the more
artificial, yours or mine? It is true that we are both imperfectly
clothed," she added, glancing at a photograph of herself in a short
skirt, "and not always in our right mind--but you've caught nothing but
a cold! Nevertheless, I love you and you love me."

Then he begged her to go with him to the South Seas and take the place
of Father Damien among the colony of lepers. "It is a beautiful place,
and inexpensive, for we shall live only a few weeks. What do you say,
dearest? You know," he added, with a faint, sad smile, glancing at
another photograph of her,--executing the high kick,--"you're quite a
leaper yourself."

But that night she received an offer of a new engagement. She wrote to
John Gale: "The South Seas is rather an expensive trip to take simply
to die. Couldn't we do it as cheaply at home? Or couldn't you prevail
on your Father Superior to set up his monastery there? I'm afraid I'm
not up to it. Why don't you try the old 'Oilan,' nearer home? There's
lots of measles and diphtheria about there lately."

When the heartbroken John Gale received this epistle, he also received
a letter from his uncle, the First Lord of the Admiralty. "I don't
fancy this Damien whim of yours. If you're really in earnest about
killing yourself, why not take a brief trial trip in one of our latest
ironclads? It's just as risky, although--as we are obliged to keep
these things quiet in the Office--you will not of course get that
publicity your noble soul craves."

Abandoned by all in his noble purposes, John Gale took the first
steamer to the Isle of Man.

BOOK VII

But he did not remain there long. Once back in that epistolary island,
he wrote interminable letters to Golly. When they began to bore each
other, he returned to London and entered the Salvation Army. Crowds
flocked to hear him preach. He inveighed against Society and
Wickedness as represented in his mind by Golly and her friends, and
praised a perfect Christianity represented by himself and HIS friends.
A panic of the same remarkable character as the Bishopsgate Street
winter took possession of London. Old Moore's, Zadkiel's, and Mother
Shipton's prophecies were to be fulfilled at an early and fixed date,
with no postponement on account of weather. Suddenly Society, John
Drake, and Antichrist generally combined by ousting him from his
church, and turning it into a music-hall for Golly! Then John Gale
took his last and sublime resol