arson Christian, you know--has come to
London and wishes to see him at once. Say he has looked for him at the
hotel in Regent Street and not found him there, and is now at the inn in
Hendon. Will you remember?"

"Yes."

"Where were you going, Mercy--back to your poor friends?"

"No. But will he be sure to come to-night?"

"No doubt. At what time was he here last night?"

"Ten o'clock."

"It is now hard on nine. Tell him to go to Hendon at once, and when he
goes, you go with him. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Don't forget--to-night; to-morrow night will not do. If he does not
come, you must follow me to Hendon and tell me so. I shall be there.
Don't tell him that--do you hear?"

The girl gave a meek assent.

"And now good-bye for an hour or two, little one."

He turned away, and she was left alone before the dark convent. But, she
was not all alone. A new-born dream was with her, and her soul was
radiant with light.

CHAPTER XIV.

Hugh Ritson walked rapidly through Dean's Yard in the direction of the
sanctuary. As he turned into Parliament Street the half moon rose above
the roof of Westminster Hall. But the night was still dark.

He passed through Trafalgar Square and into the Haymarket. The streets
were thronged. Crowds on crowds went languidly by. Dim ghosts of men and
women, most of them, who loitered at this hour in these streets. Old
men, with the souls long years dead within them, and the corruption
reeking up with every breath to poison every word, or lurking like
charnel lights in the eyes to blink contagion in every glance. Young
girls hopping like birds beside them, the spectres of roses in their
cheeks, but the real thorns at their hearts. There had been no way for
them but this--this and one other way: either to drift into the Thames
and be swallowed up in the waters of death, or to be carried along for a
brief minute on the froth of the waves of life.

Laughing because they might not weep; laughing because their souls were
dead; laughing in their conscious travesty of the tragedy of
pleasure--they tripped and lounged and sauntered along. And the lamps
shone round them, and above them was the glimmering moon.

As Hugh Ritson went up the steep Haymarket, his infirmity became more
marked, and he walked with a sliding gait. Seeing this, a woman who
stood there halted and limped a few paces by his side, and pretending
not to see him, shouted with a mocking laugh, "What is it--a man o