that gave him leisure and quiet for contemplation. He had no
wish to bring in converts, to stir England into a frenzy of terror and
anticipation. God gave him no command to spread his beliefs; even his
father, fanatic though he had been, had cherished his own small company
of saints as souls to whom these things, hidden deliberately from the
outside world, had especially been entrusted.

So long as he could he resisted; then when he was about forty,
somewhere around 1880, the Kingscote Brethren moved to London. In this
year, 1907, John Warlock was sixty-seven and the Kingscote Brethren had
had their Chapel in Solomon's Place, behind Garrick Street, for
twenty-seven years. In 1880 John Warlock had married Amelia, daughter
of Francis Stephens, merchant. In 1881 a daughter, Amy, was born to
them; in 1883, Martin; they had no other children. Martin was at the
time of Maggie's arrival in London twenty-four years of age.

Upon a certain fine evening, a fortnight after Martin Warlock's first
meeting with Maggie, he arrived at the door of his house in Garrick
Street, and having forgotten his latch-key, was compelled to ring the
old screaming bell that had long survived its respectable reputable
days. The Warlocks had lived during the last ten years in an upper part
above a curiosity shop four doors from the Garrick Club in Garrick
Street. There was a house-door that abutted on to the shop-door and,
passing through it, you stumbled along a little dark passage like a
rabbit warren, up some crooked stairs, and found yourself in the
Warlock country without ever troubling Mr. Spencer, the stout, hearty,
but inartistic owner of the curiosity shop.

On the present occasion, after pulling the bell, Martin stared down the
street as though somewhere in the dim golden light of its farthest
recesses he would find an answer to a question that he was asking. The
broad sturdy strength of his body, the easy good-temper of his
expression spoke of a life lived physically rather than mentally. And
yet this was only half true. Martin Warlock should at this time have
been a quite normal young man with normal desires, normal passions,
normal instincts. Such he would undoubtedly have been had he not had
his early environment of egotism, mystery and clap-trap--had he, also,
not developed through his childhood and youth his passionate devotion
to his father. The religious ceremonies of his young days had made him
self-conscious and introspective and