and a tobacco ware- 
 
 77
 
 78 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 house; the board schools were close by; the railway line 
 sprang slantingly from pier to pier, flung its arches or girders 
 above top windows, and divided the immense chimney tow- 
 ers. The streets here were paved with stone, so that the 
 clatter of wagon horses aided the thunder of passing trains; 
 fifty sorry little shops made a commercial centre, and at 
 nightfall costers regularly wheeled in their barrows, sta- 
 tioned themselves at immemorial pitches, filling the road- 
 way, forming a lamplit market from kerb to kerb. 
 
 Inside the vicarage one had almost the same amount of 
 noise as outside, but with a local and individual atmosphere 
 of confusion as well. From the roof-tree to the basement 
 boards, its inmates, except when asleep, were always busy, 
 always trying to do more than was humanly possible, know- 
 ing that it was so and yet still trying. Only after repeat- 
 edly frustrated attempts could the vicar, his wife, or the two 
 resident curates sit down to eat, to read, to write; and, 
 when seated, no one was ever comfortable ; each was wait- 
 ing to be made to get up again. 
 
 Mr. Walsden, the vicar, was a short, square man of about 
 sixty; an eager, quick-moving, plain-speaking man; a 
 shrewd, kindly, brave creature, but not at all intellectual, 
 and quite devoid of poetry or romance. The only beautiful 
 thing in his life was his faith, which had mingling with it a 
 missionary spirit that burned undimmed. He was worldly 
 only in his knowledge of the world. He did not allow 
 people to impose upon him, and rapidly detected the rascal 
 tricks of jail-bird converts who called in order to announce 
 that they had found salvation, but who really wanted to 
 find the silver spoons or anything else they could nip off 
 with. 
 
 Missionary zeal was certainly the strongest note of his 
 character the desire to carry the sacred torch to all regions 
 of darkness. As a young man, he had spent some years at 
 a mission in Africa the real thing, honest man-eating 
 blacks all round one, whole-hearted enjoyment. He loved 
 it. In his sermons he often drew on the experiences of that 
 happy period telling the usual sort of missionary anec- 
 dotes with immense gusto, not fearing to shock the suscep- 
 tibilities of the over-refined, calling a spade a spade. Prob-
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 79 
 
 ably it was while among the plumed cannibals that he had 
 acquired a habit of saying exactly what he meant in the 
 most forcible manner, and entirely neglecting grace of dic- 
 tion. 
 
 Mrs. Walsden, a sandy, washed-out little woman, was 
 just the devoted wife that such a man requires. Her faith 
 was as great as his, and her energy scarcely less remark- 
 able. She worked for and with him, labouring at guilds, 
 mothers' meetings, sick funds, what not; acting as house- 
 keeper, secretary, and district messenger; she would fast in 
 Lent as an example to others, play the church organ, go 
 on her knees to pray for the good of the dead or to scrub 
 some filthy bedroom floor for the convenience of the living. 
 In the same breath she offered a wretched parishioner soup 
 tickets, coals, and divine consolation. The one grief of her 
 life had been loss of offspring, and its constant regret was 
 that Mr. Walsden had not married her in time to take her 
 with him to Africa. 
 
 The children two weaklings had died in a Lancashire 
 town; poisoned, as the parents thought, by the foul smoke 
 and miasmic air to which the higher call of duty condemned 
 them. They would have lived in the salubrious climate of 
 Africa. 
 
 Their miniatures hung upon the drawing-room wall 
 sham miniatures, some dreadful coarse process of glori- 
 fying photographs by the gift of crude colours; and there 
 were larger, untinted portraits of the poor mites hanging 
 in the vicar's study. When showing them to visitors he 
 would blow his nose violently, brush his bandana hand- 
 kerchief across his eyes, and say, "The Lord gave, and the 
 Lord has taken away. We both loved them. Perhaps the 
 Lord will give again. My wife has ten years of the child- 
 bearing period still before her. If a child of our old age 
 were vouchsafed to us, it would be very precious." 
 
 "An' I'm sure I 'ope so," said Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Jones 
 or whoever it happened to be. "I've bin through it myself. 
 P'raps you recollect the fun'ral of our little Jane." 
 
 But there was no time to listen to the guest's expressions 
 of sympathy. Sad thoughts, like everything else at the vi- 
 carage, had to be got through as promptly as possible. The
 
 80 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 rule of the house, which all habitual visitors well under- 
 stood, had been borrowed from America : State your busi- 
 ness; do your business; and go about your business. 
 
 "Let me see, Mrs. Jones, I signed your book, didn't I? 
 Then good-bye. Shut the door after you but don't bang 
 it." 
 
 "Thank you, sir." 
 
 "Who is next? Who is out there? Come in." 
 
 Truly it was an endless bustle. Men, women, and chil- 
 dren stood waiting in the hall ; a servant was always wanted 
 at the front door to let the right people in and out; the 
 curates ascended and descended the stairs; Mrs. Walsden 
 dived down into the kitchen to help the overwrought cook 
 in preparing doles of broken victuals; and Mr. Walsden 
 was here and there and everywhere, in his study one mo- 
 ment, and the next moment at the far end of the long pas- 
 sage that led to the church rooms, but always announcing his 
 situation by a running fire of talk. 
 
 "Emily, can Mr. Emart have the use of the drawing-room 
 for those girls? No, the confirmation class. . . . Hop- 
 kins says there is a bad escape of gas in the club cellar. 
 Yes, of course. Send for Mr. Kay. . . . Emily, it is the 
 singing class. Some one says the piano's locked. No, it is 
 not locked. Use your strength, Smart, my dear fellow, 
 force it open. The wood has swelled that is all. . . . 
 Now, my dear child, what do you want? . . . But why 
 do you come here? Go back to the dispensary. See Miss 
 Lacy. The vicar's compliments to Miss Lacy, and will she 
 be kind enough to attend to you at once. . . . Where is 
 my hat? . . . Can any one tell me what time we have 
 our food to-night ? Mrs. Walsden must know. Cook, what 
 time did your mistress order supper? Oh, dear, that is the 
 church bell. Silence, please. Do listen. Has the bell be- 
 gun?" 
 
 And then perhaps practised ears straining themselves 
 caught, as if miraculously, the monotonous clank of the bell 
 making a kind of dull beat or rhythm amidst the hubbub. 
 
 Into all this Edward Churchill was plunged one winter's 
 evening. 
 
 "Sir," said the maidservant, "the new curate's in th' 
 'all."
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 81 
 
 Mr. Walsden rushed out of his study, calling upstairs as 
 he came. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Churchill," and he shook hands warmly. 
 
 "Emily, Emily. It is Mr. Churchill. Oh, dear, there is 
 that bell. Look here, I am doing a service. Yes, the bell 
 is ringing for me. Would you care to come too? Then 
 this way. . . . Kate where is Kate? Somehow get Mr. 
 Churchill's luggage taken up to his room but do not do it 
 yourself, Kate, or you will only hurt yourself again." 
 
 Edward noticed the beads of perspiration on Mr. Wals- 
 den's forehead, the queer smell in the long passage through 
 which they were hurrying, the greasiness of a large map 
 against the distempered wall; then they went through a 
 large and a small room that obviously were used for parish 
 work, up some steps, and into the vestry; and a minute 
 later he was on his knees in the church, with closed eyes, 
 praying for strength and courage. 
 
 Indeed he felt that all his courage was necessary to open 
 his eyes and look about him without distress. 
 
 The church was almost unbelievably ugly. Built of yel- 
 lowish brick, it had courses of glazed tiles running horizon- 
 tally round its bare walls ; columns of iron encased in plas- 
 ter were another attempt at decoration, rather than any 
 adequate or real support for the galleries under which they 
 stood in rows ; the pavement right up to the altar steps 
 consisted of the sort of coloured and formal tessellation 
 that is found in hotels and swimming baths ; the pews, pul- 
 pit, and lecturn were made of highly varnished and clumsily 
 moulded deal ; the eastern wall had stencilled texts on white- 
 washed scrolls, and the table of the commandments in gold, 
 with two or three gaudy banners. Fortunately night had 
 robbed the stained glass windows of their terror. In the 
 gaslight one could only just see that they were bad, but 
 one could not guess how bad. 
 
 The service began, and the congregation perhaps thirty 
 women and half a dozen men, all respectably dressed 
 seemed devout. The cries of costermongers outside made 
 an unceasing chorus; even while the organ played, one 
 could hear trains passing on the nearest bridge; when the 
 four surpliced choristers began to sing, two of them were 
 out of tune.
 
 82 
 
 Half an hour ago, as he drove in his four-wheeled cab, 
 Edward Churchill had felt the violence of the contrast be- 
 tween such scenes and the spacious, tranquil grandeur of 
 Oxford; and now in God's house he thought of St. Dun- 
 stan's Cathedral. Only by assiduous mental effort could 
 one remember that the same deity was worshipped in these 
 astoundingly different places. As the service proceeded 
 he thought of the church that he had regularly attended 
 while at the University the fervour of its chanted prayers, 
 the richness and completeness of the ritual. He had liked 
 his college chapel, but his real religious duties had been 
 performed at St. Mary's, in the town. 
 
 His discomfort increased. Every minute he became more 
 conscious of surprise and disappointment. In truth he was 
 feeling now what he was to feel for a long time that aching 
 sense of loss when of a sudden all that is beautiful has 
 gone out of the life of one who loves and craves for beauty. 
 He had prepared himself for the effect of contrast, but it 
 was a contrast of an entirely different kind. He had 
 thought, "The uglier I find the aspect of material existence 
 in this sordid neighbourhood, the more lovely will be, by 
 comparison, all that pertains to its spiritual life. To turn 
 from one to the other will be to enjoy light after dark- 
 ness." But now it seemed to him that this church and the 
 surrounding streets were all one; matter, not spirit, gov- 
 erned them; if those shouting costers came and cried their 
 wares in here it would scarcely seem a sacrilege. 
 
 Mr. Walsden entered the pulpit, began to preach, and 
 Edward Churchill thought almost indignantly, "Why has he 
 deceived me? He gave me to understand that he was a 
 Catholic. He said he hated the term Anglican. But he and 
 his people are not Catholics at all. They are Protestants. The 
 service is not even what used to be called High Church ; it is 
 Low. We shall not think alike on a single point. I shall have 
 to tell him this plainly. Meanwhile, I blame myself for 
 having acted so hastily. It was stupid to accept the first 
 chance that offered. At any rate, I ought to have come here 
 and seen for myself, instead of taking so much for granted." 
 
 And then, not listening to the sermon, he thought of how 
 he would explain matters, both as to his inclinations in 
 regard to ceremonial and his habit of mind when interpret-
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 83 
 
 ing articles of faith. He thought: "I and all those with 
 whom I have associated and wish to associate are not in the 
 least slaves to terms, and we only insist on them because of 
 the plain meaning they convey. That is why we must use 
 that word Catholic and hold firm to its significance. We 
 belong to the Catholic Church in England, which is exactly 
 the same church as in the Martyr's day at St. Dunstan's 
 it has been an unbroken succession down the long splendid 
 line of archbishops. It is the same as Roman Catholicism 
 except that we threw off allegiance to the Pope at a certain 
 period of our history ; and the allegiance, in fact, had been 
 slight, because before the unhappy quarrel and split, the 
 Popes had always recognised our right to considerable lib- 
 erty as the great Western pioneers or colonists. Nowadays, 
 then, we are one with the Roman Catholic in everything, 
 except that we do not recognise the Pope, nor the modern 
 inventions or developments of the Papacy such as Mari- 
 olatry, the Immaculate Conception, and so on. But these 
 are trifles compared with the great principles of faith which 
 remain unchanged, and which are identical with them and 
 with us. First and foremost, the Mass the Sacrifice of the 
 Eucharist ; and I must tell Mr. Walsden that if he does not 
 want me to teach this straight sequence of penitence, con- 
 fession, remission of sins, and the eucharistic sacrament 
 well, I can't teach anything at all, and he had better let me 
 go before I unpack my things." 
 
 Then he folded his hands and listened. The preacher was 
 finishing an anecdote, which he had introduced as an illus- 
 tration, about some bad and preposterous act committed by 
 a naked black man. "I didn't blame him" and Edward 
 noticed the tone of Walsden's shrewd kind voice, and his 
 simple enthusiastic manner. "No, I didn't blame him. No, 
 poor fellow, he sinned in ignorance as you and I, my 
 friends, make our mistakes, and think we are all right 
 cock-sure, sometimes, that we are right, just when we are 
 most wrong." 
 
 After the service was over and the congregation had all 
 gone out, Churchill went back to the vestry. Mr. Walsden 
 was hurriedly unrobing himself, and perspiration in thicker 
 beads showed on his bald forehead. He introduced 
 Churchill to the curate who had been assisting.
 
 84 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 "Smart, here is Mr. Churchill. Smart will show you round 
 to-morrow. Smart knows the ropes none better. Now 
 where is Mr. Hopkins ? Hopkins, I must explain, is a church 
 warden and an extremely good fellow and he is bringing 
 me the printer's proofs of some balance sheets. But why 
 isn't he here? Oh, I do wish people would be punctual. 
 Smart, do go and look for him." 
 
 Then, alone with Churchill, he spoke jovially. "Well, 
 what do you think of us?" 
 
 Churchill hinted at his wonder. 
 
 "Ah, I see." Walsden pulled a chair forward, and sat 
 down by the table. "Oh, dear, where are the pens and 
 blotting paper ? Shut the door, please. Look here. Are you 
 very advanced ? Tell me your position precisely." 
 
 But Churchill found now that he could not state the 
 reasons of his disappointment with the firmness and uncom- 
 promising method that had seemed, such a little while ago, to 
 be necessary. Something in Walsden's aspect, as well as in 
 a memory of his sermon, made it impossible to say anything 
 that could conceivably wound. However, speaking very 
 gently, he nevertheless succeeded in expressing his most 
 fixed opinions with clearness. 
 
 "That's all right," said Walsden. "I quite agree in 
 essentials. Shake hands ;" and he stretched his hand across 
 the table. "You and I will get on together. You're frank 
 and open. You don't beat about the bush. It would have 
 been a blow to me if you didn't like us, because we were 
 so glad to get you." 
 
 Then he went on to say that to him personally outward 
 form was of very little consequence. He conducted matters 
 exactly as his predecessor had done, because the heads of the 
 congregation had petitioned him not to make any changes. 
 "I agreed at once. As I say, I don't attach much importance 
 to it. But Mrs. Walsden would like it the other style your 
 style. She points out, truly enough, that one ought to go with 
 the tide. In many respects it would be advantageous. But 
 you and I will talk of this at length." 
 
 Just then there came a tapping at the door. 
 
 "Ah, that is Hopkins at last;" and Mr. Walsden con- 
 tinued very rapidly and cheerily. "Take my word for it, 
 you'll settle down with us all right. Give us a trial anyway.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 85 
 
 .... Come in, Mr. Hopkins. . . . This is Mr. Churchill, 
 who, as you are aware, is good enough to come to us for his 
 diaconate, and, as we hope, for much longer; and being a 
 gentleman of independent means, he declines to take any 
 payment." Saying this Walsden rubbed his hands together 
 and smiled contentedly. "A very welcome, kind, useful 
 present, that means to the parish. By the way, Hopkins, 
 let this go no further. We don't want the tale running 
 round that a rich person has arrived. Churchill, my dear 
 fellow, we have such greedy sharks, and wolves in lamb's 
 clothing. Oh, dear, there's so much to tell you, so many 
 warnings to give you, but all that must be postponed for 
 the moment." 
 
 At the vicarage, supper was ready and waiting for every- 
 body, but nobody came to the dining-room: There were 
 still people in the hall, the front door opened and shut every 
 minute, Mrs. Walsden and the cook bustled up and down 
 the kitchen stairs with parcels of provisions. 
 
 Finally, however, the assembly at the supper table was 
 complete Mrs. Walsden standing up to carve a joint of 
 cold boiled beef, Mr. Walsden sitting by her side, and 
 begging people to take of a new jar of pickles, Mr. Smart 
 eating heartily, and Mr. Gardiner, the other curate, eating 
 very sparingly. Mr. Gardiner had appeared last of all, and 
 the sight of him in his cassock, making the sign of the cross 
 as he murmured a grace before he sat down, was cheering 
 and comforting. He was small, dark, and very thin, with 
 an ascetic face. Smart, on the contrary, was large and 
 rather smug; evidently not quite a gentleman, although no 
 doubt a very good Christian. Instinctively Churchill liked 
 the small man in the cassock much better than the big man 
 in the frock coat. 
 
 "Will you not patronise these pickles?" said Walsden 
 hospitably. "The wife, bless her heart, makes a pilgrimage 
 to Barking for them. We get them from a dear girl yes, a 
 sweet, good girl who lets us have them at wholesale price. 
 It is all above board no hankey-pankey. They allow her 
 the privilege at the factory. Smart, help yourself. Smart 
 is a tremendous fellow for our Barking pickles." 
 
 And then, to Churchill's profound astonishment, he ad- 
 verted to the conversation in the vestry.
 
 86 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 "Emily, our friend and I have already had a brief chat 
 on the most serious topics. Far too brief unfortunately 
 we were interrupted. But strictly in the same connection, 
 there was something that I particularly wanted to tell you, 
 Churchill. It has slipped my memory. What was it? 
 Candles ? Vestments ? Those banners ? Oh, dear !" And 
 he tapped his forehead and closed his eyes, searching for the 
 lost thread. 
 
 Churchill sat looking at his plate. It seemed incredible 
 that such sacred matters should thus be publicly and casually 
 dealt with. 
 
 "Ah! I have it. With regard to ritual generally I was 
 telling you we all see we are not up to date, and it is a great 
 handicap. We put ourselves completely out of the fashion. 
 Yes, I ought to warn you, perhaps, that here, where the 
 fight is stiffest, scarcely any help comes from outside." 
 
 And he went on to say how smart society folk arrived in 
 batches to do "East-Ending," but never entered this 
 parish. Father Halliday at Poplar, Mr. Iredale at Canning 
 Town, Mr. Reeves of Bow were in close touch with 
 the swells, could command their presence at club openings 
 and prize-givings, and did not hesitate, when pressed for 
 funds, to ask for a Fancy Dress Ball at the Albert Hall, or 
 a matinee at a West End theatre. Mr. Lock, of Burmah 
 Bridge, famous for his sensational advertising, was regu- 
 larly patronised by a princess of the blood, who thought 
 nothing of driving along the East India Dock Road in a 
 royal carriage. But all these clergyman practised the choic- 
 est and most picturesque rites; they were strictly fashion- 
 able, and therefore interesting and sympathetic to people 
 whose entire life was ruled by fashion. "They and their 
 grand friends not only leave us out in the cold, they look 
 down on us." As he said this Walsden flushed, and his 
 voice for a moment showed emotion. "Yes, I cannot but 
 admit, the clergy all round have not shown, either to Mrs. 
 Walsden or myself, a very generous spirit. They ignore us 
 they cut us as much as they can." 
 
 Mrs. Walsden had silently put her hand upon his coat 
 sleeve, and he lifted the hand to his lips and kissed it. 
 
 "All right, sweetheart. You are always right. We can 
 get on without the fine birds or the fine feathers."
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 87 
 
 "And you forget the Verschoyles," said Mrs. Walsden. 
 "Always remember the Verschoyles." 
 
 "Ah, yes, indeed," said Walsden gaily. "They are made 
 of different stuff." And he told Churchill about this kind 
 rector of St. Ursula's and his sweet wife, and the charming 
 qualities possessed by both of them. Verschoyle often in- 
 vited Walsden to preach in the handsome church of St. 
 Ursula, and he himself would always come cheerfully to 
 preach at St. Bede's. Morever, once when Mrs. Walsden 
 was ill, Mrs. Verschoyle acted as sick nurse, and took the 
 patient home with her to spend a fortnight in the beautiful 
 rectory, resting and picking up strength. 
 
 But now the maid came into the room and checked Mr. 
 Walsden's busy tongue. A person who was too dirty to be 
 admitted desired an interview. Would the vicar go and 
 speak to the person at the door? 
 
 "Yes, Kate, certainly I will;" and Walsden jumped up 
 from his chair. 
 
 "Do you want your supper kept for you.-"' asked Mrs. 
 Walsden. 
 
 "No. I have had quite sufficient." 
 
 Edward Churchill watched the vicar as he bustled away. 
 Then he glanced at the vicar's plate with the cold meat and 
 pickles still on it, at the nearly full glass of ginger beer, at 
 the hunk of bread out of which only a corner had been 
 nibbled. The vicar had been talking so much that he had 
 lost his opportunity for eating. And it came to Churchill 
 as a sudden thought a thought like those which years ago 
 often seemed to come from nowhere that one must not 
 criticise this perspiring old man. So there and then he 
 determined never to question him ; to be docile towards him, 
 to submit to his judgment whenever possible; to act to him 
 as youth should act to age, as a subordinate to a superior 
 officer. 
 
 The turmoil went on no rest, no peace. He had done 
 some unpacking and had been out in the streets. It was 
 nearly eleven o'clock now, and he strolled out again. In the 
 little fair created by the costers' barrows the evening only 
 seemed beginning; and the naphtha flares made one's eyes
 
 88 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 ache, the men's voices grated harshly, the girls' faces sad- 
 dened one. He came back to the vicarage ; but there was 
 no rest yet. Two young women stood on the threshold, and 
 Walsden was talking loudly as he hustled a loafing man 
 out of the study and through the hall. 
 
 "Christ never said anything of the sort, nor I either. And 
 it is a bit of great impertinence your saying so. Now be 
 off. And don't venture to show yourself here again until 
 your heart is softened." Then he turned from the door. 
 "Oh, dear, that is very discouraging. I quite thought that 
 his heart was permanently softened." Then he turned once 
 more. "But I'm forgetting. Now, Nancy Burton, what is 
 it ? You know, it is getting late." 
 
 At last such indications as a bolted front door, lowered 
 gas jets, and candlesticks on the hall table, announced that 
 the vicarage day was nearly if not quite over. Edward 
 had decided to go to bed, when Walsden called up the stairs 
 after him. 
 
 "Look here. If you're not tired, do come into my room, 
 and have a pipe and a chat. Will you?" 
 
 "With the greatest pleasure." 
 
 Mr. Smart was in the study, but soon, yawning woefully, 
 he apologised for his sleepiness and left the vicar and 
 Churchill alone together. 
 
 "This is a treat," said Walsden, with a contented sigh. 
 "An hour stolen from oblivion. Sleep's good, but this is 
 better, eh ? We keep such hours for Sunday nights as a rule 
 but one must make exceptions." 
 
 His manner, even his aspect had changed ; the hurry and 
 fussiness disappeared; he spoke quietly and pleasantly. 
 Churchill noticed the change, and believed that he under- 
 stood it. This was what the man would be normally and 
 always, were he not almost working himself to death. 
 
 "Light up," said Walsden, "and make yourself comfort- 
 able. You must have the arm-chair." 
 
 "Oh, no." 
 
 "To oblige me to-night, at any rate." 
 
 But Churchill insisted that the host should occupy his 
 own proper chair, and presently he was leaning back in it 
 smoking complacently. Nevertheless he observed Churchill
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 89 
 
 with great attention, for the first time able to study the 
 newcomer at his ease. 
 
 "You have a fine athletic frame although so spare. How 
 tall are you ?" 
 
 "Exactly six feet." 
 
 "In your stockings ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And how old? You told me, but it has slipped my 
 memory." 
 
 "I am not quite twenty-five." 
 
 "Dear me. You look much older. Yes, I should have 
 guessed you at thirty-two, or thirty-three. How is that? 
 Have you passed through much trouble?" 
 
 "No. I have had an unusually happy life." 
 
 "Then it must be because of your self-possession. You 
 have great self-possession." 
 
 "Have I?" And Churchill, standing by the chimney- 
 piece and filling his pipe, smiled down at Walsden in the 
 arm-chair. 
 
 "I don't mean side," and Walsden laughed up at him. 
 "No, I see very well you aren't that sort of Oxonian. But 
 you have presence. A very good thing too." 
 
 Then they smoked and talked for a long time, and it 
 seemed that in every minute they liked each other better. 
 
 Walsden, speaking of the propagation of the Gospel in 
 foreign parts and of happy days under a tropical sun, ex- 
 pressed wonder that Edward had been able to remain in 
 England. "Yes, I rather wonder that, with your means, 
 you did not treat yourself to a few years of that. It is very 
 delightful the freedom the reality of it and so healthy. 
 For a rich young man, full of vigour most attractive. 
 Although I need not say how glad I am you chose us instead. 
 When I heard you were coming, I said, 'This is a godsend in 
 the truest sense of the word ;' and I sank on my knees and 
 offered up a few words of thanksgiving. My wife will tell 
 you." 
 
 Edward replied that he had often thought of missionary 
 enterprise and had been greatly drawn towards it, more par- 
 ticularly in regard to a Javanese mission that was the work 
 of Oxford men. But then he abandoned this idea, together 
 with many others, because he had slowly arrived at a settled
 
 90 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 conviction of the soundness of the theory of doing the thing 
 nearest to your hand. "And the Commercial Road is so 
 much nearer than Java." 
 
 "Well, that's a good answer too a very good answer;" 
 and Walsden smiled and nodded his head. 
 
 And another reason, as Edward explained, was his 
 mother. She was alone ; he did not like to leave her and 
 he told Walsden briefly how he hoped soon to make a home 
 for her, and have her with him. "She and I are very 
 dependent on each other ; and outside her affections, religion 
 is all in all to her." 
 
 But there was still another reason, a strong selfish reason ; 
 and Edward Churchill, while unfolding this, would have 
 perhaps seemed priggish but for an obvious absence of 
 conceit, and if he had not spoken as though he now felt a 
 complete confidence in Walsden's wisdom and an absolute 
 assurance of his comprehending sympathy. For a moment 
 or two Walsden perhaps felt that Mr. Churchill was about 
 to ride the high horse, get on stilts, or even indulge in 
 Oxford swagger; but then he listened with growing 
 approval of the young man himself. He liked the steady 
 outlook of eye, the virile yet tender expression that played 
 about the lips, the repose of the whole mask that was so 
 strong in the width of brow, and so unsensual in its clear- 
 cut nose and narrowed chin. There was certainly great 
 charm of manner, and surely there must be gifts that would 
 prove useful as well as ornamental. Yes, behind it all 
 there must lie a radiance of soul ; a pure, sweet, but forcible 
 mind, from which thoughts sprang in a lofty sweep, lit up 
 with the soul-radiance thoughts not in themselves valuable 
 perhaps, but beautiful as water thrown from a fountain 
 into sunlight. And as Churchill went on expounding his 
 views, Walsden thought, "This is a rare bird in the East End 
 an intellectual aristocrat, and not merely a person of 
 fashion, like one of Father Bryan's crowd;" and with the 
 thought came the beginning of a quite unreasoned love. 
 Instinct told him that henceforth he would love his deacon 
 as much as he could love any individual without detriment 
 to love of the entire race; that, whether he wished to do 
 so or not, he would bring him as far forward from the 
 ruck of humanity as was proper or permissible.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 91 
 
 With regard to his other reason against exile in rough 
 wild lands, Edward said that a fullness and completeness of 
 the inner life meant so much to him that he dared not 
 relinquish or even jeopardise it. "To that extent I am 
 selfishly and schemingly a man of thought. To me, the 
 supreme beauty of the Christian faith is that it satisfies the 
 reason. If brooded on it floods the widest minds. Its 
 philosophy is as perfect as the faith ; and its adaptability is 
 so wonderful. It is so simple and yet so all-embracing 
 that, despite of two thousand years of progress, in all the 
 intricateness and complexities of modern life, there is 
 nothing that it will not answer. No predicament can befall 
 the wisest man but Christ will put him straight. And this 
 makes the intercourse among thinking Christians so pleas- 
 ant. They can help one another. When assailed by doubts, 
 they can derive support from their allies. And surely that 
 must be the greatest glory of the priest or, say his most 
 subtle joy when some noble mind comes to him for aid; 
 when the priest fights and beats down the doubts; when 
 he chases them like devils through the stately halls of the 
 man's mind fights them in the throne-room, the ante- 
 rooms, and outer chambers, driving them headlong at last 
 from the thought-palace, and leaving its splendid peace 
 unbroken. 
 
 "Well then, you can't have this among the savages. We 
 of the civilised world are too high above them ; our thoughts 
 are unthinkable by them. They are as science tells us 
 where our remote ancestors were in the scale of human in- 
 telligence. There can be no communion of minds. You give 
 them the bare facts and call upon their faith. With them it 
 must be all faith because they have no reasoning faculties 
 to satisfy. If they are attacked by doubt, it must be the 
 sort of devil that can be knocked on the head with a blud- 
 geon. Something you said in your sermon sums it up. You 
 told us that black preachers do the quickest work that 
 converted heathens are the best missionaries to the heathen, 
 because they are in closer sympathy or harmony of ideas. 
 Then nearly all the higher powers of an educated man 
 would seem wasted. To go as a young man might mean 
 the renunciation of one's dreams or hopes of ever doing the 
 higher class work of our Master. After all, He has devel-
 
 92 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 oped the delicate instrument of men's brains and it cannot 
 be wrong to hope that He will let us use the instrument 
 all of it in His service. 
 
 "I am afraid this sounds vainglorious it is not con- 
 sciously so," and Edward had a deprecating smile. "It is 
 complete selfishness perhaps. And I trust you don't think 
 I am belittling the noble work of the life-long missionary. I 
 can see that, even from my own point of view, it may be 
 more Christlike the renunciation of the joy of thinking 
 the grandeur of giving all. And practically it may be a 
 more noble a more widely useful task. Because the mis- 
 sionary is moulding future generations. In a sense he is 
 rough-hewing, without set pattern, for God himself; he is 
 preparing, for God to complete in future ages, the clumsy 
 models that he has bravely attempted to shape. Better, I 
 mean, when all is over better to have been the man who 
 made the first rough harpsichord than the man who went 
 about the villas to set the pianos in tune. That might be 
 the philosophical view of it." 
 
 "I can see one thing, young gentleman you are a philos- 
 opher yourself. You look all round questions. And not a 
 bad thing either. Oh dear;" and Walsden sighed plain- 
 tively. "This has been very refreshing; and I could sit 
 smoking here till dawn but then I should go about my 
 work to-morrow half asleep ; and I do assure you, you want 
 your eyes wide open in St. Bede's."
 
 XIII 
 
 EDWARD CHURCHILL never forgot the impression made 
 upon him by the first Saturday evening and the Men's 
 Club. Truly there could be no need to go to Java: the 
 savages were here, all round him. 
 
 Before visiting the club he was taken fqr a little tour of 
 exploration by Mr. Smart, who said rather sententiously, 
 "The vicar has charged me to show you round, and if agree- 
 able to you I will do so, although I cannot profess to be a 
 highly skilled guide. My own duties lie in a small area, and 
 I do not willingly go out of it." 
 
 They passed from the noise and lamplight of the market- 
 ing centre into dark and comparatively empty streets; and 
 Mr. Smart spoke again with the same sententious tone. 
 
 "To-night, of course, is the great East End festival, and 
 one should be prepared to be somewhat shocked if one is not 
 used to it, but our particular week-end has obtained more 
 notoriety than it deserved because of the murders ;" an i he 
 said a few words about the series of abominable crimes 
 concerning which the world still talked. 
 
 "But did the murders happen here ?" asked Churchill. 
 
 "Two of them and both on Saturday night. That, of 
 course, seemed so very daring it being a time when there 
 are more people passing to and fro. Excuse me a moment." 
 
 They had stopped outside a greengrocer's shop, and Mr. 
 Smart spoke to the shopman. 
 
 "You'll be at the club later?" 
 
 "No, not to-night, sir. The missis has got comp'ny." 
 
 The level of the shop was about two feet below the pave- 
 ment, and it was merely a room from which the glass 
 window had been removed, and on the walls of which a 
 few deal shelves had been fixed. The stock consisted of 
 onions hanging in strings and some large piles of potatoes 
 and small piles of turnips and carrots. Nothing in the 
 nature of green vegetables was visible. The door behind the 
 shop was open, and one could see in the gaslight an end 
 
 93
 
 94 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 of a bed with four people sitting on it, a woman rocking 
 a cradle, five or six other people standing and drinking 
 a compact and quite contented evening party gathered to- 
 gether within a space of perhaps nine feet square. 
 
 "Dance is one of the vicar's pillars pillar of the Church, 
 I mean," said Mr. Smart, as they walked on. "Quite a good 
 type. . . . Now this will interest you ;" and he dropped his 
 voice, as if anxious not to be overheard by any passer-by. 
 "This is the scene of our last murder." 
 
 They had come to a corner where a fairly wide street 
 opened suddenly on their right between a high blank wall 
 and the back of a factory. The glimmering light from a 
 lamp-post near the corner showed one but a few yards of 
 this avenue, and then all became opaque darkness. 
 
 "Cul-de-sac," whispered Mr. Smart, and he advanced a 
 little way towards the darkness, moving cautiously, as one 
 who half expects something to spring out at him. "There. 
 We won't go any farther. I can hear voices," and he put 
 his hand on Churchill's arm. "There is a gate at the bottom, 
 which the workpeople use in the daytime. Now, of course, 
 everything is shut up, so no one has any business down 
 here" Then in a still lower whisper he said, "There's a 
 man with two women. They will make a fuss if they think 
 we are prying on them. Come." 
 
 Churchill's eyes, growing accustomed to the gloom, could 
 just distinguish three motionless figures at a little distance 
 by the wall. 
 
 "Come along," said Mr. Smart. "We have the light 
 behind us, you know, so they can see us quite plainly ;" and, 
 turning, he drew Churchill away. 
 
 "What sort of women are they?" 
 
 "Oh, the most unfortunate class regularly leading a life 
 of shame. There are thousands and thousands of them; 
 and your great surprise, when you get to recognise them, 
 vill be their sordid and miserable appearance. One 
 wonders, don't you know, that any man could fall so low as 
 to be lured by them. But there it is;" and, moving off 
 from the ill- famed spot, Mr. Smart resumed a conversa- 
 tional tone and seemed more at ease. "I am glad you saw 
 that because it was really a peep behind the scenes. You 
 can imagine all the rest. The victim and her chance com-
 
 95 
 
 panion went down as far as the gate and then, just out of 
 sight but quite within sound, the deed was done. As a fact, 
 there was no sound made." 
 
 "But those women we saw were they safe ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. Two of them, don't you see ? Besides, the man 
 those two were with was probably quite a respectable fellow. 
 You know what I mean ;" and Mr. Smart chuckled smugly, 
 as if he had made a joke. "I mean, a million to one that 
 he wasn't a murderer. . . . Now, see. This also is typical. 
 Good-evening, officers." 
 
 "Good-evening, sir." 
 
 A couple of policemen had passed side by side, and Mr. 
 Smart remarked upon the fact that only at this end of the 
 town do the police go on duty in pairs. He assured Churchill 
 that there was a very necessary caution in this habit, since 
 single policemen had on occasions been most mercilessly 
 knocked about indeed, even two at a time had been 
 maltreated. 
 
 "You know, theoretically," he went on, "the cloth is 
 always respected. Mr. Walsden declares one need never 
 fear personal violence. It is a saying that the doctor and 
 the parson may go anywhere with few exceptions. Per- 
 sonally, I confess I think our friend Walsden pushes the 
 theory too far. For instance, to-night he asked me to take 
 you through the worst places, as if it was the most natural 
 thing in the world and it would have been just the same 
 if he had been asking me to go alone. Although," and Mr. 
 Smart laughed, "I might not have accepted the invitation 
 so readily. For though I have never yet been threatened, 
 I have several times been grossly insulted." 
 
 "I would always go with you if you would be good 
 enough to let me to answer any call." 
 
 Smart said he would be delighted to avail himself of this 
 offer, and he should certainly remember it; but he added 
 that, for the most part, he preferred to remain in the imme- 
 diate vicinity of the church and the church rooms, attending 
 to parochial organisation. The other curate, Gardiner, was 
 fonder of going afield. 
 
 It was curious, but instinctively, invincibly, Churchill liked 
 Mr. Smart less and less. He seemed deficient in sympathy, 
 narrow of outlook, unimaginative. And there was some-
 
 96 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 thing very jarring about his talk of danger. Churchill 
 thought of the police: merely paid servants of the public, 
 who have to go anywhere one by one, or two by two at 
 the call of duty. And if a policeman may face all risks, 
 surely a servant, a soldier of Christ may do so. 
 
 From the side streets they came in a moment to the main 
 thoroughfare, and were amidst streams of people, the trams 
 and omnibuses rattling by, gaslight flaring, and a cold wind 
 blowing. Outside a small music-hall, drawn by the blaze of 
 electric light and the gaudy pictorial advertisements, the 
 crowd had assembled so thickly that it was difficult to get 
 through ; then, when the pressure lessened, one had to make 
 a detour in order not to interfere with ragged, dirty children 
 dancing in front of a piano organ ; and all along the broad 
 pavement one had to steer wide of flaunting girls who were 
 followed and often surrounded by groups of pallid boys and 
 young men. The girls some of them quite young were 
 smartly dressed, as though for a summer promenade on 
 some seaside pier; with bolero hats set jauntily on curled 
 fringes, cream-coloured or mauve jackets fitting close to 
 their hips, and many-tinted skirts and scarfs flapping in 
 the chill breeze. All their faces were painted and powdered. 
 
 "O crikey, look at the Devil-dodgers," said one of them, 
 and she laughed hoarsely, calling after Smart to give her a 
 kiss next Good Friday. 
 
 Another of them nudged Churchill's elbow and said, 
 "Cheer up, ole pal. Don't look so glum. What price 'oly 
 water?" 
 
 "Who are these young women ?" he asked Smart. 
 
 "Well, how shall I express it? They are, so to speak, 
 amateurs but I fear, from a moral point of view, as com- 
 pletely lost as the er professionals." 
 
 After less than a hundred yards of the main thoroughfare 
 they turned back into a slanting street that seemed to be 
 another market-place, and busier, more prosperous, more 
 cheerful than the one they had left behind them at the 
 church. Just at the bottom of this street a man had sta- 
 tioned himself on an island of pavement where the trams 
 and buses stopped, and he was loudly preaching to the 
 empty air. Tram passengers stood close to him, hawkers 
 with baskets brushed against him, some little children played
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 97 
 
 all round and almost through his legs ; but not a living soul 
 listened, or even took the faintest notice of him, as he 
 ranted about heaven and hell. He was a finely built man, in 
 his physical prime, black-coated, of the superior mechanic 
 class, with a handsome, strong face, and staring eyes that 
 had no flash in them, but just vitreous fixity of stare. 
 
 Mr. Smart said what Edward Churchill was thinking. 
 "There's an obvious madman. You can see it in his eyes." 
 
 They walked up the street, all among the stalls, and 
 Churchill noticed a brightness and gaiety that came as a 
 great relief. The shops seemed much better than any 
 he had yet seen, the people better clothed, healthier, and 
 more like men and women anywhere else. Respectable 
 mothers of families put their purchases in perambulators 
 and smiled at wide-awake babies, girls and young men 
 walked together as if they were engaged couples, and a 
 soldier in uniform carried a jolly little chap astride on his 
 neck to see the fun. 
 
 "We have got beyond the boundary of St. Bede's," said 
 Mr. Smart. "This is not in our parish. But as soon as we 
 cross the water we shall be back again." 
 
 Almost immediately they turned out of the street, left the 
 cheerfulness of this more fortunate parish, and, passing 
 through an alley, came to a footbridge over a canal. In this 
 open space one could look about one, and Churchill saw with 
 surprise that the moon had risen and was shining palely and 
 sadly in the midst of a wild, cloud-swept sky. There was 
 moonlight on the water, the mud banks, and the slate roofs 
 of lean-to sheds. 
 
 They crossed the footbridge, went under a railway arch, 
 and entered a street that ran parallel with the canal. 
 
 "Now we are back in St. Bede's," said Mr. Smart whis- 
 peringly; "in the very worst part. Criminals, really bad 
 class here. Gangs only waiting to set on any stranger 
 rob him, kill him, chuck his dead body in the canal;" and 
 he linked his arm through Churchill's, and led him slowly. 
 "It is never advisable to appear to hurry. They don't like 
 that and then they get suspicious." 
 
 It was terrible: oppressing the imagination, making one 
 not timorous but appalled. The streets were straight, set 
 very close together, and over the low roofs the interminable
 
 98 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 brick viaduct threw its shadow by day and made the nights 
 darker. There seemed to be scarcely any street lamps ; the 
 houses, with windows all tight-shut and black as the walls, 
 gave only a gleam here and there from an open doorway ; so 
 that, but for the moonlight, it would have been like a cold, 
 evil-smelling cavern like some labyrinth underground, like 
 a deep-buried inferno where one dreaded but could not 
 guard against chance contact with the dwellers in darkness. 
 
 Yet one almost wished that the moon would not shine; 
 for all that its rays showed was so ugly, so vile, so fantas- 
 tically sinister. One saw, as if sketched in grey and silver 
 on black paper, small courts that issued out of the street 
 at intervals narrow irregularly shaped openings with 
 shanties rather than houses on either side, seeming like 
 the assemblage of roofed shelters where poultry would be 
 kept and not human beings ; and one knew that just beyond 
 the bottom of such courts, divided from them by some 
 crazy rails, if divided at all, there was the deep fosse of 
 the canal with its black slimy flood ready to hide every 
 secret. The air, although impregnated with unpleasant 
 odours, seemed every moment to grow colder and thinner, 
 as if the breath of famine had long since exhausted its 
 warmth and sustaining virtues. And an extraordinary life- 
 less silence reigned over everything. 
 
 There were very few people about ; but, as Churchill and 
 his guide walked slowly on, people seemed to come flitting 
 like phantoms, all silent of footfall, voiceless, taking strange 
 shapes as they merged from shadow, moving through a 
 patch of moonlight and melting in further shadow. Then 
 one began to notice men standing in doorways; men quite 
 unexpectedly crossed the road just in front of one, or passed 
 out of one house into another, as if the whole district was 
 the common dwelling of one vast wicked family. 
 
 "We must not go back the way we came," whispered 
 Mr. Smart. "They are very easily upset. If they fancied 
 they were being watched or exhibited, it would get on their 
 nerves Hush I" 
 
 A large man and a very small woman had come out of a 
 beer-shop at a corner and were now walking by their sides. 
 The man was like Bill Sikes and nobody else to be met with 
 in fact or fiction. The woman was middle-aged, dressed in
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 99 
 
 a black gown and bonnet, and she looked like an old- 
 fashioned pew-opener who had been left out in the rain for 
 weeks and got so sodden and dilapidated tJ'at birds or boys 
 might mistake her for a scarecrow. Churchill guessed, but 
 tried not to believe, that she was one of the unhappy persons 
 described by Smart the professional siren of the slums. 
 
 The man spoke, but although close to him one could not 
 hear his words. 
 
 "How was I to leave," expostulated the woman, "with- 
 out saying good-night to 'im?" 
 
 The man spoke again, and again inaudibly. 
 
 "I merely addressed the word good-night to him. That 
 is all I said to him." 
 
 The man spoke once more, growling; and the woman 
 seemed to trot forward as a dog does when sworn at by its 
 master ; and then both of them vanished. Where ? Utterly 
 impossible to say. Round an unseen corner, through a dark 
 entry, behind the red curtain of another tavern. They 
 seemed to be walking close by, a little way ahead, and at 
 one's side again, and in a moment they were gone, and 
 Churchill and Smart walked on alone. 
 
 So they went through street after street, now near the 
 viaduct arches, now losing sight of this landmark, and Smart 
 remarked in a whisper that sounded huskily tremulous, "The 
 the bother is that it's so easy to lose one's way. Let 
 us turn down here. No. I am wrong. That's a cul-de-sac. 
 We must keep on." 
 
 Then presently he paused, irresolute. "I I think we 
 must retrace our steps though I don't like doing it. W-what 
 do you think ?" 
 
 Churchill was not given time to answer. For at that 
 moment there came from somewhere quite near, a piercingly 
 shrill cry. It was the scream of a woman, and scream fol- 
 lowed scream. 
 
 Truly it made one's blood run cold; it seemed to be the 
 concentrated expression of all one's accumulated horror; 
 the thing that one had been fearing and anticipating and 
 vainly hoping that one might somehow escape being forced 
 to hear. 
 
 "It is this way. Yes, it is here." Churchill had rushed 
 frantically and Smart had clung to him, impeding him. Now
 
 100 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 Churchill shook him off at the entrance of a court. In the 
 moonlight they could both see two women fighting desper- 
 ately, while four or five men stood calmly watching. 
 
 "You you'd much better not try to interfere," stam- 
 mered Smart. "I wish you wouldn't. Then I I'll run for 
 the police." 
 
 Only by their garments could one have known that they 
 were really women. The shrieks had quieted down to snarl- 
 ings, squealings, gasps, and they clutched and tore at each 
 other now, with the wild fury of animals. The men, hands 
 in pockets, watched without excitement ; neither applauding 
 nor criticising; merely shifting their position in order to 
 make room when the combatants swung or rolled towards 
 them. 
 
 "You brutes, help me." Churchill, dragging at one of 
 the women, felt the disgust, the anger, and the impotence 
 that are usually experienced by anybody who, without a 
 strong stick, and unaided, attempts to stop a dog fight. "Help 
 me, you blackguards." 
 
 "No business of yours," said a man apathetically and not 
 in the least wrath fully. "It's our business." 
 
 "Then do your business. Quick. Catch hold of her." 
 
 The man, with leisurely movements, stepped forward, put 
 his arms round the waist of the woman who still remained 
 free and who was taking every advantage of her freedom ; 
 and now he quietly drew her away. 
 
 "There, stow it." And another man began to curse both 
 women heartily. "Jer see get indoors." 
 
 Churchill looked round, and the women were there no 
 more. Like dogs they had crept to kennel at the master's 
 voice. He looked round again, and all the men except one 
 were gone too. 
 
 ^ To this last remaining man he talked for a little while, at 
 first passionately, then quietly and pleadingly ; but he elicited 
 the very slighest response. He could not see the man's 
 face, but he knew quite well that it was dull, expressionless, 
 without thought and with very little life. 
 
 "I pray you not to let them do it again. I will come back 
 and see you all by daylight. I want to know you. I mean 
 nothing but kindness to you. I had no right to speak roughly
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 101 
 
 to you. For that I ask your pardon. . . . Will you shake 
 hands to show you don't mind?" 
 
 The man spat upon the ground, and shook hands as 
 requested. His hand was limp and nerveless. 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 "Goo'-night, sir." 
 
 Churchill slowly made his way out through the dark, 
 silent streets, and a throbbing pity filled his breast. He 
 thought, "How could these poor souls be otherwise than 
 coarse and dirty and fierce, living under such conditions? 
 If they were pure and clean, they would go mad from 
 despair. And probably it is not true that they are nearly 
 as bad as Smart says, and all his notions about their watch- 
 ing one and being ready to rob or kill any stranger are 
 just cowardly nonsense." 
 
 Certainly no one displayed the least disposition to molest 
 him, or even to look at him, as he retraced his steps ; and two 
 or three people of whom he inquired the way answered 
 civilly and '.cnsibly. 
 
 At the canal bridge he met Smart hurrying towards him 
 with two stalwari policemen. The policemen laughed when 
 they heard they were not wanted, and said it was exactly 
 what they had told "his reverence." 
 
 Going past the cheerful shops again, Churchill remained 
 silent, but Smart talked volubly. 
 
 "I can't tell you how glad I am it ended all right. What 
 should I have said to the vicar? I'm sure you acted very 
 pluckily but, you know, you really did a very reckless 
 thing. I don't wish to exaggerate, but you might have been 
 torn to pieces." 
 
 Churchill was struggling hard to repress his contempt, 
 telling himself that he must not judge others. Yet he could 
 not help thinking, "If this man is a coward he should not 
 pretend to be a priest of the Church militant. Sooner or 
 later he will disgrace himself. Indeed, his faith must be 
 weak, or his heart would be stouter. But I will not judge ; 
 I will not think evil." 
 
 At the place where the trams stopped, that same black- 
 coated man was still preaching. Nobody listened, nobody 
 cared, nobody seemed to be aware of his existence. His
 
 102 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP' 
 
 voice sounded harsh and weary; his eyes were fixed in a 
 glassy stare, as if he saw nothing and heard nothing of the 
 movements and noises all round him, as if he thought of 
 nothing on earth either near or far, but was solely con- 
 cerned with the heaven and hell about which he went on 
 ranting.
 
 XIV 
 
 THE Saturday club was held in the large ground-floor 
 room of the St. Bede's Church Institute, a building that 
 contained accommodation and served as headquarters for 
 various other clubs, guilds, and parish working bodies. The 
 peculiarity of this week-end club lay in the fact that it had 
 no regular members ; it was open to any one who cared to 
 come in from the streets that is, any unintoxicated passer- 
 by who promised either by implication or formal vow, to 
 behave himself "like a gentleman" when inside. Mr. 
 Walsden used to stand sometimes outside the door, inviting 
 all the male half of the population to avail themselves of 
 his hospitality. Ladies were not admitted, if they could 
 be kept out; but it had happened more than once that a 
 dozen or twenty bold and unblushing representatives of the 
 fair sex forcibly imposed their company and caused great 
 unpleasantness. Also on several occasions the rowdy-dowdy 
 boys had made a raid, smashing glass, furniture and gas 
 brackets. 
 
 At such times Mr. Walsden sought no redress from the 
 law, refused to prosecute, scarcely complained to any one; 
 but just mended window panes, repaired the bagatelle board, 
 bought new benches, and next Saturday night came up 
 smiling again after his punishment. 
 
 "Step in, Jim. Glad to see you. A friend of yours ? Very 
 glad to see him too. . . . Good-evening, sir. . . . No ; I don't 
 know you, but I shall be pleased to make your acquaintance. 
 If you have nothing better to do, step inside and join us. 
 Smoke your pipe, play a game of draughts or dominos and 
 have some coffee, if you like, one penny per cup. No sermon, 
 no hymns, no collection." 
 
 He loved his club, and always said that as a humanising 
 influence he considered it invaluable. When people had 
 once come, they nearly always came again; and after one 
 had got to know them at the club it was often an easy task 
 to make them go to church. 
 
 103
 
 104 THE MIRROR AND! THE LAMP 
 
 The room was fairly full when Churchill arrived, and as a 
 newcomer to the parish he received considerable attention. 
 Walsden and Gardiner introduced him to honoured fre- 
 quenters, and others freely introduced themselves. Especially 
 a young man with brown eyes and an insinuating manner 
 made continuous advances, acting as self-appointed master of 
 ceremonies, and explaining and expounding quite evident 
 matters. This young man proved a great nuisance; first 
 because he plainly desired to extract a gift of money, and 
 Churchill had been solemnly exhorted to give no money 
 to anybody, and secondly because he checked the expan- 
 sive confidence of many who were ready and anxious to 
 expand. In two minutes Churchill understood that all these 
 people took intense, pleasure in speaking about themselves 
 and their private affairs, and that much might be learned by 
 quietly listening to them. 
 
 They were nearly all of them undersized ; very few were 
 fairly shaped, and among the elder men the slow distorting 
 effects of a toil that is greater than the physical strength that 
 meets it were painfully visible. Churchill noticed one tall 
 man, who stood with his bowler hat tilted so far back that 
 it seemed to stand on the back of his neck, and his hands 
 deep-plunged in his trousers pockets, while he grinned as if 
 enormously amused. 
 
 "Dam funny thing, this," he said to Churchill, uttering 
 the words slowly and thickly. "I can't get the hang of it. 
 Never bin here before. The guv'nor says, why not? He 
 says come in here. And here I am. I don't mind it from 
 what I see of it. 
 
 " 'Is employment," said the brown-eyed young man, "is 
 the spirits and wine trade carrying and lifting of the 
 barrels. The temptation in that trade is to get on the drink, 
 and you can see fer yerself, 'e 'as done it." 
 
 "Who do you say is drunk?" asked the tall man. 
 
 "I don't say nothing for you to worry about," said the 
 brown-eyed young man. "But you 'ave 'ad yer drop, old 
 mate, 'an you know it." 
 
 "I have;" and the tall man grinned good-humouredly. 
 Then he became very angry. "But if I have yes, if I have, 
 what the hell's it got to do with you ?" 
 
 "Language, please," said Mr. Gardiner, immediately
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 105 
 
 crossing to the raised voice. "Moderate language that is 
 our rule. . . . How are you getting on, Churchill ? Here is 
 some one who must be presented to you. Mr. Philbrick, 
 this is Mr. Churchill." 
 
 "He is a very nice vurchius ole gentleman," said the 
 brown-eyed man in a patronising tone. 
 
 Mr. Philbrick seemed indeed a most respectable old chap. 
 He was clean-shaved, with a fringe of grey hair under his 
 chin, and a big black scarf worn round his neck above a 
 collarless flannel shirt and hanging down over his jacket. 
 When talking he screwed up his eyes, wrinkled his whole 
 face, and put an extraordinary amount of deep meaning into 
 his manner, while he pointed over his shoulder with his 
 pipe, nodded or jerked an arm significantly. At the moment 
 he was profoundly interested in a game of draughts, and 
 he pantomimed excessive delight when one of the players, 
 a fat-faced, seedy-looking youth, got his man beat. This 
 result was generally admitted by all the bystanders, although 
 the defeated player, a middle-aged bearded man, never 
 looked up, but continued desperately to examine the board, 
 hoping still to find some loop-hole of escape. 
 
 "It's a friend o' mine," said Mr. Philbrick, indicating the 
 conqueror with his pipe. "I taught him the game myself. 
 . . . Oh, my boy, you could o' ruffed him there." 
 
 Everybody protested. "Don't intermeddle. No tellin'." 
 
 The fat-faced youth said, "/ seen it he might o' ruffed 
 me too." 
 
 "He seen it all right," said Mr. Philbrick ; "or I shouldn't 
 V spoken." 
 
 "But you did speak," said the defeated player; "an* 
 
 you're a silly for yer pains. Why can't yer hold yer 
 
 tongue?" 
 
 "Language, please," cried Gardiner. "My dear friends, 
 do moderate your language. What is the sense of swearing 
 at every other word?" 
 
 Mr. Philbrick drew away from the draught-players, and 
 presently he was telling Churchill the story of his conversion 
 to the Christian faith. 
 
 He was a widower who until two years ago had been ex- 
 tremely prosperous ; then health and work failed together, 
 and he fell into such dire want that he nearly died of starva-
 
 106 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 don. "It was that or the work'uss," he said, nodding and 
 winking prodigiously. The landlord came to him in his room 
 and told him that he must clear out at the end of the week. 
 "Well, I says, I make no fuss, I offer no blackguarding. 
 Just so. If I can't pay nothing else to do. So you needn't 
 puff and blow about it. 
 
 "That was the Monday my chest very bad too, and the 
 snow on the ground ; and I thinks, 'Off with you, Philbrick, 
 and try and earn a bob along with the rest, road-scraping 
 or else it's the work'uss Saturday night.' But, sir, I couldn't 
 stomach it. You'll believe me, it wasn't the shirks, for I do 
 assure you I've worked very hard in my time. Any one '11 
 tell you the same as how old Mr. Philbrick isn't a shirker. 
 But I was just tired and sick of it. So, thinks I" and he 
 lightly tapped Churchill on the chest with his pipe and 
 stopped to chuckle merrily "thinks I, 'I'll just dodge the 
 work'uss and everything else along of it.' " 
 
 Then he described how he retired to bed, ate his last bit 
 of food in bed, smoked his last screw of tobacco, and lay 
 there quite comfortable, dozing and musing. Hunger at 
 first was hard to support ; but he did not suffer as much as 
 he expected ; after three days he became light-headed. "An' 
 by Friday afternoon I was to the naked eye no more than 
 a corpse." 
 
 On Friday night, however, Mr. Walsden came in a mys- 
 teriously providential manner and rescued him. "I never 
 rightly understood how he found me, sir. But it was some- 
 thing to do with Christmas which was falling due the 
 Sunday. An' Mr. Walsden's very particular about supplying 
 a bit of Christmas dinner to them as else wouldn't get 
 none. I took it very kind of him, and I like these religious 
 gentlemen. Yes, he done more for me than others. I assure 
 you, sir, there was two men in the same house who owed 
 me money, and never so much as climb the stairs to ask how 
 I was. Three doors down the street I had another debitor, 
 who owed me four pounds odd and not a sign from him 
 neither. But Mr. Walsden brought me back to life and set 
 me on my legs again, and in return for his kindness I 
 accepted of the religion a thing I'd never done till then." 
 
 "And you feel the comfort of it, Mr. Philbrick ?" 
 
 "I do, sir," said Mr. Philbrick, with a glance and an accent
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 107 
 
 that was absolutely convincing in regard to his sincerity. "I 
 ask no questions. What I bin told I believe. If it's good 
 enough for an educated gentleman like Mr. Walsden, it's 
 good enough for me. I take my sacrament along o' the rest, 
 an' I enjoy it." 
 
 "You may trust him, sir," said the brown-eyed young 
 man, again at Churchill's elbow. "I've never known a pack 
 of lies come out of the mouth of Mr. Philbrick." 
 
 "Yes," said the old chap, "Richard knows me right 
 enough. I'm pretty well known in these parts." 
 
 There was something very attractive in Mr. Philbrick, 
 and Churchill determined if possible to cultivate his acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 During the course of the evening he talked with other con- 
 verts, young and old, and was struck in every case by the 
 astonishing effect upon them that had been made by hearing 
 the story of Christ's life and death. Most of them in- 
 credible as that might seem had heard it, or at any rate 
 really listened to it, for the first time from Walsden; and 
 they talked of the divine tragedy just as though it had hap- 
 pened only the other day. Speaking of Judas Iscariot, they 
 grew hot with indignation, calling him "dirty dog," and 
 saying, "The rope's too good for 'is sort, sir." 
 
 A fish porter in a tattered football jersey told Churchill 
 that his great pleasure was to go fishing in the River Lea on 
 Sunday, and this sport had clashed with his religious duties. 
 "I like to get off with my rod and tackle as early as I can 
 and make a day of it ; and when Mr. Walsden asked me to 
 go and take the bread and wine down at the church Sunday 
 morning he said, 'There's no reason you shouldn't come, and 
 then have your fishing after/ 'But no/ I said, 'that would 
 be acting Judus. If I take it, I shall chuck the job for the 
 day. I shan't take it, and go a-fishing/ That's right, isn't it, 
 sir?" 
 
 "Did I 'ear you mention Judy 'Scariut?" said some one 
 else. "' was a blighter, if you like, sir, wasn't 'e?" 
 
 "S'truth," said another, "he wanted to have it given him 
 in the neck if ever a bloke did. Dirty dog." 
 
 Churchill could not get away from Richard, the brown- 
 eyed young man, although disliking him as a hypocrite, and 
 at last almost explicitly stating that no money would be
 
 108 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 extracted. Indeed the unfavourable impression made by 
 Richard led to a rash generalisation that among these people 
 those with light or clear-coloured eyes appeared to be 
 trusting and trustworthy, whereas those with opaque- 
 coloured eyes were all humbugs, if not worse. Mr. Phil- 
 brick and the fish porter had transparently clear eyes, but 
 Richard's eyes were as impenetrable as bits of brown pebble. 
 
 "I 'ope," said Richard, "I 'ave not offended you, sir," 
 when closing time drew near. "You were so very kind 
 when you come in, but now you seem to turn against me. 
 I expect it's back-biters bin poisoning your ears against 
 me." 
 
 Churchill said no one had traduced Richard; and then, 
 having obtained permission from Walsden to do so, he stood 
 coffee and rock cakes to Richard and the rest of the com- 
 pany. 
 
 "This makes me very 'appy," said Richard, sidling up, 
 cup in hand; and until the club meeting terminated he 
 suffered no one to come between him and the new curate. 
 
 "I 'ope I shall never fall to be a cadger," he said ; "and I 
 scorn any one as should so accuse me. He wouldn't do it 
 twice not if it was to my face. I b'long to a good fam'ly 
 an' I often say it would make a book, would my fam'ly, if 
 written down in a truthful spirit. But the times are hard 
 against one, though you work till you sink by the wayside. I 
 sim to 'ave 'ad nothing except trouble and losses ;" and he 
 raised his hand to shield his mouth while speaking con- 
 fidentially. "I'm gettin' up a subscription in the fam'ly to 
 prervide me wiv a new barrer . . . My eldest sister sent me 
 five bob at Christmas. Very kind ov 'er, I'm sure ; but all 
 the same she can afford it. She's a cook in a lady's mansion 
 at Sevenoaks. I seen it pers'nally five servants employed. 
 From me brothers I asked nothing knowing that was what 
 I should get. Jack drinks but, mind you, there's never 
 bin heavy drinkin' in our fam'ly. No, as I state, we've bin 
 a fine lot o' men. It's the girls that 'ave mostly disgraced us. 
 
 "Me two aunts finished as a burden on the rates. Me 
 mother is a proud woman, and felt it at the time same as 
 she did when Mabel went to the Orspital. Me sister Mabel 
 was the prettiest piece o' goods at fourteen you ever set eyes 
 on. If you looked at 'er, you 'ad to kiss 'er. Fawther used
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 109 
 
 to say, 'Leave off. You growing lads must remember she's 
 yer sister.' . . . Mr. Yates he was a gas-fitter fell in love 
 with her, and kep' her faithful in Ajax Buildings, deserting 
 his own wife and kids to do so, from her seventeenth birth- 
 day till he died. 
 
 "Then she went on the streets, an' never 'ad 'nother bit o' 
 luck. Mind you, Mabel felt her pride too. Wouldn't never 
 come and see 'er mother unless she could bring a present in 
 'er 'and. Mother never rightly knew 'ow she was faring, 
 till, as I tell you, they fetched 'er to the Orspital, an' she see 
 her laid in the bed dying and disfigured wiv the disease. 
 Mother said it give 'er a turn she'd carry to her grave and 
 she rounded on fawther, accusing him of the vice of the 
 women of 'is family which he had transferred into the blood 
 of Mab. 
 
 "Mind you, mother give fawther trouble in his time, 
 though so respectable and proud in her old age. Fawther 
 has told me wiv 'is own lips that he couldn't have a lodger 
 in the house but what the usual annoyance followed; and 
 that when he chastised 'er it o'ny made 'er carry on the 
 worse. . . ." 
 
 Then Richard turned up his brown eyes and spoke sanc- 
 timoniously. 
 
 "But, sir, it is all the will of Gawd, as Mr. Walsden 
 teaches an' if I can subscribe meself a new barrer by Lady- 
 day I'll bless 'is 'oly name."
 
 XV 
 
 FOR a year while Churchill remained a deacon, and for 
 nearly half a year after he had received the priest's com- 
 mission he worked as if at one of those crushingly impossible 
 tasks that torment sick men in their dreams. He was always 
 busy and always baffled. Each new day wiped out the last. 
 There was scarcely time to begin things, never time to finish 
 things. 
 
 After staying a little while at the vicarage he had secured 
 a room for himself in a block of model dwellings beyond the 
 southern boundary of the parish. In the parish itself not a 
 room was available. But here at Bentley House he succeeded 
 in obtaining decent accommodation, with quiet, peacable 
 neighbours of the highest class permanent porters from the 
 London Docks, Corporation roadmen, van-drivers and fac- 
 tory hands whose wives were willing to sweep and clean 
 for him, and would have cooked for him also, had he desired 
 it. Indeed, given leisure, he might have made himself suf- 
 ficiently comfortable here ; but, for want of it, the packing- 
 cases that contained his books had not yet been opened, 
 no additions had been made to the first sticks of furniture 
 hastily purchased, the floor still demanded the carpet he 
 had promised it, and the one solitary ornament was the 
 framed photograph of his mother that hung above the iron 
 bed. It did not matter. He could not have lolled in arm- 
 chairs or read books. Every morning early he used to go 
 up to the top landing of the house just to get a glimpse of 
 the open sky, to see the shadowy outline of Tower Bridge 
 across the forest of roofs, or the topmasts of ships on the 
 invisible river; then, wondering and thanking God that the 
 sun still shone in spite of human wickedness, he went slowly 
 down the long flights of stone steps and out into the smoke 
 and dirt and drab-toned misery. Late at night he returned 
 to lie down, glad that he was too tired to think, and yet 
 sighing when he felt that the burden of an overladen world 
 
 110
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 111 
 
 was about to slip from his shoulders, and that for a few 
 hours he would forget all the shame, the pain, the horror. 
 
 Three or four times a week he wrote home to St. Dun- 
 stan's, pouring out his heart freely, saying the things he 
 could only say to that dear one; but lack of time nearly 
 always drove his pen and made broken incoherent scrawls 
 of what would otherwise have been long thoughtful letters. 
 
 "Dearest and best of mothers, how I yearn to fly 
 down to you as fast as the fastest train can bring me. 
 But I must not yield to temptation. I must not go. 
 
 "To answer your two urgent questions: Yes, I am 
 very well in health, and Walsden does praise me far 
 more than I deserve. But his praise is encouraging. . .*. 
 
 "... I feel that every day and all day long I am 
 eating of the fruit of the tree of Evil Knowledge. But 
 it is good to know. One cannot know too much ; and, 
 although I shrink and recoil, I pray that unconsciously 
 I am growing stronger all the while. I see that without 
 this experience I should have never been worth any- 
 thing in the higher work. And, my darling, it is not 
 going to last for ever. Soon you and I will be together 
 again, and I shall look back on all this as a hard lesson 
 that was well worth taking. Our separation will only 
 make our joy in union the greater." 
 
 She added to his trouble when now and then she spoke 
 of her loneliness, and he went about his work tortured by a 
 sense of divided duty. He felt that he was neglecting her, 
 and yet knew that he would not be truly worthy of her love 
 if he could not trust it to pardon such neglect. She offered 
 to come to London to see him, to stay for a week or two at 
 Bentley House, if he would engage a nice bedroom and sit- 
 ting-room for her ; but he was forced to refuse these offers. 
 Dear soul, she imagined Bentley House as a modest but 
 well-managed private hotel, such as those that economical 
 folk patronise at crowded watering places. It would not 
 do to let her see the reality. Besides, her presence even for 
 a day would infallibly weaken him: he would want to go 
 straight home with her. 
 
 This, as he understood well enough, was the paramount
 
 112 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 temptation that has to be fought by all workers in places like 
 St. Bede's the sudden and almost overwhelming climax of 
 a gradually accumulated desire to turn one's back and go. 
 
 "Forgive me, my dearest, if I say little about myself. 
 The reason is because there is really so little to say. 
 I go on learning, learning, trying with all my might to 
 read the book of life and see the Master's message 
 stand out clear in every page I turn. 
 
 "As to money well, I am spending it very care- 
 fully, and only under the advice of Walsden. As to 
 spending much on oneself that is out of the question. 
 If one wished to do it, one could not. There are literally 
 no opportunities. I subscribe to all the church funds, 
 giving most where the need is greatest, and denying 
 myself the pleasure of obeying personal inclination. 
 That is a part of the lesson one has to learn, and it 
 seems easier to learn here than anywhere in the world. 
 One must give in order to do good and not to secure a 
 temporary joy." 
 
 Matters so well known to economists that they have long 
 since become trite commonplaces struck him with all the 
 force of a personal discovery ; and then in his letters he 
 would have sudden outbursts against politicians and the 
 whole machinery of government. 
 
 "Why don't these so-called statesmen come and live 
 here as I am doing? All their laws and regulations 
 for the improvement of the common lot are an utter 
 failure. They could not be otherwise. They are made 
 by people who don't understand and enforced by peo- 
 ple who don't care. Evidences of private charity and 
 benevolence are conspicuous wherever you look, but it 
 is all of no use. All along the big roads, far out beyond 
 the East India Docks, there are innumerable institutions 
 founded by generous private enterprise; they jostle 
 one another, and more of them are always being built 
 houses of every religious denomination, small hospitals, 
 nursing establishments, places of supervised entertain-
 
 113 
 
 ment, sailors' homes, free libraries, everything con- 
 ceivable, but nothing of permanent value or in any way 
 capable of really lifting the unhappy mass of the peo- 
 ple. When I pass them I think of the scenic decorations 
 that we used to smile at in villa gardens in Italy the 
 painted fagade of a sham palace put up to conceal some 
 eyesore that might shock too sensitive visitors. So here 
 the long lines of these philanthropic palliatives that are 
 made of smart red brick or pompous stone, and deco- 
 rated with marble slabs to commemorate a name, serve 
 to hide abomination from strangers who ride by in 
 trams or on top of buses. But from us who know, 
 they hide nothing. We see through brick and stone 
 right into the abyss. . . . 
 
 "Thousands of streets with each house exactly like 
 any other, in every street a thousand people each leading 
 exactly the same life ; the heart beaten out of them by 
 monotonous labour, the soul darkened by incessant 
 fear ; underpaid, underfed, mercilessly kept from clean- 
 liness and health, foolishly driven to sin or crime; 
 stunted during youth, crushed during their poor ma- 
 turity, and broken on the wheel of shame when old 
 age overtakes them, when they can work no longer, 
 when their children and their children's children have 
 pushed them from their places in the dock or the fac- 
 tory or the sweater's den. This is not a highly coloured 
 picture of one's excited imagination. It is what the 
 politicians making some new law call the undeniable 
 and regrettable state of affairs. Yes, it is the state of 
 affairs two thousand years after the message of peace 
 and goodwill to all men. And nothing can alter it, 
 nothing can ameliorate it, nothing can really touch it, 
 until mankind awakes to the impious wickedness of it. 
 
 "I talk to our spouting socialists, democrats, and 
 social anarchists, and I wonder they are not red-hot 
 revolutionaries. When they tell me of things actually 
 happening, they talk calmly and soberly; it is / who 
 burn and tremble, clench my fists beneath my cape, 
 and go away murmuring menaces of divine wrath. The 
 things that happen But they are what I cannot
 
 114 
 
 speak of, even to you. I write them in ray diary so 
 that I may remember, and I dare not look at them 
 again." 
 
 The first of three entries in the diary, made during the 
 course of a single week, related to a boy who in the presence 
 of his mother had been beaten by his stepfather. This 
 punishment resulted in serious injury to the child, and it 
 seemed probable that he would be a cripple for the remain- 
 der of his days. His offence had been the spending of a 
 penny for his own use (stale bread at a baker's shop) out 
 of the pennies received while begging. The mother and 
 her neighbours said the little rascal had been served quite 
 right, and the world was coming to a strange pass if parents 
 and guardians were to be prevented from teaching young 
 people how to behave. 
 
 A second entry described what Churchill saw one after- 
 noon in the Whitechapel Road not far from the London 
 Hospital, whither he had been to visit a sick parishioner. 
 There was a little crowd outside a draper's shop, and from 
 this suddenly burst a young woman of about twenty who 
 began to run as if for her life, hotly pursued by a shop-girl. 
 The crowd followed shouting "Stop thief." The thief ran 
 badly as did the shop-girl but nevertheless it was a life- 
 and-death hunt. Soon the hunted one doubled, came across 
 the road, through the traffic, then along the pavement 
 with the large eyes, sobbing breath, and weakened gait of 
 a sinking stag. All the world laughed, men threw their 
 hats and caps at her, boys tried to trip her heels ; but two 
 big policemen were running now, and they presently cap- 
 tured her, marched her off, and all was over. Really a 
 pitiful thing to see when acted before your eyes. 
 
 Churchill went with her to the police station ; tried to bail 
 her out and failed ; tried to get her off when brought before 
 the magistrate and failed ; tried to save her from hard labour 
 and failed. When her imprisonment was over he stood at 
 the prison door, and they walked away hand in hand. With- 
 out asking Walsden's advice on this occasion, he spent a con- 
 siderable sum in transplanting the culprit to more hopeful 
 surroundings and starting her on an honest road. 
 
 But the point of this entry lay in the exact reasons that
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 115 
 
 the young woman gave him for how and why she had 
 become a thief. 
 
 The third entry was about a girl who at the age of four- 
 teen had been hired out by her aunt as domestic servant to 
 "a Chinese gentleman over Lime'us way," the aunt taking a 
 money payment in lieu of future wages. The girl remained 
 in the Chinese quarter for about two years, during which 
 no word was ever heard of her, and then she was brought 
 home and left squatting on the doorstep at night. When 
 Churchill saw her she had been back a good many hours, 
 and she was squatting in a corner of the room with her 
 back to the half-circle of women-neighbours who stood to 
 watch her monotonous antics. Churchill went right into 
 the corner to get a good look at her. She was very thin ; her 
 face had a dullish yellow hue without a sign of blood, as 
 of one who has been for a long time kept out of reach of 
 daylight; her eyes were half-closed, with the outer corners 
 seeming to lift spasmodically ; and there she squatted, silent, 
 impassive, her hands on her thighs, while she regularly 
 swayed her body from side to side, and at intervals bowed 
 low into the corner, as though before an invisible shrine or 
 altar. "That's all she does," said the aunt. "She won't so 
 much as answer when spoken to. I don't know whatever 
 they've bin doing to her to turn her so stupid, and I wish 
 to goodness I'd never made the engagement for her. She 
 was a bright sensible girl and beginnin' to be of use to me 
 about the house but you can see she isn't likely to be any 
 help to me now if she don't change her manners. . . . Ethel, 
 drop it. Why can't you drop it, and get up and speak to the 
 kind gentleman? . . . Oh, blast the girl, I shall lose my 
 temper with her before I've done. It makes one sick and 
 giddy to watch her." 
 
 Ethel was taken to the Union infirmary, thence drafted 
 on the morrow to a public asylum, where she died in three 
 days. 
 
 Concerning this case Churchill had the honour of writing 
 to the Home Secretary, and somebody at the Home Office 
 had the honour of acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Church- 
 ill's letter and of saying it should have attention. But then, 
 as the attention seemed too slow in manifesting itself, 
 Churchill wanted to write to the newspapers and get the
 
 116 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 local M. P. to ask a question in the House. Mr. Walsden, 
 however, thought it unadvisable to do so. There was ap- 
 parently a movement on foot to inaugurate a Christian mis- 
 sion among the East End Chinese, and Walsden seemed to 
 think that its influence would be far more efficacious than a 
 fuss in the newspapers or chatter in Parliament. "It is easy 
 to raise public interest," he said , "but unhappily it is impos- 
 sible to sustain it. Everything is of the hour. You know, 
 the public are always being hammered at, and one nail drives 
 out another." 
 
 In this, as in nearly everything else, Churchill submitted 
 to the wisdom of his vicar. He was faithfully adhering to 
 his determination to treat Walsden as the commanding 
 officer, and obedience and deference were always becoming 
 easier. Nevertheless every check to immediate action, when 
 the desire for action had been caused by righteous indigna- 
 tion, produced in him a most painful sense of impotence. 
 How can one steel oneself to wait patiently for remote and 
 doubtful methods of redress, if weakness cries for help and 
 cruelty struts defiantly? Fits of depression fell upon him, 
 and there were days on which the sense of being thrall to 
 a nightmare dream became well nigh unbearable. 
 
 At such times he seemed to see too clearly, to understand 
 too well, to generalise with a tormentingly rapid precision. 
 As he passed people in the streets, he seemed to be able to 
 read their unhappy thoughts, to be unable to prevent himself 
 from reading them. The droop of a bricklayer's shoulders, 
 a haggard glance of a factory hand, as he slouched by, the 
 feeble grin and drunken lurch of a docker stumbling away 
 from a gin-shop, told him stories of entire lives ; and he used 
 to think, "Yes, you are all types. You each of you represent 
 thousands and thousands of over-driven beasts who have 
 been given immortal souls but refused the chance of heaven." 
 This labourer is past fifty, and he is typical of success ; he 
 has been lucky enough to keep in regular employment ; but 
 at any moment now he may lose his job. Then after a long 
 agony of fruitless efforts to save his home, that too may go. 
 He will have passed into the army of casual labour; in a 
 year or so it will be impossible to differentiate him from 
 the lifelong failures ; the rapid descent will have begun, and 
 nothing will ever stop it. The wife he once loved will be a
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 117 
 
 dirty bundle of rags sleeping under arches, his sons may be 
 thieves and his daughters something worse, and he himself 
 may drown in a dock basin or die of exhaustion in a ditch, 
 if, like that old fellow, Philbrick, he doesn't hurry to the 
 workhouse. 
 
 He thought of the patience, the enduring fortitude, the 
 incessant self-denial displayed by every married couple who, 
 rising above the normal quagmire level, contrived to guard 
 and rear a fairly decent family. Many unquestionably did 
 this, attaining to a fabulous respectability, washing them- 
 selves on week-days, coming to church on Sundays. But 
 how few they were the total numbers of this aristocracy 
 when compared with the myriads annually destroyed by 
 the precariousness of employment, the prevailing immoral- 
 ity, the diseases bred of dirt, the premature decay of 
 strength and vitality solely due to the vile conditions of their 
 existence. Could nothing be done for them? They them- 
 selves asked but one thing, the right to work, the inestimable 
 privilege of wearing themselves out in a merciless toil, so 
 that their more fortunate brothers might eat rich food, ride 
 on the cushioned seats of carriages, and lie long in soft warm 
 beds ; and this was asking too much. The boon was denied 
 to them. 
 
 His depression used to grow deeper as, passing from the 
 slums, he crossed one of the arteries of traffic. Here he 
 thought of the burden of government laid on top of all else. 
 It was visible wherever one looked a squad of soldiers 
 marching down to the docks, a spick-and-span sailor to re- 
 mind one that large navies are not secured without paying 
 for them, stalwart municipal officials with immense horses 
 and newly-painted carts, firemen to prevent fire from cleans- 
 ing rookeries that ought to have been burnt amidst a nation's 
 rejoicing; postmen to carry letters among those who had no 
 friends to write to them, policemen to move one on if one 
 rested too long against a wall or ventured to sit upon the 
 pavement ; tax-collectors in cabs, rate-collectors on bicycles, 
 and a procession of pair-horse wagonettes giving an airing 
 to the best-behaved lunatics from the nearest pauper asylum ; 
 all this extra dead weight carried on the bent backs of the 
 people. 
 
 What hope? None, except for the new generations that
 
 118 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 come sweet and clean from their Creator's hands, each of 
 which in its turn is befouled and wasted. He thought of 
 boys of fourteen like those who enrolled themselves in 
 Walsden's guilds or brigade, creatures as yet unpolluted, full 
 of courage, faith, and trustfulness, the sound material from 
 which good citizens could be made, but just brutally wasted, 
 converted in a few years to cadgers like Richard, or to 
 corner boys willing to cut a throat for a night's drunk. He 
 thought of girls of twelve with eyes like forget-me-nots, with 
 angel-faces; graceful flowers that the wind of heaven has 
 sown on a dunghill, and that soon will be broken, faded, and 
 trampled down into the filth. 
 
 And especially the sight of children tore at his heart- 
 strings. Tears came to his eyes, and he did not attempt to 
 restrain them, as he stood watching the children. The 
 street was their nursery, and in the midst of cold and 
 squalor, except when pinched with hunger, they were happy 
 asking so little of life, only a smile and a ray of sunshine; 
 a little girl of six would be in charge of four younger ones ; 
 the baby, thirteen months old, wrapped in a sack as though 
 it were a fur pelisse, proudly riding in a wooden box that 
 was pulled along with a string by the three other mites. 
 When the box turned over in the gutter, the baby howled, 
 but was speedily hushed and taught to be happy again in the 
 loving arms of its deputy-mother. Churchill thought, "But 
 when the streets have ceased to be a nursery and become a 
 school, what will it make of these pupils in ten years?" 
 
 After these periods of depression he felt an immense 
 longing for something lovely to look at. It was a craving of 
 the eyes and the mind together. Temptations whispered 
 themselves. It would do him good to take a day off, or at 
 least an afternoon ; he might go west and lounge through the 
 National Gallery, soothing his eyes and resting his thoughts 
 by a panorama of lovely pictures. He knew that he must 
 not so pamper himself, and he knew also that he would not 
 yield to the temptation. But about the circuit of his duty he 
 snatched at the enjoyment of regarding anything that was 
 not outwardly ugly and that had not a suggestion of hidden 
 ugliness. 
 
 He never went west, but, whenever he could do so with- 
 out wasting precious time, he went east and got a glimpse of
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 119 
 
 objects pleasingly different from those that always sur- 
 rounded him such as the Manor House in the East India 
 Docks Road, the stone tower of St. Ursula's church, or the 
 high garden wall and gabled roof of its pretty rectory. As 
 yet he had not gained the acquaintance of Mr. Verschoyle, 
 the rector, although he was constantly hearing about him, 
 and Walsden frequently promised that he would make this 
 introduction. 
 
 Once or twice, too, on spring evenings, when the very air 
 seemed to murmur of pretty places it had passed before it 
 sank fainting in the slums, he roamed through Limehouse, 
 staring at rare old house-fronts, at Norwegian ships with 
 strangely painted poops that stood high and light in the 
 Regent's basin, at corners of streets nearer the water that 
 had been seen and described by Dickens ; and, working his 
 way down to one of the landing stages, stood and watched 
 the broad flow of the river. It looked grand and mysterious 
 in the soft evening light, with big steamers looming duskily, 
 the piles of shipping melted and fused in shadow, and the 
 vast Western town filling the horizon with a golden glitter 
 seeming an enchanted city that darkness and cold might 
 never enter. 
 
 At last he made a most unexpected discovery of something 
 that was not ugly, but almost beautiful, in the middle of his 
 own parish. He had passed close to it hundreds of times 
 and never guessed at the possibility of its existence. Not 
 three hundred yards from St. Bede's church there was a 
 turning out of Bevis Street that passed between the walls of 
 a small soap factory and some sheds or warehouses occu- 
 pied by fishcurers, and he had always supposed that this 
 turning led only to the factory yard ; but on exploration he 
 found, beyond the yard, an open space at the end of which 
 stood an old Georgian house. 
 
 It was high and narrow, delightful to look at, with iron 
 gate and stone steps before its front door, with the original 
 sash windows and wooden cornice all very shabby, badly 
 wanting paint, and generally neglected, but in essentials just 
 what it had been nearly two hundred years ago. It reminded 
 him of St. Dunstan's, of Oxford, of all that is old and dig- 
 nified. And at its side, in a strip of ground not big enough 
 to be called a garden, there was a tree a real growing plane
 
 120 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 tree, whose green leaves gently touched the window panes, 
 stretched forth above a wall, and made the sunlight and 
 shadow play joyously upon the stone steps. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Walsden, when Churchill spoke of the 
 oasis he had found in the desert, "that is Denmark House. 
 It is the last one left of about a dozen similar houses that 
 made up what was called Denmark Square. They are shown 
 in all the old parish maps. The square was demolished 
 about forty years ago, I believe." 
 
 "And who lives in Denmark House ?" 
 
 "The manager of Brown's soap works Oliver by name. 
 He is a good, strenuous, but unlucky man. I talk to him 
 when I chance to meet him, although he is not of our way 
 of thinking. Wesleyan !" 
 
 Churchill after this went often to look at the tree by 
 Denmark House. Whether the leaves were broad and 
 green or tawny and shrivelled, they did one good to look at 
 they were so different from all other things in St. Bede's. 
 
 He longed for pleasant sights ; he longed for pleasant 
 sounds. Even the tone of a voice, if refined and musical, 
 startled him and gave him relief. Thus his attention was 
 first called to Miss Vickers. 
 
 Gardiner, laid up with influenza, had asked him to receive 
 the visitors and discharged patients belonging to a recently 
 organised extension of the district nursing scheme, and he 
 was doing so to the best of his ability in the vicarage draw- 
 ing-room. Each visitor possessed a book for the record of 
 her cases, and the entries of outlay for medicaments, food, 
 etc., had to be written up in a diary and confirmed by a signed 
 statement of the patient. As Churchill knew nobody's name, 
 and was ignorant of every detail in the scheme, all this 
 proved to be a rather confusing task until intelligent aid pre- 
 sented itself. 
 
 He had noticed a tall, nicely-dressed young woman with 
 brown hair and thoughtful eyes, and presently she came for- 
 ward and assisted him. As soon as she stood by his side 
 and he observed the delicate refinement of her features, and 
 her modest silent demeanour when not speaking, he under- 
 stood that she must be to all intents and purposes a lady. It 
 would have been a shock had her voice sounded ugly and 
 common, but in fact it was charmingly gentle and sweet.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 121 
 
 When all the business had been transacted, she asked him to 
 give her out a new nursing book for herself, and he did so, 
 ( first writing down her name. 
 
 "Let me see, what is your name ?" 
 
 "Vickers Lilian Vickers." 
 
 And he wrote it carefully "Miss Lilian Vickers" telling 
 himself the while that he must remember the name and in- 
 quire later who and what she was. 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 She took her book and went away, he watching her medi- 
 tatively. Her face was pale, and you would not perhaps 
 call it pretty, but the slimness and gracefulness of her figure, 
 her quietly tasteful dress, and her easy movements, made her 
 extraordinarily conspicuous as she passed through the other 
 women who clustered about the drawing-room door. 
 
 Afterwards he saw her once or twice in church. Who 
 was she? A West-ender? The daughter of a doctor? Any- 
 how she was different like the tree in this, that a glimpse 
 of her was pleasant. 
 
 He saw her talking to Mrs. Walsden, and he fully in- 
 tended to inquire about her; but he never did so. In the 
 hurry and stress of his life all trifles got brushed aside. 
 There was no time for anything but solid work. 
 
 So the long months passed, and during eighteen of them 
 he was absent from St. Bede's only for two visits of a week- 
 end to the boys' seaside camp and for twenty-four hours 
 spent with his mother at St. Dunstan's. 
 
 And still, in spite of familiarity with its inexorable na- 
 ture, the burden of a people's pain lay upon him. He could 
 not bear it strongly, yet he might not put it down. Except 
 in sleep he was forced to try to carry it. 
 
 The only sustaining thought was his recognition of the 
 effects of religion. The living force of religion showed itself 
 plainly day after day. But here again there was the same 
 sense of continually baffled endeavour. 
 
 St. Bede's parish contained about thirteen thousand inhab- 
 itants, and probably only thirteen hundred could be claimed 
 as in any way church-people. Ten per cent, of the massl 
 And in all neighbouring parishes, throughout the East 
 End, one might say that no higher percentage could be 
 found. Not more than one person in ten was really and
 
 122 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 truly a Christian believer. Only the well-to-do could, as it 
 were, afford to be religious; religion was the final stamp 
 upon an unusual prosperity; in lives that knew no leisure 
 religion could not find a place. Or, in other words, those 
 who most needed it might never have it. This, too, was 
 denied them. 
 
 A terrible thought the more terrible, the more clearly 
 one saw what religion can do and what it ought to mean. 
 
 One winter's afternoon he was in the office room at the 
 Institute, where Walsden sat at a table doling out relief 
 tickets, attending to applications for hospital aid, taking the 
 claimants each in turn. The room remained almost full, the 
 pressure at the table was great, and the beads of perspira- 
 tion on the vicar's forehead became little fountains that he 
 mopped up hastily with his bandana handkerchief. A young 
 girl on a chair wept plaintively, and Churchill pointed her 
 out to Walsden. 
 
 "Now, my dear," said Walsden, "don't snivel. Your 
 turn will come directly. What ticket was it you asked for ? 
 .... Speak up. I can't hear. Really, whatever it is, 
 you must wait patiently." 
 
 "But father will be dead." 
 
 "What's that you say?" 
 
 Churchill went over to the girl, brought her sobbing to the 
 table, and she explained that she wished a priest would come 
 to her dying father. 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me so at once?" 
 
 "I did, sir." 
 
 "Did you, my dear?" said Walsden, very kindly. "Then 
 I fear I was not attending or it has slipped my memory. 
 You see we are unusually busy. But now, when you say 
 'dying/ do you mean merely ill, or that he is on the point 
 of death?' 
 
 "Doctor said he'd be gone before dusk;" and the girl 
 moaned and rocked herself. 
 
 "What is your father's name?" 
 
 Thomas Rinch." 
 
 "Oh, dear. I know him well. Your father is an honest 
 godfearing man." 
 
 "Always bin to church regular," sobbed the girl. 
 
 Edward Churchill asked and obtained leave to go with the
 
 123 
 
 girl to her father's home, while Walsden went on distrib- 
 uting the soup and coal tickets. 
 
 They were in time. The man was still alive. As always 
 on such occasions he had served as a little private exhibition 
 for the whole street ; from an early hour female neighbours 
 had been going in and out ; at mid-day men had come from 
 their work to have a peep at him, and now, in extremis, he 
 lay surrounded by curious and attentive spectators. 
 
 Churchill, not without difficulty, cleared the room of every- 
 body except the wife and the daughter, gave the last com- 
 forts of the Church, and stayed till all was over. 
 
 Then he came away, walking very slowly through the 
 streets and feeling a new and strange tranquillity of thought 
 At the Institute he begged to be excused from all duties until 
 the morrow. He could work no more that day among the 
 living; he must sorrow and be joyful for one who had been 
 here a little while and now again had gone. 
 
 Alone in his bare cold room at Bentley House he passed 
 the whole evening praying and meditating, except for half 
 an hour that he took for writing a letter to St. Dunstan's. 
 He said in this letter : 
 
 "The face was lovely to look upon, lined and fur- 
 rowed, but with the pathetic dignity that only comes 
 after pain that has been bravely borne. ... I am 
 sure that he understood me, although he could not speak. 
 I watched his eyes, and they were full of comprehen- 
 sion, and he made slight movements with his hand. 
 
 "But, mother, he spoke just before he died. He was 
 propped up high in the bed because of his trouble in 
 breathing, and all at once his head came forward, he 
 looked straight in front of him with widely opened 
 eyes, and his whole face lit up as if the light of a lamp 
 had been turned upon it. And he spoke a single word 
 'Wonderful !' 
 
 "And, mother dear, no one who saw this could have 
 doubted. The gates of heaven had opened for him, and 
 he was looking into the blessed abode. I went on pray- 
 ing with dread and joy ; for I felt that the spirit of God 
 had descended into the room, and I knew that the man 
 was saved. He said the word again, twice 'Wonder-
 
 124 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 ful, wonderful!' Then he sank back, dead. When I 
 closed his eyes they were dull, like tarnished glass. 
 That did not matter. The vision of heaven was in 
 them. 
 
 "And, oh, mother, my own dear mother, is it not 
 wonderful? What other word could he have used ? Is 
 it not wonderful and glorious that the grave need have 
 no terrors, that what seems the end is but a beginning, 
 that soon we may be where there are no partings, no 
 regrets, nothing but infinite peace ?"
 
 XVI 
 
 OF a sudden his burden had become less heavy. Perhaps 
 it was that deathbed scene which changed the sombre drift 
 of all his thoughts. But certainly he was happier, and 
 scrutinising darkness could always now detect some gleams 
 of light. 
 
 When he looked at the distress and pain that lay on all 
 sides, he saw, too, the love and the self-sacrifice. If there 
 was much cruelty there was also much kindness. Among 
 the more fortunate there was immense generosity. They 
 lent one another their money, their goods, their service, and 
 they did it freely and ungrudgingly. The very poor went on 
 giving until they could give no more. As to the most miser- 
 able, the fallen and the wicked, the outcast and the rejected 
 well, these were exactly like the people that Christ chose 
 to live among. And the quite obvious thought came that 
 Christ never seemed to be really distressed by the material 
 grievance of their condition; he founded a brotherhood of 
 love, but he sketched no plans for a socially comfortable 
 community; he accepted all the horrible inequality of rich 
 and poor ; he did not even try to free the slaves. 
 
 Christ accepted it all as it was or at least showed no 
 passionate hurry to change it. He had brought the great 
 message from heaven, and henceforth the earth could take 
 care of itself. 
 
 Churchill said to himself, "I have been sinking into the 
 folly of unbelievers/' And he thought again, but in an en- 
 tirely different manner, of the ceaseless attempts to amelio- 
 rate the existing state of affairs that are made by economists, 
 politicians, writers, and talkers. All that they can do, 
 lavishly aided by the benevolent and the charitable, is but a 
 drop in the ocean. And knowing that it is so, many good men 
 cannot sleep at night because of the suffering of mankind. 
 The horror of it, together with their own impotence, haunts 
 them, and ultimately kills them perhaps. 
 
 He thought of these philanthropists and of their despair- 
 
 125
 
 126 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 ing cry, feeling ashamed but scarcely now remembering if 
 he had ever echoed it. He knew it perhaps only because one 
 hears it so often : "The world is too ugly. The suffering is 
 too much. Despair." 
 
 Yes, but the answer is simple. He marvelled at the folly 
 of the cry. These men must be unbelievers. In truth one 
 might despair, if it was a question of only one life here and 
 now. But as there is another life, to which this is only a 
 probation, why despair? 
 
 And even here below, we are not standing still. We are 
 not as we were two thousand years ago. Here below the 
 love is strengthening, spreading nothing can stop the 
 progress. Christ sowed the seed in the heart of the world, 
 and the blossoming tree cannot die; it must spread, and 
 spring up higher and higher. There is hope on all sides. 
 No real despair is felt among those who are suffering. Only 
 the doubting lookers-on cannot bear it, and sometimes go 
 mad from the hideous sights. 
 
 The sense of being lost in the shifting crowd of strangers 
 passed away from him. He knew more and more people 
 personally. Sometimes, going through the costers' market, 
 he seemed to be acquainted with everybody there. Whole 
 streets talked to him the church- folk as to a friend, the 
 others in genial recognition of a now familiar face. "After- 
 noon, guv'nor." "Fine day, sir." "I say, mister. 'Arf a 
 minute ago there was a young bloke looking f er you ; one o* 
 yer Brigade boys; carroty-'eaded boy that b'longs to 
 Brown's." 
 
 At the vicarage, where he generally took his evening meal, 
 he was quite at home ; trustfully admiring Walsden, and not 
 only fond of Mrs. Walsden, Gardiner, and the servants, but 
 even fond of Mr. Smart. He had tried hard not to judge 
 Smart severely, and he had been rewarded. After hearing 
 things narrated by Walsden and observing other things for 
 himself, he would have been sorry indeed had he recklessly 
 condemned this large, soft, and outwardly common man 
 because of his one constitutional or hereditary weakness. 
 Much, much good lay hid in Smart. Though poor, he was 
 not greedy of money ; if he loved ease, he did not take it ; 
 if he shirked the battlefield, he was faithful and untiring
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 127 
 
 with the wounded and the sick. In his last curacy he might 
 have married a rich woman, but, although not bound by any 
 vows of celibacy, he refused marriage for the sake of the 
 priestly ideal. Soon he would be leaving St. Bede's, to take 
 up work just as arduous and unromantic in a provincial 
 town ; and Churchill felt genuinely sorry that his round face 
 and rather smug smile were about to vanish from the scene. 
 
 If either Smart or Gardiner had Ipeen capable of enter- 
 taining the pettiness of jealousy, both of them, ere this, 
 might perhaps have wished that Churchill himself would 
 speedily withdraw. People who used to go to them for 
 ghostly counsel now went to him. Women and boys in in- 
 creasing numbers, and many men, too, demanded preparation 
 from him before attending the Communion Service, and but 
 for the advice or explicit requests of Walsden, he would 
 have developed and expanded the practice of confession to 
 the utmost of his power. On this matter he and Walsden 
 had many talks. He did not agree with Walsden's views 
 so far as this special matter was concerned either with re- 
 gard to doctrine or policy; he thought them wrong; but he 
 submitted and obeyed. 
 
 Walsden was more grateful than Churchill guessed for 
 such acquiescence to the superior authority. Talking to his 
 wife, he once said, "Emily, the best thing about Churchill 
 is that he doesn't like giving in no, he hates it and yet he 
 does it." 
 
 "He is an extremely nice young man," said Mrs. Walsden. 
 "Quite the nicest we have ever had." 
 
 Walsden scratched his beard and laughed contentedly. 
 "Yes, and do you know, it is lucky that he bends to me, 
 because the time is not far off when he will be strong 
 enough to break me." 
 
 "Henry, what do you mean?" Mrs. Walsden was indig- 
 nant and puzzled. 
 
 "I mean the hold he is getting on the parish." 
 
 "Oh, that is nonsense," said Mrs. Walsden quite warmly. 
 "No one can ever be anything here but you." 
 
 "You don't hear what I hear. It is all Mr. Churchill 
 nowadays. It is 'Mr. Churchill told me not to;' 'Mr. 
 Churchill wouldn't like it ;' 'Mr. Churchill said I was to pray 
 for my enemies.' . . . Emily, if he set himself to do it,
 
 128 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 he could take them all away from me. But he won't at- 
 tempt to do it." 
 
 "I should think not indeed;" and Mrs. Walsden tossed 
 her head, and her mild eyes flashed fire. 
 
 "And he won't have time to do it either. Emily, we can't 
 hope to keep him long. It would be too much to hope but, 
 oh, my dear, how I shall miss him !" 
 
 "/ shan't if he has such presumptuous ideas." 
 
 "He has none;" and Walsden spoke with most unusual 
 slowness and thoughtfulness. "Emily, I see great things 
 ahead of Edward Churchill. Up to now I believe his life has 
 been a constant fight. It is a fight that tells its story in his 
 face. I saw it was there directly I saw him, but I couldn't 
 read the story. I asked him why he looked older than his 
 years, and he said he did not know. Quite true. I don't 
 think he knows now." 
 
 "And now I don't know what you mean," said Mrs. Wals- 
 den, picking up a basket of socks. 
 
 "I mean But, never mind. You're busy, dear. I 
 
 too. There's something I had to attend to, and it has com- 
 pletely gone;" and Walsden roused himself and began to 
 bustle. "Yes, Churchill only this. When a man of that 
 quality conquers himself, he can conquer all the world. He 
 becomes like iron all it meets must bend or break. . . . 
 Tell Miss Lacy that the auditor's report will be ready 
 to-morrow." 
 
 In fact, although Edward Churchill did not as yet know 
 it, what had happened twice already at school and at the 
 University had happened again, and on a larger scale, at 
 St. Bede's. He was an influence. 
 
 This became patent to all but himself when he began to 
 preach. He had prepared a series of sermons on the Effi- 
 cacy of Prayer, and he started delivering them at week-day 
 evening services. Gradually he filled the church. He told 
 the people to pray for one another ; he said it was an aid that 
 they could always give, and they were to give it always; 
 instead of coming to gape at the sick man and make a raree- 
 show of him, they were to pray for him while at their work. 
 They were to pray for those they loved and for those they 
 hated; and the love would deepen and the hate would die. 
 "Pray for him who evilly entreats you, ask that he may be
 
 THE MIRROR AND, THE LAMP 129 
 
 redeemed from his wickedness and taught to act as a mem- 
 ber of the brotherhood of Christ. And listen to this, believe 
 it, because it is the truth: If your prayers do him no good, 
 they will do you good. Try it ; put it to the test, and tell me 
 if it is not true. After such prayer you will feel that you 
 are better and stronger; the poison of angry thought will 
 have been driven out of your blood, your brains will seem 
 to have been washed in clean water, your hearts will beat 
 to a steadier measure ; you will be more like yourselves." 
 
 He took no pride but an immense pleasure in the success 
 of his sermons. When he went up into the pulpit and looked 
 down at the toil-worn faces, he found that all which once 
 seemed ugly had utterly gone. This place of simple wor- 
 ship seemed homely, friendly, congruous to its purpose and 
 its aims; the yellowish bricks and clumsy woodwork had 
 been rendered innocuous by familiarity, the tessellated pave- 
 ment glowed warmly and cheerfully in the gaslight, and by 
 day the gaudy crudeness of the painted glass no longer 
 afflicted his eyes. 
 
 Soon Walsden came to him with an open letter, and, look- 
 ing at it rather ruefully, said, "Father Halliday wants you 
 to go over and preach at Poplar. He'll send a man to take 
 your place. It's the first offer of the kind that has ever 
 reached us from that high and mighty quarter and, well, 
 my immediate inclination was to ask him to keep his im- 
 pudence to polish his buckled shoes with. But, of course, 
 I should like you to go. It's the right thing to do. Yes, 
 I wish to say yes." 
 
 Churchill preached at Poplar, and then with Walsden's 
 approval complied with requests for a sermon at Plaistow 
 and other parishes as far eastward as Leytonstone. 
 
 Amongst the churches that he preached in the one to 
 which Walsden dispatched him with the most cordial satis- 
 faction was St. Ursula's ; and now at last he met that Mr. 
 and Mrs. Verschoyle of whom he had heard so much, and 
 was privileged to pass through the gate in the high garden 
 wall at which he had looked so often. 
 
 The rectory was more charming than he had imagined 
 when scrutinising its gabled roof and upper windows from 
 the top of a tram. Coming out of the roar of traffic, leaving 
 the mean shops, the sad crowd, the dirty pavement, and
 
 130 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 passing through an enchanted wicket, you saw before you a 
 modest old-fashioned country house, with carriage drive, 
 wide porch, and well-treed garden, beyond which, and at a 
 considerably lower level, ran a stretch of water that con- 
 nected one of the many ship-basins with a neighbouring 
 canal. Inside, the house was homelike, peaceful, pretty. But 
 more charming than all this were the people who lived in the 
 house. 
 
 Verschoyle was a tall thin man of perhaps fifty, and yet 
 when he laughed his clean-shaven face seemed that of a boy; 
 he had soft luminous eyes, and their expression changed 
 rapidly, now humorous, now grave, but never hard; in 
 manner he was easy, natural, but always priestlike. Mrs. 
 Verschoyle as a young girl must have been very beautiful, 
 and indeed she was still beautiful at the age of thirty-five : a 
 woman of the Italian type, with the nobly chiselled mask of 
 antique ideals, dark hair, and an olive complexion. When 
 in repose a fleeting sadness showed about her lips and eyes ; 
 when she talked the light and the life in her was glorious. 
 All the church-people of St. Ursula's loved her; she could 
 understand all, she forgave all ; she had a power of intuition 
 that is very rare, a power that first startles and then de- 
 lights. An attribute which she shared with her husband, 
 perhaps the strongest characteristic of both, was that with- 
 out delay and without question they seemed to give one their 
 ripe friendship yet, not as common people giving that 
 which they know is of little value and therefore need not 
 be withheld, but as if acting on a firm belief that the gift 
 would be deserved. 
 
 Thus they gave their friendship to Edward Churchill, and 
 he thought that it was of inestimable value. He came back 
 to the rectory again and again, and they always made him 
 welcome. They supplied nearly everything for which he had 
 craved. All here were staunch Catholics, thinking exactly 
 as he did and able to express their thoughts without the least 
 reserve. It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, jump 
 upon a tram, and find himself in the rectory drawing-room. 
 Listening here was as pleasant as talking; just to watch 
 was pleasant. The young priests who lived here wore cas- 
 socks and birettas ; their faces were fine and mild, yet really 
 strong, like the rector's face; and in their intercourse with
 
 131 
 
 him and his wife they seemed to be brothers. All were so 
 happy. The atmosphere was full of a glorious untroubled 
 faith into which fuss and hurry could not obtrude itself. 
 The whole thing was spiritual when compared with Wals- 
 den's harassed household, where the talk ran so much on 
 violent effort, bitter disappointment, and stern refusal to 
 admit defeat. Here, when they spoke of difficulties they 
 all seemed peacefully conscious of the irresistible force that 
 works behind our puny endeavours. Walsden's was a noble 
 ardour ; this was a splendid confidence. 
 
 "Now sit quietly," Mrs. Verschoyle used to say, smiling at 
 him. "Don't pull out your watch in that agitated way ; don't 
 frown and start, and jump up as if you had been shot. What- 
 ever you have to do, there will be time enough to do it." 
 
 And he noticed how slowly and thoughtfully one of the 
 young priests took his biretta from the piano, turned it round 
 and round in his white hands, lingered a little while chatting, 
 and then glided away. Most haste less speed perhaps. At 
 St. Ursula's contemplation and meditation seemed to be 
 possible. And if one got unduly rattled, one went into a 
 retreat. He heard them speak of retreats often. "Brother 
 Davenport is doing a retreat at Reigate." "Father Mathison 
 will have finished his retreat by Sunday." 
 
 When here, he fell into their ways. He lived for the 
 moment, and the wish to be in two or three places at once 
 was forgotten. 
 
 So truly the rectory was for him a retreat. He did a 
 retreat of an hour or an hour and a quarter at a time, 
 liking it best when he could sit alone with Mrs. Verschoyle 
 on summer afternoons. It was rest and enjoyment to be in 
 this beautiful room made beautiful by taste and not by 
 wealth; to look at the chintz-covered sofas and chairs, the 
 pretty china, the flowers, and, through an open window and 
 under the branches of trees, at the garden sloping downward 
 to brown water dappled with patches of yellow sunlight. 
 And, oh, the sweet boon of silence! Here, at the back of 
 the house, all seemed so still. Not a murmur of the traffic 
 reached one, and the faint shouts of men passing with a 
 barge upon the water sounded but for a moment and then 
 like music. 
 
 He used to talk to her dreamily, of his mother, his am-
 
 132 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 bitions, his ideas for new sermons ; and he loved to talk, he 
 loved to listen. Her voice, the mere sight of her, did him 
 good. 
 
 "Well, Christian," she would say, with a frank, kind smile, 
 as he came in, "how are you getting on with the giants? 
 You've left the Slough of Despond far behind you, anyhow." 
 
 Quite early in their friendship she and her husband had 
 begun to call him Christian, but they employed the name 
 only when there were no other people present. He had 
 asked her why. "Is it because you think me faint-hearted 
 and easily frightened ?" 
 
 "No," she said. "You are like Christian because you are 
 going a long journey, and you are going to suffer many 
 things, but you will get there in the end. But that's not the 
 reason," and she laughed pleasantly. "See for yourself." 
 Then she brought from her writing-table a print of Sher- 
 burn's fanciful picture of Christian dressed in armour. 
 "Have you ever seen that face? The first time you came 
 here my husband and I had the idea that we knew you, that 
 we had often seen you before. We racked our memories. 
 Then all at once Wilfrid jumped up and said, 'Christian! 
 Sherburn's Christian' !" 
 
 Many other visitors came to the rectory; and, meeting 
 them, Churchill was unconsciously touching the fringe of a 
 circle of the most aristocratic Catholicism. These droppers- 
 in were for the most part priests friends of St. Ursula's 
 curates, members of orders and wandering communities, or 
 representatives of austere brotherhoods who made excur- 
 sions into the world and then returned to the normally 
 severe discipline of their Houses ; but there were some lay- 
 men also, young men of easy address and polished manners, 
 who, except for their costume, were just like clerics. All 
 were celibates, and certainly most of the priests, if not the 
 laymen, too, had taken solemn vows of chastity. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Verschoyle not only approved of celibacy, but spoke 
 of it with enthusiasm, delightfully oblivious both of them 
 that they were always presenting it in its most attractive and 
 highest form, the bliss of married life. 
 
 These people talked often about the church of the Cruci- 
 fixion in Melford Street, its eloquent vicar, Father Bryan, 
 its deserved popularity, and its varied offices. They ad-
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 133 
 
 vised Churchill to go there without delay, politely giving him 
 to understand that not to have attended High Mass at 
 Father Bryan's was at once the loss of a great pleasure and 
 an ignorance that verged on being a solecism. 
 
 Then somebody offered to procure tickets for Mrs. 
 Verschoyle, Churchill, and the youngest of St. Ursula's 
 curates; and one Sunday all three of them went together 
 and heard Schubert's Mass. 
 
 Churchill's delight and joyful emotion were intense. He 
 came away fortified. And thence onwards he went there 
 from time to time alone making it his great treat, forcing 
 himself to work doubly hard in order to earn and deserve 
 the treat. 
 
 At this period Father Bryan's church was at the very 
 height of its vogue. At ten o'clock half an hour before 
 Matins began carriages came rolling out of the stately 
 Mayfair squares to set down what the newspapers used 
 to call the highest representatives of rank and fashion, and 
 soon the courtyard gates in narrow little Melford Street 
 were as handsomely blocked as though the attraction had 
 been a dress rehearsal of some new opera. Many policemen 
 were required to regulate the traffic and help you through 
 the crowd of sightseers who had gathered to gape at the 
 nobs. Admission was by ticket only. In the courtyard 
 grave and courtly men of the world examined your creden- 
 tials ; then you were passed on into the church porch, where 
 you surrendered your cards of entry. In the church itself 
 pleasant debonair young gentlemen took charge of you, 
 dividing the two sexes, conducting women to one side and 
 men to the other, whispering, smiling, beckoning, and finally 
 giving you, somewhere among the tightly packed throng, 
 your cane-seated chair and square praying-mat. There was 
 excitement and anxiety as closing time drew near; for no 
 mercy was ever shown to late-comers. At 10 :25 the church 
 doors shut, one heard the keys turn in the locks, and one 
 knew that outside, the courtyard was full of the disap- 
 pointed and the ticketless. After Matins the doors opened 
 again. A few people went out, but many more surged in, 
 packing every available corner, exhausting every square 
 inch of standing room, for the Mass. 
 
 The church, considered merely as a building, was "the
 
 134 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 last word" in ecclesiastical architecture and decoration. 
 Clusters of polished stone pillars with ornate capitals sup- 
 ported the unusually high roof; the wall on the women's 
 side was given over to a series of fresco pictures, while the 
 men's wall had narrow windows with low-toned glass ; there 
 was a small but rich little chapel snuggling behind the pulpit 
 and beneath the screened tubes of the organ a very power- 
 ful and costly instrument. All this seemed fine enough, but 
 the real splendours had been reserved for the choir and 
 sanctuary. The altar stood high above its spacious wide 
 steps ; all columns, tracery, or screen work to either side of 
 the choir were gilded, with richly-glowing colour as a 
 background, and the entire eastern wall was a blaze of gold 
 mosaic. Windows, high up to the south and north, that 
 could not be seen from the body of the church, admitted a 
 white but delicately tempered light, but only at a level well 
 above the altar, so that it softened the fiery glow of decora- 
 tion, and made all that might seem heavy or solid change to 
 graceful, almost ethereal luminance. 
 
 At first Churchill noticed little of such matters. Thrilled 
 and captivated by the new experience, he could scarcely 
 observe anything outside the essential satisfaction furnished 
 by his surroundings. But now, during Matins at least, he 
 was fully cognisant of minor interests. 
 
 He noticed the congregation even studied it attentively. 
 The sleek and robust young men who acted as vergers were 
 confident, easy content with themselves and yet not self- 
 conscious. They seemed to be friends of everybody, they 
 stooped to tap people on the shoulders and murmur amicably ; 
 they sometimes kept one hand in a trousers pocket as they 
 showed people to seats they were like the bridegroom's 
 chums helping at a wedding. On different occasions he 
 saw seven or eight men that he had known at Oxford, and, 
 talking to them afterwards in the courtyard, they made much 
 of him as one with whom they were glad to renew relations. 
 Amongst them was a man called Richard Hayling, a man 
 much older than Churchill, who used to come to stay with a 
 fellow of All Souls, and did not then appear to be very relig- 
 ious. Now it was easy to see that, in spite of his smart 
 clothes and still worldly manner, religion had become the 
 main interest of his life. He was a handsome man, with a
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 135 
 
 large bird-like nose, dark hair rapidly turning grey, and keen 
 inquiring eyes. Evidently a person of importance here, he 
 took Churchill under his wing, introducing him to Father 
 Bryan, and promising him that he should have tickets when- 
 ever he wanted them. Hayling also said that some one had 
 told him of Churchill's gifts as a preacher. Another man 
 whom Churchill had never seen before, but whom he im- 
 mediately recognised, was the Duke of Danesborough. The 
 windows of Oxford photographers had been full of por- 
 traits of this celebrated undergrad, and, although he had 
 been down for some time, the talk still ran upon his rows 
 with dons, policemen, and bookmakers; his steeplechasers 
 and hunters, the coach on which he drove actresses, his 
 rooms by the archway at Christ Church where he gave fabu- 
 lously elaborate and painfully riotous luncheon parties. A 
 sun-burnt, strongly-built, even beefy nobleman, leaving tra- 
 ditions behind him to lead youth astray and yet here he 
 was, Sunday after Sunday, taking round an offertory bag 
 and looking grave, dignified, princely, or kneeling on his 
 little mat, all his ducal pomp forgotten in humble and whole- 
 hearted devotion. 
 
 When Churchill glanced at the female part of the con- 
 gregation, he saw unmistakably the effects of wealth and 
 luxury upon outward aspect. In a sense, many of these 
 richly dressed, gracious, and graceful women were ex- 
 tremely beautiful. The faces of young and old all seemed 
 mature. Each seemed a complete, well-finished specimen, 
 with nothing pinched or stinted in colour, line, or size. They 
 were, of course, all of them very highly nourished; their 
 complexions, even when waxily pale, suggested a full supply 
 of blood, and the curves of their cheeks and the contours of 
 their figures, although so pretty, were very firm. To his eye 
 perhaps merely from an association of ideas natural 
 enough their charms were a little too earthly. Something 
 dull, lifeless, or inert marred the loveliness. He could see no 
 one with the spiritual beauty of Mrs. Verschoyle, nor one 
 with an expression and general air as interesting and subtly 
 attractive as had been shown by that Miss Vickers. 
 
 Thinking this, he remembered that Miss Vickers came 
 no more to St. Bede's church, and that he never met her at 
 the Institute or in the streets. She had vanished without
 
 136 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 his ever having asked those questions concerning her char- 
 acter, history, social status. She had been a pleasant ap- 
 parition and no more. He remembered, too, that he had not 
 for some time paid a visit to the tree by Denmark House. 
 He had forgotten the green leaves and the pale face together. 
 
 But however widely his mind wandered, it came back and 
 concentrated itself the moment the Mass began. As the first 
 chords of noble music struck one's ear, one became absorbed, 
 entranced. One thought of the great and glorious mystery, 
 and one thought of nothing else. Truly, however, as the 
 celebration continued, thought with most of the worshippers 
 was obliterated and they became purely receptive, storing 
 pleasure and peace through eyes and ears. 
 
 But with Churchill, up to a certain period, there was 
 always a strong mental acquiesence, a latent activity of 
 thought, that seized and sifted each incoming message from 
 the sense channels. Thus, while he listened and watched, 
 taking joy in the play of light and colour, the mauve and 
 amber and gold of the priests' vestments, the solemnity of 
 tall acolytes holding the immense candles, the bowings and 
 genuflexions, the advances and the withdrawals, the low 
 murmurs and the loud bursts of song, some deep inner voice 
 of the intellect seemed to heighten his joy by its sanction and 
 approval, as though it had been saying, "This satisfies me. 
 This is what I desired. This is what I have been asking for 
 ever since I was a child and first began to think." 
 
 But after a point, as the apotheosis approached, he passed 
 swiftly into the realm of unreasoning emotion. The sound 
 of the bell thrilled him ; the odour and smoke of the incense 
 was rolling towards him ; the eastern wall began to flash and 
 tremble. Soft beams of sunlight made a heavenly radiance 
 high above the priestly heads and almost prostrate forms; 
 then down below all seemed to grow misty, a glittering of 
 gold seen through veils of many-tinted cloud, in which one 
 understood rather than really saw the Elevation of the Host. 
 And thence onward it was adoration and delight. It was 
 the supreme ecstasy. 
 
 In the evening, seated at supper in the bare and shabby 
 dining-room of St. Bede's vicarage, he was begged to 
 describe what he had witnessed at the West End, and he
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 137 
 
 always did so freely. Mrs. Walsden, standing up before the 
 cold mutton, would stop carving and vaguely brandish the 
 big knife, so astonished did she feel; Walsden, engrossed, 
 inadvertently helped himself thrice to the Barking pickles; 
 Gardiner sighed almost enviously; and Mr. Nape, the new 
 curate, who was a shy, tittering kind of person, gasped and 
 spluttered while he drank his ginger beer. 
 
 "As many men as women! How can he manage it?" 
 
 "Crowded for Matins too ! Wellf' 
 
 Churchill used to hand round the church magazine that he 
 had brought with him from the marvellous West End estab- 
 lishment, and, as this passed from one to another, items 
 were read aloud to a chorus of ejaculation. 
 
 "They've made a League for the young ladies at three of 
 the fashionable drapers' shops," read out Gardiner. 
 
 "They get up dances for them," read Mr. Nape. "Oh! 
 They arrange theatricals for them. Fancy!" And he 
 tittered. 
 
 "I see," said Mrs. Walsden, nursing the magazine, "that 
 he gave twenty guineas to Poplar. . . . And ten guineas to 
 the Canning Town fund. He didn't happen to think of us." 
 
 Walsden took the magazine from her, and, always ready 
 to ignore his food, read assiduously. 
 
 "Could one credit it? They take nearly three hundred 
 pounds at a single offertory. Why, think what that would 
 come to ! ... Stay here it is in black and white. Their 
 offertories last year exceeded five thousand pounds." He 
 held the magazine above his head, as though to prevent Mrs. 
 Walsden from snatching it, and stared at her fixedly. 
 "Emily, do you hear? Five thousand pounds! Positively, 
 it makes one's mouth water."
 
 XVII 
 
 SOME of the young men that Edward Churchill met in the 
 West had offered to visit him in the East. "We will," they 
 declared. "On my word, I mean it. ... You know, 
 Churchill has the worst slum of all. Isn't it sporting of him? 
 We mean to look him up. ... We will, old chap. 
 Hayling shall fix a date with you. After dinner, of course." 
 
 And one Saturday night they really did come to the club 
 a largish party of youthful bloods, personally conducted 
 by Richard Hayling. 
 
 The visit was not altogether successful. Walsden did not 
 take to the visitors, and soon grew huffy and standoffish with 
 them. Obviously they had merely come sightseeing. They 
 chattered gaily at the club, looking absurdly big and strong 
 and prosperous as they moved about among the undersized 
 East-enders, and inciting undue noise and laughter. 
 
 "Tell us some more. Go on out with it. So you propped 
 him one in the eye ripping !" 
 
 Edward heard their silly talk in all directions, but it could 
 not be checked. "Algy!" one of them cried excitedly. 
 "Come over here and talk to a delightful cove I've found. 
 He has just done time." 
 
 They had fastened upon a coster, an unworthy young man, 
 and Churchill heard them plying him with silly questions. 
 "Which is the rummiest street? Saturday! You have all 
 sorts of larks, don't you? Can't you show us the larks?" 
 Churchill tried in vain to get them away from their coster. 
 They went off with him to see the sights, to look in at the 
 music-hall, to stand treat at whelk stalls, buy hot potatoes, 
 and watch people eat hokey-pokey. "Show us your donahs 
 too. Trot out the gals. Bring the ladies. Let 'em all 
 come." 
 
 Churchill looked round, and only Richard Hayling was 
 left. He felt ashamed of his frivolous crew, and insisted on 
 staying at the club till nearly the end of the evening. 
 
 138
 
 THE MIRROR ANG THE LAM? 139 
 
 Walsden frowned, and going out to the pavement, stood 
 there, as if the interior of his club had been spoilt for him. 
 
 But within a few days all the foolish visitors had sent 
 Churchill cheques to be used for any good purpose that he 
 pleased ; and when he handed this money to St. Bede's gen- 
 eral purposes fund, Walsden beamed, rubbed his hands 
 together, and was again well content. 
 
 A little while after this Churchill received an invitation 
 to preach an evening sermon at the Church of the Cruci- 
 fixion. Walsden again begged him to accept the invitation, 
 and talked much about it at meals. 
 
 "Have you heard the news ? Our star preacher is required 
 in Mayfair now. We shall have him summoned to the 
 Chapel Royal or Buckingham Palace before we can look 
 round ;" and he spoke to Churchill facetiously and yet wist- 
 fully. "I fear me, this is the beginning of the end for poor 
 old St. Bede's. They won't let us keep you to ourselves; 
 they mean to get you away as soon as they can." And he 
 turned to his wife, "Emily, you must fetch out your best 
 bonnet and mantle, and go and hear him thunder at the 
 swells." 
 
 Mrs. Walsden said that she must wait for a new bonnet 
 before she dared to face Mayfair, and, moreover, she had 
 her sewing-club on the evening in question. 
 
 At this week-day evening service Father Bryan's congre- 
 gation was drawn from other classes of society than those 
 that mustered in such strength on Sundays. The hour 
 clashed with dinner-time, and the fashionable world was 
 scarcely represented at all. In lieu of the smart young men 
 there were clerks, shop-assistants, business people from the 
 suburbs ; and the women's side of the church was sparsely 
 occupied by shop girls, typists, governesses, and to Father 
 Bryan's great pride a few chorus girls, or ballet dancers, 
 who would be presently pulling on silk tights and painting 
 their faces in the dressing-rooms of a popular theatre or 
 music-hall. 
 
 Churchill preached once more on prayer, and at first felt 
 nervous and uncertain of himself, finding the management 
 of his voice difficult, seeming to bark or bellow each time 
 that he tried to give emphasis to a phrase, but getting on 
 better as soon as he understood that, thanks to the perfect
 
 140 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 acoustic properties of the building, every word would carry 
 without effort to the furthest corner. After the service 
 Father Bryan thanked him warmly, assured him that he 
 had been quite a success, and begged him to come into the 
 adjacent vicarage for some late dinner. 
 
 Churchill excused himself. He had to get back to St. 
 Bede's. 
 
 "Then good-night or rather au revoir; for I count on 
 your coming again. I'll drop you a line. Yes, I'll write to 
 you to-morrow or the day after." 
 
 The promised letter, duly arriving and being submitted for 
 consideration, made Mr. Walsden skip round his study, 
 shout, and wave his arms in jubilation. Father Bryan asked 
 Churchill to preach upon the efficacy of prayer on a Sunday 
 morning, and to accept the offertory for St. Bede's. 
 
 "When does he say?" cried Walsden. "Fortnight. That 
 will be July the third. The height of the London season. 
 The cream of his offertories. Oh, where is that magazine? 
 Churchill, how can we thank you ? My wife will shed tears 
 of joy," and he went shouting into the hall. "Emily, famous 
 news ! Emily ! Where is Bryan's magazine ? I want to see 
 what they took the first Sunday in July last year." 
 
 It was the finest possible congregation that Churchill sur- 
 veyed from the low octagonal pulpit. Outside the sun shone, 
 the streets were clean and dry, kind people who did not wish 
 to bring out their horses and coachmen could safely walk 
 to church ; all might wear their best clothes without distress 
 of mind. That regular attendant, the Duke of Danes- 
 borough, was in his place; Hayling had come; the young 
 men were in great force ; the ladies overflowed their allotted 
 space, and a few of them had to be insinuated near the win- 
 dows on the men's side. 
 
 Churchill felt complete confidence. Beginning quietly he 
 immediately got the right pitch of voice, and was sustained 
 throughout the sermon by a conviction, equivalent to cer- 
 tainty, that he held and interested his auditors. He wound 
 up by telling them that death-bed story of the man who said 
 "Wonderful !" ; and when he ceased speaking, there was a 
 sympathetic rustle, a wave of very slight movement that 
 seemed to come rolling towards him right through the
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 141 
 
 church until it broke against the stone of the pulpit a mani- 
 festation that plainly represented the round after round of 
 applause which preachers can never hear while they remain 
 in consecrated places. When he went back to his choir stall 
 he was glowing, excited, joyously proud. He did not really 
 need the friendly, approving glance of Father Bryan to tell 
 him that he had made a complete, an unusually big success. 
 Presently, during the interval between the offices, when he 
 and all the clergy were in the vestry, he listened to many 
 congratulations, and would have had more but for the fact 
 that Bryan was busily devoting himself to a young Colonial 
 bishop who had arrived for the Mass. 
 
 But he thought no more of himself after they had re- 
 entered the church; and at the end of the Mass he was 
 tranquil, normal, innocently happy. If glory there were, he 
 had given the glory where all glory is due. 
 
 Father Bryan had insisted that to-day he should stay for 
 luncheon, and, as he walked through a cloister leading from 
 the church to the adjacent vicarage, he thought how curi- 
 ously the ground plan and general arrangement of the build- 
 ings resembled St. Bede's, and yet how astoundingly differ- 
 ent everything was in all other respects. Most of the guests, 
 making their way through the open courtyard, had already 
 gathered in a large soberly decorated room that might 
 be called a library if you looked at its book-cases, or a draw- 
 ing-room if you merely considered its luxuriousness. To- 
 day, as rarely happened, ladies were of the party, and Rich- 
 ard Hayling told Churchill confidently that he thought their 
 admission a mistake. Bryan's luncheon parties were de- 
 lightful informal affairs at which men talked freely, and the 
 presence of women, in his opinion, not only puts an irk- 
 some restraint on one's choice of topics, but infallibly de- 
 stroys intelligent conversation on any subject. Having said 
 this, he at once introduced Churchill to a Lady Eliza Some- 
 body, her pretty daughter, and Miss Yenning, the famous 
 actress. 
 
 Among the male guests, as well as one of Bryan's clergy 
 and the Colonial bishop, there were the Duke of Danes- 
 borough, the editor of a daily newspaper, a very well-known 
 Radical M. P., and old Lord Menston, revered in all Catho- 
 lic circles as the munificent patron, if not the actual origi-
 
 142 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 nator, of the Bournemouth Fraternity ; and in regard to the 
 rest of the men one felt instinctively that each was without 
 question a personage of some importance, by reason of 
 wealth, rank, or individual power. If he had been nobody 
 and had never done anything remarkable, he could not 
 possibly be there. 
 
 Father Bryan took Churchill from the actress and Hayling 
 in order to present him to the bishop, and these three stood 
 for a little while talking together quite away from all the 
 others. After more compliments about the sermon Bryan 
 told the bishop he ought to have come at Matins. He had 
 missed something worth hearing. "I think you are so 
 wise, Churchill in " Then he hastily moved off to re- 
 ceive another lady. 
 
 He came back directly. "What was I saying? Oh, yes, 
 half the bother with brilliant young men like yourself is that 
 they will address themselves to points of dogma instead of 
 to broad principles. Now that is a mistake." 
 
 Edward Churchill said it was what he himself had felt, 
 and indeed had told Walsden. 
 
 But at the name of Walsden Father Bryan made 
 something like a wry face. Then, with an effort, he spoke 
 genially. "I have never met Mr. Walsden. But you really 
 like him?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 Father Bryan laughed. "Then I'll like him for your sake. 
 By the by, you'll be wanting to know what the offertory 
 was. I must ask. You have immense poverty out there?" 
 
 "Immense." 
 
 "Just so. ... Ah, here is that naughty Lady Eva. 
 Always late ! . . . Lady Eva, don't trouble to apologise : 
 because we have not been waiting for you. But now that 
 you have turned up, you can lead the way into the other 
 room." 
 
 At the luncheon table Churchill sat next to the Duke of 
 Danesborough, who was very amiable, and across whom the 
 actress leaned and talked volubly. She flashed her large 
 eyes, gasped, and laid both hands upon her heart in a pretty, 
 exaggerated, theatrical manner when speaking of the ser- 
 mon. On Churchill's other side the newspaper editor was 
 asking old Menston about a recent debate of the Lords, and
 
 143 
 
 in all directions there were light questions and answers, 
 gaiety and laughter. 
 
 Churchill did not notice how the ladies at the far end of 
 the table were looking at him, nor guess that they were 
 talking about him. 
 
 "Of course," said one of them, "it's how nice he looks 
 rather than what he says." 
 
 "Yes, with such a face " 
 
 "But I liked his voice too." 
 
 And they all agreed that they greatly admired his voice as 
 well as his appearance, and also his extraordinary self- 
 possession. 
 
 "Father Bryan says he is absurdly young. But something 
 has aged him. I am certain there is some tremendous 
 romance in that man's life. He had some great love affair, 
 and that sent him into the Church." 
 
 "Bosh," said Hayling. "If you want to know the ugly 
 truth, he is a confirmed woman-hater." 
 
 "Yes, now possibly," said the lady. "But that is since 
 his great disappointment," and she laughed gaily. 
 
 "Poor lamb," said Lady Eva. "I hope he'll be consoled 
 one day. I'm quite sure he'll find people willing to try." 
 
 Hayling unobtrusively turned his shoulder and talked to 
 the man next him. He was more than ever persuaded that a 
 mistake had been made in admitting ladies. 
 
 They smoked at the end of the meal, and this was the 
 first time that Churchill had ever seen women with cigar- 
 ettes in their mouths. 
 
 He was not in the least shocked. He had dropped quite 
 easily into his place among these strange people and new 
 surroundings, and he felt conscious of the charm exercised 
 by the whole thing. Listening to the newspaper editor and 
 the Radical Member of Parliament as they held forth 
 about politics, or to the actress as she narrated the plot of a 
 forthcoming play, he thought, "These are the worldly lead- 
 ers. These are the unexpected but faithful allies splendidly 
 won by the Church." 
 
 He blew out little clouds of perfumed smoke, sipped the 
 delicious strong coffee, and seemed to be altogether at home 
 in just the kind of home that he was destined later on to 
 occupy.
 
 144 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 The brown paneling gave the room dignity, the low- 
 beamed ceiling made it picturesque ; on the long table, amidst 
 the cut glass and piled fruit, there were great silver pots 
 filled with pink tulips ; the latticed windows stood open, and 
 their short silk curtains flapped lazily, showing glimpses of 
 the railed court, the roadway, and fine carriages that passed 
 now and then. It seemed difficult to think that it was Sun- 
 day, and not easy to remember St. Bede's Institute, the rail- 
 way arches, or those huddled dwellings beside the canal. 
 
 After luncheon, when the guests were beginning to dis- 
 perse, he and Hayling found themselves together, and 
 Hayling called to the Duke of Danesborough to join them. 
 
 "Danesborough," said Hayling smilingly, "do something 
 for Churchill." 
 
 Danesborough laughed. "Only too delighted. But what 
 can your servant possibly do, except thank Mr. Churchill 
 for his sermon ? I've done that already ; but I'm sure I do 
 it again and very sincerely." 
 
 "Oh, rats," said Hayling. "Churchill isn't a suitor or a 
 courtier very much the reverse; and he'll probably slang 
 me for my interference afterwards ; but we don't want him 
 to hide his light under a bushel much longer." And he 
 went on with emphasis. "It is a light that ought to shine 
 in its proper place" 
 
 "I've no doubt it ought," said the Duke, looking rather 
 puzzled. 
 
 "We think" and Hayling put his hand on Churchill's 
 shoulder "we think he has taken a wrong turning or that 
 he is going down a lane that has no turning and we want 
 you to open out a real road for him." 
 
 All this made Churchill uncomfortable, and he tried to 
 get away. 
 
 "Good-bye," said Danesborough. "Are you ever available 
 at the dinner hour? Could you dine with me at my club 
 one night this week? You too, Hayling?" 
 
 But Edward Churchill could not dine with the Duke. He 
 was never free between eight and ten o'clock at night. 
 
 In the hall, where the departing ladies still made chatter 
 and fun, Father Bryan shook hands with him hurriedly, and 
 then called after him. 
 
 "Churchill ! It was three-seventeen, two and nine. They
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 145 
 
 will send you the cheque to-morrow. Au plaisir de vous 
 revoir." 
 
 "Where do you say you'll get your omnibus?" asked 
 Hayling. "Oxford Street? All right. I'll walk with you;" 
 and they strolled away together, through a wide square, by 
 huge porches of opulent houses where footmen yawned 
 vacuously at the sunlight and the sky. 
 
 "I'm glad," said Hayling, "that you've met Danesborough. 
 He's an old friend of mine. And, I say, it's a pity you didn't 
 agree to take just one night off when he asked you. If he 
 should make any further overtures, I hope you won't snub 
 him. Although so young, he is at this moment perhaps the 
 most important man in England." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "Yes. He is not yet fully aware of it himself. It is the 
 force of circumstances." 
 
 "But how do you mean ?" 
 
 Hayling explained that the Duke of Danesborough, by 
 reason of his position as a layman, had become the ambassa- 
 dor or intermediary between the head of the Church and 
 the advanced party. "At this moment," he said, "we are 
 approaching a crisis. There is either going to be an accom- 
 modation or a most tremendous split. I need not tell you 
 that we stand firm as the rock. We do not sue hat in hand 
 for tolerance; we claim liberty as our right. To-day the 
 Church of the Crucifixion appears startingly conspicuous. 
 It is talked about, written about people express wonder that 
 the Archbishop permits it. But all that we saw there this 
 morning will in twenty years be the practice of every 
 parish church. The Archbishop understands this as clearly 
 as you or I. He is for the time impotent unable to support 
 us, unable to resist us. It is a gross injustice to say he trims 
 his sails to the wind. As a wise ruler he does what is pos- 
 sible, and does not attempt the impossible. In spirit he is 
 always with us, if in act he sometimes seems against us." 
 
 Hayling further enlarged upon the sort of confidential 
 negotiations that were being carried on through the Duke 
 and again dwelt upon the point that only a laymen could 
 be thus employed. "No cleric could safely be received at 
 headquarters as our representative."
 
 XVIII 
 
 Two days later a polite little note arrived from the Duke 
 of Danesborough, saying that he had some business to do at 
 Lambeth Palace on the following afternoon and he wished to 
 take this opportunity of making Churchill known to the 
 Primate. 
 
 Without hesitation Churchill availed himself of this kind 
 offer ; presenting himself at Hedwick House as he had been 
 directed, and almost immediately driving off with Danes- 
 borough in a small brougham attached to a very big horse. 
 
 It happened that he had never till now been given an 
 occasion for observing the gaiety and brightness that 
 London, at this end of it, can show early on a summer after- 
 noon when all the frivolous world has come out in search of 
 pleasure. A block of carriages delayed them in Piccadilly. 
 Girls dressed like fairies passed slowly by, silk hato were 
 shining, and all the brass harness flashed as if it had been 
 made of burnished gold. People smiled and nodded to one 
 another, and in every face there was an expression of com- 
 placency that seemed to say, "Oh, it is nice to be rich and 
 idle and beautifully dressed." 
 
 They went fast down St. James's Street, past the stone 
 club-houses, by the gatehouse and cloisters of the palace, 
 and on beneath the green trees in the park. Here each 
 glance lighted on something charming the smooth grass, 
 the vivid flowers, the sparkle of the water, and through un- 
 expected vistas a mass of buildings with the towers of West- 
 minster high and grand beyond. 
 
 Danesborough talked in the easy jovial style of one under- 
 graduate speaking to another. 
 
 "Rather a redoubtable old party, you know. Not too easy 
 to get on with, they say, as a rule, but he's always very 
 decent to me." 
 
 And he said a few words about Oxford. 
 
 "When did you come down? . . . Ah, then I was your 
 senior by a lot. . . . There was a rascal of a nigger who 
 
 146
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 147 
 
 played the banjo. A most impudent blackguard;" and he 
 chuckled, as if amused by his recollections. "Not a sooty- 
 face a real negro. I can't remember what they called him." 
 
 "Bandy Jack?" 
 
 "Yes. Bandy Jack ;" and Danesborough chuckled heart- 
 ily. "Oh, that fellow's impudence! I always used to have 
 him at my rooms for breakfasts and luncheons." 
 
 Edward Churchill answered other questions automatically, 
 thinking the while how wonderful it all was. He was being 
 taken to see the English pontiff, the august successor to those 
 saints, Augustine and Dunstan, the last representative of the 
 long glorious line of priests that had held the supreme office. 
 A hundred memories of the old school days came to him. 
 He thought of the Martyr's Feast, of the Annual Letter ; and 
 also of an imagination or vision of the Archbishop standing 
 on the steps outside the great western door of the cathedral, 
 holding out his hands, and blessing the Pilgrim's road. 
 
 After they had crossed the river, and when they drew near 
 to the dark time-stained walls, he could not speak. He 
 could only move his head, trying to catch first glimpses of 
 the Lollards' Tower. 
 
 Churchill had been left in an ante-room while the Duke 
 transacted his business, whatever it might be, and when at 
 last he was summoned he felt his heart begin to beat tumul- 
 tuously. Reverence and awe had suddenly been stirred by 
 excitement. A chaplain and a secretary coming out passed 
 him as he went in. 
 
 He had a rapid impression of a large and unexpectedly 
 cold room, some logs of wood smouldering on the hearth, 
 and the sunlight seeming veiled and unnatural as one saw 
 vaguely through closed windows a stretch of lawn, blackened 
 buildings, and the river. Danesborough stood by one of 
 several writing-tables; and the Archbishop, with his hands 
 clasped behind his back, ambled about between another table 
 and the fire. He was old and big ; his bushy eyebrows had a 
 portentous frown ; there were deep wrinkles on each side of 
 his lips. His voice sounded harsh and grating, and there 
 were curious modulations in it that appeared to be beyond 
 his control, so that from a growl it rose almost to a squeak 
 and then abruptly deepened again; but his smile was kind
 
 148 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 and gentle. Seen thus, without the robes, and close to one, he 
 seemed absolutely different from the man Churchill had 
 watched from a distance at St. Dunstan's. 
 
 Smiling, he said that he was pleased to make Mr. Church- 
 ill's acquaintance. Then he growled. 
 
 "Tell me a little about yourself." 
 
 And Edward Churchill said that he was a St. Martyr's 
 
 boy. 
 
 "What, are you one of my well-beloved?" and the Arch- 
 bishop laughed gratingly. "No wonder people speak highly 
 of you. My Martyrites always do me credit. . . . Well, 
 what next?" 
 
 Churchill was at a loss what to say. But then, very 
 modestly, he narrated how while at Oxford he had enjoyed 
 the honour of receiving a letter from his Grace. 
 
 "Did you? What about?" 
 
 "A little paper that I wrote in a review.'" 
 
 And finally the Archbishop remembered. "Yes, I remem- 
 ber perfectly;" and he turned to Danesborough. "Your 
 friend can use his pen as well as his tongue." 
 
 Danesborough chuckled amiably, pleased that his protege 
 was coming out in so favourable a light. 
 
 "Yes," said the Archbishop, frowning, "I distinctly re- 
 member. I was struck by it. People talked about it. It 
 was excellent." 
 
 And, listening to these words of praise, Edward Churchill 
 had a curious sensation of pride and pleasure that was 
 touched with sadness. Through the furthest window he 
 could see at a distance the river flowing by ; without seeing 
 them, he was aware of the towers, the gates, and courts, and 
 steps, the majesty of this ancient palace stretching its stone 
 lengths far and near ; and he thought, "How wonderful all 
 this is that my dream is realising itself; that, as if by 
 some force over which I have no control, without making 
 the slightest effort, drifted like a cork upon that stream, or 
 moved like a pawn upon the vast chess-board of Church pol- 
 itics, I find myself here. Then this must be the great hour 
 of my life, the moment of crisis, the turning-point that 
 decides whither I go, what I become." Instinct, as well as 
 thought, told him that this was so, and that all he had hoped
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 149 
 
 for would now easily come to him. And yet he felt no ela- 
 tion, only increasing dullness or coldness. 
 
 The Archbishop went on speaking. "So I wrote to you? 
 What did I say?" 
 
 "You were good enough to say that I might come and pay 
 my respects to you." 
 
 "And did you come ?" 
 
 "No, your Grace." 
 
 "Why didn't you?" And the Archbishop frowned. 
 
 "I didn't venture." 
 
 "Didn't venture when I told you? Didn't venture to 
 obey orders?" Then he turned to the Duke, and smiled. 
 "There. Rebellious, to a man! So young, but so full of 
 defiance. Can you be astonished at what they say in the 
 penny newspapers? Open revolt. . . . That was how 
 long ago, when I wrote to you, Mr. Churchill ?" 
 
 "Four years, your Grace." 
 
 "Now that you have come, what do you want of me?" 
 
 Edward Churchill felt a sudden assurance, a certainty of 
 voice and action that rendered hesitation impossible. 
 
 "I want your blessing ;" and he dropped upon his knees. 
 
 There was surprise as well as searching scrutiny in the 
 glance that shot down at him from puckered brows. Then 
 the old man smiled as kind people smile at little children, 
 half closed his eyes, and, looking upward again, very sol- 
 emnly blessed his young visitor. 
 
 Five minutes later, Churchill was driving away in Danes- 
 borough's brougham. 
 
 "That's all right," said the Duke cheerily. "He was 
 quite decent, wasn't he? I always find him jolly enough 
 and I don't know why people are so down on him. Anyhow, 
 he isn't a humbug." 
 
 Then, when Churchill thanked him for his kindness in 
 procuring the great privilege of this interview, he altogether 
 refused to accept thanks. "Oh, no, not a bit. Only too 
 pleased directly it was suggested to me. I'm sure I hope 
 something may come of it." 
 
 He was to drive Churchill as far as Westminster, having 
 himself to look in at the Lords for half an hour; but now he 
 offered to send his companion up to the Strangers' Gallery.
 
 150 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 "The debate won't be worth listening to," he said. "But it 
 may amuse you to have a peep at us and, of course, you 
 can go out directly you are bored." 
 
 Soon then Churchill was seated in the gallery, leaning his 
 chin on his arms, and with intense interest staring down into 
 the famous assembly-hall. As just now at Lambeth, so here, 
 thronging memories of history, tradition, and sentiment 
 rushed into his mind. He had imagined it all so often, but 
 now for the first time he was really seeing the red benches 
 and gilded walls, the high painted windows, the open doors 
 of the Princes' Chamber, the woolsack, and the throne. 
 Listening to the languid voices of great peers, watching a 
 couple of bishops in lawn sleeves, studying the quiet pomp 
 and sober magnificence of ushers and officials, he felt a sat- 
 isfied approbation. Everything was as impressive as he had 
 ever pictured it in his imagination. 
 
 These were the time-honoured ruling classes. One could 
 catch the same note in every voice. They were so accus- 
 tomed to power that they exercised it as naturally as if it 
 had been an organic process, such as drawing one's breath ; 
 yet loving power, however languid they appeared; pleased 
 with themselves in an easy, dignified manner; seeming to 
 say : "Yes, it is nice, as well as fitting and proper, that I was 
 born to high rank and large revenues, so that I do this sort 
 of thing between luncheon and dinner instead of perspir- 
 ing in manual toil on a half -penny stomach." 
 
 When he came out he stood on Westminster Bridge, look- 
 ing at the graceful sunlit bulk of the Houses of Parliament 
 and the dark grim towers of Lambeth Palace. Then he 
 walked eastward along the Embankment, past the new castle 
 of Scotland Yard, huge hotels that looked like fortresses, a 
 pile of flats as big as a granite mountain; past Somerset 
 House, the resting place of rich men's testaments, and the 
 Temple, home of the clever and well-paid lawyers who upset 
 one's death-bed wishes; past offices, institutions, more 
 hotels ; and he was still among the ruling classes. Money- 
 making City-men came sweeping by in cabs and carriages 
 after their short successful day. No poverty was anywhere 
 visible. All seemed grand, fine, prosperous. And he had an 
 illusion that these contented, self-satisfied people all looked 
 at him with friendly approval, greeting him, welcoming him,
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 151 
 
 conveying to him a universal message of good-will, as if 
 they had said: "Your probation is over. Now you may join 
 us. We admit you to our select community, and you too 
 shall rule and amass and grow fat." 
 
 At Black friars he got into an underground train, and went 
 back through the darkness and foul atmosphere of many 
 tunnels to what are generally known as "the slums."
 
 XIX 
 
 HE had not long to wait before something came of that 
 afternoon spent with a duke in the West End. 
 
 Before the week was over he received a communication 
 from the Archbishop. It was formal, official, written by a 
 secretary, and it informed him that his Grace proposed to 
 appoint him to be one of his chaplains, that he might con- 
 sider this appointment as made pro tern, until the chance of 
 preferment should offer, when he would be passed on to 
 more important work. It further requested Mr. Churchill 
 to reply at once, and, in the event of the proposal being 
 agreeable to him, to say the earliest date whereon he could 
 conveniently take up his residence at Lambeth Palace. 
 
 Churchill sat as if spell-bound, folding and unfolding the 
 stiff white sheet of paper, reading and re-reading the mar- 
 vellous written words, seeming every instant to grow larger 
 and heavier. There was a massive feeling of satisfaction, a 
 notion of unquestionable power, a complete and absolute 
 confidence ; but then soon, marring these pleasurable sensa- 
 tions, there came a strange sort of fluttered excitement. He 
 could no longer sit still. It was necessary to move about 
 rapidly and continuously. 
 
 He hurried off to tell Walsden his news. Walsden heart- 
 ily congratulated him. 
 
 "To us it is a loss I make no pretence about that. But 
 it is a loss I was always prepared for. I can see how glad 
 you are my dear boy;" and he took Churchill's hand and 
 squeezed it affectionately. 
 
 "I am only glad because it realises my ambition; it is a 
 step forward on the path I had been vain enough to plan." 
 
 "No vanity very proper and noble ambition," said 
 Walsden. 
 
 And a little later in the day, meeting Churchill again, he 
 said, "Of course you have written?" 
 
 "No, not yet. I want to think it over." 
 
 "What can you have to think over ?" 
 
 152
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 153 
 
 "I'm so sorry to leave you." 
 
 "Oh, you mustn't bother about that. We who are left 
 may be sorry, but you who go must be glad. I should write 
 at once, if I were you. Any delay might seem not quite 
 respectful enough, you know." 
 
 "As to-day is Saturday, I thought I could safely wait till 
 Monday. There's no postal delivery to-morrow." 
 
 "Perhaps you ought to send your letter by a special mes- 
 senger. As you know, I am not up in these matters; but 
 I believe one cannot be too ceremonious." 
 
 For the remainder of the day Edward Churchill suffered 
 from an abominable restlessness. It was impossible to work, 
 because he couldn't attend for three minutes at a time to 
 what he was trying to do; his mind wandered off to more 
 important matters; in imagination he was miles away 
 pacing through the halls or library of Lambeth Palace, 
 sitting in the Archbishop's room and writing a confidential 
 secret paper at his dictation, hurrying to the House of Lords 
 for a special interview with two or three bishops. He 
 wanted to write to his mother, but found that he could not 
 do it. He thought he would go to St. Ursula's for a talk 
 with the Verschoyles, and he could not do that either. He 
 could only wander about the streets aimlessly, enervating 
 himself with foolish excitement. 
 
 In the evening at the club he discovered that Walsden had 
 already announced his imminent departure. Everybody had 
 heard the news, and all regretted it. Old and young, they 
 crowded round him, overwhelming him by their kindness 
 and affection. He was especially touched by the eager out- 
 bursts of praise and gratitude that came from a cluster of 
 Brigade lads ; and when he looked at the opaque brown eyes, 
 like Richard's the eyes that he once thought indicative of 
 baseness or greed they seemed to be like the eyes of trust- 
 ful dogs sadly scrutinising the face of their master when he 
 meditates selling them, giving them away, or deserting them 
 in danger for the purpose of ensuring his own safety. 
 
 The restlessness increased. He could not sleep. He 
 dressed himself next morning much earlier than was neces- 
 sary for the first service at St. Bede's, and, going up to the 
 top landing of Bentley House, stood for a long time looking 
 out. On this the day of rest the whole house remained quiet
 
 154 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 until eight or nine o'clock ; behind all the closed doors men 
 and women were sleeping deeply after the week's work ; only 
 every now and then one heard faintly the voices of children 
 who had been awakened by the daylight. On this day, too, 
 hundreds of factory chimneys had ceased to emit their ugly 
 smoke, so that the air was clean, and the sky seemed high and 
 dazzlingly bright. 
 
 He looked across thousands of roofs at the firm outline of 
 the Tower Bridge, and thought of all that lay beyond it. 
 The line of the bridge, continued in either direction to north 
 and south, might be taken as a boundary between two worlds 
 the grand small world of pride and pomp, and the immense 
 world of unrecognised pain and unrewarded toil. Patches 
 of misery there were, of course, beyond the line to the south 
 of the water, but the great division between ease and dis- 
 tress was that of east and west. In thought he passed the 
 line ; followed the shining river beneath bridge after bridge, 
 by the now silent mart of the city, by the Temple and the 
 Houses of Parliament, to the black-walled palace of eccle- 
 siastical government to the splendid, glorious home in 
 which a room stood waiting for him. 
 
 After an hour or so, when he was going out, he found a 
 little friend crying on the doorsteps and he stopped to com- 
 fort her. She had slipped on the pavement and grazed her 
 knees. Her mother, the wife of a dock porter, who presently 
 appeared and saw him kiss and soothe the child, praised him 
 and thanked him for his kindness. 
 
 "You make 'em so many favourites, sir. . . . Nellie, 
 where's your present what you was going to give Mr. 
 Churchill ?" And the woman laughed, telling Churchill how 
 the little girl had picked up an empty match-box two or three 
 days ago, and had declared that she would present it to the 
 kind gentleman upstairs. "And so she would have done it, 
 sir, but her brother Tom went and took it from her and lost 
 it" 
 
 There was no mental calm for him throughout that Sun- 
 day. He could not think any more quietly inside the church 
 than outside it. The services seemed innumerable and inter- 
 minable. 
 
 When the last of them was over he took a long walk, and 
 all the time he thought of the misery here and the comfort
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 155 
 
 at the other end of the town. He thought of the palace that 
 was waiting for him its grand library where all such sad 
 facts as he now looked at are neatly pigeon-holed, set forth 
 in statistical papers, shown in shaded maps, or lengthily 
 recited in blue books. For him, too, after a few years, they 
 would be merely written or printed notes : the life and reality 
 would begin to go out of them so soon as he occupied his 
 mind with other and fairer things. 
 
 Working his way home again, he purposely came over the 
 canal bridge, so as to enter the parish on its very worst side. 
 The last glow of the sunset was fading out of the sky, and 
 all those bad streets were already dark and mysterious a 
 place to make strangers tremble. But to him they were not 
 even ugly to-night. Familiarity, here as in the church, had 
 obliterated the ugliness. There was not a court or alley 
 that he had not visited many times; blindfolded, he could 
 have found his way through the labyrinth ; on all sides he had 
 succeeded in making acquaintances who welcomed him as he 
 passed by. They called to him now from the dark entries. 
 "Good-night, sir. . . . Nice day it's bin, sir. . . .Good- 
 night." 
 
 As he drew nearer home, he met people that he knew really 
 well, and walked with them. He said to each, "I'm afraid 
 I am going away." 
 
 "Yes, I hear talk of it. But you'll be coming back, sir." 
 
 "No, I I fear not" 
 
 And they were all sorry. 
 
 He stood at a corner talking for five minutes to Mr. Phil- 
 brick, the old fellow who had preferred death to the work- 
 house. Churchill and Mr. Philbrick had grown to be very 
 close friends. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Philbrick, "what's got to be has got to 
 be. But when a party first mentioned it to me, 1 said, 'Don't 
 you go telling lies about Mr. Churchill.' That was because 
 I didn't believe it, d'ye see, sir; but now you've had the 
 kindness to explain it me, well, I say 'Quite right';" and 
 he pointed his pipe and nodded. "Yes, you have to think of 
 yourself, same as everybody else and where's the use of 
 arguing? It was just foolish to suppose you'd stop here for 
 ever. And I say, good luck, sirand may you always have 
 your heart's desire."
 
 156 
 
 After that Edward Churchill walked on alone with his 
 thoughts; and suddenly, just as he turned the last corner 
 and saw the lamplit windows of the vicarage, he said to him- 
 self: "I cannot do it. These people are fond of me; they 
 seem to believe I help them and I cannot leave them. It 
 would be like a betrayal. I will not do it." 
 
 Instantaneously all the conflict of thought was at an end. 
 The letter to the Archbishop that had seemed so difficult to 
 write could be written quite easily. He would not address 
 the secretary; he would write direct to his Grace, marking 
 the letter private, and sealing it ; and its grateful words need 
 only be to this effect : "You gave me all when you gave me 
 your blessing. I asked for nothing else; I want nothing 
 else." 
 
 Entering the dining-room at the vicarage, he apologised 
 for his lateness and found that the meal was just over. 
 Nevertheless, they stayed with him a little while to keep him 
 company. He would at once have told them of his decision, 
 but Walsden was too preoccupied to listen attentively to 
 anything, and Mrs. Walsden wished to tell him how in the 
 most inexplicable manner she had allowed some oil to get 
 upon her fingers and thence into her mouth. It had made 
 her feel quite sick. Mr. Nape, corroborating with a titter, 
 said that for a minute she had looked as though she really 
 was going to be sick. Gardiner, however, had cleverly sug- 
 gested that she should drink a little vinegar, and she soon 
 felt better. Still the whole incident had been very upsetting 
 and so inexplicable. 
 
 And Churchill, listening to this commonplace conversa- 
 tion and smiling at their simple friendly faces, felt alto- 
 gether happy. That restlessness was utterly gone. Every- 
 thing seemed bright and cheerful. He looked round the poor 
 room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in 
 meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on 
 the chiffonier ; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, 
 with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such 
 a room as he had hoped to have for his own. Thinking of 
 it he could see it, vivid and solid, absolutely real. But it 
 was here that he wanted to be, not there. 
 
 He ate a little bread and cheese, drank some water, and 
 then, when the others had left him, he lit his pipe and
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 157 
 
 smoked. Every minute he became more comfortable, more 
 delightfully at peace, more sure that his decision was right 
 and proper. One must do the thing nearest to one's hand. 
 He was useful here, and he had no certainty that he could 
 ever be so useful elsewhere. The Archbishop could find a 
 hundred men to take his place and occupy it admirably, but 
 perhaps St. Bede's might never find a man capable of filling 
 the little gap that he would leave behind him if he went now. 
 Later on, it might be all different. In a few years he 
 might be able to go with an easy conscience. And it might 
 be not too late, even then, to pick up the broken progress of 
 his career. 
 
 But if staying now meant the final abandonment of all 
 his ambitious dreams well, nevertheless, he must stay. He 
 said to himself, "If need be, good-bye Ambition;" and again 
 he felt stronger and calmer. He thought of his philosophy, 
 those broad principles that, for him, seemed firmly estab- 
 lished. After all, the real ambition should be to still one's 
 restlessness of thought; internal peace must be the aim of 
 all who are wise ; there cannot be any other goal that is 
 worth reaching. To gain mental quiet that, philosophically, 
 is a man's lifework. 
 
 And he thought of the lamp that was his soul and the 
 mirror that was his mind, and knew with absolute certainty 
 of instinct that what he meant to do should make him peace- 
 fully happy, and that what he was giving up would but have 
 made him fretfully miserable. "I knew it all the time," he 
 thought. "I only seemed to deliberate; I was not truly de- 
 liberating. Whenever I turned my eyes inward, I could see 
 my guard. Now and always, O God give me strength to live 
 by the Mirror and the Lamp."
 
 XX 
 
 WALSDEN answered almost rudely when Edward Churchill 
 told him that he had refused the appointment. 
 
 "Refused it? Why in the name of reason have you done 
 that?" 
 
 "I preferred to stay here. On reflection I felt that I could 
 not bring myself to leave you." 
 
 "Oh, now that sounds to me far-fetched," said Walsden, 
 staring, and speaking abruptly. "Almost absurd. Yes, I 
 thing you're wrong. I advise you to change your mind." 
 
 "My mind is quite made up." 
 
 Walsden brought out his bandana handkerchief, blew his 
 nose violently, and moved away. 
 
 "I think," he said over his shoulder, "it's a pity. But 
 there I can't stop talking about it;" and with a queer 
 flourish of the handkerchief, as though it had been a signal 
 flag he hurried off. 
 
 Next day little Mrs. Walsden got hold of Churchill alone 
 for a minute, and said that she desired to apologise for un- 
 kind thoughts that she had for a little while entertained, and 
 to explain that any oddness in her husband's manner was 
 certainly not caused by displeasure. 
 
 "Mr. Churchill, I want to thank you for staying and I 
 want you to forgive me for once wishing you would go. 
 I misjudged you. I thought you were too grand inclined 
 to take too much on yourself. Please forgive me. I did 
 doubt your loyalty to Henry but now, oh, now, I am so 
 ashamed of myself." 
 
 Then, after clasping Churchill's hand, she began to cry. 
 "You don't know what this means to my husband. He never 
 complains, but he has always felt it the way he is treated 
 by the upper clergy. As if he wasn't good enough for them ! 
 But he's good enough for you. When it came to choosing 
 them or him, you chose him. Mr. Churchill, he wept last 
 night a thing I've never seen him do since our children 
 died." 
 
 158
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 159 
 
 Edward Churchill had written to his mother, and he 
 anxiously awaited her reply. He had said : "A great chance 
 came, and I refused it. I don't know what you will think of 
 me for not consulting you; but it was something I had to 
 decide for myself." Then, giving a simple explanation of 
 the ideas that governed him, he begged her to let him know 
 without delay that she approved. 
 
 Mrs. Churchill allowed some little time to elapse before 
 writing, and when her letter arrived it did not altogether 
 satisfy him. It was not quite the letter that he had expected. 
 
 She confessed that she could not understand all his mo- 
 tives ; but she allowed him what she thought ought to be al- 
 lowed to everybody entire liberty of action. "I do not 
 therefore question your decision. Life is difficult for all of 
 us, and each must meet its difficulties in his own way." 
 Then she spoke of her loneliness, the loss of old friends, the 
 changes that were taking place at St. Dunstan's; and she 
 wound up with a gloomy little sketch of the present circum- 
 stances of that Mr. Barrett, the auctioneer. As Edward 
 knew, since she had already told him so several times, Mr. 
 Barrett, after losing his sick wife about a year ago, was left 
 absolutely alone in the world. His devotion to the poor in- 
 valid had been unparalleled ; for an immense time she had 
 ceased to be in any sense a companion to him ; and now that 
 death had come to her as a happy release, one might have 
 hoped that he could enjoy comfort and peace. But no, fate 
 had ordained otherwise. His business had almost collapsed, 
 some building speculations had gone wrong, and he saw 
 himself compelled to sell his commodious though not very 
 pretty house, together with the solid but rather ugly furni- 
 ture. He was living in lodgings all alone. This and many 
 other things made Mrs. Churchill very sad when she thought 
 of them. 
 
 With Walsden's ready consent, Edward went down to 
 St. Dunstan's and spent one night there. His mother seemed 
 delighted to see him, but she showed nervousness, or agita- 
 tion; she was somehow different in voice, manner, appear- 
 ance. For the first time he found an impalpable barrier be- 
 tween them, and all his efforts could not break through it 
 sufficiently to re-establish the old free intercourse of heart 
 with heart.
 
 160 
 
 He thought that she secretly disapproved of his remaining 
 at St. Bede's, but when he spoke of this she said that it did 
 not matter. 
 
 "But, mother dearest, you feel perhaps that it was not 
 quite fair to you?" 
 
 "Oh, no, dear. You had to judge for yourself we all 
 must do that : judge by our own conscience what is right or 
 wrong. No, it could not matter to me." 
 
 "But our dreams, mother. All the success and the 
 honour." 
 
 "Yes, of course I was forgetting our dreams. But for 
 you your part of them may still come true, mayn't it ?" 
 
 "Yes," he said ; "at any rate, the part I care most about. 
 Only, unhappily, I seem to be postponing that also." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean our living together under one roof again." 
 
 "Edward! My own dear boy." She flung her arms 
 around him, kissed him, and sobbed hysterically. 
 
 "Edward dear," she went on presently, when she had dried 
 her eyes. "Isn't that just the part of the dream that was 
 most fatally impossible from the very beginning?" 
 
 "No a thousand times no." 
 
 "Yes, dear. Perhaps I wasn't prepared I didn't quite 
 guess how lofty your ideals of priesthood were going to be, 
 how completely you would give yourself to the Church. 
 Don't you feel it yourself that there is no room in your life 
 for other interests certainly no room in it for a silly old 
 mother." 
 
 But he protested passionately that his love for her was, 
 as ever, the very main-spring of his existence. It did not 
 clash, it never could clash, with that other love. It would 
 not interfere with, it would aid him, strengthen him, ennoble 
 him in his priestly duties. And eagerly he begged her to 
 make the great sacrifice and come now and join him in the 
 good work. 
 
 It was, of course, impossible that she should live in St. 
 Bede's itself ; but he would find some comparatively pleas- 
 ant house at Canning Town, or somewhere, from which he 
 could go to his work every morning and to which he would 
 return every night. Home! The place made lovely by love. 
 And she herself should work in St. Bede's; all those poor
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 161 
 
 souls would adore her ; and they two, united, would be infi- 
 nitely happy. 
 
 "Mother dear, it is only what we planned first of all 
 before the money came to give me vainglorious dreams. 
 Don't you remember? We were to end our days in some 
 obscure neighborhood among the very poor." 
 
 She listened to him silently, her hands clasped on her lap, 
 her eyes downcast. Then of a sudden she got up, walked 
 about the room, and spoke without looking at him. 
 
 "Edward, I don't know. I want to do what is right but 
 it is all so difficult. If you really want to make yourself a 
 home, why, why don't you marry, and " 
 
 "Mother!" 
 
 "You you've not taken any vows against marriage?" 
 
 "No. Not yet; but I think what I always thought. A 
 priest should remain unmarried. It is you I am longing for. 
 Mother, come to me." 
 
 Then she put her hands on his shoulder, stooped to kiss his 
 forehead, and spoke with extraordinary eagerness. "Yes, 
 I'll come. I'll be true to the old promise. Arrange it at 
 once. The sooner I get away from here the better;" and 
 again she began to cry, telling him once more how lonely and 
 empty her life had been in these last years. Yet when he 
 reproached himself for neglecting her, she protested that it 
 was all her fault, not his. "I'm weak, dear foolish. But 
 if you take me away, I shall be wise and good. Oh, how 
 could I count anything against my boy's faithful love ?" 
 
 She was more like her old dear self now ; and yet the bar- 
 rier was still there something inexplicable that made 
 her different. He noticed that she seemed to have difficulty 
 in concentrating her mind ; after the tears, she laughed, and 
 in the midst of laughter she became grave and sad; while 
 talking, she went with unexpected rapidity from subject to 
 subject, and just when they were considering their most 
 intimate affairs she would obtrude some alien trivial topic. 
 
 Thus she passed instantaneously from her own loneliness 
 to the loneliness of Mr. Barrett, the auctioneer, and Edward 
 had to listen to a recital of the virtues and amiabilities of 
 this vulgar, Low Church person the common intrusive 
 friend that he had so much disliked in his youth. 
 
 From Mr. Barrett she passed to their old servant Maria,
 
 162 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 now a pensioner, living comfortably at Hythe ; and then next 
 moment she was back to Mr. Barrett again. 
 
 "Before Maria left me, she had learnt to recognise what 
 a good kind friend he was, and how disinterested he had 
 always been in his advice." 
 
 Then she spoke of her other sons. Tom was on his way 
 home to England. The health of Charles had broken down ; 
 he was in the south of France, and thought of going to Cali- 
 fornia. He had got rid of that dreadful woman ; but, as his 
 mother feared, he was entangled with some one else almost 
 as bad. She feared, too, that he had squandered nearly all 
 his money. 
 
 "Don't you correspond with him or Tom ?" she asked. 
 
 "No," said Edward. "I ought to ; but they never write to 
 me. Still I ought to have kept in touch with them some- 
 how. It is want of time and, to say the truth, want of 
 thought also. Mother one must confess the truth they 
 seem so completely strangers that, except here, where every- 
 thing reminds me, I scarcely ever remember their existence." 
 
 "I understand, dear. It could not be otherwise. You and 
 they are of different clay." And once more, for the third 
 time in half an hour, she returned to the subject of Mr. 
 Barrett. "They were always so contemptuous about him 
 poor man, and unjust too. Charles never showed the slight- 
 est gratitude for all he did about that electric firm. . . . 
 Edward, will you go and see him to-morrow ? Just look in 
 on your way to the station, and say a kind word or two for 
 auld lang syne. I told him that you were coming down and 
 he would be so glad to see you." 
 
 Of all people iii St. Dunstan's, certainly Mr. Barrett was 
 the last that Edward would have thought of looking up. If 
 not pressed for time, he would have liked to go round the 
 school, find if any of the old masters were still there, go into 
 the gymnasium and talk to the illustrious sergeant; with 
 further leisure he could have passed happy hours in the 
 cathedral, strolled upon the walls and taken long walks into 
 the country ; but, even with a week or more at his disposal, 
 he would not of his own accord have wasted five minutes on 
 Mr. Barrett. Nevertheless, he dutifully promised to do 
 what his mother wished. This poor widower and his dis-
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 163 
 
 tressed condition appeared to occupy a large place in her 
 always tender thought for other people. 
 
 The auctioneer's offices in Halberd Street had a woebegone 
 deserted air, as if the whole business world were turning its 
 broad back on them ; but Mr. Barrett did not seem to be at 
 all cast down. Although dressed in solemn black, he had a 
 flower at his button-hole; his tie-pin displayed a good-sized 
 pearl; his sandy hair was carefully brushed and plastered 
 with an odorous cosmetic above his bald forehead. Alto- 
 gether he looked prosperous, debonair, generally smarter, 
 younger and less flabby than he used to be years ago. In 
 other respects he was just the same Mr. Barrett. 
 
 He welcomed his visitor effusively. 
 
 "Come, now, this is very kind of you, Mr. Ted. Forgive 
 the liberty. But it's still Ted with your dear ma, and that's 
 how I always think of you." Then he shook hands again. 
 "Yes, I do take it as very kind under the circumstances 
 you dropping in like this, and showing me such a proof of 
 regard." And he nodded his head and smiled at Edward 
 sentimentally. "Coming at this conjuncture it is well, it 
 really is more than kind." 
 
 Edward Churchill sat talking for a little while, trying to be 
 sympathetic, but only achieving bare civility, and every 
 minute feeling his old childish dislike revive itself more 
 completely. 
 
 He was made inwardly to boil by a few words about 
 religion, and a tactless reference to modern ritualism. 
 
 "You know my ways, Mr. Ted. I don't like it and I never 
 have. I joined in the public protest to the Dean when they 
 began screwing the cathedral services up to concert pitch. 
 Not that I trouble the cathedral. No, Holy Trinity is good 
 enough for me. That is where I always worshipped Him 
 who " 
 
 "Yes, I remember," said Edward, endeavouring to cut 
 him short. 
 
 "I find at Holy Trinity what suits me. If other people 
 don't care for our ways they are free to stay away." 
 
 "Yes, exactly." 
 
 "But stop a bit. I must take care what I'm saying, or I
 
 164 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 shall tread on your corns, Mr. Ted. Yes ;" and, nodding his 
 head and smiling, he went on in a tone of tolerance, or even 
 magnanimity : "Yes, a little bird has whispered to me that 
 you are right up there," and he made a gesture with his fat 
 hand. "High is not the word or so it has been hinted. 
 Well, if those are your conscientious views, it is not for me to 
 blame you. I follow your dear mamma's suit. I say Liberty 
 of Conscience for all of us. That's a favourite expression of 
 Mrs. C.'s. In our little chats it always crops up." 
 
 "My mother and I think alike, Mr. Barrett." Edward had 
 not intended to say this. It was not worth while; but the 
 words said themselves automatically. 
 
 "Well, in most things, I do believe you're right there, Mr. 
 Ted. Yes, you were always the apple. I used to venture 
 to name you so. It was, 'Well, my dear Mrs. Churchill, how 
 is the Apple?' And we used to laugh. Yes the Apple. 
 Ha-ha ! How it all takes one back. You know the expres- 
 sion? I meant you were the apple of her eye and so you 
 were." 
 
 Edward got up from his chair, and apologised for looking 
 at his watch. He must catch the 10:40 train. 
 
 "Then I won't detain you. But a little secret ;" and Mr. 
 Barrett beamed expansively. "You were not only Mamma's 
 favourite, you were everybody else's too. I've said it myself 
 hundreds of times. Of you three boys, you were the one for 
 my money the flower of the flock." 
 
 In the act of going, Edward forced himself to speak with 
 actual and unaffected sympathy of Barrett's long period 
 of anxious solicitude and his recent crushing sorrow. 
 
 "I couldn't have gone through it," said Mr. Barrett fer- 
 vently, "if it hadn't been for Mrs. C. Oh, what a saint she 
 was, year in, year out, to pore Mrs. Barrett. As to myself, 
 in that endless trial well, you probably know, and could 
 put it many times better than I can myself she was my 
 unfailing support. More than mere comfort sunshine, 
 hope, everything." 
 
 Edward unconsciously and instinctively drew himself up, 
 and turned a grave, cold face to Mr. Barrett. This outburst 
 of praise was extravagant, unnecessary, and vaguely but 
 strongly distasteful ; and an association of ideas evoked dim 
 pictures from the past. He and his brothers did not mind
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 165 
 
 Mr. Barrett standing hat in hand on the pavement and treat- 
 ing Mrs. Churchill as a queen ; but they never liked it when 
 he came of an evening to talk of stocks or shares, and assume 
 an air of equality and intimacy that neither existed nor could 
 be suffered to exist. 
 
 "My mother's heart is always open to those in trouble, 
 Mr. Barrett. She and I well knew your devotion to your 
 wife, and we both regret your loss." 
 
 Then, on the outer doorstep, Edward mentioned that his 
 mother would very soon be leaving St. Dunstan's, and they 
 would be glad if Mr. Barrett would attend to any business 
 matter relating to their empty house. 
 
 "What's that?" said Mr. Barrett blankly. "Leaving? 
 When? Where for?" 
 
 "My mother is coming to live with me in London." 
 
 "With you in London?" echoed Mr. Barrett slowly, 
 and almost incredulously. "Well, this is news with a 
 vengeance. All very sudden this idea isn't it ?" 
 
 "It is an old plan ; but we finally settled it only yesterday. 
 Good-bye, Mr. Barrett."
 
 XXI 
 
 "WHY go outside the parish?" said Walsden, when 
 Edward Churchill was speaking of the home he wanted to 
 make for his mother. "Why don't you take your favourite 
 Denmark House? It seems just a lucky chance that it 
 should have come into the market." 
 
 Churchill could scarcely believe his ears. The thing 
 sounded too good to be true. 
 
 "Yes," said Walsden, "Mr. Oliver you know, the man- 
 ager at Brown's told me all about it yesterday. He owns 
 the freehold. Poor fellow, he put all his savings into it, and 
 now that Brown's have come to grief " 
 
 "Brown's the soap factory ? Are they in trouble ?" 
 
 "They're shut up. Didn't you hear? Half the girls 
 weren't paid last Saturday. And Monday morning the gates 
 never opened. A lot of the girls came round here. Then 
 they and some men went back and broke as much glass 
 as they could. Poor souls that didn't get them their money. 
 But I believe Mr. Oliver has paid them out of his own 
 pocket. He is a good man I have always said it although 
 a Wesley an. I should see him at once, if I were you 
 because a house like that won't go a-begging. It may be 
 snapped up any minute." 
 
 Edward hurried along Bevis Street and round the corner 
 past the silent factory, feeling dread lest already he might 
 be too late. But to-day all things seemed to smile at him. 
 Denmark House had not yet been snapped up; and in a 
 few minutes he was walking about it, being escorted as a 
 possible purchaser by the owner and the owner's wife. 
 
 It surpassed one's most excited anticipations, it was a 
 rare gem, a perfect oasis in the desert. The staircase had 
 shallow steps and a broad hand-rail ; the hall was paved with 
 black and white stone ; and nearly all the rooms had panelled 
 walls. Those on the first floor were quite lofty, and in the 
 biggest room there were low window seats from which one 
 looked straight into the heart of the plane tree. 
 
 166
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 167 
 
 The fireplaces were modern and detestable; evidently 
 beautiful old chimney-pieces had been ruthlessly torn away, 
 and the whole house showed signs of long-continued vandal- 
 ism. But nothing mattered; everything could be restored; 
 and Edward felt that if it might be his, he would be the 
 happiest house-owner in England. 
 
 He would not bargain, indeed one could not bargain with 
 a man who had come to trouble. Mr. Oliver did not intend 
 to let the house on lease ; he proposed to sell it at auction ; 
 but if he could dispose of his property by private treaty for 
 a sufficient price, he would cheerfully do so. Then only the 
 question of price remained to be settled, and Mr. Oliver 
 promised at once to seek expert advice and report the 
 result. 
 
 Edward went away in the highest spirits. Surely this was 
 more than a lucky chance ; it was a kindness of Providence 
 to gladden and cheer him on his rightly-chosen path. He 
 looked back at the house, and saw sunlight upon the iron 
 gate and the green leaves ; and in imagination saw it as his 
 home, all gay with fresh paint, the cornice white, the well- 
 cleaned window panes flashing like diamonds and a loved 
 figure at the open door, waving her hand, following him with 
 her eyes. He kissed his fingers to that dear one. 
 
 And wherever he went, all the day, there seemed to be 
 sunshine and people smiling at him. He thought, "This is 
 the first of many such days. It is the turned page, the new 
 chapter of my life no, of our life, which will be so tranquil 
 and so happy that from it there will come only one regret : 
 that it may not go on for ever." 
 
 The entire parish was rejoicing because he was to stay 
 and not to go. He had a triumphal progress through the 
 streets. Men, women, and children hung about him and made 
 much of him. 
 
 Passing through Bevis Street late in the afternoon, he had 
 the pleasant surprise of suddenly meeting that nice young 
 woman, Miss Vickers. Although he had only once spoken to 
 her before this, he felt that she, too, was an old friend and he 
 told her how glad it made him to see her again. 
 
 "I was afraid you had deserted us for good and all." 
 
 "Oh, no," she said. "But I am living over towards 
 Barking now, so I had to drop the district nursing here. I
 
 168 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 do what I can over there, but it's very little and I come to 
 see Mrs. Walsden from time to time." 
 
 Then he took her round the corner to look at the outside 
 of the house that he hoped to buy, talking to her with the 
 expansive freedom that was bred of his happiness, taking it 
 for granted to-day that she and everybody else must be in- 
 terested in his private affairs, telling her all about his mother 
 and the perfect life that they were to lead together. 
 
 She responded amiably and sympathetically, delighting 
 him with her praise of Denmark House and her rapid com- 
 prehension of his filial joy. Then as they came back to 
 the streets she said a word or two about herself, as though 
 purposely offering confidence in exchange for confidence. 
 
 She told him that she did not like the church at Barking. 
 She missed St. Bede's. 
 
 "But I'm busier now than I used to be, and I have very 
 little time for church or anything else. I teach music, you 
 know." 
 
 He did not know. Really he knew nothing about her; 
 but instinctively he seemed to have divined so much, and the 
 thought of her as a hard-worked music teacher exactly 
 matched his preconceived ideas. Of course she was not a 
 West-ender or a doctor's daughter that had been a foolish, 
 ill-considered notion, entertained only for a little while 
 because she dressed with taste and spoke charmingly. She 
 was alone in the world, self -maintaining, self-respecting; a 
 pure good girl, who did not fear poverty and was not too 
 proud to work. 
 
 They said good-bye at the corner of Bevis Street, and, 
 looking at him shyly, she said, "Mr. Churchill, I have heard 
 you preach. I heard you at Plaistow, and at Walthamstow." 
 Then she flushed faintly, stopped speaking, and held out her 
 hand. But he understood quite well that she had intended to 
 tell him that she liked his sermons, and then at the last 
 moment had diffidently refrained. 
 
 "No, not good-bye," he said cordially. "As soon as 
 my mother arrives, I hope you will find time to come and 
 see us." 
 
 "I should like to very much." 
 
 He watched her as she walked away, seeming so graceful 
 and fragile for the rough, coarse battle of life, and yet so
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 169 
 
 brave in her self-reliant loneliness ; and the thought came to 
 his mind that, although not in the least like Mrs. Verschoyle, 
 she resembled her in being the rare type of woman who 
 might make a possible wife for a priest. 
 
 This little meeting seemed to crown his happy, lucky day. 
 He felt extraordinarily glad that she had not altogether 
 disappeared from St. Bede's ; and in a pretty, fantastic man- 
 ner she again linked herself with the tree at Denmark 
 House the thing that had soothed his eyes when first he 
 saw it amidst the arid desert of ugliness. 
 
 Three days later he was able to telegraph to his mother 
 that the tree belonged to him. 
 
 He had acquired the freehold of Denmark House at a 
 price that certainly did not wrong Mr. Oliver. Naturally 
 this implied an inroad on his capital the first that he had so 
 far made ; but one might consider it as a reinvestment, by no 
 means an injudicious transaction up to a certain point. 
 Beyond that point, one might call it a grant in aid to a worthy 
 and unfortunate Wesleyan gentleman who was more in need 
 of hard cash than Edward Churchill. 
 
 He would not discuss pounds, shillings, and pence when 
 his solicitors demurred to what they termed an exorbitant 
 figure. It was truly of no consequence. He and his mother, 
 joining their resources, would be the Rothschilds of St. 
 Bede's flagrantly too rich. 
 
 She, of course, would bring her furniture with her; any 
 more furnishing would be a slight affair; the only solid 
 expense would be thorough repairing and re-decoration. And 
 in this and every other regard, Mrs. Churchill gave him a 
 free hand. Whatever pleased him would please her. She had 
 no suggestions to offer ; she was barren of decorative ideas ; 
 indeed, the only thing that a little checked his rapture was 
 the want of enthusiasm that her letters betrayed. She wrote 
 meekly and staidly, saying that henceforth her life was to be 
 guided by her dear boy and that she would be tranquilly 
 acquiescent. She did not want to come to see the house for 
 herself ; she had so much to do at St. Dunstan's ; if he 
 absolutely required feminine advice, he could not do better 
 than consult that very kind and considerate Mrs. Verschoyle. 
 She begged him to convey her sincere thanks for Mrs. 
 Verschoyle's most hospitable invitations.
 
 170 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 "Well, Christian," Mrs. Verschoyle had said, when he 
 burst in upon her with his latest news, "how are you and 
 Vanity Fair getting on together?" 
 
 "I have done with Vanity Fair," he cried joyously. "I 
 have struck deep roots in what used to be the Slough of 
 Despond and the marsh is drained, and flowers are growing 
 up, and it is all changing to a fairy garden." 
 
 "And what does that nonsense mean in plain English?" 
 she asked, laughing. 
 
 "It means that I am a permanent citizen of St. Bede's. 
 It means that I own a house almost as delightful as this 
 the one I told you about my lovely Denmark House. Oh, 
 do put on your hat and come and let me show it to you." 
 
 She went with him at once, answering gaily and hopefully 
 to all he said about the home life that he would henceforth 
 enjoy; but she was very grave and thoughtful when he told 
 her of Lambeth and the rejected offer. 
 
 "Don't try to pretend that I have done wrong," he urged 
 her. "I know I was right. I couldn't be so happy if not." 
 
 Time passed now in a whirl of pleasant business. Every 
 minute that he could take from his parish duties he gave to 
 the house and to the workmen who were hard at work in it. 
 Mrs. Verschoyle aided him and advised him throughout his 
 preparations for the mother who could not come even for a 
 day to choose curtains and carpets, or to decide upon the 
 situation of electric light brackets. 
 
 The allotment of the rooms was an easy task. On the 
 ground floor so much space was taken by the hall that there 
 were only two sitting-rooms, and these would be their dining- 
 room and Edward's study. The first floor would be entirely 
 devoted to Mrs. Churchill her bedroom at the front, with a 
 boudoir at the side of it, and behind these the big room that 
 occupied the full width of the house would serve as her 
 drawing-room. Here she would sit enthroned, surrounded 
 by all her old treasures, and doubtless with many pretty 
 things that he would add to them, interesting herself in 
 charitable schemes, reading, writing letters, receiving visi- 
 tors, being steadily, calmly happy. On the top floor there 
 were five small rooms, of which one would be her son's 
 bedroom. Two of the others would be absorbed by the nice
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 171 
 
 maidservants that Mrs. Churchill was to bring with her. 
 And the other two would stand waiting for his brothers, 
 whenever their mother wished to have them as visitors under 
 her roof. Beyond all this there was a bath-room, now being 
 fitted with the newest and most fashionable bath in lieu of the 
 dilapidated tank left by the outgoing proprietor. 
 
 Edward, going from room to room with Mrs. Verschoyle, 
 used to babble unceasingly about the beloved mistress of his 
 house. 
 
 "She will be as fond of that tree as I am. Doesn't it 
 look sweet from this window? Oh, I wish she could see it 
 before all the leaves are off. . . . You know, after her solitary 
 life during the last few years, I think she would be content 
 anywhere with me. But really, this house itself is a grand 
 exchange from our old home. It is only the neighbourhood 
 that may strike her as dull and depressing just as it did me, 
 at first. But then I don't mean to keep her a prisoner here. 
 I shall arrange things. Yes, I shall insist on her going often 
 to theatres and concerts. I'll give her what she has never 
 enjoyed." And he laughed gaily. "She will be rather a 
 West-ender where pleasures are concerned." 
 
 Mrs. Verschoyle used to laugh too, amused and yet 
 touched by all this chatter. "I have heard of devoted sons," 
 she said to him once ; "but I never heard of a son like you. 
 Do you know that you talk exactly as a man might when he 
 was going to be married and waiting the arrival of his 
 bride!" 
 
 "She and I are all in all to each other," he answered 
 simply. 
 
 Nevertheless she did not hurry to him. Slow as workmen 
 must ever be, they had finished their work at last. By the 
 end of November the house was ready to receive its furni- 
 ture and its mistress. Braving the smell of paint, Edward 
 had moved into it weeks ago, and was camping in the boudoir 
 on the first floor, his unopened packing-cases all about the 
 little iron bed, a sheet spread out on the floor to guard the 
 freshness and bloom of the new carpet. He longed for the 
 first instalment of the dear old furniture ; he felt feverishly 
 anxious to see and put up the bedstead he had used as a 
 boy ; he burned to get everything in its place ; he pined for 
 the lady of his house.
 
 172 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 But she did not come. She delayed, she made excuses; 
 she could not dispatch anything this week; she could not 
 herself hope to get on the move until the week after. Then 
 she sent him a brief note, begging him to come down to 
 St. Dunstan's at once, "and discuss the future." 
 
 Discuss the future ! But the future was all settled. What 
 could there be to discuss?
 
 XXII 
 
 HE was sitting with her in the room that he used to think 
 of as a shrine, where she had first taught him to pray; her 
 head was on his breast so that he looked down at her grey 
 hairs ; her whole body trembled ; her tears fell upon his hand 
 and burned it. He sat for a little while rigid and still, feeling 
 like a man who has received his death wound, and who dares 
 not move lest the blood which is slowly and surely draining 
 away should gush forth in a rapid stream of destruction. 
 Then he stooped and kissed her forehead. 
 
 "Mother dear, look up. Let us talk quietly. Tell me 
 everything, so that I may understand." 
 
 But truly it was not understandable. It was abnormal, 
 monstrous, torturingly impossible. She had just told him 
 that she wanted to marry Mr. Barrett the auctioneer. 
 
 Now, taking courage from his gentle tone, she began to 
 explain the unexplainable, to defend the indefensible. From 
 the very beginning Mr. Barrett had intensely admired her, 
 and, as she phrased it, "in the most delicate way," had al- 
 lowed her to become aware of the fact. And this admiration 
 had expanded and ripened into a unique and beautiful senti- 
 ment on his part ; it was a perpetual worship that she herself 
 had always felt, but of course had never spoken of. It had 
 been an atmosphere of respectful mystery with which he had 
 surrounded her, and to which little by little she had grown 
 accustomed, breathing it year after year with peaceful pleas- 
 ure. 
 
 "Edward, my darling, don't judge me hardly. You can 
 scarcely know what this means to a woman. Such devotion 
 cannot be ignored. In itself it has a power to sustain and 
 support one. It made life easier for me. It seemed to give 
 me strength and it never, never for a moment interfered 
 with my duty to you." 
 
 And then she said, with great eagerness, that he must 
 not suppose she had ever given Mr. Barrett the very slightest 
 encouragement, or that a single affectionate word had ever 
 
 173
 
 174 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 passed between them during the lifetime of Mrs. Barrett 
 No, it was only after his poor invalid had passed away that 
 he openly announced his love, and began to supplicate for its 
 reward. 
 
 "But I refused him, Edward for your sake. I felt that 
 you would not like it, and I told him that it could not be." 
 
 Mr. Barrett, however, was not a person to take no for an 
 answer. Now that his suit was lawful, he had proved a 
 persistent suitor; and everything pleaded for him and 
 appealed to her softer feelings his loneliness, his failure in 
 business, his patience and courage and chivalry. "It is not 
 given to many women," she said, "to arouse such a constant, 
 elevated passion in the heart of a really good man." So that 
 she had been on the point of yielding wlien Edward came 
 down and extracted her promise to join him in London. 
 
 And Edward Churchill, listening, thought that he must 
 be going mad. She was speaking like a rather vain and 
 very silly girl, fluttered and excited by a first love affair. 
 She talked of this common fellow, this coarse vulgarian, as 
 though he were one of the Knights of the Round Table. 
 She had forgotten all her old niceness of instinct, her respect 
 for good birth and breeding, her desire for the charms and 
 graces of lif e ; and merely because an elderly, sandy, flabby, 
 impudent, half-bankrupt tradesman said he was fond of her, 
 she had become fond of him so fond that she was willing to 
 make this preposterous marriage, incur the ridicule of all 
 sensible people, and break her son's heart. 
 
 "Ever since your visit," she went on, "it has been a most 
 dreadful struggle for me. I was afraid of you." 
 
 "Afraid!" 
 
 "I had given my promise, and I meant to keep it. I 
 told him that arguments were no use. I could not answer 
 his arguments they seemed too just. He used to urge 
 in his chaffing way that at any rate I had reached years of 
 discretion, that I was a free agent, that I had a right to do 
 what I thought best. And he said no one could accuse me of 
 not having done my duty to you all. I had brought you up, 
 and one after another you had left me. He never said any- 
 thing disparaging of you, dear far from it. He always 
 praises you he sincerely admires you; but he said in this 
 you were asking too much of me. And he said what I have
 
 175 
 
 felt so often myself that, supposing I went and set up house 
 with you, sooner or later you yourself would marry and 
 then where should I be? The sacrifice would have been in 
 vain." 
 
 "The sacrifice!" 
 
 "I mean, I should have deprived him of happiness, and 
 really lost it myself and all to no purpose. Edward, I am 
 only repeating his arguments. But they did not shake my 
 resolve to keep the promise to you. No, what moved me was 
 the sight of his misery. I saw plainly that I was driving him 
 to despair. I thought, 'What will my feelings be, if he goes 
 and commits suicide ?' Edward, you can't ever know what 
 I have been through in these last weeks. It has been one long 
 dreadful struggle. I wanted to do w r hat was right I had to 
 choose I had to decide." 
 
 And Edward thought, with unspeakable bitterness of 
 spirit, "Grotesqueness is always an attribute that heightens 
 the effect of tragedy. If the man were other than he is, my 
 pain could not be so poisonously stinging. As she says, she 
 had to choose. Her choice lay plain before her : Mr. Barrett 
 and his love, or me and mine. And she has chosen Mr. 
 Barrett." 
 
 Then the thought, "I must not be selfish. I must not think 
 of myself; I must think only of her." He had not said a 
 single unkind word to her, and he did not fear that he would 
 say one; but now he kissed her again, laid his hand very 
 softly on her grey hair, and tried to smile encouragingly. 
 
 "My own boy, tell me that you understand that you 
 release me from my promise. I can't be happy unless I feel 
 that you forgive me. Listen, dear, I ought to have told you 
 this before. I wrote to Tom and Charles and I have heard 
 from both of them. They approve they don't mind. Let 
 me feel that you all three do not blame or reproach me." 
 
 She had written to the other two to the two that scarcely 
 loved her; but of him whose whole life had been spent in 
 loving her she was afraid. 
 
 "We want to get away from here. We think of Brighton. 
 He has always wished to end his days at Brighton. We have 
 heard of several houses in fact, he has entered into treaty 
 for one of them provisionally, of course. He wants to take 
 me down to look at it."
 
 176 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 And Edward thought, "Yes, he and I have been rivals even 
 in that too. We have each been selecting a house for her; 
 but she is going to his house, not mine." Then once more 
 came the thought, "I must not think of myself ; I must think 
 only of her." 
 
 She continued her story, pressing his hand affectionately, 
 speaking quite confidently and cheerfully now; and he felt 
 pity and shame. He felt as a father who listens to the lale 
 of a daughter's disgrace, like a friend learning of a friend's 
 secret sins, like a priest when a penitent confesses that he has 
 committed sacrilege. 
 
 But every now and then, in spite of all his efforts after 
 detachment from the point of view of self, there would come 
 a stab of memory. 
 
 "Yes, this is not just any woman who is disgracing her- 
 self, it is my mother. This is not merely another revelation 
 of foolishness where one hoped for wisdom ; it is the over- 
 throw of all my faith in womankind. The person who is 
 going to do a quite unworthy thing in a supremely foolish 
 manner, who will forfeit the respect of friends, and be 
 laughed at by strangers, is she from whom I drew life, and 
 then strength, and tnen hope." 
 
 He did not for a moment attempt to dissuade her from her 
 project. His knowledge of human nature, although it had 
 not been great enough to prepare him for this surprise, was 
 at least sufficient to make him sure that the catastrophe 
 could not be averted. She spoke of obtaining his consent ; 
 but, even if perhaps she did not admit it to herself, she was 
 quite determined. People did these things in the East End 
 as well as in quiet cathedral cities; widows of over fifty 
 married second, third, or fourth husbands. And, with an- 
 other lance-like throb of pain, he remembered much pleasant 
 fun at the Verschoyles* rectory about an elderly cook who 
 was unexpectedly leaving. Mrs. Verschoyle could not guess 
 why ; and the grey-haired cook, puckering her apron, at last 
 coyly confessed that she was leaving to get married. 
 
 "Mother," he said, interrupting her, "when is it to be?" 
 
 "Well, dear, we hope before Christmas. You know, poor 
 Mrs. Barrett died more than a year ago." 
 
 Then she began to thank him for his gentleness and for- 
 bearance, saying that he had proved true to his nature, and
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 177 
 
 reminding him that until these years of their enforced 
 separation she had looked only to him for comfort and sup- 
 port. 
 
 And finally she spoke about the furniture. That, she 
 said, was what now preyed upon her mind. "It is as though 
 I had cheated you, dear. I led you to expect it and now I 
 am leaving you with an empty house. Of course, you have 
 been counting on the furniture." 
 
 He bowed his head, so that she should not see his eyes, 
 and there came a sound from his throat that was half a cough 
 and half a sob. He was stifling the words that had nearly 
 said themselves : "I was counting on you, mother, more than 
 on your furniture." 
 
 He returned to London almost immediately after this 
 interview, and in the train he sat with folded arms, scarcely 
 changing his attitude throughout the journey. It was dark 
 now, so that if he had looked back to catch that last pic- 
 turesque glimpse of St. Dunstan's, he could have seen 
 nothing. But he had no wish to see it; he hoped that he 
 might never see it again. He thought dully of what is said 
 about people in his situation to describe their state. Writers, 
 using stereotyped phrases, say, "He felt stunned, confused, 
 as if he had received a blow on the head." Or they say, 
 "He felt paralysed." Or they say, "He felt like a man who 
 has undergone a severe surgical operation, and cannot shake 
 off the dreams of anaesthesia or recover strength enough 
 even to lift his head." And Edward Churchill thought, 
 "Yes, I feel all that. But I feel more ;" and dully he sought 
 for another simile. "I feel like a small child who started in 
 the morning with its parents and guardians and other chil- 
 dren ; and then, after playing with them happily all day, at 
 dusk finds itself suddenly alone, and thinks, This is the 
 awful thing that has often been talked about. I am lost. 
 Yes, I am lost!" 
 
 He repeated the words aloud "I am lost;" and then, 
 looking up, saw that his fellow-passengers were staring at 
 him questioningly. 
 
 He walked from the London terminus, and it was late 
 when he reached St. Bede's. Alone in his empty house he 
 wandered up and down, turning on all the lights, going in 
 and out of the rooms, looking at the blankness and the
 
 178 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 emptiness. Whenever he paused, trivial little ironical words 
 suggested themselves, and sometimes he uttered them with a 
 feebly explanatory tone : such as, "This is a disappointment. 
 . . . Not at all what I counted on. ... Quite a shock, 
 when I first had to face it." 
 
 Then would come big words, like great guns fired from a 
 distance and yet making noise enough to silence all the 
 adjacent splutter of musketry. Thus it seemed when he 
 thought : "Two things I have trusted God and my mother. 
 And one of them has failed me."
 
 XXIII 
 
 HE was alone with his religion now, and subtly its char- 
 acter began to change. He lost his joy in the splendours of 
 ritual ; the significances of symbolism ceased to interest him ; 
 even the crowning mystery of sacrificial rites appeared to 
 him of less paramount importance. Only essentials mattered. 
 
 It was as if his grief, his disgust, his vicarious shame, had 
 driven him irrevocably from the realm of refined ideas and 
 forced him to take a firm standpoint on broad unshakable 
 principles. He could not think as hitherto of the quality of 
 things that are beautiful. When he looked at the bare 
 branches of the plane tree he did not remember the green 
 leaves they had borne such a little while ago. He had no 
 desire nowadays to go to the lovely Church of the Cruci- 
 fixion. Several times he saw that graceful young woman, the 
 sight of whom used to stir his mind with pretty fancies, and 
 now he hardly glanced at her pale face or brown hair, and 
 had not the slightest wish ever to hear her voice again. For 
 a long time he could not even bring himself to visit Mrs. 
 Verschoyle, although he knew well that she would not wound 
 him with a visible sign of the sympathy that she had so deli- 
 cately hidden in one or two letters after he told her of his 
 altered plans. 
 
 He just stuck to his ordinary work, seeking nothing 
 outside it ; as though all dreams were finished, and, awaken- 
 ing, he had accepted the hard law of facts. Life is ugly, 
 and one must not shirk its ugliness. 
 
 Rising one morning, he said to himself, "This is my 
 mother's wedding day ;" and he repeated the words again and 
 again. He had asked to be excused from attending the 
 ceremony, and his request had been at once granted; but, 
 as soon as the happy pair should be well established in their 
 Brighton house, he was to visit them. His mother could 
 not let him off this visit or permit him to postpone it 
 indefinitely, and he looked forward to it with shrinking dread 
 as the consummation of his pain. All through the wedding 
 
 179
 
 180 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 day he was haunted by pictures of the past and the future. 
 How could she bring herself to do it? Oh, how could she so 
 forget her own legend? And he thought that this real 
 tragedy was more poignantly distressing than the fable of 
 Shakespeare's play. For to him the distress was far worse 
 than for Hamlet. Comparatively, Hamlet and the Queen had 
 been nothing to each other. 
 
 He could not sleep, he could not eat, the idea of what was 
 happening continued to be intolerable. 
 
 Nevertheless, while the new year was still young, he duti- 
 fully fulfilled his engagement, and went down to Brighton 
 to stay for a few days with Mr. and Mrs. Barrett. 
 
 Their house was situated on the East Cliff, in one of the 
 old terraces long since deserted by fashion, and Mr. Barrett, 
 exercising all his professional skill, had secured it as an 
 astounding bargain. It was small and neat just the right 
 size for the St. Dunstan's furniture. Here, then, Edward 
 saw what was like the ghost of his childhood's home ; every 
 chair and table reminding him of vanished days, the pictures 
 on the walls seeming to whisper of his dead father; and 
 in the midst of it the base intruder and supplanter, spreading 
 himself out large, beaming with self-satisfaction, exuding 
 vulgar triumph. Here, too, Edward for the first time heard 
 the man call his mother Edith, watched her after dinner 
 while she fetched a pair of slippers, a tobacco jar, a pipe, and 
 suffered more acutely than he would have believed possible. 
 
 The greater must include the less. Since she had mai ried 
 the man, one should have been prepared for all the rest. 
 Already she was altogether different. Her manner, her voice 
 had changed ; she even did her hair differently. Of course, 
 outwardly as well as inwardly, she must be different: she 
 was now the comrade, the obedient helpmate, the other half 
 of Mr. Barrett. Already, in a dull kind way, he had com- 
 pletely dominated her. The adoring slave had become the 
 tolerant master. Without the slightest harshness, merely 
 by the dead weight of companionship, he dictated her acts, 
 her words, her thoughts. He would do so always he would 
 simply obliterate in her all that had made her what she was. 
 And yet last incredible, prodigiously illogical truth she 
 was quite contented. 
 
 While he talked, she listened appreciatively. His con-
 
 181 
 
 versation which for the main part consisted of a rapid 
 sequence of platitudinous nonsense appeared to be all that 
 she desired as an intellectual treat. When he thought he had 
 made a joke, he looked at her in a certain winking familiar 
 style, and she immediately also thought that he had made a 
 joke, and laughed with as much pleasure as if he had really 
 made one. 
 
 To Edward of an evening, after she had gone to hed 
 he was terrible, nerve-inflaming, poisonously asphyxiating. 
 He sat rocking himself in the late Mr. Churchill's swing 
 chair, smoking and twaddling. 
 
 He called Brighton "London-by-the-Sea," spoke of it 
 also as "Doctor Brighton," and said that, althought the fact 
 might prove him to be an odd original sort of creature, he 
 must confess that the sound of the waves as they gently beat 
 upon the shore was very pleasant to him. He said, too, that 
 he firmly believed tobacco to be a blessing if used in modera- 
 tion. It soothed the brain. But tobacco, like many other 
 things, might be condemned as evil "when carried to excess." 
 
 "Moderation, Edward. That should be one's watchword." 
 
 Then he talked a little scandal about the lady who lived 
 next door. She was by herself during the week, but a gentle- 
 man appeared on Saturday. This week-end personage might 
 be her lawful wedded husband, but on the other hand he 
 might not. 
 
 "I have told your mamma to be on her guard, and not to 
 encourage advances from so doubtful a quarter. We shall 
 have no difficulty in building up our little circle of friends, 
 and we w r ould like them to be of the right sort." 
 
 And then Mr. Barrett suggested "Bedfordshire." Cum- 
 brously getting out of the swing chair and stretching himself, 
 he took a last proud survey of the comfortable, nicely fur- 
 nished room, and said, "Now, isn't this better for both of 
 us than moping out our lives by ourselves ? You see it, now, 
 don't you, Ted? Mamma and I, in joining forces, did the 
 wise and proper thing, didn't we ?" 
 
 Edward opened his bedroom window and filled his lungs 
 with the cold night air. He was almost suffocating. He 
 looked at the stars, and thought of their remoteness; he 
 listened to the waves, and to his ears their voices spoke only 
 of sadness. If any doubt or hope had lingered, he knew now.
 
 182 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 that his mother had gone from him for ever. If she had 
 died, the separation would have seemed less cru shingly final. 
 
 About a month after the Brighton excursion lie had a 
 meeting with his two brothers. By arrangement they all 
 three dined together at a restaurant near Piccadilly Circus, 
 and, going westward to this appointment, Edward felt a 
 rapid revival of brotherly affection and an immense longing 
 to renew a natural intercourse that had been too long 
 neglected. 
 
 But alas, it was impossible. Some glow of warmth there 
 was, a flare of instinct, and then numbness, coldness. In 
 truth they seemed to him utter strangers, two worldly com- 
 mon fellows, gross of mind and gross of tongue. Tom was 
 big and loud, and blustering prosperous now, he declared 
 the typical colonial wanderer, who romances about past 
 hardships and brags about future ease. Charles was lean, 
 rather seedy-looking in spite of raffish ornaments of attire ; 
 he said Europe was played-out, rotten, no longer the place 
 for a white man; and he intended shortly to go back with 
 Tom to Australia. Meanwhile, both of them, evidently, 
 were enjoying all the pleasures of the town. Tom spoke 
 plainly of the temporary solace afforded by the opposite sex 
 to those fortunate enough to have plenty of money in their 
 pockets, and then, laughing, checked the flow of such revela- 
 tions. "I must respect the cloth, Ted, old boy." And almost 
 in the same breath he was talking of their mother. 
 
 Neither he nor Charles appeared to recollect that ancient 
 horror of the stepfather, or their contempt for Mr. Barrett. 
 The marriage had not ruffled them. They thought it foolish, 
 but they didn't care. 
 
 "Women are all the same," said Tom sententiously ; "and 
 I believe the older they get the sillier they get." 
 
 Charles looked sage : seeming to say without words that 
 in his varied experience of women wickedness rather than 
 silliness had been the trouble. 
 
 "But as to the dear mater," said Tom, "well, it means, 
 of course, that nothing will ever come our way now. Number 
 Two will see to that. I don't mind. I'm all right on the 
 up-grade, going to wallow in it before I've done. And I 
 say, 'Long may she enjoy her own, and do what she likes 
 with it afterwards.' Let's drink her health."
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 183 
 
 Edward left them drinking together. Ever afterwards, 
 when he thought of them, he had that farewell picture of 
 the two unfamiliar-looking men seated at a disordered table 
 in the now empty dining-room, with flushed faces and stupid 
 eyes, talking garrulously, while a waiter yawned, furtively 
 read a newspaper, and pined for them to go away. The 
 strongest combined effort of memory and imagination could 
 not make this picture blend with the other one of two clean- 
 minded, frank-eyed, healthy boys, whom he had honoured 
 and loved. These two men did not want him; he could not 
 help them ; in thought he bade them good-bye. 
 
 Thus all ties of family had been broken, not a single per- 
 sonal affection was left to him. But the blank must be 
 somehow filled that was a necessity. Mankind in the mass 
 was surely large enough to supply what had been withdrawn 
 by a few individuals. 
 
 Gradually he furnished his house, in a rough and ready 
 way, buying the things for room after room as they were 
 wanted. This was home, and he was now settling down in 
 it. His housekeeper was a Mrs. Clough, the deserted wife 
 of a bricklayer who had gone to Canada. For years she had 
 worked at an Aldgate steam laundry, tramping to and fro 
 every day, and at last getting knocked down by a meat van. 
 Edward Churchill went to see her at the London Hospital, 
 and the kind doctors who had mended her broken thigh, 
 patched her perforated lung, and bulged out her crushed ribs, 
 told him that she could never again be up to the heavy work 
 of her laundry. If the laundry people took her back and let 
 her limp about for a week, they would infallibly sack her at 
 the end of it. She was, however, quite up to the light work 
 of Denmark House; her daughters, grown-up factory 
 women, came to stay with her when out of a job; she adored 
 her new master, and would have been perfectly happy but 
 for the fear that one day her bad husband might come back 
 from Canada and upset the apple-cart. 
 
 In the large, bare drawing-room some rough cupboards 
 had been fitted, and in these were piles of the Prayer-books 
 and Bibles used for classes, rolled maps of the Holy Land 
 and Syria that came out for lectures on the Passion or Paul's 
 voyages, coloured flags of the signalling section of the cadet 
 corps, and so on. Near the windows there was a large table
 
 184 
 
 and desk, with a metal crucifix attached to the wall above it. 
 When the boudoir door stood open, one had a peep into 
 Churchill's bedroom a painted chest of drawers, the narrow 
 iron bed, with another crucifix near it. 
 
 There were no curtains in either room, but in both the 
 richness and splendour of the carpet struck an incongruous 
 note. Those packing-cases had at last been opened, and the 
 books that they contained so long were bestowed on one side 
 of the big room in ranges of deal shelves as yet unpainted. 
 For the walls he had purchased some religious prints in black 
 frames. There were many wooden chairs for the bulk of his 
 visitors, and two wicker arm-chairs with red cloth cushions 
 for superior people. From the packing-cases had also 
 emerged some Indian clubs, boxing-gloves, a model oar, and 
 other modest trophies or mementos of his college boating 
 club ; and all these articles, together with small knicknacks 
 dating from Oxford days, made a scattered and untidy 
 decoration that Mrs. dough assiduously dusted and greatly 
 cherished. 
 
 The bedroom that should have been Mrs. Churchill's was 
 permanently occupied by "the old gentleman." This was 
 Edward's friend, Mr. Philbrick. After a sharp attack of 
 sciatica, that danger of the workhouse had recurred; the 
 old chap's capacity for work had dwindled down to some- 
 thing very small indeed ; Edward told him in effect that he 
 must work no more, his future need not worry him, he might 
 take his ease at Denmark House. 
 
 Early of a morning the host used to go into the visitor's 
 room, sit on the edge of his bed, and enjoy a little chat. 
 However early the hour, Mr. Philbrick was always awake, 
 and generally smoking. He sat high in the bed, screwing up 
 his wrinkled face, winking his bright birdlike eyes, and 
 placidly puffing out tobacco clouds of almost overpowering 
 strength and rankness. 
 
 "This is my luckserry," he would say. "To lay here 
 before breakfast, knowing I don't have to get up till when I 
 choose. I don't sleep much we old fellers don't require 
 it, and I don't miss it. The rest is sufficient the pleasure 
 of the bed itself and what I call the luckserry." 
 
 Sometimes they read the collect of the day together. 
 Formal prayer, with kneeling out of bed or on the bed, would
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 185 
 
 naturally have interfered with the luxurious sensations, and 
 Churchill never suggested it. But Mr. Philbrick liked "a 
 bit of 'oly readin'," cheerfully putting down his pipe, and 
 repeating the sacred names with unction and contentment. 
 
 "Thank you very kindly, sir. I shall be up and about 
 before you're in from yer fust round. . . . Er, might I 
 respec'fully ast you to 'and me the matches?" 
 
 Other guests, for long and short periods, were young 
 priests. Amongst them was a consumptive, and him Churchill 
 dispatched on a sea voyage. Another of them had broken 
 the vows of the brotherhood to which he belonged. Another 
 had got into dire disgrace by drink, and was in danger of 
 being inhibited. These were difficult cases sent to him by the 
 Verschoyles. 
 
 But generally he found the guests himself honest workers 
 in their dire need, when no work was forthcoming ; offenders 
 just released from the clutches of the law and anxious to 
 start fair again, yet ready to return to crime ; feeble, helpless, 
 hopeless incompetents ; the wreckage thrown in his way by 
 the ocean of life. He took them in when they wanted shelter; 
 he turned them out when they lingered because of mere 
 idleness. He was not softly kind to them. He liked their 
 company, but their room was so urgently needed. And thus, 
 little by little, Denmark House became recognised as a sort 
 of hostel or place of refuge instead of a strictly private 
 residence. 
 
 He was doing much for the parish in other ways. He had 
 provided funds for a new mission room on the southern 
 boundary, for a fourth curate, and for repairs to the fabric 
 of the church. That dividing line between capital and 
 income ceased to restrict his expenditure. Why should he 
 hoard any longer ? When money was wanted to gladden the 
 heart of Walsden, he sold out some stock and produced it. 
 But he spent freely now on his own account, without 
 Walsden's advice gifts made from hand to hand, grants in 
 aid of young men who wished to emigrate, marriage por- 
 tions ; donations to a foundlings' home at Barking ; mainte- 
 nance of seaside camps, after the source of ordinary sub- 
 scriptions ran dry. 
 
 His position in the parish every week seemed to strengthen 
 itself. Money at St. Bede's went a long way, and its imme-
 
 186 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 diate effects were readily perceptible. The people regarded 
 him as an opulent prince, some one far above the vicar. 
 But Mr. Walsden never had the least jealousy in this regard ; 
 he gloried in the possession of his rich curate ; and, although 
 often rebuking greedy members of the flock for their out- 
 rageous claims, he told Churchill, "They love you for 
 yourself, not for your money." 
 
 And, indeed, he was greatly trusted. People came to him 
 in their trouble, asking spiritual comfort and desiring nothing 
 else. The women especially, of all ages, sought interviews 
 with Mr. Churchill. It was useless now to send them to the 
 vicarage, to Mr. Gardiner, or to Mr. Nape. They would 
 not go. 
 
 He used to let them talk to him, and he listened, saying 
 very little. Before they left he gave them a few words of 
 simple advice, telling them to be brave, to be clean, to take 
 care of themselves their bodies as well as their souls. 
 "When everything else goes wrong at home, don't go wrong 
 yourself" and so on. Sometimes he lent them books: 
 health manuals, domestic treatises, tracts on the virtue of 
 self-respect. 
 
 Always that change of his estimates in regard to the rela- 
 tive importance of the spiritual and the material need was 
 continuing. More and more his interest was aroused in work 
 outside the Church world. He used to go to the London 
 Hospital and admire the marvellous organisation of the vast 
 establishment. He had made many friends among the 
 doctors there, and he enjoyed his long quiet talks with them 
 when he could catch them off duty. They told him so much 
 that he had never properly understood till now. He also 
 frequently visited a small hospital in the Poplar district; 
 and here he sat by the bedsides of sailors, hearing tales of the 
 sea of perils bravely encountered, of avoidable sufferings 
 cheerfully borne, of the floating hell that a ship may become 
 when nature and men join hands in the work of pitiless 
 cruelty. Whenever he was able to do so he spent an afternoon 
 at the orphans' or waifs' institution that he had recently dis- 
 covered at Barking. He loved these boys who had never 
 known a father's name. And, wherever he was, he thought 
 of the folly of mankind in still passively accepting evils
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 187 
 
 that ages and ages ago should for ever have been rendered 
 impossible. 
 
 Walsden saw the change in his curate's mental attitude, 
 and one day he frankly spoke of it. It was characteristic 
 of him that the place he chose for speaking was the open 
 street, and that he did not find time to finish what he wished 
 to say. They were standing in the narrow side street, by the 
 door of the southern mission room, and he began abruptly 
 about Churchill's sermons. "I wish," he said, "that you 
 would revert to your original line the line, you know, that 
 made such a stir among us. Rub it into them again about 
 prayer. That lifted them. Last Sunday night I thought 
 you got a bit too business-like too much like a lecture on 
 practical politics." 
 
 "Oh, is that so?" 
 
 "I thought so ;" and Walsden beamed, and gave Churchill 
 a friendly slap on the shoulder. "With any one else, I should 
 beat about the bush, perhaps not that I'm good at round- 
 abouts but with you, I know I'm safe. You've always 
 been too big to be touchy. . . . Good morning. Hope your 
 wife's better." He had interrupted himself to speak to a 
 workman who was slouching toward some other workmen 
 at an opposite corner of the street. "What was I saying? 
 Yes, tell 'em to pray. That was the line. Nowadays you've 
 got off it. It's all 'Help one another,' instead of 'Pray for 
 one another.' " 
 
 "Is it?" And Churchill promised that he would preach 
 again on prayer. His sermons seemed to be less important 
 than in the past, he did not prepare them so laboriously, he 
 had no personal pleasure in delivering them, and he refused 
 all invitations to hold forth beyond the confines of St. Bede's. 
 
 "Thanks. And in this connection there was a hint about 
 our old, little controversy receiving confessions, you know. 
 Well " 
 
 But just then somebody spoke to Mr. Walsden from the 
 opposite pavement. It was a big, black-coated man with a 
 bowler hat on the back of his head, who came hurrying. As 
 he passed he made a gesture with his hand, as though waving 
 off the vicar, and spoke in a loud, self-important style. 
 
 "Good morning to you. I can't stop now."
 
 188 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 Mr. Walsden had not desired this personage to stop, and 
 he muttered contemptuously. "Very good. Don't apologise. 
 We don't want you ;" and he stood looking after him. 
 
 A few doors farther down the street the pavement was 
 blocked by the little knot of workmen ; and the big man took 
 one of these by the shoulders, pushed him off the pavement, 
 and, having passed, called back truculently, "That'll teach 
 you manners. Get out of the light when you see people 
 coming." 
 
 "Yes," said Walsden, "but who'll teach you manners 
 you pig?" And he turned to Edward Churchill. "Did you 
 see that ? Did you notice that man ? They say he'll be sent 
 to Parliament. I'll tell you all about him some time. Thank 
 goodness, he has left the parish. I must fly. Ta-ta." 
 
 Whatever precepts on the subject of confession the vicar 
 had intended to repeat, they were probably not needed in 
 order to reinforce his well-known rules of conduct. Churchill 
 had always obeyed him, and now, perhaps not only as a 
 result from this habit of obedience, the difference of opinion 
 between them had almost vanished. The link in what 
 Churchill used to call his "straight sequence" had worn so 
 thin that he questioned if it were a link at all, or merely an 
 excrescence. If the chain of faith could hold together without 
 it, then knock it off or let it go. Since he and the vicar were 
 now of one mind in their struggle to hold fast to essentials, 
 they could scarcely be far apart in their method of dealing 
 with a surface difficulty. Churchill did not particularly 
 think of this question of confession ; and perhaps, if he had 
 done so, he would have understood that he now considered 
 Walsden to be right. Perhaps no good ever came of men 
 confessing their sins to men. Let them open their hearts 
 to God let them keep it all between God and themselves. 
 
 Certainly he felt no qualms in sending people to the Com- 
 munion Service without previous absolution. When the 
 women came to see him, he did not ask them to lay bare any 
 secret. He looked at them, and he seemed to understand. 
 When, in every varied tone of hope or fear, they seemed to 
 ask him the one great question, "What shall I do to be 
 saved?" he told them to believe in Christ. "Believe in 
 Him, and love Him. That is all." 
 
 He used to think so often, "If one does not steadfastly
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 189 
 
 believe in the glory to be achieved hereafter, then what a 
 hideous nightmare here and now!" And of all essential 
 duties of a priest the greatest must surely be to strengthen 
 faith. "It is not enough to make these people believe once, 
 and then leave them to their own devices ; one must always 
 be sustaining the belief. For belief, however strong, may 
 grow weak and quickly perish." 
 
 Some of the boys at that orphanage were fierce and wild, 
 requiring stern discipline ; but there were none that did not 
 show pleasure at the sight of Edward Churchill, and none 
 that he could not manage if entrusted to his charge. When 
 the summer drew near he used to present himself on half 
 holidays, and take about twenty orphans of all sizes for an 
 afternoon trip upon the river Lea. He had hired an immense 
 tub of a boat that held the whole party ; and he taught the 
 bigger lads how to row three of them to an oar, bench after 
 bench, like Roman slaves, splashing and toiling. The little 
 ones were in the stern, all about him, chattering, gesticulat- 
 ing. A few perhaps he smiled at more than at the rest, 
 noticing their puny arms, wizened faces, abnormally devel- 
 oped intelligences, and remembering that they had but lately 
 been rescued from the streets. 
 
 "Oh, ain't this jolly?" That was the treble chorus. The 
 peace and happiness changed them, elevated them, made 
 them sweeter, gladder, better in one afternoon. 
 
 Sometimes he sculled the whole barge alone, while all 
 rested and watched. 
 
 "I'll take you as far as the white pier." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Churchill, can you do it? You must be strong 
 as a giant." 
 
 And very slowly he made the huge boat move faster 
 still on. The boys crowed, and cheered, and thought it 
 miraculous. 
 
 He rowed till the sweat poured off him, till his chest 
 seemed about to crack ; but he felt as if, for a time, he was 
 carrying their burdens, as if his effort had lifted the cruel 
 weight that the sins of the world had laid upon these inno- 
 cent ones. He yearned with love for the little souls, while 
 his muscles seemed to take fire, his lungs change to dry 
 paper, and his heart become a pump that filled his veins with
 
 190 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 pain instead of blood he was almost killing himself, but 
 would give his life and not regret its loss. Lightermen on 
 the banks watched also, their faces lit with friendly grins. 
 "Brayvo, guv'nor! Well done, sir!" And still he plodded 
 on, until the boat drew level with the white pier. Then he 
 stopped, came back to his seat in the stern, gasping, spas- 
 modically quivering, feeling as if he had been broken on the 
 wheel. But he was all right directly, able to joke and laugh. 
 "Hasn't it hurt you, sir ?" And a small hand was placed 
 upon his aching knee. 
 
 ''No, my dear boy, of course not. I wanted to do it." 
 That was his paramount need to give himself, to spend 
 himself, to gain the peace that comes from exhaustion. And 
 except when doing it, he was a profoundly unhappy man.
 
 XXIV 
 
 IN obedience to the vicar's request, Edward Churchill had 
 prepared his new sermon on prayer. But before the time 
 came to deliver it he suffered another disillusionment, was 
 forced to relinquish another pretty idea, and once more expe- 
 rienced a deepened sense of loss and loneliness. 
 
 Walsden, after speaking of some members of a dock- 
 labourers' trade union, began to talk about the secretary 
 of the union, Mr. Robert Vickers, and explained that this 
 was the man they had seen pushing humble folk into the 
 gutter. "Yes, he is lord of the poor fellows lives on their 
 pennies, and yet bullies them. But they believe in him, and 
 submit to anything. As I told you, he used to live here 
 had offices for two societies that kept him going as long as 
 they lasted and I couldn't persuade even our own people 
 that they were fools for letting him bleed them." 
 
 Walsden said this Vickers was a thorough bad lot. He 
 drank, and he was viciously immoral. Some years ago he 
 had been charged with a criminal assault on one of his type- 
 writing girls, but the charge broke down. "Once I told 
 Mr. Vickers, to his face and before company, exactly what 
 I thought of him ; and yet could you credit it ? he has had 
 the impudence to write asking me and the St. Bede's clergy 
 to go and hear him spout next Wednesday at the Red Eagle 
 tavern." 
 
 "Vickers!" said Churchill. "There is a young woman 
 of that name. No connection of his, I suppose ?" 
 
 "Yes, his wife." 
 
 Churchill at first thought this must be a mistake. His 
 Miss Vickers could not possibly be Walsden's Mrs. Vickers. 
 Nevertheless she was. "Yes, yes," said Walsden "very 
 nice girl, friend of my wife's. She couldn't really have told 
 you she was single. You've got hold of the wrong end of the 
 stick." 
 
 "Why did she marry such a brute?" 
 
 "Ah. Who can say? Found him attractive, one must 
 guess. Women are so curious in these affairs. She must 
 regret it by now, I should think." 
 
 191
 
 192 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 It was a shock to find that such a girl not coarse and 
 common, apparently altogether the reverse should care for 
 such a man. And beyond the discomfort caused by the shat- 
 tered ideal, there was something repellent in the notion that 
 she was married at all that she belonged to anybody whom- 
 soever. He had woven his fable about her, thinking of her 
 always as solitary, virginally mysterious and aloof, bravely 
 isolated from all commonplace dependences or supports. 
 Then he felt indignant with her herself. Why had she 
 allowed him to persist in a foolish error? Why had she 
 posed as a single girl merely because he imagined her to be 
 one? Perhaps she had not consciously done this; perhaps 
 the misunderstanding had been entirely of his own making 
 and fostering. When he searched his memory of their first 
 meeting, he seemed to recall that she had merely told him 
 her name was Lilian Vickers, and he, jumping to conclu- 
 sions, had written her down as Miss. Probably, or at least 
 possibly, he had never in their subsequent meetings addressed 
 her as Miss Vickers. Or if he had, perhaps she did not 
 notice or, noticing, perhaps she thought the mistake was 
 not worth correcting. She might have thought that, as 
 they were practically strangers, it could not in the least 
 matter. The whole thing would appear a trifle to her. But 
 it did not appear a trifle to him. 
 
 He could not get it out of his mind. 
 
 He thought of her so much that he put himself to the 
 trouble of obtaining further information about her husband. 
 From Mrs. Walsden and others he gathered that Vickers had 
 risen in the world and now rather sunk again. He was a 
 socialist, an agitator, a tub-thumper. The dockers' union, 
 started and practically governed by himself, was as yet small, 
 but he boastfully declared that it would develop into some- 
 thing tremendous, and he counted on its force to thrust him 
 into Parliament. He was Church of England. He always 
 made a point of this in his public utterances, and tried to 
 keep in with church-folk, although never himself seen in 
 church. His wife Lilian taught French as well as the piano, 
 and was truly religious. Perhaps Vickers encouraged her to 
 go to church, to attend classes and lectures, and thus save 
 him the performance of an irksome duty. Anyhow, it was
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 193 
 
 plain that he clung to the church connection as something 
 that might be useful to him politically. 
 
 From humble friends Churchill learned that if people 
 trusted Mr. Vickers, many were afraid of him. 
 
 "Why afraid?" 
 
 "Well, natch'rally, because of all them union chaps of his," 
 said Dance, the greengrocer. "It's ev'dent. He'd think 
 nothing of setting on a dozen of his roughs to slip into you 
 with their fists. He did do it. Man he'd had a row with, 
 was set upon and precious near killed." 
 
 But not content with hearsay evidence, Churchill took an 
 opportunity of studying the man himself. He sat among the 
 audience at the back of the room when Mr. Vickers gave his 
 Red Eagle oration. 
 
 Evidently not a gentleman, Vickers seemed, however, to 
 be well educated; at any rate, he showed all the surface 
 signs of education, and apparently he had been at pains to 
 learn how to speak in public. The matter of the discourse 
 was nonsense the usual diatribes against the upper classes, 
 fulsome praise of all horney-handed toilers, and promises of 
 the Utopia that might be expected as soon as Labour orga- 
 nised itself and was able to secure adequate representation 
 in the House of Commons. But his manner when con- 
 sidered only in regard to the purposes of the occasion was 
 good. He had a swaggering confidence and a spurious bon- 
 homie that imposed on ignorant hearers. One moment he 
 overawed them by his learning, and the next moment flattered 
 them by an assumption of entire equality. He frowned, 
 bellowed, made violent gestures, and then treated them to a 
 joke and helped it with a loud and affectedly jovial laugh. 
 Churchill instinctively detested him, and felt that the worst 
 that could be said of him must be true. 
 
 Physically, he was a big, powerful-looking man, with a 
 broad chest, heavy shoulders, and perhaps rather poor legs. 
 Standing on the platform, he looked very tall, and in fact 
 was probably an inch or two over six feet. He seemed to be 
 about thirty-five years of age ; he had dark, closely cropped 
 hair and a reddish moustache ; and there was a fatness and 
 looseness about the lower parts of his cheeks, as well as a 
 baggy fullness beneath the chin, that suggested sensuality
 
 194 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 and self-indulgence. He was just a pig and a brute. Yet 
 Churchill could see in him a sort of blackguardly hand- 
 someness that, allowing for the deterioration of years, might 
 attract and even greatly attract vulgar silly women. 
 
 Then he thought of the delicate prettiness and slim grace 
 of the man's wife. Could there be truth in what was said by 
 his brother Tom, by Walsden, by everybody else that all 
 women are alike? 
 
 When Sunday evening came and he preached his sermon 
 on prayer, it happened that Mrs. Vickers was in the church. 
 He saw her at once, but he would not look at her again. He 
 thought, "If I look at her, I shall be reminded of ugly things ; 
 my mind will wander, and I shall lose the thread of what I 
 am to say. Walsden wants me to tell them to pray for 
 one another, and I must do it as forcibly as I can." 
 
 In the vestry after the service Walsden declared that he 
 had done it magnificently. The handkerchiefs had come out 
 in all directions, and Walsden himself had counted five peo- 
 ple weeping at one time. "You really did warm them up 
 quite in the old style when you said that bit about unhappi- 
 ness. What was it again ? 'Pray for those who are unhappy, 
 whether you love them or whether you hate them/ That 
 was it, wasn't it ? Capital !" 
 
 Churchill was not going to sup at the vicarage to-night, 
 and when presently he went down the empty church to the 
 main door the lights were turned out except in the western 
 gallery. Mr. White leaned over the balustrade by the organ 
 curtains, and told him that the doors had not yet been 
 locked. 
 
 Beyond the swing doors the porch was quite dark, the 
 outer door standing ajar and admitting a little light from the 
 street lamps to guide one. As he passed, there came a sound 
 from somewhere near the foot of the gallery stairs that 
 startled him. It was like a suppressed sobbing. 
 
 "Who is it? What is it?" 
 
 And out of the darkness somebody spoke to him. 
 
 "Mr. Churchill, will you pray for me? I am very 
 unhappy." 
 
 "Yes," he said. "Yes, I will pray for you Mrs. Vickers. 
 ... It is Mrs. Vickers, is it not? . . . Good-night."
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 195 
 
 And he went out of the porch. She did not follow him, 
 and after a few moments he came back again. 
 
 "Mrs. Vickers" and he spoke now more gently and with 
 greater friendliness than before, "would you care to come 
 and see me at Denmark House some day, and let us talk 
 about your troubles whatever they are?" 
 
 "I don't know. . . . Yes, I would like if you are sure 
 you don't mind. I've no right to bother you. I'm not in 
 the parish." 
 
 "Send me a line to say when you are coming." 
 
 "May I come to-morrow afternoon?" 
 
 "Yes. What time?" 
 
 "Six o'clock if that would suit you." 
 
 "Yes." And again he bade her good-night. 
 
 He walked home, thinking, "This is very strange. It is 
 as though she had answered my secret thoughts." 
 
 She did regret her marriage, bitterly and desperately. In 
 their long quiet talk together, although she never once said 
 it explicitly, Churchill assured himself of the obvious fact in 
 a dozen different ways. And before their talk was over she 
 had entirely re-established herself in his mind. She was 
 truly what she had seemed. 
 
 She was dreadfully shy and nervous at first, making apolo- 
 gies for wasting his time and explaining that she had no 
 justification. She said that yesterday had been a long and 
 tiring day for her; it had been difficult to get away from 
 home ; she was late in starting for St. Bede's, and then the 
 trams were full and she walked most of the distance, hurry- 
 ing. So that when she reached the church she was perhaps 
 rather overwrought, and the sermon moving her greatly, she 
 broke down in a silly manner of which she was now ashamed. 
 This morning she had intended to write to say that she 
 would not trouble him to receive her, but then she had 
 thought he might not understand. So she had come. 
 
 And Churchill perfectly understood that she had come 
 because she wanted to come. She, like so many other of his 
 visitors, was impelled by the most simple and direct motives, 
 although to her they might seem obscure. Life had rendered 
 her piteously sad ; she longed to speak of her sadness ; she 
 craved for human sympathy, and as yet could not find it.
 
 196 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 Divine aid she possessed ; but, although her faith disclosed 
 itself as beautiful and steadfast, this was not quite enough. 
 She desired, she needed to hear the voice of a fellow- 
 creature telling that others are bearing their sadness bravely ; 
 that she, too, must be brave and fear nothing. 
 
 This, in effect, was what Edward Churchill told her ; and 
 he saw that he had succeeded in comforting her, strengthen- 
 ing her, and giving her fresh courage. 
 
 He begged her to come and see him again whenever she 
 desired to do so; and from time to time she repeatd her 
 visits. Rapidly they became able to talk freely, as though 
 they had known each other for a long time ; but she always 
 maintained her reticence in regard to the actual causes of her 
 misery. She hinted at them, but never stated them. It did 
 not matter : he could guess them all, and, thinking of them, 
 his heart melted in pity. 
 
 He knew her history now. Her parents died while she was 
 still a child; she had eaten the bread of charity during her 
 last three years at school; then, as governess in a country 
 house, she had met Vickers, and married him a month after 
 their first meeting. Churchill could imagine it the man 
 coming with his swagger, his flashy rhetoric, his affected en- 
 thusiasms, and the poor little lonely girl thinking, "This is 
 the grand chivalrous knight who is going to rescue me." And 
 instead of a courtly knight, he had proved a brutal jailer. 
 He had been systematically unkind, depriving her of love, 
 and yet not allowing her freedom from the ugly manifesta- 
 tions that only loved wives should know. Like a hog, he 
 had trampled on the pretty flower that he had snatched at 
 and uprooted. 
 
 There had been a baby, who died ; and the young mother's 
 grief had almost broken her heart. Yet Churchill instinc- 
 tively understood that she wished for no other child to take 
 the place of her lost one. It was bad to be childless; it 
 was worse to have children of such a father. 
 
 One night, during an illness of the St. Bede's organist, she 
 came over to play the organ instead of Mrs. Walsden. It 
 seemed to Churchill that she played splendidly, not only 
 better than poor Mrs. Walsden, but as well as any one he 
 had ever heard playing ; she made their organ seem as grand 
 an instrument as Father Bryan's ; she filled the church with
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 197 
 
 rolling, swelling melody. Afterwards he walked with her as 
 far as the tram-lines, and it chanced that, as an escort, he 
 proved of some slight service. Outside a public-house three 
 drunken men were indisposed to let them pass, and, had she 
 been by herself, they would unquestionably have caused her 
 annoyance. 
 
 At sight of these drunken reeling men and at the sound of 
 their thick, loud voices, Lilian Vickers betrayed a feeling of 
 horror unusual in anybody accustomed to the East End; 
 and Churchill thought, "Yes, that is the sort of thing she has 
 to face at home sometimes." 
 
 He put her into her tram, and stood looking after it, think- 
 ing of what 'she was going back to. 
 
 Why should a sweet, good, patient creature like that be 
 so sorely tried? It was a question if she ever put it fairly 
 to herself so difficult to answer that it might shake the 
 very foundations of her faith. He thought of this peril. If 
 she lost her faith, what would become of her? Then in- 
 deed one might call her miserable. This thought preyed 
 upon his mind fearfully, and he determined to discuss her 
 case in all its aspects with the vicar. Walsden had great 
 natural wisdom, as well as endless experience; he might 
 be able to suggest how best one could help her. 
 
 But Walsden on this occasion was both unsympathetic 
 and stupid. His general view of the situation seemed to 
 be that, having made her bed, Mrs. Vickers must lie on it; 
 and he said, as his only special advice, "I should drop it, if 
 I were you. Yes, just leave it alone." 
 
 Edward Churchill could not, of course, leave it alone. 
 Implicitly, she was asking him for assistance; he could 
 not fold his hands, and altogether disregard the appeal. 
 
 "You see," said Walsden reflectively, "as I found out 
 years ago, when a married woman comes like this, and 
 makes her confession " 
 
 "Mrs. Vickers," said Churchill, almost warmly, "has 
 made no confession to me. Obviously not, or I shouldn't 
 be talking about it to you. No, I have had several inter- 
 views with her, and we discussed nothing but broad prin- 
 ciples. Nevertheless, I can see that she is utterly wretched 
 with that man. You know what he is, yourself."
 
 198 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 "Yes, quite so. But he is her husband. She married 
 him for better, for worse." 
 
 And, unnecessarily, stupidly, Walsden harked back to 
 confessions. "There's the trouble these women. It was 
 that which first put me against it. I saw so much of it in 
 the Midlands. I used to say, 'If it's anything you could talk 
 over with your elder brother anything he could put right 
 for you come and tell me all about it. Just consider I'm 
 your brother.' And to make them understand, I called 
 them Sister. 'Well, now' Sister Alice or Sister Kate if 
 I knew their Christian name, 'what's the little rumpus?' 
 I found the wisdom of following this line, because " 
 
 "Yes, no doubt," said Churchill, "but all that does not 
 in the least apply to the present case." 
 
 "No, no," said Walsden, "I am merely talking in the air 
 defending my theories, which, I well know, you have loyally 
 respected, although opposed to your own. No, I'd for- 
 gotten all about poor Mrs. Vickers. As to her case, I've 
 given you my opinion. . . . When young Nape joined 
 us, I said just the same to him, and so I did to Grevil. I 
 told them, "Beware of the women who come to a clergy- 
 man in their domestic and private troubles.' Why, at 
 Clackhaven," and Walsden laughed good-humouredly, "the 
 mill-girls would try to 'take on the parson' give him 'a 
 teasing,' as they called it and leave their sweethearts wait- 
 ing outside in the street to make them jealous. Yes, and 
 the matrons too who ought to know better getting 
 spoony on the curate! Human nature is the same all the 
 world over. Women are all one. If I found any nonsense 
 of any sort I made some excuse and got my wife into 
 the room to break off. They understood. It reminded 
 them." 
 
 Then Walsden laughed again, and spoke enthusiastically. 
 "But Africa was the place!" And he said a few words 
 about dusky belles who disturbed his tent by their artlessly 
 improper advances. 
 
 All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It 
 was ugly, gross. Unpleasing mental pictures rose unbidden 
 of a missionary's temptations. Never before had he felt 
 such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 199 
 
 bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connec- 
 tion or rather as a transition from the subject that had 
 started their conversation such talk had been distressingly 
 out of place. He went away feeling disgusted with 
 Walsden. 
 
 He must do something. From one or another, he was 
 always hearing further facts about the hardship of her life. 
 The man made her work hard at teaching, he was greedy to 
 make engagements for her at schools, he did not mind how 
 far he sent her afield; and all her earnings went straight 
 into his pocket. He doled out to her a few coins, grudg- 
 ingly, for immediate needs. 
 
 It chanced that a dock labourer who had belonged to his 
 Union and wanted to rejoin it stayed for a few nights at 
 Denmark House, and from him Churchill heard still more. 
 Vickers was notoriously unfaithful to her; he would take 
 up with any trash, and leave her by herself for days and 
 weeks at a time. At their home, the servant was a feeble 
 old woman who let the mistress do most of the work. They 
 used to have proper, vigorous young servants once; but he 
 made it impossible for any decent girl to remain there 
 long. 
 
 Churchill suddenly had an idea, and it seemed so excel- 
 lent that he wondered it had not occurred to him before. 
 Mrs. Verschoyle was the person to advise. If he could 
 gain her friendship for Lilian Vickers, she would be the 
 person to bring real aid. 
 
 But for the very first time Mrs. Verschoyle disappointed 
 him. She talked kindly and finely; she was not unsympa- 
 thetic, as Walsden had been, and yet her advice was almost 
 an exact echo of his. She advised Edward Churchill to 
 drop it. 
 
 She knew nothing of Mrs. Vickers personally; she had 
 never even heard of her; and she showed a disinclination to 
 make her acquaintance, pleading that she had already so 
 many people who required perpetual attention, reminding 
 him of the local calls upon her time. Of course she knew 
 Vickers by reputation. She had never heard any good of 
 him; but she sincerely trusted he was not quite so bad as 
 Churchill thought.
 
 200 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 "He is every bit. Oh, surely one can do something for 
 this innocent creature, who is daily suffering because of his 
 wickedness !" 
 
 "Is she a believer?" asked Mrs. Verschoyle. 
 
 "Yes, a fervent believer." 
 
 "A good Catholic?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then it ought not to be so difficult for her," and Mrs. 
 Verschoyle's handsome face hardened a little. "She knows 
 her duty. She must do it." 
 
 "How can I help her in doing her duty?" 
 
 "You can't help her more than I suppose you have 
 already." 
 
 "But some practical step." 
 
 "Christian, you can't help her. If it is practical aid you 
 think of, the only chance would be to get at the husband. 
 Influence him, if you can,"
 
 XXV 
 
 CHURCHILL determined to seek the friendship of Robert 
 Vickers, and, if it were possible, lead him in the direction 
 of better things. 
 
 An excuse for paying an initial call readily presented 
 itself : he could talk to Mr. Vickers about his visitor, the 
 dock labourer. Accordingly he set forth to carry this new 
 idea into effect on the afternoon that followed his unsatis- 
 factory discussion with Mrs. Verschoyle. 
 
 It was a long tram ride, far out, past Poplar Station; 
 and then he had a little exploring walk to the north of the 
 main road before he found the house. About this particu- 
 lar neighbourhood there had been of late considerable de- 
 molitions and reconstructions ; the new streets seemed of a 
 fair pattern; here and there narrow passages connected 
 street to street, and there were many turnings that led one 
 to short and abrupt no-thoroughfares. In one of these, 
 approached both by a passage and a street, stood the resi- 
 dence of Mr. Vickers. On one side of it there was a hoard- 
 ing that hid a patch of vacant ground, on the other side a 
 high wall surmounted by broken glass. The house itself 
 a lowish building of two floors looked as if it must 
 originally have been occupied as a place of business and 
 then converted to private use. Judged by East End stand- 
 ards, it appeared more than respectable, quite imposing in 
 regard to its size, and dignified because of its isolated posi- 
 tion. It had an ornamental knocker and an electric push- 
 bell, and, fixed to the brickwork beside the door, there were 
 brass plates that announced Mr. Vickers's association with 
 the trade union and other societies. 
 
 It was Mrs. Vickers who came to open the door, and she 
 flushed with surprise. Churchill himself was struck with 
 sudden embarrassment. He had never before seen her 
 without her hat, and he stood staring at her rather stupidly 
 before he began to explain that he was a visitor for her hus- 
 band. He was thinking, "This is what she is at home;" 
 
 201
 
 202 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 and she seemed to him prettier, sweeter, more pathetically 
 interesting, than under any aspect that had hitherto been 
 familiar to him. 
 
 The voice of the master of the house, sounding from a 
 little distance, roused him to give all his attention to the 
 business in hand. 
 
 "Who the devil's that out there ?" said the voice loudly. 
 
 "I am Edward Churchill of St. Bede's," said the visitor, 
 entering the small hall, and speaking sufficiently loudly to 
 be sure that he was heard. "May I come in? Can you 
 spare me a few minutes?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, of course." 
 
 Then Mrs. Vickers conducted the visitor through the 
 open doorway to the right of the hall, down two steps, into 
 an unexpectedly large room. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Churchill," said Vickers, shaking hands, and 
 speaking politely enough; "I am sure I'm very glad to 
 see you. Sit down. Lilian, move your rubbish, can't you ?" 
 and he pointed to a chair. 
 
 Lilian Vickers picked up a leather case and some school 
 books that encumbered the seat of the chair, and carried 
 them to a side table. 
 
 "Yes, glad to meet you," said Vickers, with the note of 
 forced joviality in his voice. "I've heard enough about 
 you and your wonderful works. But, as they say in the 
 plays, To what do I owe the honour?" and he gave his 
 affected laugh. 
 
 Then Churchill spoke about the dock-labourer. Vickers 
 listened, but soon broke in curtly. 
 
 "Anyhow, what is it? The fellow was kicked out be- 
 cause he defaulted in his subscriptions. Does he make 
 that a quarrel ?" 
 
 "No, but he wants to be reinstated." 
 
 "Can he clear off his arrears, and pay up to date?" 
 
 "Yes, I think he will be able to do that." 
 
 "Then I don't see that there need be any difficulty. I 
 suppose you mean to pay the money for him yourself." 
 
 "Yes. I believe him to be an honest, straightforward 
 worker, who has simply had bad luck." 
 
 "Oh, they're all angels," said Vickers, with another laugh, 
 "when they get among you black-coated gentlemen, and
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 203 
 
 see you fingering your purse-strings especially when it is 
 such a long purse as yours." 
 
 "I am not by any means a rich man. All that is a 
 tradition." 
 
 "Is it ? They talk of you as if you were Croesus and I 
 expect the beggars sponge on you unconscionably." And 
 Vickers launched forth in a tirade very different from his 
 platform utterances. He spoke with supreme contempt of 
 the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the work- 
 ing classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for 
 them, you must rule them, not pamper them. Soft heart- 
 edness caused more harm than good. You had to let them 
 hear the crack of the whip; for they were always dogs 
 ready to round on you, if you didn't keep them in order. 
 "We have all found it out. We give our lives to their 
 service ; we fight their battles for them, we gain ground inch 
 by inch, we reach the point when, if they would stand firm 
 behind us, we could win nearly all we've been struggling for 
 and then, at the crucial moment, confound them, they'll 
 go over to the enemy, leave you in the lurch, and chuck 
 away the fruits of the victory for which you have been 
 bleeding and sweating. And ingratitude! Personally, I 
 don't look for it; so I don't whine about the absence of it, 
 like George Radley and Vyvian Yates. But they're blackly 
 ungrateful. You church-people won't believe it. You're 
 always astonished when they bite the hand that feeds them ;" 
 and he laughed once more. "Look here, this is entre nous, 
 Masonic what Wemmick called his Walworth sentiments. 
 I dare say I'm shocking you." 
 
 Churchill was merely glad that his host went on talking, 
 however odiously. He was so interested by other matters. 
 Everything in this room interested him absorbingly. It was 
 her prison, the place to which he had sent her back, begging 
 her to suffer there patiently, to do her duty, to comfort her- 
 self with thoughts of a deliverance that could come only 
 with death. 
 
 It was really quite a large room, so large that unques- 
 tionably it must have been planned for an office or perhaps 
 a store-place, such as small builders and plumbers require. 
 The central table, and a dresser with plates, dishes, jugs, 
 and a cupboard underneath it, gave evidence that the room
 
 204 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 was dining-room as well as drawing-room. And place of 
 business too for there was a safe let into the walls at a 
 corner, there were piles of red leather account books, and 
 an American desk covered with paper, stood beside the 
 cottage piano. Vickers received the rank and file of his 
 union here, extracted their continuous subscriptions, counted 
 out rare sick allowances; and he would pose as a person 
 who was content with a single living room, saying, "You 
 see for yourselves. Nothing of the swell about me. This 
 is what the missis and I have to put up with." 
 
 Churchill had the intuition of such a purpose, and thought 
 that, but for it, the room would have been finer and more 
 comfortable. The whitewashed ceiling and chimneypiece, 
 the boarded floor and loose mats, the common coal-scuttle 
 and fire-irons, were intended to indicate honest and un- 
 ashamed poverty; but in less salient objects Churchill's 
 practised eye detected a freedom of expenditure only pos- 
 sible to those who are comparatively affluent. The oil lamps 
 were solid and of good design; they had cost big money. 
 There was a leather arm-chair with book-rest and foot-rest 
 that must have come from some luxurious West End shop. 
 A few water-colours on a screen showed distinct merit and 
 had not been presented to Vickers by the artists ; moreover, a 
 litter of illustrated weekly journals, monthly magazines, and 
 quarterly reviews were proof of something amounting to 
 extravagance. 
 
 Beyond all these significant details, Edward Churchill 
 was interested by signs here and there of feminine occupa- 
 tion of the room. The flowers in pots before the two win- 
 dows had been put there by Lilian Vickers. The cheap 
 little books reprints of the poets belonged to her. On 
 the top of the piano he saw her hat, her black gloves, and 
 a purple-coloured neck-scarf. His eyes returned to them, 
 and, moving on, rested on her herself. She stood near the 
 piano, lingering turning a sheet of music in her long 
 white fingers, but listening and watching. That delicate 
 pink flush had not yet gone from her cheeks, her lips were 
 just open and she breathed quickly, as if still agitated by 
 the surprise she had felt at seeing the unexpected visitor 
 on the doorstep. 
 
 "You know, I'm staunch Church of England," said
 
 205 
 
 Vickers impressively. "I don't believe in any form of 
 socialism that leaves religion out of the programme. That's 
 where I speedily broke away from Vyvian Yates. I saw 
 that if you knock down Christianity, you've got to build up 
 something better to take the place of it and it's a deuced 
 clever fellow who's going to try. No, in all my public 
 career, I've never said a disrespectful word of the Church. 
 No one who has heard me speak, year after year, can hon- 
 estly pretend that I am destructive on that side, at any rate." 
 
 "I have only had the opportunity of hearing you speak 
 once," said Churchill. 
 
 "When was that?" 
 
 "I went to your meeting at the Red Eagle tavern." 
 
 "Well done," cried Vickers cordially. "Sporting of you !" 
 
 It was the first time that he had been really cordial; but 
 now he seemed to be genuinely gratified and his manner be- 
 came expansive. "Yes," he repeated, "you acted like a 
 sportsman. Old broad-toes what's-his-name ? Walsden 
 hates me like the devil. I wish I'd known you were there. 
 I'd have paid you a compliment for your liberality of mind. 
 Have a cigar?" 
 
 "No, thank you." 
 
 Mr. Vickers had moved towards the dresser cupboard, 
 and, passing his wife, he said something to her in an under- 
 tone. Immediately she picked up her hat, and went out of 
 the room. Doubtless she had been ordered to go. Now 
 that Mr. Vickers was beginning to feel rather pleased with 
 his new acquaintance he thought that two are company and 
 three are none. 
 
 "Have a whisky-and-soda ?" 
 
 "No, I'm obliged to you, but I won't have anything, thank 
 you." 
 
 "But you'll forgive me if I do. Talking's dry work and 
 I shall enjoy a chat with you, if you aren't in a hurry. As 
 I dare say you've found out, it's a treat to meet a man of 
 education and ideas in these parts. One's intellect goes 
 rusty for the want of intercourse with one's own kind." 
 
 All this was just what Edward Churchill had desired 
 might happen, and yet now it was almost intolerably un- 
 pleasant. The more amiable the man grew, the more 
 Churchill disliked him. Everything concerning him was re-
 
 206 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 pellent ; all that one had heard of him, all that one now saw 
 of him, alike caused one to regret that one need ever again 
 have anything to do with him. He was vulgar, conceited, 
 innately brutal. The big yellowish teeth that showed 
 beneath his red moustache, the russet tone of his badly- 
 shaven jowl, the ill-tempered glitter that came into his eyes 
 every time that he spoke forcibly or cynically as he had 
 done a minute ago, his great shoulders, his swaggering 
 gestures, and clumsy lolling attitudes each of these things 
 assisted in strengthening the instinct of repulsion. 
 
 But Churchill was struggling hard to beat down the in- 
 stinct. He thought, "This is purely selfish, and must be 
 ignored, then forgotten. Self should not dare to obtrude 
 itself. What I am attempting is for her sake, not for my 
 own; and if I am to succeed I must gain the man's con- 
 fidence, establish an influence by more or less binding him 
 to me. And if he is to like me, I must like him." 
 
 Soon, therefore, Churchill managed to control merely 
 personal inclination to welcome every advance, however 
 tactless or unconventionally familiar, to rejoice quite sin- 
 cerely that matters so far had worked out easily. He re- 
 sponded to a mood made jovial by stimulants in which he 
 did not share. He gravely and courteously smiled at com- 
 monplace, often-quoted jokes. By his whole manner, if not 
 by any explicit statements, he offered Mr. Vickers his 
 friendship. 
 
 And Vickers seemed to accept the offer freely, indeed 
 with gratification. When it was suggested that he might 
 possibly be able to drop in of an evening now and then and 
 smoke his cigar or pipe at Denmark House, he said he 
 would do so with much pleasure. The evening often hung 
 heavy on his hands. 
 
 "But I say," he said, laughing, "you won't mind if I 
 bring a flask of whisky in my pocket. I can't plead doctor's 
 orders ; but, much as I admire teetotalism as a theory, I've 
 never been able to practise it for long at a time." 
 
 Churchill courteously assured him that the flask would 
 not be necessary. He would be careful to provide some 
 whisky. 
 
 And at this Vickers slapped him on the shoulder. "Yes, 
 you're a sportsman. Live and let live, eh? You and I will
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 207 
 
 hit it off together I can see that. No disrespect but you 
 aren't by any means the cut-and-dried cleric. 'You wear 
 your rue with a difference.' " 
 
 They were in the little hall now, and Churchill, as he 
 glanced up the stairs, wondered if Lilian Vickers was with- 
 in hearing. No doubt she was up there in a cold, fireless 
 room, meekly waiting for her master's permission to creep 
 down and again enjoy the warmth and comfort of his hearth. 
 
 "Good-bye, Churchill or au revolr." Vickers stood on 
 the threshold, calling after him cheerily. "Turn to your 
 left. That passage to your right would take you into my 
 sheepfold the streets where my lambs are to be found > 
 and you might lose your way. By-by." 
 
 Churchill, looking back just before he turned the corner, 
 directed his eyes not at Vickers and the front door but at 
 the upper floor. He fancied, but was not sure, that he saw 
 Lilian at one of the windows,
 
 XXVI 
 
 THE first evening that Vickers came to Denmark House 
 he stayed about three hours, and they seemed to Churchill 
 three years. They nearly wore out his patience. 
 
 Vickers, perhaps a little because of a mistaken idea of 
 politeness and more because of a stupid curiosity about 
 facts which in no way concerned him, began by behaving 
 as if he had been a reporter and Churchill a person to be 
 conscientiously interviewed for the newspapers. During 
 one of those three hours he scarcely for a moment desisted 
 from asking questions. 
 
 "I see you burn a wood fire. Where do you get your 
 wood?" 
 
 Churchill told him that he had got it from a well-known 
 charitable organisation. 
 
 "What do they make you give for it ?" 
 
 Churchill told him. 
 
 "Thirty per cent, above market price. Oh, I know Cur- 
 tice's scheme inside out to help the unemployed pinch of 
 winter and all that. It's a mistake. But you believe in 
 this direct kind of assistance?" 
 
 "Yes, to a certain extent." 
 
 "You aren't afraid of pauperising them?" 
 
 "No. Providence has done that for them already." 
 
 "Now look here, your wood was brought by two chaps 
 two chaps, weren't there?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you paid 'em what they asked; you gave 'em the 
 full amount written down on the Society's invoice, and 
 perhaps a little something for themselves over and above? 
 Isn't that so?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But they didn't go away smiling and pleased. No, they 
 began to whine and cadge. I put it to you, didn't they 
 ask for more?" 
 
 "Er yes, I don't remember whether they exactly asked ; 
 but I did give them something else." 
 
 208
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 209 
 
 "Ha, ha," and Vickers laughed, truculently triumphant. 
 *7 know my gentleman. What did you give them?" 
 
 Churchill confessed that, as the poor fellows were un- 
 questionably underclad, standing in the February blast, 
 themselves hot and exhausted two weaklings who had 
 pushed the laden barrow for miles he gave them food and 
 a couple of old suits of clothes. 
 
 "Suits of clothes! By Jupiter that was doing them 
 proud. Your own clothes?" 
 
 "No some things I had bought." 
 
 "But you don't buy old clothes, do you ?" 
 
 "Yes, I do sometimes," and Churchill explained that he 
 kept a wardrobe modestly stocked against such emergencies. 
 
 "No wonder they say you're a Croesus ! But I think you 
 mentioned the other day that the prevailing idea was 
 erroneous ?" 
 
 "Yes, altogether so." 
 
 "But you have done a lot here in the way of outlay, 
 haven't you?" 
 
 "I have put my drop into the ocean." 
 
 "This house belongs to you ?" 
 
 "Yes, it does at the present moment." 
 
 "What, are you leaving ? Going to part with the house ?" 
 
 "No. But I am making it over to trustees for the 
 parish." 
 
 "Now there I think you're wrong. You'd much better 
 remain cock of your own castle. Once it's theirs, you'll find 
 they won't be really grateful. You hand them the title 
 deeds, they hand you an illuminated address and 'Thank 
 you, Mr. Churchill, but now please remember that we are 
 the masters, and not you.' " 
 
 "I have great confidence in our vicar. He would never 
 treat me shabbily." 
 
 Then Mr. Vickers continued his examination until he had 
 satisfied himself as to all the principal items of Churchill's 
 expenditure at St. Bede's. He approved of the good inten- 
 tions displayed, but was more than doubtful as to ultimate 
 results. Then he harangued in a gassy, inconsecutive style 
 about what he would have done himself had he been 
 Churchill and with Churchill's funds at his disposal. This 
 general address was followed by a noisily enthusiastic
 
 210 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 sketch of the great Labor Party now slowly forming itself. 
 Then he wandered about the room, picked up and swung an 
 Indian club, assuring Churchill that once upon a time he 
 had been "rather useful" in the athletic line. And then he 
 settled down in one of the red-cushioned wicker chairs, and 
 devoted himself to the whisky bottle and siphon of soda on 
 the table at his elbow. 
 
 The whisky made him mellow, confidential, terrible; and 
 Churchill, suffering for two more hours, thought off and on 
 of the creature's wife, and only from these thoughts derived 
 courage and patience to support the ordeal. 
 
 Lilian had sat in that very chair, and every detail of the 
 picture she had made could be vividly recalled her 
 thoughtful eyes looking at him appealingly, her hands in 
 the well-worn black gloves, the slight droop of her neck 
 her gracefulness, her gentleness, the spiritual charm of her 
 fragile beauty. What a contrast to the picture before him 
 now the gross, self-indulgent lout who possessed but did 
 not value her! Churchill endeavoured not to study so at- 
 tentively the fat lobes of those ears, the swollen and yet 
 ceasing flesh of the chin or the insolent redness and stub- 
 biness of the moustache, the protruded lips and the dog-like 
 teeth that were rolling and chewing the oily brown stump 
 of a cigar. He must forget himself. He must think only 
 of her of her ; of the sweet, refined, unhappy woman that 
 this brute, this great sweltering hog, had the inalienable 
 right to fondle and caress. 
 
 After a few days Vickers came again, and then again. 
 He evidently liked coming ; he made himself more and more 
 at home; and he was utterly odious: familiar, impudent, 
 even overbearing, everything beastly. He pounced upon 
 favourite old books of Churchill's, twirled their leaves, and 
 tossed them away contemptuously; he talked philosophy; 
 chattered of classical literature, mispronouncing his silly 
 little scraps of Latin and Greek; but believed that he was 
 "showing off" successfully. He said, as indeed was obvious, 
 that he was not "a 'Varsity man." 
 
 "Is it any good? I often ask myself the question Have 
 I missed anything?" And he gave his platform laugh. 
 "Between you and me and the post, I don't think so."
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 211 
 
 Churchill hated him. It was wrong, it was unchristian, 
 it was inevitable. But he had begun a delicate, difficult task, 
 and he intended to go through with it to the best of his 
 ability. On this third evening he really set to work. He 
 tackled Vickers about the evils of drink, opening his attack 
 on the broadest possible lines. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Vickers, "I myself used to drink too much 
 sometimes." 
 
 "You do still, don't you sometimes ?" 
 
 Vickers stared. Then he said, "Yes, I do," and gave one 
 of his hateful tirades composed of hypocrisy, vulgarity, 
 bravado, mock-heroics very difficult to listen to patiently 
 and answer gently. "I make no secret," he said in conclu- 
 sion. "I'm a man all through with a man's faults. I 
 belong to the Church only I never set up for being one of 
 its saints. But I came for a smoke and chat not for a 
 sermon." 
 
 "Sit down. Fill your pipe again. I am not trying to 
 preach." 
 
 "That's all right," said Vickers, after a moment or two. 
 "No, you're a man yourself. You can understand. We 
 can't all be perfect. You know, some of these curates 
 well, I think they must have had an operation performed to 
 keep them mild and meek for the rest of their lives;" and 
 he spat. "Fellows like that bleating round a parish don't 
 do any good. You're not that sort;" and he nodded his 
 head towards the Indian clubs, and the little college trophies. 
 "We're both of us men. We can understand each other." 
 
 "Then as between men, may I ask a question?" 
 
 "Fire ahead." 
 
 "Can't you be kinder to your wife?" 
 
 Vickers sprang from the chair, his eyes glittering, and his 
 cheeks puffed out in anger. 
 
 "Don't go. Sit down smoke your pipe. I speak in 
 friendliness. I want to be your friend." 
 
 But Vickers blustered for a while. He said he could not 
 allow any one to come between him and his wife. She was 
 the best of wives; and he was a good husband all that a 
 man should be. 
 
 Presently, however, he became mollified, resumed his 
 seat, and, helping himself to more whisky, spoke send-
 
 212 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 mentally, "Poor little Lil ! I beg you not to get it into your 
 head that I'm not fond of her. Bless her heart, of course 
 I am. Dear little Lil. She's had a roughish time of it but 
 thafs not my fault. She knows I'm always ready to work 
 till I burst." 
 
 He grew maudlin on the subject later, punishing the 
 whisky, emptying the bottle. 
 
 "Churchill, do you admire her? Don't mind saying No. 
 Of course I like people to admire her, but I can't jump 
 down their throats if they don't. / still see her as she was 
 and she's nothing to what she was. She had more flesh on 
 her bright complexion just a little country maid." And 
 he went on about her charms with a brutal sort of relish 
 as of a man who has had a splendid banquet and is grateful, 
 who looks back on his feast and is now content with plain 
 fare. "She's all the world to me still I swear it. Never 
 unfaithful to her in my thoughts but a man. When 
 tempted well! I've told you fairly, I'm not a saint." 
 
 He did not appear again for a week, and then his man- 
 ner showed a very perceptible change. He was more on his 
 guard; the joviality was altogether forced; and in repose 
 his face had a surly aspect. He did not stay long, and when 
 going he spoke abruptly, and with something of that blus- 
 tering tone that he had employed once before. 
 
 "You like straight talk, Churchill. If you've got any- 
 thing to say, you say it. I'll take the same liberty; for 
 there's something I wish to know." 
 
 "What is it you wish to know?" 
 
 "Are you trying to draw my wife away from me?" 
 
 "No. I am trying to draw your wife back to you. You 
 are driving her away yourself." 
 
 "Has she been doing confessional to you?" 
 
 "No. I have given her advice. Do you object to her 
 coming here?" 
 
 "No. Why should I? I've nothing to be ashamed of. 
 No. Go on. I didn't mean anything by that. You gave 
 her advice?" 
 
 "I spoke to her of a wife's duty she knew it. But duty 
 is not all on one side, so I have reminded you of a husband's 
 duty." 
 
 "But was this a put-up job between you?"
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 213 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "Why, did she turn you loose at me as advocate of 
 women's rights in general and hers in particular?" 
 
 "No, it was my own initiative. She knew nothing about 
 it." 
 
 "She knows now." 
 
 "Being aware that you and I were seeing each other, she 
 would guess that I might speak of such things. Vickers, I 
 thought you would take it from me in a friendly spirit. 
 I thought I could not do harm because your treatment of 
 her is common talk." 
 
 "Is it?" And Vickers cursed all busybodies and slander- 
 ers. "If I catch any one who has been cackling slander 
 about me I'll make him sorry he didn't think twice before 
 he began that game." Then he pulled himself together and 
 vaguely indicated an apology for violent language in the 
 presence of a clergyman. "You can make allowances 
 naturally I felt strongly. Anyhow, you've given me a 
 direct answer. There was no little plot hatched between 
 you for clerical interference. All right, Churchill. I be- 
 lieve you. You're straight enough. But something is up- 
 setting her. She's always fretful and complaining;" and 
 he continued grumblingly. "What does she want? No 
 one can say I don't work. I can't coin money, and give 
 her a carriage and a pair of her own instead of the omni- 
 bus." 
 
 "No, you can't do that! but there are other things you 
 could do." And Churchill spoke with emotion of the sanc- 
 tity of marriage and the meaning of its vows. It was not 
 enough to love a wife, if one insulted her by occasional 
 preferences for chance female companions. Wives wanted 
 more than mere food and shelter. Women's nature de- 
 manded and could not safely be deprived of kindness, 
 tenderness, sympathy. 
 
 "Yes," said Vickers, with a very unmirthful laugh; "but 
 you're a bachelor. I don't deny a word that you've said 
 about married life. I merely remark you've never tried it 
 yourself." 
 
 "No, but I think that the conditions under which you 
 have tried it have not been difficult." 
 
 Vickers came only once again, and then it was but to say
 
 214 THE MIRROR AND; THE LAMP 
 
 that his engagements would not permit him to stop for 
 more than five minutes. During the five minutes they talked 
 on indifferent topics ; and Churchill had the feeling that this 
 last visit was made from motives of politeness or policy. 
 Vickers desired to show that their recent intimate conversa- 
 tions had not spoilt the progress of a ripening friendship. 
 He had taken Churchill's domestic hints in a jolly spirit ; he 
 had not been offended ; and not a drop of bad blood was left 
 between them. 
 
 Next day or the day after Churchill received a brief note 
 from Lilian Vickers, in which she thanked him for the ex- 
 traordinarily kind effort that he had been making on her 
 behalf. She said that she would never forget his kindness, 
 but as she added no expressions of hopefulness as to the 
 future, he understood that the whole attempt had been a 
 failure. 
 
 Except in St. Bede's church he did not see her again for 
 some time. He was touched by the fact that she came there 
 on nearly every occasion that he was to preach; for from 
 Mrs. Walsden he learned how, in spite of all difficulties, she 
 endeavoured not to miss a single one of his sermons. As he 
 went into the pulpit he thought of her courage, endurance, 
 and abiding sadness; and he often modified what he had 
 intended to say, abandoned the plan of his notes, preached 
 as it were especially to her, trying to send her a plain mes- 
 sage of comfort, even though it should be enigmatical to 
 all others. 
 
 It had become a haunting idea with him that people's 
 faith needed constant reinforcement, lest of a sudden it 
 should desert them. Nowadays, when Philbrick and other 
 of Walsden's humble converts asked their startingly naive 
 questions on points of belief, he took immense trouble in 
 framing his answers. He would seek out such questioners 
 again, and strive further to fortify them. "When you 
 spoke to me yesterday, did my reply make everything clear 
 to you? If not, don't hesitate to ask me other questions. 
 You know, we are not called upon always to understand. 
 We must believe. But the belief itself is so easy to explain. 
 It is entirely my fault, if I left any doubt in your mind." 
 He felt that, with the staunchest of them, there was always 
 the terrible danger of losing heart when trouble or sorrow
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 21S 
 
 forced them to a recognition of the world-wide incongruity 
 between purposeless pain and beneficent design. This was 
 the growing fear that he felt in regard to everybody, but it 
 centralised itself and was strongest when he brooded on 
 the case of Lilian Vickers. 
 
 He would have liked to be with her every day, stimulating 
 her faith from hour to hour, clothing her in a ghostly 
 armour that nothing material could ever pierce. But since 
 she had ceased to come to him for help, he could scarcely go 
 unasked to offer it. 
 
 He hoped that perhaps, after all, he had influenced her 
 jailer, and that life within the prison walls was not so unen- 
 durable as of old. 
 
 It was a hope that he could not long enjoy. 
 
 At dusk one evening towards the end of March when he 
 returned to Denmark House, Mrs. Clough told him that a 
 lady was waiting for him upstairs. He guessed at once who 
 it was that he would find in the twilight of the back room. 
 They sat together while the darkness deepened round them ; 
 and, sobbing and wringing her hands, she told him the brutal 
 truth that till now she had kept back. The man knocked her 
 about. Quite soon after marriage she had felt the weight 
 of his hand. He had fits of semi-drunken fury during which 
 she was never safe from blows. After such outrages he 
 seemed sorry, ashamed of himself, and promised that they 
 should never be repeated. But he broke all promises. The 
 vile ill-usage recommenced; it happened again and again; 
 it had happened to-day, and she could not go on supporting 
 it. 
 
 And to Edward Churchill it was as if for the first time in 
 his existence he had heard of a husband beating a wife, as 
 if the outrage had never been committed before in the whole 
 history of human kind. He blazed with anger, he turned 
 faint with disgust ; he throbbed and ached and trembled. 
 
 He wanted to go straight to the man, tell him he had learnt 
 the full extent of his villainy, and dare him ever to touch her 
 again; but he knew really that this was impossible, even 
 before she herself said so. Any further direct interference 
 on his part would injure her and not benefit her. 
 
 Then, still sobbing, she told him once more that she had 
 reached the end of her strength. She must free herself from
 
 216 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 this life of torment. She had no money, she could get no 
 money ; so an action for divorce was out of the question. But 
 she meant to divorce herself by running away, by hiding in 
 some remote part of England where she could live under 
 another name, work for daily bread, perhaps obtain some- 
 thing that approached to happiness and she wanted 
 Churchill to tell her that as a Christian woman she was 
 justified in thus breaking the marriage bond. 
 
 Edward Churchill fell silent. His heart was beating fast, 
 the blood throbbed in the veins of his forehead, his whole 
 head seemed on fire. What was he to say ? He got up and 
 walked about the room, turning on the electric light at each 
 switch that he passed. 
 
 "I am thinking," he said, without looking at her. "I am 
 endeavouring to think." 
 
 Would she not be justified? Slowly he recovered self- 
 composure. Mechanically his brain was working in its accus- 
 tomed manner; the thoughts, like obedient streams, flowed 
 along the deep channels that habit had formed for them ; the 
 storm of emotion, fierce as it was, could not smash the dykes 
 and make a wild, ungoverned flood where for so many years 
 all had been peaceful order. 
 
 He looked at her now. The light shone brightly on her 
 tear-stained face, her drooping arms, and her limp hands. 
 Darkness and light we must not fear the darkness ; we must 
 turn our eyes to the light. And looking at her and thinking 
 of her his pity was like physical fatigue. It made him feel 
 numb, dull, like a man who has overtired himself and imper- 
 atively needs rest. There was none of that contentment 
 after extreme effort experienced by him when he pitied and 
 laboured for those boys in the boat. But he now knew what 
 he ought to say to her, what he must necessarily say to her, 
 if he would keep true to his character as a priest. 
 
 He said it dully, yet with convincing firmness. As a 
 Christian she must bear her cross. Divorce courts possessed 
 no real power to set her free ; those whom God has joined 
 together no man can sunder. Marriage is a sacrament, and 
 its effective term is till death. In that sacrament all is 
 promised, and all must be given. Nor may we fly and hide 
 from pain that God has ordained we are patiently to bear. 
 He who could have evaded the slightest touch of pain
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 217 
 
 accepted its bitterest pangs. That was a lesson, an example, 
 and a promise. 
 
 He told her that earthly grief and earthly joy are alike so 
 small and trivial that soon they are utterly forgotten; the 
 greatness, the wonder, the ineffable bliss that are surely 
 coming should make the happiest life, even in the spending 
 of it, seem merely a delay or hindrance, and the cruellest, 
 longest life less dreadful than a rapid, troubled dream. 
 
 "So be brave, my sister," and he held his hand above her 
 head. "Follow in Christ's footsteps, and suffer for His 
 sake." 
 
 "I'll try," she said at last. "Yes, I'll go on trying;" 
 and meekly and sadly she went away. 
 
 He did not close his eyes throughout the night. Thoughts 
 of Lilian Vickers made a long, waking nightmare of the 
 hours. He had done nothing for her. In sight of such tears 
 as would melt a heart of stone, he had been impotently di- 
 dactic, preaching instead of protecting, thrilling with indig- 
 nation and then sending her back to blows. 
 
 On the following afternoon he went to St. Ursula's 
 rectory, determined to enlist Mrs. Verschoyle's sympathy, 
 and confident that now there would no longer be any diffi- 
 culty in doing so. 
 
 Mrs. Verschoyle was in the garden behind the house, busy 
 with strings and feathers that she was setting up across a 
 bed of crocuses to guard them from the ravages of sparrows 
 or cats. She showed Churchill the first purple and white 
 blossoms, began to talk about the lilac bushes which already 
 had green buds, and asked how the famous plane tree was 
 looking after all the trials of winter. But Churchill could 
 talk of nothing except Lilian Vickers. "You know," he said 
 eagerly, "that poor woman Mrs. Vickers. I have more to 
 tell you. I want to tell you much more." 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Verschoyle, without the least en- 
 thusiasm. "Then we had better go indoors;" and after a 
 regretful glance at the strings and feathers, she led the way 
 back to the house and into her pretty drawing-room. 
 
 Here, Edward Churchill walked to and fro, waved his 
 arms, stood before her, sat on the sofa by her side, jumped 
 up and sat down again, while he excitedly spoke of the poor
 
 218 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 victim who now occupied all his mind. What was to be done 
 for her? He fully explained his fear lest the abominable 
 injustice of fate should eventually shake her faith ; and Mrs. 
 Verschoyle sat quite still on the sofa, listening to his words, 
 watching his face, and once or twice, although he did not 
 notice it, looking quite distinctly bored. 
 
 But when he suggested that he should bring Mrs. Vickers 
 to the rectory, and as it were solemnly place her in charge of 
 the rector's wife, all signs of ennui immediately disappeared. 
 She spoke kindly, but in a brisk businesslike tone, and gave 
 Churchill at least six excellently valid reasons why his sug- 
 gestion was one that could not be adopted. She was thor- 
 oughly interested at last, and indeed from now to the end of 
 the interview her interest was always increasing. She 
 watched Churchill far more closely than before, and every 
 minute the tone of her voice became kinder and the expres- 
 sion of her face more meditative. 
 
 "This is all very difficult, Christian," she said, gently and 
 soothingly. "What sort of a woman is she I mean in her 
 general life?" 
 
 "She is as good as gold patient and sweet." 
 
 "Yes. What aged woman ?" 
 
 "I don't know. But very young. I should think about 
 twenty-two or twenty-three." 
 
 "So young as that ! Is she pretty ?''" 
 
 "I think her very pretty but I don't know if everybody 
 would think her so. She's extraordinarily graceful and her 
 voice is quite beautiful. That I'm sure any one would say." 
 
 "Describe her so that I can imagine what she is like. 
 Tall?" 
 
 "Yes, fairly tall." 
 
 "Dark?" 
 
 "No." And assuring Mrs. Verschoyle that his word- 
 picture would give but the feeblest, vaguest ideas, he at- 
 temped a description. "She's the sort of person you don't 
 notice much at first, but who quickly grows on you. All I 
 noticed at the very first was her voice. She is slender 
 and pale scarcely any colour in her face ; her nose is rather 
 large, but quite straight and thin ; I suppose you would call 
 her eyes grey they're nothing, but they are full of thought.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 219 
 
 Yes, I forgot that. It was the second thing I noticed the 
 thought fulness of her eyes." 
 
 Mrs. Verschoyle smiled. "I wonder what you mean by 
 thoughtful eyes. Artists say there's no expression in the 
 eyes themselves." 
 
 "I don't believe it. Anyhow, I mean the effect produced. 
 When she looks at one, one feels the thought behind the eyes, 
 and if one does not read it, one knows that it is good and 
 pure." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Verschoyle quietly, "all that you say 
 helps me to imagine her and it makes me very sorry for 
 her. Only" and she hesitated "only, Christian, you have 
 done all you can for her. You cannot do any more." 
 
 "I have done nothing. And, at least, can't you do any- 
 thing?" 
 
 "No, really and truly, I can't do anything either." 
 
 "You'll disappoint me grievously if you will not even try." 
 
 "Christian" she had got up from the sofa, and she put 
 her hand upon his arm "you mustn't think me wanting in 
 proper feeling. Believe me, I am very sorry for her. But 
 all this that seems so monstrous to you is the fate of thou- 
 sands and thousands of women " and she opened her 
 
 arms in a wide, comprehensive gesture. "At this moment 
 all round us to north, east, south, and west -women are 
 weeping because men are cruel."
 
 XXVII 
 
 THE first week of April brought a little warmth and sun- 
 shine, but Edward Churchill could take no personal pleasure 
 in the signs of advancing spring. For the sake of others he 
 was glad that the hard time had passed, but for himself 
 nothing mattered. He felt listless, wretched, with so strange 
 a decrease of his natural energy that the temptation to shirk 
 the full round of each day's work became almost irresistible. 
 
 Then a chance put him into contact with Lilian Vickers 
 again, and the slight relief of mind that he thereby obtained 
 served immediately to restore his confidence and power. 
 There had been no recurrence of that unspeakable wicked- 
 ness, and she spoke with hope of the future. She was show- 
 ing a splendid courage; she had read, and benefited by 
 reading, some books he had sent her; she meant to follow 
 the narrow, difficult path that eventually must lead upwards 
 to the sunlit heights. Moreover, she was now enjoying 
 respites from the possibility of persecution. Her husband 
 was away on a political campaign, a tour of oratory in the 
 north of England ; and when he came back he would go away 
 again to begin a similar tour in the south. He would be much 
 away from home until the middle of June. 
 
 Chance, the unaided hazard of the streets, gave Edward 
 Churchill this long, pleasant, reassuring talk with her; but 
 after that lucky encounter he began to meet her designedly. 
 He asked for no appointment, and he did not invite her to 
 Denmark House. He knew now, more or less exactly, the 
 usual programme of her week's labours ; so that in imagina- 
 tion he could trace her movements about the labyrinth, 
 thinking of her at particular hours as she passed along a 
 street miles and miles away, or drew nearer to him in a 
 swiftly-gliding tram. Eleven o'clock she was going to 
 those grocery stores at Poplar to give the grocer's little girls 
 their music lesson. Twelve-thirty she was on her way to 
 Shoreditch for a lesson in French. Early in the afternoon on 
 three days a week the tram brought her right through St. 
 
 220
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 221 
 
 Bede's and half a mile westwards, for two hours at a Jewish 
 school close by the Commercial Road. He could find her 
 easily on those days either going or returning. 
 
 One bright afternoon the brightest that as yet had come 
 he was standing on the pavement when she got out of her 
 tram, and he walked with her round the corner and for the 
 two or three hundred yards that still separated her from the 
 Jewish school. He wished that the distance had been greater 
 so that the walk might have lasted longer, and at the school 
 door he offered to come back after her two hours' work and 
 escort her all the way home. But this offer she refused ; she 
 could not think of so troubling him, and quite unnecessarily. 
 
 "I should like to, if you would let me," he said simply. 
 
 "Oh, no," she said, "you're very kind ; but really I couldn't 
 let you waste your time. I know very well how busy you 
 always are." 
 
 "I don't think I have anything particular to do to-day," 
 he said, rather vaguely. "And it's so fine." 
 
 "Yes, isn't it? But I am not quite sure whether I shall 
 go home when I leave here. There's a call that perhaps I 
 ought to make yes," and she looked at him. "But thank 
 you very much for thinking of it. Good-bye." 
 
 "Good-bye." 
 
 He returned to Denmark House, and sat down to read. 
 His idea of taking leisure for the purpose of going out east- 
 ward with her had driven away all inclination to occupy the 
 afternoon in an ordinary manner. It had given him that 
 peculiar, unsettling, holiday feeling which is apt to attack 
 the steadiest workers when once they have decided on an 
 interruption of work. After an hour he found it impossible 
 even to read. 
 
 He looked at his watch, and thought, "In thirty-five 
 minutes she will have finished with that class." A little 
 later he thought, "She will soon leave the building; but if I 
 started now there would be still just time. Yes, if I went 
 now I should see her." 
 
 He snatched his hat, ran downstairs, and hurried through 
 the streets. 
 
 All the Jewish children were trooping out of the school 
 doors ; and she, when she came, looked neither to the right 
 nor to the left. He fancied that she walked slowly, that her
 
 222 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP, 
 
 whole aspect suggested weariness, and he saw that her face 
 was white and grave and sad. But when he stepped forward 
 and spoke to her she was pleased that he had come back. One 
 could not doubt it. She showed that little flush of surprise, 
 fading again directly, and then her face was full of quiet 
 pleasure and contentment. 
 
 They went away together in the tram, and when they 
 alighted near her home she consented to go for a ride with 
 him outside an omnibus simply and solely for the treat of 
 remaining out in the pleasant air. They went as far as the 
 omnibus would take them, then straight back on another 
 omnibus; and all the way to and fro they were talking 
 merely of the things they passed the gradient of the bridge 
 across the water, the excavations for the new tunnel, the 
 steamships in the East India Docks but rejoicing because 
 of this rest in the midst of motion, forgetting trouble and 
 care, feeling as unconstrained and satisfied in each other's 
 company as though they were life-long friends, cousins who 
 had shared the same nursery, or a brother and sister come 
 together after many years. 
 
 The sun was down, but the sky still lit with golden flame, 
 when he left her at the door with those ugly brass plates that 
 bore her husband's name. The house looked dark and cold 
 after the door had closed upon her; a sinister, ominous 
 dwelling, made more prison-like by the blank dreariness of 
 the wooden hoarding on one side and the high brick wall on 
 the other. 
 
 But Churchill walked away briskly, his mind at peace, 
 indeed with cheerful, hopeful thoughts in it. He had loved 
 his little outing, and was well satisfied now with the whole 
 afternoon. 
 
 He met her, then, as often as he could manage to do so. 
 And the days he saw her were full, and all other days were 
 empty. 
 
 He knew her engagements on ordinary days, but he had 
 never inquired if she worked at all at her teaching on Satur- 
 day afternoons. He supposed not: she would probably 
 remain at home, sewing, making her cloth jackets and serge 
 skirts, putting new flowers on an old hat, or perhaps even 
 scrubbing and cleaning the house. He thought of this one
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 223 
 
 Saturday as he strolled along the main thoroughfare after his 
 frugal mid-day meal. 
 
 The week-end festival was beginning; the barrows and 
 stalls had taken up their positions, all wagons and carts had 
 disappeared, only the crowded trams and buses rolled by in 
 a narrowed fair-way, and the broad pavements were 
 thronged from the kerb to the shop fronts. He thought, 
 "Suppose she happened to come this way." In imagination 
 he could instantaneously see her. He would recognise her 
 at a considerable distance just somebody taller than other 
 people, somebody different; then, as she threaded her way 
 through the crowd, the strikingly individual characteristics 
 would become evident her slimness, the neat costume, that 
 pretty, soft, flowing neck-scarf ; and then his eyes would be 
 charmed and his tender pity stirred by the full close vision 
 of her herself. And at that final moment, no matter how 
 dense the crowd, she would seem to be walking or standing 
 quite alone, a creature from another world crowned with a 
 spiritual loveliness that is not, that cannot be, describable in 
 common terms. 
 
 But she did not come. No happy unexpected chance had 
 set her footsteps westwards. She was sitting behind closed 
 doors in that far-off house. Then, strong and definite, came 
 the wish to go right out there at once to see her. Yes, why 
 not? That was what he would do. But then he had a 
 sudden revulsion of mind, so that within a moment of time 
 the wish was completely frustrated, if not destroyed. Utterly 
 impossible. What would she say of such an extraordinary 
 proceeding? What would she think? 
 
 He walked on in the same direction eastwards, meaning 
 to turn off presently to the river, or perhaps go as far as 
 St. Ursula's rectory and call upon Mrs. Verschoyle. She had 
 written reproaching him for recent neglect and begging him 
 to come. He might look in on her now. But then he under- 
 stood that he could not be bothered to do it. He still felt a 
 slight bitterness or indignation against Mrs. Verschoyle. He 
 had been forced to readjust his established estimates both of 
 her nature and her intelligence. She was so good but with 
 such limitations. If she had comprehended the essential, the 
 pressing needs of the case, she would have made friends with 
 Lilian Vickers ; and he might now have been going to meet
 
 224 
 
 Lilian Vickers at the rectory, quite naturally. Under those 
 conditions Lilian could not have thought it odd. 
 
 Then he had another revulsion of mind. She would never 
 think such nonsense, anywhere or at any time. If he went 
 to see her now, it would seem to her perfectly natural. He 
 quickened his pace, crossed the road, and jumped upon the 
 foot-board of a moving tram. 
 
 It being Saturday afternoon, those new streets were full of 
 people, women talking in groups, children playing, and men 
 in shirt-sleeves on the doorsteps among them, no doubt, 
 many members of Vickers's union ; but when Churchill went 
 through the little passage it was like passing into a small 
 backwater of life, and not a soul any longer observed his 
 movements. Yet he had a queer and of course baseless fancy 
 that he was still being watched, that there were people in 
 hiding, waiting to see what he would do, peeping through 
 chinks of the wooden hoarding or furtively peering over the 
 brick wall. Not a gleam of sunlight fell upon the house 
 itself; the front was all in shadow; and it looked dark, 
 wicked, mysterious. He hesitated; then went to the door, 
 rang gently, and knocked lightly. 
 
 No one came to the door. Dead silence. His heart sank. 
 She was not at home. He rang again and again, as loudly as 
 he could, and presently he believed that he heard sounds 
 within. If so, they were sounds made by that old crone of a 
 servant; and he battered with the knocker as though he 
 wanted to smash the door. At last the old woman opened 
 the door, and looked out suspiciously until she saw his black 
 clothes and Roman collar. 
 
 "Er is Mr. Vickers in?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Nor Mrs. Vickers?" 
 
 "No she went out ten minutes ago." 
 
 "Do you know where she has gone? Or when she is 
 coming back ?" And he was aware that he flushed while he 
 spoke. 
 
 "You might find her at the Poplar Institoot," said the old 
 woman. "She does go there Saturdays, and she had her 
 leather case along with her." And then the old woman, 
 becoming interested and officious, made many suggestions.
 
 ,THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 22S 
 
 "If you want to find her particular, try the Institoot first. 
 If she isn't there, go on to the Carnegie Free Library. She 
 fetches her books there. Or, stop a minute, she might be 
 at Price's Stores. If not, you may be sure, she's gone on 
 the tram, and I couldn't tell you where she mightn't be. 
 Church, p'raps. She'll go right off to St. Bede's sometimes 
 for the church services." 
 
 He went away feeling guilty. He hardly knew why, but 
 he knew that he was ashamed of himself. And it was a 
 sensation that he must get rid of. He said to himself, "I am 
 glad she was not there ; and I certainly will not follow her 
 to the Institute or the Library. I must go straight home and 
 think about all this." 
 
 But once more there came that violent revulsion of 
 thought. It was like an interference by an external force, an 
 arrest, a shock, and a reversal : as though his brain had been 
 a machine hard at work as usual, until with foolish abrupt- 
 ness its driving power was shut off, its gear altered, and the 
 power turned on again to send every wheel and band spin- 
 ning in an opposite direction. What a moment ago he had 
 considered advisable he now felt to be altogether wrong. 
 
 It seemed that something of great 'seriousness was happen- 
 ing, so far as he was concerned ; and that he must deal with 
 himself sternly and boldly, and not timorously. He thought, 
 "The sooner I find her the better. Directly I am with her, 
 it will all be over. Just the sight of her will conquer the 
 sentimental self-conscious nonsense. Whereas if I go and 
 hide and think, everything will begin again. This won't bear 
 thinking over; the less I think about it the better." 
 
 He went fast from place to place, thinking no more, only 
 knowing that he wanted to find her, and feeling sick with 
 disappointment when he could not do so. She had been 
 at the Institute, but was gone. At the Library he was advised 
 to go to a school in Limehouse. At Limehouse they sent him 
 back to Poplar. He spent the afternoon in a fruitless pur- 
 suit. 
 
 When he fell asleep that night he dreamed of her. The 
 dream was a reflection of the afternoon's pursuit. He was 
 always near her, yet always prevented by vague obstacles 
 from getting quite close to her ; he yearned and strove, pour-
 
 226 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 ing out waves of will power to sweep away each indefinite 
 barrier of difficulty; and at last, as rarely happens in such 
 dreams of frustrated effort, he came up with her, took her 
 hand in his; and side by side they walked on, floated on, 
 swam through space, in ethereal joy. The contact seemed 
 to spiritualise his whole frame; it was a taste of ecstatic, 
 heavenly, pure delight ; and then he woke. 
 And he went to sleep longing to dream again.
 
 XXVIII 
 
 IN the morning he felt tired and heavy, and his first clear 
 thought was, "Then this is sin." 
 
 "Sin has come into my life, and the real battle now begins." 
 Happily, it would be a battle unshared by her. The battle- 
 field was one man's mind. And he made his vows : to fight 
 and conquer. He did not pray, did not even think of praying ; 
 but he summoned all his brain power. Let self conquer self. 
 
 He made plans for the immediate future. He must avoid 
 her, of course. He must occupy his mind continuously; for, 
 as he had proved, bodily fatigue was not enough. 
 
 Meditating on the events of the last year, his many dis- 
 tressful hours, his great sadness or depression of spirit, he 
 believed that he could trace a steadily weakening process, and 
 also that he could recognise various warnings or premoni- 
 tions of a danger that every day had drawn a little nearer. 
 Looking back thus, he thought, "Yes, that sense of lessened 
 sunshine, the twilight at high noon, the darkness that I 
 seemed to fear, was the shadow of approaching sin." 
 
 Then, before the day was over, he thought, But why is it 
 sin? I have done nothing. I am not going to do anything. 
 It is not even a temptation. Only she could tempt me, and 
 she will never even know. It is just a thought. 
 
 "But it is an evil thought. She is another man's wife. 
 Therefore I may not think of her." 
 
 Yet his thoughts of her hitherto had been so entirely inno- 
 cent. He had admired her at first just as he had admired 
 Mrs. Verschoyle only very much less; he had been sorry 
 for her as he would have been sorry for anybody else simi- 
 larly situated; when he learned the full extent of her un- 
 happiness he had felt immense pity for her. Why not ? But 
 the pity had been perhaps abnormal too violent, too inces- 
 sant, too overwhelmingly strong. He liked being with her. 
 He forgot his own sadness when sitting by her side, watching 
 her face, listening to her voice ; and he forgot her sadness 
 also. 
 
 227
 
 228 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 He did not trifle with the truth. He meant to fight, and 
 he wanted to know what he was fighting; he knew he was 
 going to suffer, and he wanted to know how much. Retro- 
 spectively, he could see that the sentimental interest, the silli- 
 ness and softness had manifested themselves a long way back 
 in the progress of this episode ; but on Lilian's side there had 
 been nothing whatever of the sort. Thinking herself weak 
 and believing him strong, she had leaned upon him for 
 support. And so far he had not failed her: she would 
 never guess that he was weaker than water. No harm had 
 come to her, and as yet he could not be permanently injured. 
 It would be quite absurd to suppose so. 
 
 Constitutionally and temperamentally, he was a man over 
 whom women in this relation had never exercised any 
 great power. In his youth there had been none of those 
 phases of what is called calf-love to foretell the later advent 
 of real passion. No impure desires had ever assailed him. 
 He had passed from youth into manhood clean and undis- 
 turbed. And the naturally noble dreams that stimulate the 
 best of men to seek a life-long comrade with a pretty face 
 and charming form had also been most strangely absent. 
 He did not desire women's company, he did not like it; 
 their glowing beauty left him cold, their instinctive search 
 for wooing glance in all male eyes repelled him. He had 
 neither desired a wife, nor even missed a sister. In all 
 the scheme of his existence there had been only one woman, 
 his mother. 
 
 It was not, therefore, likely now that all should change 
 with him. But while he reasoned thus calmly, reason itself 
 seemed to answer. The voice of the logic he had evoked to 
 console him inexorably threatened him. It said : You merely 
 renounced what you had never possessed; you looked with 
 contempt at what you couldn't comprehend ; you denied the 
 existence of the highest joy on earth because you knew 
 nothing about anything except heaven. 
 
 Then he ceased to argue with himself, or hunt for causes, 
 or belittle their effects. He was desperately, appallingly fond 
 of this woman. There was the truth, and the more sternly 
 he faced it the more tremendous it became ; and his thoughts, 
 rapidly expanding, grew so big that no words were big 
 enough for their adequate expression. It seemed to him that
 
 229 
 
 no living man since the world began had so loved a woman. 
 It seemed to him that all the love that he had felt throughout 
 his life, though apparently dissipated, wasted, gone, was in 
 truth stored like energy; that, slowly collected again, how- 
 ever widely dispersed, it was ready now to be released ; that 
 his love of his mother and his love of the whole of mankind 
 and his love of the Creator of mankind were pouring out of 
 him in the concentrated, overwhelming stream that made up 
 his love for Lilian. 
 
 That was the truth. A terrible danger and yet not really 
 a danger, because she remained untouched. The danger 
 would not be real, unless some little stream of love, a rivulet 
 compared with his, began to flow from her. 
 
 Then came the thought that she did care for him uncon- 
 sciously perhaps. If she had been Miss Vickers instead of 
 Mrs. Vickers, her manner towards him would have proved 
 what people call inclination, and all the rest would have 
 followed naturally. He could not in such circumstances have 
 doubted the feelings that she entertained. Nor did he doubt 
 now. With a thrill of pleasure that was more poignantly 
 distressing than pain, he recognised this other aspect of the 
 truth. 
 
 And he thought, "Why am I so played with ? This torment 
 is too ingenious it is like an imagination of a devil, not like 
 a test by which a beneficent Power tries faithful servants. 
 And why go on testing me ? I have already passed through 
 the furnace, I have been put to many proofs, I have borne 
 much. Besides, if she is to be involved if she feels for me 
 one millionth part of what I feel for her where is the sense 
 or justice, however inscrutably it is said to work? Why 
 should she be tortured? Is not the hell of her married life 
 enough ?" 
 
 And now at last he had a full understanding of the intoler- 
 able test. He said to himself: "I have been tricked into 
 loving her. I was made to believe her free, and I gave her 
 my heart in innocence. She is the only woman on earth I 
 have wanted, or could want. If she might have been my wife, 
 I should have come close to heaven. For heaven and earth 
 would have been one."
 
 XXIX 
 
 HE went on with his work. 
 
 As much as possible he kept in the society of Walsden, 
 following him about, clinging to him, as though hoping that 
 safety could be found in the atmosphere of simple faith, 
 dogged perseverance, and almost brutal common-sense that 
 habitually surrounded the honest vicar wherever he chanced 
 to be at the moment. The vicar disapproved of the manner 
 in which his favourite curate was spending money at this 
 time ; but he allowed himself to be overborne, and the various 
 business arrangements relating to the outlay made it neces- 
 sary that the two men should be much together. 
 
 The transfer of Denmark House had been completed ; it 
 now belonged to the parish of St. Bede's, and Churchill was 
 a guest where he had been host an honoured visitor who 
 would never be disturbed, and who earned his welcome by 
 saving the salary of a superintendent. But a hostel without 
 funds to keep it going is but half a gift, so he poured funds 
 into the strong-box of the trustees. Then, too, he had a 
 feverish anxiety to render the future of several humble 
 dependents quite secure. For instance, old Philbrick. He 
 had made it a condition of the trust that the poor old chap 
 was to be treated as a permanent inmate ; but, having hitherto 
 allowed him a small pension, he now capitalised the pension. 
 The day should not come for Philbrick when he searched 
 his pockets and found no coins to buy tobacco or a new 
 pipe. And so it was with others. Those who had confidently 
 relied on Mr. Churchill must not be at the mercy of fresh 
 guardians, however good and kind. Churchill felt that all 
 these matters must be attended to without a moment's delay. 
 He used to think, "I can't rest until I am sure that these 
 people are safe, whatever happens to me." 
 
 Struggling to find some effectual means of occupying his 
 mind during the long hours when the day's work was done, 
 and yet, in spite of fatigue, it was useless to think of sleep, 
 he hit upon the idea of again attempting some kind of literary 
 
 230
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 231 
 
 composition. Since his Oxford days he had made no such 
 attempt. Except in writing sermons his pen had been idle. 
 Now it should get some more eager, hurried practice. 
 
 He started with notes for a novel, and for two or three 
 evenings the entirely unaccustomed task absorbed him. He 
 was making a framework, to be rilled in at some subsequent 
 period. His fable was the life-history of a young man who 
 rubbed along in a very comfortable humdrum fashion until 
 circumstances led to his falling in love with a charming and 
 accomplished young lady. For his opening or exposition he 
 jotted down disjointed scenes, character sketches, descrip- 
 tions, and much dialogue that consisted chiefly of ethical 
 arguments; and then he dashed ahead, to get at the love 
 interest. But with his first sentence about this interest, it 
 was as though he had set himself on fire. 
 
 All the thoughts that he had regarded as cold, inert refuse 
 burst into vigorous flame; all the words that he had never 
 spoken crackled explosively at the point of his pen. This 
 form of literary exercise would not do. He bundled the novel 
 notes together, put them away in a drawer, and went out 
 for a walk walked until the night was nearly past, until his 
 legs could scarcely carry him, until he was almost dead from 
 fatigue. 
 
 On the following evening he essayed a different form of 
 composition. At Oxford he had written on religious subjects, 
 and, as he remembered well, had of set purpose concerned 
 himself with what he wished to say, caring little for the 
 manner in which it was said. He fetched out a batch of 
 manuscripts that had survived from that time, and thought 
 he would glance through them. Builders on Sand yes, 
 this was the title of a series of papers that were one day to 
 make a published volume. They were a confutation of all 
 the arguments of doubters. He changed his mind about 
 looking at them, and put them back in his desk without 
 untying the string that held them together. He did not 
 propose to write on religion now, but to give a turn to phil- 
 osophical thought the philosophy of everyday life, ethics 
 of the commonplace. 
 
 And this he did, reversing his old plan, and striving now 
 for graces of expression, trying to write really well, labour- 
 ing at every phrase. He cancelled, re-wrote, would not be
 
 232 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 satisfied until, to his mental ear, the words had music. He 
 thought of Addison, Ruskin, Flaubert of all the stylists; 
 and, with all his might, struggled to have a style himself. 
 
 This task succeeded better than the novel notes. He 
 found real solace in it, and filled sad waking hours with it. 
 
 But his nights were now terrible. As soon as he slept 
 he began to dream, and the dreams drew their source from 
 that carnal side of human nature which, though controlled, 
 ignored, rendered impotent for active evil, still inexorably 
 exists. It is our inheritance from a dim past, the fading 
 instinct that once played its useful part in the scheme of our 
 descent and the fierce unceasing struggle for the continuance 
 of the race ; it is the afterglow of battle, lust, and rape that 
 lurks like a hot memory in each of the myriad cells whereof 
 our organisms are composed. 
 
 In dreams he was at the mercy of sensual desires. Things 
 that he had always recoiled from allured and delighted him. 
 He craved for forbidden joys, beckoned to the vicious ser- 
 vants of such infamy, imagined a luxurious feast of sin and 
 called upon life to provide it. He was like one of the 
 tempted Fathers about whom he used to read, but, unlike 
 them, greedily yielding to temptation ; he was like a wanderer 
 in the Arabian Nights, a sailor in Limehouse Causeway, a 
 debauchee student of the Quartier Latin; he was like a 
 profligate as coarse and brutal as the man he hated. 
 
 An abominable ordeal that made sleep itself torture instead 
 of relief. It was as though Nature, offended by rebellion 
 against her laws, were treating him with unusual severity 
 in order to prove herself supreme. He had ventured to be 
 abnormal, she was bringing him back into line as if, because 
 he had escaped the stress and storm of adolescence, he was 
 now in these dreams being galloped at break-neck speed 
 through all those emotional experiences or mental states 
 that should have been lengthily suffered and got rid of at 
 their appointed time. 
 
 Yet, however vile the character of a dream, it changed 
 at once if Lilian came into it. Then in a moment all became 
 pure and sweet. Desire was more intense, but absolutely 
 devoid of gross passion. He longed, as in his first dream of 
 her, to take her hand and pass on, they two together, happy 
 and alone. That was all. At sight of her evil was exorcised.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 233 
 
 But there were many nights on which he did not see her, 
 and in the morning after these he awoke feeling exhausted, 
 shattered, robbed of all the hope that can sustain life: as 
 one who, having passed through a dangerous illness, begins 
 to understand that although he may go on living he will 
 never really be himself again. He did not want to dress, to 
 eat, or to leave the house. His was a misery that should not 
 go stalking through the streets for all the world to gape at. 
 He could scarcely bear to meet the eyes of that old man 
 Philbrick. He was ashamed of, terrified by the wild beast 
 inside him that was tearing him to pieces in these nocturnal 
 rages. 
 
 Nevertheless he went on with his work; and this new 
 phase passed, and was as if it had never been. The unwhole- 
 some fires had burned themselves out, or the breath of the 
 spirit of evil had ceased to fan them. He no longer dreaded 
 the moment when, sinking into unconsciousness, he unlocked 
 the lower mechanism of his brain and opened every dark 
 recess for the nerve currents to enter and come pouring out 
 charged with wickedness. 
 
 The dreams had gone ; but sleep had gone with them. He 
 lay awake thinking, the higher brain centres hard at work 
 now, making for him still another torment. Whether he 
 wished it or not, he was forced to think argumentatively ; to 
 pass in review all his opinions, surmises, or convictions : to 
 weigh them and test them. He felt a pressing necessity to be 
 logical and exact in the process of his thoughts ; and as the 
 sleepless hours wore on, this need grew heavier and his 
 ability to meet it less and less. It seemed to him and the 
 idea filled him with the alarm and horror that are the first 
 fruits of insomnia that he had lost the power of reasoning 
 about even the simplest things, as well as about those that 
 are greatest and most important. 
 
 Still he went on with his work ; not sparing himself, toiling 
 through the long, dull, meaningless days; incessantly, 
 feverishly active, but in a confused vague manner, and some- 
 times having slips of memory that increased his labour and 
 made the confusion worse. Thus he sent instructions to his 
 bankers to sell a security that they had sold already, two 
 months ago. He could not believe this possible. He had 
 never had direct dealings with a stockbroker; all his busi-
 
 234 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 ness had been conducted for him by the bank, and he now 
 wrote to the bank manager for a full and detailed statement 
 in regard to his financial position. Receiving this, he muddled 
 away two or three mornings in tardy accountancy, verifying 
 or trying to verify everything by comparing the entries with 
 his own notes and jottings of letters. The bank, of course, 
 proved right, and he wrong. Fetching out more and more 
 of his private papers, he established the correctness of the 
 bank statement, and ascertained by the aid of a very simple 
 arithmetic exactly how he now stood as a person of inde- 
 pendent means. He had nearly run through his fortune; 
 of invested capital there remained to him only so much as 
 might be relied upon for an annual income of one hundred 
 and three or four odd pounds. 
 
 He was astonished, but he did not care. He said to himself, 
 "Then I have shot my bolt. I must stick to this money, 
 or I shall lose my freedom. I can do no more now for 
 Walsden or for anybody else." And he felt relief in recogni- 
 tion of the obvious fact that his benevolent schemes had, 
 as it were, automatically come to an end ; thinking again that 
 he was thoroughly justified in guarding what was left to 
 make his own future secure. "It is just enough," he thought, 
 "to make me absolutely free and personal freedom no man 
 is called upon to sacrifice." Two pounds a week that was 
 his old figure. Ample. It was the sum he had allotted to 
 himself years ago as all that portion of his fortune that 
 really belonged to him ; and curiously, without steadily pur- 
 sued calculations, he had reached the pre-ordained limit.
 
 XXX 
 
 ROBERT VICKERS had come back from the first of the two 
 political tours ; his name was on bills that announced a public 
 meeting; and one day Churchill passed him in the Com- 
 mercial Road. They nodded to each other, but did not stop 
 to talk. While he remained in London Churchill was haunted 
 by thoughts of him. 
 
 Then, after he had gone again, Churchill had a letter from 
 his wife. He trembled as he sat looking at her handwriting ; 
 he trembled more as he opened the envelope. What had 
 she to say to him? She apologised for detaining a book 
 that he had lent her, and promised to return it before long ; 
 and she further said, "I am going to the vicarage to-morrow 
 afternoon to help at Mrs. Walsden's sewing class. May I 
 come to Denmark House afterwards? I want to ask you 
 one or two questions." 
 
 Churchill raised the letter to his lips, kissed it again and 
 again. Then very slowly he tore it into almost microscopic 
 pieces, and let them fall through his open fingers to the floor, 
 whispering to himself the while. "Yes, my dear one, my 
 sweet one, come to me to-morrow, come to me every clay, 
 stay with me and comfort me, even if I can never bring 
 comfort to you." That was the answer that he wished to 
 send, the only answer that would truly speak his thought. 
 
 He did not send it. 
 
 Walking about his room, he continued to whisper, "So 
 now we are in the very thick of the fight. It is 'Fight now, 
 Edward Churchill, or lay down your arms.' " And he 
 laughed, once more remembering those Lives of the Fathers, 
 the naive and direct narrations of tricky turns that the Devil 
 can play when he tempts saintly men to destruction ; visions 
 in stone cells, wantons dressed in nuns' clothing; innocent 
 birds, that sing like heaven's choristers, win one's heart, 
 make one glad, and then change their clear note to pipe a 
 message from hell. "Yes, quite a good trick of the Devil, 
 this," and he laughed again "to make it seem now that she 
 
 235
 
 236 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 cannot do without me; that when I avoid her, she follows 
 me ; that if I won't devise chances for wooing her, she will 
 herself give me the occasion." 
 
 He knew with absolute certainty that, whatever unacknowl- 
 edged tenderness might lie hidden in her thoughts of him, 
 she had written not as a woman to a man but as a devout 
 disciple to a priest. The book he had begged her to read and 
 study was Father Bastian Upway's treatise on the Sacrament 
 of Marriage. It is full of the most beautiful passages, in 
 which mystery is made easier to understand than common 
 fact, and faith seems to issue triumphantly from the printed 
 words; but there are pages of abstruse analysis and subtle 
 definition of which the drift or purpose is extremely difficult 
 to follow. Edward Churchill had no doubt but that Lilian's 
 questions would relate to the difficulties she had encountered 
 while reading the book, and in imagination he went through 
 the. scene that would take place here to-morrow if he al- 
 lowed her to come. They would sit side by side at his desk 
 over there ; he would read aloud to her, pausing to expound 
 and elucidate, but not thinking of what he said, merely 
 absorbing happiness from her proximity drinking joy, re- 
 covering nerve-force, beginning to live again after the death 
 in life that these weeks of separation had truly been for him. 
 
 Thinking thus, he sat down at the desk and wrote to her. 
 
 "DEAR MRS. VICKERS, 
 
 "Unless the matter you wished to discuss is really 
 urgent, I fear I must beg you to excuse me to-morrow. 
 The fact is, I am so dreadfully busy just now that I 
 have not a disengaged minute at my disposal. Of course, 
 were it some matter in which you believed I could give 
 you effectual help, I would put everything aside in order 
 to receive you. But if I do not hear from you to the 
 contrary, I shall assume that this is not the case and 
 will consider the appointment postponed for the present. 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 
 EDWARD CHURCHILL." 
 
 He sat staring at his finished letter, thinking it the most 
 atrocious thing that pen and paper had ever made. To send 
 that to her! The odious formal phrases filled him with dis-
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 237 
 
 gust it was like the letter of a doctor to a troublesome 
 patient, of a tradesman to a customer whose custom had 
 ceased to be worth retaining. But, so far as the wording 
 went, it was also quite the usual letter of a busy priest to 
 one of his congregation. 
 
 He posted it with his own hand, and ascertained from the 
 tablet on the pillar box that it would go by a post sufficiently 
 early to ensure its delivery before nightfall. If, therefore, 
 she wanted to see him very much indeed, there would be 
 time for her to write and say so. Perhaps he would hear 
 from her to-morrow morning. Perhaps she would come 
 after all. 
 
 But next morning he looked for her handwriting in vain. 
 And all that afternoon he sat indoors, manfully fighting 
 temptation. He could not trust himself to go out of the 
 house, he scarcely dared to move from his chair, so severe 
 was the battle and so imminent the danger of yielding once 
 for all, and confessing himself beaten. 
 
 He thought, "Now she is on her way to the vicarage. I 
 could easily meet her before she gets there. Now she has 
 arrived. The class has assembled. They are all together in 
 the drawing-room. I could go there, just open the drawing- 
 room door, and see her face. I could say I had come to 
 speak to Mrs. Walsden. It would be perfectly natural and 
 proper; for in sober truth I do want to speak to her." 
 
 The ready excuse of a businesslike communication to be 
 made to the vicar's wife added force to the longings that 
 tempted him. Still he was strong enough to resist them. 
 What he had to say to Mrs. Walsden would keep : there was 
 no need for any hurry about it. 
 
 But the hour when he thought of Lilian leaving the vicar- 
 age, passing at a distance of three hundred yards, going 
 slowly through the streets alone then the temptation was 
 agony. The calm May evening, the softening light, the faint 
 rustle of the plane tree leaves all things seemed to aid in 
 tempting him, seemed to call him and to deride him. Why 
 was he lurking in this room, shrinking back among the 
 shadows, asking for darkness and emptiness, when destiny 
 offered colour and light and joy? Not because he was a 
 saint, but because he was a coward mocking voices 
 seemed to dare him. Only cowards hide and skulk like
 
 238 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 this: brave men are not afraid of life: they go forth and 
 meet it bravely. 
 
 As always now, concentrated thought about her created 
 a vivid mental vision of her. He saw her looking towards 
 him just a glance in the direction of Denmark House, 
 before she turned down Vaughan Street. And he saw her 
 walking away from him, pale, sad, alone. 
 
 He moved to one of the window seats, as the farthest 
 possible point from the door through which he would 
 pass if he rushed to overtake her ; and sitting here, looking 
 down into the green branches and the little patch of 
 walled garden, he clenched his fists, writhed, and groaned 
 in agony. 
 
 He waited until it was dark, until all chance of seeing 
 her had long since gone, and then he went round to the 
 vicarage and gave his message to Mrs. Walsden. This 
 small parochial duty accomplished, he had no further bus- 
 iness at the vicarage; but he lingered, hoping that Mrs. 
 Walsden would speak of her sewing class and the people 
 who had attended it. She did not do so, and before he 
 could tear himself away he was compelled to ask a ques- 
 tion. 
 
 "Was Mrs. Vickers here this afternoon?" 
 
 "Yes, she was. How ill she's looking!" 
 
 "Ill !" The notion of her being ill appalled him ; and he 
 asked more questions, eagerly, almost breathlessly. How 
 ill? Did Mrs. Walsden mean anything serious, or merely 
 some slight indisposition ? 
 
 Mrs. Walsden, answering rather carelessly but quite 
 kindly and reassuringly, said she only meant that Mrs. 
 Vickers appeared "pasty and peeky, unhealthily pale, and 
 with nasty bilious-looking circles round her eyes." 
 
 "I told her that if she felt as seedy as she looked, she 
 ought not to have troubled to come all this way on my 
 account. But she said she enjoyed it. She is a kind crea- 
 ture always glad to lend one a helping hand." 
 
 If she were to fall ill if she were to die. It would be 
 the end of the world to him nothing less. Large as the 
 earth is, he would never be able to find a pleasant place 
 on it when once she had ceased to be numbered among its
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 239 
 
 inhabitants. Heaven would not be heaven if he could not 
 meet her in it. Hell would not be hell if he might go there 
 with her hand in hand. 
 
 Wild thoughts swept through his mind as he walked 
 away from the vicarage. If she were really ill he must go 
 straight to her. But he knew that she was not really ill: 
 she was only tired and unhappy. 
 
 He thought with astonishment, but with no anger, of 
 the preposterous adjectives that Mrs. Walsden had used 
 when speaking of the pallor that made her so touchingly 
 beautiful, of those shadows that gave such splendour to 
 her eyes, and indeed to the whole of her delicate face, 
 making it mysterious, pathetic, unforgettable. To Mrs. 
 Walsden, perhaps, she was scarcely pretty, and not in the 
 least fascinating. How marvellous! No one saw her as 
 he saw her. He fully realised the individual appeal of this 
 woman. To him it was terrific and overpowering: while 
 perhaps no one else could even perceive it. And !he 
 thought, "Yes, that is love." 
 
 Reaching the lamps and noise of the main thoroughfare, 
 he suddenly found himself in the midst of a crowd. A 
 man had been seized with a fit, had fallen, and was now 
 rolling and bouncing about the pavement in convulsions. 
 A policeman stooping over him was tripped up and fell; 
 Churchill tried to help and went down also; half a dozen 
 other people were endeavouring to hold the poor fellow; 
 for a little while it was like a football scrimmage. Then 
 the sufferer, stretched upon his back, was secured by many 
 hands ; and presently he lay quite still, foaming at the 
 mouth and groaning. 
 
 He was a fine-looking man of forty or so, respectably 
 dressed in black clothes, and with a strong, handsome face 
 that Churchill felt sure he had seen before. The police- 
 man had sent for an ambulance, and he was now busy 
 with the crowd, who would not go away, although ob- 
 viously all amusement or entertainment was over. 
 
 "Now, pass along," said the policeman. "Stand back, 
 can't you? Give him air. What's the sense of trying to 
 suffocate him?" 
 
 Churchill asked that when the ambulance arrived the 
 man might be taken to Denmark House, instead of to the
 
 240 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 hospital or the police station. He undertook to look after 
 the man and provide medical treatment and nursing. 
 
 He knew the man ; he and the man had met before but 
 where? He remembered the face, and, when presently the 
 eyelids blinked and lifted, he remembered the eyes. They 
 stared glassily up at him. He knew that he had seen that 
 glassy stare and had been uncomfortably affected by it 
 then as now; and when this happened there had been 
 lamplight on the face as at present. 
 
 The ambulance came, the man was lifted upon it, and at 
 the same moment he began to talk mutteringly. Churchill, 
 stooping down to replace a dangling arm, heard what he 
 said and was strangely startled. 
 
 "Heaven or hell. Which is it to be? Are you going to 
 heaven or going to hell ?" 
 
 Churchill remembered then when he had met the man. 
 It was the mad preacher, seen and heard by him on his 
 first Saturday night at St. Bede's, who stood at the lamp-lit 
 corner with the crowd jostling him but taking no notice of 
 him while he talked unceasingly of heaven and hell. 
 
 He went on talking about them now, as the ambulance 
 began to move, raising his voice to a laboured shout. 
 
 "Heaven and hell. Oh, my friends, do you understand 
 it is the one place or the other ? Which is it to be ? Heaven 
 or hell? . . , Heaven or hell? . . . Heaven or hell?"
 
 XXXI 
 
 THE man's name was Elvey, and until quite recently he 
 had been in receipt of a good salary as an engineer's 
 draughtsman at one of the Thames ironworks. Then, fall- 
 ing ill, he had lost his employment. He had taken up 
 his "mission" eight years ago, after a "summons" that 
 came to him in the form of "nocturnal voices, the echo of 
 lamentation, and the sound of a rushing mighty wind;" 
 and from that period till now he had been regularly preach- 
 ing. If he possessed any friends or relations, he appeared 
 to have forgotten all about them. Earthly ties were not 
 worth attention in presence of the eternal danger and the 
 eternal hope. 
 
 He imparted this much of his story to Churchill, who 
 often sat by his bedside during the first day or two after 
 his arrival at Denmark House. He offered no thanks for 
 Churchill's hospitality; nor did he make any inquiries as 
 to the nature of the establishment in which he found him- 
 self ; he lay with his hands clasped behind his head, 
 staring at the walls or ceiling of the bedroom as though 
 he could see through them and hundreds of miles beyond 
 them. 
 
 The doctor said that he was suffering from the exhaus- 
 tion of nervous energy that invariably follows such a 
 seizure as his. He might require a good many weeks' 
 rest, but in a greater or less time his strength would be 
 restored and then he would be all right again that is to 
 say, as right as he would ever be. 
 
 According to the doctor he was a very ordinary type 
 of the religious epileptic. He was not mad enough as yet 
 to shut up; for although his views of religion plainly indi- 
 cated aberration, still they were views which in a less 
 violent or extreme form were held by large numbers of 
 people; and with regard to the everyday matters of life 
 he was sufficiently sane to conduct himself with propriety. 
 For instance, he had been able to retain his employment 
 
 241
 
 242 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 as a highly skilled workman. As to the prognosis of the 
 case well, it was not favourable. He would probably 
 have many attacks, and die mad, really mad, ravingly mad. 
 
 "Can I do anything else for him than what is being 
 done?" 
 
 "No," said the doctor, "let him rest as long as he likes, 
 and then he will go away." 
 
 "But ought I to allow him to go?" 
 
 "You could not prevent his going if you tried. It would 
 be just the same if we had him at our shop. When he 
 made up his mind to get up and go, our whole staff 
 wouldn't be able to stop him." 
 
 Truly Churchill felt no desire to detain poor Elvey. 
 Never before had there been a guest at Denmark House 
 so strangely inexplicably unwelcome to him. Had he rec- 
 ognised the mad street preacher a little earlier, certainly 
 had he heard him mutter those words about heaven and 
 hell, he could not have overcome his disinclination; he 
 might still have wished to do so, and thought that duty 
 told him to do it, but he could not have brought the man 
 here into the same house with himself. 
 
 This kind doctor, who attended to Denmark House pa- 
 tients gratuitously, was one of Churchill's friends from the 
 London Hospital, and he spoke of other friends or ac- 
 quaintances at that noble and nobly conducted institution. 
 Talking with him, Churchill heard the latest news of their 
 physiological research work, brilliant feats of curative 
 surgery, patient toil producing marvels in the laboratory. 
 As he knew, the place was a hive of industry. And his 
 friend gave him a particularly striking example of the 
 perils that such industry sometimes entails perils so 
 great, it would seem, that no one could be justified in 
 facing them, unless sure of some splendid inpalpable re- 
 ward alike for failure and for success. No material re- 
 ward do they either expect or receive. 
 
 A young, highly esteemed bacteriologist, pursuing a 
 special and very hopeful line in the cultivation of pes- 
 tilential germs, had fatally poisoned himself. He and 
 everybody else in the hospital knew that he was done for. 
 He might live for three years, and the last of those three 
 years would be most dreadful. But he was perfectly
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 243 
 
 cheerful and jolly, going on with his investigation, pur- 
 suing the happy line, only perhaps working longer hours 
 and with greater ardour since now time was so short. 
 His one anxiety had been lest he should become a source 
 of danger to others; once satisfied that with certain pre- 
 cautions he would be a safe companion, he worried no 
 more. But an immediate stoppage of the work and 
 banishment from the only place in which the work was 
 possible would have broken his heart. 
 
 And Edward Churchill thought, "Yet he is almost cer- 
 tainly an unbeliever. None of these men are believers in 
 our sense of the word. They are not Christians in their 
 faith, though most Christian in their actions. They sacri- 
 fice themselves for others, they live for others, they die 
 for others. But they ask nothing for themselves. They 
 do not believe that God came down from heaven and dwelt 
 upon earth, showing the hard way but promising the bliss- 
 ful ease." 
 
 All that evening he thought about the countless people 
 who do not hold the Christian faith. The world is peo- 
 pled with unbelievers. More ancient religions have con- 
 tinued, newer religions have been inaugurated; agnos- 
 ticism, vague speculation, sheer indifference, have proved 
 as formidable rivals to Christianity as any of the formu- 
 lated creeds. Musingly, he considered not only the ninety 
 per cent, of non-Christians that dwelt all round him, and 
 the vast hordes of untutored heathen beloved by Wals- 
 den, but the great civilised races the wise Chinese, the 
 brave Japs, the fiery, far-spreading Turks. 
 
 He wrote a little ; thought again, wrote again. Then he 
 began to turn the leaves of Whitaker's Almanac, reading 
 the estimated populations of Buddhist nations, looking 
 for the total set down for the followers of Mohammedanism, 
 wondering if he would presently find a table that gave the 
 proportionate aggregates and showed how many Christians 
 there were altogether pretended Christians ; for of course 
 any such stated number would include all who professed 
 to belong, or had ever professed to belong, to the Chris- 
 tian Church. 
 
 Presently he raised his head, and listened. He fancied 
 that he had heard a voice somebody calling to him from
 
 244 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 a distance. It was late now; every one had come in long 
 ago. For a minute, while he sat listening, the silence re- 
 mained unbroken ; then he heard the voice again. 
 
 He went out of his room, to the first floor landing, and 
 turned on an electric lamp. He could hear the voice dis- 
 tinctly now. It was Elvey's. He went upstairs to Elvey's 
 room and opened the door. 
 
 "You were talking, weren't you? Do you want any- 
 thing?" 
 
 "No, thank you," said Elvey. "I was only talking to 
 myself. I often do at night. It refreshes me. But I'm 
 sorry I disturbed you. I didn't think I'd be overheard." 
 
 "Oh, that's no consequence so long as you don't disturb 
 the others. Good-night." 
 
 Churchill closed the bedroom door, and stood for a little 
 while outside it. Elvey began talking again almost imme- 
 diately, but in a lower voice. 
 
 "Heaven or hell. I have chosen heaven. It is there 
 that I fix my eyes. . . ." 
 
 Churchill went downstairs, unbolted the front door, and 
 left the house in order to get a breath of air. Returning 
 after half an hour he stood in the hall and listened. Faint 
 and distant, coming to him from the top of the house, that 
 same monotonous recitation grew audible. He ascended 
 the stairs, past his own room, as if drawn upward by the 
 voice; then when he was high enough to catch each word, 
 he paused and sat upon a stair-step, holding his head in 
 his hands. 
 
 "I say unto you, except ye believe, ye shall not inherit 
 the kingdom of heaven" the voice went on monotonously. 
 
 "You are all in danger of hell fire. It is heaven or hell. 
 ii 
 
 And Edward Churchill thought: "Yes, a madman a 
 madman lying all alone in the darkness, and talking of 
 things that no living eye has ever seen." 
 
 The presence of this guest in the house worried him, and 
 had a bad effect on his nerves ; but the visit did not last long. 
 One morning quite early Elvey got up, washed, carefully 
 brushed his clothes, and dressed himself; then, having
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 245 
 
 gone out and got shaved, he tapped at Churchill's door and 
 said good-bye. 
 
 "Where are you off to in such a hurry?" 
 
 "I must go to Glasgow," said Elvey. "I have read about 
 it in the newspapers. It is a wicked city. I must go 
 there at once and warn them. I have warned London for 
 eight years. Glasgow is the next biggest place. I must go 
 to Glasgow now." 
 
 "How do you propose to travel there?" 
 
 "I shall walk." 
 
 "Elvey, I don't think you're quite up to that yet. Let 
 me give you your rail fare." 
 
 "No, thank you. I prefer to walk. There is great 
 wickedness in the country villages of England, and I mean 
 to warn them as I pass. Good-bye;" and disregarding 
 Churchill's outstretched hand, he turned and went out of 
 the room. Nothing could have prevented him from go- 
 ing; no one could materially affect the future that lay 
 before him. He had his mission and his doom: he would 
 fulfil both. 
 
 A day or two after Elvey's departure Mrs. Clough, the 
 housekeeper, opened the door of Churchill's sitting-room, 
 and, looking in, saw him busy at his desk. 
 
 "Ah, you are there," said the housekeeper. "I thought 
 you was, but wasn't sure. It's Mrs. Vickers would like to 
 speak to you, if you can spare her a minute." 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Vickers!" And he hesitated. "Yes, I will 
 come down to her." 
 
 ''You won't see her in here? Very good," said Mrs. 
 Clough. "I've brought her upstairs with me, but I'll take 
 her down again." 
 
 "No, of course not. I didn't understand;" and he 
 hastily rose from his chair. "Mrs. Vickers, please come 
 in." 
 
 The door had remained open, and obviously anybody 
 outside must have heard all that he and Mrs. Clough were 
 saying. That this had indeed happened was made still 
 further evident by the extreme embarrassment of Lilian 
 Vickers's manner.
 
 246 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 "Mr. Churchill, I'm so very sorry to disturb you. Please 
 forgive me." 
 
 "Oh, not at all," he said feebly. 
 
 "I have brought you back The Sacrament of Marriage. 
 Thank you for lending it to me." 
 
 "Er not in the least. Did you read it?" 
 
 "Yes, I really studied it carefully and as I was passing, 
 I thought I would bring it myself;" and she put the book 
 on the corner of his desk. It was neatly tied up in 
 brown paper, as though something precious that must not 
 run any risks of getting soiled when carried about in 
 trams. "I thought," she said, looking down at the parcel 
 -"I hoped that perhaps " 
 
 "Yes," he said, divining her thought, "I know I under- 
 stand. For us to talk about it! For me to tell you any- 
 thing that I that I " 
 
 "Yes, if you could have spared time that is what I 
 hoped." 
 
 He had not asked her to sit down. They stood looking 
 at each other, she at the corner of the big desk, he stand- 
 ing behind his chair with his hands tightly gripping the 
 back of it. 
 
 "I guessed that immediately," he said. "But it is un- 
 fortunate you find me at the moment " and he stopped 
 
 short and coughed. She was looking at him inquiringly, 
 anxiously, and, as it seemed, reproachfully. She wore no 
 veil, so that the pallor of her face, those dusky circles 
 round her eyes, and the slight trembling of her lips, were 
 fully visible to him. "Mrs. Vickers," he said abruptly, 
 "how are you in your health?" 
 
 "Oh, I am quite well, thank you." 
 
 "Some one told me you looked ill it was Mrs. Walsden. 
 But you have not been ill really?" 
 
 "Oh, no. I did feel the beginning of the warm weather. 
 It gave me headaches." 
 
 "Is your head aching now?" 
 
 "No, not at all." 
 
 '"I I am glad to hear that. I hope you will take care 
 of yourself. . . . But about the book yes, I ventured 
 when I wrote to explain that I am unusually harassed, 
 and therefore to excuse myself from "
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 247 
 
 "Yes, I got your letter." 
 
 "I hope you understood. You you weren't offended?" 
 
 "I offended? How could I be?" Then suddenly her 
 face flushed. "But, Mr. Churchill, I couldn't help think- 
 ing that perhaps for some reason you were rather 
 offended with me." 
 
 "No most certainly not. Why? How did you get 
 such an utterly mistaken idea?" 
 
 "I wouldn't have had it if I'd been quite sure that it was 
 really because you were so busy that you didn't want to 
 see me. But you have been so kind and then I began to 
 think you might fancy that all your trouble had been 
 wasted, and that I wasn't even trying to do what you'd 
 said," and her voice broke. 
 
 "I did not fancy it for a moment. No, on my honour, 
 it was no reason of that sort." 
 
 "Then I won't think so. But truly this is why I have 
 come troubling you now. I felt that I must come and tell 
 you that no word of yours had been lost that I have 
 obeyed you that I have been much braver that I that 
 I don't mean to do any of the things I spoke of." 
 
 "No, you must be brave you must just be brave." 
 
 "And, Mr. Churchill, if I haven't understood all Father 
 Upway says, I see that it is all of it true." 
 
 "Yes, that is it. Never mind the rest. Essentials stick 
 to essentials. Don't go too deep. Be satisfied with the 
 main principle." He was speaking hurriedly and incon- 
 secutively; and when she turned as though about to go, he 
 abruptly asked her to sit down for a few minutes. "The 
 fact is as I tried to explain you catch me unprepared 
 at an unlucky time that is, for me, personally. Nothing 
 to do with you of course;" and he walked across to one 
 of the windows and looked out. "You have shown such 
 confidence, such frankness in dealing with me, Mrs. Vick- 
 ers and I assure you I am touched by it that I feel 
 bound to be frank myself. Well, then, I wish to explain." 
 He had said this in the same hurried tone, and without 
 looking at her. Now he faced round from the window, 
 clasped his hands behind his back, and spoke slowly, gently, 
 as one struggling to choose the words that may best serve 
 his purpose. "Because of various circumstances, no re-
 
 2AS THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 marks of mine about Upway's teaching could possess the 
 slightest value. Indeed, I could not trust myself to dis- 
 cuss it. For some weeks I have been excessively harassed. 
 Moreover, frankly returning confidence for confidence 
 I too am not happy. Mrs. Vickers, I am very unhappy. 
 And my present state of mind the egoism one cannot 
 escape from unquestionably warps, even destroys one's 
 power to think as one should of other people's ideas. 
 This being so, I feel that I can no longer speak to you as a 
 priest. I I can not hope to help you further." 
 
 "I am sorry." 
 
 "No, don't be sorry. You see, I have told you your 
 duty. That is, I have put before you very severely, yet 
 not more severely than any priest would have done the 
 religious view the er the the view of the Catholic 
 Church." 
 
 "Yes and I humbly submit." 
 
 "You do. You are brave and good. That again proves 
 that I cannot help you further. So that is why taking 
 everything into consideration I think it better you should 
 not come back here again that I ask you not to come back 
 unless you are in pressing trouble;" and, unconsciously 
 perhaps, he used a turn of phrase that he had heard on 
 Walsden's lips. "You know: the sort of trouble in which 
 a brother and not a priest might help you." 
 
 Lilian Vickers had got up from her chair. She was 
 flushing again ; but she grew white in a moment as he came 
 towards her. 
 
 "You do understand, don't you?" he said, as he shook 
 hands with her. 
 
 "Oh, quite." 
 
 "You know that I am deeply interested and shall always 
 be in all that concerns you." 
 
 "Yes, thank you. You are very kind. . . . No, please 
 don't come downstairs with me. Good-bye." 
 
 And as he stood at the door holding it open for her, he 
 noticed her tallness, her unusually erect carriage, and some- 
 thing about her more dignified and self-reliant than he had 
 ever observed before. 
 
 He watched her go down the stairs ; then went into one 
 of the front rooms and watched her from the window. She
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 249 
 
 seemed now to walk sadly, but still proudly. And then 
 just before she disappeared, she seemed to droop, to move 
 languidly, wearily ; and he wanted to rush out of the house, 
 to follow her, to implore her to forget what he had said, 
 to come back again and again and again. 
 
 Once more he conquered a violent imptilse; but the 
 effort that successfully inhibited action was followed by a 
 reflex of fierce revolt in the realm of thought. 
 
 Why not have yielded? Why preach that doctrine of 
 blind submission? Why might she not escape from her 
 bondage, divorce the brutal tyrant, and find a mate who, if 
 not worthy of her, would at least love her more devotedly 
 than any woman has ever yet been loved? 
 
 He thought of the only possible answer to these ques- 
 tions. "Because by so doing we should break the divine 
 law." And then came more questions. "But do I myself 
 believe in the law? Does any divine law exist?"
 
 XXXII 
 
 IT was late at night! no distant, monotonous voice now 
 disturbed the silence of the house as Churchill sat reading 
 those manuscript notes that he had put together years ago 
 at Oxford. 
 
 Builders on Sand that was the title he had intended to 
 give them if they ever appeared in print. They were a vin- 
 dication of the Christian faith, a demolition of the specious 
 arguments of its enemies, and he remembered his feelings 
 while writing them: the pleasure derived from the exer- 
 cise of intellectual power, the satisfied thrill that comes in 
 moments of triumphant success, the quieter contentment 
 derived from a task fairly started and smoothly proceed- 
 ing to a workman-like completion. He remembered that 
 in the act of scribbling certain passages he had felt rather 
 sorry for the scientific doubters with whom he dealt. 
 They deserved punishment, but he was perhaps belabour- 
 ing them a little too heavily when they no longer had a leg 
 to stand on. 
 
 He read the notes very carefully, and they seemed to 
 him childish nonsense. He read with equal care his ex- 
 tracts from the impious, unbelieving books, and they 
 seemed to him sober direct statements of irrefutable facts. 
 
 Then he sat quietly musing ; for a little while quite calm, 
 pleasantly interested, enjoying this leisurely meditation. 
 He thought of that first deathbed scene, of his ecstasy of 
 prayer, of his rapture when the dying man had a vision of 
 high heaven. He himself felt the nearness of God some 
 transcendental presence that swept into the sordid little 
 room, instantaneously filling it with glory. And the man's 
 last flicker of consciousness was a certainty of salvation; 
 so that he died not as a person who slips or trips in front 
 of an express train and with agonised terror struggles to 
 escape from approaching annihiliation, but as a happy 
 child who enters the train itself to take the swift easy jour- 
 ney to the promised land of long and joyous holiday. Yes, 
 but all that was illusion. 
 
 250
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 251 
 
 The illusion had worn thinner and thinner at subse- 
 quent deathbeds, when Churchill knelt praying but not 
 really believing. He had not understood why and how 
 the glamour had faded. He knew now. Again and again 
 of late he had been tortured by the cruelty of such scenes, 
 when the doomed ones clung to life and craved for nothing 
 except a reprieve from the grave. He had thought: Why 
 tell these people that they are going to die? Poor 
 wretches ! The wives and mothers prepare them for the 
 parson. Why not concentrate all efforts on making them 
 oblivious of danger in their last hours? 
 
 That pleasant pause of mental calm passed away, and 
 the hot revolt that had begun this afternoon, when with 
 cut-and-dried phrases he drove from him the woman he 
 adored, burst into renewed activity. He got up, walked 
 about the room, talking aloud to himself. "Am I to con- 
 fess, then, that I have simply been the slave of supersti- 
 tion? At first I was its abject and unquestioning slave. 
 Then I must truly have known that my state was slavery, 
 but I would not attempt to free myself. I became the 
 slave of habit." 
 
 Doubtless his belief had been gone for a considerable 
 time; that dread lest others should waver in their faith 
 had probably been symptomatic of what was happening to 
 himself, but this was the shock of recognition of the fact. 
 For him the whole Christian legend had tumbled into dust. 
 He saw it as futile, childish nonsense. The questions of 
 those poor costermongers about "The Son of Gawd" were 
 unanswerable, had always been unanswerable. The story 
 of the divine atonement was utter bosh from the first word 
 to the last. 
 
 Yet even now he was struggling against the acceptance 
 of such terrible thoughts as these. If he could not throw 
 them off, it would mean an admission of idiotic failure ; 
 it would mean that all his youth and the better part of his 
 manhood had been wasted; it would mean that instead of 
 permitting the natural growth of his intellect, he had 
 starved it and distorted it so abominably that all the fruit 
 it bore was rotten and unsound. 
 
 Then he ceased to struggle, saying to himself, "This was
 
 252 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 inevitable. And if it is the truth I must face it. Little by 
 little everything has been taken from me my mother's 
 love, the anchorage of home, all hope of happiness in mar- 
 ried life; I have been slowly and inexorably forced back 
 upon myself ; at last I stand absolutely alone. My mind is 
 all that I possess. Why should I be afraid of it?" 
 
 And all through the night he raged and reasoned, driven 
 by a wild anger against himself and everybody else; 
 against the generations of fools who had handed down all 
 the cumbrous machinery of mental servitude; against the 
 State that aided and supported medieval folly and trampled 
 on those who tried to emancipate mankind; against the 
 teachers who darken the eyes and burden the spirits of 
 poor little innocent children; against schools like St. 
 Martyr's, towns like St. Dunstan's, universities like Ox- 
 ford against everything great and small that had had 
 its share in befogging, benighting, and befooling him. He 
 worked himself to a fury that was akin to delirium ; know- 
 ing that his thoughts were wickedly unjust, and yet giving 
 them full scope, stimulating them, flogging them to in- 
 creased activity. 
 
 Nothing in the legend! It is shattered by historical 
 research, by the revelations of science, by common sense. 
 
 He thought of all the ridiculous new sects that year after 
 year had split away from the Church and set up business 
 on their own account hundreds of them, here in England 
 alone. Well, the fault is not theirs, but that of the ortho- 
 dox faith a religion for children. How, unaltered, should 
 it retain grown men? 
 
 He thought of the great mass of modern clergymen. If 
 they are strong men real men they revolt against it. 
 But for pride's sake rather than own themselves fools 
 from the beginning they build up something from the 
 crashing ruin of the thought- f abric ; desperately toiling, as 
 black ants when the storm has washed away their city, 
 they strive to make order in chaos. 
 
 Christ was a man like themselves. We can all be 
 Christ. God is in us. God, the great creating thought, is 
 the spirit that quickens the universe. The highest mani- 
 festation of God, the living force, is in the mind of men.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 253 
 
 God's favourite abode or resting-place is to be found in 
 that grey cerebral matter of a centralised nervous system 
 of man, and of the higher mammals, perhaps, also. For 
 you can't shut the animals out of it all you can't keep 
 the other worlds out of it either. There may be beings not 
 enormously dissimilar to men, higher intelligences even, 
 on Mars, on planets of other suns in millions of worlds, 
 if you like. It is really a frenzied effort to patch together 
 something that will somehow hold water. 
 
 Thus you get from these strong unhappy men the Gospel 
 according to the Rev. J. Snooks, Revelations by Mr. 
 Brown, The Law and the Prophets as interpreted by 
 Thomas Nathaniel Jones, D.D. Most unorthodox! But 
 the bishops are unable, unwilling to interfere; sympathis- 
 ing rather than persecuting, because they too are in secret 
 revolt. 
 
 And he said to himself, "That old archbishop was an 
 unbeliever. He scarcely troubled to conceal the secret. 
 One could read it in his smile when, behaving like a hys- 
 terical schoolgirl, I flopped down on my knees and made 
 him bless me. If the blessing hasn't had much effect, at 
 least I needn't blame him. He didn't palm it off on me as 
 something valuable." 
 
 He thought: People like Walsden, Verschoyle, that 
 ancient of days at Sittingbourne, and all down the scale 
 to epileptics like Elvey, are simply monomaniacs. But for 
 the rest, not one clergyman in ten really believes. "Never- 
 theless, it is comforting for old ladies it can do no harm." 
 In the temple of their own hearts the veil has been rent. 
 "Notwithstanding, on its merely human side, we still con- 
 sider it extremely beautiful." They could not say more 
 than that not if they examined their deepest convictions 
 and dared faithfully to utter them. 
 
 Lashing himself to almost delirious fury, he said, "Only 
 cowards can pretend to themselves to believe. Only cow- 
 ards can refuse the light of truth that glimmers in every 
 man's brain." 
 
 As he thought of these things, Edward Churchill felt 
 that he would go mad, unless quickly he broke with it all 
 and began to forget.
 
 254 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 Next morning he was absolutely worn out. It had been 
 the most dreadful night that he had ever passed. When he 
 looked back at its hot rages, its brutal violences, its sweep- 
 ingly cruel accusations against numberless unknown men 
 whose single-heartedness he had always hitherto respected 
 and could not now logically or sanely question, it seemed 
 to him more like a demoniac possession than any explicable 
 nerve storm. It reminded him again of the biographical 
 fables of early monastic literature. Just such a night, hun- 
 dreds of years ago, might have served for the culminating 
 description of a sorely tempted monk in his stone cell. He 
 has withstood all the temptations of the senses, minor de- 
 mons with their visions of female seductiveness can make 
 nothing of him; starved, flogged, drained of blood, he 
 defies the lures that appeal only to matter, and his spirit 
 remains triumphant. So then the Devil himself enters 
 into his mind, tears and claws at the very foundations of 
 his strength, shakes him with remorseless frenzy from sun- 
 down to sunrise. 
 
 He stayed indoors all day, and on the following night he 
 was able to sleep. On the day after he felt calm, but 
 unspeakably sad. 
 
 He thought, "If my loss of faith is to be a permanent 
 loss, I have lost all that made life worth living. I am too 
 old to begin again. I can never readjust myself to the new 
 conditions. I shall commit suicide, and save all further 
 bother. No one will miss me ; no one will regret me. But, 
 oh, how futile I shall have proved myself." 
 
 But the faith might return. As he knew, many priests 
 go through periods of disbelief, and then believe again. 
 Men who call themselves atheists during long stretches of 
 years become devout and staunch Christians. Scientists 
 who spend their lives in explaining everything find at last 
 that they have explained nothing, cease to docket and label 
 their incomprehensible mysteries, cease to inquire, cease to 
 expect any answers, and with empty receptive minds take 
 back the peaceful hope of knowing all in God's good time. 
 
 Perhaps he, too, would recover his belief. He deter- 
 mined to say nothing as yet to Walsden, to continue work-
 
 255 
 
 ing as long as possible, and to trust that another mental 
 change might come. But his confidence was weak. 
 
 Late on Sunday evening he went out to St. Ursula's 
 rectory to see the Verschoyles. Both of them had been 
 writing to him of late, urging him not to desert them, and 
 Mrs. Verschoyle had especially begged him to pay them a 
 visit this afternoon. 
 
 It was a dark, airless night, and as he slowly made his 
 way from the rectory gate through the darkness towards 
 the lighted window of the porch he felt the oppression of 
 the atmosphere as well as the dull weight on his mind. He 
 paused irresolute, and was more inclined to prowl about 
 the dark garden all alone with his sad thoughts than to 
 enter a brightly-lighted room and laugh and talk. 
 
 He found several people in the drawing-room, and the 
 conversation ran so freely that he was not called upon to 
 take any large part in it. He sat there thinking of what this 
 room had been to him such a little while ago his harbour 
 of refuge, his place of beauty, the pleasant dwelling-house 
 of faith and hope. All was as it had been. Only he had 
 changed. Verschoyle and the young curates made him sit 
 in the biggest arm-chair; he was told to smoke; and the 
 friendly simple talk went on. He was glad that no con- 
 fidences or brotherly confessions were possible; but Mrs. 
 Verschoyle looked at him from time to time with quick, 
 searching glances. 
 
 When he left, it was she and not Verschoyle who came 
 out, and through the hall with him. 
 
 "Tell me," she said, putting her hand on his arm, "what's 
 the matter. Are you still worrying yourself about that 
 poor woman?" 
 
 "No," he said. And this was true, for in these last few 
 days he had scarcely remembered Lilian's existence. He 
 had been thinking only of himself. 
 
 "Christian," she said, "tell me trust me." He went 
 down the steps, and she stood above him in the light of the 
 porch. "Won't you tell me?" 
 
 He looked at her, but did not speak. 
 
 "Christian, what is it? What is there in the pathway 
 now?"
 
 256 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 "It is the Giant Despair ; and this time I shall not escape 
 from him." 
 
 And he turned and went towards the gate. 
 
 "Stay. I can't let you go like this, Christian," she called 
 after him, but he would not answer. She heard his foot- 
 steps in the darkness, the gate opened and shut, and she 
 knew that he had gone.
 
 XXXIII 
 
 THROUGHOUT this week the weather grew warmer and 
 enervating; thunder was always threatening, but never 
 came; even Walsden complained that he felt slack, and 
 made many disparaging comparisons between the climate 
 of England and that of Africa. Mrs. Walsden one after- 
 noon at tea had a sudden and ardent fancy for lettuces, 
 which unfortunately could not be procured ; for Mr. Grevill 
 and Mr. Nape, going round the parish in haste, found that 
 not a sprig of green food remained uneaten. The lettuces 
 had been devoured, and indeed the "hokey-pokey" was 
 nearly all gone too. The ice merchants could not supply it 
 quick enough or in sufficient bulk to meet the demand. 
 The whole parish of St. Bede's seemed to be either moist- 
 ening its lips or gasping for breath. 
 
 Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hope- 
 less mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks 
 safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar 
 galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as un- 
 comfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells. 
 
 Twice Mrs. Verschoyle wrote to him, and once her hus- 
 band tried in vain to see him; but he took no notice either 
 of the letters or the visit. He could not act on their well- 
 meant advice. Mrs. Verschoyle implored him to do a re- 
 treat. "Go first," she wrote, "to Father Bryan, and ask 
 if they can receive you at their Roehampton House. You 
 know they would be glad to have you there, if the place is 
 not full. But of course the summer retreats are now on. 
 If not to Roehampton, go somewhere else. Father Bryan 
 will guide you. Go at once. I pray you, don't let any- 
 thing stop you. This is more important than parish work, 
 however pressing that may appear." 
 
 No Verschoyles, no Bryans, no retreats could help him. 
 He had passed beyond the reach of such kindly aid. It 
 mattered not where he went, for everywhere he would 
 carry the same thoughts with him. 
 
 257
 
 258 
 
 So the weeks dragged by, and it was again Sunday. He 
 felt an immense lassitude after the morning service; but 
 fortunately the heaviest part of the day's work was now 
 finished, and he had nothing more to do till Evensong. One 
 small duty might be performed in the afternoon, and for 
 this purpose he relinquished the quiet and repose of Den- 
 mark House. He wanted to see if three children who had 
 promised to attend the children's service were keeping 
 their promise; but he did not want to be seen himself, lest 
 he should distract the attention of these and other young 
 people, and put out Mr. Nape. Mr. Nape conducted the 
 children's services remarkably well, but he was easily flus- 
 tered, and had told Walsden that the presence of his more 
 experienced colleagues made him nervous and self-con- 
 scious. 
 
 Churchill intended, therefore, to go to the organ gallery 
 over the west door, and take a peep at things from there. 
 As he went up the stairs to the gallery the first hymn be- 
 gan, and he thought that poor old Mrs. Walsden was roll- 
 ing out the music very decently. It was the hymn about 
 faith, hope, and charity "Therefore give us love." 
 
 There were only two rows of seats in this western gal- 
 lery, and curtains on brass rods hung in front of the sec- 
 ond row, which was level with the organist's seat. Churchill 
 gently opened a space between two curtains; then seated 
 himself, and leaning his chin on his hands, looked down 
 into the church. 
 
 The three children were there three little faithful 
 hearts proving true to the promise. He was touched by 
 their fidelity, when he thought of what they had sacrificed 
 the open air, a street game, freedom. And the hymn, too 
 always a favourite affected him, as sung by all these 
 young voices in the dull, severe church. Moved by the 
 force of habit, he prayed for his three. . . . "Oh, there- 
 fore give them love." 
 
 The music of the hymn sounded grandly, and when it 
 ceased he turned to look at Mrs. Walsden. But the player 
 was not Mrs. Walsden. It was Lilian. 
 
 She had seen him he knew that instinctively. She was 
 stooping over the keys, showing him only her profile; her 
 hands like white lilies fluttering up and down while she
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 259 
 
 worked the stops, and her whole drooping pose as of a 
 flower that has been beaten by cruel storms. She was 
 playing the responses; pausing, listening, glancing at the 
 reflection in the slanted looking-glass, then playing again. 
 
 If he had not yet fully measured the extent of her power 
 over him, he must do so now. In a moment the world had 
 changed. The church became glorious as a cathedral. She 
 was filling it with heavenly music; waves of beauty were 
 pouring out from her ; floods of sunlight that she had sud- 
 denly released fell upon flaxen heads, and made the chil- 
 dren angels. And he thought: "'Therefore give us love. 
 . . . Yes, this love and no other. . . . Take heaven 
 and the endless ages, and the bliss and the rising scale of 
 supernatural power when our souls shall be endued with 
 divine force; take all hope of hereafter, but while we are 
 here and now, oh, give us love." 
 
 His emotion overwhelmed him, so that he sat limply as 
 he had settled down under the shock of surprise and de- 
 light at seeing her. 
 
 When she had done playing the responses she looked at 
 him, and he immediately moved along the seat to the edge 
 of the keyboard, and they talked in a low voice. 
 
 "Why are you here?" 
 
 "Mrs. Walsden said it would be convenient to her." 
 
 "Yes, you are always kind. I quite understand. You 
 came instead of her." 
 
 "Yes, I came instead." 
 
 "Have you all the music there? Or can I fetch anything 
 for you?" 
 
 "No, it is all here." 
 
 She played again; and he sat watching her hands, the 
 delicate fingers meekly, sweetly toiling, hurrying off the 
 keys to the stops and back to their labour. Then he looked 
 at her face the lips just open, the long eyelashes half 
 raised, and the steady patient eyes never shifting from 
 their study of the music sheet, the whole expression pains- 
 taking. Yes, painstaking. Pain had been her portion. He 
 looked once more at her hands they fascinated him ; 
 never still, now here, now there, untiring. 
 
 While playing the last verse of a second hymn she spoke,
 
 260 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 but without shifting her eyes. "Don't watch my hands, 
 please. You are making me nervous." 
 
 And presently she turned and smiled. And her smile 
 was like a sunbeam that changed to a knife as it entered 
 his breast seeming to make his heart bleed and the hot 
 stifling blood fill his lungs, and rise to his throat to choke 
 him. So exquisitely pathetic, in its trembling, flickering 
 beauty, and its piteous appeal : saying to him, "You see, I 
 am long-suffering ; but I am weak. Be merciful and kind." 
 
 It was his own thought that had made all the pain really. 
 He had thought, "Perhaps that is how she looks at her 
 husband, when his rage is breaking loose because her weak- 
 ness tempts him ; when she says, Til do anything you like. 
 Oh, don't, don't beat me.' " 
 
 At the conclusion of the service he asked her what she 
 had to do next. 
 
 "I am going home." 
 
 "Shall I come with you some of the way?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Are you expected home?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Is your husband away?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "When does he return?" 
 
 "Not for three days. He only left yesterday." 
 
 "Then there's no hurry for you to get back, since you 
 are alone. Come in to tea at the vicarage." 
 
 "No, I won't do that." 
 
 "They would love to see you." 
 
 "Yes, but I am rather tired. I don't feel up to talking." 
 
 "Come to Denmark House, and let me give you some tea 
 there. You can sit and rest and it will be cooler there." 
 
 "It has been very hot to-day." 
 
 "Yes. Will you do what I ask?" 
 
 "You told me not to go there again." 
 
 "I know. But now I ask you to come. Yes, you must 
 please do that. You can lie down and rest after tea, if you 
 like. Mrs. Clough will be there to look after you." 
 
 She did not make any reply. She was fingering the 
 silent keys.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 261 
 
 "Yes," he said, "we'll wait here until every one has gone 
 out. Then we will go." 
 
 They remained, talking of things about which neither 
 was greatly interested Mr. Nape's excellent manner with 
 the children, the rusty condition of the curtain rods, the 
 weather. Then they went side by side through the horrid, 
 airless street to his house, where he led her up to the sit- 
 ting-room, procured tea, and waited upon her. 
 
 Then they sat in the window seat above the plane tree 
 branches, talking quietly, with long intervals of silence. 
 
 At last she spoke of her husband, saying that he was 
 dissatisfied with the results of his tour in the south of 
 England. He had been there in London throughout the 
 past week ; and after his return next Wednesday he would 
 probably be here for the rest of the summer. 
 
 "Won't he take you or arrange for you to have some 
 sort of holiday?" 
 
 "I don't think so;" and she turned away her head. "I 
 am not complaining. Truly I have obeyed you. I am 
 bearing everything in in the spirit of submission." 
 
 He knew that he ought not to ask her even indirectly 
 how she had been treated during this week, yet knew also 
 that he would do so. 
 
 "Apart from all that the religious part, is life better 
 with you?" 
 
 "No, just as difficult as ever ;" and there was a little sob 
 in her voice. She got up at once. "I must go now ;" and 
 she stood looking at him. 
 
 "Lilian." 
 
 He had put his arms round her, and he drew her down 
 upon his knees. 
 
 "My bruised lily. My poor darling. Oh, what are we 
 to do?" 
 
 So they remained, silent, clinging, locked in each other's 
 arms ; she with eyelids closed upon her tears and a cold wet 
 face that did not warm to his kisses ; he half fainting with 
 pity and love. It was like an embrace of despair, and not 
 the strong passionate grasping at joy or hope of two lovers 
 who kiss for the first time. They were both so miserable 
 that they could no longer resist betraying their misery. The 
 paramount need of each was the forgetting of pain; they
 
 262 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 wanted to destroy the past and had no thought of opening 
 the future; they were as innocent of base desire as un- 
 happy children who are left alone in a darkened room after 
 suffering a cruel punishment, and who instinctively link 
 hands and try to comfort each other. 
 
 But soon she became ashamed, and struggled to release 
 herself. He set her free at once, and they sat side by side 
 in the window seat for a long time without speaking. 
 
 "I had better go." 
 
 "No," he said. "Wait. Let me think a little;" and he 
 took her hand, and held it. 
 
 "I had better go," she said again. "I ought not to have 
 come. It is why you told me not to You were afraid 
 of this happening." 
 
 "Yes. . . . And now it has happened, nothing can 
 undo it. It is the end of all pretences. You feel that your- 
 self, don't you?" 
 
 She sat with her head drooping, and never lifted her 
 eyes. Her hand lay passive in his. 
 
 "It is wicked and dreadful," she said. 
 
 "I don't know. I don't think it is. It would be dreadful 
 if we treated it lightly. Just now I feel stunned, and I 
 cannot think connectedly. By to-morrow I shall know how 
 we ought to act." 
 
 "It is my fault. It is always the woman who is to 
 blame." 
 
 "No, a million times no. If there is blame, it is all 
 mine;" and again he put his arms round her, and held her 
 close against his heart. 
 
 Time passed, and the clanging bell of St. Bede's began 
 to sound its ugly note for Evensong. The faithful were 
 being summoned to worship, but one of God's messengers 
 had lost himself. It seemed as if there might be a congre- 
 gation waiting for a sermon, and no one ready to preach 
 it. Nape would have to read something to them, or 
 Walsden could get up and gossip about the jungle. 
 
 But then finally Churchill heard the bell, and sprang to 
 his feet. 
 
 "I must leave you now, Lilian. You will hear from me 
 I will see you some time to-morrow or next day at 
 the latest. I'll arrange I'll plan I'll decide what is best.
 
 [THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 263 
 
 And don't fear, my darling. Be brave now in another 
 way." 
 
 And he ran through the streets to the place of his pro- 
 fessional duty. 
 
 He was just in time to pull on his surplice and to follow 
 Walsden and the choir as they marched out of the vestry. 
 
 He performed his part of the service without knowing 
 what he said and scarcely knowing where he was. Then 
 came the sermon, and he had to pull himself together. He 
 tried to conceal all signs of internal trouble and perhaps 
 succeeded. But the words that even remotely implied 
 faith stuck in his throat, and made him stammer and 
 cough. The crisis was over now. He knew that he did 
 not believe; and he seemed to know also, with absolute 
 certainty that he would never believe again on this side of 
 the tomb. 
 
 He went straight home to his rooms, and, walking back- 
 wards and forwards between the bedroom and the sitting- 
 room, he took off his black coat, then the black waistcoat, 
 then the Roman collar. Beneath there was a grey flannel 
 shirt, and he opened this widely at the neck, as though the 
 stiff white collar had still been there oppressing and chafing 
 him. Then he put on a shabby old Norfolk jacket, and 
 stood looking at the discarded garments as they lay where 
 he had tossed them. 
 
 He thought. "They formed the modern, up-to-date garb 
 of slavery and superstitution. In that sense they are the 
 Devil's livery, and I vow and swear that I will never wear 
 it again." 
 
 Mrs. Clough presently brought him his bread-and-cheese 
 supper, and he ate with appetite. When he went to bed he 
 slept quietly and profoundly. Indeed he had not enjoyed 
 such dreamless, refreshing slumber since that night years 
 and years ago after he had just vowed to give his life to 
 all those things which he had now abandoned for ever.
 
 XXXIV 
 
 CHURCHILL was up betimes, and after a hearty breakfast 
 he went into what was called "the old gentleman's room." 
 Mr. Philbrick, who was sitting up in bed and smoking, 
 looked at him with surprise and spoke with affectionate 
 interest. 
 
 "I awmost took you for a stranger, sir. Never seen 
 you in that costume before." 
 
 Churchill was wearing the homespun jacket and a pair 
 of grey flannel trousers, with an old college scarf tied 
 loosely round his neck and a straw hat on the back of his 
 head. 
 
 "I'm off for a day's tramp," he said, smiling. "I want 
 to leave the pavements behind me for a few hours, and get 
 among some open fields where one can sit down and 
 think quietly." 
 
 "Very nice, too." 
 
 "And how are you, Mr. Philbrick?" 
 
 "All the better for seeing you, sir. You haven't hon- 
 oured me much latterly." 
 
 "No, I have been very neglectful but really I couldn't 
 help it." 
 
 "Good gracious, no, sir, how could you? I knew that 
 well enough. I says to meself, 'He's up to his eyes in 'is 
 'oly duties, or he'd give me the pleasure same as he used.' 
 All I meant to say was I've missed our bits of prayer, an* 
 the readin's of them collicks. An' if you felt disposed to 
 favour me now with a minnit or two of it, well " 
 
 "Philbrick, I can't pray with you. I can never pray with 
 you again." 
 
 "Is that so?" And Mr. Philbrick took his pipe from his 
 mouth. "Always so busy 'ence forth, sir?" 
 
 "No. I may as well tell you the truth. You'd hear it 
 soon enough, anyhow ;" and Churchill put his hand on Mr. 
 Philbrick's shoulder and spoke with great earnestness. "I 
 ask, I beg and I honestly advise that you won't allow this 
 
 264
 
 265 
 
 thing to make the slightest difference to you. But I can't 
 pray, because the truth is I don't believe in it any more." 
 
 "Don't believe no more! Well, I'm blowed. What 
 next? Why not?" 
 
 "To me it's unbelievable." 
 
 'Too thick, eh? Well, you know that's what I always 
 said. Wants a bit of swallowing! But you was ?o sure 
 as if you'd been there and seen it all done." The old fel- 
 low smoked reflectively; then pointed with the mouthpiece 
 of his pipe and went on talking. "I'm sorry you should 
 be so upset, sir. Dessay it weighs on your mind like. 
 Bound to do, sir;" and as he looked at Churchill his eyes 
 were screwed up so small that they almost disappeared. 
 "Yes, I'm more'n sorry you should be upset." 
 
 The old chap was not upset himself. Really, either way, 
 what did it matter? As he used to say, "I like these relig- 
 ious people. They're right. Right all through. Never 
 served you a dirty trick." But he liked the people them- 
 selves for their humanity, polite manners, kindness and 
 just took their creed on trust. Judge of a tree by its fruit. 
 If the thing was good enough for Mr. Walsden and all 
 the other kind gentlemen, it was good enough for him. 
 
 Churchill, rejoicing that his announcement had left Mr. 
 Philbrick so philosophically calm, started on the day's 
 outing. Life and love seemed to call him; all that he had 
 denied to himself seemed to be waiting for him ; but he 
 must make plans for the future soberly and methodically. 
 In that smiling future there were two people, and one of 
 them was of infinitely greater importance than the other. 
 He himself felt safe and content ; but she was made of 
 more delicate stuff, and happiness that came to her tainted 
 with disgrace might for a time, even for a long time, be 
 only a loosening of the chains and not their breaking. He 
 must act very wisely and cautiously for her sake. Oh, 
 what an idiotic fancy it had been that a beneficent God 
 could take pleasure in priests tormenting themselves and 
 in women remaining wives in homes from which love has 
 long since fled. 
 
 He struck northwards, riding on an omnibus as far as 
 it went, then taking a train, eager to shake off the smoke 
 and dust and noise of the town as quickly as he could ; and
 
 266 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 all the way he thought of the weakness of Christ's recorded 
 teaching in relation to life and to love. The preposterous 
 altruism too! If a man takes your coat, give him your 
 cloak. Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self 
 as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or 
 anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large 
 enough for a fair-sized dog. 
 
 And yet he had preached it to Lilian. There could be 
 no escape from her brute-beast; she was to go back and 
 turn the other cheek to his merciless hand; she was to 
 solace him in his drunkenness, be a submissive slave be- 
 neath his cruel blows and his nauseating embraces. 
 Churchill's heart turned sick with pity for her and scorn of 
 himself for telling her to drain the cup of bitterness to the 
 dregs. When she appealed for his aid he had played at 
 being St. Anthony not tempted of the devil, but driving 
 away an angel who had come to him. To act so was to 
 forget that he was a man. No man would let her go on 
 suffering. 
 
 He got out of the train at a roadside station, and, al- 
 though still only ten or a dozen miles from St. Bede's, 
 found himself apparently in the depths of the country. The 
 sky was clean and high, the odour of the earth was pene- 
 tratingly sweet, the landscape delighted and refreshed his 
 eyes; and he felt like a man who, after being condemned 
 by his doctors as a hopeless case, is miraculously restored 
 to health and energy. 
 
 He lay sunning himself by green hedgerows, strolled 
 through little woods where the light and shadow mingled 
 and made an atmosphere like limpid water, crossed wide 
 commons where the gorse made waves of yellow flame; 
 he listened to the song of larks, watched rabbits playing 
 on the nibbled grass, saturated himself with air and sun- 
 light and incessantly changing beauty. All round him, 
 near and far, life both visible and invisible was active, the 
 whole world was in motion, and heaven swung serenely to its 
 glorious, undeviating rhythm. And all that he saw, all that he 
 imagined of Nature's magnificent panorama these peaceful 
 summer fields, or winter's darkness or storm, the march of 
 the seasons with seed-time and harvest, black thunderclouds 
 and rainbow arcs, growth, ripeness, and decay all, all
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 267 
 
 seemed to say to him, "This is, has been, and ever will be 
 the only manifestation made to humankind by what they call 
 God." 
 
 The health-giving hours glided by; it was afternoon, 
 and he heard the sound of church bells, rung gaily. Pres- 
 ently he saw the church, a delightful little toy, with a 
 wooden cupola on its squat tower and a mantle of un- 
 trimmed ivy hiding its walls. He went down sloping 
 ground towards it, and found a rural scene as pretty as 
 anything in a book or a picture. On one side of the 
 churchyard there were the stretching park-lands of some 
 nobleman's seat, cattle dotted among hawthorns, distant 
 copses, and a ridge of hills all vague and melting in the 
 sunlight; on the other side one had a glimpse of a quite 
 adorable village, with old houses and gardens set far 
 back from a white roadway that culminated in an open 
 green. And across the green and along the dusty road 
 came villagers in their Sunday best, two and two, carry- 
 ing nosegays, like the chorus people of a comic opera. It 
 was a rustic wedding. 
 
 Churchill went into the church and watched the cere- 
 mony. 
 
 Only the bride believed really. No one else fti all the 
 church. You could hear it in their voices. Tlje parson, a 
 nice old fellow, had humanity and infinite kindness in his 
 tone as he talked to them, speaking the sacred words; but 
 no belief. Neither he nor any one else believed. Only in 
 the bride's eyes and her shy whisper was there the true 
 childlike belief; and Churchill thought, "She is a child. 
 This crowning of her love is to her of such infinite im- 
 portance that there is nothing unbelievable in the notion 
 of God Himself desiring to be present at the ceremony. 
 She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But 
 the others are all easy and jovial thinking about the 
 good fare that is soon to be eaten, about- the hired fly, 
 about anything." 
 
 And indeed, he thought, as he studied the faces, would 
 it not be absurd to expect any sign of real belief? How 
 could they come trooping in so comfortably, if for a mo- 
 ment they believed that it was God's house; that here, in 
 this frail structure, was lodged the mysterious force that
 
 268 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 governs and controls surrounding nature, that created the 
 universe and supplies the power that keeps it in motion? 
 He thought of such people in an electric power-house, the 
 engine-room of an Atlantic liner, or even in a small vil- 
 lage saw-mill. Look at them now, and as a contrast im- 
 agine their aspect and demeanour under those other con- 
 ditions, when they do believe in the power when they 
 know that, hidden but terribly near, the death-dealing force 
 is really there. They would scarcely venture in at the 
 door; they would not budge, they would not dare to 
 breathe freely, because of their fear and awe and wonder. 
 And that is just how they would act here, in this power- 
 house, if for a moment they believed. 
 
 His mind steadied itself during the long silent day. He 
 ate a little food towards evening, when sadness had re- 
 turned to the air; and as he walked home, already like 
 the busy insect that must build again each time that its 
 stronghold is destroyed he was shaping something from 
 the wreck of the old thoughts. 
 
 Altruism yes, but rational altruism. Pity for others; 
 much love for others ; the golden rule with manly limita- 
 tions. Do as you would be done by. Don't ask too much 
 from others, or want others to do more than as a respon- 
 sible man you ought to ask ; and be sure that you need not 
 do it yourself, should they ask you. 
 
 Not materialism. That is impossible. We have lived 
 beyond it. The lamp and the mirror in each man render 
 it impossible. Till the mirror showed one one's spiritual 
 self, selfishness as of the beasts that do not know them- 
 selves was still possible. But when the lamp-flame began 
 to be fed with thought and memory made the mirror, in- 
 tangible things were not less real than solid substance; 
 to-day could no longer wipe out yesterday; remorse be- 
 came as deadly as death itself. What the mirror shows 
 must be fair to look on, or we cannot be happy. 
 
 He had been upon his feet for many hours, but he 
 walked without any sense of fatigue. He was strong and 
 free. He was a sick man come to life again; he had 
 burst the death shrouds of superstition, escaped from the 
 thought-tomb, and returned to the light of day. He felt no 
 fear and no regret ; he was troubled by no doubt even. He
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 269 
 
 would never feel that in abandoning his religious faith 
 he had also lost his ethical guide ; he needed nothing beyond 
 that which was left to him; he could trust to the Mirror 
 and the Lamp. 
 
 The evening wore on, and it was as dark as it would be 
 between now and dawn. Nothing in the landscape was 
 hidden, but all objects had changed; greyness and mys- 
 tery threw veils upon the commonest things and made them 
 fine. As he climbed over high ground and a wide view 
 opened out before him, he was struck by the fantastic 
 aspect of this northward approach to London. He looked 
 down upon strangely-shaped mounds and holes that one 
 might have imagined to be the work of giants; and soon 
 the giants' playthings could be vaguely distinguished the 
 black round entrance of a tunnel, little trains with red 
 tail-lights, viaducts, signal lanterns. Further on there 
 were gasometers, water towers, a network of broadening 
 railways; all beautiful and fantastic in the summer night, 
 with white smoke like fallen clouds that flashed into flame 
 and faded; while deep down in shadowy roadways the 
 trams resembled lamplit houses rolling awav from their 
 foundations, or if one saw their dorsal fin, reminded one 
 of golden fish gliding in black water. Far ahead the vast 
 town illuminated the sky a sleepless, flaming city over 
 which night itself may not hover. And above the wide- 
 spread fiery glow, to be felt rather than seen, an illimitable 
 void the pathless tracts of space; worlds without end, 
 purposely scattered with ordered plan, or brushed like seed 
 pearls and never missed from the embroidered skirts of 
 measureless majesty ; solar systems mightier than our own, 
 millions of them, each narrowed to one small speck of 
 feeble radiance, to serve as guiding points by which our 
 mortal souls may wing their way towards the heavenly 
 home? Is it not palpably childish? 
 
 And once more he thought of the doctrine of the Atone- 
 ment. Ants might have entertained some such vainglori- 
 ous dream say the biggest of ant-heaps eating the flesh 
 from the bones of a dead man, with their tiny myriad teeth 
 picking a skeleton bare and white in the sunshine, and 
 thinking, "This god came down on earth amongst us and
 
 270 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 we devoured him." But that men not ants should thus 
 vaingloriously dream! 
 
 After another mile or two he had reached the outskirts 
 of the town ; and here he got into a tram and rode for the 
 rest of the way home. It was not yet eleven o'clock, and 
 before going to bed he determined to write to his vicar. 
 
 "Mv DEAR WALSDEN: 
 
 "For some time I have ceased to believe in the 
 Christian revelation, and now I have no choice but to 
 tell you that, etc., etc." 
 
 A difficult communication because he knew that it would 
 cause pain to a man of whom he was genuinely fond; but 
 it had to be made now without further delay ; and soon he 
 had finished writing, and had sealed the envelope that 
 contained it. He thought he would carry it round to the 
 vicarage and leave it there a bombshell for poor old 
 Walsden's breakfast-table to-morrow morning; and he 
 would have done this, had not the housekeeper come up- 
 stairs to ask if he had seen the letter from Mrs. Vickers 
 that was waiting for him on the mantelpiece. 
 
 "You came in so quiet I didn't hear you," said Mrs. 
 Clough. "There it is. She said you was to have it at 
 once." 
 
 "How long ago?" 
 
 "About an hour. She came mid-day, and I told her you 
 was gone for the day. Then she was here again this even- 
 ing and seemed dreadful upset at not finding you so I let 
 her write at your desk. I asked her if it was anything I 
 could do with the tickets or what not; but she said it 
 was you she wanted to speak to." 
 
 "All right. I'll attend to it." 
 
 The letter was simply a cry for help. She said that her 
 husband returned unexpectedly yesterday afternoon. He 
 was displeased by her absence; he forced her to confess 
 that she had been with Churchill; he became angry and 
 he had ill-treated her worse than ever. 
 
 Churchill rushed downstairs and out of the house. He
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 271 
 
 did not have another thought of Walsden, of his deter- 
 mination to conduct matters cautiously, of the necessity of 
 avoiding scandal. He was wild with rage; and if he 
 thought at all, it was of how most swiftly he could reach 
 that far-off house that held the woman he loved and the 
 man who had been knocking her about.
 
 XXXV 
 
 LAMPLIGHT showed from the two windows of their liv- 
 ing-room. Churchill, who had run for the last half-mile, 
 stood close to the windows listening while he recovered 
 breath. He heard the man's voice, a deep-toned growl at 
 intervals, and he felt sure that Lilian was there also. 
 
 "My sweetheart," he said to himself, "did you think I 
 had deserted you?" 
 
 Then he rang the door-bell, keeping his ringer on the 
 button so that the bell rang unceasingly till the door was 
 opened. 
 
 "Hullo," said the master of the house angrily. "What 
 the deuce do you mean? Oh, it's you, is it? This is a 
 queer hour to " 
 
 "Where's your wife?" said Churchill. Pushing back the 
 door, he had entered the hall, and he turned to the two 
 steps that led down to the large room. "Lilian, are you 
 there? Lilian, I have come to you." 
 
 Vickers gave an oath and followed him. "Who the devil 
 authorised you to call her Lilian? Look here, my friend, 
 you and I will have to understand each other. Yes, by 
 God and about time too." 
 
 "I'll talk to you directly," said Churchill. "We'll have 
 an understanding. Yes, I'll tell you what I want of you 
 directly." He spoke in a curiously artificial manner, his 
 tone rather high-pitched and hurried, finding it difficult to 
 select his words, and so preoccupied with thought of Lilian 
 that everything said by her husband seemed for the mo- 
 ment worrying and irrelevant. 
 
 There was a lamp on the piano, and another on the cen- 
 tral table. The table was covered with account books 
 and papers, and here Lilian had been sitting, hard at work, 
 it seemed, as secretary or amanuensis for her husband. She 
 stood now close to the table, trembling, with her hands 
 pressed to her bosom. 
 
 Churchill went straight to her, put his arm round her 
 
 272
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 273 
 
 waist, and gently drew her from the table towards the door. 
 "Get your hat and jacket," he whispered, "and wait for 
 me in the hall. I couldn't come before. My darling, I 
 was late your letter was waiting for me. It's all right 
 now. I have come at last. Just get your hat, and wait 
 for me out there." 
 
 But she clung to him, terrified. Her husband barred 
 the way. 
 
 "Stand aside," said Churchill. 
 
 "Are you mad?" said Vickers. 
 
 "Let her pass, I tell you;" and Churchill began to stam- 
 mer. "I I suppose you, you, don't think it necessary 
 for her to hear all I I'm going to say to you." 
 
 "No," said Vickers, with another oath, and he stood 
 aside. "Lilian, you may go. Yes, you are to go up- 
 stairs to bed. Go to bed at once;" and he put his hands 
 in his pockets, moved across to the table, and sat down. 
 
 "Of course you're not to go to bed," said Churchill. 
 "Go up and fetch your hat if it's up there, Lilian. Then 
 wait outside the door." And then he saw her face in the 
 full light that fell upon it from the lamp on the piano. Her 
 eyelids were swollen by much weeping, her lips quivered 
 and twitched, and it seemed to him that he saw a tell-tale 
 mark a broad reddened patch on the white face. The 
 man had hit her perhaps with his open hand or the back 
 of his hand as they sat at the table, while she was humbly 
 slaving for him. Obviously it had not been a blow from 
 the fist. No, just a buffet, a smack on the cheek a hint 
 or reminder of more serious punishment. 
 
 And, at the sight of this mark, Churchill was swept 
 over the final outermost boundaries of reasoned thought, 
 and dropped far down into the region of simple primitive 
 instinct. He did not know what next he would say or do. 
 Hence onward for some time the words and the acts bub- 
 bled forth spontaneously. His voice was another person's, 
 and he heard it with a deep throb of satisfaction. What 
 the voice said was fine, exactly what he would have wished 
 it to say had he been prompting it with the utmost care. 
 
 "Yes, now for our little understanding." He had swung 
 round on his heel and was back near the table, stooping
 
 274 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 down that he might stare into the wrathful glitter of his 
 enemy's eyes. 
 
 "Well, what do you want of me?" 
 
 "I want your wife of you; and I mean to take her." 
 
 "I'll not let any parson come between me and my wife." 
 
 "I'm not a parson. I'm a man, and I'm going to see 
 which is the better man, you or I." 
 
 Lilian had not left the room. She stood on the upper 
 step of the doorway, looking at them, talking to them, 
 uttering implorations that were like cries. So far as 
 Churchill was concerned, she had temporarily ceased to 
 exist; he did not hear her, he was not aware that she 
 remained within sight and sound; but now, terrified, des- 
 perate, she came down the steps and clung to him again. 
 
 "Take me away before he prevents you. For God's 
 sake don't stay any longer. You don't know what he is. 
 He'll kill you. Oh, come now." 
 
 Churchill shook his arm free, dragged her with him to 
 the door, and pushed her through it into the hall. Then 
 he shut the door in her face, and bolted it. Finding the 
 bolt ready on the door was relief and joy. She was feebly 
 beating against the other side of the door and wailing 
 and calling; but she could not interrupt him. Once more 
 she ceased to exist. He and his enemy were alone. 
 
 He stood in front of Vickers, looking at his eyes, his 
 great neck and shoulders, and the stubble on his ugly glis- 
 tening jowl; feeling an ecstasy of anger and hatred, and 
 rejoicing in these sensations ; glad that he hated with such 
 intensity, drawing comfort and ease from the fiery rage. 
 
 "Look here," said Vickers, without moving from his 
 chair, "I think you must have gone mad." 
 
 "No, I have come to my senses." 
 
 "Well, I'm not going to fight with you unless you force 
 me ; but, so help me, if I do " 
 
 "Yes, you'll fight," said Churchill. "I'll force you 
 you dirty blackguard." And there was keen delight, an 
 exaltation as of strong drink, in the words the words of 
 that common voice of instinct that needs no prompting. 
 "You can hit your wife. Well, hit me. You hit her face 
 just now. You dog like that;" and he hit him with his 
 open hand. "Like that," and he hit him again across the
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 275 
 
 lips. The feel of the man's gross flesh beneath his hand 
 sent thrills of delight through and through his brain. 
 
 Next instant they were at it hammer and tongs, blind 
 with fury, not guarding or dodging, giving themselves to 
 the rapture of battle as completely as two wild beasts could 
 have done. 
 
 Thus they fought, fiercely and badly, in such a hunger 
 to get at each other closer and closer that neither allowed 
 himself a chance of doing real work. The room was 
 large, and yet they seemed to be using the whole floor 
 space as alternately they pressed their attacks; furniture 
 was being knocked over, though they still kept on their 
 feet ; a fallen chair was a danger that both understood and 
 automatically avoided. And throughout the noise of these 
 first rough bouts the woman outside the door continued 
 to wail and beat the panels. They did not hear her: she 
 might have been a thousand miles away. Her turn was 
 not yet. She had set two males to fight for her, and she 
 must wait until it should be decided to which of the two 
 she would henceforth belong. 
 
 But soon the fight improved in quality ; the wildness had 
 begun to spend itself; they were introducing a little more 
 method, and shaping for better things. Churchill still 
 slogged away rather wildly, craving always for the face, 
 neglecting easy openings to the body, in his excitement not 
 feeling any of the blows that he himself received ; and of 
 a sudden he was sent staggering, would have fallen but 
 for the table. 
 
 The lamp, too, was nearly knocked down, and Churchill, 
 getting round the table, lifted it from its perilous situation 
 and carried it to a window ledge. Vickers did not inter- 
 fere with him, and suffered him also to pull away the 
 table unmolested. He stood panting a bit, but meaning 
 much mischief, and perhaps thinking that Churchill had 
 had almost enough. 
 
 "Yes," he growled, "but you don't go now. I've not 
 done with you." 
 
 "No, I've not done with you either." 
 
 And they went for each other again. 
 
 The man was much heavier, as well as two inches taller;
 
 276 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 whenever he could turn his weight and power to account 
 at the same time he would be terribly dangerous; but 
 Churchill was hitting fast and hard, he was younger, he 
 was certainly better on his legs. He had begun to use his 
 feet properly ; every time he landed on the face now it was 
 a stinger. And Vickers was feeling the sting. His lower 
 lip was bleeding and bothering him, an eye blinked spas- 
 modically, and his right ear had been nastily wiped. Stung 
 again and more acutely, he gave a roar of rage, rushed in, 
 grappled Churchill tightly and overbore him. Down they 
 both went, Churchill underneath. 
 
 They were on the floor for minutes, Churchill under- 
 neath all the time. There was no referee, no seconds, no 
 audience of amateurs, no ring to be broken into by indig- 
 nant partisans; the lamps burned clearly and steadily; and 
 the woman outside the door, more frightened by the si- 
 lence than by the noise, made pitiful cries. Just what one 
 might expect in the circumstances was happening. Vickers 
 tried to finish there and then; he pounded as hard as he 
 could at such close range, raised himself and dropped 
 again with all his weight, wanted to smother, crush, and 
 mangle. And Churchill suffered the most deadly anxiety 
 for as long as it lasted, thinking coherently throughout his 
 helpless struggles, but never losing courage even when 
 most exhausted. "This is my own fault," he thought ; 
 "but I'll lick him all the same. . . . Ah, you'd like to 
 crack my skull, wouldn't you? Only I know how to tuck 
 in my twopenny, old boy." But he felt as if his ribs were 
 broken, his neck dislocated, and his heart being beaten on 
 with a red-hot hammer. Perhaps because Vickers tired, 
 perhaps because he thought the game was all his own, he 
 unexpectedly found the position reversed. Churchill was 
 on top of him, was getting free, and next moment a bent 
 arm blow on the jaw won complete release. 
 
 Churchill was on his feet again, out of breath, waiting. 
 Vickers, up again, allowed no pauses, went for him with 
 another rush. But he was weaker, much weaker; it was 
 fierceness of intention with very little else behind it; and 
 Churchill felt certain that it would be all right now. He 
 began to spar for wind dodging away, slipping by and 
 crossing the room, tiring his man, leading him a devil's
 
 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 277 
 
 dance. And almost subconsciously, at any rate without 
 loss of concentrated attention, he continued to think. Old 
 days in the gymnasium at St. Martyr's, the priceless wis- 
 dom of Sergeant Miller, readings and broodings on his- 
 torical prize-fights all available mental material seemed 
 to be aiding him, without hampering or confusing him. As 
 once before, many years ago but in play, not in earnest 
 that time thought and action blended, 'and the whole 
 force of his mind entered into the smallest movements of 
 his body. So that when rapidly and cautiously he steered 
 clear of a loose mat that perhaps might have slid upon the 
 floor, his very feet seemed to applaud and approve, saying 
 to him, "That's right. You can't be too careful. Just 
 take your time. If you don't slip, or otherwise make a fool 
 of yourself, this man is beat to the world." 
 
 Then, with recovered wind, he began really hitting once 
 more; patiently waiting his chance, and taking it with all 
 his strength ; glorying in the shock of the good blow as his 
 fist landed full on the face and the man went down beneath 
 it went down again and again. It was becoming easy 
 now. The man got up and came on, but only for another 
 dose of similar efficacy. The man's face was like a large 
 grotesque mask that he had put on to frighten children at 
 a tea-party; the injured eye had nearly closed in a per- 
 manent wink; the red moustache protruded ridiculously 
 over the cut and swollen lips, and these nasty side fangs 
 displayed themselves in what appeared to be an unchang- 
 ing villainous grin. And the huge loutish wearer of the 
 mask cut sorry capers, as if to make the grown-up people 
 laugh, pirouetting absurdly, stumbling, sitting down hur- 
 riedly, getting up slowly. 
 
 Churchill talked to him. "Take that. This is our 
 understanding. Do you understand? There! Understand 
 that?" 
 
 It was easier and easier. No need for hurry now. A 
 few more minutes why hurry them through? The man 
 was bleeding, snorting, helpless groaning under his pun- 
 ishment. His breath came with a whistling sigh each time 
 you hit him on the body, with a gasping sob when you hit 
 him in the face. At last he was down and could not get 
 up. After a lapse of consciousness he slowly and pain-
 
 278 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 fully scrambled to his knees; then he sank again, subsided 
 on his face, moaning, and feebly guarding his head against 
 the boot work that he dreaded might now begin. 
 
 Churchill, satisfied, stood looking down at him with 
 exultant smiling scorn, and did not feel one touch of pity, 
 although absolutely all the hatred had gone. "Long has he 
 asked for it," said that terrible voice of unflinching in- 
 stinct, "and now the most captious critics would admit he 
 has had it." 
 
 Then with a shrug and a laugh he turned away, and 
 went to unbolt the door. 
 
 "Lilian, it's all right." 
 
 She was half fainting, almost distraught, and at sight of 
 him she recoiled with such horror in her eyes that one 
 might have believed that the opened door showed her a 
 destiny she had been praying to avoid, that the wrong man 
 had won, that she preferred the tyrant to the rescuer. In 
 truth Edward Churchill was not pretty to see. He, too, 
 was blood-stained, battered. 
 
 "Lilian, take heart. What's the matter? Oh, you 
 haven't got your hat. Get your hat, dear. We'll be off 
 now." 
 
 Then he went into the kitchen behind the hall, carrying 
 one of the lamps with him. Out there he washed his face 
 and hands in the sink, and dried them on a roller towel. 
 
 "Now," he said, "perhaps it will be safer to put out the 
 lamps. We can't be far off daylight." 
 
 Lilian had crept down the steps. She was supporting 
 herself against the piano, looking at the prostrate form, 
 with wild eyes, her teeth chattering, her whole body 
 shaking. 
 
 "Come," said Churchill. 
 
 "Is he dying?" 
 
 "Dying? No;" and he laughed contemptuously. "He 
 has had the thrashing he deserved that's all." 
 
 "But I can't leave him lying there like that." 
 
 "Rubbish. He's as well there as anywhere else. . . . 
 He can find his way upstairs when he pleases. . . . Why 
 haven't you fetched your hat? Never mind." 
 
 Then he put out the lamps, took her by the hand, and 
 led her away.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 279 
 
 The night trams had ceased running, the morning trams 
 had not yet started; but outside Poplar railway station he 
 begged a lift in a dock wagon, and so they rode for a part 
 of their journey. When they reached St. Bede's the 
 streets were grey and silver with the light of dawn, and 
 they walked slowly side by, side, he holding her hand as 
 in the dream. The dream had come true. He had got her 
 now, and neither God, the world, nor the devil should ever 
 take her away from him. 
 
 At Denmark House he asked her if he should rouse the 
 housekeeper, but she said no. 
 
 "Very well," he said. "This, of course, is a shock to 
 you. But it is perfectly all right. It saves endless bother 
 and delay. I am very glad it has worked out just as it 
 has. You will be glad too. Now act sensibly. Lie down 
 on the bed and try to sleep for a few hours." He had 
 led her into his bedroom, and was arranging the bed for 
 her with a traveling rug and the counterpane to keep her 
 warm. "I shall be close by in the other room quite near 
 you guarding you. If you are frightened if you want 
 anything call to me." Then he took her cold white face 
 between his bruised hands, and tenderly, reverently, kissed 
 her forehead. "Good-night, my darling. To-morrow we 
 will go away, To-morrow our life begins."
 
 XXXVI 
 
 NEXT morning he took her a little way westward to 
 shops where they were able to procure all the things that 
 were necessary, her trousseau, as he called it, and a bride- 
 groom's suit of blue serge for himself. She was crushed in 
 spirit, still horror-stricken by the fight, but he told her to 
 be of good heart, that love knows no law; and the busi- 
 ness of shopping lightened her sense of woe. 
 
 "You like this, Lilian? It's fun, isn't it?" 
 
 "I like it," she said, "because it makes me feel that I am 
 with you for ever." 
 
 "Oh, yes," he said. "It's for ever so long as we both 
 shall live." 
 
 Then in the afternoon they went by train from King's 
 Cross to the village he had visited yesterday. Only yes- 
 terday, yet it seemed years ago. He had noticed a cottage 
 with a board inviting lodgers, and he went straight from 
 the station to this cottage. It was all so easy. Rooms for 
 his wife and himself? Oh, yes, why not? Twenty min- 
 utes after their arrival they were sitting at tea in the 
 parlour, looking through the open window, watching the 
 daughter of the house, aged six, drive three rebellious cows 
 into a paddock across the white road, and laughing because 
 two old ladies Londoners obviously were terrified by 
 the cows, and ran for shelter to a garden gate. When 
 they strolled out after tea they met their luggage in a 
 farm cart, the little cow-driving child sedately established 
 by the farm labourer's side. She had been sent to the 
 station to fetch the new lodgers' brand new cane boxes. 
 She assisted her mother in house, stable, and garden. 
 Lilian soon made the child's acquaintance. By supper 
 time they both felt that the village was their home. 
 
 Here, then, for a few days they were perfectly, idyllic- 
 ally happy. The clean air filled their lungs, the kind sun 
 warmed their veins, the soft nights brought them dream- 
 less sleep. All that there is in love the peace of love that 
 
 280
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 281 
 
 passes all understanding Edward Churchill tasted then. 
 They were the days which never return, the days for 
 which so many wait a lifetime in vain. 
 
 Once they wandered into the churchyard, and he told 
 her of the wedding party he had seen there. Presently 
 they entered the church, and she stood with him at the chan- 
 cel steps looking at the altar. Then she gave him a little 
 ring that he knew had been her mother's and asked him to 
 put it on her finger, where till now she had worn her wed- 
 ding ring. 
 
 "Say it," she whispered. "Say it here, before God, that 
 it is for ever." 
 
 He said it, and, looking at her, saw that her eyes were 
 full of tears. 
 
 "As long as we both shall live. . . . Say it." 
 
 And he said this also. 
 
 She whispered more words from the marriage service 
 whispered them to herself rather than to him, and then she 
 went back to the front pew, knelt, and prayed. 
 
 He went out into the churchyard and waited for her. 
 After a considerable time she came out, her face bright, 
 with the sunlight on it, as she threaded her way through 
 the graves to the low wall where he was sitting; and he 
 saw in her eyes the same look that had been in the eyes 
 of the bride. She, too, believed that God was in the church 
 listening to all those words. 
 
 They sat on the wall, and, while he remained content 
 with the present golden hours, she already spoke of the 
 future of the time when Robert Vickers should have set 
 her free and the Church could bless their union. 
 
 "Lilian, do such thoughts spoil your happiness?" 
 
 "Oh, no, but I shall be happier when there is no need 
 for the thoughts. ... It will save difficulties. . . . Suppose 
 we ever had a child." 
 
 "I hope we shall." 
 
 "So do I, when we are really married. How long will it 
 take at the quickest for him to divorce me?" 
 
 "A long time. A year I dare say." 
 
 "You had some more letters this morning?" 
 
 "Yes, from Walsden, from Gardiner, and the others 
 they are all writing to me." He got up and stretched him-
 
 282 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 self. "I am to be excommunicated, put outside the pale," 
 and he laughed rather bitterly. "But Walsden will try to 
 let me down as lightly as he can." 
 
 "He did not say what Robert is doing or what he in- 
 tends to do?" 
 
 "No. We shall hear soon enough from Mr. Robert 
 Vickers himself. He knows where I am." 
 
 Lilian looked frightened. 
 
 "How can he have found out?" 
 
 "I wrote and told him." 
 
 Before leaving London Churchill had written a second 
 letter to Walsden, a supplement to his disclosure of loss 
 of faith. He stated his conviction that in rescuing Lilian 
 from the brute who misused her he had followed the only 
 course open to him. He added an expression of his hope 
 that Vickers would at once institute proceedings for a 
 divorce; he should not, of course, offer any defence; he 
 was ready to pay damages to his last farthing. Naturally, 
 his paramount desire now was to regularise the position 
 of Lilian by making her his legal wife. 
 
 Walsden, replying, said very simply that he would rather 
 have suffered the loss of a leg or an arm than that this 
 thing should have happened. However, he could never 
 forget all that Churchill had done for the parish; he him- 
 self felt, and he believed that the authorities would feel, 
 that as far as possible Churchill's disastrous escapade 
 should be passed over in silence. For the good of the 
 many, as well as for the good of the few, scandal should 
 be avoided. Much harm, perhaps irreparable harm, would 
 be wrought if the affair became a public scandal. 
 
 As Churchill foretold, they had not long to wait before 
 hearing from Vickers. He wrote asking Churchill to go 
 to see him at noon on the morrow for the purpose of talk- 
 ing things over. He said that he had so far done nothing; 
 he would do nothing until he had seen Churchill. 
 
 "But you won't go?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I must go. I'll telegraph at once to say I'll be 
 with him at twelve." 
 
 Lilian was afraid terrified. She implored Edward to
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 283 
 
 refuse the interview. It was not safe. He did not know 
 the wickedness of the man. 
 
 "He doesn't mean to release me," she sobbed. "He 
 will try to get me back. Don't go near him never see him 
 again." 
 
 But Edward was determined to keep the appointment. 
 She could not dissuade him, and after a while she ceased 
 to try. She insisted, however, on going to London with 
 him next day, and, pale and trembling, was left to wait 
 for him at King's Cross Station. 
 
 "How long do you think you will be ?" 
 
 "Three hours at the outside." 
 
 He told her to fill in the time with a little more shopping, 
 and then meet him in the Station Refreshment Room. 
 "Wait for me there if I am late. Get something to eat. 
 I'm sure to be back by two o'clock." 
 
 He did not return. She waited for him, but he did not 
 come at two o'clock or three o'clock. The cruel hours 
 passed, and still he did not come. Then, in an agony of 
 dread, but with love conquering all fear for herself, she 
 set out towards the east, towards her husband's house. 
 
 Edward Churchill, as he approached the house, had 
 noticed some men of the dock-labourer class standing idly 
 in the street ; a knot of them were in the passage by the 
 hoarding, and one moved away from Vickers's front door 
 as he drew near. It was a little before noon. The door 
 stood open, and Vickers himself was on the threshold of 
 the inner room. 
 
 "Come in here. You're up to time so much the better." 
 
 The blinds were drawn, and Vickers seated himself at 
 the table with his back towards the windows, so that one 
 could scarcely see his hated face. Edward guessed that 
 the man was trying to hide the traces of the punishment 
 he had received, and he attributed the change in the man's 
 voice a grumbling muffled tone to the swollen state of 
 his injured lips. He had moved slowly and heavily, as if 
 still very stiff. 
 
 "Now," he said, "you'll be good enough to hear my 
 views, and then you can go the sooner, the better I shall 
 be pleased. First, about my wife "
 
 284 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMR 
 
 "She's my wife now, Vickers." 
 
 "Oh, no, my friend and what's more, she never will be 
 your wife." In spite of the semi-darkness of the room, or 
 as one grew more accustomed to it, one could now see the 
 vindictive passion of the man's whole aspect. He spoke 
 slowly, endeavouring to give each word its full weight, as 
 though reciting words that he had prepared and learnt 
 beforehand. 
 
 "I have not charged you for assault in a police court, 
 but you shall pay me for all. I shan't go for divorce as 
 your late parson- friends advise me. She is my wife, and 
 I'll have her back. Yes, whether you like it or not, that's 
 how it's going to be. Tell her so from me, and lay your 
 own plans accordingly. . . . That's what I've had you 
 here to tell you." 
 
 "Vickers, you'll change your mind." 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "Yes, you'll think things over, and come to a wiser 
 frame of mind. If you like, I'll own I have wronged you 
 to this extent, that " 
 
 "Oh, how condescending how like a parson! But I 
 thought you had given up the preaching game." 
 
 "I say, I own I have robbed you of your wife. You 
 didn't value her. She didn't love you. You didn't care 
 for her. You had forfeited all claim upon her. Then 
 why try to make her suffer? She, at any rate, is not to 
 blame for " 
 
 "I have told you what I mean to do and what I don't 
 mean to do. That's all. You can go." 
 
 "Very well," said Churchill. "But I am sure you will 
 change your mind. You are sore and angry now. Just 
 think it out quietly. It's for your own comfort as well 
 as ours. Give us freedom and take freedom yourself. 
 You'll easily get another wife to bully and knock about 
 again." 
 
 "Have you finished?" 
 
 "Yes. I have finished with you. But remember my 
 advice. And remember this too. If you dare to molest 
 her, if you ever venture to interfere with her in the very 
 slightest degree, I'm ready and eager to protect her."
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 285 
 
 He had come close and he stood looking down at Vick- 
 ers, who sat quite still looking up at him. 
 
 "All right," said Vickers. "I've listened to you patiently. 
 But when all's said and done, I'll have her back. Yes, 
 I'll have her back in my own way, at my own time." 
 
 Churchill went out into the sunlight from the darkened 
 room; and Vickers, following him to the front door, stood 
 there, to watch his visitor till he disappeared round the 
 corner of the narrow side street, and then to listen. He 
 saw no more; but in a moment confused shoutings told 
 him that the trap he had laid was working property. 
 Churchill had fallen into the hands of the Union men, 
 who might be trusted to avenge the outraged honour of 
 their secretary. 
 
 There were eighteen or twenty of them, and they fell 
 upon the victim with savage fury, using sticks and bars, 
 fists and feet, all together, in the best style ; giving him no 
 shadow of a chance ; almost killing him, when once they got 
 him down, kicking him like a football. It was all over in 
 a minute. Then some one took alarm, some one thought 
 he heard a whistle, a cry arose that the police were coming; 
 and the men ran this way, that way, through the passages, 
 along the streets. One heard their footsteps; then the 
 whole place was empty and silent. 
 
 Robert Vickers went back into his house and closed the 
 door behind him. 
 
 When after a little while two policemen came through 
 the passage by the hoarding, they found Churchill lying 
 on his back, bleeding, insensible, battered, with outstretched 
 arms like St. Stephen or another of the martyrs. He was 
 picked up, put upon a wheeled stretcher, and taken to the 
 small hospital at Poplar a bad case, three ribs and one 
 forearm broken, dreadful head wounds a really bad case, 
 the doctors said. Horrible to see, even when the doctors 
 and nurses had set him, trussed him, bound him, plastered 
 him a bundle picked up from the battle-field, with faint 
 life still showing. 
 
 Lilian found him in the evening, and was allowed to 
 remain at the hospital all through the night. 
 
 Before reaching her husband's house she had heard from
 
 286 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 people in the neighbourhood of "the accident/' and did not 
 for a moment doubt who was its victim. A tall, nicely 
 dressed gentleman, they said, had been "done in" and 
 taken away on an ambulance, but no one could say to what 
 hospital. "Prob'ly the London. . . . Yes, you may be 
 sure, the London. . . . Anyways try the London fust." 
 From the London she was sent to St. Catherine's, and then 
 back to Poplar.
 
 XXXVII 
 
 HE was between life and death for a fortnight; then it 
 was said that he would certainly recover, and soon he was 
 making good progress. But the progress seemed very 
 slew. 
 
 This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on 
 her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained 
 herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the 
 hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, any- 
 thing. In a moment she had dropped to the level of the 
 casual labourer. At the hospital people were kind to her, 
 but they were unable to help her, and it was painfully 
 obvious that they did not approve of her. Outside in the 
 open streets she went in deadly apprehension. Her hus- 
 band lay in wait for her, stopped her and harangued her. 
 He came to the hospital itself and gave the authorities his 
 version of her history, posed as the injured but magnani- 
 mous husband, willing still to forgive and take her back to 
 the desolated home. He had no fear now of her pro- 
 tector. 
 
 Gently but firmly the good folk tackled her. They tried 
 to persuade her to return to the man she had wronged. 
 Now was the time, while her lover lay unconscious ; or 
 now when he had been pronounced as out of immediate 
 danger. They could all detect the hand of God visibly 
 working. It was a judgment on Edward Churchill and 
 on her too. 
 
 Each time that she went to Edward's bedside she ran 
 the gauntlet of such advice and admonition. 
 
 The hospital nurses were divided in opinion as to 
 whether she ought or ought not to adopt the advice, and 
 they enjoyed discussion of the question either with her or 
 merely among themselves ; but most of them were agreed 
 that it would be a good thing for their patient if she could 
 be definitely shaken off before he got upon his legs again. 
 
 "I can't see anything in her to justify making such a 
 fuss about." 
 
 287
 
 288 
 
 "You don't think her pretty? No, on the whole, I 
 don't think I do either. She's what you'd call an elegant 
 woman, if she was properly dressed; but she's too pasty- 
 faced for my fancy." 
 
 This criticism was offered by a fine, bouncing, full- 
 blooded nurse. 
 
 "But she's a good plucked one," said another nurse. "Yes, 
 I do give her that credit. She hasn't played the fine lady. 
 Sister says she works all day at the boot place in Green 
 Street." 
 
 Edward did not know till later of the ordeal through 
 which she had passed; but, gradually gaining strength, he 
 began to understand some of her difficulties with regard to 
 money, and soon was able to remove them. He was the 
 proud possessor of an income of two pounds a week, but 
 he had by recent expenditure forestalled this. His bank- 
 ing account was overdrawn. Nevertheless, with Lilian's 
 aid, he sent a letter to the Bank asking to be allowed to 
 overdraw a little more; and the Bank said, Yes, a very 
 little more. He also sent a letter to his mother, explaining 
 that he was rather ill, and appealing for a loan of a hun- 
 dred pounds. 
 
 Mrs. Churchill sent him fifty pounds, with apologies for 
 only going half way to meet his wishes, but life at Brigh- 
 ton was not cheap, and she had so many unexpected claims. 
 She herself was not in very good health, and she hoped 
 that her "ever dear Edward" would soon be better. 
 
 Anyhow the money difficulty was at an end. Lilian need 
 work no more at the boot place; she could take some of 
 her wardrobe out of pawn, and sit by his bedside as long 
 as the nurses would allow her. And there would be suffi- 
 cient funds to take them to the seaside for his convales- 
 cence, before they started life again in earnest. 
 
 When the patient grew stronger the good folk tackled 
 him in his turn, and, as his state improved, their pressure 
 became heavier and heavier. 
 
 He must not dream of living with her again. If her 
 husband refused to set her free, he must renounce all com- 
 panionship with her. If the husband decided to divorce 
 her, then he must wait until the decree was made absolute.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 289 
 
 He could not possibly intend to set up housekeeping with 
 another man's wife. 
 
 "I consider her as my wife," he said feebly. "She is my 
 wife." 
 
 "How can you say that?" 
 
 "I believe it. It is common sense." 
 
 "She is not your wife in the eyes of God." 
 
 "She is in the eyes of all sensible people." 
 
 "Will you read a little book I have brought for you? 
 See, I am leaving it here within reach. Will you, later on, 
 just stretch out your hand, open the book, and read it 
 quietly?" 
 
 "I can't promise." 
 
 "Oh, do promise. Promise me at least to glance through 
 it. I am sure it will arrest your attention." 
 
 "All right. I'll try." 
 
 "Thank you. Now I must be going. But I'll come back 
 again. Thursday is my regular day." 
 
 It was terrible to him to be thus tackled by a large strange 
 lady an opulent middle-aged lady, an influential supporter 
 and regular visitor of the hospital. He who had taught 
 and then renounced teaching now lay at the mercy of any 
 of the most preposterous of teachers. 
 
 Walsden had hoped that scandal might be avoided, but, 
 alas, the scandal was rampant. Everybody here knew 
 everything about it. It was a subject for debate upstairs, 
 downstairs, in the wash-house and the yard. Their poor 
 little drama was. explained and published to all-comers. 
 They themselves had become public property; the whole 
 ward owned them; each bed and each bed's visitors had 
 the right to look at them, think about them, talk about 
 them. They would have been more to themselves if they 
 had camped on the platform of a big London terminus. 
 Very irksome to an innately, a shrinkingly modest woman 
 and a high-spirited but woefully sick man. 
 
 Yet everybody was kind to them, everybody meant to be 
 kind. Mr. and Mrs. Walsden came often to see him; Mr. 
 and Mrs. Verschoyle came ; Gardiner and Nape came alter- 
 nately. They brought him sad smiles, friendly pats on the 
 shoulder, gentle squeezes of the hand; they brought him
 
 290 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 flowers, and biscuits and fruit till the hospital forbade this 
 extra diet; they brought him news of the old parish, illus- 
 trated papers, and a miniature chess board above all else, 
 they brought him counsel, spoken and implied. They were 
 all so kind, but they nearly killed him with their kindness. 
 
 Representatives of the police often came to see him. The 
 police had the whole tale at their fingers' ends, and they 
 said they were almost ready to pounce on the miscreants 
 who had attacked him, if only he would assist them prop- 
 erly. They and his other friends were most anxious that 
 these men should be punished. 
 
 But he would not help by supplying information which 
 might be of use in fixing the guilt on the right men. He 
 said, "No. It was one man really. That is, I gave one 
 man a thrashing, and he got twenty men to thrash me. 
 Well, we are quits now. T ^m content to leave it at that." 
 
 The police and especially dii inspector who had known 
 and liked Churchill for three years were distressed by 
 this attitude of mind. Crime is crime, and it is against the 
 public interest that criminals should go unpunished. They 
 thought that Churchill should sacrifice any fantastic pri- 
 vate inclinations and help them to get ahead with their busi- 
 ness. They promised to bring Vickers to book when they 
 had polished off his gang of bravoes. 
 
 Vickers as the inspector reported was carrying things 
 with a high hand. He boldly asserted that he knew noth- 
 ing whatever about the assault. Mr. Churchill left his 
 house, and he shut the door and saw no more. He did not 
 pretend to be sorry far from it; he said he wished the 
 assailants had killed Mr. Churchill; but it was absurd to 
 suggest that they had been egged on by him, or to attempt 
 to create any link between them and him. They did not 
 belong to his union; they were in no way connected with 
 his union. They were just a lot of "rough customers," 
 who no doubt went for Churchill in order to snatch his 
 watch or purse, but were startled before they could take 
 the booty. "Rubbish," said Vickers truculently, in reply 
 to police innuendoes. 
 
 But the inspector, for his part, said he knew such things 
 about the shady antecedents of Vickers that he could bring 
 the gentleman up with a round turn at any minute.
 
 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 291 
 
 "Leave it alone," Churchill repeated wearily. 
 
 However, the disappointed police inspector proved a use- 
 ful friend eventually. A month and a half had passed, it 
 was towards the end of July, when a sadly cruel scene was 
 enacted in the ward. 
 
 One afternoon Vickers came to the hospital and de- 
 manded an interview with his wife. He would take no 
 refusal ; he knew that his wife was in the building, for he 
 had followed her and seen her enter it; he had come to 
 claim her once for all and to take her away with him. 
 Perhaps he had been drinking, but, at any rate, he was 
 loud of voice and resolute of air, somewhat scaring the ma- 
 tron, and only consenting to remain in a waiting-room 
 for five minutes, during which time his wife must be sent 
 down to him. 
 
 Upstairs in the ward there were several visitors, and 
 when Lilian was beckoned away from Churchill's bed two 
 or three of them took her in hand, urged her to go at once 
 to her husband and listen patiently to his appeal. It was, 
 of course, her true duty to depart with him, wherever he 
 might wish to lead her; but it would be downright wick- 
 edness to decline to see him. 
 
 She, poor soul, worn out and overwrought, wept, wrung 
 her hands, begged them to get rid of Vickers by any means 
 and prevent Edward from knowing that he had come. Then 
 from below came suddenly the sound of the brute's voice. 
 Five minutes had elapsed, and he was storming and blus- 
 tering to a couple of doctors. And Lilian, terrified, losing 
 her head, ran back to Edward, flung herself down at the 
 bedside, imploring all to protect her. 
 
 "Don't take me from him. For God's sake have pity and 
 let me stay with him." 
 
 Edward Churchill struggled up in 'his bed, burst a 
 bandage, and the blood gushed forth from his wounds. 
 
 This episode was the climax of the scandal. It caused 
 a stoppage of work in the hospital for quite half an hour; 
 the staircase and the hall were full of excited talk long 
 after the doctors had persuaded Mr. Vickers to go. "Oh, 
 he is a beast. . . . No, I don't blame her now. . . . 
 Yes, she's right to stick to the other, now she's got him." 
 The adverse nurses changed their opinion after a glimpse
 
 292 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 of the deserted husband, and henceforth had more sym- 
 pathetic thoughts for Lilian. 
 
 After this a strong, kind doctor interposed his authority, 
 and made the case his own. He obliterated the good folk 
 altogether, telling them in effect: "I cannot discuss moral- 
 ity or conventions. The woman is necessary for the case. 
 I cannot answer for the recovery of my patient if he is 
 worried by the absence of the woman." 
 
 He talked, too, to Edward Churchill, advising him not 
 to be foolish, but to turn the police on to the husband. 
 "They'll draw his teeth or muzzle him somehow." 
 
 So the inspector was sent for, and the three of them 
 debated the matter. The inspector was delighted. He 
 would see the man, frighten him, and offer him a bargain. 
 He would say, unofficially, "We have a grand old rod in 
 pickle for you, and we will use it. We will go for you if 
 you give us any more of your nonsense. But if you'll let 
 us alone, we'll let you alone. You have your remedy in 
 the Divorce Court, and if you're sensible you'll take your 
 remedy." 
 
 Churchill did not like it, but he was too weak to oppose 
 it, and the doctor and the inspector both said it was abso- 
 lutely quite all right. 
 
 The inspector was successful. Vickers swore vengeance 
 still, but he attempted no further molestation. Week after 
 week slipped by, and there was something like comfort at 
 the sick bed. Lilian sat there, holding her loved one's hand 
 in hers, and often they talked hopefully of the future. 
 
 The world was wide and open before them. All this 
 fuss and talk might be considered as purely local; outside 
 the slightly larger circle of life touched by the small circle 
 of St. Bede's parish, nobody had heard of their adventures 
 or would care twopence how the adventures ended. 
 Edward Churchill, an obscure priest, had been inhibited, 
 unfrocked, turned out of the Church, however unflatter- 
 ingly the fact might be described. But the fact itself was 
 without importance, so completely devoid of general in- 
 terest that it would not justify a small type paragraph in 
 an evening paper. Truly, as Lilian said so hopefully, they 
 could make a fresh start and drop all the past behind them. 
 
 Nevertheless, probably because his weakness induced
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 293 
 
 depression of spirits, he had bitter thoughts sometimes in 
 regard to their present position and the failure that he had 
 made of his life. His friends had all wanted to let him 
 down lightly. This he understood, and too plainly he 
 could put himself at their point of view. Deprived of the 
 help of palliative phrases, he was just a clergyman who had 
 disgraced himself and brought disgrace on those connected 
 with him by chucking everything and running off with an- 
 other man's wife. And in consequence he had been kicked 
 out by the ruling body of his profession. What's the good 
 of talking about high aims when a solicitor gets struck off 
 the rolls, a soldier forfeits his commission, or a tavern- 
 keeper has his license taken away ? He thought with great 
 bitterness that no one could be expected ever properly to 
 comprehend how and why he had reached this catastrophe. 
 Even those who loved him best must lose all trust in him. 
 The harm of his example would not only render more 
 difficult the work of Walsden on the religious side, it had 
 fatally shown to those lads of the brigade and the club 
 how a strong man can give up the struggle and abandon 
 all self-control. Better, far better, that they had never 
 seen his face. 
 
 At these times he felt a great remorse. But his love for 
 Lilian, deeper and purer now than it had ever been, came 
 as a guiding and sustaining thought. For the rest of life, 
 here was his task: to cherish Lilian. Yet here, too, what 
 a hideous failure! Instead of rescuing her and giving her 
 peace, he had dragged her down into the mud with him. 
 Instead of guarding her, he was a charge upon her weak, 
 crippled, helpless. 
 
 Indeed he was wretchedly weak. When they told him 
 that he might get out of bed, he could not stand without 
 assistance. They had said he would be able to go away 
 before the August Bank holiday; but August was nearly 
 over, and still he could scarcely walk the length of the 
 ward without fainting. He hobbled with a stick, his arm 
 remained slung in its cradle, he was the wreck of a man. 
 Nevertheless his own particular nurse seemed well pleased 
 with him. "See," she said proudly, after he had been 
 shaved and trimmed by the hospital hair-dresser, "see for 
 yourself how nicely we have patched you up. You aren't
 
 294 
 
 a bit disfigured, and I think we deserve a lot of credit. 
 . . . Now look at yourself in the glass." 
 
 He sat on the edge of the bed, supporting the glass on 
 his knees, and studied the reflection of his face. It seemed 
 to him to be the face of another man. 
 
 Surely it had undergone a startling change. Surely he 
 used not to have this face. There was a contemptuous ex- 
 pression about the lips, a hardness of outlook, almost a 
 dare-devil air reminding him of types among the costers, 
 the something aggressive or dangerous that tells one, "It is 
 all right while things go smoothly with this fellow; but if 
 trouble comes he is the sort to turn nasty, to go for people 
 with his fists or with worse weapons if available" an 
 untrustworthy look. 
 
 All this was in his imagination only. To those who had 
 known him in the past he was just the same. And people 
 who had never seen him till recently found no fault with 
 him. The nurses talked of his smile, and would have 
 trusted him to any extent. His own nurse described him 
 as a beautiful man. She asked him for his photograph, 
 and was rather huffed when he said he did not possess 
 one, and could not promise to be photographed at the first 
 opportunity. 
 
 "I shall think it very mean of you if you don't. I shall 
 ask your your friend Mrs. Churchill that is to be to get 
 you taken down at Sidmouth." 
 
 His friend was going to take him to Devonshire the 
 country that she loved as soon as she could move him. 
 She made all arrangements, she did everything for him, 
 she was his prop and his guide. She came to him this 
 evening, and he asked her if she thought he was different 
 from what he used to be. 
 
 "No, of course not. What makes you ask such a ques- 
 tion?" 
 
 "I don't know," and he laughed. "Perhaps it is because 
 I have been excommunicated. It's absurd, but I feel like 
 the Jackdaw of Rheims." 
 
 She winced and bowed her head. Each time that he 
 spoke flippantly of the Church he caused her pain. She 
 was ineradicably religious and her religion remained quite
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 295 
 
 unchanged; all the things that he had abandoned were to 
 her as sacred as ever. 
 
 Once or twice, lying awake at night, he tried to think of 
 the Mirror and the Lamp. 
 
 Yes, they were there still, very faint and pale, because 
 of his weakness, but still unshaken, undisturbed. The lamp 
 is one's innermost self, and the mirror is one's mind. The 
 lamp is not the soul, although you may call it that if you 
 please. There is no immortal individual soul ; but there is 
 something implanted, imperishable, in one's self of selfs, 
 and it has power to light the mirror and show one what 
 is fair or foul. 
 
 The Mirror and the Lamp ; in the wreck of all else they 
 stood as the one thing firm, indestructible at once symbol 
 and reality.
 
 THEY left London on a glorious September day. It was 
 so hot in the crowded third-class carriage of the Exeter 
 train that Edward Churchill nearly fainted; and a clergy- 
 man, who had been diligently reading a sixpenny novel and 
 chuckling at all the funny passages, saw his distress and 
 made him change seats. 
 
 "Yes, I insist. Take my place. You'll be more comfort- 
 able in the corner. . . . Your husband will get some air 
 here." 
 
 And unobtrusively the clergyman played the part of the 
 good Samaritan, opening an old leather bag and fishing out 
 a flask of brandy. 
 
 "Just take a nip of this. . . . There." 
 
 Then he resumed his novel, glancing at Edward from 
 time to time to see if he was all right, showing a kindly 
 solicitude. He talked to both of them at intervals, in a 
 friendly, pleasant way, asking questions, but without any 
 impertinent curiosity, and always breaking off the conver- 
 sation suddenly and burying himself in the novel. 
 
 "Forgive me I shall fatigue you with my chatter." 
 
 Before the journey was over he had asked if he might 
 come to see them at Sidmouth. He said that he lived at a 
 place not very far away. "I'll give you my address. My 
 name is Gates Allan Gates. I haven't a visiting card, but 
 I'll write it down;" and he scribbled his address on one 
 of the advertisement pages at the back of the novel, and 
 was about to tear out the page. But then he checked his 
 hand and offered the whole book to Edward. 
 
 "I want you to read this. It will amuse you. It is 
 exceedingly clever." 
 
 Edward said he could not think of thus robbing Mr. 
 Gates of the amusement that he had provided for himself. 
 
 "No, I beg of you. I insist. I am near the end well, 
 sufficiently near to guess how it all works out;" and he 
 gently laid the book on Lilian's lap. "Don't let your hus- 
 
 296
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 297 
 
 band be obstinate. You may like to read it aloud to him 
 
 of an evening." 
 
 "Thank you," said Churchill, "you are very kind." 
 And indeed he thought that an unusually kind action had 
 
 been performed. It was, as he felt quite sure, a dreadfully 
 
 bad novel, but Mr. Gates believed it to be one of the best 
 
 novels ever written. 
 
 They were fortunate in having secured cheap and com- 
 fortable rooms near the sea-front, and Lilian's belief in 
 the healing property of her native air was justified by the 
 rapid progress made by the invalid. Soon now he would 
 be quite well. He could already dispense with the arm 
 sling, he walked farther and farther every day; but his joy 
 was to lounge about the beach, to loll upon soft banks of 
 sand and watch the sea-gulls swim above the lazily break- 
 ing waves, observe the sunlight on their wings, and think 
 and dream. His eyes brightened always at sight of his 
 dear companion as she came towards him among the boats 
 and nets, with her scarf blowing loose looking such a 
 graceful slender girl, carrying herself so easily and freely. 
 She had more colour in her cheeks now; she seemed quite 
 happy. 
 
 Allan Gates had come to see them two or three times, 
 and they both liked him. He was so cheerful and friendly. 
 He asked Edward what he proposed to do with himself 
 when his cure was complete. 
 
 "Well, I must look out for work." 
 
 "I wonder what sort of work." 
 
 "I scarcely know myself. Anything to turn an honest 
 penny." 
 
 They were drawing slowly but steadily towards the end 
 of their fifty pounds; the blue serge suit began to look 
 shabby; life must soon be attacked again. When they 
 talked of their future plans they foresaw some worry and 
 annoyance. 
 
 In this connection Lilian had tentatively suggested that 
 he should change his name ; but he at once refused to adopt 
 such a suggestion. It was not to be thought of for a 
 moment. 
 
 "What take an alias, as though we were criminals? It
 
 298 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 would be to admit that we had done wrong. And we have 
 done no wrong." 
 
 "No," she said sadly ; "but we can't hope that the world 
 will ever take that view." 
 
 And she pleaded that their new start sho'uld be truly a 
 fair start, with no handicap of preconceived prejudice to 
 contend against, no weight of suspicion for her to carry. 
 "If people find out, well, we can't help it; but don't tell 
 them before hand. It's not fair to me. I can't face other 
 women if they know." 
 
 "Very well," he said. "If you wish it but it will be 
 difficult." 
 
 He did not like the idea of deception; but truly when 
 he pondered it there seemed to be no alternative. He could 
 not go about the world announcing that they were not a 
 legally married couple. He must speak of her as his wife, 
 because he considered her his wife. People could be left 
 to find out the truth for themselves. But he would utter 
 no lies. 
 
 She made him promise also that he would not inform 
 people that he had been inhibited. No one need know that 
 he had been in the Church and had left it. 
 
 "But Lilian for instance Allan Gates! Am I to say 
 nothing to him?" 
 
 "No, why should you ?" 
 
 "I I feel a great attraction to him. Without explicit 
 words, he is offering us his friendship. I think he is a 
 friend that I should value." 
 
 "If he became a friend if you were forced to tell him 
 anything say that it is our secret. He would respect the 
 secret." 
 
 "Yes, but about religion. I couldn't pretend with him." 
 
 "There will be no need. He hasn't talked about religion, 
 has he?" 
 
 "No, not yet." 
 
 Allan Gates was in charge of a church at Lipsford Val- 
 ley, a village over the hills ten miles away, where the cloth 
 mills, cottages, the church, and everything else belonged 
 to a most respectable family of the name of Burnage. He 
 had a charming parsonage with a nice garden, "And I love 
 it," he said, rubbing his hands together. "I am too fond of
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 299 
 
 it much fonder than I ought to be." He told them all 
 about himself. He was a bachelor, alone in the world. 
 For a long time he had been curate at a big northern town, 
 and he might have obtained preferment, but he possessed 
 no ambition. "Lips ford is just a backwater. Life leads 
 nowhere there. Perhaps I am wrong to be so contented." 
 
 He used to come to Sidmouth sometimes by train, and 
 then he wore the orthodox black; and sometimes on his 
 bicycle, in which case he wore grey flannels and a straw 
 hat: but whether dressed as a priest or a tourist, he was 
 looked out for by Churchill and welcomed with pleasure. 
 He came often. 
 
 He was about forty years of age, a fairly tall man, strong 
 and wiry; with a healthy olive complexion, hard features, 
 and a lowish forehead which seemed high because of his 
 baldness. He had a short stubby beard that had been black 
 and was now turning grey ; his eyebrows were thick and 
 bushy, almost meeting over brownish eyes not opaquely 
 brown eyes, but of a speckled colour, with plenty of light 
 in them. His voice was hearty, full of tone, most pleasant 
 to the ear. 
 
 To Churchill, looking deeper than the surface aspect, he 
 seemed to be the typical perfect Christian; tolerant, brave 
 and cheerful; simple and happy of mind; sorry for and 
 anxious to alleviate the suffering in the world, but quite 
 sure of the good things waiting for everybody in heaven. 
 
 He invited Lilian and Edward to visit him at Lips ford 
 Valley, and after considerable persuasion they agreed to 
 go. They both enjoyed their outing. Lilian, especially, fell 
 in love with the place, saying it was so restful, so little 
 spoilt by modern innovation, so truly Devonian. 
 
 The manufacturing settlement lay along the edge of a 
 stream about a mile further down the valley than the 
 ancient village, which they had passed coming from the 
 station, and, in spite of its purely utilitarian character, it 
 did not mar the natural beauty of the landscape. Even the 
 cloth mills themselves, built of fair stone, and of no great 
 height, were not unsightly; around them clustered many 
 buildings of irregular shape, while here and there a farm- 
 house had been converted to industrial purposes, and its 
 gables and ridged barns rose above the lower roofs that
 
 300 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 closed it in. Some of the work-people's cottages were 
 ranged in cliff terraces on the abrupt hillside and had a 
 most picturesque effect. The dwellings of overseers, 
 managers, and so forth, the superiors of the small com- 
 munity, stood on the roadside beyond Allan Gates's church 
 and parsonage, a tributary of the stream running in front 
 of them, with little stone bridges at the garden gates. 
 Across the main stream and a flat space of rich meadows, 
 the ground on the other side of the valley sloped gently up- 
 ward, and here was the principal seat of the Burnage fam- 
 ily, a white Georgian house with a portico, and the woods 
 and hills behind it to keep it snug and warm. It looked at 
 once grand and peaceful in the mellow sunlight. Autumn 
 had not yet touched the foliage of the beech woods ; cotton 
 gardens were full of flowers ; the fruit still hung on orchard 
 trees; the smoke from peat fires seemed to mingle in the 
 soft air with the perfume of newly-turned earth and the 
 sound of bells calling the work-people to their easy labour. 
 
 Lilian, looking backward from the porch of the par- 
 sonage, sighed. It was all so pretty, so very different from 
 Poplar and Barking. 
 
 After luncheon their host showed them with innocent 
 pride the amenities and conveniences of his house the 
 "book-room," which one had to search carefully before one 
 could discover any books, the tiny kitchen, the pantry, the 
 cupboards where he kept gardening implements, fishing- 
 rods, and his big pair of foul-weather boots. 
 
 "Yes, very convenient, isn't it?" And he repeated some- 
 thing that he had said before. "My conscience often 
 pricks me. Perhaps I ought not to be so contented." 
 
 "Anybody would be contented here," said Lilian. 
 
 Time did not permit of their making further explora- 
 tions, but on their way back to the railway station they had 
 the privilege of seeing old Mrs. Burnage drive past in her 
 fine carriage, and they met another of the family, Mr. 
 Gordon Burnage, on foot. Gates introduced them to him, 
 and they stood talking for two or three minutes. 
 
 He told Edward that his great-great-grandfather used 
 to take the cloth in bales on pack animals to the market at 
 Exeter, and the track over the hills was called "Pack walk" 
 to this day. He was obviously gratified when Lilian, shyly
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 301 
 
 making conversation, said that Devonshire had always been 
 her favourite county. 
 
 One afternoon, soon after this visit, as Churchill and 
 Gates sat on the Sidmouth beach together, Gates gave a full 
 and minute account of all that had not been inspected or de- 
 scribed at Lipsford Valley. Churchill loved to hear him 
 talk. Although neither clever nor intellectual, he never 
 bored one. Interested himself in all he spoke of, he made 
 it interesting to others. So Churchill listened attentively 
 to long character sketches of old Mrs. Burnage, the grand 
 chieftain of the clan; of Miss Adela, her great-niece; as 
 well as of Mr. Gordon Burnage and Mr. Edrick Burnage, 
 who were managing directors of the three cloth mills. As 
 Mr. Gordon had said, the whole place had belonged to the 
 family for generations. In a sense it was a unique indus- 
 trial community. All the work-people were very well 
 cared for. They had the use of baths, libraries, recreation 
 rooms; there was an excellent institute; there was even a 
 scheme of secondary education with courses of lectures, 
 and so on all run by the family. "They do everything," 
 said Gates. "Mr. Edrick always speaks of us as a re- 
 public, but, between you and me, we are really an absolute 
 monarchy. But it is a beneficent rule. There is nothing 
 to rub one the wrong way no tyranny of any sort." 
 
 Edward sat with his back against the stern of a boat, 
 his hands clasped behind his neck, watching the animated 
 face of the speaker, listening to the kind friendly voice, en- 
 joying every trivial detail of the discourse, but not in the 
 least guessing its drift. 
 
 "Our Institute has not been too successful of late. We 
 had a person who looked after it very badly. Now I am 
 glad to say he has gone. We want an altogether superior 
 class of man who could attend to the library also, arrange 
 things instead of waiting to be told what to do. What we 
 want if we could only get them is a really well-educated 
 couple the wife to supervise various small matters and 
 perhaps do something in the music line. Our music has 
 been a weak point," and he paused, smiled, and scratched 
 his beard. 
 
 "We are asking for a lot, aren't we? Mr. Gordon Bur- 
 nage offers as rumuneration only thirty shillings a week
 
 302 THE MIRROR AND: THE LAMP 
 
 for the two the man and his wife. It is very little. But 
 there is the cottage quite a nice cottage, with fuel and 
 light a furnished cottage. Living, too, is cheap. How 
 does it sound?" and he beamed at Edward. "For a man of 
 your gifts and power, it is ridiculous ; but still, if you are 
 at a loose end, will you come and give us a trial ?" 
 
 "Gates, you you quite overwhelm me. But I fear it is 
 impossible." 
 
 "Why ? You can't guess how I want you to come. Self- 
 ishly because it will mean so much to me. Mr. Gordon 
 Burnage instructs me to make you the offer definitely to 
 come and see how you get on;" and Allan Gates pleaded 
 strenuously in favour of the peaceful, happy life of his 
 backwater. "It will suit you for a time, at any rate, till 
 you find something better. Your wife liked the look of it. 
 I'm sure your wife would like to come." 
 
 "Yes," said Churchill, "Lilian would like it. I, too. But 
 I don't know if I have the right to accept. There are things 
 about me about both of us that you don't know." He 
 was looking out across the water, at the sails of a distant 
 ship that glittered whitely in the haze where sky and sun 
 melted into one. "I should warn you I must tell you 
 that I am not a believer." He unclasped his hands, shifted 
 his position, and played with the sand, picking up as much 
 of it as one hand would hold and letting it drift through 
 his fingers. "I don't believe." 
 
 "You don't believe?" said Allan Gates, without the 
 slightest surprise in his tone, smiling, beaming in friendli- 
 ness. 
 
 "No, I used to. But now I don't." 
 
 "Well, what can one say ? Don't let's talk about it," and 
 Gates stretched himself, as though about to get up. Then 
 he behaved in a manner that moved Churchill strangely. "I 
 don't mind, if you don't mind." He had taken Churchill's 
 hand, and he pressed it affectionately. "Leave it all as it is. 
 You once believed. You have ceased to believe. But you 
 will believe again." 
 
 And Edward Churchill, looking at him, saw his face all 
 lit up with love, and his eyes soft and glowing; and he 
 thought, "This man is my brother" 
 They both rose to their feet and walked away together
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 303 
 
 along the water's edge, Churchill feeling that, though quite 
 unworthy, he had gained something of great value. He 
 thought, "Except for Lilian, who means and is the uni- 
 verse, this is the grandest thing that has come to me." 
 
 They walked for a little way without speaking, and it 
 was Churchill who broke the silence of happy thought. 
 
 "You don't understand. I could not teach the orthodox 
 faith even by implication." 
 
 "That doesn't matter, if you don't want to teach in- 
 fidelity." 
 
 "No, on my honour." 
 
 "Then that's all right. Besides, you won't be required 
 to teach." 
 
 "But still you don't understand. For certain reasons, 
 because of things that have happened, I feel myself an out- 
 cast. I am rejected now by everybody;" and he quoted 
 the Psalm, " 'I became a reproof among all mine enemies, 
 but especially among my neighbours; and they of mine 
 acquaintance were afraid of me.' " 
 
 "Look!" said Allan Gates, pointing to the play of light 
 and shadow on the water. "Small clouds in the sunshine 
 how quickly they pass, how soon all is bright again! Your 
 trouble, whatever it has been, will pass away." 
 
 "Allan, why are you so good to me? Why should you 
 care for me?" 
 
 "I don't know. Perhaps because I am a very lonely man 
 perhaps just because I took to you at first sight. But I 
 have never cared for anybody as much as I do for you." 
 
 "I am not worthy. I don't trust myself. I may repay 
 you badly." 
 
 "I'll run the risk," said Allan Gates. "If you don't 
 trust yourself, / trust you."
 
 XXXIX 
 
 THERE were perhaps twelve hundred hands, men and 
 women, boys and girls, employed at the mills, and truly 
 they had no cause to complain of the conditions under 
 which they worked. They were well nourished, well clad; 
 they received a sufficient wage. They dwelt perhaps in the 
 midst of an artificial prosperity; for it seemed doubtful if 
 the cloth-making was any longer an enterprise that could be 
 justified on strict business principles. But the Burnages, 
 having amassed fortune by making cloth, having made 
 cloth for so long a period, went on making it instinctively, 
 or as almost a pious family custom. Their mills and the 
 small social domain gave occupation to their minds, filled 
 their lives with a wholesome, orderly routine of easy effort 
 and readily observable result. They had fought hard in 
 keeping out Board Schools, they needed no Government 
 aid, they liked to do everything themselves, and in their 
 own way. 
 
 If anybody was not pleased with their way, he had his 
 alternative. He need not stay jn Lipsford Valley. Mr. 
 Edrick Burnage would quickly suggest change of scene to 
 young fellows who seemed disposed to cause trouble by 
 looking discontented, by running after the girls, or by air- 
 ing foolish ideas at the works. "My lad, don't you think 
 you are wasted here? A fine strong young man like you 
 would be useful in her Majesty's forces;" and he spared 
 no pains in putting him into uniform the Navy and Army 
 still being considered as an extremely useful institution 
 for getting rid of undesirables. Heaven knows they cost 
 enough: it was a pity if one could never find a use for 
 them. He also in the kindest manner eliminated Non- 
 conformists, although a great stickler for liberty of con- 
 science and by no means a bigoted Churchman ; but he used 
 to say, "We happen always to have been Church of Eng- 
 land, and we are so small a society that we cannot be happy 
 unless of one mind." In all this he was actuated by hon- 
 estly good motives. 
 
 304
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 305 
 
 The rule was parental, in certain respects almost grand- 
 motherly. Water-troughs, drinking-fountains, the dock- 
 tower, even the benches on the paths beneath the trees, bore 
 tablets saying that they were presented by James Hacking 
 Burnage, Esq., or erected to the memory of Emily Kate 
 Burnage, as the case might be; and little notice boards 
 primly recommended passers-by to "Do as you would be 
 done by. Why destroy what has been arranged for the 
 pleasure of others as well as yourself?" "Please close this 
 gate," said one side of a board. "Thank you," said the 
 other side of the board a nasty little ironical erg, this 
 "Thank you," if you had left the gate open. Nothing was 
 too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could 
 suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common wel- 
 fare. Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally vis- 
 ited dust-bins and back premises, accompanied by a sort 
 of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer 
 doing billets. 
 
 He complimented Lilian on the state of her dust-bin 
 when he paid his first visit to the Churchills' cottage. "That 
 is right the lid on. It is so important to keep the lids 
 on. ... If you only knew how often I say that, and 
 how little heed is given to my words!" 
 
 He offered domestic hints about meat safes and the 
 preservation of food, and praised the curtains that Lilian 
 had hung in the windows of the living-room. "May I come 
 in? Thank you. How neat and nice everything is. And 
 your garden, too very tidy. It is well to be careful to 
 see that the culvert does not get choked with dead leaves 
 or vegetable matter," and he pointed through the window 
 to the little bridge from the road. "Now have you all that 
 you require in the way of furniture? Don't scruple to ask 
 for anything you want. We are always anxious to make 
 every one comfortable." 
 
 As newcomers the Churchills were ceremoniously bid- 
 den one Sunday afternoon to see the glasshouses and drink 
 tea at the Burnage mansion, and on their arrival they 
 were plunged immediately into a large family gathering. 
 The wives of Mr. Gordon and Mr. Edrick Burnage had 
 come from their respective houses; there was Miss Adela 
 Burnage, a pretty girl of twenty ; and outside the windows
 
 306 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 of the drawing-room one saw girls and boys of various 
 ages playing on the terrace with their governess. These 
 were the children of a Burnage who had become a bar- 
 rister in London a talented young man who had turned 
 his back on cloth and caused grief thereby, but had now 
 been forgiven. A large, silent man and two small, soberly 
 dressed women were probably not blood relations; they 
 had merely joined the party for luncheon, but they pos- 
 sessed solid interest in the works; they had always be- 
 longed to the place, and might be counted Burnages by 
 adoption. There was also a tall languishing lady of thirty, 
 a Burnage by birth, who, one somehow gathered, had been 
 unhappy in her marriage and had returned to the family. 
 She had airs and graces and intense glances, and was differ- 
 ent from all the others. People addressed her as "Daphne" 
 or "Mrs. William," and when everybody was passing through 
 the dining-room an impressive chamber with fluted columns 
 and family portraits on their way to the hothouses, 
 Churchill heard her give a loud sigh. In the hall she handed 
 him a purple velvet cloak with an ermine collar, and when 
 he had assisted her to drape herself in the garment she 
 smiled and half closed her large dark eyes, but, unlike the 
 notice-boards, did not say "Thank you." 
 
 Mrs. Burnage, senior, headed the procession. She was a 
 resolute, white-haired, ruddy-cheeked old lady, and all 
 followed her as their natural chieftain and leader. On the 
 terrace she called for her scissors, and immediately the 
 children flocked round her, asking if she intended to cut a 
 nosegay. 
 
 "Yes, I will cut a nosegay." 
 
 And a chorus took up her words. "Aunt Lucy is going to 
 cut a nosegay. . . . Yes, of course, dear, Auntie will cut a 
 nosegay." It appeared to be a sort of rite, this cutting of a 
 nosegay, understood by all. 
 
 "Auntie, may I help you?" asked a little boy. 
 
 "No," said the old lady, "Mrs. Churchill will help me ;" 
 and she kept Lilian at her side, as they entered the range of 
 glasshouses and slowly passed through them, sometimes 
 telling the visitor which flower to gather, sometimes snipping 
 off the flowers herself.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 307 
 
 "There, my dear. That sprig of verbena, if you please. 
 Can you reach it ? ... Yes, that will do nicely." 
 
 In one of the houses Churchill found himself again close to 
 the tall, ermine-clad Daphne, and she startled him by speak- 
 ing to him while she stooped over some pot plants. 
 
 "I suppose, Mr. Churchill, this all seems to you very small, 
 very narrow." 
 
 "Oh, no," he said, looking round vaguely at the long 
 shelves, the hot-water piping, and the metal stanchions. 
 "They seem to me very fine houses room for so much." 
 
 Mrs. William raised her large eyes, and smiled at him 
 wearily. 
 
 "I didn't mean this little prison of glass and iron, but the 
 larger prison outside. I meant Lips ford, your present em- 
 ployment, us." And she closed her eyes and opened them 
 widely. "I should have thought you felt like an eagle in 
 a cage." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Edward, very blankly. 
 
 "I was a bird once," said Daphne; "but they broke 
 my wings on the wheel of life." 
 
 Just then Mr. Edrick Burnage came and put his hand on 
 her shoulder, and Edward was pleased to have his company. 
 The lady struck him as so very strange. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. William," said Mr. Edrick prosaically, "were 
 you glad to find that the dividend on those Brewery shares 
 was all right?" 
 
 At the far end of the houses the head gardener stood 
 waiting for his mistress, and he gave her strips of bass to tie 
 up her nosegay. This she did slowly and laboriously, with 
 knuckly old fingers that shook. Then she handed the nose- 
 gay to Lilian. 
 
 "Yes, for you, my dear." 
 
 Lilian was surprised, overcome by the honour done her; 
 but everybody else had, of course, known what was coming. 
 This appeared to be the invariable conclusion of the rite: 
 the nosegay was always for the visitor. 
 
 There was great pomp at the tea-making and tea-drinking 
 an immense silver kettle that only Mr. Gordon could 
 manage, and servants very busy laying out tables with food. 
 Old Mrs. Burnage sat in a large chair at a little distance, 
 and every one waited on her.
 
 308 THE MIRROR AND THE LAME 
 
 "Aunt Lucy, will you have a sandwich ?" 
 
 "Do try this cake, Auntie." 
 
 "No, my dear, I do not wish anything more." She called 
 all young women and children "my dear." 
 
 Suddenly somebody missed Daphne, and somebody else 
 discovered that she had retired to her room with a headache. 
 A good deal of commiseration was expressed, rntil it was 
 observed that old Mrs. Burnage was grumbling to herself 
 and drumming on the arm of her chair. Immediately, with 
 ready tact, Mr. Gordon changed the conversation, and one 
 understood instinctively that -Daphne's airs and graces and 
 headaches often got upon the nerves of the sturdy old dame. 
 
 They talked of contemporary art, literature, and politics. 
 Speaking of the last exhibition at the Royal Academy, all 
 agreed that it had been inferior to that of the previous year. 
 "But, Uncle, didn't you admire Mr. Leader's picture?" 
 Yes, Mr. Leader was admirable as usual. So was Sir Frede- 
 rick Leighton ; and of course the same encomium was due to 
 Sir John Millais and Mr. Alma Tadema. One could rely on 
 the old favourites; it was the younger school that disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 Certainly there was sententiousness in the tone of their 
 talk; but they were very courteous, refusing the snare of 
 argument, saying, "Forgive me if I interrupt you, Gordon. 
 I point this out in illustration of the truth of your lemark," 
 or "As my brother has well said." 
 
 Speaking of a play, an adaptation from the work of Mon- 
 sieur Alexandre Dumas Fils, they said they thought nothing 
 had been gained by bringing such a topic upon the stage. 
 
 "No, I regard it as a mistake." 
 
 "Yes, it was, in my opinion also, a mistake." 
 
 And the large silent man shook his head affirmatively for 
 quite a long while, seeming to say, more forcibly than if he 
 had spoken aloud, that it was a thundering mistake. 
 
 Talking of Lord Salisbury, Mr. Balfour, and other lights 
 of the political arena, they quoted a recent speech delivered 
 at Birmingham, and passed on to the always increasing perils 
 of trade unionism and the new wild notion of securing special 
 representations for labour. 
 
 "Mr. Churchill, I am sure you agree with me," said Mr. 
 Edrick, very courteously, and not waiting for an answer.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 309 
 
 "Is not labour, like every other interest, already represented? 
 What more can reasonably be demanded? Such proposals 
 cannot but have an unsettling effect." 
 
 "There," said Mr. Gordon, "I concur heartily. I verily 
 believe this ferment of discontent among the industrial 
 classes which is being fostered by a small minority happily 
 a very small minority of our public men, will eventually 
 cause great trouble, if not checked promptly. It is to my 
 mind the great danger of the times." 
 
 But old Mrs. Burnage was bristling and muttering in her 
 chair, apparently very angry at the mere thought of any one 
 daring to unsettle her little labour realm at Lips ford, and 
 Mr. Gordon was about to change the conversation again 
 when the large man interposed. It was the first time that 
 he had spoken. He had a deep rolling voice, and he said 
 he thought the whole social fabric of England was going 
 to pieces. One thing alone was holding it together the 
 Queen upon her throne. When she went, he would not be 
 surprised if all fell "like a house of cards." 
 
 The ladies, including Miss Adela, assented eagerly. 
 
 "The dear Queen !" 
 
 "Ah, yes, I don't like to think of what will happen when 
 she is taken from us." 
 
 Old Mrs. Burnage said, rather testily, "Creaking doors 
 hang long;" but whether she was thinking of the Queen, 
 the fabric of society, or herself, nobody clearly gathered. 
 
 Such was the family perhaps, not very original in their 
 views, but kindly and polite, thinking well of themselves, 
 but honestly meaning well by others. Edward and Lilian, 
 except in the way of business, saw little of them. This 
 invitation of the early days was not repeated. The visit 
 was like going to Court. It showed that they were accepted. 
 The wives of Mr. Gordon and Mr. Edrick did not ask them 
 to their houses, but Mrs. William called upon them once or 
 twice. 
 
 They had come on approbation, but they were now firmly 
 established. Although there had been talk of producing 
 testimonials, nothing further was said. Allan Gates had 
 chosen them for the appointment, and every one had confi- 
 dence in his judgment. 
 
 Churchill's work, always expanding under the direction of
 
 310 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 Gates, was entirely secular; but he did many things that in 
 the past had occupied his friend. Beyond his duties as 
 custodian of the library, he had evening classes with three 
 or four pupils at a time, and he often lectured at the 
 Institute on historical and literary subjects. All that he did 
 was well done, and for the lectures especially he took in- 
 ordinate pains, writing and re-writing them, weighing every 
 sentence. But the work, no matter how conscientiously he 
 performed it, was child's play after his experience at St. 
 Bede's, and he had leisure for reading. 
 
 He read at this period with avid pleasure, thinking deeply 
 of all he read, examining the change in his receptive faculties 
 that had been caused by his altered mental attitude, seeking 
 even in the most unlikely materials all that should help to 
 consolidate his philosophy of life and confirm his idea of his 
 personal relation to the universe. For, as he knew well, 
 when a man frees himself from the trammels of time- 
 honoured error, he must walk warily on the untrodden paths 
 he has opened out. 
 
 No questions had been asked as to why he never went to 
 church. The rule, although grandmotherly, was beneficent. 
 If he had attended the Wesleyan chapel up the valley, he 
 might doubtless have been called to account by Mr. Edrick 
 Burnage; but, as it was, nobody seemed even to remark 
 his absence from the commodious edifice that had been built 
 and maintained by the family, and the freedom of Sunday 
 mornings was very pleasant to him. Lilian, of course, regu- 
 larly listened to Allan's weekly sermon, and she often re- 
 lieved the organist at the evening services. She said that 
 Allan preached with great fervour. 
 
 She was at first perhaps more conspicuously successful 
 than Edward in these new surroundings. Her musical gifts 
 found high estimation. The young girls and the older 
 women loved her, and, whether she wished it or not, her 
 influence over them became strong. They came to her when 
 in trouble, to tell her of quarrels with their young men or of 
 pain caused by the harshly critical tongues of their husbands, 
 and they learned from her many pretty little arts of home 
 management. She had a genius for home, and not till now 
 had she been permitted to give it the least scope. 
 
 As time passed she seemed to make their cottage prettier
 
 311 
 
 every day. Their servant-maid adored her, aided her with 
 a loyal delight. Her great treat was when after long 
 economy they felt themselves justified in taking a trip to 
 Exeter for the purchase of some modest decoration lamp- 
 shade, table-cover, flower-vase. She came back radiant, 
 installed the new object, linked her hands through Edward's 
 arm, and stood before it admiring. 
 
 "See," she used to say, "doesn't it make the whole room 
 different?" 
 
 Yet was she quite happy? Edward sometimes asked 
 himself the question. It was for her sake that he had come 
 here. Nothing else really mattered to him. Her happiness 
 was all he asked from fate, and he himself had been given 
 so much in the friendship of Allan Gates. 
 
 This indeed was wonderful and precious the thing that 
 he had never before enjoyed. It was comradeship and 
 brotherhood. Allan was what his brothers should have been 
 to him. With Allan he could feel always very young, able 
 to snatch joys that usually belong only to youth; when to 
 walk about with the boy one loves is sufficient for enter- 
 tainment, and to break from a walk to a run, to get hot from 
 efforts that have no goal, to get cold by halts prolonged 
 without reason, to make meaningless discoveries in a barn 
 or loft, are more satisfying than the highly organised festi- 
 vals supplied by elders in the company of those one does 
 not care for. 
 
 In so much Allan was childlike. Not only in his unques- 
 tioning faith, but in his tricks and mannerisms. He was 
 clever with his hands, ingenious at devices of simple car- 
 pentry; and at such work he used to whistle and sing, or, 
 if alone, talk to inanimate objects, addressing a nail as "my 
 friend." "There, my friend, one on the head for you. Yes, 
 we'll knock you on the head, like that . . . and like that." 
 When puzzled, or for a moment baffled by some small diffi- 
 culty, he had a trick of rubbing his nose with a forefinger, 
 and puckering his brows, giving himself the rueful expression 
 of a child who is in disgrace or affliction. Then after a 
 moment he would laugh, snap his fingers, and shrug his 
 shoulders, saying, "Never mind. I'll get round it before 
 bed-time. Difficulties are only made to be surmounted," 
 or some other cheerful aphorism.
 
 312 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 He was never so well contented as when engaged on a 
 carpenter's job for Lilian. At all times he held himself in 
 readiness as her handy man, and would hurry to the cottage 
 to put up a shelf, hang a curtain rod, mend a chair back. 
 Indeed, had she allowed him, he would have cleared the 
 dust-bin, scoured the culvert, dug in the garden for her. He 
 did not pay her compliments or say she was pretty perhaps 
 was not even aware of the fact ; but he wrapped her round 
 with admiration and regard, declaring that everything she 
 did was right, that there had never been any one like her. 
 
 At all times, too, he showed a great care and delicacy in 
 not intruding on their love as husband and wife, or in the 
 slightest degree challenging her right to Edward's society. 
 "No," he used to say, "I cannot join you this evening. 
 I have a task that I must not neglect. . . . No, thank you 
 very much, but leave me out of your plot to-morrow. Go 
 there by yourselves. Two are company three are none." 
 Then you and Edward can go," Lilian replied; "and I'll 
 stay at Home." Truly he need not have been so careful ; for 
 Lilian also was very fond of him, and these three made the 
 best company in the world. 
 
 There was only one thought that ever troubled Edward 
 With regard to this friendship, a cloud upon its splendour, 
 and that for him dimmed what otherwise would have been 
 perfectly bright hours. He hated the tacit deception which 
 he ought never to have practised and which still continued. 
 But at last this cloud passed and all was clear between them. 
 
 One Saturday Lilian told him that she was going to the 
 early Celebration next morning. 
 
 "It is a great relief to me," she said, "to be able to go. 
 So long has passed since I participated not since you and 
 I have been together. But, Edward, to enable me to do 
 so, I had to tell Allan everything about myself." 
 
 "I am very glad," and he took her clasped hands, held 
 them to his breast, and kissed them. "What did Allan say ?" 
 
 "He said that I might come. It is good of him. Many 
 priests would have refused." 
 
 The same evening Edward spoke to his friend of this. 
 They were alone in Allan's "book-room," going through 
 some accounts.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAME 313 
 
 "Lilian has made a confession to you, Allan, and she 
 says you will receive her as a communicant" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "Thank you. It is what I would have expected, Allan. 
 I knew how broad-minded you are. But I am none the 
 less grateful." 
 
 Then in the open talk for which he had pined he told 
 Allan all about the man Vickers. He had little hope now 
 that Vickers would ever help them by getting a divorce. 
 Indeed he had been advised that from the legal point of 
 view Vickers by the lapse of time had condoned the 
 offence. He had sat down on his wrongs too long. More- 
 over, he had notoriously consoled himself in a brutal 
 profligate manner; he could not go to the Court with even 
 technically clean hands. 
 
 "So there we are," said Allan, rubbing his nose. 
 
 "Now that you know the worst, are you sorry that we 
 came ?" 
 
 "Of course not." 
 
 "It has weighed upon my mind. I ought to have told 
 you at the beginning." 
 
 "No, I stopped you. I wouldn't let you tell me." 
 
 "You didn't guess the truth?" 
 
 "No," said Allan, and he rubbed his nose rather ruefully. 
 "I did not guess that part of it." 
 
 "If you had known, would you have acted differently?" 
 
 "I scarcely know what to say. It is all over and done 
 with." 
 
 "Do you feel that you ought now to tell the authorities ?" 
 
 "No that's impossible. Certainly not," and Allan be- 
 came quite cheerful again, rubbing his hands together, and 
 smiling contentedly. "But," he went on, "is there any- 
 thing else you want to say now we are about it?" and he 
 looked at Edward almost archly. "We have opened the 
 cupboard. If there's more than one skeleton, shall we have 
 them out, and put them back, and close the cupboard door ?" 
 
 Then Edward told him that he was a priest of the Church 
 of England who had been inhibited. 
 
 "Ha, ha," said Allan, jumping up from his chair. "Look 
 here !" He seemed quite triumphant, as he opened a Clergy
 
 314 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 List, turned the pages, and pointed to the entry of Churchill's 
 name. "Look. Do you see the note of interrogation? I 
 made that pencil mark that large query three days after 
 we first met. There must be several Edward Churchills, 
 though only one has been ordained, but I thought you were 
 that man. Something you said set me thinking. Yes, I 
 guessed that all right but I didn't guess the other half of 
 the mystery," and again, for a moment, he had a rueful look. 
 Then he shut the book with a decisive action and laughed 
 gaily. "Rather clever of me, Edward. A detective couldn't 
 have spotted you quicker. But you set me thinking." As 
 he said this his eyes grew tender. "I thought of you a 
 great deal." 
 
 "What did you think?" 
 
 "I thought then exactly what I think now. You'll come 
 back to us. Dear old fellow, all your doubt will pass. God 
 will bring you home in His own good time." 
 
 "I can't let you count on that, Allan." 
 
 Allan shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly. He 
 counted on it as surely as he counted on to-morrow's 
 sunrise. The same power that lit the wide world would light 
 the small dark places in his friend's heart. But why talk 
 about it any more? 
 
 The cloud upon their friendship had gone; but there 
 followed now a time in which Edward Churchill suffered 
 greatly from a return of the sensation of failure. In his 
 highest desire he felt frustrated. What was wrong with 
 Lilian? What more could he do for her? 
 
 Sometimes he thought of the natural crown of a woman's 
 life motherhood. She who was so good and sweet, with a 
 bounty of tender sympathy that flowed out to these work- 
 girls, to all children, should not herself be childless. If 
 only they had a child, she would be happier. Yef when he 
 spoke of this hope, she shook her head sadly. 
 
 "I want no one but you." 
 
 "You would have me still. We should be bound closer 
 together." 
 
 "Oh, no," and she shivered, "I pray that may not happen. 
 A child to which we could not give a name!" 
 
 Then she spoke so sweetly of their love that he could have 
 wept in gratitude and sorrow.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 315 
 
 "Lilian, my dearest girl. My own true girl." 
 
 "I am so poor a thing for you to love," she said. "So 
 dreadfully beneath you and I can never, never tell you 
 what I feel. I can't wish that you had never seen me. 
 Edward, I can't, can't wish that ; but I know it might have 
 been better for you in many ways. I have dragged you 
 down." 
 
 He said she would break his heart if she ever said that 
 again. It was he who had brought her low. 
 
 "No, you have raised me up almost to heaven." 
 
 And she told him that she no longer cared or worried 
 about what people might think of her. She cared for nothing, 
 if they two could be together always. 
 
 "What can ever separate us?" 
 
 On winter evenings they used to walk along the road to 
 the old village, away from the lighted windows and the work 
 and the voices. The sunset glow faded from the hills, dusk 
 crept upward, darkness filled the valley, and they were quite 
 alone. She clung closer to his arm, and in the darkness said 
 things she would scarcely have dared to whisper if he could 
 see her face. 
 
 For her those words, "As long as we both shall live," 
 meant life after death also. "Till death us do part" carried 
 the logical addition, "and until we are united again." The 
 stronger their love, the more she craved for the certainty 
 that they need face no real separation. She tried to make 
 him say, "Yes, it is possible." She asked him if he himself 
 could not believe even so much as that or if not now, 
 might he not one day believe it? 
 
 But he said No. He could not believe it. 
 
 His tone was sad and reluctant. He had seemed so glad 
 when again she participated in the blessed Sacrament. He 
 showed such tenderness for her religion. Except in their 
 first days their honeymoon when he poured out all his 
 thoughts, he had never scoffed at religion. He never spoke 
 of it. But when she forced him to speak, it seemed to her 
 that he became hard and cold as a rock. He spoke, when 
 she compelled him, with terrible plainness. 
 
 "I do not believe. If you mean survival after death, 
 I do not believe that is true. I believe that death is extinc- 
 tion of the individual utter annihilation. Something that
 
 316 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 was and is not. I believe in the soul only in the sense of the 
 spiritual forces that are implanted in each one of us. I 
 do not believe in the immortality of the soul in any other 
 sense than that life similar to the life in us will be seen in 
 others. I do not believe in the soul, or indeed in life, as 
 something that issued from a god and to him will return. 
 It is a beautiful idea. I wish it were true. I do not believe 
 it is true. I do not believe in immortality at all, except as a 
 metaphor for the chain of life that passes from parent to 
 child, on and on, and always upwards in its curve, seeming a 
 chain, but in truth with each link severed by the great shears 
 of death. That is what I believe." 
 
 His voice, so level and so calm, sounding in the darkness, 
 filled her with awe. The words were terrible. They crushed 
 her spirit, struck heavy and cold upon her heart. She walked 
 by his side with bowed head. 
 
 And he, pressing the hand upon his arm, went on as though 
 to justify what he had said. He explained that it was a 
 matter of conscience with him to say what he believed to 
 be true. He could be silent; but if he spoke at all of his 
 private convictions, he must testify to the truth. The truth 
 is sacred that is, what a man honestly believes the truth 
 must be sacred to him, the man. It is of no value to any one 
 else, of course. But it is all important to him, and he cannot 
 palter with his deep-rooted conviction. Self-respect, self- 
 reliance, all fails if you refuse to maintain the right to your 
 own reasoned thoughts. 
 
 And she was thinking, "It is my fault. It is I who am to 
 blame. But for me, he would have remained true to the 
 Church; he would have continued his noble work, beloved 
 and honoured by all. I have ruined his life. I am the first 
 cause of his atheism." 
 
 These thoughts for a time made her more and more 
 unhappy. 
 
 It was Allan Gates who brought her comfort. He saw 
 her trouble, understood it, drove it away almost forever with 
 his cheerful, unshaking confidence. "Never worry about 
 him," he told her. "Just give him time. He is passing 
 through a phase; but he will come back to us. Trust me 
 for that. I know I am right." 
 
 Allan spoke of her to Edward, startling him with a strange
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 317 
 
 echo of something that happened a long time ago, when two 
 men not friends, as he and Allan, but enemies by instinct 
 sat alone in a room not unlike this room, and one said to 
 the other: "Can't you be kinder to your wife?" It was 
 Lilian then as now. 
 
 "Dear old boy," said Allan, "forgive me if I have 
 wounded you. Shut me up like a box if I have said too 
 much. I only meant that unconsciously you have forgotten 
 how your lightest words may cause immense consequences 
 with her. If you even touch her faith, if you break what 
 she most leans on, if you don't allow her to think her own 
 thoughts " 
 
 But this was too much. Edward, greatly agitated, pro- 
 tested that it was all the other way round. He had never 
 tried to rob her of her faith. It was she who would not 
 leave him his thoughts. 
 
 "But need you tell her your thoughts?" asked Allan 
 deprecatingly. 
 
 "No, not unless she makes me. Then I cannot deny 
 them." And he went over the ground again. Self-respect, 
 the barest dignity of manhood, prevented one from abro- 
 gating the privilege to think for oneself. He reminded 
 Allan of how religionists refused to sign confessions of faith 
 alien to their own. 
 
 "Allan, they refused their lives on such terms. And 
 they were right. They called it refusing to deny God; 
 but it was really refusing to deny themselves. That was 
 the logical basis of their refusal. . . . Take my life, 
 take everything from me ; but don't take the reasoned dig- 
 nity that lifts me above the brutes don't trample out the 
 right to think for myself." 
 
 Allan smiled. "In conversation," he said cheerily, "as 
 in everything else, you are my intellectual superior." 
 
 "Rubbish," said Edward, and the excitement under 
 which he had spoken instantly subsided. 
 
 "Yes, you carry too many guns for me." 
 
 "Not a bit of it. Fire back." 
 
 "Well, I think you just put everything upside down." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "You speak of martyrs who sacrificed self, and you 
 draw the lesson that it is right to exalt self."
 
 318 
 
 "No far from it I don't say exalt self, but give self 
 its just due. Allan, we all are governed by self we must 
 be it is in the nature of things." 
 
 "Yet you have never acted on such a theory. Your 
 work, nearly all your life, has proved you to be something 
 of an altruist." 
 
 "Any altruism I have practised has been in a selfish 
 search for happiness merely to appease self. Where 
 altruism fails is where the logical reason for it is forgot- 
 ten." 
 
 "Have it your own way," said Allan with the utmost 
 good-humour. "But, dear old boy, do remember to play 
 light in your wonderful logic when dealing with those who 
 are not so strong as you." 
 
 "Yes," said Edward, "I'll play light. I'll remember. 
 Thank you, Allan for thinking of Lilian. Henceforth I'll 
 manage to evade discussion. Skilfully or clumsily, as best 
 I can, I'll build a wall and hide myself behind it. ... 
 Yet if she, or any one else, breaks down my wall, they 
 must see me as I am." 
 
 He was firm in the importance of his point the right to 
 one's own thought, because, as it seemed to him, it had its 
 place in the new code of ethics that was to be his standard. 
 His code was now formed. 
 
 He thought: "Of course every intelligent person must 
 be something of an altruist; for how else can he hope for 
 mental peace? But the altruism must be rational the 
 golden rule with strict limitations. Give to others, give 
 freely, largely, more than you can spare ; make sacrifices of 
 much that you desire; but do not run the risk of obliterat- 
 ing yourself altogether. Self has rights, and in certain 
 cases must fight for them. It is weak and disloyal to one- 
 self, the race, and the established scheme of natural prog- 
 ress, not to study self, when one is quite sure that is only 
 asking one's due. The strongest man has only one life, 
 and his work to do in it. Such a man, believing that he 
 has a task to accomplish, must not allow himself to be 
 turned from it. 
 
 "And I," he thought humbly, "am the weakest of men, 
 with no task, and no direction; but still I must abide by
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 319 
 
 the law, fighting for myself, refusing to obliterate myself, 
 guarding myself and those I love from unceasing care, be- 
 cause I am myself, and beyond myself there is nothing that 
 I can truly know." 
 
 This was to be the code. His philosophy of life had car- 
 ried him no further. As it chanced, his code was soon and 
 for a long time to be put to the test.
 
 XL 
 
 SOMETHING utterly unexpected had happened. It was 
 too fantastically absurd, but Robert Vickers had written 
 asking them for aid. 
 
 Walsden sent on the letter. The outer envelope was 
 addressed to Edward Churchill, Esquire, and inside this 
 there was an envelope inscribed, "For Lilian." Edward 
 handed it to her across the breakfast table, and at sight of 
 the handwriting she trembled. She read the letter slowly, 
 and gave it back .to Edward without a word. 
 
 Vickers told her that he had lost his employment, the 
 world had turned against him, and, as he phrased it, he had 
 "regularly gone to pot." He said, "I cannot but lay it to 
 your door. But let bygones be bygones. You are my wife 
 still, and I appeal to you for help." 
 
 As Churchill read the letter his face hardened. Bygones 
 were to be bygones, and, as Christians forgetting and for- 
 giving, they were to help their enemy. So likely ! 
 
 Vickers said further, "I am not what I was. I have been 
 ill and am still very weak ;" and he described other misfor- 
 tunes. "I had to part with our old house, and sell every 
 stick of the furniture. As you will see, I am living at 
 Vernon Buildings. You will remember, the block beyond 
 Emanuel's, by the railway. . . . You know me well 
 enough to be sure that I would not ask you this if things 
 were not very bad with me." It was an odious letter. 
 Plainly enough, Vickers had set himself the task of writing 
 such a letter as would achieve his immediate end to get 
 money. 
 
 "So very likely," thought Churchill, and he smiled con- 
 temptuously. 
 
 "What shall I reply?" asked Lilian. 
 
 "Don't reply at all. If any one replied, I would. But no 
 reply is needed." 
 
 Lilian picked up the letter and re-read it. 
 
 "Let me have it," said Edward, and he folded the letter 
 
 320
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 321 
 
 and put it in his breast pocket. "Don't give it another 
 thought. His troubles and his sickness and all the rest of 
 it are probably inventions. He wants cash to buy one of 
 your successors a new bonnet perhaps, and it has occurred 
 to him that it would be rather a humorous notion to make 
 you pay for it." 
 
 "Oh, I don't think that what he says is untrue. If he 
 had not fallen into real distress, he would not have written. 
 His pride must be completely broken, or he could not have 
 made such an appeal an appeal for pity." 
 
 "Then he'll get no pity from me," said Churchill firmly. 
 Nevertheless, scarcely knowing why he troubled to do so, 
 he wrote to Walsden to inquire as to the actual state of the 
 man's circumstances; and during the next three days he 
 thought often of the man himself. Lilian was thinking 
 about him too. She asked to look at the letter again on 
 two occasions. 
 
 "You must almost know it by heart," said Edward rather 
 querulously. In fact, he himself knew it quite by heart : 
 he had looked at it so often. 
 
 "I wanted to see what he says about Vernon Buildings. 
 Yes, I know the place he means. Edward, it is a dreadful 
 place. He must have fallen very low to go there." 
 
 Edward shrugged his shoulders, took the letter from her 
 again, and went out for a stroll. 
 
 As he walked in the crisp night air he thought of his first 
 meeting with Vickers, remembering with extraordinary 
 clearness that early impression the big, loud-voiced fellow, 
 swinging his shoulders, pushing men off the pavement, 
 shouting at them truculently just a hulking brute. Think- 
 ing of later impressions, the details were less clear; no 
 strong mental picture came. He remembered the ugly 
 laugh, the swagger, amid the streams of words when 
 Vickers inveighed against the ingratitude of the men who 
 as he now declared had cast off their allegiance to him ; 
 but the rest seemed colourless, almost vague. Then he 
 began to imagine what Vickers had been like as a young 
 man before his frame grew heavy, his face coarsened, and 
 his teeth turned yellow or as a boy, when he was slender, 
 clean, with eyes that looked out frankly at a world full of
 
 322 THE MIRROR AND, THE LAME 
 
 decent hopes and innocent pleasures. Even as a boy, could 
 he have been like that ? 
 
 When Churchill returned to the cottage Lilian was putting 
 last touches to the table for their evening meal. It was all 
 snug and bright in lamplight and firelight ; her pretty face, 
 pale as it was, lit up the room more than the lamp or the 
 fire ; she welcomed him as always with a smile, and suddenly, 
 unbidden, an ugly mental picture presented itself to him 
 a picture of darkness and coldness, of squalor and want, of a 
 sick man who once had been strong but was now weak. 
 
 Towards the end of the meal Lilian asked him a question. 
 
 "If Mr. Walsden says it is true, will you send him 
 anything ?" 
 
 "No. . . . Lilian, how can we?" 
 
 "No, I suppose not. In any case, we can't afford it." 
 
 "It is not that." 
 
 "If it was for somebody else and one was certain he 
 needed help would you try to help him?" 
 
 "Yes, if it was anybody else anybody worth helping 
 I would say yes, we ought to help him, as far as we could 
 without detriment to ourselves." 
 
 "That is what I feel," said Lilian. "It seems so hard to 
 turn a deaf ear to a call of that kind a cry of distress. Not 
 even to answer the letter !" 
 
 "The only answer he wants is some ready money. If we 
 don't send that, no other answer is worth sending." 
 
 That night Churchill thought of Vickers waiting for the 
 answer that would never come. He would anxiously expect 
 it calculating on the pity he had aroused, estimating their 
 weakness perhaps, hoping that some trick of conscience 
 would render them impotent to refuse. He would taste all 
 the bitterness of disappointment then. If he was truly weak 
 and ill, he would lie on his wretched bed, all alone perhaps, 
 waiting and listening until some one passed on the stairs, 
 and then he would call hoarsely and feebly, begging the 
 passer-by to go down and find out at the caretaker's room 
 if the postman had brought him a letter. 
 
 And Churchill thought of him as if in truth he had been 
 somebody else, a stranger, any man, worthy or unworthy, 
 who had been strong but was now weak, and who uttered a 
 cry of distress, calling upon his fellow-men to help him.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 323 
 
 Next morning they heard from Walsden. It was true that 
 Vickers had severed his connection with the Trade Union, 
 and after an illness had left the house where he had lived 
 for so long. That was all that Walsden could tell them. 
 
 They sent Vickers some money, and from time to time 
 they sent him a little more. This first time they had to do 
 it, and Lilian said it made her easier in her mind, and 
 Churchill said that, wrong or right, it must be done, but the 
 first time should be the last time. 
 
 Lilian dreaded the horrid letters. The call came sometimes 
 just when she was going to Exeter to buy something pretty 
 or useful for the cottage or for herself. Answering the call 
 meant the renunciation of a small desire, the sacrifice of per- 
 sonal comfort; but, after all, what did it matter? Only they 
 had still further complicated their relations with the man. 
 He on his side would be careful now not to publish the 
 facts of the position, since if he brought scandal upon them 
 he could scarcely hope to extract further Post Office orders. 
 They on their side might seem to be paying him blackmail, 
 buying his silence. Anyhow, if any hope had lingered as to 
 the possibility of a divorce, it was now small indeed. 
 
 They should have been affluent at this period. Edward 
 had long since cleared off all obligations to the bank and 
 other creditors, making it his first care to repay the loan 
 from his mother and doing this as speedily as possible, yet 
 not speedily enough to escape a reminder from his step- 
 father, Mr. Barrett. Once out of debt, he came into the 
 enjoyment of his full private income of a hundred per 
 annum, in addition to the annual seventy-eight pounds of 
 their joint emoluments. This was more than ample; but 
 now, in the twelve months that followed, the secret drain 
 upon their resources swamped the margin of ease. 
 
 The first summer at Lips ford they had been for a week's 
 holiday on Dartmoor with Allan Gates. This year they could 
 not go. Allan was taking a fortnight's holiday, and he was 
 disappointed that they could not spend even half of it with 
 him. He delicately hinted that if the question of expense 
 prevented them, he would like them to come as his guests. 
 They refused ; and Allan thought that their real reason for 
 refusing was because they wished to be by themselves, and 
 ceased to complain, going away very cheerfully, nodding and
 
 324 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 smiling at them from the railway carriage, waving a hand- 
 kerchief till the train carried him out of sight. 
 
 Edward Churchill knew his thought, had read it at once, 
 but he could not bear that it should continue. There must 
 be no more deception, however slight. So he wrote to his 
 friend at the jolly little moor-side inn, telling him the truth, 
 saying how much they missed him, and how glad they would 
 be to see him once more at the end of the fortnight. 
 
 Next day Allan returned, and he spent his holiday with 
 them at home at Lipsf ord, fishing with Edward in the stream, 
 teaching Lilian to throw a fly, carrying their improvised tea- 
 basket up the Pack Walk to the tamely pretty hilltops. The 
 landscape might not be as grand as Dartmoor, nor the air so 
 keen and invigorating, but he said it was the best holiday 
 of his life. He maintained that nothing had given him the 
 true holiday feeling in such full measure as to potter about 
 the parsonage garden in his shirt-sleeves, knowing that he 
 need not put on his jacket until he chose to do so; and the 
 greatest treat of all was when he went to church to hear his 
 substitute preach and found that the good man preached no 
 better than he did himself if so well.
 
 XLI 
 
 THEY had been a little more than two years at Lipsford 
 when Edward's mother died. He had not even known that 
 she was ill, and the letter from Mr. Barrett that announced 
 her death allowed him only just enough time to get to Brigh- 
 ton for the funeral. "I am prostrated with grief," said Mr. 
 Barrett, in his letter, "and shall be glad of your support. 
 You will understand that I cannot extend the invitation 
 beyond yourself." 
 
 He bought a suit of black clothes in London, where he was 
 obliged to spend a night, and next morning early he travelled 
 down to Brighton. The putting on of these mourning gar- 
 ments, the journey, its cause and purpose, seemed to him 
 dreamlike and unreal. In the train he listened to the talk 
 of fellow-passengers, watched the flying landscape, for some 
 time could neither meditate nor reflect. Then he found him- 
 self thinking, "She is dead the mother that bore me and I 
 used to pray that I might die when she died. And now I am 
 going to her funeral, and it is as though it were a stranger's. 
 I am not even able to think of it my mind is thronged 
 with quite trivial matters the most stupid fancy seems as 
 important as the gloomy business that has brought me here. 
 How is that possible?" 
 
 Then he thought, "Yes, but the mother I loved died years 
 ago. My true mother was taken from me when she broke 
 our compact, and forsook me for another." 
 
 But immediately he felt the hard egoism of this thought, 
 its unworthiness, its cruelty judging the dead, condemning 
 her, forgetting benefits and tender care, because at last she 
 ceased to live only for him. Could it be possible that even 
 for a moment he had been guilty of such a thought? And 
 there came rushing back on him memories of St. Dunstan's. 
 He thought of her only as she was then the friend, the com- 
 forter, the guardian saint. All the years rolled away, and 
 it seemed to him that in spirit they were made one again. 
 He could remember now nothing that was not sweet and 
 good. Sadness, and still deeper sadness, filled his heart. 
 
 325
 
 326 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 At the house on the East Cliff Air. Barrett welcomed him, 
 pressed his hand, thanked him for coming. Mr. Barrett 
 looked old and feeble. A nurse in hospital uniform helped 
 him to put on his black overcoat, and at intervals he gave 
 a sob. The nurse felt in the breast pocket of the overcoat 
 and told him he had another handkerchief there. 
 
 "Thank you," said Mr. Barrett, meekly and forlornly. 
 "Ted, you will come in the first coach with me. Next to me, 
 you are the principal mourner." 
 
 The funeral party gathered in a room that looked out upon 
 the cliff. Outside all was bright and pleasant to the eye, 
 sunlight and movement, people walking briskly, carriages 
 rattling past. Edward was looking at well-remembered ob- 
 jects in the room itself the very desk at which he had sat 
 with her at his "preparation," when she used to help him; 
 the old swing-chair; a water colour drawing of the cathedral 
 cloisters. He felt like some one in a haunted house, among 
 ghosts that no others could see, seeing them himself and 
 hearing their voices. He could see his mother quite plainly 
 as she used to be. 
 
 Then he was alone again with Mr. Barrett, in the mourn- 
 ing coach, driving down the hill, past the Pavilion, and 
 along the level road towards the lofty viaduct. 
 
 "Everybody respected her," said Mr. Barrett, "and looked 
 up to her. Did you see the flowers? Everybody has sent a 
 wreath and some very costly ones too last mark of re- 
 spect. We had made our circle always the best sort of 
 people;" and he began to cry, catching his breath, and 
 stifling noisy sobs. "There, I must be patient under my 
 affliction. I humbly thank Him who ordained that her 
 last days were easy. I never left her, Ted, except to get a 
 little air when Dr. Fry made me." 
 
 "I am sure you were good to her." 
 
 "I did my best," said Mr. Barrett humbly. "I made her 
 happy. Pore soul, she'd had a rough time with you boys. 
 Ted, I am not meaning to cast a stone. You were the kind 
 one the one she valued and built on, until well," and he 
 shook his head sorrowfully. "Ah me, that was a terrible 
 blow to her. Couldn't be otherwise." 
 
 "You mean my leaving the Church ?" 
 
 "Yes, the whole affair. It came to my ears first of all
 
 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 32? 
 
 through a side wind, and I tried to soften the blow. I told 
 her we couldn't at a distance judge the facts." 
 
 "I would have come to her to explain them, had she 
 wished it." 
 
 "Ted, she did not wish it. And, frankly, no more did I. 
 Nothing would have been gained and I could not urge her 
 to receive the lady." 
 
 "Please leave her out of it." 
 
 "There, let's say no more. I never have judged you, Ted 
 and this I tell you because I know your naturally kind 
 heart. The grief over your affair did not hasten her end." 
 
 "Indeed I hope not." 
 
 "No, you have not that to lay on your conscience. She 
 was ill for a long time." 
 
 "I wish you could have let me come to see her then." 
 
 "She never suggested it, Ted." 
 
 The phrases of the Burial Service, recited by Edward 
 Churchill himself so many, many times, struck upon his ear 
 with a force and beauty that he had not recognised till now. 
 Resurrection, and the life of the world to come yes, if only 
 one could believe it. How beautiful the words, how splendid 
 if there lay beneath them even half a truth to justify such 
 hope. For him they held no gleam of hope; they were 
 merely beautiful words. He stood at the grave side, tears 
 streaming down his face, torn with sorrow and regret. An 
 immense sadness and pity welled up and possessed him pity 
 for his poor mother that she might not a little longer go 
 about in the sunlight ; pity for Mr. Barrett, the broken old 
 man, who had wounded or insulted him always, and even 
 just now, but who had tried to do his best for her; pity for 
 all who in this little transitory life try hard and fail ; pity, 
 above all, for those who miss or mock the higher joys of 
 human love, and blandly stretch weak hands that close upon 
 a shadow. 
 
 When all was over he lingered to say a few kind words to 
 Mr. Barrett, who clung to his arm and thanked him again 
 for having come. 
 
 "Your presence has supported me, Ted. I almost feel as 
 if I couldn't have gone through it without you. ... Ah me, 
 what shall I do? I've lost my companion, and I'm too old 
 to find another."
 
 328 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 Edward went away full of sorrow ; but it was as if some 
 poison that for a long time had tainted his blood had been 
 washed away from him in his tears. 
 
 The feelings aroused by the death of his mother did not 
 quickly fade. Sadness remained with him, and yet inwardly 
 he felt calmer, more at rest. Perhaps of late he had found 
 life in the quiet valley too narrow, and, unconsciously grow- 
 ing weary of its stagnant contentment, had begun to suffer 
 mentally because he could not satisfy that old craving for 
 the ideal existence in which action blends with and guides 
 the stream of thought ; but, if so, the phase had now passed. 
 He took greater interest in his humble task, and gave to it 
 more of himself. 
 
 He had been prompt with sympathy and practical advice, 
 but now in helping others he attempted the great lesson of 
 teaching them how to help themselves. Young men with 
 aspirations and older men with regrets began to trust him as 
 a friend who never failed. All this had begun at the Library 
 when they found what infinite trouble he was ready to take 
 on their behalf, and again at his evening classes when a 
 pupil shyly led him from the realm of generalities to some 
 small concrete difficulty of everyday life. This quality of 
 helpfulness in him was recognised more and more widely; 
 so that it came to be talked of by the men at their work. 
 
 Thus, one day, Mr. Edrick Burnage heard an old hand in 
 the fulling mill speak of it. 
 
 "Yes," said the old fellow, "Mr. Gates, he's the one to 
 hearten yu up with what he says. But if yu wa'ant help, 
 go to Mr. Churchill. Go and tell un yu'm be got in a fix. 
 He'll put down what he's a-doing, he'll quit his food or his 
 bed, but he wun't leave yu till he's helped yu through." 
 
 Mr. Burnage was well pleased in overhearing this compli- 
 ment to a useful official, and he thought, not by any means 
 for the first time, that the family had obtained a very service- 
 able article at a very low cost. Indeed, he talked of him with 
 high approval in the family circle, and as a result of one 
 such conversation he put some strange questions to Allan 
 Gates. 
 
 "Tell me, Gates, so far as you have observed, do the 
 Churchills get on well together?"
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 329 
 
 "Yes, of course." 
 
 They are really a united couple fond of each other and 
 all that, not merely keeping up appearances ?" 
 
 The blood had flushed Allan's olive-toned cheeks, and he 
 spoke almost angrily. "No. But why do you ask ?" 
 
 "Well, not from any wish to pry into people's private 
 affairs, but just to ascertain the fact. I should think nothing 
 of it either way, except for their peculiar position here in 
 our society. For the sake of example one could not very 
 well countenance in our midst a divided household, or the 
 spectacle of a man and wife who sustained an outward show 
 of affection, but secretly squabbled and 
 
 "They do not squabble," said Allan warmly. 
 
 "I am glad to hear it," said Mr. Edrick. "I was quite 
 ready to believe it. I suspected that my informant was in 
 error." 
 
 "I wonder who was your informant." 
 
 "It was Mrs. William. She entertains a good opinion of 
 Churchill, and is anxious for his welfare, but her observation 
 has misled her. Between you and me, Gates, Mrs. William 
 is not the wisest of people. She often misunderstands 
 things." 
 
 "Edward Churchill is not easy to understand." Allan's 
 indignation had gone, and he spoke of his friend with a quiet 
 seriousness. "He is a very beautiful character. The love 
 between him and and and his wife is most beautiful. 
 Nothing could ever disturb it; nothing will ever make it 
 change." 
 
 Relieved in mind, Mr. Edrick then praised Churchill 
 cordially. Churchill was a valuable asset to the community. 
 Gates could be congratulated on having found a person of 
 such superior qualifications. 
 
 "How did you first hit upon him, Gates ?" 
 
 "By accident." 
 
 "By accident! Well, Gates, many valuable discoveries 
 are made by accident, if the truth were known. My great- 
 grandfather discovered what we call the Burnage process of 
 lustering by accident. But, with regard to Churchill, I hope 
 he knows that we are well satisfied and, between you and 
 me, I hope we shan't ever lose him. My brother Gordon 
 expresses wonder that he should be contented to stay, and
 
 330 THE MIRROR AND. THE LAMP 
 
 believes he would easily find scope for his talents in a more 
 enlarged sphere." 
 
 "I think he is like me in one respect, he and I have both 
 done with ambition." 
 
 "Well, that is as it may be. Still for Churchill, who has 
 
 the advantage of you in years My brother Gordon has 
 
 gone so far as to say that we might wisely raise Mr. 
 Churchill's salary, rather than run the risk of losing him 
 after our relations have subsisted on such a pleasant footing 
 for so long. That is a matter that I shall be quite prepared 
 to consider, although I do not think we are justified in 
 welcoming increased expense in any direction at the present 
 time." 
 
 Mr. Edrick's hint as to the possibility of increased emolu- 
 ment did not lead to any action; but an addition to their 
 means came to the Churchills from another source. 
 
 His mother had bequeathed a hundred a year in trust for 
 her "dear son Edward," with power of appointment as was 
 recited by a copy of the clause in the will sent to him by a 
 Brighton solicitor to his legal wife or any child or children 
 lawfully begotten in holy wedlock. Failing such appoint- 
 ment, the money at Edward's death would return to Mrs. 
 Churchill's widower or his heirs and assigns. 
 
 Edward surmised that these provisions had been dictated 
 by the avarice of Mr. Barrett. His poor mother would 
 scarcely have discriminated so nicely, or looked so very far 
 ahead, if she had not been assisted by some one who was, 
 as well as a strictly orthodox moralist, a trained man of 
 business ; but Edward bore no malice to anybody. He had 
 expected nothing. He accepted the bequest with gratitude. 
 
 Thus, once again they had enough for personal comfort, 
 enough too to meet the hidden drain upon their purse, and 
 these calls, moreover, for a little while had ceased. 
 
 But their renewed affluence was soon threatened. There 
 came another call from Vickers ; a cry of distress louder, 
 sharper, more definite than any he had raised before. He 
 was desperately ill, helpless hopeless, if they did not listen 
 to his cry. For the moment he had been taken into a hospital 
 at Chelsea; but he would not be allowed to remain there, 
 because of the almost permanently incurable nature of his
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 331 
 
 case. Soon he might be alone, deserted, abandoned to a 
 miserable death. He wanted a lot of money for nursing and 
 doctoring, to give him a chance of recovery. He sent with 
 his pencilled letter a certificate from the hospital, and the 
 certificate seemed to confirm his statement that he was 
 grievously ill. 
 
 "What are we to do?" asked Lilian. 
 
 They looked at each other blankly, and Edward sat 
 thinking. Then he said, "Lilian, I had better go to him. 
 I'll go to London and see for myself what can be done." 
 
 "It is what I would have wished that some one should 
 go. But we might ask Allan to go. Edward, let Allan go 
 instead." 
 
 "No, I'll go myself." 
 
 He obtained leave of absence, provided himself with ready 
 money, and went up to London. He was away four days, 
 and on his return he looked tired and worried. 
 
 He said that Vickers was suffering from heart trouble and 
 lung trouble, with some complications of intestinal derange- 
 ment that he did not pretend to understand. But the doctors 
 thoroughly understood, and he believed implicity in their 
 judgment as to the case. Vickers was dying, or would die 
 unless well treated. There was only one chance to save him. 
 He could receive special treatment at a place in Staffordshire. 
 It was an establishment known to and recommended by the 
 London doctors. At this place Vickers would be given every 
 chance that science and skill could devise. The chance would 
 be a good one that he might be patched up and kept alive 
 for many years. In any event he would be comfortable, safe, 
 well cared for, at this Staffordshire establishment. But the 
 cost of the cure would be considerable. The doctors said 
 that the charges would amount to quite 200 a year. 
 
 That was the state of affairs. 
 
 "Now let us have supper," said Churchill. "I'll tell you 
 more about it after supper." 
 
 Then, after their meal, they sat side by side in front of the 
 fire. Their hands were linked, and Edward stared into the 
 heart of the fire, as if seeing there the things he spoke of, 
 while he told her about the pitiful state of Vickers, his thin- 
 ness, his shrunken face and changed voice. He described how 
 Vickers had pleaded for life, praying Churchill to move
 
 332 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 i 
 
 heaven and earth to get him the money to put an advertise- 
 ment in the newspapers, to visit charitable organisations, to 
 go to his old societies and the trade union. And Churchill 
 had done all this. "But, Lilian, the advertisement isn't 
 likely to bring any response. The charities can't help him. 
 The others won't help him. They do not like him. They 
 have no sympathy with him. I followed all his directions, 
 but it was no use. So then I came back to tell you;" and 
 he raised his eyes and looked at her. 
 
 She sat silent, her hand squeezing his spasmodically, her 
 lip drooping and quivering. 
 
 Then he spoke again of the man's prayer for life. "Lilian, 
 it was very painful to hear." 
 
 Lilian was perturbed. She hid her face in her hands, and 
 it was some time before she spoke. 
 
 "Edward, is there no one ?" 
 
 "Yes," he said, "ourselves. There is no one else." 
 
 But the thing was too big for her ; she shrank from it in 
 dread. Why were they so tormented? Help him yes, as 
 much as was reasonable, more perhaps than was reasonable, 
 but not in such a gigantic way as this. 
 
 "Edward, we haven't the money." 
 
 "Yes, just the money," he said; and he put the circum- 
 stances of their situation before her in plain terms. They 
 had just two hundred a year of their own, in addition to their 
 pay here at Lips ford. If they gave away their income and 
 then happened to lose the pay, they might starve or go to the 
 workhouse. But they were still young that is, fairly young ; 
 they had no children ; at the worst he should be able to earn 
 their daily bread by manual labour. "I think," he went 
 on, "that probably we ought not do it. Anybody would 
 probably say so that it would be the act of fools. I seem to 
 feel myself that it would not be right. It is true that if it 
 were only once, for one year, and he died, then we might look 
 back on it with satisfaction. But he may live for many years. 
 He'll never be worth anything, and we shall feel bound to go 
 on with it as long as we can. The doctors say that if the cure 
 proved a success, he might last twenty years perhaps; but 
 there would be no work in him ; he would always be a burden 
 and an expense." 
 
 Here before them were the logical facts, so obvious that
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 333 
 
 one could not avoid seeing them plainly. Here was a man 
 that they had every reason to wish dead. Then surely in the 
 name of reason let him die. Can they denude themselves in 
 order to keep him alive ? 
 
 Churchill said, "I can only do it if you consent. That's 
 clear anyhow." 
 
 Lilian would not answer. She lay awake all night, and 
 once she said, "You wish to do it. You wouldn't have told 
 me in this manner unless you wished it." 
 
 But now it was he who would not answer, although, as she 
 knew, he too was sleepless. 
 
 He could not sleep ; he was harassed by doubts, and yet 
 he felt the call to do it. It had been strong upon him in 
 London this morning ; it had been weaker in the train, and 
 weaker still this evening as they sat by the fire talking and 
 thinking rationally. But again now in the silence of night 
 it was very strong. All the past had gone. He had been 
 conscious of this when he entered the hospital room for the 
 first time and saw the man lying in bed. It was impossible 
 to link him with the past, impossible to remember the fierce, 
 gasping brute with whom he had fought. This sick man was 
 nothing to him a stranger and it was because of this, per- 
 haps, that the appeal proved so overwhelming. It was the 
 irresistible cry of weakness to strength "Aid me" filling 
 one with pity and discomfort, taking possession of one, 
 giving one no respite until one can shake off the thoughts it 
 has aroused and again be at peace. 
 
 He tried to evoke clear memories of the man as he used to 
 be, in his brutal force and rage ; to stimulate a revival of his 
 own sensations of implacable hatred ; but he could not do so. 
 There was no touch of rancour in the recollection of how he 
 had been set upon and beaten in accordance with the sick 
 man's treacherous plan. Even at the time he had thought 
 that this was merely tit for tat, cleaning the slate, crying 
 quits between them. Vickers had been hated only because 
 of the pain he had caused to Lilian. Except for his sense- 
 less vindictiveness, they would now have been married for 
 nearly two years ; they would have been able to go where 
 they pleased ; Lilian would have suffered no discomfort when 
 meeting other women. But that was all over and done with. 
 She herself had ceased to care.
 
 334 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 How can one nourish resentment against one's enemies, 
 when one thinks of one's failure in regard to those one pas- 
 sionately loves? If where one strives most one yet fails, 
 how should one hope for satisfaction under the more feeble 
 impulse of hate? For hatred is so feeble when compared 
 with love. It was never strong when it seemed strongest; 
 when men faithfully obeyed it, worshipped it, made it their 
 ruling god. It is a fire that must always be fed and watched ; 
 if for such a little while one forgets it, the fire dies down 
 and fades. It is dying now in the hearts of mankind, and 
 some day must be gone forever, whether we will or no. With 
 the breath of a whole world fanning it, it cannot burn for 
 long. 
 
 How can one go on hating ? It is not worth while. Even 
 to try to do so is futile. One must be sorry for all men ; 
 because no man lives who does not merit pity, if we believe 
 that this life is all. 
 
 We must feel compassion for others each time that we 
 read our own hearts truly. We are so infinitely small, so 
 completely forgotten, so utterly lost except to ourselves ; in 
 the vastness of the universe we are only just large enough to 
 hold a little love. 
 
 Next morning Lilian said, "Yes, do it. I want you to do 
 it say for my sake, if you like. Yes, I ask you to do it, for 
 my sake." 
 
 And Edward, glowing with enthusiasm, took her in his 
 arms and pressed her to his heart. 
 
 "Lilian, my brave darling, you are better than I am, 
 stronger than I am, and I know it is right." 
 
 "I don't know," she said stoutly, "whether it is right or 
 wrong. But I know we had better do it. From the moment 
 that we have thought it all out, we should never be happy, 
 unless we did it." 
 
 He kissed her and smiled at her, and said that in these 
 words she had summed up the whole logical theory of 
 altruism. 
 
 Then she went about her household work, thinking with a 
 dull despair of what it meant to her. It was the final renun- 
 'ciation of her hope for the peace of marriage, with a settled
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 335 
 
 home and children at her knee. She must not hope now, 
 because that would be hoping for the man's death. 
 
 And Edward Churchill returned to London, made all 
 arrangements and carried them through, taking his invalid 
 to the Home in Staffordshire and there safely establishing 
 him. Then he came back again to Devonshire, and felt that 
 he had been a fool.
 
 XLII 
 
 THERE were no more trips to Exeter to buy those graceful 
 little ornaments with which women love to make a pretty 
 home still prettier. Much that tends to solid comfort, as well 
 as decoration, was no longer attainable; the friendly apple- 
 cheeked maidservant had been dismissed; Mrs. Churchill 
 was her own servant now, and Mr. Churchill did the heavier 
 housework while ruminating philosophical theses or turning 
 neat periods for his lectures on Eighteenth Century 
 Essayists. 
 
 In due course all noticed or heard of their changed mode 
 of life, and many demanded its explanation. Naturally, the 
 first to do so was Allan Gates, and to him Edward was com- 
 pelled, however unwillingly, to tell the whole truth and 
 nothing but the truth. To others it was merely necessary 
 to state that their private means had been unexpectedly 
 reduced. 
 
 Allan Gates, extorting a rather reluctant confession of 
 what had happened, seemed to be staggered by the idea of 
 remote, if not immediate, consequences. He rubbed his nose 
 with unusual vigour, and when Lilian came in and out the 
 room, he glanced at her ruefully. 
 
 "I almost wish," he said, "that you had consulted me 
 about it." 
 
 "Yes," said Edward, "I think perhaps I ought to have 
 done so. I consulted her, of course. I have acted with her 
 approval." 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "You think you don't approve, Allan?" 
 
 "My dear old boy, I don't know what to think. It does 
 seem rather a tall order for both of you." 
 
 But Allan knew what to think in a day or two, and by 
 that time the order had ceased to be too tall for him. 
 
 He said, "It is fine. It is a gloriously Christian sacrifice. 
 Edward, if you had honoured me by asking my advice, I 
 should have urged you to do it." 
 
 336
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 337 
 
 "You would really, Allan?" 
 
 "Yes, but I should have claimed then what I claim now 
 to take my share in it. You can't refuse." 
 
 And with much eagerness he tried to prevail on his friend 
 to permit him to carry some part of the burden that they had 
 taken up. He said that he had put by money, not much, 
 but a nice little hoard, nearly a hundred pounds, and for this 
 he had no possible use. Why, then, might it not go towards 
 the maintenance of Mr. Vickers? 
 
 "I have no relatives, nobody with any claim on me; the 
 money is quite my own. I have every right to do what I 
 please with it, and nothing will please me so much as this." 
 
 But when Edward said that Allan must keep his small 
 capital intact for some emergency personal to himself, he 
 was forced to own that he had no private income of any 
 sort. 
 
 "Why should I want money? I have never given money 
 a thought. As I say, there is no one dependent on me. My 
 stipend here is bigger than I require. That's the reason why 
 I have made savings ; and I shall go on making them." 
 
 He was genuinely grieved by his friend's obdurate refusal. 
 
 One of the people who asked troublesome questions and 
 offered an active sympathy that had not been invited was a 
 member of the Burnage family, Mrs. Draycott. This was the 
 tall lady with large eyes, spoken of by her relatives indiffer- 
 ently as Mrs. William and Daphne. One could not help 
 being sorry for Daphne, because obviously, as Mr. Edrick 
 had said, she was not very wise, and, as she said herself, she 
 was unhappy ; but, suffering from the vapid, empty character 
 of a life that her money, her fane garments, and even her 
 headaches, could not fill, she allowed herself to lean heavily 
 on others, and, if the truth must be told, to bore them 
 excessively. She had leant upon Edward Churchill, and, 
 sorry as he felt for her, he could not escape from feeling 
 bored also. Indeed Daphne developed from being a bore 
 until she was an absolute worry to him. 
 
 Struck by one of his lectures, she asked for help about 
 books. She visited the Men's Library at inconvenient hours, 
 she marked the margins of pages and underlined long pas- 
 sages, she wrote him little notes telling him to bring more 
 books to the Burnage mansion and discuss them there with
 
 338 
 
 her quietly. He would have thus assisted anybody, and of 
 course he must hold his leisure at the disposal of Daphne as 
 a member of the family ; requests from such a quarter were 
 somewhat in the nature of orders. He obeyed the orders as 
 far and as punctually as he could. 
 
 When he carried the books to the big house, she wasted a 
 lot of time by talking of everything except the books them- 
 selves, although that was what he had come for. She used to 
 receive him in a small boudoir which appeared to be her own 
 special retreat, although that jolly, healthy Miss Adela some- 
 times came prancing in and out, seeming to bring a breath of 
 fresh air with her and making Mrs. William close her eyes 
 wearily. Mrs. William was so woefully tired of all common- 
 place phenomena. She would rise from some deep chair or 
 couch to welcome the visitor, and then subside into a grace- 
 ful attitude, seated on the arm of a chair or reclining against 
 a piano. At home she wore loose hanging robes, and she 
 herself was floppy. She would hold a bunch of roses to her 
 long nose, and raise her dark eyes above them, and tell 
 him that flowers were the most beautiful things in a very 
 ugly world. He agreed, and promptly unstrapped his par- 
 cel of books. 
 
 "Thank you ;" and she gave him the roses to smell, and 
 then laid them on her lap. 
 
 She desired his help. What she wanted to know was, Did 
 he think it was too late for her to open her mind ? She her- 
 self thought that literature might be a solace. She might 
 become an author. She said that if she wrote the story of 
 her own life, it would be the most wonderful book ever 
 written. "One day I shall have to tell you my life. You will 
 understand it. I knew from the beginning that you were 
 sympathetic." 
 
 With gentle tact Churchill postponed the day on which he 
 was to hear the story of Mrs. William's life. In fact that day 
 was never coming. If she really had need of disburdening 
 herself in this manner, he must refer her to Allan Gates. 
 Confessions belonged to his department. 
 
 But Daphne was fond of confidences, and if she might not 
 herself confide, she asked other people to confide in her. 
 Soon she invited Edward to a friendly confidential exercise. 
 With a prelude of apology, she asked him if he was happy in
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 339 
 
 his married life. When he replied that he was absolutely 
 happy she said she was very glad. 
 
 "It has been on my mind. I don't know why. My 
 own bitter experience, perhaps, makes me look for that 
 explanation whenever I think people are not happy." 
 
 She accepted his assurance, and yet, at a later period, this 
 strange idea must have come upon her mind again, because 
 she passed it on to Mr. Edrick. 
 
 She told Churchill she felt sure there had been a tragedy 
 in his life. "Tell me what it is. Trust me." 
 
 He parried all such questions. "I am thirty- four," he said, 
 smiling. "It would be odd if there had been no trouble or 
 sorrow in my life, but there is nothing of the least interest. 
 From an ordinary point of view, my life has been unevent- 
 ful." 
 
 "Ah," she said, wearily closing her eyes, "you won't trust 
 me. I think you are wrong." 
 
 And she sent him a copy of verses on the subject of Trust- 
 fulness, and seemed willing that he should suppose they were 
 her own composition. He did not suppose it ; because, bad 
 as the verses were, they would have been worse if they had 
 come, as children say, out of Mrs. William's own head. 
 
 She soon gave up the notion of becoming an author, but 
 she did not abandon her new interest in literature, and she 
 presently asked Edward for some volumes on metaphysics, 
 and was disappointed when he said there were none in the 
 Library. She said he must make a list of very superior 
 books, and she would buy them next time she went to 
 London and present them to the Library. 
 
 She was often away from Lips ford, going to London for 
 relaxation, or to Harrogate and Buxton for the good of her 
 health. She said she adored London. "To me it is so 
 wonderful, so different from anywhere else. But I feel alone 
 there alone in a crowd. I take Mrs. Prince with me, but 
 she does not count. She is no companion. There is no one 
 there like you, with whom I can exchange ideas. When I 
 have been looking at beautiful pictures or listening to ex- 
 quisite music, I want to remain silent, for quite a long time ; 
 but after that I want to utter all my thoughts and have them 
 understood in a moment. It is the same thing as the theatre. 
 I am lifted out of myself ; but afterwards comes the longing
 
 340 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 for sympathy, for comprehension. I am afraid I am very 
 unconventional, but only a man's intellect is strong enough to 
 give the communion of spirit that we poor women need in 
 our highest moment. . . . Mrs. Prince well, you know 
 what Mrs. Prince is." 
 
 Mrs. Prince was one of the nondescript middle-aged ladies 
 who were connected with or adopted by the Burnage family, 
 wife to the large man, and, although Edward did not really 
 know much of her, he could understand that she would 
 necessarily fail as recipient of Daphne's vapourings about 
 art and the drama. Mrs. Prince was altogether too domestic 
 and prosaic. 
 
 One winter afternoon when Daphne had returned from 
 London, after a round of gaiety, she came straight to the 
 Library, and Lilian happened to meet her there. Daphne had 
 brought books, and they were spread out on the big table in 
 the middle of the room for Churchill's examination. Daphne, 
 dressed in rich furs, with a bunch of Parma violets at her 
 neck, sat upon the edge of the table in a graceful attitude, 
 while Edward, leaning on the far side of the table, pored 
 over the new volumes. There was nobody else in the place, 
 until Lilian appeared. When she came in Edward stood up, 
 and, the table suddenly tilting, Mrs. William nearly sat down 
 upon the floor. The new books followed her in a cataract. 
 It was really rather ridiculous, because Mrs. William had 
 been cut short and nearly upset in the midst of quite a high 
 flight of eloquence; but, recovering equilibrium, she pre- 
 served her full dignity and did not seem at all confused. 
 
 "Your husband is quite wonderful," she said. "There 
 is nothing that he has not read, and nothing that he cannot 
 understand. I am sure you must be very proud of him." 
 
 Lilian replied rather stiffly to these compliments. The 
 fact was she had heard too many of them, and for her own 
 reasons she could not support them any longer with perfect 
 equanimity. In the early days Mrs. William had called 
 at the cottage two or three times, but Lilian did not take to 
 her very kindly even then. Mrs. William's languishing grace 
 and slow, graceful gestures failed to charm, and the compli- 
 ments to Edward, who was not present on these occasions, 
 soon began to pall. One's pride in those one loves is not 
 a matter that one can easily discuss with fresh acquaintances,
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 341 
 
 nor does one ordinarily enjoy having the duties that love 
 commands pointed out to one by strangers. 
 
 "I shall come to hear you on Thursday," said Mrs. 
 William, shaking out her furs and readjusting her violets. 
 "The usual time, I suppose. Eight o'clock." 
 
 Other members of the family went to Edward's evening 
 lectures at the Institute at long intervals, as a politeness or 
 for business purposes Mr. Gordon, to make sure that the 
 lighting arrangements were satisfactory, without danger of 
 fire ; Mr. Edrick, perhaps to ascertain that the discourse did 
 not trench upon political economy or contain any ideas of 
 an unsettling nature. But Mrs. William went always when 
 she was in Lipsford, as if to a great treat, glad to renounce 
 her dinner for a lecture. Lilian several times saw her there, 
 sitting always in the same chair, looking very grand with her 
 big hat and velvet cloak, sniffling at a bottle of salts, half 
 closing her eyes and opening them prodigiously. When the 
 lecture was over she always said it had been "wonderful." 
 She said this to Mr. Gates, to the overseers, to anybody ; and 
 she said to Edward, if she got near enough, that it had taken 
 her out of herself, and she wished it hadn't stopped so soon. 
 
 Allan Gates, at supper with the Churchills one evening 
 after a lecture, said facetiously, "Old boy, you have made 
 quite a conquest. You have completely bowled over Mrs. 
 William." 
 
 The kindest people say the wrong thing sometimes, and 
 poor Allan said it then. 
 
 Lilian did not care for his remark ; she could not see any 
 joke in it, and after he had gone she told Edward her opinion 
 of Mrs. William quite seriously. 
 
 "I dislike her very much, and I hope you'll never give her 
 the very least encouragement." 
 
 "Lilian, my dear girl, how can you talk so absurdly ?" 
 
 "It's not absurd. That woman would come between us 
 if she could." And she added proudly, "I am not a bit 
 afraid of her. But I don't like it." 
 
 And she spoke of Mrs. William again that evening, smil- 
 ing at him now, with her hands upon his shoulders. 
 
 "Edward, I am not much to look at but you couldn't 
 prefer a faded, affected thing like that, could you ?" 
 
 All this was utterly absurd, but it was none the less annoy-
 
 342 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 ing. Edward was no better pleased with Allan's silly attempt 
 at a joke than Lilian had been. Before this he had often 
 felt a certain constraint and awkwardness in Mrs. William's 
 company, and henceforth these sensations were accentuated 
 by recalling Lilian's extraordinary and unique flash of 
 jealous doubt. Everything chivalrous in his nature recoiled 
 from admitting for a moment that there might be a shadow 
 of substance to justify the imputation against the unfortu- 
 nate and embarrassing Daphne. But the thought of how 
 easily people and things can be misinterpreted rendered him 
 uncomfortable, and gave Daphne power to be for a time a 
 real worry. 
 
 Then, fortunately, she went to Harrogate again. 
 
 It was when she came back to Lipsford that she heard of 
 the altered circumstances of the Churchills and rushed to 
 their rescue. That she meant well no one could doubt, but 
 really she was silly and precipitate in jumping to such large 
 conclusions. She seemed to think that the poor souls' need 
 was so great that even their daily bread might be in jeopardy, 
 'and, eager to alleviate their more immediate distress, she 
 arrived at the cottage with a parcel of provisions in her hands 
 and a consignment of tinned fruit on the front seat of the 
 carriage. One of the gardeners from the big house followed 
 with an immense hamper of vegetables. 
 
 "There," she said breathlessly to Lilian. "Now tell me 
 everything about it. I am sorry. I never slept a wink last 
 night, from thinking about it. What has happened ?" 
 
 It was very difficult to satisfy her sympathetic question- 
 ings; or to persuade her to believe that they were not 
 hungry, and that, even if famished, they could never eat 
 so many vegetables. 
 
 "But," said Daphne, "vegetables are invaluable if you 
 know all you can do with them. I do not know myself 
 I am so ignorant. But Ethel Prince knows. I will bring 
 Ethel Prince." 
 
 Then Daphne and Mrs. Prince came together; and Mrs. 
 Prince, in a quiet, bustling, capable way, told Lilian that it 
 was a mistake to suppose that man is really or necessarily a 
 meat-eater. Vast geographical tracts are peopled with races 
 who scarcely ever touch meat. The best doctors are now 
 agreed that we Britons eat too much meat. She herself had
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 343 
 
 for some time been leading her husband, Mr. Prince, towards 
 the vegetarian habit; and, although as a person of large 
 frame not free from prejudices, he hung back a little, he was 
 already better, yes, better, for her treatment. He was less 
 inclined to be drowsy, more talkative after his meals. 
 
 "Believe me," she said, "Mr. Churchill will not suffer by 
 the change. To one of his ascetic temperament and energetic, 
 intelligent character, it will come as a revelation." 
 
 And she proposed, if Lilian permitted, to demonstrate 
 there and then how easy it was to make three kinds of 
 nourishing cabbage soup and one appetising tomato ragout. 
 
 Lilian submitted to this lesson, but, being so very anxious 
 to get rid of her visitors at the time and to escape more 
 visits from them in the future, she perhaps did not show 
 adequate pleasure or offer as gracious thanks as had been 
 expected. Mrs. Prince had rather a huffy air at the end of 
 the lesson, and she told Daphne afterwards that Mrs. 
 Churchill was a stuck-up, foolish person. 
 
 "I don't know what she may have been, but she thinks 
 herself above her station," said Mrs. Prince. "She is useless 
 in a house. If you wish to assist them, you'll have to do it 
 through the husband." 
 
 Daphne was already trying to assist Edward with some- 
 thing more substantial than cabbage soups. She made a 
 proposal to him that the counsel and guidance he had so 
 freely given her should now be continued in a regular, busi- 
 nesslike manner ; that they should become teacher and pupil ; 
 and that he should accept a handsome remuneration for a 
 course of interviews say, three afternoons a week, an hour 
 at a time, at hours convenient to himself. 
 
 He told her that this was impossible. He was already in 
 receipt of a sufficient payment for all his services to the 
 community. 
 
 "Indeed you are not," said Daphne, with indignation. 
 "It is a beggarly pittance. It makes me ashamed to think 
 of. I mean to tell my cousin Edrick that it must be in- 
 creased, and very much increased, at once." 
 
 "No, please don't do that. Mrs. Draycott,! beg you as 
 a favour not to do that." 
 
 "Then what am I to do?" said Daphne disconsolately. 
 "You refuse everything. You won't trust me you won't
 
 344 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 let me be helpful ;" and she seemed as though his obduracy 
 might reduce her to tears. 
 
 Edward, in dread of such a catastrophe, hurriedly assured 
 her that he appreciated her kind thoughts, although he could 
 not avail himself of them. 
 
 "Truly, Mrs. Draycott, we need no help. You are very 
 kind. Don't, please, trouble about us." 
 
 "But I do trouble. I can't help it. It makes me so un- 
 comfortable. And if you won't let me put things on a busi- 
 ness footing, how can I go on trespassing on your time and 
 your own occupations ? It will mean that I must not come 
 to the Library to have one of our talks. And there are 
 things I am dying to talk of." 
 
 He replied to the effect that now and always he was at her 
 disposal as a salaried servant of the family, that the Library 
 was a public place, and that the librarian was there to be 
 talked to. What else could he say ? 
 
 So it happened that during the pleasant September weather 
 of their third year at Lips ford he spent, in following Daphne 
 through another of her vagaries, many half-hours that might 
 have been better and more profitably employed. It was 
 philanthropy this time. Literature had receded into a dim 
 background of headachy recollections. She wanted to ame- 
 liorate the lot of mankind, and she wished Mr. Churchill to 
 tell her how to set about it. At Harrogate she had met a 
 lady who did "slumming" in one of the great industrial 
 centres, and this lady said that the immorality, the distress, 
 the general condition of the poor, were far worse than in 
 London. 
 
 "I doubt if that is possible," said Churchill. And he told 
 her a little about life among the London poor, as he had 
 seen it. 
 
 She was intensely interested, and she asked why could not 
 she do what her Harrogate friend and other noble, unselfish 
 women did go about among wonderful people, helping 
 them, and be lifted completely out of herself. The family 
 would, of course, object. But she was prepared to defy 
 their old-fashioned, conventional prejudices. They deserved 
 defiance as punishment for their failure ever properly to 
 understand her.
 
 345 
 
 Churchill thought it would be a pity to upset the family, 
 and suggested that as a beginning she might start her good 
 work nearer home. He told her of his belief in a rule of life 
 that made one do always first the things that are nearest 
 one's hand. He spoke quite earnestly, sympathising with 
 Daphne in this her new enthusiasm. It was finer, if not 
 likely to be less evanescent, than other of her fancies. 
 
 "Every day," he said, "I become more and more con- 
 vinced that it is not necessary to run about the world seeking 
 how and where one can do the most good. The calls come to 
 one, wherever one is. If one answers the call one hears 
 plainest, if one does the thing nearest one's hand, it is better 
 for one's own happiness and it is enough. When the time 
 comes that we are all doing it, there will be no more 
 unhappiness in the world." 
 
 "But what's nearest to me ? What call ? Exeter ?" 
 
 "No, you might begin here." 
 
 "Here!" said Daphne, with a gesture of fatigue and 
 disgust. "What can I do here? Do you suppose I should 
 be allowed to do anything even if there was anything to 
 do? Mr. Churchill," and Daphne showed emotion, "it's 
 unkind, if you are laughing at me." 
 
 "Indeed I am not." 
 
 "Then what do you mean ? There are no slums nothing 
 approaching to a slum here at Lipsford." 
 
 "Then I mean I should not trouble about slums, if I were 
 you." 
 
 But Mrs. William said she must trouble, because slums 
 real slums were on her mind ; and from what he had already 
 let fall, she now thought her friend was wrong and that 
 London slums were the best that is, the worst. She begged 
 him to tell her some more about them. 
 
 "It's enthralling," she said, with admiration. "You have 
 seen these things yourself? You have lived among them 
 in the real true East End of London?" 
 
 "Yes, I was working in the East End for a considerable 
 time." 
 
 "What part of it? Where exactly?" 
 
 He hesitated for a moment, and then told her that it was 
 the parish of St. Bede's.
 
 346 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 A few days after this conversation she brought to the 
 Library a copy of an illustrated magazine and showed it to 
 him. 
 
 "St. Bede's !" she echoed. "I have heard something about 
 St. Bede's no, I read something about it only the other 
 day. I know I did. St. Bede's !" 
 
 "See, Mr. Churchill. I knew I was right. Here is an 
 article all about a wonderful place at St. Bede's." 
 
 The article was one of a series called "Odd Corners of 
 the Labyrinth," and it concerned itself with Denmark House. 
 There were photographs of the outside of the house and the 
 inside of the house, of people sitting in the rooms, and 
 grouped together on the stairs. The writer praised the 
 House, calling it in the course of his article a haven of rest, 
 a harbour of refuge, and a secure shelter for all who had 
 been storm-tossed on the ocean of life, and saying that, 
 as an institution, it had been started, set going, put on foot 
 by the benevolence of a wealthy curate of the parish. 
 
 Edward Churchill glanced through the article, and saw 
 that the curate's name was not mentioned. 
 
 "Do you know the place yourself?" asked Daphne, taking 
 the magazine again to have another look at the pictures. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I know it well." 
 
 "But it is beautiful," she said. "It is not a bit like a 
 slum." 
 
 "No, it is different from the rest of the neighborhood." 
 
 "One day," said Daphne, with enthusiasm, "you must 
 take me to see it. Mr. Churchill, it must be arranged some- 
 how for you to come to London some time when I am there. 
 Mrs. Prince suffocates me in London. I must have some one 
 to talk to." 
 
 She harped on this idea more than once, and finally in 
 October told him that she was off to the metropolis and 
 invited him to come too. She must be allowed to defray all 
 the costs of this excursion, and he ought to consent. He 
 could stay at what hotel he pleased, and she would not 
 attempt to monopolise all his time. But he should escort 
 her to theatres, concerts, picture galleries, and perhaps show 
 her some wonderful places and wonderful people. They 
 would both be lifted right out of themselves, and it would
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 347 
 
 do them all the good in the world. This, perhaps, she 
 thought was doing the thing nearest to her hand. 
 
 "What is the use of being so conventional?" she argued. 
 "Why mayn't one be happy and enjoy oneself now and then 
 in one's own way ? You never have a holiday. You never 
 get a change." 
 
 He regretted that he could not accept the invitation, and 
 said that, as a fact, he might have to go to Staffordshire on 
 business. That would give him sufficient change. 
 
 "Then come on to London," Daphne urged, "after you 
 have done your business in Staffordshire. Why not ? I am 
 sure Mrs. Churchill would not object. May I ask her if she 
 will spare you?" 
 
 "No, please don't," said Churchill gravely. "I could not 
 in any case leave her alone while I was amusing myself 
 in London." 
 
 Daphne half closed her eyes, considered, and spoke with 
 sudden decision. 
 
 "Then bring her too. Yes, bring her to London with you. 
 I am sure she and Mrs. Prince will be able to entertain each 
 other very well." 
 
 Not too tactfully he declined this enlarged invitation also, 
 and Daphne seemed wounded as well as disappointed. On 
 the following day she went to London, and he thought no 
 more about her. 
 
 But one evening only a few days later he saw the Burnage 
 brougham with the luggage cart on its way to the station, 
 and he heard that Mrs. William and Mrs. Prince had come 
 back again. Evidently this particular trip to London had not 
 been a great success.
 
 XLIII 
 
 NEXT morning he and Allan Gates were summoned to the 
 big house to meet the family. Each carried with him various 
 accounts and papers ; for it was the custom of the family to 
 hold informal meetings, under the presidency of Mr. Edrick, 
 at which the social progress of the community, plans for 
 future improvement, and reports on past efforts, were dis- 
 cussed by all concerned. 
 
 These meetings, as Mr. Edrick said, rendered easier their 
 common endeavour, and he wished everybody to give his 
 personal views with freedom. Often the big dining-room 
 was full of people, and the debate lasted a long time, because, 
 thus encouraged by the president, even the least important 
 personages liked to have their say. 
 
 To-day, however, it appeared that the meeting was to be 
 quite a small affair. The dining-room had been prepared as 
 usual, with the mahogany table laid bare and seats ranged 
 about it, but only Mr. Edrick, Mr. Gordon, and Mr. Prince 
 were in position at the table, while old Mrs. Burnage, un- 
 supported by other ladies of the family, sat in a high-backed 
 chair near the fire. Evidently nobody else was expected, 
 because Mr. Edrick opened the proceedings at once. 
 
 "Sit down, please. Don't undo your papers, Gates. . . . 
 Mr. Churchill, the business in hand is, I regret, of a rather 
 painful character; but I am sure it is best to come straight 
 to the point. Have I your permission to do so ?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Churchill. 
 
 "Well then," said Mr. Edrick, suavely and almost depre- 
 catingly, "a relative and connection of ours happened the 
 other day to visit a part of London where you, as I now 
 understand, are well known, and there they heard certain 
 allegations I should say, information concerning you. I 
 must not we none of us think it right to accept this infor- 
 mation as correct until you have had an opportunity of 
 denying the facts mentioned ; but it is only fair to add that 
 we have also felt it right to consider and resolve upon our 
 course of action if you are unable to deny them." 
 
 348
 
 349 
 
 "Please tell me the allegations." 
 
 "To begin with, that you are a clergyman of the Church 
 of England." 
 
 "I was one, but I have ceased to be one." 
 
 "Just so. But " 
 
 "One moment," Allan Gates interposed firmly. "I want 
 to say at once that I was aware of this fact from the 
 beginning." 
 
 "No," said Churchill. "You forget, Allan. I did not 
 tell you till after I had been here for a long time." 
 
 "But I guessed it," said Gates. 
 
 "Oh, you guessed it, Gates?" said Mr. Edrick. "But 
 you did not think it necessary to tell me or any of us ?" 
 
 "No," said Gates, very firmly. "Why should I? It 
 did not concern you or any of us. It was entirely Churchill's 
 own affair. He was coming here to perform secular duties, 
 and he has performed them admirably. I had every con- 
 fidence in him, and my confidence has been thoroughly 
 justified." 
 
 Mr. Edrick looked at his brother, and then again at Gates. 
 "On the whole," he said mildly and courteously, "I think 
 you may not have been wrong in taking that view. No, all 
 things considered, I do not know that this circumstance 
 greatly concerned us ; although naturally we should have 
 preferred to know the exact status of any one with whom we 
 were brought into close relations." 
 
 Old Mrs. Burnage was taking no part in the proceedings, 
 but she had said something to herself in a grumbling tone, 
 and all turned toward her for a moment. Mr. Edrick seemed 
 to interpret her slight disturbance as a hint to abridge the 
 talk and get to business. 
 
 Deprecatingly then, but without unnecessary phrases, he 
 asked Churchill if it was true that the lady he had brought 
 among them as his wife was not in fact his wife for the 
 strongest of all reasons, because she was the wife of some- 
 body else. 
 
 "Yes," said Edward, "that is true, in the sense that you 
 attach to your question. The bond between us has not been 
 ratified by law. It is none the less indissoluble." 
 
 "Well then, that being so, we feel that we have no alter- 
 native but to ask you to vacate your appointment."
 
 350 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 "No doubt," said Edward, "y u are right from your point 
 of view. Please consider the appointment vacated." 
 
 Mr. Edrick seemed to be relieved. 
 
 "You see our difficulty. We make no reproaches. We 
 very much regret the unfortunate circumstances of the 
 situation, and we understand that, as you were placed, it was 
 not easy for you to explain them to us; but you would 
 perhaps have understood had you thought of it that our 
 reception of the lady we supposed to be Mrs. Churchill must 
 have been different and that it was not fair to leave us 
 under a misapprehension." 
 
 "No, from your point of view it was not fair." 
 
 "You do see that now," and Mr. Edrick looked still more 
 relieved. "I put it to you as a man of the world " 
 
 "I am not a man of the world," said Edward; "but I 
 think no more need be said. You wish us to go. We will go 
 without delay." He had risen to his feet, and he bowed 
 gravely. "On behalf of both of us I beg to thank you all 
 for much kindness, and I am sorry if some of it has been 
 given to us by mistake." 
 
 But then Allan Gates interposed hotly. He said that the 
 point of view of the family was not a Christian point of 
 view ; that if his friend was not a man of the world, he was 
 something far better ; that he and the lady who was his wife 
 in everything but name had led the most admirable life that 
 had ever been seen in Lips ford. All married couples might 
 take it as a model for imitation, and it was monstrous and 
 cruel to turn them out as if in disgrace. 
 
 "Gently, my dear Gates, gently," said Mr. Edrick. "There 
 is no question of disgrace certainly not. Your friend 
 himself admits our difficulty. Surely you, too, must see that 
 we cannot countenance what in a larger community might 
 perhaps be of much less consequence. It is the example. 
 What we seem to countenance we must be held to approve. 
 We have many young men and women in our charge. This 
 lady goes about among the work-girls. They admire her and 
 are naturally subject to her influence." 
 
 "Do you think," asked Churchill, "she has done them 
 any harm?" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Gordon, "far from it. My brother had 
 no wish, as I know, to give an impression that any of us
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 351 
 
 doubt that. No, believe me, Mr. Churchill, it is to our great 
 regret that we are losing you both. You have both endeared 
 yourselves to many here." 
 
 Then Mrs. Burnage began to talk, as if to herself, rather 
 than to the company. "He ought not to have brought her 
 here not into this house!" and she went on grumblingly. 
 "It has never happened before except once, when they 
 brought the actress who played Lady Macbeth at Exeter. 
 That was in my husband's time." 
 
 "No, no," continued Mr. Gordon hurriedly. "Much 
 regret, I assure you ; but, as my brother has indicated, we 
 are not really free agents in the matter. We have responsi- 
 bilities." 
 
 "Very well," said Allan Gates. He, too, had risen from 
 his chair, and he came and stood by his friend's side near the 
 door. "If they go, I go with them. Please accept my 
 resignation also." 
 
 "That," said Mr. Edrick, "would be a thousand pities, 
 Gates." 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Gordon. "Really, Gates you must not 
 think of such a course." 
 
 "Allan," said Edward Churchill appealingly, "don't, 
 please. For my sake, don't." 
 
 "No, no," said Mr. Edrick, "we simply won't consider 
 such a course." 
 
 "Why not?" said Gates, very warmly. "You have taken 
 a course. Then I take mine. I refuse to countenance what 
 I consider a dangerous example of narrow-mindedness and 
 ingratitude. I protest against your treatment of this man 
 and this woman as unjust, ungrateful and unchristian." 
 
 The dark cheeks of Allan Gates were fiery red and his 
 eyes blazed as he made his protest. Mr. Edrick was greatly 
 perturbed by it, and murmured deprecatingly ; Mr. Prince 
 shook his head in sign of solemn negation ; and Mr. Gordon 
 looked apprehensively towards the big chair by the fire. 
 But old Mrs. Burnage was quite undisturbed. She did not 
 seem to have noticed Allan's rather noisy outburst, and 
 presently one heard her speak to herself as if pursuing a long 
 train of thought. 
 
 "If I had known," she said, "I should not have given her 
 a nosegay."
 
 352 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 Outside in the hall Daphne was waiting for Churchill. 
 She seized his hand and clung to him. Her eyes had red 
 circles round them, her long nose was swollen by weeping, 
 she spoke hysterically and breathlessly. 
 
 "It is not my fault. Dear Mr. Churchill, do believe me. 
 I am not to blame." 
 
 "No," he said gently and kindly, "of course not. No one 
 is to blame except myself." 
 
 "It is Mrs. Prince," said Daphne, with a gasp. "I hate 
 her. I'll never speak to her again. We went to Denmark 
 House your wonderful House that you gave them. You 
 gave them all your money. And they love you there. They 
 pray for you. And I think there's nobody like you. I have 
 told Edrick. I have told them all that none of them here are 
 fit to black your boots. . . . But the matron of the House 
 told us something about her and Ethel Prince insisted on 
 going to other places, making further inquiries, until she 
 found out everything. I tried to prevent her. . . . Oh, why 
 didn't you trust me? If you had trusted me, I should 
 have been on my guard, and this wouldn't have happened ;" 
 and she burst into hysterical sobbing. 
 
 "Daphne," said Mr. Edrick, coming from the dining-room ; 
 "Daphne. This is not very becoming. I beg of you to 
 control yourself ;" and he and Mr. Prince released Churchill 
 from her embrace, and led her away still sobbing. 
 
 Allan .Gates and Edward Churchill, carrying their un- 
 opened papers, walked through the gardens and down the 
 park-like slope towards the river and the clustered roofs. 
 The sun was shining on the pleasant meadows and the ter- 
 raced hill; never had their valley looked prettier or more 
 restful. 
 
 And Edward, thinking of his friend, said to himself, "He 
 loves it. He is happy here. He has made it his home. 
 But for me, he would stay here to the end of his life." 
 
 And, speaking aloud, he reproached Allan for wishing to 
 make a quite unnecessary sacrifice, and urged him to with- 
 draw his resignation. The family would be quick to pardon 
 a few hasty and ill-considered words, and eager to retain 
 his services. 
 
 "Allan, please do it for my sake. I should never forgive 
 myself for bringing this trouble upon you."
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 353 
 
 "I shouldn't forgive myself either. Dear old boy, I am 
 following your own rule. How often have you told me ? 
 self has its rights. I am doing it for my own sake. Besides, 
 I had to make my protest to make it as strong as I could, so 
 that all might understand it." 
 
 "But, Allan, did you believe all that you said to them? 
 Did you really think that they were acting so improperly?" 
 
 "Of course I did. ... Oh, I don't know." And for a 
 moment he had his expression of childlike ruefulness. "1 
 can't analyse too closely. They made me very angry. Don't 
 let's speak of it again. Let us think of what we are all to 
 do." 
 
 Indeed the outlook, so far as Lilian and Edward were 
 concerned, could not be considered as cheerful. They had 
 lost their job. They were out of work and almost penniless. 
 
 "I think," Allan went on, "what we had better do is to 
 go first of all to Danesborough. I am sure they'll take me 
 on again there. There is always room there for another 
 curate. We shall have plenty of time there to look round, 
 and see what is best for all of us." As he talked, he became 
 gay again, snapping his fingers, and stepping out briskly. 
 "Remember, we have a nice little nest egg the money 
 you wouldn't use. We'll use it now, till we get going 
 again." 
 
 "Allan, you speak of 'we' and 'us,' when you ought to 
 say 'I.' Lilian and I can fend for ourselves. We are not 
 going to hang upon you." 
 
 "No, you are not. But you are coming with me. 'We 
 are going into the wilderness together." 
 
 During the afternoon Edward Churchill once more at- 
 tempted to dissuade his friend from abandoning the happy 
 valley; but Gates scarcely listened to these further argu- 
 ments. He was busily packing at his beloved parsonage. 
 He had already stripped the "book-room," and he moved to 
 and fro in the midst of confusion, pulling about boxes, piling 
 things in small heaps, talking to his servant and talking to 
 himself with the utmost cheeriness. "This pile is to be burnt. 
 . That is a present for Mr. Madge. He is coming to 
 fetch it. ... My fishing-boots! Shall I ever require them? 
 No I think I will give my fishing-boots to old John Yenning. 
 Yes, for Yenning the boots. That settles that," and he
 
 354 
 
 whistled gaily. "What did you say, Edward ? Will you and 
 Lilian be ready for the first train to-morrow ? . . . Oh, about 
 my going!" and he stopped and turned. "That's all right. 
 I have been here more than long enough. I always said 
 so and, in any case, I could not go on living here when 
 you and Lilian were gone." 
 
 Arguments were without avail, and Edward Churchill 
 had not really expected that his friend would yield to them. 
 As each knew, it was a comradeship that could not be 
 broken. So these three went out into the wilderness, as it 
 were, hand in hand.
 
 XLIV 
 
 IN those days the town of Danesborough was perhaps not 
 more than half its present size ; but already its rapid expan- 
 sion had begun. Allan Gates said that since he last saw it, 
 a belt of pretty fields and copses that used to separate the 
 suburbs of Danesmead and Castle Hill had been built over, 
 and the district called Canal Bank had "grown out of all 
 knowledge." Here the new docks had been opened, another 
 canal had been cut to the estuary of the river, and the semi- 
 maritime character of the neighbourhood had become merged 
 in its manufacturing activity. The timber trade flourished 
 exceedingly, and a boom had begun in half-finished wood- 
 work and builders' materials. The children, especially the 
 girls, were nearly all employed at the wood-work as soon 
 as they left school. A large trade in fish was also developing 
 itself, while the old trades of woollen goods, cement, and 
 carpets more than held their own, increasing their smoke- 
 cloud and swallowing fresh acreage in a most satisfactory 
 manner. 
 
 Indeed, from a material point of view, Danesborough was 
 doing well. "With our population of over a quarter of a 
 million," as the local newspapers used to say, "with a system 
 of water-ways that connects us with the North Sea, with 
 our public parks, with the residential amenities offered by 
 wealthy Danesmead and the scarcely less affluent Castle 
 Hill, Danesborough and its dependencies may fairly rival and 
 ere long challenge supremacy with any city in Europe." The 
 newspapers rarely if ever spoke of the beautiful Norman 
 church of St. Peter's or the old market or the Monks' Gate, 
 but these medieval curiosities had always been there in the 
 middle of the town, and modern generations could only claim 
 to have made them look foolish if compared with the iron 
 and plateglass castles that now surrounded and dwarfed 
 them. What the newspapers talked of most of all, what 
 formed a topic of general conversation and excluded all such 
 subjects as art, literature, or religion, was the Train Service. 
 
 355
 
 356 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 Danesborough wanted more and faster trains. It made 
 people's blood boil when they heard of new railway facilities 
 for Leeds and Liverpool, or of wonderful non-stop runs into 
 the sleepy West of England. But for the vis inertia and 
 selfish greed of two railway boards, the progress of this 
 glorious city might have been even greater. 
 
 From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. 
 The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally 
 bumptious ; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, 
 were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied. Every class 
 down to the humblest work-people earned plenty of money, 
 and spent their money in eating too much and drinking too 
 much. At night drunkards made the streets horrible. By 
 day the most respectable people drank more than was good 
 for them ; business men completed no piece of business with- 
 out wetting the bargain ; their wives at home in fine villas 
 soaked through the empty hours ; the crowd gathering for 
 its professional football match, rabbit coursing, or whippet 
 racing, flushed and heated itself at a thousand taverns before 
 the sport began. Whole roads smelt of whisky, and even 
 little children knew, its taste. Prostitution also was rife, 
 fostered by the ready money in all the young men's pockets 
 and by the conditions of the workshops where the young 
 girls were employed. These were regular recruiting places 
 for the army of the fallen, and shop-girls led astray by their 
 employers, servants seduced by the sons of the house, young 
 women too lazy to work, helped to swell its ranks. 
 
 To Edward Churchill the place seemed uglier far than the 
 East End of London. There people were miserably poor, 
 and yet they helped one another, were kind to one another. 
 Here they were prosperous, but they gave no help, they 
 showed no kindness. They enjoyed other people's misfor- 
 tunes ; accidents to others made them laugh ; if a horse fell 
 or a cart came to grief, men passing on their way to work 
 would not lend a hand. "Ay, lad, sit on th' beast's head 
 as long as ye like, but that wunna mend matters," and they 
 laughed and went on. Nothing for nothing was their motto. 
 They were cold and dour and greedy. Wives extracted 
 coin from trousers pockets while their husbands slept, and 
 fathers thrashed their grown-up daughters with a strap for 
 withholding their wages from the family purse. "Ay, lassie,
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 357 
 
 ye ma rub and rub, but ye wun't rub tha'at oot in a hurry." 
 The only active work of mercy that Churchill met with was 
 a small organisation for rescuing the fallen. This was called 
 the Sisterhood of St. Mildred, and the sisters were ladies 
 of means who had never received any monetary aid from the 
 town in the good work that they were doing. Churchill, 
 made known to these ladies by Gates, recognised them as a 
 touch of light on a very dark background. Nearly all else 
 struck him as abomination and desolation. 
 
 But then Edward Churchill was a failure in Danesborough. 
 Gates, who had been almost immediately given work as an 
 assistant curate at St. Peter's, not only supported his two 
 friends for a little while, but used every effort to provide 
 them with good employment. Many people remembered 
 him; and by his influence Edward obtained his first job, an 
 engagement on the editorial staff of The Daily Courier. 
 
 Mr. Milton Kirk, the editor, was a marvellously vain- 
 glorious little man. Everything about himself, his past, and 
 his future, was for him full of interest and emotional ex- 
 citement, and he would talk on such matters with astounding 
 volubility. 
 
 "Big as The Courier akchually is," he told Churchill, "it 
 is not big enough for me. It's merely a stepping-stone. I've 
 been in America. I can see what the power of the Press is 
 going to be in another twenty years. The pen is mightier 
 than the sword. The world is mine oyster and I will open 
 it," and he flourished a stylographic pen that he had taken 
 from his waistcoat pocket, as though it were the actual in- 
 strument with which he intended to open the oyster, and 
 then handed it to his secretary. "Refill, Miss Jenkins, if you 
 please. Mr. Churchill, I have made myself what I am. I 
 shall make myself what I mean to be. You, Mr. Gates in- 
 forms me, are a man of the highest university education. I 
 have had no such advantages. My education was neglected ;" 
 and, as if to prove the truth of the assertion, he omitted one 
 or two aspirates. "That neglect, 'owever, 'as been made 
 good by myself." 
 
 Miss Jenkins, the lady secretary, admired him more than 
 anything on earth. She had a table all to herself, and he 
 threw her words and tossed her bits of paper, or beckoned 
 her to his side from time to time ; and all of it she enjoyed
 
 358 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 immensely. Her one desire was to lighten the vast burden 
 that the editor carried on his small shoulders. Her haunt- 
 ing fear was that he might break down under the strain. 
 
 "Your note-book, if you please, Miss Jenkins;" and he 
 would hurriedly dictate. " 'Mr. Milton Kirk directs me to 
 say he is far too busy a man to comply with your request. 
 . . .' Now, Miss Jenkins, telephone, please. Ring up Sir 
 Joseph Bence and say I will be with him at the club at 4 
 p. M. precisely. . . . Make a note, please, to remind me 
 to get my hair cut before the Masonic Meeting on the 
 15th. . . ." 
 
 All the office furniture had been made in America ; every- 
 thing in the room was contrived to expedite the rush of 
 business and avoid the slightest waste of time, and yet it 
 seemed that time was wasted all day long. The editor talked 
 so much, stayed away for such a lengthy luncheon, ran out 
 so frequently for an important appointment or a whisky- 
 and-soda, and grew so excited towards night, that it ap- 
 peared wonderful that the paper ever got put to bed at all. 
 The editor's own leading article was always late; but for- 
 tunately, as he said himself, Mr. Kirk could work at high 
 pressure. At the very last possible moment he began to 
 prance about the room in the throes of inspiration ; then he 
 would dash out for one more drink, while poor Miss Jenkins 
 sat throbbing and trembling ; and then finally he would give 
 off his column at white heat. 
 
 "The Train Service! Miss Jenkins, I'll tickle them up 
 about the train service again. Yes. Begin. . . . 'We 
 have never 'esitated to animadvert on supineness and inepti- 
 tude, when displayed in high places. . . .'" 
 
 He told Churchill to try his hand on some articles de- 
 scriptive of Danesborough itself. "Go about with open eyes, 
 and record, record what you see. Use your imagination, 
 draw upon your education, and give us word-pictures 
 clear-cut, salient, snappy. As a stranger much will strike 
 you that to others has become mere 'abitude. See what you 
 can make of it and remember, akchuality. Akchuality is 
 the keynote of successful journalism yes, and of all litera- 
 ture. Look at Rudyard Kipling. What does he owe his 
 success to?"
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 359 
 
 Miss Jenkins stirred uneasily, and ventured to whisper to 
 the great man. 
 
 "What say? The name! Yes, yes, that's another theory 
 of mine, Churchill. A name of the right sort a name of the 
 right sort a name not too easy to remember, but one that 
 sticks when you've learnt it is half the battle. Rudyard 
 Kipling! People couldn't get the hang of it at first. But 
 they've got it now. Rider Haggard, Hall Caine same 
 thing. Take my own case. Milton Kirk. Not much in 
 Kirk, but Milton Kirk's all right, eh? Danesborough has 
 learnt it, and I'll stamp it on England before I've done." 
 
 But Mr. Kirk, although conceited, was not without some 
 kindly attributes. He seemed to have taken quite a liking 
 for Churchill, and to be genuinely sorry that the descriptive 
 articles were unsuccessful. He published three of them, and 
 then was forced to stop the series. The fourth article was 
 already in type, but he could not pass it. He told Churchill 
 it was too vague and misty, all up in the clouds, and without 
 a trace of snap. 
 
 "See what I mean?" And he regretfully flourished his 
 stylographic pen above the condemned proof. "Where's the 
 akchuality? What's it all about? I ask myself: Is this 
 socialism? Is it Walt Whitman or Ruskin or 'Erbert 
 Spencer? What is it? It's elegant English, I admit; but I 
 read and I read, and I don't know what you're trying to say. 
 In one way it almost reads like a criticism of the Corpora- 
 tion and the way the town is managed. But you never meant 
 that, I suppose." 
 
 "Well, I did mean to hint things were not quite perfect." 
 
 "Where's the sense of that ?" said Mr. Kirk, with sudden 
 irritation. "We don't wash our dirty linen in public at 
 Danesborough. And what's more, we don't quarrel with our 
 bread and butter either. The Courier and the Corporation 
 have grown up side by side. Such an attack if any one 
 understood it might play the devil with our advertisement 
 columns. A jolly nice thing you'd let me in for." 
 
 Then, exonerating the offender on the score of ignorance, 
 he said he would try Churchill at book-reviewing. 
 
 "Yes, there's your chance. See what you can make of it. 
 Exploit your classical education, criticise to your 'cart's
 
 360 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 content. But, look here, keep in close touch with Mr. Hod- 
 son you know, the Advertisement Manager. He'll give 
 you your line. . . . Mind you, this may lead to big things. 
 I've long thought of featuring our book page. If the Lon- 
 don publishers will support me generously, I won't grudge 
 space, I'll give them the fullest attention. There's going to 
 be a new era in book-advertising, and we may be the first to 
 open it out up here." 
 
 But Churchill was fated to suffer another check and post- 
 ponement in his literary career. One night on his way from 
 the newspaper office to his distant lodgings he was stopped 
 near the first canal by a young girl. "Bide a bit, ducky," 
 said the girl, and she invited him to follow her towards some 
 waste ground near a timber yard. He went with her silently 
 as far as the nearest lamp-post, and then made her stand in 
 the lamplight while he talked to her. She wore a school- 
 girl jacket and sailor hat with her hair tied in a red ribbon 
 bow; she looked a mere child, certainly not more than fifteen 
 years old, and yet she was regularly leading a life of sin. 
 When he asked her age she laughed, and said, "That ud be 
 telling. Coom and ask Auntie." 
 
 But he made her tell him all about herself. She could 
 not remember a mother or father ; she was called Nell 
 Thorpe, but did not know if that was her real name; she 
 and three other girls lived in the lowest part of Canal Bank 
 with a woman who said she was her aunt. Her usual clients 
 were the sailor lads ; but Aunt liked her to fly at higher game, 
 and was less unkind if she brought back a respectable prize. 
 Auntie was unkind. Everybody was unkind ; and she began 
 to cry. Then she brushed the tears from her eyes, set her 
 hat jauntily, laughed, and took Churchill by the arm. 
 "Now," she said, "are you cooming home with me?" 
 "No," said Churchill, "you are coming home with me." 
 And he took her back to his lodgings, and handed her over 
 to Lilian. 
 
 "I can't help it," he said. "Lilian, I couldn't leave her, 
 after what I had heard. Look at her. She is young enough 
 to be my daughter. She must stay with us until we can do 
 something for her. . . . Nell, my wife will be kind to you. 
 Now, what's that woman's name? I am going to her at
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 361 
 
 once, to tell her that you are among friends and that you are 
 never going back to her." 
 
 Not unnaturally, "Auntie" took this communication in 
 bad part. Thus outraged, she showed herself to be a bold 
 as well as a furious virago. Next day she found her way to 
 their lodgings and tried to recover her ward by the hair of 
 the head. Then, thwarted, the wretched creature went to 
 the police for help ; she was versed in the law, and perhaps 
 had spared no pains to keep on good terms with the local 
 constabulary. 
 
 That evening the Churchills were arrested. They spent 
 the night in cells, and next morning were brought before the 
 Borough Bench on a charge of abducting and procuring a 
 girl for an immoral purpose. Both were remanded, Edward 
 Churchill being detained in custody and his companion Lilian 
 Vickers being released on bail. That was all that Allan 
 Gates could do for them then. But at their next appearance 
 before the magistrates, he brought efficient aid from the 
 Sisterhood of St. Mildred. The sisters spoke to the char- 
 acter of Churchill and that of Auntie. They knew all about 
 the street of brothels in which the girl lived. They were 
 prepared to take charge of the girl, and finish the work that 
 Churchill had begun. 
 
 The Bench did not like it at all. It was a nasty business, 
 this washing of dirty linen in public, reckless allegations 
 against the moral life of the town flying about, ladies dressed 
 up in uniform and shady ne'er-do-wells making out that 
 Danesborough wasn't paradise the Bench would not in 
 the circumstances commit for trial, but it said to Edward 
 Churchill, "Let this be a lesson not to meddle with what 
 doesn't concern you." 
 
 The publicity that was unavoidably attached to the case 
 gave them a very bad start in Danesborough society, and 
 indeed spoiled the chance of obtaining for Churchill the kind 
 of high-class employment at which Gates had aimed. Nor 
 could Lilian hope now for admission as teacher of music 
 and French in the rich houses of Danesmead, or even the less 
 imposing villas of Castle Hill. Perhaps nobody here would 
 have cared whether they were married or single, but after 
 such scandalous proceedings they must be considered as
 
 362 
 
 doubtful characters in the technical sense. Above all, one 
 could not forgive the dirty linen part of it. 
 
 A person of this sort could not be allowed to figure as 
 literary critic of The Courier. The directors said so, and 
 the editor was forced to agree. 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said to Churchill; "but you have made 
 a pretty mess of it, haven't you ? When I heard what you'd 
 been up to, I thought, of course, you'd done it for copy a 
 bit of akchuality the W. T. Stead game over again. Not, 
 mind you, that I'd have countenanced one word of it in The 
 Courier. But you had no such idea? Simply promiscuous 
 charity, eh?" 
 
 Yet, loth to "turn down" Mr. Churchill altogether, in 
 spite of the directorial attitude, he offered him a place in 
 the publishing department. There was, practically, a vacancy 
 in the packing-room. 
 
 "Miss Jenkins, speaking-tube, please. My compliments 
 to Mr. Murtle and will he kindly step up. ... If he 
 hasn't filled the place of that man Blair, he can give it to Mr. 
 Churchill. It'll be bread and cheese, anyway." 
 
 Edward Churchill wanted bread and cheese, for two, and 
 he was glad to find himself packing up newspapers and car- 
 rying them to carts, since he might not use pen and ink any 
 more. But this job, also, he could not long retain. 
 
 After a fortnight or so he happened to overhear a con- 
 versation between Mr. Murtle, the publisher, and a trouble- 
 some visitor. 
 
 "Get out," said Mr. Murtle, "unless you want me to have 
 you pitched out." 
 
 "It isn't fair play," said the visitor. 
 
 "Fair play be damned. I tell you I've filled your place. 
 You didn't expect me to keep it open till doomsday." 
 
 "I've coom oot o' th' 'orspital sooner than what they 
 tould me. I knaw th' work, an' a'm ready to do't as well 
 as another." 
 
 This man was Blair, Churchill's predecessor. Churchill 
 went outside the building with him, and learned how he had 
 fallen sick and been obliged to lay up for a bit, counting on 
 being reinstated in his employment. 
 
 "But they wanted to be shoot o' me," he said heavily. 
 "A'm forty-five, an' they knaw ma chest's weak. They think
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 363 
 
 you're younger, an' stronger, an' a better bargain all ways. 
 Well, a'll just go home an' tell the wife a'm oot." 
 
 "Wait a few minutes," said Churchill. 
 
 He went back to the publisher's office, resigned his ap- 
 pointment, and begged for the reinstatement of Blair. 
 
 Mr. Murtle demurred, and unconsciously echoed the work- 
 man's words. "I'm contented as it is. You're the better 
 man. Besides, I put you in to oblige Mr. Kirk." Then he 
 lost his temper. "Oh, damn. Have it your own way. 
 Draw to-night for the broken week, and tell that fellow to 
 take on from to-morrow morning." And he added presently 
 to a clerk, "Good riddance, too. He'd do us no credit in the 
 long run." 
 
 " 'Tis but right," said Blair heavily, when Churchill told 
 him that he was re-engaged. 
 
 Churchill's next job was in a cabinet-maker's shop; but 
 here he had words and nearly came to blows with his em- 
 ployer, because this household martinet, after the good old 
 Danesborough custom, gave a cruel taste of the strap to his 
 eldest daughter. Then for a little while he worked as a 
 loader of canal barges, carrying planks. This was a tempo- 
 rary engagement, and he kept it as long as the task lasted. 
 After that he worked at a house agent's office by day, and 
 spent his evenings addressing circular envelopes at a book- 
 seller's. He was not particular. He took any job that 
 offered; but the jobs all seemed to be precarious and the 
 remuneration was small. 
 
 Allan Gates was powerless to lift him from the low level 
 to which he had dropped ; he himself was very poorly paid, 
 and his hoardings had already been dissipated. He could 
 not offer to keep his friends in idleness, even if they had 
 been willing to accept further aid. So time passed, and 
 Edward Churchill and Lilian suffered what are called hard- 
 ships. They knew what it was to be cold for want of a fire 
 and hungry because of insufficient food. Yet they were not 
 unhappy. 
 
 At any moment they might have escaped from the difficul- 
 ties of their life by doing one of two things. They could 
 have gone to London, where undoubtedly Churchill would 
 have obtained a better living wage, or they could have 
 abandoned the support of Robert Vickers. But they did not
 
 364 THE MIRROR- AND THE LAMP 
 
 ever think of doing either thing. Allan often suggested the 
 first. "You ought not to stay here," he used to say. "You 
 must not waste yourself for my sake. It is an absurdly 
 quixotic notion, a very wrong notion, if you feel bound in 
 any way to me." 
 
 But although so dire a failure, Edward Churchill did not 
 remain quite a nonentity in Danesborough. The humble 
 folk with whom he was thrown began to notice him. 
 Whether he wished it or not, he made his immediate com- 
 panions think about him. He said very little to them, but 
 he did things that made them talk of him. He did things 
 that force men to speak and think, because they have been 
 set wondering. 
 
 In the winter time floods were out, covering the tow-paths 
 and hiding the canals, and many accidents occurred. One 
 day Edward came back to his lodgings dripping wet, and 
 told Lilian that he had been in the water. He was ill after 
 this, and, while laid up, he asked her to go to a certain house 
 in one of the poorest streets and find out for him if the 
 children of the house were all right. He seemed anxious 
 about them, but did not explain why. She went to the house, 
 and there discovered that he had rescued three children from 
 drowning. The mother said that the gentleman would not 
 give his name, but made her promise not to punish the imps 
 for the "fecklessness," and said that he would come to in- 
 quire how they were getting on. Lilian told her the gentle- 
 man's name, and she and others in that street remembered it. 
 
 In the hot summer-time there came an outbreak of small- 
 pox in the neighbourhood of the docks, and a great scare 
 throughout the town. The well-to-do were terrified, and the 
 train service was severely tested by a number of prosperous 
 inhabitants who ran away from the danger. The local 
 authorities, who in fact had for years been asking for trouble 
 by not enforcing vaccination, hurriedly organised two hos- 
 pital ships on the river; but they had difficulty in getting 
 anybody to help. Churchill enrolled himself at once, and 
 served for two months on one of the hospital ships. This 
 was noticed and remembered by the people of the docks. 
 
 In the autumn there was a row at some cement works 
 about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been 
 started for them and all but a few joined. One of these
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 365 
 
 blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time. 
 Churchill, hearing of this and perhaps recalling an incident 
 in his own history, went to see the injured blackleg and his 
 wife. "What are we to do?" said the woman. "Am I to 
 starve or go to the workhouse till ma man gets fit to work ?" 
 Next day Churchill assumed the character of a sturdy black- 
 leg, and was taken on at the works. The men glowered at 
 him, looked more and more menacing, and in the dinner hour 
 of the second day they got round him at the bottom of the 
 yard and began to threaten him. He dodged through the 
 circle, got his back to a wall, and faced them. He told them 
 why he was there. He was working for the man they had 
 knocked out. He would go on working there and taking 
 him his pay till the man recovered ; then he would bring the 
 man back and see that he was not touched by them. 
 
 "I don't know whether you are right or wrong about your 
 union, but I know you were cowardly dogs to band together 
 six against one. Show you are men and not dogs. Come 
 on now, if you like, one at a time, and I'll fight the lot of 
 you." 
 
 They did not fight him one at a time, or go for him all 
 together. Perhaps they were too much puzzled; perhaps 
 they thought him mad; but they allowed him to continue 
 working. They talked about him and wondered. When the 
 injured man returned they did not molest him. Soon he and 
 the other blacklegs joined the union, but until they did so 
 they were permitted to work in peace. And when later 
 Churchill came, merely as a visitor, just for a look-in as he 
 passed by, all the men seemed to welcome him as an old 
 friend. "Weel, guv'nor ? Whaat's oop now ? Coom to fight 
 us or to teach us manners ? Aye, we've had many a crack 
 and many a laugh about you doing juryman for old Ben." 
 
 Gradually then people came to know him, and, dour as 
 they were, many came to like him. What had always hap- 
 pened wherever he went was happening once more. He was 
 too strong an individuality not to exert influence ; and when 
 once people yielded ever so little to his influence, some among 
 them were sure to yield completely. He began to talk to 
 them. He told them to be kind to one another. "Why are 
 you unkind ? Why do you speak harshly to those you love ? 
 Why do you ask payment for every trifling friendly act?
 
 366 
 
 Why can't you do something for nothing? Why aren't you 
 kind to one another?" 
 
 He preached this doctrine in season and out of season. 
 "Be kind to one another. Nothing else matters." Certainly 
 he gave them example as well as precept. He seemed to be 
 trying to help all the world ; he did other men's work as well 
 as his own ; he would do anything for anybody who by look 
 or gesture or by numb silence seemed to convey to him those 
 two words, "Help me." And this readiness of action, the 
 swift response and the unmeasured effort, could not be 
 ignored, must be pondered on. 
 
 A rent collector of Canal Bank spoke of him to Gates, 
 saying, "Your friend's a rum 'un. I've met his class before 
 sort o' men who are always helping others, but can't help 
 themselves." 
 
 But, in the rent collector's sense, he was not even trying 
 to help himself. He was letting life deal with him from hour 
 to hour as it pleased. He had given himself to the pressures 
 with which he was surrounded, and he was contented in the 
 daily struggle of poverty. He had no regret for past com- 
 fort, no dread of coming pain ; even in the ugliness of Danes- 
 borough he saw no evil omens for the future of mankind. 
 In a rough note that he made in his diary he jotted down 
 some of his reasons for trust and hope, together with his 
 amended notions of a selfish philosophy. 
 
 "I rely on the ultimate salvation of the world, because 
 of the pity and sympathy which I believe are now firmly 
 established and ever growing in the human race. You 
 must yield to them now, because the refusal infallibly 
 produces mental discomfort in yourself. That is why 
 everybody who is happy must be what is called an 
 altruist. To satisfy the craving of self for peace you 
 must answer the calls of others. 
 
 "But the calls are from all directions, all at once, 
 unceasing, unappeasable. Hence there comes the inner 
 restlessness and revolt against an impossible task. No 
 man can answer all the calls and the restlessness be- 
 comes mixed with dread. Can I never be at peace? 
 One is crushed by the feeling of impotence. It is like 
 the child's dream of monstrous impossibilities. The
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 367 
 
 strong man answering the calls thinks, perhaps, 'It is 
 as if I was turned loose with a broom to sweep all the 
 rivers into the sea and make the wide world dry. I 
 cannot do it, but I will show good faith. I will begin 
 to sweep with all my strength. I shall at any rate gain 
 the peace that comes from great fatigue. When I can 
 do no more, I will lie down and sleep and forget.' Then 
 he starts sweeping the first puddle he meets, and he 
 cannot even sweep out that. He lies down, but cannot 
 forget. Even in sleep he is tormented by the first call 
 still unanswered. This is real and true. Strong men 
 die of this sense of failure, by hundreds, philanthropists, 
 politicians, social reformers. 
 
 "And that does no good to anybody. 
 
 "One cannot even satisfy the first call. When it 
 seems small and one gives all that was asked, one is 
 still restless and discontented. One might have given 
 more than was asked ; then one would perhaps now 
 have been at peace. This leads you on step by step 
 to the giving of all. Give everything; then you can 
 give no more and you will be at peace. 
 
 "But blind indiscriminate kindness is wrong all the 
 world will tell you so. Wait and watch for the de- 
 serving case. Be sure that it is a call that ought to be 
 answered. You cannot. That would mean a life of 
 torment, a watching and waiting for what may never 
 come. You will be tortured by remorse Have you 
 missed the call ? You will be sickened by hope deferred 
 Will the call never sound ? Don't listen to the world. 
 Listen to the inner voice. The necessity is in you, not 
 outside you. Self is the lord of self. If you cannot 
 appease and satisfy yourself, the praise of all the world 
 will not satisfy you. 
 
 "Nor need you too closely analyse the needs of those 
 who ask, or strive to measure them. If evil comes of 
 it, the evil is external to yourself. It cannot harm you. 
 You have not made your sacrifice to gain praise. You 
 have not, in truth, made it to give happiness to others, 
 but to win peace for yourself. That is your standard 
 and your test. 
 
 "Now, how can you justify yourself for this upraising
 
 368 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 of self above all the world? By the iron facts of life. 
 You are lodged in the cruel self -prison, and you cannot 
 escape from it. You look through prison bars and see, 
 vaguely, moving men who seem to be free, but them- 
 selves are caged. No man can enter your cell and share 
 your confinement. You cannot sit behind the bars of 
 a comrade's prison. Surely, then, each is justified in 
 dealing with his own cell as he pleases. Who else 
 can be the worse or the better? Who can know, who 
 can question him? There is no trap in the iron door; 
 the warders of life cannot peep in and look at him ; the 
 governor of the world-prison can pay no visits of in- 
 spection. 
 
 "Suppose the man thinks he has made a wonderful 
 discovery. The secret of comfort lies in having a clean, 
 bare cell. With infinite toil, with hands that bleed, he 
 is breaking up the boards that make his bed, and pitch- 
 ing them out through his narrow window. Prisoners 
 afar off see the debris beneath the wall, call him mad- 
 man, fool, laugh at him or weep for him. What does it 
 matter ? He cannot pause for that. But perhaps some 
 day other prisoners will imitate him, follow his ex- 
 ample; and his secret will pass through stone walls, 
 from one to another, until it is known to all. 
 
 "Indeed, in that thought lies all the justification of 
 acting for self. You cannot set the world straight. 
 You cannot act for any one else. 
 
 "Practically, too, you may reconcile your conduct to 
 the law of common sense, because you are giving the 
 most striking testimony of what you believe to be true 
 wisdom. You are giving over your message in the 
 strongest way. Do the thing nearest to your hand. 
 Your hand cannot stretch across the world. But the 
 fact may take wings and circle the globe. Those about 
 you have noticed it, stored it in memory, whether they 
 will or no. The man who has cheated you and been 
 forgiven by you cannot forget it. The fact lives with 
 him at any rate. 
 
 "Wide ambition is futile. Ambition drops away 
 when you recognise your impotence and cease to fight 
 against it. Give all and be done with it. Give all
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 369 
 
 and you may then live in peace. Never mind the suffer- 
 ing and pain that you cannot alleviate. It will vanish in 
 the brighter future of the race. What you feel in you is 
 felt by others. There is no going back now. The in- 
 ward restlessness will not fade again into the content- 
 ment of the brutes. You may fold your hands and leave 
 it all to the mirror and the lamp." 
 
 This rough note showed how largely he had modified that 
 purely rational scheme that was to be his final code, but he 
 scarcely knew that his attitude of mind had changed and 
 was still changing. He knew that this rough and tumble life 
 suited him better than the quiet and comfort of Lipsford. 
 Things were well with him outwardly as well as inwardly. 
 His only disturbing thought was remorse for Lilian. Yet 
 here again he hoped that all was well. Their love burned so 
 brightly : she seemed to be contented. 
 
 And truly she had no real regrets. She, too, had yielded 
 to the pressure of environment. More and more she was 
 dealing with the thing close at hand, without conjuring up 
 an image of things remote. She was living in each day with- 
 out thought of the morrow. That episode of the girl Nell 
 Thorpe had stirred her greatly. How could one pine for 
 creature comforts or the pretty decorations of life while 
 other women and girls were suffering such a fate as that ! 
 
 She had made a great friend of one of those good women, 
 the sisters of St. Mildred ; and this Sister Maude, a homely, 
 sensible person, came to live at the house where the Church- 
 ills were lodged. Sister Maude spent her day at the women's 
 shelter, communing with the rescued, and at night took her 
 turn at street duty. Edward, coming home of an evening, 
 often used to meet her as she issued from the lodgings, 
 dressed in the uniform of the Sisterhood a grey cloak and 
 red collar and a round black cloth cap and always he felt 
 admiration for her courage and endurance. She was going 
 to encounter insult, scorn, perhaps violence; she was going 
 to failure and disappointment, and fatigue ; but she went as 
 cheerfully and gaily as if to a feast where she would be 
 caressed by the flattery of charming gracious people. He 
 admired and respected her. 
 
 Then one night he met her coming out with another Sister.
 
 370 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 It was Lilian, dressed for the first time in the uniform. His 
 
 heart melted at sight of her ; she seemed to him so beautiful, 
 
 so fragile, so utterly too dear for the ugly streets and their 
 
 cruel work. 
 
 "Lilian," he whispered, "must you do this ?" 
 
 "Not if you tell me not to," she said. "But I want to 
 
 do it." 
 
 He could not tell her not to. But he followed her in dread, 
 
 watching her from a little distance, trembling for her, loving 
 
 her, yearning over her.
 
 XLV 
 
 IN the rescue work when the Sisters had caught a girl, got 
 her safely in their Shelter, fed her, clothed her, and done all 
 they could for her, they then summoned Allan Gates to 
 convert her to religion. 
 
 Gates was "all out" for the repentant sinner. His favour- 
 ite text here in Danesborough was the one about "more joy 
 in heaven." From the moment of his arrival he had said, 
 "Now I must gird up my loins. I know what it is, and here 
 I am back in it again;" and he became at once a changed 
 man. He was the active Christian now, the minister, work- 
 ing late and early ; so different from the easy-going Allan of 
 the Happy Valley that one could scarcely recall a picture of 
 him digging in a garden or making a trout fly on the river's 
 bank. He conducted nearly all the services at the chapel-of- 
 ease at Canal Bank, and rarely was seen at the grand old 
 church of St. Peter in the town. At Canal Bank there were 
 club-rooms or mission-rooms, and he had meetings and 
 awakening services for men and for women. He also visited 
 and preached at the prison. 
 
 But although working so hard, he was never fussy or 
 rattled like Walsden; he kept serene and unruffled in the 
 midst of turmoil. And when most businesslike, the old 
 childlike Allan would show suddenly. He was very partic- 
 ular in the preparation of placards and leaflets that he dis- 
 played and distributed in the streets near the mission-room 
 "Where are you going?" "Don't take that step." "Pause 
 while there is yet time," and so on, in large capitals. He 
 used to compose these "Startlers," as he called them, with 
 great care, and he crowed with delight when he thought he 
 had made a good one. He used to get them struck off at 
 The Courier printing works, and once Edward was with him 
 when he fetched out the foreman to talk about a proof. 
 "Listen ! God is speaking to you !" but Allan was not sat- 
 isfied with the effect ; the capitals were too small or faint. 
 He said it was not arresting enough. The printer, very 
 
 371
 
 372 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 sympathetic, said, "More this style, perhaps," and showed 
 him a commercial slip. "OYSTERS! OYSTERS! 
 OYSTERS !" 
 
 "The very thing!" cried Allan, delighted. He saw no 
 incongruity in the matter, but ordered his arresting startler 
 to be set up exactly on the Oysters' pattern, and went away 
 snapping his fingers in pleasure. This was a touch of the 
 old Allan ; but always to Edward and Lilian he was really 
 the same. Their friendship would hold them together and 
 defy all tests, no matter how often the scene might change 
 or its aspect vary. It had been absurd to suggest that they 
 should leave him. 
 
 As Churchill came to know more and more people, he 
 often met Allan in the houses of the poor. When the priest 
 made his appearance, this lay helper gave place respectfully. 
 Perhaps the two men lingered talking together for a few 
 minutes, but directly Allan got to business Edward with- 
 drew ; and often, when he had gone, the people of the house 
 spoke of him with something almost like affection, and said 
 how useful he had been to them. Allan saw how his power 
 was increasing, and made him exercise it by lecturing at the 
 mission-room on the evils of drink, the folly of gambling, 
 and on the care of bodily health. Allan set him, too, to talk 
 to particular men and visit their families ; and he took help 
 from him in many other ways. But there remained always 
 the hard-and-fast division of their duties: one dealt with 
 the little, hurried world of to-day ; the other's province was 
 the vast hereafter. Churchill would not speak of religion, 
 however eagerly he might be questioned. He referred all 
 inquirers to Allan Gates. It was perhaps a queer partner- 
 ship, but it seemed to work all right. 
 
 The Churchills had lived in many lodgings, but now they 
 joined Gates at a rather better house at Canal Bank, where 
 the three of them shared a common living-room. Sister 
 Maude came with them ; and other occupants of the house 
 were a queer old actor who gave lessons in elocution, and a 
 young doctor of considerable talent who had sunk through 
 his own fault to the humblest kind of practice among the 
 wharf-side community. Churchill at this time was working 
 as a clerk in a herring warehouse close by; so that he not 
 only enjoyed the companionship of Allan at their evening
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 373 
 
 meal, but was readily obtainable in any brief hour of leisure. 
 His Saturday afternoons were usually free, and three or 
 four times a year he employed one of them in going to visit 
 Robert Vickers. It took an hour and a half to get by train 
 to the place in Staffordshire, and the journey to and fro 
 made a tedious business except on the day when Allan went 
 with him. That day was a happy outing for both of them. 
 
 Vickers counted on these visits of Churchill, and he would 
 write complainingly if a visit was overdue. Indeed his 
 letters often contained complaint. He suspected that the 
 doctors had lost interest in his case, the nurses neglected 
 him, and so on. Occasionally he said he had something to 
 communicate of such importance that he could not put it on 
 paper, and for this reason he begged Churchill to come 
 without delay. The important communication always proved 
 to be some little plan for his own welfare. He wanted a 
 room overlooking the garden rather than the park, and he 
 wished Churchill to make the request for him! or he had 
 read an advertisement in a newspaper describing some won- 
 derful new electric treatment, and he wished Churchill to 
 let him try it. "Those people here won't do anything unless 
 you stir them up," he would say querulously. "Of course 
 this will be an extra, and it will cost money. But it may 
 be money well spent. The longer my illness lasts the more 
 it's going to cost and I want to get well quickly. I mean to 
 get well, if they'll only let me." 
 
 He scarcely seemed to remember where the money came 
 from, or to care. He had never really thanked Churchill for 
 providing it. The egoism of sickness had fallen upon him, 
 and it became a monstrous growth. The whole universe 
 for him revolved round his bed, his sofa, and his chair in the 
 garden verandah. He thought, he could think, of nothing 
 but himself and his chance of recovery. But he was glad 
 to see Churchill ; he said that Churchill always bucked him 
 up. "How's Lilian?" he used to ask, and not listen to the 
 answer. "Now, old chap, you'll be glad to hear I've been 
 feeling much better since I last wrote. Yes, old chap, I'm 
 making real progress." He called Churchill "old chap"; 
 for him, too, all past differences were obliterated. 
 
 He had not endeared himself to the staff at the Sanato- 
 rium. Affliction had in no way softened him. He rubbed
 
 374 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 the doctors the wrong way by blustering about scientific 
 bunglers, and did not placate them by adding that these re- 
 flections were not to their address. When he had a nice- 
 looking nurse his demeanor towards her was polite but ob- 
 jectionable ; when the authorities gave him in punishment an 
 elderly unattractive nurse, he lost his temper and roundly 
 cursed her. At first, too, there was trouble about a disrep- 
 utable woman who used to come down from London to see 
 him. Just as letters from Vickers complained of the estab- 
 lishment, letters from the establishment complained of him. 
 Churchill was threatened once that if this inmate did not 
 improve his manners, he would be expelled. 
 
 "Hang them," said Vickers, when gently expostulated 
 with. "Why don't they set me on my legs and make me 
 fit again? Heavens knows I shall be glad enough to say 
 good-bye to the lot of them." 
 
 The doctors always told Churchill the same thing. The 
 case was a success, in many respects a great success, but it 
 was idle to expect that Vickers could ever be restored to 
 health. He would have his ups and downs, as he was having 
 now ; but as time passed the "ups" would shrink in height 
 and the "downs" would go deeper, until with a final fluc- 
 tuation the "down" would be so deep that he would never 
 rise out of it. 
 
 Possessed of this knowledge, Churchill saw in the un- 
 varying hopefulness of the sick man something so pathetic 
 that he found no difficulty in overlooking any repellent traits. 
 
 "It's cursed luck, isn't it, Churchill, to be laid low like 
 this, just in my prime ?" And Vickers would inveigh against 
 fate, quite in his old style, till his cough stopped him. "That's 
 nothing. Don't you worry about that, old chap. I do still 
 cough a bit, but I am doing well. I'm better every day." 
 
 And he said that he meant to go to the Colonies, and make 
 another career. The old country was played out. Australia 
 or New Zealand should be his ticket. There would be big 
 labour troubles out there before long, and he would soon 
 push to the front. "I wonder when they'll let me get away." 
 
 If the afternoon was fine they strolled together in the 
 park, very slowly, and with pauses to draw breath wherever 
 the ground sloped upward. The slightest effort made the 
 patient cough. He would stand leaning on his stick and
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 375 
 
 holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had 
 passed it left him shaking. Yet at other times he did not 
 look very ill. He was gaunt and thin, and the thinness 
 seemed to have added to his height, but like all the other 
 patients he was sunburnt ; and when he spoke of the future 
 he pulled himself up, squared his bony shoulders and as- 
 sumed an aspect of the strength that he was pining for. 
 
 "I am trying to get fit, old chap. They say they believe 
 in faith-healing to this extent: One can aid or impede re- 
 covery. Well, I'm not a coward. I mean to get fit." 
 
 It was a warm summer day when Allan Gates came, and 
 they lounged in the gardens. Allan, wishing to leave them 
 alone, went off with the matron, a kindly, sensible woman 
 who was full of sympathy and understanding, to see the 
 newly-erected chapel and be shown through the sanatorium 
 itself. 
 
 Vickers pointed at the chapel with his stick and said, 
 "Hang them. They opened it before the plaster was dry, 
 and I caught a rare bad cold there." 
 
 "Do you go to church regularly?" asked Edward. 
 
 "You bet," said Vickers, and he laughed. "It isn't obli- 
 gatory. But the matron and the rest of 'em are mighty 
 pious, and we know we shall get paid out if we don't go ;" 
 and, unwillingly, Churchill remembered how he had always 
 "kept in with the Church." He mocked now at religion, as 
 he would not have done in the old days. "Tommy rot, eh ? 
 You dropped it like a hot potato, didn't you ?" 
 
 This was very distasteful to Edward Churchill. 
 
 Gates came back to them presently, and praised everything 
 that he had seen. All the domestic arrangements seemed 
 perfect; the bedrooms were so bright and airy; the library 
 was a charming room ; the smoking-room and lounge were 
 as handsomely furnished as anything you could find in a 
 grand hotel or London club. And what a delightful, sym- 
 pathetic woman, that Miss Faulkner, the matron ! 
 
 "If you've fallen in love with it all," said Vickers, with 
 a smile that was like a sneer, "you'd better come and change 
 places with me. You can have the whole bag of tricks 
 Miss Faulkner included from the day that I get away." 
 
 "I'll certainly come and see you again," said Gates cheerily. 
 "That is, if you have no objection to receive me."
 
 376 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 Vickers said that he was prepared to accept any friend 
 of Churchill as a friend of his own, and that, in fact, visitors 
 of all kinds were welcome. They broke the dull monotony 
 of life. 
 
 "Very well," said Gates. "Then I consider that a bar- 
 gain. I'll run over at the first opportunity, without waiting 
 for Churchill." 
 
 Afterwards Churchill found that Gates had done what he 
 proposed. When he spoke of this act of kindness, Gates 
 said lightly : "Dear old boy, you have done so much for him, 
 already, that it would be a pity for us not to do as much 
 more as possible." 
 
 An effect, perhaps, of the visit of Gates was a letter that 
 came from Vickers. For the first time Vickers thanked 
 Churchill for past benefits. 
 
 The seasons glided by, and, in spite of poverty, life was 
 not all struggle and toil at Canal Bank. Their house was 
 happy because of the love in it. The hardest-worked people 
 can always find some little time for relaxation. They had 
 merry evenings when the uniform was laid aside by Sister 
 Maude; Christmas dinners when the doctor and the actor 
 shared the feast ; summer treats when they all tramped along 
 the canal tow-paths to the river, caught the little steamboat 
 for Grove-on-Sands, and drank tea in the famous tea gardens 
 at Ferry Port. They helped one another, the old actor 
 getting Lilian engagements for music lessons, the doctor 
 seeking in the solace of decent company and the friendship 
 of two clean-minded men something wherewith to fight the 
 drug habit that had brought him low. Sister Maude and the 
 other Sisters were very fond of Lilian, and, after she had 
 served her novitiate in street duty, set her less sordid tasks ; 
 they would look after her, and see that no harm befell her, 
 if Edward was ever called from her side. To his joy, these 
 good souls gave her holidays in the pleasant homes of their 
 friends the hospitable, open-hearted friends who welcomed 
 her for what she was, and did not mind what she wasn't. 
 They respected her and made much of her as Sister Lilian, 
 and did not trouble whether her real name was Mrs. Church- 
 ill or Mrs. Vickers. 
 
 Bosworth, the actor, was a dear old fellow, rich in tales of
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 377 
 
 the stage. He had acted with all the great stars ; had played 
 the King at a provincial theatre with Henry Irving as Ham- 
 let. What old actor did one ever meet who has not had these 
 wonderful experiences? But, unlike many old actors, Mr. 
 Bosworth did not pretend to have been kept out of London 
 by a conspiracy of timorous rivals. When he came down 
 from his room at the top of the house, he brought laughter 
 with him, amusing them by his tales of theatrical life, his 
 imitations of local pupils, his strange slang. If they did not 
 send him upstairs to bed he would sit by their fire half the 
 night, talking, talking, talking; and as farewell, when part- 
 ing from them or from anybody else, he employed one in- 
 variable formula "Ta, ta. Be good." 
 
 So the years passed, not really uneventful, yet showing no 
 great outward change. Edward still preached the doctrine 
 of mutual aid, but in gentler terms ; for already he had made 
 many converts. The seeds sown on hard ground blossomed 
 sometimes into splendid unexpected flowers. People soft- 
 ened at his contact. Since he had asked them to do so, men 
 here and there had ceased to drink, had bought clothes for 
 their children instead of betting on whippet races, had 
 worked in off-hours for distressed neighbours without fee or 
 reward. There was more kindness in the town of Danes- 
 borough because of Edward Churchill.
 
 XLVI 
 
 THEN one winter, of a sudden, he rose from his obscurity 
 to the topmost surface of the town's life. It was said of 
 him in the highest circles that he had averted the threatened 
 calamity of a general strike. The trouble began at the 
 cement works where he had first become known as a black- 
 leg, and the employers asked him to use his influence with 
 the men and prevent them from following the pernicious 
 advice of professional agitators. "Tell the men," said the 
 employers, "that nothing will make us give in. If they 
 force us to fight, it shall be to the bitter end. Their demand 
 is unjust." 
 
 "But is it?" asked Churchill. "They are weaker than 
 you. Justice is not always with the strong." 
 
 Then he talked to the men, persuading them that their 
 grievance was not worth a quarrel; that except when one 
 fights in the cause of other people, peace is always better 
 than war; that here they would be fighting for selfish and 
 short-sighted ends. "Ask your wives," he told them; "ask 
 your children ; ask your own hearts. Lock the gates at din- 
 ner-time, when these salaried orators come to talk to you as 
 if you belonged to them and hadn't any minds of your own. 
 Tell them this is a family question and you'll decide it among 
 yourselves, in your own way, at your own time, and without 
 any assistance from them. Go on with your work, and think 
 it over. You were contented enough until the notion of this 
 row got possession of you, and you have known no comfort 
 since. Nothing matters, except being comfortable in your- 
 selves." 
 
 The men gave in. At these works there was no strike, 
 and the employers were so pleased that they voluntarily 
 offered a compromise in which they practically conceded the 
 point for which they had been ready to fight to the death. 
 
 But meanwhile the trouble had spread far and wide, and 
 Churchill went here and there saying much the same thing to 
 all. Employers and employed must now follow the example 
 
 378
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 379 
 
 set by the cement works; it had been decided there that 
 peace was better than war; it had been shown that there 
 was no true reason for strife. The agitators could not stand 
 up against him ; but for his intervention, more than one of 
 them would have been given a cold bath in the canal; the 
 men made him their leader and followed him like sheep; 
 the employers listened to him, consulted him, and thanked 
 him for his good offices. The Courier and other newspapers 
 sang his praises when all was happily settled. Great mag- 
 nates desired his further acquaintance, and said they would 
 be glad to promote his views and assist in his advancement. 
 
 If now he had grasped at opportunity, he might have 
 lifted himself permanently in Danesborough society. He 
 failed to do so. The searchlights of local fame had fallen 
 upon him for a moment, and then he was again in the dark ; 
 he was spoken of no more in public print ; the world rolled 
 on, and left him standing still. 
 
 But the incident brought him into touch again with a 
 person that he had already met on one or two occasions. 
 This was a Mr. Raymond, a childless widower of consider- 
 able means, who lived very simply in one of the older houses 
 on the outskirts of Danesmead. Gates, who had known him 
 in the past, said that he gave largely in charity and interested 
 himself in many semi-political, semi-humanitarian schemes, 
 such as the improvement of the prison system, the housing 
 of the poor, State pensions for the labouring classes, and so 
 on. Gates also said that he was a devout Churchman. As 
 Churchill found, other interests of his life were literature 
 and philosophy ; and he amused himself with such harmless 
 hobbies as the collecting of old coins, old prints, and en- 
 gravings. 
 
 He seemed to be extraordinarily different from all other 
 citizens of Danesborough ; so well-bred, so large-minded, so 
 full of strong intellectual life ; and he had, moreover, a great 
 charm of manner, with a contagious laugh which at once 
 set one at one's ease, and never jarred, even when its musi- 
 cal peal broke in unexpectedly on a discussion of serious 
 things. He engaged Churchill to arrange and catalogue his 
 library for him, and during this task they had many con- 
 versations. It was an immense pleasure to talk freely with 
 such a man, after so long a deprivation from any intercourse
 
 380 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 of the kind, and Edward Churchill talked to him with the 
 utmost freedom of matters that he would not have discussed 
 with anybody else even of religion. 
 
 For, just as Mr. Raymond was different from his fellow 
 townsman, he was a Christian believer very different from 
 the ordinary ruck of Church-people. Well educated, well 
 read, accustomed to the examination of the varied thoughts 
 of men in all ages and under all civilisations, he would 
 debate the tenets of Christianity with as much ease and no 
 more heat than he applied to a critical appreciation of the 
 Platonic Dialogues or one of Shakespeare's plays. Doubt- 
 less, as Gates said, he was firm not only in his faith, but in 
 his creed also; yet he showed not a trace of the passionate 
 desire to defend the details of one and the other that, in a 
 larger or smaller degree, one almost always encounters in 
 the faithful members of every Church. He supported his 
 opinions on all subjects with argument, but he put it for- 
 ward in the most good-humoured, impersonal manner. 
 
 Raymond, for his part, was interested by Churchill, and 
 while talking of so many other things he gradually led him 
 to talk of himself. He seemed intuitively to understand 
 much of his character and his natural tastes. He said that 
 Churchill ought to be more than a reader of books, he ought 
 to be a writer of books ; and Churchill, confessing to ancient 
 cravings towards pen and ink, told him of his early tentative 
 efforts and his more recent literary catastrophe at The 
 Courier. Raymond laughed heartily over his failure to reach 
 Mr. Milton Kirk's high standards, and said he would give 
 him an introduction to the editor of a well-known London 
 weekly, who would be much easier to please, if he ever cared 
 to try his hand again. 
 
 The two principal rooms of the house what should have 
 been the drawing-room and dining-room had been given 
 over by Mr. Raymond to his books, and from one of the 
 rooms there was quite a pleasant view across a foreground 
 of roof-tops and smoking chimneys to the distant river and 
 the low hills that guarded its mouth. On sunny days, when 
 the wind was blowing across the water, the smoke clouds 
 rolled away, and then one had sudden glimpses of full-rigged 
 ships, brown-sailed fishing boats, and strings of barges 
 drawn by red-funnelled tugs, all bright and gay beneath an
 
 Baldwin 
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 381 
 
 unstained patch of clear blue sky. Raymond used to come 
 into the room of an afternoon, sit in the window, and watch 
 Churchill at his work. 
 
 ''What are you up to now? . . . Margetson, Bowles, 
 rin ! Psychology, eh ? I always read psychology with 
 great pleasure, but I have not trained myself in its terms." 
 
 "Nor I, either," said Churchill. 
 
 "They're always changing, too. That's the worst of these 
 scientific people each one of them invents his own vocabu- 
 lary;" and Raymond laughed. "The cleverer he is, the 
 more words he makes you learn before you can understand 
 him." 
 
 A staid old maidservant brought in tea, and remained 
 motionless with her tray, looking severely reproachful while 
 the two men cleared a table of its books. 
 
 "Strawberry jam again," said Raymond, "and no hot 
 cakes. Eliza, do tell Mrs. Jones to give us hot cakes until 
 June the first. And try to get us some gooseberry jam any 
 jam except strawberry." 
 
 "I thought you were fond of strawberry jam," said Eliza 
 severely. 
 
 "So I was, Eliza ; but I am perhaps fickle, and Mrs. Jones 
 has cured me of my love by giving such full occasion for 
 its gratification. We were just talking of the human mind, 
 Eliza. It has its ebbs and flows, its spontaneous impulses, 
 and its automatic reactions," and he began to laugh. 
 
 Eliza's solemnity relaxed, and she laughed too because 
 her master was laughing, not because she saw any reason for 
 laughter. 
 
 "Of course," she said, "you can have what jam you prefer, 
 if you name it." 
 
 "Very well, let it be gooseberry to-morrow, and don't 
 forget the cakes." 
 
 Then they drank their tea, and smoked, and went on 
 talking. It was at the tea table, with the soft April sunlight 
 on the grey rooms and a gentle air floating in from the open 
 window, that Churchill, replying to his host's questions, 
 frankly exposed his views about Christianity. 
 
 "But, Churchill, if you give up all that you call the mys- 
 tery and the machinery, what is the world to take in ex- 
 change ?"
 
 382 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 "Nothing is needed." And Churchill spoke of the natural 
 attributes of pity and sympathy. 
 
 "But what is to guide them?" 
 
 "They need no guide. They can guide themselves, by the 
 light of love." 
 
 "You say these emotions are implanted. But in man's 
 nature other emotions are implanted. For instance, rever- 
 ence, the religious feeling itself and faith." 
 
 "The religious feeling I believe to be inherited supersti- 
 tion. It is not implanted; it was born of ignorance and 
 fear." 
 
 "And faith? The new phychologists trace the quality of 
 faith in the working of the mind in regard to all subjects." 
 
 And Raymond continued to question his guest with 
 interest. 
 
 "You are not a materialist ?" 
 
 "Oh, no, far from it." 
 
 "You believe that spiritual forces have had their part in 
 making and ruling the universe ?" 
 
 "Yes, I believe they rule it, and must always rule it." 
 
 "And thought itself? Do you hold thought as explicable 
 essentially at some future time, if not now ; or do you accept 
 it as a mystery ?" 
 
 "I hold it as essentially inexplicable." 
 
 "And do you more or less adopt the notion of a universal 
 mind from which this supply of mind-stuff is issued and to 
 which it will return ?" 
 
 "Not as issuing from God." 
 
 "Nor from a single ruling mind ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Is it something that pervades the whole universe ?" 
 
 "I do not know. I cannot think of it logically further 
 back than its manifestation as I see it." 
 
 "What are you looking for? Matches? Here they are. 
 ... Go on. Don't let me interrupt you." 
 
 Churchill took the box of matches, but did not light his 
 pipe. 
 
 "I accept," he said thoughtfully, "the dual mystery of 
 the two universes in which I find myself the material, 
 tangible universe and the spiritual, impalpable universe. I 
 can conceive of their both being governed by similar laws ;
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 383 
 
 as, for instance, conservation of energy and indestructibility 
 of components although in both cases that must be a purely 
 human conception and probably quite valueless as an absolute 
 truth ; thus, I can imagine that at death all that remains of 
 spirit in the man returns to or is absorbed by the universal 
 reservoir of spirit, but I cannot conceive of its reconstituting 
 itself again into a manifestation similar to what it has been. 
 Any more than on the material side could I believe that the 
 gases given off by a decaying potato will collect themselves 
 and make another similar potato. I am ready, if necessary, 
 to believe that what we call spirit and matter are but two 
 aspects of the same phenomenon not that it gives me the 
 smallest notion of what that means." 
 
 Raymond laughed. "No, that's too metaphysical alto- 
 gether. Let's come down again. The air is getting too rare- 
 fied. I always think of the old definition of metaphysics 
 a blind man in a dark room hunting for a black hat that isn't 
 there. That's how I saw it quoted the other day; but 
 I thought it was a black cat not a black hat. Which is 
 right?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Churchill. "But hat is better. Cat is 
 too objective it suggests substantial action, movement, 
 energy," and he lit his pipe and puffed at it. 
 
 "What you most forcibly reject," said Raymond, "is re- 
 vealed religion?" 
 
 "Yes, exactly ; in every form. I do not believe that God 
 exists in any sense that is commonly attached to the idea, 
 or that there has ever been the slightest communion or point 
 of contact between this God and man. I cannot see that 
 there is the slightest valid evidence for such a belief. This 
 may be my misfortune; but I have not felt any want or 
 unsatisfied craving because of it." 
 
 "You have not been conscious of anything missing to 
 complete and harmonise your relations with surrounding 
 nature ?" 
 
 "No. I should explain that I used to believe implicitly in 
 the Christian doctrine. I had never questioned it. But as 
 soon as I did question it, it tumbled to pieces at once." 
 
 "That is curious. What I have always understood as 
 more usual is for men to lose their religious belief little by 
 little from neglect, the hurry of life, preoccupation by
 
 384 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 practical interests; so that they scarcely realize it is gone 
 till they think of it." 
 
 "Yes. I am not sure if that was not my own case. Yes, 
 it was going for some time. It had gone really before I 
 questioned it." 
 
 "Or if it goes suddenly, it is usually because of some 
 emotional storm." 
 
 "And that perhaps was my case also." 
 
 "But to return to what you said about the implanted im- 
 pulses towards good they do make for good ?" 
 
 "Yes, we are always ascending towards higher things." 
 And Churchill explained his theory of self-seeking altruism. 
 
 Raymond, like Gates, smiled at this idea of selfishness. 
 "Surely," he said, "something more definite is required than 
 that? You leave it to each man to build his ideal for him- 
 self. But how many men can do that ?" 
 
 "The example of others will lead them," said Churchill. 
 "If men will follow the natural dictates of their hearts, they 
 will reach the ideal." 
 
 Then Raymond put to him the question of whether for 
 most people there is not wisdom in accepting God, if only 
 as a working hypothesis. "According to you, we cannot 
 know the truth. But if we find that the sustaining force 
 derived from an assurance of immortality, and the complete 
 satisfaction of the religious or mystical craving, can be 
 attained by belief in God, should we not logically use the 
 hypothesis until we can find something better?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Churchill, after a moment's pause; "for 
 many people a voluntary acceptance of the hypothesis might 
 undoubtedly be useful just as other self-deceptions may 
 have their uses." 
 
 "That is characteristic. I have heard it so often from 
 liberal-minded men like yourself, who are naturally full of 
 the sensation of their own intellectual power, and who say 
 religion is very good for everybody else, although they don't 
 want it themselves," and Raymond laughed merrily. 
 
 Churchill said with equal good-humour, that he had no 
 sensations of intellectual power. For a long time he had 
 felt as if he had lost the faculty of thinking, if indeed he ever 
 possessed it. 
 
 Then, serious again, Raymond amplified his point.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 385 
 
 "Take the life of Christ and His teaching you agree with 
 
 ^Very nearly." 
 
 Then suppose that were accepted as an ideal and we 
 labelled it philosophy instead of religion, you would say it 
 was all right ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But if Christ the philosopher had said, 'Here is my 
 theory of the highest form of life, and I give you as a frame- 
 work of thought, an aid to achievement, a stimulus to desire, 
 this conception of a second unending life, immortality, and 
 eternal reward' supposing He said plainly, 'It may not be 
 true, but it will help you ; therefore act as if it were true' 
 would you admit it then ?" 
 
 But Edward Churchill could not admit it, even on such 
 terms as these. 
 
 "I think I see the essence of your difficulty," said Ray- 
 mond, quite seriously. "It is revolt against the supernatural, 
 because of the harm that has been caused by superstitious 
 people. You won't touch it with a barge pole. To do what 
 I suggest seems to you like playing with truth like trifling 
 with one's reasoning faculties. Those who believed and yet 
 whose religion had no deeper roots in faith would be, as it 
 were, making a wager with the unknown on the principle 
 of Heads I win, Tails I don't lose. And you feel that this 
 sort of gambling that any sort of gambling must be wrong 
 when the stake is a lifelong state of mind." 
 
 This and other talks with Mr. Raymond influenced him 
 more than he knew. One or two things said by Raymond 
 stuck in his memory and started trains of altering thought. 
 Recalling one of them, he made this note in his diary 
 
 "In regard to religion, it is worth remembering that 
 nearly all men who cease to believe in God, etc., etc. 
 (as probably a very large proportion of men do cease 
 to believe at a certain period of life), have received 
 early religious training. At the time when their minds 
 were plastic, and, consciously or unconsciously, they 
 were forming their code of ethics, the life of Christ and 
 the lesson of self-sacrifice was constantly before them 
 as the ideal of perfect conduct ; and thus habits of
 
 386 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 thought were formed and lines of action accepted, once 
 and for all, as correct. 
 
 "This ethical code of everyday life remains with 
 them as something solid (indeed so solid as easily to be 
 mistaken for intuitive instinct) when the religious belief 
 has entirely gone. And they fail, perhaps, to analyse 
 what their mental state might have been if, instead of 
 ceasing to believe, they had never believed at all." 
 
 And a little later he made another note, recording fresh 
 revision of opinions 
 
 "I think I may have been wrong in not attaching 
 its full value to sacrifice itself as the keynote to the 
 highest life, and have perhaps under-estimated the 
 essential pleasure of giving oneself for others when 
 attributing avoidance of personal pain as its logical 
 aim and justification." 
 
 But he clung still to his old rational thesis, for he soon added 
 to this note. 
 
 "If by experience and reflection one is slowly forced 
 to the vindication of Christ's truth and an acceptance 
 of it in its entirety as the great secret give all it 
 should not be to gain rewards in another world, but for 
 peace in this. The only true happiness is in giving 
 happiness to others if you admit that, all the rest still 
 follows as selfish wisdom really. If a man wants your 
 cloak as well as your coat, give it to him. Not for 
 his sake, but for your sake. It is the only way of being 
 done with it, and going on again in peace. 
 
 "For those you love give all, and taste the joy of 
 giving no half-measures, no limitations. Give your 
 time, your inclinations, your thoughts, and convictions 
 even for those you love. It is not immolation of self : 
 it is the lightening and strengthening of self. 
 
 "For the honour of the race, for the justice of a 
 cause, give all. Answer the call each time that you 
 hear it clearly, whether it is the cry of a little child, 
 the whispering voice of the wind, or the clash of arms
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 387 
 
 and the trumpets of war. Give life itself, if necessary. 
 Because life is useless when you inwardly disapprove of 
 yourself, and are unhappy, restless, from not living up 
 to your ideal. This belief and rule of conduct lifts one 
 above fear and all other miseries ; it robs destiny of its 
 worst weapons. Kill me when you like, but you cannot 
 hurt me. All is in me nothing outside me. I am 
 lord of myself, and therefore lord of all."
 
 XLVII 
 
 HE was sorry when he had completed the library catalogue 
 and his job came to an end. He saw little more of his new 
 friend, but the links between them were not broken. Ray- 
 mond wrote to him now and then, and evidently was often 
 thinking about him. He called once or twice at the house 
 at Canal Bank, and left books that he wanted Churchill to 
 read. 
 
 "With reference to our talk about the Working Hypo- 
 thesis," he wrote once, "I have come upon something that 
 gives precisely what I expressed so lamely. I send you 'a 
 certified true copy' of the passage. The writer is a learned 
 professor, who, I gather, is considered to be very much 
 'up-to-date.' >: 
 
 Churchill read the transcript with attention. It dealt with 
 the uses men make of God. The professor said: "The 
 truth of the matter can be put in this way : God is not known, 
 he is understood ; he is used sometimes as meat-purveyor, 
 sometimes as moral support, sometimes as friend, sometimes 
 as an object of love. If he proves himself useful, the reli- 
 gious consciousness asks for no more than that. Does God 
 really exist? How does he exist? What is he? are so 
 many irrelevant questions. Not God, but life, more life, a 
 larger, richer, more satisfying life, is, in the last analysis, 
 the end of religion. The love of live, at any and every level 
 of development, is the religious impulse." 
 
 The books that Raymond sent him contained the most 
 recent utterances of the practical philosophers and psycholo- 
 gists of the hour. These writers were, in the cant phrase, 
 up-to-date, and Churchill was astonished by their tolerance 
 in regard to religion. He had not known how far the 
 pendulum of thought had swung. It seemed as if, since 
 his Oxford days, the men of science had changed sides. 
 
 These books also influenced him, causing him further to 
 modify to a certain extent ideas that he had thought final. 
 
 One result of his intercourse with Mr. Raymond was a 
 
 388
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 389 
 
 renewal of Churchill's efforts to earn money by the use of 
 his pen. Raymond, proving as good as his word, had intro- 
 duced him to a well-known London editor and put him in 
 the right way of setting to work. He wrote articles and 
 short stories, and perhaps one out of four was accepted, and 
 paid for at a modest rate. This measure of success, although 
 obviously not sufficient to provide bread and cheese for even 
 the smallest appetites, contented him; and the hours that 
 he stole from each night for the pleasure of writing refreshed 
 rather than fatigued him after the long day's work. 
 
 But gradually he felt compelled to forego this pleasure. 
 It took him too much out of himself, and seemed likely to 
 interfere with the still greater pleasure of sharing more 
 fully in the labours' of Allan Gates. Night and day were all 
 one to Allan when there was good work to be done. He 
 kept the club-room open for night-workers, made them 
 coffee and hot food, and if the chance came, tackled them 
 about their immortal souls while they stowed away his Irish 
 stew or blew upon the surface of a plateful of boiling soup. 
 He was "all out" for the lost sheep, the straggler, the 
 obstinate wrongturner who wanted a bit of driving to keep 
 on the direct road to the heavenly pen fold. 
 
 Churchill, aiding him more and more, keeping him com- 
 pany at night and carrying out his directions in every spare 
 minute of the day, admiring him, and loving him, thought 
 often of religion in relation to Allan himself. It was good 
 for Allan no one could doubt that. It was the larger, 
 fuller life that the up-to-date philosopher spoke of; it was 
 everything in Allan's case. It was good, too, for the fish- 
 porters and packers that ate the stew and gulped the coffee ; 
 it remained with them, keeping them warm when the after- 
 glow of digestion had faded. For them it was an anaesthetic 
 to pain, a stimulant to endurance. You could not study 
 Allan's converts closely without recognising its objective 
 effects upon them. And he thought of it as a working 
 hypothesis that might be useful if adopted by the whole 
 town of Danesborough, till they could get anything better. 
 The place wanted spiritualising somehow, anyhow. A place 
 without a soul that had been his first strong impression of 
 Danesborough. As an awakening, elevating force, religion 
 must be good for Danesborough.
 
 390 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 But the working hypothesis was good for Lilian, too. 
 Beautiful as her nature had always been, religion had raised 
 her to a higher plane; objectively, as well as in the world 
 of her sweet kind thoughts, it had given her strength. For 
 her it had taken nearly all the ugliness out of life, wherever 
 she went now it surrounded her with lovely things ; because 
 of its dream-glory neither cold nor want nor weariness 
 could really touch her. Because of it nothing that foolish 
 people ever said of her or thought of her mattered any 
 longer. And it had done all this for her while he stood by 
 and watched. He himself, loving her more than life, had 
 been able to do nothing for her. 
 
 He thought, with immense regret, of how he had once 
 talked to her of her dream; stupidly, brutally breaking into 
 it with his own conceptions of reality. Why must he blurt 
 out his private opinions? Why couldn't he keep them to 
 himself, or hold them close until a chance came to give 
 them an airing with a man like Raymond ? He remembered 
 how Allan had reproached him for roughly touching the 
 dream. He must have been mad. 
 
 From this point onwards he did more than refer to Allan 
 those who made inquiries about religion; he advised people 
 to seek Allan for religious instruction. He had persuaded 
 himself that this was wise, indeed inevitable, under the pre- 
 vailing conditions of the town's life. When he had brought 
 about an improved state of mind in some poor lad who 
 now wished to live cleanly and sensibly, he handed him 
 over to Allan for the dose of superstition that would con- 
 firm the cure. When with infinite toil he had prevailed upon 
 a hardened drunkard to give up drinking, it was too cold 
 and tame an argument for his limited intelligence that self- 
 respect compels a never-ceasing care for and reverential 
 treatment of this marvellous organism of body and brain; 
 but the fancy that our poor bodily frame had been fashioned 
 in the exact image of an all-powerful God, and that degrada- 
 tion of the one is an outrage and a sorrow to the other, had 
 a fullness of import and a flattering warmth that might keep 
 the contrite but thirsty transgressor outside of tavern doors. 
 Churchill's "Don't do it, because it hurts you" was feeble 
 when compared with Allan's "Don't do it, because it hurts 
 God." Churchill's teaching was awakening; what Gates
 
 391 
 
 taught was sustaining. One said, "Don't make a beast of 
 yourself. It may be difficult, but don't be a beast." The 
 other said, "Why not be an angel? It is quite easy. I'll 
 show you how, and then you can't fail." 
 
 So the infidel proselytised for the believer. Allan's best 
 recruiting agent was the man who had deserted from the 
 army and didn't mean to rejoin it. They were a stranger 
 couple of partners than ever. 
 
 During the October of their fifth year at Danesborough, 
 Allan Gates was often away, sometimes for three or four 
 days at a time; and during these absences he threw the 
 entire management of his mission- and club-rooms on 
 Churchill's hands. He used to return generally late at night, 
 and come with a beaming face to relieve his deputy. "Don't 
 tell me things have gone all right," he would say cheerily. 
 "I can see they have. I can feel it in the air." He never 
 said what business had called him from his post, and he took 
 it for granted that Churchill would always lay aside his 
 own affairs in order to replace him. 
 
 One night when he had come back in this manner, 
 Churchill asked him if he would be there next day. He 
 himself wished to go to see Vickers. Although a visit was 
 not due, Vickers had telegraphed asking him to come at 
 once. 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Gates, "I know, I know. Go to him 
 without delay. Yes, I shall be on duty here;" and he 
 insisted that Edward should go off to bed, as he would be 
 starting early in the morning. "We will speak of all this 
 to-morrow. Go and rest now." 
 
 But in the morning Edward went off without seeing Allan. 
 It was very early, he was travelling by the first train, he 
 meant to be back as soon as possible ; and he paused outside 
 Allan's door, but would not go in and wake him. 
 
 It was rtill early when he reached the Sanatorium, before 
 the patients' toilets had been made, and he was kept waiting 
 in the hall. After a while Miss Faulkner, the matron, 
 appeared. 
 
 "They have told him you have come," she said. "He 
 will be very glad, poor fellow." She spoke kindly and 
 sympathetically, looking at Churchill with serious eyes. 
 "You will see a great change in him."
 
 392 
 
 "Is he worse?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. But that isn't what I meant ;" and she looked 
 at Churchill more searchingly. "Hasn't Mr. Gates told 
 you?" 
 
 "No. Has he been here lately?" 
 
 "Yes, often. He was here till yesterday." 
 
 In the few moments before a nurse came to conduct 
 him upstairs Churchill asked many questions. Vickers had 
 taken a turn for the worse a few weeks ago, and they had 
 not at first anticipated any immediate danger, but in the 
 last two days his state had become serious. Dr. Ellis 
 would have summoned Churchill, if Vickers had not already 
 done so. Dr. Ellis would be here directly. 
 
 From the threshold of the room one could hear the sick 
 man's breathing, very shallow and rapid; through the open 
 windows the sunshine came pouring into the room, almost 
 blinding one after the subdued light of the hall and stair- 
 case; Churchill, moving forward slowly towards the bed, 
 saw the gaunt figure propped up high upon the pillows, the 
 wasted hands clasped as if in prayer, the head bowed down 
 as if in sleep. Then Vickers looked up quickly, and 
 Churchill saw his face. 
 
 "Churchill! I knew you wouldn't fail me," and he 
 smiled and stretched out his hands. 
 
 "I did not know how ill you were, or I would have come 
 sooner." 
 
 Churchill could scarcely speak because of his great won- 
 der. Vickers was transfigured: he was another man. 
 Obviously he was dying or soon would die, yet it could not 
 be the aspect of approaching death that had wrought so 
 startling a change. His face with the full sunlight on it was 
 thin and white; every trace of sensuality had passed from 
 it; his eyes were clear and very bright, unblinking in the 
 sunshine, gazing yearningly. He breathed fast and his 
 voice was husky, but the smile about his lips was like a 
 flicker of joy; and one felt, one knew instinctively, that he 
 was not suffering any pain, that his mind was unclouded 
 and quite calm. To Churchill, shaken by wonder, it seemed 
 that this was not Vickers dying, but Vickers born again. 
 This was the man he might have been, the man he should 
 have been, throughout the ugly, worthless life now drawing
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 393 
 
 to a close. These impressions were so powerful, and pos- 
 sessed him so completely, that Churchill stood by the bedside 
 motionless and silent, and for a few moments could not hear 
 what Vickers was saying to him. 
 
 "I wanted to see you. They don't tell me so, but I know 
 my time is short." 
 
 Then Churchill drew a chair to the bed, and sat with the 
 sick man's hand in his. Vickers had difficulty in speaking, 
 so that he talked a little, then closed his eyes and rested, 
 and then went on talking again. 
 
 "Churchill, as a Christian, forgive me." 
 
 "I have nothing to forgive, Vickers. If I ever had, it is 
 more than forgiven. It is forgotten. Do you forgive me ?" 
 
 "I have nothing to forgive. I never had." And Vickers 
 spoke of Lilian. "Churchill, what can I do? Too late. 
 It is in other hands." 
 
 Then he told how by the aid of Allan Gates he had been 
 reconciled with God, and felt the assurance of salvation. 
 He quoted Allan's favourite text "There is more joy in 
 heaven" and spoke of God's mercy and infinite love. 
 There was not a doubt in Edward Churchill's mind but 
 that all this was absolutely genuine. Indeed who could 
 doubt? And it was not the coward's deathbed conversion. 
 Vickers was brave ; he spoke without a touch of fear, say- 
 ing, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy 
 victory ?" 
 
 He spoke again of forgiveness, using one of his old pet 
 phrases. "As man to man, I want you to forgive. Not 
 only as Christians, but as man to man, let me feel that all is 
 open between us." And he told Churchill how he had hoped 
 that those men would kill him. "Yes, I was a murderer in 
 heart. And I intended, if you were out of the way, to get 
 Lilian back and punish her by every devilish humiliation, to 
 make her suffer the torments of the damned. That was my 
 pl an m y hope of revenge. Perhaps you don't know what a 
 bad man's thoughts are." 
 
 "Vickers, forget them. You had such thoughts only for 
 a little while." 
 
 Churchill asked him if he wished to see Lilian, and he said 
 yes, he would like her to be fetched next day, but he wanted 
 Churchill to stay with him now. In the afternoon of that
 
 394 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 day the doctors said his state was worse, and Churchill asked 
 him again if he should send for Lilian. 
 
 "No not now. You stay with me." 
 
 Then soon he fell into a dozing, semi-unconscious condi- 
 tion, and so remained all through that night and the following 
 day. The doctors said there was not the faintest hope that 
 he could rally. It was all quite natural, just what one could 
 expect, and really one should hardly desire anything differ- 
 ent from this happy release. 
 
 But Churchill, who never left him till the end, would 
 have had it different, if it had lain with him to keep this 
 man alive. It was man to man now. It was not grief or pity 
 for mankind, sorrow for all men because life is so short and 
 death so cruel; it was burning regret and bitter pain be- 
 cause to this man the softened Vickers who had clung to 
 his hand and looked at him with affectionate eyes all the 
 sunshine out there on the quiet meadows, the colours of the 
 autumn trees, the blue void of the cloudless sky, were fading, 
 darkening, and soon must b^ for ever gone. 
 
 The end came towards dawn of the third day. He had 
 been conscious again, murmuring rapid words, and Churchill, 
 stooping over him to catch the faint whisper, heard him say, 
 "Forgiven; yes, forgiven," and then in hurried repetition, 
 "O God of love ! O God of love !" 
 
 It was the last word that came from those lips love. 
 After that he was unconscious for a long time, and he died 
 just when the birds had begun to sing in the garden below 
 the window and all the world was about to awake.
 
 XLVIII 
 
 THE wonder evoked by the conversion of Vickers tinged 
 the whole stream of Churchill's thought. Considered merely 
 as a bit of professional work boldly attacked and smartly 
 carried through, it seemed a most striking success for Allan 
 Gates. Surely never did an enterprising professional man 
 bring off a bigger or a more unlikely coup. But Allan made 
 nothing of it, appeared to consider it scarcely worth talking 
 about, and, when urged to discussion, even attempted to 
 attribute it primarily to Edward rather than to himself. 
 
 "Dear old boy," said Allan, "you had done so much for 
 him that it was as well to complete the job. It was always 
 in my mind, as something to finish something that had to be 
 finished sooner or later." 
 
 "Did you speak to him about religion that first time that 
 you went over to see him without me ?" 
 
 "Oh, no. Not a word for ages not till this last month, 
 when he began to ask me questions and I saw that the time 
 was ripe." 
 
 "He was in his usual state then I mean physically ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "He had not begun to get worse ?" 
 
 "No. Poor chap, he was full of hope about his condition, 
 still talking of Australia and all the great things that he 
 intended to do." 
 
 "Allan, it seems to me incredible. I don't know how you 
 did it." 
 
 Then Allan repudiated all credit in the matter, and said 
 that it was the conduct of Edward Churchill that had 
 softened the heart of Vickers. "That was my first start," 
 said Allan. "Bit by bit, I got him to understand how much 
 you had given up for his sake. I got him to see into the true 
 meaning of the sacrifice you had made." 
 
 "Allan, it had no meaning. We were given no choice. 
 We were forced to do it." 
 
 "Were you?" and Allan smiled. "And perhaps Vickers 
 
 395
 
 396 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 had no choice. At any rate, it was all easy for me when 
 once we got started. Strength came to me in prayer. . . . 
 Now let's talk of something else. I think you had better 
 be married by license. I will arrange the service at St. 
 Peter's. We'll have it in the morning, with the church all 
 to ourselves. Shall we say about a fortnight from now?" 
 
 "Strength came to me in prayer." Churchill, meditating 
 on the believer's childlike faith, thought once more that 
 Allan could not have been what he was unless an orthodox 
 Christian. Nor could their friendship have been quite so 
 fine a thing. From Allan one could receive any benefit 
 without feeling the burden of obligation ; one could work for 
 him or lean upon him, take from him or give to him 
 because on Allan's side it was not merely friendship, it was 
 the brotherhood of Christianity which transcends the com- 
 mon measure of humanity and counts no cost because no 
 cost is felt. 
 
 He thought of the reality of the effects produced by 
 religion. What else could have lifted Vickers? What else 
 could have robbed death of its anguish and fear? It was 
 more, much more than the doctor's anaesthetic drug. Not as 
 an inert log drifting, but high and light upon a wave of faith, 
 he had passed out across the dark sea. "O death, where is 
 thy sting? . . . O God of love, into thy hands do I com- 
 mit my spirit. . . ." And the rescued women the soulless 
 men of the town the self -destroyers snatched from the 
 coil of vice, utterly changed by religion, sent back into the 
 world made strong by the illusion? And Lilian? It even 
 purified and dignified her love for him ; so that, while quite 
 outside it, he had still to this extent benefited by it. 
 
 He realised that his quarrel with religion was at an end. 
 He thought of himself. His abandonment of religion was 
 due to two things the disappointment about his mother and 
 the bar to his love for Lilian. But that prohibition was only 
 the fetters of stupid Church law. It had nothing to do with 
 religion itself. 
 
 And what had he got in exchange for all that he had dis- 
 carded? Nothing. He had originated nothing. Slowly 
 but surely he had come to a reasoned acceptance of Christ's 
 teaching in its entirety as the key to human life. 
 
 They had no music, singing, or pretty flowers at their
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 397 
 
 wedding ; the big church was empty ; not a single nursemaid 
 or idle work-girl came in from the street to watch them join 
 hands. But beams of kindly sunlight from the clerestory 
 windows fell upon the bride, making her sweet face shine 
 and lighting the tender depths of her eyes, as she turned 
 to the man she loved and plighted her troth "according to 
 God's holy ordinance." She needed no pomp of decked 
 altars, no vibrant swell of organ melodies, to make her lips 
 tremble and her heart throb ; if the whole church had been 
 crowded with people, and each one a friend who wished 
 her joy, she would still have felt what she felt now that 
 they two were standing quite alone in the presence of their 
 Creator. Every word she uttered was at once a vow of 
 loyalty and a prayer for pardon. 
 
 Allan, reading the service, was like an affectionate friend 
 welcoming his guests, like a brother speaking to a brother, 
 like a father speaking to a child. His fervent devotion, his 
 simple trustfulness, made an atmosphere of cheerful faith 
 that was bright and warm as the sunlight itself. 
 
 "... The Lord mercifully with his favour look upon 
 you." His friendly voice, shaken once or twice by the 
 strength of his affection, sounded full and firm as he con- 
 cluded the blessing "and so fill you with all spiritual bene- 
 diction and grace, that ye may so live together in this life 
 that in the world to come ye may have life everlasting." 
 
 And Edward Churchill thought, "Why can not I believe ?" 
 The touch of his wife's hand, the sight of her bowed head, 
 her gentleness, her goodness, and her faith, all moved him 
 deeply. Memories of what she had been to him, gratitude as 
 well as love, filled his mind. While he knelt by her side, 
 feeling all the greatness of love, he felt also, mingling with 
 it, the true religious desire; old sensations were reviving; 
 he felt a yearning for her happiness and welfare that had 
 no limits, that seemed to pass beyond his control, beyond 
 this life, out into immense space, desperately searching for 
 hope seeming, because of the intense character of the 
 wish, to convert itself into hope. But that, as he told him- 
 self afterwards, was emotion simply. It was the love that 
 itself has no bounds and thus gives one the illusion of the 
 infinite.
 
 XLIX 
 
 ONCE more they were people of private means. By the 
 springtime that long account for Robert Vickers had been 
 finally settled, and they came into the enjoyment of their 
 income of two hundred a year. This was fortunate, for 
 Churchill was passing through a period of anxiety and could 
 not do any regular work. Lilian was about to become a 
 mother ; her health gave cause for some alarm, and Edward 
 devoted himself entirely to her care. 
 
 She had said, when first telling him of her condition, "It 
 is almost miraculous. It is the lifting of the hand of God ;" 
 and this mystical idea, returning again and again, gained 
 strength and seemed to take complete possesson of her mind 
 as the time of trial drew near. 
 
 Their friend the doctor had advised Edward that a state 
 of exaltation was not desirable, that all morbid notions 
 should be discountenanced, but that nevertheless she must 
 be humoured in her fancies and not argued with. Then 
 he said she was showing emotional instability ; and this he 
 considered a bad sign. Then he confessed that the fact of 
 her not being by any means a young woman rendered him 
 a little apprehensive. 
 
 "She is only thirty," said Churchill ; "and this will not be 
 her first child." 
 
 "No," said Dr. Foley, "she told me so. And the other 
 child died. I think that memory worries her." 
 
 Churchill did not know if the doctor had allowed Lilian 
 to guess his apprehensions on the score of age, but she spoke 
 herself of being too old, linking this with the idea that 
 dominated her. 
 
 "Edward, if it were not miraculous, it would have hap- 
 pened long ago not now when I am almost an old woman." 
 
 "My darling, look at yourself in the glass. You are a 
 young girl younger than when I first saw your dear face." 
 And he challenged her to show him a single crow's-foot 
 about her eyes or to find one silver thread in the brown 
 masses of her pretty hair. 
 
 398
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 399 
 
 "I'm glad," she said, "if I still seem young to you. But 
 I am too old for this, unless Edward, I shall know soon. 
 It will mean that God has pardoned me, if my child lives. 
 Oh, if my child lives" and she began to cry. "I used to 
 pray that I might be childless until I was really your wife." 
 
 The Sisters of St. Mildred would have taken her away 
 from Danesborough and placed her in a Maternity Home, 
 but she refused to be separated from her husband. Their 
 proposal agitated her greatly, and she implored Edward 
 not to abandon her to strange hands, however kind and 
 gentle. Sister Maude was always here, and she did not 
 require any other woman friend. Sister Maude would not 
 desert her. 
 
 Indeed this good, sensible friend proved of immense aid, 
 and but for her support and counsel Edward would have 
 suffered far more anxiety. Sister Maude dismissed Dr. 
 Foley from the case, and called in an older and more solid 
 sort of man. She said Dr. Foley was all right as a friend, 
 but no use as a doctor. He was nervous and fussy; and if 
 it came to instability of emotion, he was ten times worse 
 than his patient. This sounded severe; but Sister Maude 
 stood firm, and her action was justified by immediately ben- 
 eficial results. The new doctor brought with him such a 
 matter-of-fact manner and talked with so much quiet com- 
 mon sense that, in his presence at least, it was impossible to 
 brood upon mysterious dangers or to put forward miraculous 
 intervenings for the explanation of natural events. 
 
 "My dear madam," he said solidly, "you are going to 
 have a fine, large, healthy baby, and the only doubt in the 
 matter is whether it is going to be a boy or a girl. That is 
 all you need trouble your head about. It is a mild, sunny 
 morning. Get your husband to take you for a little stroll 
 say, as far as those seats by the lock bridge. Sit down there 
 on one of the benches and discuss names male and female* 
 so as to be ready for the christening." 
 
 This homely, tonic advice did the patient good. She and 
 Edward henceforth occupied themselves often with the great 
 question of names, exchanging those fond compliments that 
 on such occasions never fail to touch loving hearts or to 
 strike the eagerly listening ear as pretty and original. Should 
 it be a girl-child, as Edward said, he wished that she might
 
 400 
 
 grow up to be in all respects exactly like her mother; and 
 Lilian felt that never before in the history of the world had 
 a man said anything quite so sweet to the poor wife who 
 adored him. But if it should be a boy, she would teach him 
 to take his father as a model, imitating him in thought and 
 in act, so that he might become one of the most perfect men 
 that ever lived; and Edward, declaring his total unworthi- 
 ness of this eulogium, thought, "What have I done, what 
 could I do to deserve the love that spoke those words ?" 
 
 The boy should be called Edward. On that she was de- 
 termined nothing could shake her from her decision. The 
 girl should not be called Lilian. And as to this she was 
 equally determined. So he yielded the second point also, 
 saying at last, "Yes, you are right. There can be only one 
 Lilian. She must have no competitors." 
 
 She asked if their daughter should be given his mother's 
 name, and he said, "Yes, he would like to call the girl Edith." 
 
 But then after this name had been adopted she confessed 
 to a fancy for something else, unless he had set his heart on 
 the repetition of his mother's name. 
 
 "I did not know your mother, dear but it is not because 
 of that. But, Edward, I feel that if our child is a girl, I 
 want her to be all new, without a single memory or regret 
 with nothing about her but hope. I want her to belong to 
 the future, and to take nothing from the past. Do you 
 understand, dear? That's why, really, I'd like her to have 
 a name that would mean nothing to either of us a name 
 that had no meaning for us till it came to mean her herself. 
 If it is a girl, may I call her Stella?" 
 
 "Yes," said Edward Churchill, "let us call her Stella. 
 And Stella shall mean all of my world that is not you." 
 
 A girl-child was born to them, and the child lived and 
 thrived. But Lilian lay ill for a long time, as if, after finding 
 strength to pass through so many storms, the respite from 
 pain and the realisation of hope were proving too much for 
 her. The autumn had come before she was up and about 
 again. Then quickly she grew strong strong enough to 
 face all her happiness. The care of the child was now her 
 only toil. Pretty things were to be bought for the child, 
 she who had stinted herself was to be lavish for the child ; 
 in this direction money could not be counted, extravagance
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 401 
 
 seemed to be one's highest duty. Edward Churchill was 
 working hard again; if his own money ran out like water, 
 he would soon earn other money; he would always make 
 enough and to spare, and he told himself that he had no care 
 that was not merely material. 
 
 The baby Stella was the light of their life. All the house, 
 all the neighbourhood petted her, so that Lilian in her first 
 outings with a perambulator made a sort of royal progress, 
 stopped at every corner by a little knot of the admiring 
 population eager to do reverence to the young princess. 
 Gates, her godfather, already worshipped her and was her 
 obedient slave. Old Bosworth the actor brought her toys, 
 snapped his fingers at her, and said "Ta-ta. Be good." 
 Sister Maude was a second nursemaid, disputing the peram- 
 bulater with its rightful owner. And to the intense gratifi- 
 cation of Lilian, this little world of theirs not only loved her 
 baby, but all admitted freely that Stella was a remarkable 
 child. Her intelligence was as striking as her beauty. She 
 knew her daddy, could recognise his step upon the stairs 
 at an abnormally early age. If she maintained her present 
 rate of progress, she would talk fluently before she had 
 celebrated her first birthday. 
 
 Edward Churchill watched her and her mother with an 
 immense fondness. This wonder of unfolding life en- 
 chanted him and held him spellbound. He gloried in their 
 child, thinking, perhaps with sudden sadness in the midst 
 of love and joy, "Here is the true immortality, the only 
 immortality vouchsafed to man." 
 
 Thus a year of parenthood went by just time enough for 
 a child's small hands to reach and hold one's heart. 
 
 Then their baby Stella fell ill. It was a cold, nothing at 
 first just a question of keeping her indoors for a few days, 
 but the doctor in attendance as an extra precaution. Then 
 she became a little worse, with the chest affected, and yet she 
 was still "well in herself," as you could see, playing with her 
 rattle, following her mother with bright eyes, taking interest. 
 Then Lilian suddenly took alarm; and the doctor, hastily 
 summoned one morning, said that pneumonia had set in. 
 The child was dangerously ill. 
 
 Late that evening when Edward returned from work, it
 
 402 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 was to find his wife wide-eyed, trembling, almost distraught. 
 The doctor was upstairs waiting to see him. He had brought 
 a trained nurse ; they were fighting with death. 
 
 The doctor said that everything possible had been done; 
 if all the physicians in London were fetched they could do 
 no more, and he spoke of the rapid onset of the disease and 
 the power of resistance that might or might not manifest 
 itself. He was kind, in his blunt way, and he contrived to 
 make his voice gentle and soft when he spoke to Lilian ; but 
 he allowed them both to understand that unless an improve- 
 ment had begun by next day, they must prepare themselves 
 for the worst. He would come again during the night or 
 very early in the morning. 
 
 Saying a few last words to Edward, he showed quite 
 plainly that he himself did not count upon recovery; and 
 Edward went back to his wife saying to himself, "He thinks 
 she will die. Yes, he thinks she will die." 
 
 They sat together, watching the nurse move about the 
 room, listening to the sound of their child's breathing. It 
 sounded like the faint patter of rain upon glass, or the flaring 
 of a gas jet at a distance. Lilian could not long keep away 
 from the cot. She crept softly to it, knelt beside it, weeping 
 and praying. And Edward, standing behind her and hearing 
 her whispered prayers, felt a burning agony of pity. 
 
 "Christ, have mercy upon us ! O Lord Christ, have mercy 
 upon us !" 
 
 A million tiny threads that had woven themselves about 
 his heart were being torn asunder, and it seemed that in 
 breaking they would break his heart as well. The torment 
 and the dread were almost insupportable. The night was 
 without end. Minutes were like hours, and yesterday was 
 years ago yesterday, when the sun was shining, and their 
 darling smiled and knew her mother's face yesterday, be- 
 fore this nightmare dream of darkness and despair had 
 begun. 
 
 Once during the night, when Lilian sat clinging to him, 
 she said, "Allan is praying. Go down and see. Ask him 
 to pray." 
 
 He went to the living-room below, and Allan comforted 
 him as no one else on earth could have done. Alone with 
 his friend, he broke down completely. "My poor wife my
 
 403 
 
 poor girl ! Allan, it is too cruel ;" and he repeated what the 
 doctor had said. "Allan, he does not hope." 
 
 "But / hope," said Allan. "Hope too." 
 
 "I must go back to her. Allan, she sent me to ask you to 
 pray." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Allan. "I shall pray all through the 
 night. Tell her I know our prayers have been heard. I hope 
 they are being granted." 
 
 Edward Churchill went back to the room upstairs, and 
 his wife was again on her knees by the cot. She came to 
 him presently and clung to him, kissing him, holding her 
 wet face against his; whispering, "Stay with me," not re- 
 pulsing him because he too could not pray, loving him in the 
 midst of her intolerable anguish. The thought of her loyal 
 love tore him to pieces. 
 
 The child recovered. In the morning the doctor was 
 delighted by distinctly favourable symptoms. Then, after 
 only twenty hours of suspense, the danger had gone; the 
 doctor assured them that there was no further cause for 
 fear. 
 
 Nothing could ever matter now. This horror had passed 
 away from them. They felt like people rescued from a 
 shipwreck, like people cast ashore after battling desperately 
 in fierce waves lacerated, broken, half dead, but unutterably 
 thankful. And Lilian, sobbing on his breast, said again, "It 
 is a miracle. Our prayers were heard, and God had 
 mercy. But if now you say even in your secret thoughts 
 that you don't believe, our child will die." 
 
 Their child lived. Edward Churchill, walking alone far 
 from the town, along the tow-paths towards the open river, 
 carried with him the picture of the child with her mother 
 watching her; and thought, "If I were to say 'I am grateful 
 but I do not believe. I am grateful, but there is no God,' 
 how could it possibly affect them?" Yet no power could 
 have made him say it. Because, first, it would have been 
 brutal and treacherous to Lilian, and because, secondly, 
 even the rejected idea of saying it filled him with returning 
 dread of danger to the child. That, of course, was super- 
 stition. But in this case he must not fight against the super- 
 stitious instincts. Although one can not bind oneself to 
 nothing, or make compacts with the empty air, one dare not
 
 404 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 even seem to run a fancied risk to those one loves in order 
 to obtain mental calm and readjust the balance of one's 
 secret thoughts. 
 
 But beyond these reasons why he could not say it, there 
 was a massive repulsion in himself. Like all who escape 
 from extreme peril, he felt an immense gratitude ; a desire 
 to give thanks so strong that the thanksgiving wells forth 
 of itself and must and will find its outlet, if not in words, if 
 not in thought, then in a vague but imperious need to thank 
 things that have had no part in one's deliverance, if one can 
 not find active agents. What an immense relief and satis- 
 faction to pour forth such thankful joy to God, if only one 
 could believe. And he recognised in himself the basic long- 
 ing which leads to religious belief. He thought of how it 
 would have been with him in the past, of how he would 
 have offered up thanks; of the lightness of spirit that he 
 would have gained, the ease that would have come to his 
 overflowing heart. 
 
 He walked fast, carrying his hat in his hand, refreshing 
 himself with the movement of the pleasant air. The sun 
 shone, a topsail breeze was blowing from the sea, high 
 clouds raced in a faint blue sky ; the men on the barges and 
 working the lock gates had bright faces and gave cheery 
 shouts; a play of light and life made the commonest things 
 seem fine. It was difficult not to think that all the world 
 shared his joy. He felt himself in a closer communion with 
 every one he met or looked at, and he wanted to stop them, 
 to talk to them, and clap them on the back and laugh and tell 
 them that his child who might have died had been spared. 
 
 Out by the water's edge, among the tumbled sandhills 
 and the bent grass, he sat listening to the wind and thinking 
 about prayer. He remembered parts of his own sermons on 
 the efficacy of prayer. He thought of prayer, as Allan 
 prayed, and he recalled his own dead feelings, and saw the 
 reality of the effect of prayer subjectively. He thought of 
 how strength seemingly external comes to one surging up, 
 as some philosophers now say, from the subliminal self, and 
 only seeming external because the marginal mystery of self 
 is so remote from normal consciousness but real at any 
 rate in its effect, bringing or giving one courage, serenity, 
 endurance, so that common men are lifted by it sometimes to
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 405 
 
 great heights of heroic aim and long-sustained action. That, 
 at least, is true of the efficacy of prayer, making it a force 
 that philosophers say is important. But it is lost, forfeited, 
 if one has nothing to pray to. And he thought, "Then relig- 
 ion must be good, if only for this." And he thought now of 
 the religious instinct, or desire for religion, as something 
 permanent and in the scheme of progress, and not as an 
 atavistic trait, the fading mark of superstition ; and he felt 
 that this was true also. Within the last two years he had 
 felt the impulse in himself each time that he was deeply 
 moved. He could suppress it and ignore it ; but he could 
 not exorcise it, much less satisfy it, by thoughts of a rational 
 plan of ethics. It and reason could not touch. It belonged 
 to elemental emotion. But if it was there in most men, 
 then religion must be good for them. In his own case the 
 wave of emotion quickly subsided, and reason resumed un- 
 challenged sway. There was but a transitory discomfort; 
 the thwarted sensations caused by failure of a natural im- 
 petus in finding its natural issue ; a constricted realisation 
 of dryness, coldness, dullness, in lieu of a voluminous pos- 
 sibility of largeness, glowing warmth, and richly dfffused 
 light. 
 
 Then he thought once more of the working hypothesis. 
 Yes, for the bulk of mankind it must be right. And for the 
 first time he felt the full extent of all that he had lost. Not 
 for the hope of eternal life, but as a sustaining force in this 
 life, how great is the loss when religious beliefs die. And 
 he said to himself again, "Why cannot I believe?" 
 
 He turned slowly homeward, and the evening glow was in 
 the sky; dusk threw her magic veils upon the earth, and all 
 the world before his footsteps grew beautiful and grand. 
 
 It was nearly dark when he reached the dock basins, and 
 suddenly he quickened his pace, hurrying towards the rows 
 of lamps of the Canal Bank streets. An irrational thought 
 had come to him. Suppose his child had died an hour ago ! 
 He hurried on, then stopped, stood still, and freed himself 
 from the thraldom of baseless fear. But he walked fast 
 again as he approached the house, and felt his heart beating 
 as he hurried up the stairs. The child was sleeping com- 
 fortably. Her mother sat by the cot, watching her sleep. 
 The quiet lamp-lit room formed a perfect picture of peace
 
 406 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 after storm. Edward Churchill felt ashamed of having for 
 a moment doubted the permanence of their joy. 
 
 He reproached himself for his long absence, for the 
 yielding to a desire for physical exercise, for his selfish en- 
 joyment of the hours so idly spent in the open air. He 
 reproached himself too for his meditations and inward 
 searchings. He thought now that of late he had been weak- 
 ening. He had fallen into that old folly of introspection, 
 fostering egoism and self-pity. He said to himself, "I have 
 my guide. I have always had it;" and he made a vow, 
 "I will think of these other things no more"
 
 AND indeed he had no time now to think of anything 
 except the hard facts of external life. The struggle with 
 ways and means had recommenced, more difficult now a 
 hundredfold than it had been before, because of their 
 increasing needs. Doctors' fees, nurses' fees, the many 
 costs of illness, are claims that one cannot control, that 
 one must meet with a smiling and unquestioning face. Their 
 income disappeared as a little rivulet that is swallowed by 
 the thirsty ground. He worked night and day to supple- 
 ment it. Soon he had three people entirely dependent on his 
 exertions. 
 
 Stella was thriving. Every day she grew more lusty. 
 She could walk, she was beginning to talk, she had a pro- 
 digious appetite all was well with their little Stella. But 
 her mother was often ailing. It seemed as if a reaction 
 after brave effort had taken away her vitality and nervous 
 force. She was courageous as ever, not shirking labour, but 
 physically incapable of undergoing any real fatigue. 
 
 And a further calamity befell them. Allan Gates was ill. 
 This was an unkind stroke of fate that had never for a 
 moment been apprehended. For, although Allan had passed 
 his fiftieth year, although his dark hair had turned grey and 
 his grizzled beard was nearly white, one had continued to 
 think of him as a man of whipcord and iron, a natural 
 source of untiring energy, a mechanism that could not wear 
 out. It seemed a reversal of nature's law, the end of the 
 world almost, when one saw him cease working. He had 
 caught a chill and entirely neglected to nurse it. That was 
 not strange; for when had he ever taken care of himself? 
 Then his dear old face became yellow with jaundice, and he 
 was forced to take to his bed. He lay there uncomplaining, 
 burnt up by fever, but never delirious; taking jnedicine 
 from Churchill's hand, gratefully thanking him for his min- 
 istering care, humbly apologising for being a burden and a 
 nuisance. The jaundice passed, but left him weak and ex- 
 
 407
 
 408 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 hausted. Doctors said that his health had altogether broken 
 down. 
 
 It was a heavy blow. He himself confessed at last that 
 he felt done for and fit for nothing. While he lay ill, the 
 vicar of St. Peter's in spite of a protest from Churchill 
 had superseded him and appointed another man to take over 
 his curacy; and Allan said that this was just and proper. It 
 would have been no good for the vicar to wait for him; he 
 knew himself that he must seek for some easier task. 
 
 He spoke bravely but with a quiver in his voice that 
 he could not conceal of the necessity of parting company 
 with his friend. "Dear old boy, if I don't get well soon, 
 there must be no nonsense about keeping me here. You 
 must just get me into a hospital or any place where they'll 
 take me without payment. I am not going to hang upon 
 your hands." 
 
 "Allan, don't be unkind. Have you forgotten what you 
 did for Lilian and me? and I let you do it. I took 
 everything from you without question." 
 
 "But that was all different. You have your duty to 
 Lilian and Stella a sacred duty. Dear old boy, be 
 reasonable. You can't carry all the world on your shoulders." 
 
 "I can carry you, Allan, without feeling your weight 
 and I am never going to put you down, until you can walk 
 on your own strong legs. Then you shall carry me again, if 
 you like ;" and he smiled, and patted Allan's shoulder. Never 
 had his love for Allan been so strong as now, when sorrow 
 and tenderness were blended with it. He spoke always 
 cheerfully of their future, telling Allan that this was just 
 a rest cure, and that if he gave himself a little more time 
 and did not worry, he would be restored to his full vigour. 
 
 "If God will grant me strength just to earn my daily 
 bread," said Allan, "I shall be content. I ask for no more." 
 
 The winter was severe, and till February Allan remained 
 in the house as "a useless invalid." This was his own 
 phrase. He fretted at his helplessness, he longed to relieve 
 Churchill of the cost of maintaining him. Then the doctor 
 let him go out to look for work. He was certainly better. 
 He was as well perhaps as he would ever be in this climate. 
 The doctor said that England was not the right place for 
 him. It would do perhaps in the summer, if one moved him
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 409 
 
 to softer and purer air, but another English winter might 
 polish him off. 
 
 And then Edward bestirred himself in earnest. He was 
 not good at asking favours for himself, but he proved 
 importunate on behalf of his friend. He wrote letters, he 
 had interviews with local magnates, he waited on doorsteps 
 and would not be turned away from closed doors. Allan 
 Gates must be taken out of England and established in a 
 kinder climate. He had worked long and loyally for Danes- 
 borough, and now the town should do something for a faith- 
 ful servant. But the town could not be roused to enthusiasm 
 concerning the case of Mr. Gates. This seemed to be purely 
 a church matter. Surely there were special ecclesiastical 
 funds to meet such emergencies? The Corporation looked 
 after their own people, and would not dream of asking help 
 from the clergy if they wished to pension one of their dust- 
 men or firemen. Then why ask help from them? Danes- 
 borough suggested that Churchill should try London. 
 
 He was, in fact, trying London already, and as yet with- 
 out any successful results. But there was one citizen of 
 Danesborough of a metal very different from the compo- 
 sition of the rest. This was Mr. Raymond. He gave 
 Churchill time, thought, and counsel. He took Churchill 
 with him to London; and it was probably due to his in- 
 fluence and active aid that Churchill's efforts at last met 
 with success. 
 
 One night late in March, Churchill came back to Danes- 
 borough with the splendid piece of news. He had obtained 
 for Allan the post of English Chaplain at a place in Italy 
 on the shore of Lake Como stipend or remuneration sixty 
 pounds per annum. Allan must be taken at once to London, 
 to meet the gentlemen who have promised this appoint- 
 ment; there is no doubt that these people will fall in love 
 with Allan, and ratify the treaty. And all of them Ed- 
 ward, Lilian, and the child will go with him to Italy. 
 They will pool their resources. Sixty pounds a year added 
 to two hundred will be more than enough. Life is so cheap 
 in Italy they will feel rich beyond the dreams of avarice. 
 
 Italy! They echoed the word, and it sounded to them a 
 word of magic. A quite extraordinary hopefulness came to 
 them. Italy the mere thought of it made Allan almost
 
 410 (THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 strong again. Everything will be easy for everybody in 
 Italy. The gentle climate is as much needed by Lilian, 
 perhaps, as by Allan. It will make their child bloom like a 
 flower. Edward will be happy there. 
 
 Three weeks later they said good-bye to England. They 
 travelled straight through to their destination, and the whole 
 world seemed to be sliding past the windows of the train. 
 Allan showed no fatigue; and since Stella appeared to be 
 thoroughly enjoying the long journey, Lilian could also 
 enjoy it. Edward, cheerful, watchful, the guide and guard- 
 ian of the little band, felt a calmer confidence in fate than 
 he had ever yet attained; so that, as he looked out at the 
 vague, changing landscape, he felt that nothing would now 
 come into their lives to disturb them. It had been raining 
 in London : it was raining at Lucerne, and a white mist hid 
 the lake. The air struck coldly and the clouds hung low 
 above their heads, as they walked up and down the platform 
 of the mountain station at the entrance of that small hole in 
 the stupendous Alpine wall which is named the St. Gotthard 
 Tunnel. 
 
 Lilian always remembered the journey, and the coming 
 through the Alps. It was the end of their life-pilgrimage. 
 They left sorrow and pain behind them, and came out into 
 the sunshine into the promised land into the sunlit realm 
 of happiness. That is what it was to her when she looked 
 back on it, always, to her dying day. They had been sorely 
 tried ; but their trials were done.
 
 LI 
 
 ALLAN'S church stood on raised ground above the road- 
 way just beyond the last of the big hotels, with villa gardens 
 on either side and the wooded hills behind. It had been 
 built by a husband as a memorial to the wife who died here 
 on the shore that she loved. It was a beautiful little church, 
 lofty and narrow, rich with coloured marble and gold 
 mosaic; on its walls were sixteenth-century pictures in 
 carved frames, the work of pious Italian painters, and these 
 were reputed to be of great value and interest, well worthy of 
 examination by tourists staying at Menaggio or Cadenabbia. 
 But the best picture, the picture that Allan never grew 
 tired of, was the large one in the frame made by the 
 opened doors facing the altar. As you moved down the 
 church, it grew larger and more splendid, showing you the 
 other shore and the wide fair lake with white Bellaggio 
 asleep upon its bosom, the verdant heights of Serbelloni, 
 and the mountain peaks beyond, all glittering, trembling, 
 glowing in the warm transparent air. 
 
 You came out of the church into this fairyland that 
 stretched to right and left as far as the eye could reach, 
 bays and promontories, castles and villages, enchanted gar- 
 dens, grottos of sweet flowers ; and earth, sky, and water 
 were not elements apart, but seemed to blend and melt one 
 into another to make a lovely dream. It would have been 
 pretty if you had come down from heaven; it was heaven 
 itself when you came to it from Danesborough. 
 
 They hired a small stone house, very plain and bare, but 
 with warm red tiles and comfortable broad eaves, and what 
 should have been a terraced garden, but had now become a 
 thicket of tangled vines. The little place had been the 
 holiday home of a Milanese tradesman, but he used it no 
 more and was glad to let it with the furniture it contained to 
 any one who would take it off his hands until he could get rid 
 of it altogether. The vines rose in terraces behind the house, 
 and there was a path up the hill that led to a barren moun- 
 
 411
 
 412 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 tain ridge a stepped path, very old and broken, with little 
 white shrines for the Stations of the Cross at intervals all 
 the way up till you reached the Chapel of the Crucifixion on 
 top of the hill, where the vines or olives ceased and you 
 came out among rocks and sunshine to the tracks that would 
 take you across the ridge to farms and towns and markets 
 on another lake. And up the steep path in the morning 
 went the laden mules and the sad-eyed men and girls, with 
 the long day's toil before them; and down the path at 
 dusk the mules came light, and the men and girls gaily sing- 
 ing, when the day's work was done. These were emblems 
 of life and its hard road what the evening of life should 
 be, if we can make it so. 
 
 In front of the house and the garden was the dusty road, 
 and on the other side of the road there was a private har- 
 bour. Between the roadway and the harbour there were 
 broken iron railings and the remains of a narrow strip of 
 flower-beds, with yellow roses smothering the ruin and hid- 
 ing all the gaps. A gate stood always open, and naked- 
 legged children played upon the causeway or chased the 
 darting lizards that were scarcely more alive and quick of 
 movement than themselves. The harbour had solid but 
 dilapidated stone piers and steps, with fishermen's boats 
 snugly riding at anchor and brown fishing nets spread out 
 over the sunlit stones. On the far end of one pier there 
 was a wrought-iron lamp-standard with a bronze effigy of 
 the fishermen's Madonna ; and at night barefoot women came 
 carrying a lamp and put it in the socket frame on top of 
 the standard a little twinkling star to please the saint, or 
 a guide to the husbands as they came across the waters 
 singing in the darkness. 
 
 Whether the harbour might be private or not, all these 
 humble folk had made themselves at home there. They 
 showed their gleaming teeth in a friendly smile and wel- 
 comed the newcomers, who indeed had no wish to interfere 
 with either their usurped rights or ancient privileges. 
 
 The Churchills loved the house and the harbour too. 
 Wherever they looked at it, on land, they were well satis- 
 fied. Only when you went out on the water, did you see 
 something to make you uneasy. Painted on the outward 
 wall of the pier, in huge red letters on a white ground, were
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 413 
 
 the ominous words that said the property was for sale. 
 Every one on passing steamboats could read the words. 
 This was their only fear that one day some rich man 
 would buy, pull down the house, and build himself a gor- 
 geous villa on its site. 
 
 The glorious spring, summer, and autumn unfolded them- 
 selves, and peace filled their hearts. Who would not be 
 contented here? Lilian and her little girl were healthy, 
 happy. Allan, absolutely fit again, was Allan of the Happy 
 Valley. He liked his churchwardens, the two trustees of 
 the memorial fund one of them lived in a villa at Tremezzo, 
 and the other, who had seen him in London and confirmed 
 his appointment, came out every autumn. Both these men 
 liked Allan, already trusted him. Everybody took to him. 
 He passed from one hotel to another, went up in lifts to see 
 solitary old ladies on the top floor, or sat in the hall sur- 
 rounded by fashionably dressed young people, or ran down 
 to the couriers' room to chat with ladies'-maids and valets ; 
 he was here, there, and everywhere. He knew all the world 
 the hotel-keepers, the regular visitors, the resident English 
 colony. He was pleasantly busy all the week ; and on Sun- 
 days he could produce any number of travelling clergymen 
 to lend him a hand at his real work, if he ever wanted help. 
 But truly the work of a chaplain here was child's play. He 
 had time and to spare for carpentry and gardening ; he took 
 long walks of exploration with Churchill ; and they both used 
 to row manfully upon the lake in a vast peasants' boat that 
 had its own peculiar pace which no power could hasten. 
 A child paddling a scull from the stern could make it go 
 its pace; two struggling oarsmen could not make it go 
 faster. 
 
 Churchill was writing again, and the delight of this occu- 
 pation was very great. Nothing now prevented him from 
 indulging his own taste and fancy ; no rude shocks or sud- 
 den calls jerked the pen out of his hand or made him feel 
 that the solace of imaginative wanderings was paid for by 
 neglect of duties at his door. He wove a small world of 
 fiction, entered freely into it, was happy there. He was 
 writing a long novel every page of which interested him 
 enormously, and he scarcely troubled himself to wonder if 
 anybody else would ever find interest in it. Then directly he
 
 414 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 had finished the book he became feverishly anxious to see 
 it in print. This is a fever, often unexpected, that every 
 incipient author feels. The pleasure of writing is so great 
 that it should be its own reward ; and yet one cannot write 
 at all without the firm hope of having readers. Churchill 
 did not know how strong the hope had been until he put 
 his work into the hands of the first reader available, Allan 
 Gates. 
 
 Allan was at first shocked by the novel. It dealt boldly 
 with such delicate subjects; it was so different from the 
 mirth-provoking sixpenny tales that he had always consid- 
 ered to be the correct thing in novels. After reading about 
 a quarter of it, he let Churchill see his doubt and disapproval. 
 
 "Allan," said Churchill, sadly but stoutly, "if there is 
 anything in it that would give you pain, I'll abandon the 
 idea." 
 
 "I know you would," said Allan cheerfully. "But let 
 me finish it all before I say anything more." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Churchill, with eagerness. "Do finish 
 it." 
 
 "I will, dear old boy," said Allan, tying a tape about the 
 manuscript sheets and putting the bundle under his arm; 
 "but not now. I will get on with it in the evenings. It is, 
 of course, very long, isn't it?" 
 
 And Churchill experienced further new sensations that 
 are proper to a young author. All hope ebbed away from 
 him. 
 
 "Dear old boy," said Allan, later on, "I think your 
 industry is simply wonderful the mere manual labour of 
 writing all this must have been enormous ;" and he put the 
 manuscript down again. "When I have written out one of 
 my sermons and that only means twenty small sheets 
 my hand aches. I have to open my fingers like this." Then 
 reflectively he filled a pipe, lit it, and slowly puffed. "Now 
 then," and he pulled himself together. "I am really going to 
 tackle it. I like it better as it goes on," and he beamed at 
 Edward. "I feel I'm getting into it." 
 
 Churchill thought that if by some queer caprice of fortune 
 a book of his were ever published, he would not watch it 
 being read by anybody, least of all by a loved friend. The 
 thing was too painful : it was torment.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 415 
 
 But at long last Gates finished a first reading, and then, 
 after skimming through the work again, he gave his verdict 
 and pronounced sentence. 
 
 "It is a noble piece," he said. "There is nothing but good 
 in it. Only certain passages must come out. I will show 
 you exactly I will take them out myself." 
 
 Churchill, radiant, with the dead weight of suspense lifted, 
 pleaded for the condemned passages. In his revulsion of 
 feeling, they seemed to him the best bits, and he did not 
 see how they could possibly offend. But Gates was granite ; 
 and Churchill, yielding at once, said "Out they go." 
 
 It was dreadful to see Gates with his stubby pencil, 
 frowning and intent, the manuscript quivering beneath his 
 hands. Churchill stood by, like a nervous mother with a 
 child in the dentist's chair, while Gates drew his darling's 
 teeth one after another. 
 
 "Believe me," said Allan, cheerily, "it's not only right, 
 it's an improvement. The book is so long that they can't 
 be missed." 
 
 Churchill sent the mutilated manuscript to Mr. Raymond, 
 who in his turn sent it to a literary agent. The agent without 
 difficulty made a fair bargain with a London publisher, and 
 before very long there began to arrive by post the proof 
 sheets of The Rainbow Garment, "a novel, by Edward 
 Churchill." 
 
 It was published in the winter time, and Lilian read it by 
 her own fireside. The north wind was sweeping down from 
 the blow-holes of the Sphiigen, making the snow-capped 
 mountains seem to be cut out of metal against the purple 
 sky, changing the placid lake into a fierce little sea, beating 
 among the vines and sending across the olive woods a phiver 
 of grey misery. But she cared nothing for the world or the 
 weather outside the windows; she had entered the world 
 made by Edward Churchill, and she never wished to leave 
 it again. She wept in delight and pride. It was the most 
 wonderful book ever written, and it had been written by 
 him. 
 
 The author himself was overwhelmed by the fantastic 
 character of the reports that came to him from his literary 
 agent ; yet they were supported by masses of documentary 
 evidence newspapers with criticisms, magazines with long
 
 416 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 articles, publishers' advertisements, innumerable letters from 
 strangers and so one had to believe that it was all true. 
 Hundreds of people were writing to the Press about The 
 Rainbow Garment, quarrelling about it, getting quite hot 
 about it; tens of thousands were reading it, talking of it, 
 thinking of it; its publishers had but one trouble they 
 could not get its editions printed and bound quickly enough. 
 Its success was of the full and immediate kind that comes at 
 rare intervals to a hitherto unknown man. Allan Gates 
 was enraptured and abashed. How had he dared to touch 
 such a masterpiece with the censor's pencil? He begged 
 Edward never to tell any one what he had done. 
 
 "Nonsense," said the author, smiling happily; "you 
 knocked it into shape for me. I can't explain its success 
 any other way." 
 
 That was what certain critics said they could not explain 
 its success. But readers needed no explanation. It was 
 different from other books it had something lofty and fine 
 in it that was not quite usual. It was not perhaps much of 
 a story, and it was certainly very long ; but through it there 
 shone a steady soul-radiance. The book was like Edward 
 Churchill. You only had to know it well enough, to love it. 
 
 And Fate began strangely to pay debts. His mother's 
 husband died and left Churchill all his money. A second 
 and a third novel established his position as one of the 
 most widely read writers of the age. It was only necessary 
 to amuse himself by writing in order to gain more money, 
 but he had more money than he wanted already. 
 
 He bought the house, the ground, and the harbour. He 
 added to the house, doubled it in size, then trebled it. He 
 cleared the ground and constructed a terraced garden, with 
 a pergola on the upper terrace where they used to have 
 their meals throughout the warm weather. This was a 
 labour of love, for Lilian; it was her garden. She had 
 a room of her own on the first floor, the best room in the 
 house, with her daughter's room adjoining, and a loggia 
 where she could sit and look down into her garden and 
 watch things visibly growing under her eyes. Gardening 
 was so easy now; you had but to wish, and Italy did the 
 rest. Each twig that you put into the ground would become 
 the tree that you asked for myrtles and citrons, fuchsias
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 417 
 
 and Banksia roses, oleanders and daturas, the things whose 
 very names are pretty to say, the things that in England 
 have a sound of rareness and unattainable beauty, all grew 
 with a swift, almost a fierce profusion. Churchill and 
 Allan, working with the stonemasons and labourers, seemed 
 to be chased and overtaken by the flowers themselves. The 
 roses could not wait for the brick columns and wooden 
 beams that were to carry them; such common thrusting 
 things as clematis and wistaria seized upon half finished 
 balustrades and ran their tendrils into each crevice of soft 
 mortar. 
 
 For Allan good useful rooms had been arranged by 
 Churchill and his clever architect from Milan. They had 
 a separate entrance to the road, and Churchill made them 
 like an English country vicarage, just in the style that suited 
 Allan. The harbour was repaired, and they had boats of 
 their own a fishing-boat for Allan, and a gig with cush- 
 ioned seats and brightly-coloured hood that was the family 
 carriage. At the touch of a pair of sculls it glided away, and 
 when the two boatmen sculled together it shot across the 
 lake and distanced all competitors. They had two boatmen 
 of their own, smiling giants in red sashes and blue shirts ; 
 but for the most part Allan and Churchill did the rowing. 
 Allan was so completely restored to his old strength that 
 nothing tired him; and their private boatmen had employ- 
 ment outside of the boats they were footmen, housemaids, 
 charwomen, as well as being boatmen. A gardener and his 
 wife, who did the cooking with a maid to help her, were 
 also native lake-dwellers ; another maid and the governess 
 came from England ; and the rest of the household was not 
 permanent, but just a changing population that consisted of 
 other governesses temporarily out of employment, poor 
 young ladies discovered by Lilian, anybody known to Allan 
 for whom a holiday without a hotel bill would be like a gift 
 from the fairies. And more or less dependent on the 
 household, were the people of the harbour, who formed a 
 sort of faithful clan and were very particular that no out- 
 siders encroached upon their province. 
 
 Truly fate had guided them to the place of peace. 
 Churchill would still have given all but there was no one 
 outside his home to give to. He offered his earnings, without
 
 418 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 stint, to Allan. But Allan could not spend wisely, and he 
 would not spend in any other way. There was no misery, 
 no real want, no regular claimants for charitable doles. 
 Allan saw clearly that to shower money on these peasants 
 would be wrong. They were happy now. Money would 
 upset them, spoil them. In fact, the unconsidered largesse 
 that poured from the villas and the tourist crowd had pat- 
 ently a depraving influence making the industrious idle and 
 the guileless greedy. Now and then one could find a case 
 where with caution one might play providence marriage 
 dowry for a girl, new boat for a fisherman, school fees for 
 a clever boy ; but the amount was small, the opportunity 
 rare. There were the beggars, of course, hovering about 
 every steamboat pier, infesting every sunlit piazza, lurking 
 beneath every cool colonnade ; but to these a few coins and 
 no more might be given, or they would get drunk, fight, and 
 fall into the lake. Allan's congregation were rich English. 
 All other congregations belonged to the Roman Catholic 
 priests, who lived in great amity with this heretic, and 
 would take for their sick but they must not take too much, 
 as Allan saw, or you would spoil the priests themselves. 
 Italy is not England. 
 
 For Allan duty had become a sort of playing at church 
 and at life, as of a happy child, with no real toil or sorrow 
 in it. But he was satisfied, easy of conscience. There 
 could be no harm now in accepting what God granted. 
 This was his reward, and he received it here below a fore- 
 taste of heaven. Perhaps he felt he had earned his reward. 
 God's will be done. It could not be meant that he should 
 pack up his traps, go back to the northern slums, and carry- 
 Edward Churchill's money to spend it there. 
 
 Edward Churchill for his part was content, without re- 
 morse or self -questioning. Contentment was logically de- 
 manded by his favourite theory. Do the thing nearest your 
 hand answer the call give all. But if there is nothing 
 to do, no call to answer, be at peace. He suffered no pangs 
 because men and women in London, or Leeds, or New York 
 were suffering. His place was here not there. 
 
 He valued money only for the pleasure he could buy with 
 it for those he loved. At last Lilian could have all the pretty 
 things that she knew how to make still prettier ; she had a
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 419 
 
 genius for decoration and adornment ; and every one of those 
 shopping trips to Exeter that she had renounced without 
 complaint was made good to her now a thousandfold. He 
 used to urge her to go to Milan, or to Paris if she preferred 
 it, to get herself more new dresses, more new hats ; and yet 
 he always liked to see her in the garments he knew best. 
 
 "Why don't you ever wear that lovely fawn-coloured dress 
 that I admire so much ?" he would ask her. 
 
 "My dear," she answered, with a laugh, "I wore it for four 
 years. Wasn't that long enough? Stella said it was too 
 faded and shabby for her to be seen about with me in it." 
 
 He neither counted money nor measured time: he was 
 happy in the passing hours. Only the disappearance of an 
 admired frock; the fact that Stella did not ride in a per- 
 ambulator, but went out fishing with Gates and came down 
 to late dinner; the list of his books in a publisher's adver- 
 tisement only such reminders as these told him that years 
 had added themselves to years, that the sum of life was 
 bigger. 
 
 His fame was always growing. He wrote to please him- 
 self, but what he wrote never failed to please the public. He 
 wrote fables of the people, and his fables were more popular 
 than his novels ; he wrote volumes of short stories, and the 
 public even allowed him to do that ; translations of his books 
 made him known throughout Europe. Because of his books 
 half the world honoured and respected him. He was, locally, 
 a celebrated feature of the lake, shown by fly-drivers, pointed 
 at from steamer decks, photographed behind his back by 
 everybody old enough to hold a camera. He was beloved by 
 all the peasants and the boatmen, who cared nothing for 
 Churchill the writer, but were very glad to talk about 
 Churchill the man. When questioned concerning his books, 
 they shook their heads and laughed. Not much of readers 
 but Signer Churchill was a grand signor and a good friend. 
 He paid for the defence of Luigi and Antonio there, wrongly 
 accused of smuggling. He gave the cow to Giulio's nephew. 
 He was out on the mountain all night with the rest when 
 little Vittoria and her mule got lost in the winter fog.
 
 LII 
 
 As soon as Stella was old enough they did a little travel- 
 ling. By the terms of his appointment, Allan Gates was free 
 to be away from the middle of November to the end of 
 March, because during this period there were scarcely any 
 English left on the lake. Nevertheless, he regularly con- 
 tinued his Sunday services, sometimes with a congregation 
 of only three persons Lilian, Stella, and her governess. 
 But on two or three occasions he was persuaded to join the 
 Churchills in a winter jaunt. 
 
 They went up to the snowfields of the Engadine, but the 
 keen light air did not suit Allan, and they hurried down 
 again to the plains of Lombardy. Once they followed the 
 sea coast from Toulon to Spezzia. They visited Rome, got 
 as far south as Naples, and crossed the Straits to Sicily. 
 Allan grew restive in the true atmosphere of Roman Cathol- 
 icism. It was too grand and sleepy for him. His spirit 
 was oppressed by the grey old towns, and the mingled gaudi- 
 ness and squalor of the churches. The priests of the south, 
 fat, indolent, with wine-stained, dirty cassocks, and double 
 chins that needed shaving, made him feel irritation and con- 
 tempt. The splendid old religion itself seemed to him really 
 like some of the old towers and palaces a grand outward 
 form only ; dust pretending to be stone, still standing high 
 and awe-inspiring, defying the centuries ; the work of man 
 pretending to be solid and permanent as the work of God. 
 These churches and castles seemed to speak with the very 
 voice of Rome, saying they would last as long as the hills 
 they crowned, yet all of them ready at a touch to fall into 
 a cloud of white dust. 
 
 Stella enjoyed these wanderings, but she as well as the 
 others liked their home best. She adored her father. At 
 first, perhaps, Gates ran him hard in the race for her favour, 
 but soon Daddy won. Daddy could not carpenter or make 
 toys, and his rooms were less interesting to explore ; but he 
 told one curious things, he could look into one's mind and 
 
 420
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 421 
 
 formulate the questions that one did not know how to ex- 
 press. And he could answer them, every one. When he 
 read aloud, fairy stories became true, not stories that didn't 
 really happen ; and when he came to the end the end that 
 one knew by heart he could go on reading, saying what 
 occurred after the princess was happily married, all about 
 her children and their names, and how after a time they 
 found the palace so dull that they left it one night to search 
 for the fairy that had formerly befriended their father and 
 mother. And all this sequel wasn't in the book at all ; it came 
 straight out of Daddy's head, and nobody else could read it 
 aloud to you. 
 
 By the time that she was ten years old they had become 
 real companions. They understood each other. You had 
 but to see them together to know how close was the bond of 
 love. As they walked hand in hand about the garden, he no 
 longer discussed such fabulous topics as the bears of Monte 
 Legnoncino, or explained why the lake was as deep as the 
 mountains were high, or why the unhappy village of Lez- 
 zeno had been put into disgrace and deprived of the sun in 
 winter and the moon in summer ; but they talked freely of 
 abstract matters, as freely and as simply as if he and she 
 were of the same age. He loved these walks and talks as 
 much as she did. He did not try to teach her anything then 
 or later, unless it was by leading her from external wonders 
 towards the deep comfort of the inner life. He had no fear 
 for her. Already she seemed to him calm and true and 
 strong. 
 
 They had innocent secrets that nobody else knew of. Once 
 in the summer, when the moon was at the full, he told her 
 that he was going out at night to climb the high hill behind 
 Griante to watch the sunrise from its summit ; and she said 
 she would be in their garden at dawn, standing on the upper 
 terrace, and kiss her hand to him. She would do this at a 
 certain minute, and at that exact minute he was to look down 
 from the mountain. She insisted on this ; she promised to 
 wrap up properly, and go back to bed afterwards. So they 
 carefully synchronised their watches, and decided on the 
 appointed minute. 
 
 "At three-forty, Daddy. Remember, you are to look 
 straight down towards me; and you will feel that I have
 
 422 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 flown up through the air and kissed you. You promise you 
 won't forget?" 
 
 "I won't forget. But I hope that instead of waking, you'll 
 stay snug in bed." 
 
 He was back for breakfast, and he said, "Thank you, 
 Stella, for saying good-morning to me so nicely." 
 
 "You couldn't see me, of course ?" 
 
 "No, but I knew that you were there." 
 
 "Did you feel what I said?" 
 
 "Yes, my darling, I felt that, and much more than you 
 said." 
 
 The others did not know what they were talking about. 
 It was one of their secrets. Perhaps she had secrets of her 
 own that she could not share with him. She knew that there 
 was something in her father's life because of which the world 
 at one time had been unkind to him, and the thought of this 
 made her feel a passionate longing to guard and protect him 
 from the slightest touch of pain. This shadow of past 
 trouble fell upon her faintly but coldly in the midst of sun- 
 light. He was grand and famous now, and yet the vague 
 cloud still remained upon his name. People were always 
 praising him ; and yet she could detect now and then a reser- 
 vation in their praise that wounded her young pride and 
 stabbed her loyal young heart. 
 
 He and she never spoke of religion. He had prepared 
 himself for the sort of questions that children usually ask ; 
 but she never asked them. Had she been warned not to do 
 so by her mother ? He did not know ; he did not inquire. 
 She had, of course, been brought up in the orthodox faith. 
 Allan Gates prepared her and some other English girls for 
 confirmation, and in due course she was confirmed by the 
 Bishop of West Europe on one of his enormous pastoral 
 tours. 
 
 Her father went to church with her on the Sunday after 
 she had taken her first communion. He used to attend the 
 morning service perhaps twice a year, for the pleasure of 
 sitting with his wife and daughter, and in order to be able to 
 pay his friend compliments about the sermon. 
 
 His compliments were precious because he never said 
 what he did not mean whether to Gates, to his wife, or his 
 child. Love has no limits. T nve made Gates a really good
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 423 
 
 preacher to Edward Churchill, even if he remained merely 
 a fervent but poor performer to all the rest of the world. 
 
 When he told Lilian that she looked as young as ever, she 
 knew that it was not true, but she knew that he believed it ; 
 and that was enough. If she had ever suffered, as women 
 are supposed to suffer, in thinking of the time when the 
 signs of age would fall upon her and her charm be lost, she 
 suffered no longer. He had always answered that he could 
 see no change in her. If she said it was absurd to talk like 
 that, he smiled and shook his head. He did not really see 
 that she was different in any outward respect from the girl 
 who had come to him through darkness and pain, and with 
 her hand in his had led him back to the light. He would 
 never see. Love conquers all things even the years. 
 
 He said, and believed, "You are more beautiful than you 
 were if, indeed, there is any difference." And if she 
 argued, he chaffed her about Wheeler's famous article in the 
 Universal Magazine. "Mr. Wheeler said more than I have 
 done. I'll fetch it out. You had better read it again." 
 
 Mr. Wheeler was a visitor from America, and he had writ- 
 ten an account of his visit to the villa by the lake. Churchill 
 kept and treasured his copy of the magazine because of the 
 sketch of Lilian. 
 
 After describing "the home of England's greatest fiction- 
 ist," the writer said: "Churchill is a bigger optimist even 
 than his books would lead one to suppose. His is an opti- 
 mism of the far-reaching, all-embracing character. He be- 
 lieves in the future of the human race, and does not appear 
 to attach any weight to the seeming evils of the hour. For 
 him labour troubles, class antagonisms, war itself with all 
 its unspeakable horrors, are but momentary checks to 
 progress they are like small impediments to the flow of a 
 river, making it for a moment change its direction, only to 
 resume it when the obstacle is passed. 
 
 . . . "But no picture of Edward Churchill would be com- 
 plete without the pendent portrait of his wife. Mrs. Church- 
 ill is a beautiful and gracious lady, with a quiet unaffected 
 manner, but great natural dignity. Tall and slender in figure, 
 she has a face of the most refined English type, and yet which 
 in the delicacy of the features, the play of expression and the 
 soft lustrous eyes, recalls the beauty of some of our own
 
 424 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 southern women. Both she and her husband, one may add, 
 are distinctly ww-English in their absence of formality and 
 reserve. The kindly welcome that they accorded to me as a 
 stranger, with no better credentials than the fact that I could 
 claim membership of the brotherhood of literature, impressed 
 me to a notable degree." 
 
 Touring Americans were often provided with letters of 
 introduction to Churchill by his New York publishers, and he 
 liked these perhaps more than any other chance visitors. 
 They were so fresh and original when compared with tired 
 Londoners saturated with other people's worn-out thoughts 
 and without a thought that belonged to themselves; so 
 devoid of all pretension; so free from the ridiculous self- 
 consciousness that fears to betray ignorance of matters quite 
 outside one's own sphere of knowledge ; so full of humour, 
 vital energy, and intrinsic kindliness. He liked the hard- 
 faced men of business whose words snapped like steel 
 springs and whose hearts were like the hearts of little 
 children. They sometimes talked as though the world was a 
 market-place and its high altar a stock exchange, pretending 
 to live only for the acquisition of hard cash, and yet perhaps 
 ready to lay down life for an idea. He seemed to trace in 
 the men and women alike this essential desire for the ideal 
 and the willingness to stake all to obtain it, and he won- 
 dered if destiny would ever put them to the test. 
 
 These tourists from across the ocean never ran the risk 
 of outstaying their welcome : without exception, they were all 
 of them in a prodigious hurry. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Churchill, we'd just love to stay and laze 
 away half a week on your c?<?lightf ul lake ; but it doesn't seem 
 quite fair to cut out poor old Rome, and Venice, and the 
 rest. Rome's had to wait a long time for Mrs. Binion and 
 myself, and I guess she'd feel tired of sitting on her seven 
 hills if we disappointed her." 
 
 "Come back to us on your way home." 
 
 "No, we can't do that anyhow. We aren't retracing our 
 steps this trip. Time doesn't permit. But we shall take 
 home a vurry pleasant memory of this afternoon, and of 
 you and your charming wife and your amiable daughter." 
 
 More distinguished and less hurried representatives of 
 American culture, writers, artists, diplomatists, came with
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 425 
 
 the English and Continental crowd every spring and autumn. 
 It was a cosmopolitan society in which sooner or later every 
 one of note appeared. Indeed in the fashionable seasons 
 there was no lack of varied company at the villa; and if 
 Churchill as a writer needed material for the study of men 
 and women of the world, it provided itself automatically and 
 unfailingly. Politicians or statesmen, successful advocates 
 or great lawyers, smartly-dressed women or grand ladies, 
 well-known people or people of importance, the man of the 
 hour or the moulder of to-morrow whichever you cared to 
 call them they all in time presented themselves on the 
 Churchills' terrace, to drink a cup of tea beneath the roses 
 and give their host a chance of seeing their outward shapes 
 and reading their inward mysteries. 
 
 With regard to the most famous of these guests, Stella 
 and Gates nearly always said the same thing. 
 
 "He is not a bit like his pictures in the papers," said Stella. 
 
 And Gates said, "How easy he is to get on with !" 
 
 The great men were always easy to get on with. They 
 sank into their basket-chairs, drank their tea, and ate their 
 cake, as if they had been doing so yesterday, the day before 
 and years ago; and they talked to Churchill as if they had 
 known him all their lives. When the rest of their party wan- 
 dered off about the garden, they still sat talking with him. 
 When their boat was waiting to start and everybody else on 
 board, they told the boat to go without them. They would 
 walk back to the hotel by the road and perhaps Churchill 
 would stroll a little way with them, so that they might go 
 on talking. 
 
 In the course of years many real friends dropped in on 
 them old friends discovered unexpectedly on landing- 
 stages, who were at once made to move their baggage from 
 their hotel, and put up at the villa. Thus, for the first time, 
 chance brought them Prebendary and Mrs. Verschoyle ; and 
 Canon Nape and Monsignor Gardiner, sometime curates of 
 St. Bede's. The Verschoyles came nearly every autumn, and 
 no other friends were so dear to them. 
 
 Sometimes there surged up out of the past once familiar 
 faces that they had never thought of or missed. In this 
 manner suddenly appeared Mr. Milton Kirk of Danes- 
 borough and his secretary, Miss Jenkins. Churchill had seen
 
 426 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 them from his window without recognising them, as they 
 slowly ascended the garden steps and paused to take breath 
 on each terrace a small, dapper gentleman in a yachting suit 
 and cap, with field-glasses swung over his arm ; and a gor- 
 geously attired mature lady with a mauve parasol. Now 
 they were in the drawing-room with Lilian, and Stella had 
 been sent to fetch him. He put down his pen and went at 
 once. 
 
 Mr. Kirk was standing on the hearthrug and talking vol- 
 ubly, reminding Lilian of how he had not only been the 
 original discoverer of Churchill's talent, but its careful 
 trainer. Mrs. Kirk sat near, admiring him. They were 
 much grander-looking than of old, obviously very prosper- 
 ous and opulent. 
 
 "How is Danesborough ?" asked Churchill, after effusive 
 hand-shakings. 
 
 "Danesborough," said Mr. Kirk impressively, "is making 
 colossal progress going slap bang ahead. You know the 
 saying, 'What Manchester thinks to-day London thinks 
 to-morrow?' Well, Danesborough thinks it the day before 
 Manchester." 
 
 "And are you still working for The Courier?" 
 
 "I AM The Courier;" and Mr. Kirk said how he had 
 bought out the old proprietary. He was also the owner of 
 half a dozen other periodicals. He thought no more of 
 launching a new paper nowadays than of having his break- 
 fast. "But I did not come here to talk about myself." And 
 he spoke again of his cleverness in having spotted Churchill 
 as a likely winner in the race for literary fame. 
 
 "Miss Churchill, the 'umble individual before you now 
 was your papa's first patron. Yes, young lady, this illus- 
 trious author, then a bashful beginner, used to bring me his 
 immature efforts, and we put our heads together to screw 
 them up to concert pitch. . . . You haven't forgotten, 
 have you, Churchill? ... I said to my wife there, 'There's 
 something about Churchill's work that may puzzle many 
 people, but it doesn't puzzle me. It is genius' Yes, I said 
 it then, un'esitatingly. All the world has said it since." 
 
 The late Miss Jenkins recalled this speech of her hus- 
 band's, and said he had quoted his very words. She was 
 grand, with her white frock, high heels, and delicate mauve
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 427 
 
 parasol. She had jewelled bangles, and a little watch en- 
 crusted with diamonds, the tiny dial of which she consulted 
 presently. 
 
 "Now, Milton," she said. "Remember, this is holiday 
 time." And she explained that she wished his brain to rest 
 as much as possible. The strain was more severe than ever. 
 
 Obviously she was very well pleased with herself ; but she 
 worshipped Mr. Kirk, and would always take the greatest 
 care of him. 
 
 As they went back to the harbour and their boat, she 
 spoke kindly and confidentially to Lilian. 
 
 "Aren't your husband's books splendid? I love them. 
 I wonder the Government hasn't publicly recognised them." 
 
 "How do you mean ?" asked Lilian. 
 
 "Why, by giving him a knighthood or something. They 
 are going to make Milton a knight. It will be in the next 
 Birthday Honours. . . . What a world it is. I wonder 
 what I should have said if the fairies had told me that one 
 day I should be Lady Milton Kirk." 
 
 When they reached the pier Mr. Kirk had still much to 
 say to Churchill, and it was with difficulty that Mrs. Kirk 
 embarked him. 
 
 "I must get him away," she whispered. "But when two 
 old cronies get together, there's no separating them." 
 
 Churchill begged the Kirks to come to dinner any day ; but 
 Mrs. Kirk refused the invitation. Dinner parties excited 
 Milton. As she explained, she got him off to bed imme- 
 diately after the table-dliote. He had half a bottle of light 
 wine at dinner, and she herself brought him his "night-cap" 
 when she had tucked him in. "But many thanks, all the same. 
 It's depriving him of a pleasure, but it's for his own good. I 
 think his brain is like a steam-engine: it is always working 
 at high pressure." 
 
 Mr. Kirk brandished his field-glasses and Mrs. Kirk 
 waved her parasol as the boat glided away with them. The 
 Churchills stood at the end of the pier by the fishermen's 
 shrine till the boat became a small speck on the broad sur- 
 face of the lake. Then they went back to the house, all three 
 together, lingering among the perfumed shrubs, turning on 
 terrace steps to look back at the great shadow of their moun- 
 tain as it crept up the slope on the other shore and the even-
 
 428 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 ing sunlight as it began to glow red on the crest of the 
 hills above Varenna. Then at last the writer returned to his 
 desk and went on writing. 
 
 Visitors squandered a lot of his time. But to all he was 
 courteous and kind, and all were the better for seeing him. 
 Something he gave unconsciously, something they took away 
 that made them a little richer the prosperous Kirks, the 
 successful politicians, the tired advocates, the expansive, 
 warm-hearted wanderers from the great Republic, even the 
 pretty, worldly ladies with husbands they did not care to 
 show and lovers they could not contrive to hide. It was the 
 divine gift of sympathy. The humble people, the peasants, 
 knew what it was well enough, and came for it without 
 scruple as a right in every trouble ; their love affairs, their 
 business enterprises, their little family vendettas ; their hopes, 
 their fears, their crimes. 
 
 He would lay down his pen, and give them an hour a day 
 two days. He would see the lawyers for them, he would 
 go to Milan for them ; there was nothing that he would not 
 do for them. 
 
 Lilian and Stella tried to save him from interruptions, but 
 in vain. He would not be the guarded prophet or the 
 sheltered muse. He worked when he could. Like all 
 authors, he had his favourite hours, when his pen seemed to 
 run easiest, and perhaps his best and most cherished time 
 was on Sunday mornings. 
 
 The church bell ceased its music; his ladies with their 
 prayer books in their hands had just passed the window, and 
 the maids were hurrying down the stairs ; dear old Allan was 
 busily engaged, and would not come in and out of the room 
 for a couple of hours. The whole house fell silent; the 
 Sabbath hush had descended on land and water ; not a mur- 
 mur came from the hillside, not a rustle from the lake. He 
 used to feel that he was absolutely alone with his work, and 
 the pen moved faster and faster.
 
 LIII 
 
 Ax the beginning of a week late in October Allan Gates 
 fell sick with influenza. This was the first time since he left 
 England that there had been anything wrong with him. On 
 Monday the Italian doctor from Tremezzo ordered him to 
 go to bed, but promised that he would be on his legs again 
 by Sunday. Allan's one anxiety was about the Sunday serv- 
 ices. Although at this late period of the year very few Eng- 
 lish were still here, the mere thought of the church doors 
 being closed against them sent up his temperature and made 
 him toss and turn in bed. Such a failure would spoil his 
 record for ever. 
 
 On Thursday, when he should have been allowed to get up, 
 he was still held prisoner by the doctor, and he judged it 
 prudent to ascertain that a substitute would be available, if 
 required, to take his place on Sunday. During the regular 
 season the shore was almost black with parsons, but now one 
 would not have so wide a choice. The churchwardens had 
 already departed. Stella, however, sent out spying for 
 Allan, brought back a report that she had seen four black 
 coats the one at the "Britannia" ; a new one out in a boat 
 with some ladies; and other two sitting in the hall at the 
 "Bellevue." Four blackbirds, not likely to be flown before 
 Sunday. Allan felt reassured. 
 
 On Saturday morning he got up without permission, and 
 was sitting in a chair when the doctor came. The doctor sent 
 him back to bed, to stay there till further orders. Lilian and 
 Stella, sent forth to search, found the four birds flown. Not 
 a parson left on the shore. All day long they telegraphed 
 and telephoned here and there, up and down the lake. No 
 parson available. No service to-morrow. Allan was in 
 despair. He lay writhing and tossing, saying he did not care 
 what his temperature might be ; he would be up to-morrow 
 and be at the church at 8 A. M., if he could stand. 
 
 "What is it at eight o'clock ?" asked Churchill, sitting with 
 him in the evening. "Communion ?" 
 
 429
 
 430 THE MIRROR AND! THE LAMP 
 
 "No, only Matins chiefly for the English waiters and the 
 clerk from the 'Bellevue.' " 
 
 "And what is it at eleven o'clock ?" 
 
 "Morning Prayer and Litany." 
 
 "Allan, I'll do the services for you," said Churchill. 
 
 Allan looked at him, gave a gasp, and then sank back in 
 bed, perspiring, joyful. "God bless you, dear old fellow! 
 Oh, God bless you 1" 
 
 The fervent gratitude of Allan's tone, his extreme emo- 
 tion, his gasp or cry of joy on hearing his friend's words, 
 startled Churchill. It had seemed to him such a small thing 
 to say. Why should it seem so much to Allan? Churchill 
 had spoken on the impulse of the moment, without thought 
 or doubt. His friend wanted something done, and he could 
 do it. It was nothing for him to do. Of course he must do 
 it. It was a call that he had answered automatically. 
 
 "Now settle down," he said, "and get to sleep." 
 
 "Yes, I shall sleep to-night," said Allan, in the same joyful 
 tone. 
 
 Churchill going, put his head back into the room to ask 
 if he should find a surplice and everything else at the church. 
 
 "Yes, dear old fellow. I have given Lilian the keys." 
 
 "That'll be all right then," said Churchill. 
 
 But a little later Lilian came to him, with shining eyes and 
 lips trembling. 
 
 "Allan has told me. Oh, Edward, does this mean oh, 
 let me know what it means." 
 
 "My dearest," he said, rather blankly, "it means nothing ;" 
 and he took her hands and pressed them gently. "Dear old 
 Allan was in a hole so I offered to do it for once. But I 
 hope you don't think it is wrong. Allan did not. It is only 
 for this once to make him easy." 
 
 "Yes," she said, "you have made Allan easy;" and she 
 released her hands, and turned away. 
 
 "Lilian, I hadn't thought of my position as a priest who 
 had been inhibited. I hadn't thought of myself at all except 
 that I should be able to get through the services all right. 
 But if you feel that I haven't the right to do it if you think 
 it wrong, I must tell him I can't do it." 
 
 "No," she said sadly. "I don't think it wrong. I could 
 never think anything you did was wrong. Only it set me
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 431, 
 
 thinking " and her eyes filled with tears. "But I under- 
 stand now." 
 
 He sat meditating after she had gone. 
 
 Was it wrong? Surely not. All that episode of his 
 quarrel with the Church and the manner in which he had 
 left it seemed so immensely remote. It was like something 
 that had happened in the life of another man. Who else 
 would trouble to remember it ? Who would know or care ? 
 No one here would wonder about it. 
 
 He had not thought of religion in regard to himself since 
 the time long ago when his child recovered from her dan- 
 gerous illness. He had determined then that he would not 
 think of these things, and he had adhered to his resolution. 
 Nothing in the happy years had ever revived the feelings of 
 that period. His life since then had been so peaceful and 
 yet so full: the world all round him and the worlds of his 
 imagination had been all sufficient to him. 
 
 In his books he had never spoken of religion, but now and 
 then the public Press had made allusions to the fact of his 
 having been a clergyman. Critics who wished to appear 
 knowing sometimes called him the Reverend Edward 
 Churchill ; critics who wished to be nasty had not scrupled 
 to call him an infidel and an atheist. No one could call him 
 a materialist, for in everything that he had ever written the 
 triumph of spirit over matter had been the essential idea 
 conveyed; but it was, as he knew, generally assumed both 
 by readers and by critics that he was not an orthodox be- 
 liever. 
 
 Suddenly, and for a few moments, it seemed a queer thing 
 that he was intending to do now. To those who really knew 
 his life-history, this act might seem like a public recantation. 
 They might say of him, "Edward Churchill has recanted. 
 He has stood up before men and God, and owned that he 
 was at fault, and they were right. Yet he does not now 
 really believe. Therefore he is one of two things : a liar or 
 a hypocrite." 
 
 But in another moment everything dropped into its proper 
 place and took its old proportional value. What people may 
 think about him and they won't think is of no importance. 
 It is utterly trivial. The only important thing was to serve 
 his friend. He would have gone and swept out stables,
 
 432 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 climbed ladders and laid bricks, stood on the high road and 
 begged done his friend's task for him, whatever it was, 
 while he lay sick. 
 
 He fetched out his manuscript notes and began to write. 
 He had mortgaged to-morrow morning, and would make up 
 for lost time by doing a little work to-night. 
 
 Allan slept soundly, and was still asleep when Churchill 
 went out to do the first service. There were only five people 
 in the church. 
 
 There were more people at eleven o'clock, perhaps as many 
 as thirty ; and he conducted the service beautifully, without 
 the least sign of embarrassment, and with only the very 
 slightest emotional feeling. He was extremely careful, read- 
 ing what he would have recited from memory in the old days, 
 and he made no slips. 
 
 Inwardly and outwardly he was calm. Strangers in the 
 church were struck by his outward aspect, and saw in him a 
 faithful carrier of the divine message. He stood there, tall 
 and thin, his hair sleek as silk, silver grey ; his clean-shaven 
 face, darkened by the Italian sun, like a beautiful mask ; the 
 features exquisitely refined, with all sensual character gone 
 utterly, and yet with strength remaining, visibly indicated by 
 the frontal ridge and the firm though thin-lipped mouth. He 
 looked at once an ideal priest and an intellectual aristocrat. 
 The benign light of all-embracing love was in his eyes when 
 he delivered the last words. 
 
 No one could have guessed. From the moment of his 
 first kneeling, till now as he stood with raised hand and the 
 sunlight through the windows crowning him, in a glory 
 rather than a petty halo, he has been God's perfect mes- 
 senger. Yet he felt nothing beyond love of humanity. If 
 God were here, in this little church, why did he not feel the 
 mysterious presence ? Why did not he realise that he was no 
 longer alone on the chancel steps? He seemed to be quite 
 alone. But he could not have said, even in thought, "There 
 is nothing here. There is no God. There never was a God." 
 
 These others believed. All can believe, except himself. 
 Looking down at the faces, he could read their hearts. In 
 their different degrees all these people truly believed. There 
 was glorious faith here and there. It was shining clear from 
 his wife and his child from the old lady in the second pew
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 433 
 
 and that old man and from the other old dame. From 
 the others if not the perfect untroubled faith, at least the 
 yearning for it, and a hope that will bring it ; or, at the low- 
 est, the firm belief that this life is a prelude, that something 
 larger is to come. And who but a fool would take the belief 
 from them? Pity and love filled his thought, as he read 
 these few hearts. 
 
 For some it is not perhaps much ; for the rest it is every- 
 thing. And this little pause in the quiet church is good for 
 all. Who that thinks can doubt it? If it were only to tie 
 the tongue for an hour a week, it were worth building 
 churches to win that silence. 
 
 After the blessing he made a slip, forgetting what came 
 next. He thought it was all over. Instead of kneeling in 
 front of the altar and hiding his face in his hands, he sat 
 down in the big chair by the wall, in the shadow, with hand 
 on elbow, watching the congregation go out. 
 
 He thought that he could see quite plainly the good of it 
 to these faithful ones. They have palpably changed be- 
 neath his watching eyes. The old lady in the second pew is 
 praying, is dreaming. She rises from her knees, and it is as 
 if she wraps about her a cloak of dignity which she did not 
 wear on entering. Her face is grave and calm; she is old 
 and fragile, but she walks more strongly, with a b/aver, 
 nobler carriage. She has been kneeling, as she thinks, at the 
 steps of a throne, and has heard gracious promises; and 
 something of Majesty will cling to her for a little while. In 
 imagination he follows her out into the sunlight, in imagina- 
 tion hears her voice. She has neither sought nor shunned 
 her friends and gently she resigns herself again to the 
 babbling untied tongues ; but in her voice and eyes there is 
 something still of the glory of her dream. Who but a fool 
 would rob her of the dream? 
 
 Allan was much better in the week, and all right by Satur- 
 day. But he asked Edward to help him again. It is Com- 
 munion Sunday. Allan will do it all himself, every bit of it ; 
 but he would like to have Edward at his side, in case of fail- 
 ure. Edward is to be there just to support him, and will 
 not have to open his mouth. 
 
 Edward consented. He will dress once again as an offici-
 
 434 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 ating priest, and that will be the end of it. Once more, and 
 for the last time. Why not ? Allan wants him. 
 
 He put his head in at the door. "But, I say, old boy, have 
 you two surplices ? Can you fit me out as well as yourself ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Allan joyously. "I'll fit you out." His 
 face beaming in happiness. 
 
 So Edward Churchill made his second appearance behind 
 the altar rails. 
 
 And now Allan Gates was convinced that all he had longed 
 for and prayed for had at last come to pass. Edward had 
 come back to them returned to the fold been brought 
 home in due season. Not to Allan the glory. He had been 
 content to watch and pray throughout the long years, but 
 never once had his confidence wavered. In God's good time 
 the thing would happen. And he felt certain that it had 
 happened now. 
 
 He would not allow Lilian to doubt the splendid truth 
 of it 
 
 "Knowing him as I do, I know that it can mean nothing 
 else." And he said how he had really felt sure from the 
 moment, eight days ago, when Edward offered to take the 
 services for him. "He could not have done this otherwise. 
 Although he may not, at first, have realised why it had 
 become possible to him. So you may say the first time was 
 nothing. But the second time proves it. Have no fear." 
 
 "May I ask him if it is so?" 
 
 "Yes, ask him. Have no fear. Let us go to him now." 
 
 Thus his friend and his wife came to him ; Lilian's face all 
 joyous, and Allan rubbing his hands together. 
 
 "Edward, is it true?" And she asked him explicitly if 
 he had recovered his lost belief. 
 
 He started, looked at their eager faces, and checked the 
 answer that was rising to his lips. Then, after an almost 
 imperceptible pause, he answered gravely and firmly that 
 what they wished was true. Without consciously searching 
 for the words, he had so framed his answer as to avoid a 
 personal declaration of belief; but, however worde<J, the 
 sense of the answer was unequivocal. He made them think 
 that what they had hoped for was true. 
 
 This was his last great renunciation costing him some-
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 435 
 
 thing even now. Must one deny one's deepest right, may not 
 one have one secret innermost place that is one's very own ? 
 No ; for those you love, give all. No holding back to your- 
 self no limitations or half measures. Give yourself, your 
 life, your all. Why not? What is it really? What does it 
 count to bring happiness to the loved wife, the loved 
 friend? They want it that is enough. As to the dignity of 
 self, which forbids one to subscribe to the recantation of 
 one's thoughts that is too vain and futile. The mirror is 
 the guide. 
 
 One look at their faces told him that he was right. They 
 were radiantly happy. Henceforth, so far as those two are 
 concerned, he must act a lie if he cannot make it the truth. 
 They must always think it is the truth. 
 
 And perhaps in dread of widening consequences, or 
 merely as an instinctive precaution, he gently pleaded for his 
 old freedom of action. 
 
 "I don't think I should care to go to church very regu- 
 larly perhaps scarcely at all; I mean no more than in 
 the past." 
 
 "No, no. Whatever you like," cried Gates. And Lilian 
 agreed. They are absolutely content, and will leave him 
 unmolested. He is safe now that is all they craved to 
 know for certain. 
 
 The acting of a lie would not do. The truth and nothing 
 but the truth was required. It had been a foolish thought, if 
 he supposed that anything less would suffice. 
 
 He could not write, either that day or the days that fol- 
 lowed. He sat idle in his room, or wandered out of the 
 house by himself. He wanted to be alone ; he was afraid of 
 the company of those who were dear to him. Something had 
 come between him and them. They were not conscious of it ; 
 it was only he who knew that when they fancied they had 
 drawn closest to him, a barrier that might prove impenetrable 
 had suddenly arisen to separate them. But that must not be. 
 
 He said to himself, "I will accept the working hypothesis. 
 I will believe all that I can ; I will believe all that I can't 
 for their sakes. Love has no limits to its demands, or to its 
 power. It takes all, but it can give all. Love can make me 
 believe. Perhaps nothing else."
 
 436 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 In this sense he longed to believe and prayed for belief. 
 He longed for the still larger, richer life which he could 
 reach now with belief added more infinitely, than when he 
 was young, and, except for his mother, had no ties that 
 bound him to earthly things. If behind and beyond the beauty 
 of these lakes, and the hills and their fragrant vesture of 
 flowers, he could see the beauty of the eternal world of 
 spirit, as Lilian could, as Stella could, as Allan could, how 
 much, much joy would be added. Above all, he longed for 
 the close communion of spirit with the three people that he 
 loved more than himself, his work, his life. 
 
 He looked into his own mind, and it seemed that there was 
 nothing there that was not either a reflection of external 
 objects or the memory of them, or the print of the impulses 
 that had come from them and passed through him. His best 
 thoughts had always come to him seemingly from outside, 
 even his imaginations or inventions. It seemed that he had 
 originated nothing from within. Faith had entered into him, 
 doubt had entered into him, disbelief had entered into him. 
 He remembered how he had once fancied that the highest 
 task of his life would be to chase doubt from great men's 
 minds minds so much stronger than his. Why cannot he do 
 this now for himself? And again came the thought, "Love 
 can do it for me. If I am passive, love will do it love shall 
 do it." 
 
 So when Sunday morning came he did not use his free- 
 dom. He went to church and knelt by Lilian's side, with his 
 mind cleaned and emptied, his heart like the heart of a child.
 
 LIV 
 
 IT was autumn again, after a perfect summer. September 
 had a ripeness and fullness that surpassed all previous 
 months; the air was dreamy, the earth gave forth sweet 
 perfumes. In every vineyard one met groups of laughing 
 girls, and high on the hillside one heard laughter and music ; 
 the world had become a harvest festival. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon the Churchills rowed across the 
 lake to attend a festa organised by the Roman priests. The 
 village landing-place was one of the largest on the lake, with 
 shallow steps on three sides ; and beyond there was an open 
 space surrounded by trimmed planes and used often for a 
 market. On the far side of this, a rapid ascent through 
 cypress trees led one to the piazza of the church. Before 
 the landing-steps big peasant-boats used to lie at anchor 
 throughout the week. But to-day dozens of boats of all sorts 
 were tied up, gently bobbing and scraping, so that the 
 watery space was like the enclosure of a race-course; and 
 more and still more boats were coming. All the shore was 
 crowded. Processions of priests and their followers were 
 moving beneath bright-coloured banners ; a band was play- 
 ing ; the church bells rang. 
 
 They tied up their boat, and Churchill remained in it, 
 while Allan, Lilian, and Stella went to "do the festa" and 
 see all that there was to be seen. 
 
 What can they see? Out here from the boat it is all 
 colour, movement, and confusion, without meaning apparent 
 but one can piece it together. It is the pageant of life in 
 little. Is it more at close range? When you stand in ihe 
 crowd, is the meaning apparent? You must go where the 
 pressure guides you. They are all going one way: then 
 surely the goal is worth reaching? 
 
 All the beautiful pageant of life does it matter, the size 
 of the stage, the number of the actors? Here are the peas- 
 ants- men and women and children, bringing their votive 
 offerings all that the earth itself yields fruit, flowers, and 
 
 437
 
 438 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 beasts. Not much. But our pope lias big pockets, takes the 
 kind thought for the rich gift takes both; and our father 
 at Rome has many fetes. Let us hope he may get all he 
 wants when he puts all together. Thus they go, the poor 
 peasants bright-eyed slaves of a magic that makes them 
 happy. Here are the muttering priests, robed as rich as a 
 pope, and all one with a pope to the peasants. The banners 
 wave and gladden the eye, the little boys sing, and the maid- 
 ens whisper ; and the smoke from the censor swings out and 
 rises and fades ; and the prayers and the hopes in the mut- 
 tered words are as smoke, soon lost in the sunlight. The 
 babe on its mother's arm clutches, without sense of space or 
 bulk, at the glittering cope, the lofty cross with its dazzling 
 jewels, at the sun itself ; and cries when it finds its hand still 
 empty. Here are policemen, soldiers, shopkeepers from the 
 town. Here are the smart hotel visitors from Bellagio and 
 Cadenabbia, men in Panama hats, women in rainbow dresses, 
 mingling with the humble throng of it completely, yet 
 thinking themselves above it ; all nations these, with no link 
 to bind them unless it be that they all are bound in golden 
 fetters; lords, ladies princes from the princely villas all 
 come out to kill time, without a shiver in the warm sunlight 
 because they all know it is time that will kill them. This is 
 the pageant of life. What actors are missing? 
 
 He waited patiently in the boat for a long time till again 
 the boats are going. And his mind is vacant and peaceful. 
 There is nothing there now but the bright pure flame and a 
 crystal clear mirror. Time is gone, and space is annihilated. 
 He rouses himself when the others return, smiles at them a 
 wonderful smile, and a welcoming look that goes to their 
 hearts. 
 
 But at such times, when he cannot count the gliding min- 
 utes or think in words, the thought-vapour must be there 
 something that transcends thought. Day by day the power 
 of thought is strengthening, widening. He is wiser every 
 day, stronger. Books that were difficult are now easy to 
 read and men are as easy to read as books. Something like 
 the clairvoyant wisdom far-reaching, barrier-breaking of 
 the greatest thinkers has come to him, slowly and surely, by 
 not thinking.
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 439 
 
 The lake is most beautiful, at all hours. Allan is sculling 
 them very slowly merely paddling and husband, wife and 
 child sit together beneath the awning. 
 
 "Pull it down," says the girl. "The sun cannot hurt us 
 now." 
 
 "Nothing can hurt us now," he says dreamily. 
 
 The screen is lowered, to give them a wider view ; and the 
 boat glides slowly onward by the shore. 
 
 Beneath them are the silent depths; over the surface of 
 the water light airs come creeping from the gates of the 
 other lake, and with the gentle breeze is borne to them the 
 far-off sounds of life faint music, evening bells, herdsmen 
 calling. Hidden from them on the other lake, behind tha 
 wooded hill, there is a pleasure steamer making restless noise 
 to remind them of the world. The unceasing, rhythmic and 
 yet fretful beat of the unseen paddle-wheel throbs faintly on 
 the ear. It is the heart-beat of the world futile, furious, 
 unceasing. 
 
 They glide on, past the stately villas, backs of humble 
 houses clustered at the foot of quarried cliffs, hanging woods, 
 gardens and vineyards, and again the stately villas. The 
 shore is a beautiful picture unfolding itself. But Edward 
 Churchill looks at it in the water the reflected, inverted 
 picture that little children love. Hold your gaze on the 
 depths, and you never know what the picture will be till it 
 comes. In this steady sunlight, the color and the solidity of 
 the mirage are as perfect as the objects they represent. But 
 the mirage forms, glows, fades, and is utterly gone as you 
 pass. Look back, and no trace is left only the silent 
 depths. 
 
 Cypresses, stone steps, flowers festooned on marble balus- 
 trades; smooth lawns, palace walls this is wealth. Don't 
 look forward, don't look back. A little beach and a fisher- 
 man's boat, a cabin and a slated roof this is poverty. Don't 
 look back. Don't look forward. The picture has formed, 
 gained strength, and vanished. And this is all that life can 
 show as one passes. We may try to stand still, to keep the 
 picture with us ; but in truth we cannot. The shadows are 
 falling, the light itself is fading; our picture must change, 
 even if we do not move. In a little while it will be gone as 
 completely as if we ourselves had passed on.
 
 LV 
 
 THE fact of Churchill's doing duty for his sick friend did 
 not go unnoticed. It was reported in England, and it had 
 caused some trouble. The trustees of the church, when they 
 heard of it, desired an explanation from Gates. Was it not 
 highly irregular, in view of Mr. Churchill's status ; or were 
 they under a misapprehension on this point? The ecclesi- 
 astical authorities also became aware of the occurrence, and, 
 off and on, throughout the winter, Allan Gates had been 
 mildly badgered by them. He was obliged to send lengthy 
 answers to letters from the Bishop of West Europe. He said 
 nothing to Edward or to Lilian about these little worries. 
 
 It was the custom of the Bishop and his wife when cross- 
 ing their gigantic diocese in spring and autumn to stay 
 two or three days with Allan and the Churchills. But they 
 had not come this spring. They would be here, no doubt, 
 before the autumn was over. The Bishop knew all about 
 Churchill, was familiar with the details of his whole career. 
 He was a dry little chap; old, genial, but fond of argument; 
 he would often tackle Churchill at dinner, not as a bishop 
 but as a man of the world, discussing his books, making him 
 stand up in self-defence, and explain the logic of incidents 
 or the development of characters. But he liked Churchill 
 very much, and was one of the most tolerant of men. 
 
 He and his wife duly turned up at the end of September, 
 on a glorious day about tea-time. After tea his good lady 
 withdrew to her room to repose herself, while he and the 
 others went out upon the lake. Allan sculled stroke, Miss 
 Stella bow; Edward Churchill steered, with the bishop on 
 one side of him and Lilian on the other. The boat shot out 
 from the pier in grand style; the scullers settled to their 
 work with a will; then, taking things easier, slackened the 
 pace, and the progress was gentle, peaceful, lullingly smooth. 
 
 As they glided along, the Bishop opened his mind. 
 
 He told Edward Churchill about the clerical fuss and 
 annoyance. He, the bishop, had himself been badgered. 
 
 440
 
 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 441 
 
 Letters, interviews even a visit to Lambeth. Everybody 
 was, of course, delighted that Churchill had come back to 
 the fold but there really was very considerable scandal and 
 fuss, which, fortunately, he has now been able to set right. 
 
 "Is it real?" Even that had been asked in regard to 
 Churchill's vindication of his religious belief. The Bishop 
 knew well that there was no ground for such a question ; he 
 knew the absolute genuineness of this unreserved recognition 
 of past error and resumption of a faith that had never been 
 totally abandoned. Otherwise he would not be saying these 
 words. But fame has its penalties. A public man is public 
 property, and his owners will talk about him. When you 
 have countless admirers, you must have detractors also 
 among the small, envious souls who like to think and speak 
 evil of the great. Moreover, on the technical side of the 
 matter well, one must be governed by those who are ap- 
 pointed to govern. A clergyman who has been inhibited, a 
 clergyman without a license "to preach the word of God 
 
 and administer the sacraments " Really our friend 
 
 Gates quite put himself in the wrong. 
 
 Allan and the girl had ceased rowing; the boat drifted on. 
 
 "And the crux may occur again," the Bishop continued. 
 It would be very convenient to Gates, it would be useful to 
 everybody, to have a substitute ready. It would be useful, 
 as an object lesson for the world, to have such a man to 
 have this particular man. Churchill in his surplice answers 
 all the questions, hushes all the scandal as to Churchill's 
 infidelity and that ancient quarrel with the authorities. 
 
 So the Bishop has obtained the lifting of the ban, and he 
 proposes to appoint Edward Churchill as a chaplain, hono- 
 rary, to himself. Churchill will have no duties to perform ; 
 the appointment will be a sinecure that carries with it neither 
 function nor emolument, but it will give a proper status as a 
 priest. And by his manner and his tone he conveyed to all 
 of them that in this he intends not only to rehabilitate 
 Edward Churchill most handsomely, but to do him consid- 
 erable honour. 
 
 Thus Churchill can wear the Sunday surplice without 
 qualms. He can resume the week-day livery, and show him- 
 self boldly on lake and shore in the orthodox collar and black 
 coat.
 
 442 THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP 
 
 Churchill sat tongue-tied. The Bishop was smiling at him 
 with great kindness ; Lilian had laid her hand on his ; Allan 
 was beaming. His daughter, leaning to one side, showed her 
 bright face, and he could read in it her pride and love. To 
 her this is most splendid tidings rehabilitation, acknowledg- 
 ment of father's true worth at last, the lifting of that cloud 
 upon his name. He had not known till now that she har- 
 boured these feelings. 
 
 The boat drifted on, in the golden sunlight, on the bosom 
 of the deep lake ; and there was silence. Churchill remem- 
 bered the hour when, throwing off the coat and collar, he 
 made a vow that he would never again carry the ugly yoke 
 of superstition. But that was not really himself : that was 
 another man. In his rage and revolt he had called his 
 priestly garb the devil's livery. Now he may wear it again. 
 
 "What say you to that?" asked the Bishop. 
 
 "I say you are very kind," said Churchill, with a catch 
 of the breath. "Very, very kind. And I thank you I thank 
 you." 
 
 Then they were all happy all thanking the kind Bishop. 
 Allan and the girl poised their sculls, and bent and swung. 
 They talked gaily, while the steersman sat mute. The sun- 
 light fell bright on the lake, glancing on the surface, not 
 piercing the silent depths. But the steersman was happy. 
 The flame was leaping high ; the mirror was crystal clear. 
 
 THE END
 
 ENGLISH REVIEWS OF "THE MIRROR 
 AND THE LAMP" 
 
 Westminster Gazette 
 
 Not since The Ragged Messenger has any English novel- 
 ist given us so painstaking, so sympathetic, and so deeply 
 ironical a study of the religious temperament as Mr. W. B. 
 Maxwell, in his return to the theme in which he of all liv- 
 ing writers excels, The Mirror and the Lamp. 
 
 The Globe 
 
 Mr. W. B. Maxwell's latest novel, The Mirror and the 
 Lamp, is the finest book he has yet written. 
 
 Sheffield Telegraph 
 
 In his new book, The Mirror and the Lamp, Mr. W. B. 
 Maxwell has for his central character a clergyman who lost 
 his faith and took to himself the ill-used wife of an evil 
 labour leader and lived with her in what is technically known 
 as "sin." Those are the crude facts as they might be whis- 
 pered over a cup of tea, but Edward Churchill was no vulgar 
 sensualist. He was of a deeply spiritual and introspective na- 
 ture, who from the first found in the church his true voca- 
 tion. He deliberately set aside the highest opportunities of 
 advancement in order to give himself to the work in a poor 
 parish, and until he met Lilian his blood never seems to have 
 given him any trouble. . . . Whether he did right or 
 wrong is a matter of opinion ; after all, it is a world of make- 
 belief and compromise. Mr. Maxwell has written a pro- 
 found and intimate study on an old but eternal theme, and 
 it is good work. 
 
 Morning Post 
 
 But with the story is developed a moral which explains. 
 It is signified in the title. The lamp is one's innermost self, 
 and the mirror is one's mind. The lamp the soul, call it as 
 you will is imperishable in its power to light the mirror, 
 and show what is fair and foul.
 
 Lady's Pictorial 
 
 The Mirror and the Lamp, by W. B. Maxwell, is a book 
 of serious purport, extremely well done and full of truth 
 and artistry. The Mirror is conscience, and the Lamp the 
 flame of truth ; and the story traces the spiritual history of 
 the hero, Edward Churchill, from boyhood to middle life. 
 . . . It is altogether an extremely interesting and clever 
 book. 
 
 Weekly Despatch 
 
 A fine piece of work, and one feels the soul struggle of 
 Edward Churchill. 
 
 The Times 
 
 And this brings us to his unusual talent for secondary 
 characters. The Rev. Mr. Walsden simply "is" ; if Tolstoy 
 had been an Englishman, this is the Mr. Walsden whom he 
 might have given us, though we wonder whether even Tol- 
 stoy's Mr. Walsden would have made us such staunch 
 friends; the sergeant is perfectly a sergeant, through Mr. 
 Maxwell's almost unerring instinct for dialogue. And there 
 is Mrs. Churchill. In this saint-like, flawed, pitiful woman, 
 whom we instinctively distrust from the first, whom we feel 
 convinced that Mr. Maxwell dislikes while he pities, all the 
 elements of beauty in the novel seem to concentrate them- 
 selves. Her physical presence, so slightly but distinctly 
 conveyed; her early confession to her son, whose love, 
 womanlike, is made even more tender by disillusion ; her 
 final degradation all these form a little masterpiece in the 
 midst of excellence. 
 
 James Douglas in The Star 
 
 And yet the spiritual struggle breaks out over and over 
 again, and I catch glimpses of a soul ill at ease, and striving 
 to be at rest. And these glimpses somehow do convey that 
 sense of incompleteness, of starvation, of deprivation which 
 is more and more the mark of our day. Hungry souls in a 
 world of hungry souls! the old shibboleths and catchwords 
 taste like war-bread. We yearn for vision, for beauty, for 
 poise, or, to put it quite simply, for peace. It is not new, 
 this hunger. It is as old as Job and the psalmist. But the 
 area of the hunger is larger. There is a job to-day in every 
 street, in every slum. I am Job. You are Job. Job is 
 Everyman.
 
 The Scotsman 
 
 Patiently, almost minutely, Mr. Maxwell, in his latest 
 novel, builds up an arresting picture of life. 
 
 Daily Graphic 
 
 The story is worthy of its author's high reputation, and 
 is an absorbing study of the clash of ideals with a great pas- 
 sion. 
 
 Manchester Guardian 
 
 It is perhaps the dreadfulness of the physical conflict 
 now engaging the world that turns many minds to questions 
 of spiritual energy and aspiration. At least it may be held 
 certain that a part of the interest of Mr. Maxwell's novel is 
 due to some such revolt. 
 
 Daily Chronicle 
 
 Mr. W. B. Maxwell comes back from the war with a 
 novel, The Mirror and the Lamp, which will be very wel- 
 come. When Armageddon broke he put down the pen and 
 took up the sword. He has done his "bit," done it simply 
 and well with the Royal Fusiliers, and now he resumes his 
 pen. It is not a war story that he gives us, though nobody 
 who has been in the thick of the Somme fighting could write 
 without some of the influence of the war at his elbow. It 
 is a story with a soul problem, at least a moral problem 
 namely, how the spiritual side of a man and a woman react 
 to an unsanctified life. The man is Edward Churchill, who 
 was destined for religion nay, had a call for religion. But 
 into his life, rich in hopes and ideals, there comes a wronged 
 wife, a woman of subtle, fine qualities and that meeting 
 makes both their lives different. The subject is difficult and, 
 just for that reason, one which Mr. Maxwell handles with 
 insight, with delicacy, and with artistry. 
 
 National News 
 
 W. B. Maxwell has been in France, in the fighting line, 
 literally in "The Devil's Garden," though not the one wrote 
 of in his novel of that name four years ago ; but there is no 
 trace of the war in his new story, The Mirror and the Lamp, 
 a subtle, sometimes cynical study in the after effects of the 
 strict, narrowly religious upbringing of three boys, sons of 
 the widowed Mrs. Churchill.
 
 Glasgow Herald 
 
 The mirror of the mind and the lamp of the soul form a 
 large subject, and when in addition love and religion clash 
 it will be seen that this is a serious novel indeed. 
 
 Aberdeen Herald 
 
 After his long silence of five years due mainly to his 
 having exchanged the pen for the sword Mr. Maxwell's 
 many admirers will be enthusiastic over his latest novel 
 which is more than worthy of its author's high reputation. 
 The reader might expect that the war would now be the 
 dominant reality for Mr. Maxwell, but it has no part or in- 
 fluence in The Mirror and the Lamp. 
 
 The Rev. Edward Churchill is the third son of his 
 mother, a widow, and also a foolish and hysterical woman, 
 but her third son adores her. His two elder brothers are 
 both disappointments, but Edward is her joy, and her happi- 
 ness is complete when, after a successful career at Oxford, 
 he is ordained and obtains an East-End curacy. There he 
 works with single-hearted devotion, refusing preferment, 
 but much of his enthusiasm is damped when his mother 
 marries a vulgar tradesman. More than ever does he de- 
 termine to live by the mirror and the lamp, striving to make 
 the lamp of his soul reflect in its mirror, the mind, nothing 
 but the steady flame of content. But his ascetic celibacy 
 is rudely shattered when he falls in love with a woman un- 
 happily married to a brutal husband. In the spirit of knight- 
 errantry he rescues her, but with the triumph of an unau- 
 thorized love, his religious faith gives way. Whether an 
 attitude of blank atheism will satisfy this intellectual aris- 
 tocrat, and how their unsanctified life will react on the moral 
 nature of the man and woman, the reader will prefer to dis- 
 cover for himself. 
 
 Sunday Evening Telegram 
 
 Considered as a study of a sensitive man's struggle both 
 to think and to act rightly, The Mirror and the Lamp is in- 
 tensely interesting.
 
 University of California 
 
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