n her eyes was stronger now
than the look of awe. He saw it and could not help knowing how strongly
it worked upon his feelings.

"Go back to your own world, unhappy girl! You love it--you must; you
have sacrificed the best impulses of your heart to it!"

She was smiling now. It was the old radiant smile, but with a gleam of
triumph in it that he had never seen before. It worked like madness upon
him, and he tried to insult her again.

"Go back to your own company, to the people who _play_ at real life, and
build toy houses, and give themselves away body and soul for the clapping
of hands in a theatre! Go back to the lies and hypocrisies of society,
and the brainless, mashers who adorn it! They dance superbly, and are at
home in drawing-rooms, and know all about sporting matters and theatrical
affairs! I know none of these things, and I am kicked and cuffed and
ridiculed and hounded down as an indecent man or shunned as a moral leper
I Why do you come to me?" he cried, hoarse and husky.

But she only stretched out her hands to him and said, "Because I love
you!"

"What are you saying?" He was quivering with pain.

"I love you, and have always loved you, and you love me--you know you
do--you love me still!"

"Glory!"

"John!"

"For God's sake! Glory!"

With a wild shout of joy he rushed upon her, flung his arms about her,
and covered her face and hands with kisses. After a moment he whispered,
"Not here, not here!" and she felt too that the room was suffocating
them, and they must go out into the open air, the fields, the park.

Somebody was knocking at the door. It was Mrs. Pincher. A man was waiting
to speak to the Father. They found him in the lane. It was Jupe, the
waiter. His simple face wore a strange expression of joy and fear, as if
he wished to smile and dare not.

"My pore missis 'as got off and wants to come 'ome, sir, and I thought as
you'd tell me what I oughter do."

"Take her back and forgive her, my man, that's the Christian course."

His love was now boundless; his large charity embraced everything, and
going off he saluted everybody. "Good-evening, Mrs. Pincher.--Good-night,
Lydia."

"Well, 'e _is_ a Father, too, and no mistake!" somebody was saying behind
him as he went away with Glory.

The moon was at the full, and while they were passing through the streets
it struggled with the gas from the shop windows as the flame of a fire
struggles with the sunshine, but when they passed un