was stung. "Well, since there's no help for it, I suppose we must
shake hands and part."

Not until then--not until he had pronounced his doom and she had accepted
it did he realize how beautiful she seemed to him. He felt as if
something in his throat wanted to cry out.

"It isn't what I expected, Glory--what I dreamed of for years."

"But it's best--it seems best."

"I tried to make a place for you, too, but you wouldn't have it--you let
it go; you preferred this other lot in life."

She remembered Josephs, and Sefton, and the newspaper, and the part, and
she covered her face with her hands.

"How can I go on, Glory, to the peril of my--It's dangerous, even
dangerous."

"Yes, you are a clergyman and I am an actress. You must think of that.
People are so ignorant, so cruel, and I dare say they are talking
already."

"Do you think I should care for that, Glory?" Her hands came down from
her face. "Do you think I should care one jot if all the miserable
scandal-mongering world thought----"

"You'll think the best of me, then?"

"I'll think of both of us as we used to be, my child, before the world
came between us, before you----"

She was fighting against an impulse to fling herself into his arms, but
she only said in a soft voice: "You are quite right, quite justified. I
have chosen my lot in life, and must make the best of it."

"Well----" He was holding out his hand.

But nevertheless she put her hand behind her, thinking: "No; if I shake
hands with him it will be the end of everything."

"Good-bye!" and with an expression of utter despair he left her.

She did not cry, and when Rosa came down immediately afterward she was
smiling and her eyes were very bright.

"Was that your friend Mr. Storm? Yes? You must beware of him, my dear. He
would stop your career and think he was doing God's service."

"There's no danger of that, Rosa. He only came to say he would come no
more," and then something flashed in her eyes and died away, and then
flashed again.

"Yes," thought Rosa, "there's an extraordinary attraction about her that
makes all other women seem tame." And then Rosa remembered somebody else,
and sighed.

* * * * *

John Storm went back to Soho by way of Clare Market, and when people
saluted him in the streets with "Good-morning, Father," he did not answer
because he did not see them. On going to church that night he came upon a
group of Charlie's cronies bet