rlie's got me on the clubs. But my word!" turning to Charlie, "it's
her as oughter be there, my dear!"

"She cheeks me out," said Charlie, "as you'll knock the stuffing out of
Betty Bellman 'erself if you once myke a stawt."

And Aggie said: "I might get you to do a turn almost any Sunday, if you
like, my dear. There's always somebody as down't come, and they're glad
of an extra turn to tyke the number if she's only clever enough to get a
few 'ands. Going 'ome, dear?"

"Yes," said Glory.

"Where d'ye live?" said Aggie, and Glory told her.

"I'll call for you Sunday night at eight, and if you down't tyke your
chawnce when you get it, you're a foolisher woman than I thought you
were, that's stright! By-bye!"

XII.

Always at half-past five in the morning the Father Superior began to
awaken the Brotherhood. It took him a quarter of an hour to pass through
the house on that errand, for the infirmities of his years were upon him.
During this interval John Storm had intended to open the gate to Paul and
then return the key to its place in the Father's room. The time was
short, and to lose no part of it he had resolved to remain awake the
whole night through.

There was little need to make a call on that resolution. With fear and
remorse he could not close his eyes, and from hour to hour he heard every
sound of the streets. At one o'clock, the voices singing outside were
strained and cracked and out of tune; at two, they were brutish and
drunken and mingled with shrieks of quarrelling; at three, there was
silence; at four, the butchers' wagons were rattling on the stones from
the shambles across the river to the meat markets of London, with the
carcasses of the thousands of beasts that were slaughtered overnight to
feed the body of the mammoth on the morrow; and at five, the postal vans
were galloping from the railway stations to the post-office with the
millions of letters that were to feed its mind.

At half-past five the Father had come out of his room and passed slowly
upstairs, and John Storm was in the courtyard opening the lock of the
outer gate. Although there was a feeling of morning in the freezing air
it was still quite dark.

"Paul," he whispered, but there was no answer.

"Brother Paul!" he whispered again, and then waited, but there was no
reply.

It was not at first that he realized the tremendous gravity of what had
occurred--that Brother Paul had not returned, and that he must go back to