As the day advanced and the silver fog blew in little gusts about the house, making now this corner now that obscure, drifting, so that suddenly, when the door opened, the whole passage seemed full of smoke, clearing, for a moment, in the street below, showing lamp- posts and pavements and windows, and then blowing down again and once more hiding the world, she felt, in spite of herself, that she was playing a part in some malignant dream. "It can't be like this really," she told herself. "If I were to go to tea now with Mrs. Mark and sit in her pretty drawing-room and talk to that clergyman I wouldn't believe a word of it." And yet it was true enough, her share in it. As the afternoon advanced her sensations were very similar to those that she had had when about to visit the St. Dreot's dentist, a fearsome man with red hair and hands like a dog's paws. She saw him now standing over her as she sat trembling in the chair, a miserable little figure in a short untidy frock. She used to repeat to herself then what Uncle Mathew had once told her: "This time next year you'll have forgotten all about this," but when it was a question of facing the immensities of the Last Day that consolation was strangely inapt. It was dusk very early and she longed for Martha to bring the lamp.
At last it came and tea and Aunt Elizabeth. Aunt Anne had not appeared all day. Then long dreary hours followed until supper, and after that hours again until ten o'clock.
She had not been certain, all this time, whether the aunts meant to take her to the service with them. She had supposed that her introduction to the meeting at Miss Avies's meant that they intended to include her in this too, but now, as the evening advanced, in a fit of nervous terror she prayed within herself that they would not take her. If the end of the world were coming she would like to meet it in her bed. To go out into those streets and that ugly unfriendly Chapel was a horrible thing to do. If this were to be the end of the world how she did wish that she might have been allowed to know nothing about it. And those others--Miss Pyncheon and the rest who devoutly believed in the event--how were they passing these last hours?
"Oh, it isn't true! It can't be true!" she said to herself. "It's a shame to frighten them so!"
By eleven o'clock the excitement of the day had wearied her so that she fell fast asleep in the arm-chair beside the fire. She woke to find Aunt Anne standing over her.
"It's a quarter past eleven. It's time to put on your things," she said. So she was to go! She rose and, in spite of herself, her limbs were trembling and her teeth chattered. To her surprise Aunt Anne bent forward and kissed her on the forehead.
"Maggie," she said, "if I've been harsh to you during these weeks I'm sorry. I've done what I thought my duty, but I wouldn't wish on this night that we should have any unkindness in our hearts towards one another."
"Oh, that's all right," Maggie said awkwardly.
She went up to put on her things; then the three of them went out into the dark foggy street together.
Because it was New Year's Eve there were many people about, voices laughing and shouting through the mist and then some one running with a flaring light, then some men walking singing in chorus. The aunts said nothing as they went. Maggie's thoughts were given now to wondering whether Martin would be there. She tied her mind to that, but behind it was the irritating knowledge that her teeth were chattering and her knees trembling and that she did not maintain her courage as a Cardinal should.
As they entered the Chapel the hoarse ugly clock over the door grunted out half-past eleven. The Chapel seemed on Maggie's entering it to be half in darkness, there was a thin splutter of gas over the reading-desk at the far end and some more light by the door, but the centre of the building was a shadowy pool. Only a few were present, gathered together in the middle seats below the desk, perhaps in all a hundred persons. Of these three-quarters were women. The aunts and Maggie went into their accustomed seat some six rows from the front. When Maggie rose from her knees and looked about her she recognised at once that only the Inside Saints were here.
Amongst the men she recognised Mr. Smith, Caroline's father, two old men, brothers, who had followed Mr. Warlock from their youth, and a young pale man who had once been to tea with her aunts. Martin she saw at once was not there.
For some time, perhaps for ten minutes, they all sat in silence, and only the gruff comment of the clock sounded in the building. Then the lights went up with a flare and Thurston, followed by Mr. Warlock, entered. It was at that moment that Maggie had a revelation. The faces around her seemed to be suddenly gathered in front of her, and it was with a start of surprise that she suddenly realised: "Oh, but they don't believe in this any more than I do!" The faces around her were agitated, with odd humble beseeching looks, as though they were helpless utterly and were hoping that some one would suddenly come and lead them somewhere that they might be comfortable again and at ease.
There was not to-night, as there had been on other occasions (and especially during that service that Mr. Crashaw had conducted), any sign of religious and mystical excitement. The people seemed huddled together in the cold and draughty place against their will, and the very fact that the Chapel was only half full chilled the blood. No drama of exultation here, no band of God's servants gloriously preparing to meet Him, only the frightened open-mouthed gaze of a little gathering of servant girls and old maids. That was Maggie's first impression; then, when the service began, when the first hymn had been sung and Thurston had stumbled into his extempore prayer. Maggie found herself caught into a strange companionship with the people around her. Not now ecstasy nor the excitement of religious fanaticism nor the superstitious preparation for some awful events-- none of these emotions now lifted her into some strained unnatural sphere--no, nothing but a strange sympathy and kindness and understanding that she had never known in all her life before. She felt the hunger, the passionate appeal: "Oh God come! Prove Thy- self! We have waited so long. We have resisted unbelievers, we have fought our own doubts and betrayals, give us now a Sign! something by which we may know Thee!" and with that appeal the conviction in the hearts of almost all present that nothing would happen, that God would give no sign, that the age of miracles was past.
"Oh, why did He want to be so definite," she thought. "Why couldn't He have left them as they were without forcing them to this."
They were sitting down now, and Thurston, with his cheap sense of the dramatic and false emphasis, was reading from the New Testament. Maggie looked to where Mr. Warlock was, a little to the right of Thurston, in his black gown, his head a little lowered, his hands on his lap.
When she saw him she was touched to the very heart. Why, he had aged in the last month a hundred years! He looked, sitting there, so frail and helpless that it seemed wonderful that he should have been able to get there at all.
His hair seemed to have an added intensity of whiteness to-night, and his beard lay against the black cloth of his gown with a contrast so sharp that it was unreal. Maggie fancied, as she watched him, that he was bewildered and scarcely knew where he was. Once he looked up and round about him; he put his hand to his brow and then let it fall as though he had no longer any control over it.
She was now so touched by the pathos of his helplessness that she could think of nothing else and longed to go to him and comfort him. Time stole on and it was now ten minutes to twelve. They sang another hymn, but the voices were very weak and feeble and the words quivered round the building in a ghostly whisper. Then Thurston came to the Master and gave him his arm and led him to the reading-desk. The old man seemed for a moment as though he would fall, then, holding to the front of the desk, he spoke in a very weak and faltering voice. Maggie could not catch many of his words: "My children--only a little time--Our preparation now is finished . . . God has promised . . . Not the least of these His little ones shall perish . . . Let us not fear but be ready to meet Him as our Friend . . . our Friend . . . God our Father . . ." Then in a stronger voice: "Now during these last minutes let us kneel in silent prayer."
They all knelt down. Maggie had no thoughts, no desire except that the time might pass; she seemed to kneel there asleep waiting for the moment when some one should tell her that the time had gone and she was safe. The moments dragged eternally; a thrilling suspense like a flood of water pouring into an empty space had filled the Chapel. No one moved. Suddenly into the heart of the silence there struck the first note of the clock tolling the hour. With Maggie it was as though that sound liberated her from the spell that had been upon her. She looked up; she saw the master standing, his hands stretched out, his face splendid with glory and happiness.
He looked beyond them all, beyond the Chapel, beyond the world. He gave one cry:
"My God, Thou art come." Some other words followed but were caught up and muffled. He fell forward, collapsing in a heap against the desk. His head struck the wood and then he lay there perfectly still.
Maggie could only dimly gather what happened after the sound of that fall. There seemed to her to be a long and terrible silence during which the clock continued remorselessly to strike. The Chapel appeared to be a place of shadows as though the gas had suddenly died to dim haloes; she was conscious that people moved about her, that Aunt Anne had left them, and that Aunt Elizabeth was saying to her again and again: "How terrible! How terrible! How terrible!"
Then as though it were some other person, Maggie found herself very calmly speaking to Aunt Elizabeth.
"Are we to wait for Aunt Anne?" she whispered.
"Anne said we were to go home."
"Then let's go," whispered Maggie.
They went to the door, pushing, it seemed, through shadows who whispered and forms that vanished as soon as one looked at them.
Out in the open air Maggie was aware that she was trembling from head to foot, but a determined idea that she must get Aunt Elizabeth home at once drove her like a goad. Very strange it was out here, the air ringing with the clamour of bells. The noise seemed deafening, whistles blowing from the river, guns firing and this swinging network of bells echoing through the fog. Figures, too, ran with lights, men singing, women laughing, all mysteriously in the tangled darkness.
They were joined at once by Aunt Anne, who said:
"God has called him home," by which Maggie understood that Mr. Warlock was dead.
They went home in silence. Inside the hall Aunt Elizabeth began to cry. Aunt Anne put her arm around her and led her away; they seemed completely to forget Maggie, leaving her standing in the dark hall by herself.
She found a candle and went up to her room. The noise in the streets had ceased quite suddenly as though some angry voice had called the world to order.
Maggie undressed and lay down in her bed. She lay there staring in front of her without closing her eyes. She watched the grey dawn, then the half-light, then, behind her blind, bright sunshine. The fog was no more.
The strangest fancies and visions passed through her brain during that time. She saw Mr. Warlock hanging forward like a sack of clothes, the blood trickling stealthily across his beard. Poor old man! What were the others all thinking now? Were they sorry or glad? Were they disappointed or relieved? After all, he had, perhaps, spoken the truth so far as he was himself concerned. God had come for him. He was now it might be happy somewhere at peace and at rest. Then like a flash of lightning across the darkness came the thought of Martin. What had he said? "If anything happened to his father--"
The terror of that made her heart stop beating. She wanted instantly to go to him and see what he was doing. She even rose from her bed, stumbled in the darkness towards her dressing-table, then remembered where she was and what time and went back and sat upon her bed.
She sat there, her fingers tightly pressed together, staring in front of her until the morning came. She felt at her heart a foreboding worse than any pain that she had ever known. She determined that, directly after breakfast, whatever the aunts would say, she would go to his house and demand to see him. She did not mind who might try to prevent her, she would fight her way through them all. Only one look, one word of assurance from him, and then she could endure anything. That she must have or she would die.
At last Martha knocked on the door; she had her bath, dressed, still with this terrible pain at her heart.
She was alone at breakfast, she drank some coffee, then went up to the drawing-room to think for a moment what course she should pursue. The room was flooded with sunlight that struck the fire into a dead, lifeless yellow.
As she stood there she heard through the open door voices in the hall. But before she had heard the voices she knew that it was Martin.
Martha was expostulating, her voice following his step up the hall.
"I shall go and tell my mistress," Maggie heard.
Then Martin came in.
When she saw him she stood speechless where she was. The change in him terrified her so that her heart seemed to leap into her throat choking her. The colour had drained from his face, leaving it dry and yellow. He had an amazing resemblance to his father, his eyes had exactly the same bewildered expression as though he were lost and yet he seemed quite calm, his only movement was one hand that wandered up and down his waistcoat feeling the buttons one after the other.
He looked at her as though he did not know her, and yet he spoke her name.
"Maggie," he said, "I've come to say good-bye. You know what I said before. Well, it's come true. Father is dead, and I killed him."
With a terrible effort, beating down a terror that seemed personally to envelop her, she said:
"No, Martin. I saw him die. It wasn't you, Martin dear."
"It was I," he answered. "You don't know. I came into the house drunk and he heard what I said to Amy. He nearly died then. The doctor in the evening said he must have had some shock."
She tried to come to him then. She was thinking: "Oh, if I've only got time I can win this. But I must have time. I must have time."
