In the Wilderness | Page 6

Madonna, two drawings of heads by Burne-Jones, a small painting--signed "G. F. Watts"--of an old tree trunk around which ivy was lovingly growing, and one or two prints.
The floor was polished and partially covered by three good-sized mats. There was a writing-table on one side of the room with an ebony-and- gold crucifix standing upon it. Opposite to it, on the other side of the room near the fireplace, was a bookcase. On the shelves were volumes of Shakespeare, Dante, Emerson, Wordsworth, Browning, Christina Rossetti, Newman's "Dream of Gerontius" and "Apologia," Thomas a Kempis, several works on mystics and mysticism, a life of St. Catherine of Genoa, another of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius Loyola's "Spiritual Exercises," Pascal's "Letters," etc., etc. Over the windows hung gray-blue curtains.
Into this room Rosamund came that evening; she went to a wardrobe and began to take down a long sealskin coat. Just then her maid appeared-- an Italian girl whom she had taken into her service in Milan when she had studied singing there.
"Shan't I come with you, Signorina?" she asked, as she took the jacket from her mistress and held it for Rosamund to put on.
"No, thank you, Maria. I'm going to church, the Protestant church."
"I could wait outside or come back to fetch you."
"It's not far. I shall be all right."
"But the fog is terrible. It's like a wall about the house."
"Is it as bad as that?"
She went to one of the windows, pulled aside the curtains, lifted the blind and tried to look out. But she could not, for the fog pressed against the window panes and hid the street and the houses opposite.
"It is bad."
She dropped the blind, let the curtains fall into place and turned round.
"But I'd rather go alone. I can't miss the way, and I'm not a nervous person. You'd be far more frightened than I." She smiled at the girl.
Apparently reassured, or perhaps merely glad that her unselfishness was not going to be tested, Maria accompanied her mistress downstairs and let her out. It was Lurby's "evening off," and for once he was not discreetly on hand.
Church bells were chiming faintly in this City of dreadful night as Rosamund almost felt her way onward. She heard them and thought they were sad, and their melancholy seemed to be one with the melancholy of the atmosphere. Some one passed by her. She just heard a muffled sound of steps, just discerned a shadow--that was all.
To-morrow she must give an answer to Dion Leith. She went on slowly in the fog, thinking, thinking. Two vertical lines showed in her usually smooth forehead.
It was nearly half-past six when she turned into Welby Street. The church was not a large one and there was no parish attached to it. It was a proprietary chapel. The income of the incumbent came from pew rents. His name was Limer, and he was a first-rate preacher of the sensational type, a pulpit dealer in "actualities." He was also an excellent musician, and took great pains with his choir. In consequence of these talents, and of his diligent application of them, St. Mary's was generally full, and all its pews were let at a high figure. To-night, however, because of the fog, Rosamund expected to find few people.
One bell was mournfully ringing as she drew near and presently saw a faint gleaming of light through long narrow windows of painted glass. "Ping, ping, ping!" It was a thin little summons to prayer. She passed through a gateway in some railings of wrought ironwork, crossed a slippery pavement and entered the church.
It was already more than three parts full, and there was a large proportion of men in the congregation. A smart-looking young man, evidently a gentleman, who was standing close to the door, nodded to Rosamund and whispered:
"I'll put you into Lady Millingham's seat. You'll find Mrs. Chetwinde and Mr. Darlington there."
"Oh, I'd rather--" began Rosamund.
But he had already begun to move up the aisle, and she was obliged to follow him to a pew close to the pulpit, in which were seated a smartly dressed woman with a vague and yet acute expression, pale eyes and a Burne-Jones throat; and a thin, lanky and immensely tall man of uncertain age, with pale brown, very straight hair, large white ears, thick ragged eyebrows, a carefully disarranged beard and mustache, and an irregular refined face decorated with a discreet but kind expression. These were Mrs. Willie Chetwinde, who had a wonderful house in Lowndes Square, and Mr. Esme Darlington, bachelor, of St. James's Square, who was everybody's friend including his own.
Rosamund just recognized them gravely; then she knelt down and prayed earnestly, with her face hidden against her muff. She still heard the little bell's insistent "Ping, ping, ping!" She pressed her shut eyes