nd this mornin' I meets 'im on the 'Owben Viadeck lookin' as if 'e'd 'ad
the smallpox or semthink!"

John Storm had scarcely heard them. He had a strange feeling that
everything was happening hundreds of miles away.

"What am I to do?" he asked himself again. Between twelve and one o'clock
he was back in the city, walking aimlessly on and on. He did not choose
the unfrequented thoroughfares, and when people looked into his face he
thought, "If anybody asks me who I am I'll tell him." It was eight hours
since he had eaten anything, and he felt weak and faint. Coming upon a
coffee-house, he went in and ordered food. The place was full of young
clerks at their midday meal. Most of them were reading newspapers which
they had folded and propped up on the tables before them, but two who sat
near were talking.

"These predictions of the end of the world are a mania, a monomania,
which recurs at regular intervals of the world's history," said one. He
was a little man with a turned-up nose.

"But the strange thing is that people go on believing them," said his
companion.

"That's not strange at all. This big, idiotic, amphorous London has no
sense of humour. See how industriously it has been engaged for the last
month in the noble art of making a fool of itself!" And then he looked
around at John Storm, as if proud of his tall language.

John did not listen. He knew that everybody was talking about him, yet
the matter did not seem to concern him now, but to belong to some other
existence which his soul had had.

At length an idea came to him and he thought he knew what he ought to do.
He ought to go to the Brotherhood and ask to be taken back. But not as a
son this time, only as a servant, to scour and scrub to the end of his
life. There used to be a man to sweep out the church and ring the church
bell--he might be allowed to do menial work like that. He had proved
false to his ideal, he had not been able to resist the lures of earthly
love, but God was merciful. He would not utterly reject him.

His self-abasement was abject, yet several hours had passed before he
attempted to carry out this design. It was the time of Evensong when he
reached the church, and the brothers were singing their last hymn:

Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly.

He stood by the porch and listened. The street was very quiet; hardly
anybody was passing.

Hide me, O my Saviour hide,
Till the storms of life be past.