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THE COMING

The

COMING

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J. C SNAITH

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D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

NEW YORK

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*,**•* • -1917 • ' • ' - -

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THE r.'EW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

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• • •• •

• • • • • •

THE COMING

He came to his own and his own knew him not

THE vicar of the parish sat at his study table
pen in hand, a sheet of paper before him. It
was Saturday morning already and his weekly
seimon was not yet begun. On Sundays, at the fore-
noon service, it was Mr. Perry-Hennington's custom to
read an old discourse, but in the evening the rigid prac-
tice of nearly forty years required that he should give
to the world a new and original homily.

To a man of the vicar's mold this was a fairly simple
matter. His rustic flock was not in the least critical.
To the villagers of Penfold, a hamlet on the borders
of Sussex and Kent, every word of their pastor was
goq)el. And in their pastor's own gravely deliberate
words it was the gospel of Christ Crucified.

There had been a time in the vicar's life when his
task had sat lightly upon him. Given the family living
of Pcnfold-with-Churley in October, 1879, the Rev-

THE COMING

erend the Honorable Thomas Periy-Hennington had
never really had any trouble in the matter until August,
1 91 4. And then, all at once, trouble came so heavily
upon a man no longer young, that from about the time
of the retreat from Mons Saturday morning became a
symbol of torment. It was then that a dark specter
first appeared in the vicar's mind. For thirty-five years
he had been modestly content with a simple moral obli-
gation in return for a stipend of eight hundred pounds
a year. He had never presumed to question the fitness
of a man with an Oxford pass degree for such a rela-
tively humble office. A Christian of the old sort, with
the habit of faith, and in his own phrase ''without intel-
lectual smear," he had always been on terms with God.
And though Mr. Perry-Hennington would have been
the last to claim Him as a tribal deity, in the vicar's
ear He undoubtedly spoke with the accent of an Eng-
lish public school, and used the language of Dr. Pusey
and Dr. Westcott. But somehow August, 1914, had
seemed to change everything.

It was now June of the following year and Saturday
morning had grown into a nightmare for the vicar.
Doubt had arisen in the household of faith, a cloud no
bigger than a man's hand, but only a firm will and a
stout heart had been able to dispel it. Terrible wrong
had been done to an easy and pleasant world and God

THE COMING

had seemed to look on. Moreover it had been boldly
claimed that not only was he a graduate of a foreign
university, but that he had justified the ways of Anti-
christ.

After grave and bitter searchings of heart, Mr.
Perry-Hennington had risen, not only in the pulpit but
in the public press, to rebut the charge. But this mom-
ing, seated in a charming room, biting the end of a
pen, a humbler, more personal doubt in his mind.
Was it a man's work to be devoting one's energies to
the duties of a parish priest ? Was it a man's work to
be addressing a few yokels, for the most part women
and old men? As far as Penfold-with-Churley was
concerned Armageddon might have been ages away.
In fact Mr. Perry-Hennington had recently written a
letter to his favorite newspaper in very good English
to say so.

For the tenth time that morning the vicar dipped his
pen in the ink. For the tenth time it himg lifeless, a
thing without words, above a page thirsting to receive
them. For the tenth time the ink grew dry. With a
faint sigh, which in one less strong of will would have
been despair, he suddenly lifted his eyes to look
through the window.

The room faced south. Sussex was spread before
him like a carpet. Fold upon fold, hill beyond hill, it

THE COMING

flowed in curves of inconceivable harmony to meet the
distant sea. To the right a subtle thickening of sun-
light marked the ancient forest of Ashdown ; straight
ahead was Crowborough Beacon ; far away to the left
were dark masses of gorse, masking the delicate ver-
dure of the weald of Kent. There was not a cloud in
the sky. The sun of June, a generous, living warmth,
was everywhere. But as the vicar gazed solemnly out
of the window he had not a thought for the enchant-
ment of the scene.

Suddenly he rose a little impatiently and opened the
window still wider. If he was to do his duty on the
morrow he must have more light, more air. A grizzled
head was flung forth to meet the strong, keen sun, to
snuff the magic air. A clean wind racing by made his
lips and eyelids tingle, and then, all at once, he remem-
bered his boy on the Poseidon.

But he must put the Poseidon out of his mind if he
was to do his pastoral duty on the morrow. Before he
could draw in his head and buckle to his task, an odd
whirr of sound, curiously sharp and loud, came on his
ear. There was an airplane somewhere. Involuntarily
he shaded his eyes to look. Yes, there she was ! What
speed, what grace, what incomparable power in the
live, sentient thing ! How feat she looked, how noble,

THE COMING

as she rode the blue like some fabled roc of an eastern
story.

"Off to France," said the vicar. He took oflf his
spectacles and wiped them, and then put them on again.

But the morrow's sermon was again forgotten. He
had remembered his boy in the air. The graceless lad
whom he had flogged more than once in that very
room, who had done little good at Marlborough, who
had preferred a stool in a stockbroker's office to the
University, was now a superman, a veritable god in
a machine. A week ago he had been to Buckingham
Palace to be decorated by the King for an act of
incredible daring. His name was great in the hearts
of his countrymen. This lad not yet twenty, whom
wild horses would not have dragged through the fourth
iEneid, had made the name of Perry-Hennington ring
throughout the empire.

From this amazing Charley in his biplane, it was
only a step in the father's mind to honest Dick and
the wardroom of the Poseidon. The vicar recalled
with a little thrill of pride how Dick's grandfather, the
admiral, had always said that the boy was ''a thorough
Hennington," the highest compliment the stout old sea
dog had it in his power to pay him or any other human
being. And then from Dick with his wide blue eyes,
his square, fighting face and his nerves of steel the

THE COMING

thoughts of the father flew to Tom, his eldest boy,
the high-strung, nervous fellow, the Trinity prize man
with the first-class brain. Tom had left not only a
lucrative practice and brilliant prospects at the Bar,
but also a delicate wife and three young children in
order to spend the winter in the trenches of the Ypres
salient. Moreover, he had "stuck it" without a mur-
mur of complaint, although he was far too exact a
thinker ever to have had any illusions in regard to the
nature of war, and although this particular war defied
the human imagination to conceive its horror.

Yes, after all, Tom was the most wonderful of the
three. Nature had not meant hkn for a soldier, the
hypersensitive, overstrung lad who would faint over a
cut finger, who had loathed cricket and football, or
anything violent, who in years of manhood had had an
ahnost fanatical distrust of the military mind. Some
special grace had helped him to endure the bestiality
of Flanders.

From the thought of the three splendid sons God
had given him the mind of the vicar turned to their
begetter. He was only just sixty, he enjoyed rude
health except for a touch of rheumatism now and
again, yet here he was in a Sussex village supervising
parish matters and preaching to women and old men.

At last, with a jerk of impatience that was half

THE COMING

despair, he suddenly withdrew his head from the
intoxicating sun, the cool, scented wind of early June.
"I'll see the Bishop, that's what I'll do," he muttered
as he did so.

But as he sat down once more at his writing table
before the accusing page, he remembered that he had
seen the Bishop several times already. And the
Bishop's counsel had been ever the same. Let him do
the duty next him. His place was with his flock.
Let him labor in his vocation, the only work for which
one of his sort was really qualified.

Bitterly this soldier of God regretted now that he
had not chosen in his youth the other branch of his
profession. Man of sixty as he was, there were times
when he burned to be with his three boys in the flght.
His own father, a fine old Crimean warrior, had once
given him the choice of Sandhurst or Oxford, and
the vicar was now constrained to believe that he had
chosen the lesser part. By this time he might have
been on the General Headquarters Staff, whereas he
was not even permitted to wear the uniform of the
true Church Militant.

At last with a groan of vexation the vicar dipped
his pen again. And then something happened. With-
out conscious volition, or overt process of the mind,
the pen began to move across the page. Slowly it

THE COMING

traced a succession of words, whose purport he didn't
grasp until an eye had been passed over them. ''Let
us cast off the works of darkness, let us put on the
armor of light."

Sensible at once of high inspiration he took a vital
force from the idea. It began to unseal faculties la-
tent within him. His thoughts came to a point at last,
they grew consecutive, he could see his way, his mind
took wings. And then suddenly, alas, before he could
lay pen to paper, there came a very unforttuiate inter-
ruption.

THERE was a knock on the study door.
"Come in/' called the vicar rather sharply.
The whole household knew that on Sunday
morning those precincts were inviolable.

His daughter Edith came hurriedly into the room.
A tall, thin, eager-looking girl, her large features and
hook nose were absurdly like her father's. Nobody
called her handsome, yet in bearing and movement was
the lithe grace the world looks for in a clean-run
strain. But lines of ill-health were in the sensitive
face, and the honest, rather near-sighted eyes had a
look of tension and perplexity. An only girl, in a
country parsonage, thrown much upon herself, the war
had begun to tell its tale. Intensely proud that her
brothers were in it, she could think of nothing else.
Their deeds, hazards, sacrifices were taken for granted
as far as others could guess, but they filled her with
secret disgust for her own limited activities. Limited
they must remain for some little time to come. It
had been Edith's wish to go to Serbia with her cousin's
Red Cross unit And in spite of the strong views of

THE COMING

her doctor she would have done so but for a sharp
attack of illness. That had been three months ago.
She was not yet strong enough for regular work in
a hospital or a munition factory, but as an active
member of a woman's volunteer training corps, she
faithfully performed certain local and promiscuous
duties.

There was one duty, however, which Edith in her
zeal had lately imposed upon herself. Or it may have
been imposed upon her by that section of the English
press from which she took her opinions. For the past
three Saturday mornings it had been carried out re-
ligiously. Known as "rounding up the shirkers," it
consisted in making a tour of the neighboring villages
on a bicycle, and in presenting a white feather to male
members of the population of military age who were
not in khaki.

The girl had just returned from the fulfillment of
the weekly task. She was in a state of excitement
slightly tinged with hysteria, and that alone was her
excuse for entering that room at such a time.

At first the vicar was more concerned by her actual
presence than for the state of her feelings.

"Well, what is it ?" he demanded impatiently, with-
out looking up from his sermon.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you, father" — the high-

THE COMING

pitched voice had a curious quiver in it — "but some-
thing rather disagreeable has happened. I felt that I
must come and tell you."

The vicar swung slowly round in his chair. He
was an obtuse man, therefore the girl's excitement was
still lost upon him, but he had a fixed habit of duty.
If the matter was really disagreeable he was prepared
to deal with it at once ; if it admitted of qualification
it must wait until after luncheon.

There was no doubt, however, in Edith's mind that
it called for her father's immediate attention. More-
over, the fact was at last made clear to him by a
mounting color, and an air of growing agitation.

"Well, what's the matter?" A certain rough kind-
ness came into the vicar's tone as soon as these facts
were borne in upon him. "I hope you've not been
overtaxing yourself. Joliffe said you would have to
be very careful for some time."

The attempt of a somewhat emotional voice to re-
assure him on that point was not altogether a success.

"Then what is the matter?" The vicar peered at
her solemnly over his spectacles.

Edith hesitated.

The vicar mobilized an impatient eyebrow.

"It's — it's only that wretched man, John Smith."

THE COMING

Mr. Perry-Hennington gave a little start of annoy-
ance at the mention of the name.

"He's quite upset me."

"What's he been doing now?" The vicar's tone
was an odd mingling of scorn and curiosity.

"It's foolish to let a man of that kind upset one/'
said Edith rather evasively.

"I agree. But tell me ?"

"It will only annoy you." Filial regard and out-
raged feelings had begun a pitched battle. "It's merely
weak to be worried by that kind of creature."

"My dear girl" — ^the tone was very stem — "tell me
in just two words what has happened." And the vicar
laid down his pen and sat back in his chair.

"I have been insulted." Edith made heroic fight
but the sense of outrage was too much for her. .

"How? In what way?" The county magistrate
had begun to take a hand in the proceedings.

A little alarmed, Edith plunged into a narrative of
events. "I had just one feather left on my return
from Heathfield," she said, "and as I came across the
Common there was John Smith loafing about as he so
often is. So I went up to him and said : 'I should like
to give you this.^ "

A look of pained annoyance came into the vicar's
face. "It may be right in principle," he said, "but the

THE COMING

method doesn't appeal to me. And I warned you that
something of this kind might happen."

"But he ought to be in the army. Or working at
munitions."

"Maybe. Well, you gave him the feather. And
what happened ?"

"First of all he kissed it. Then he put it in ^is
buttonhole, and struck a sort of attitude and said —
let me give you his exact words — 'And lo, the heavens
were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God
descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.' "

The vicar jumped up as if he had been stung. "The
fellow said that! But that's blasphemy!"

"Exactly what I thought, father," said Edith in an
extremely emotional voice. "I was simply horrified."

"Atrocious blasphemy!" Seething with indigna-
tion the vicar began to stride about the room. "This
must be carried further," he said.

To the lay mind such an incident hardly called for
serious notice, even on the part of the vicar of the
parish whose function it was to notice all things seri-
ously. But with a subtlety of malice that Mr. Perry-
Hennington deeply resented it had searched out his
weakness. For some little time now, John Smith had
been a thorn in the pastoral cushion. Week by week
this village wastrel was becoming a sorer problem.

THE COMING

Although the man's outrageous speech was of a piece
with the rest of his conduct, the vicar immediately
felt that it had brought matters to a head. He had
already foreseen that the mere presence in his parish
of this young man would sooner or later force certain
issues upon him. Let them now be raised. Mr. Perry-
Hennington felt that he must now face them frankly
and fearlessly, once and for all, in a severely practical
way.

His imperious stridings added to Edith's alarm.

"Somehow, father," she ventured, "I don't quite
think he meant it for blasphemy. After all he's hardly
that kind of person."

"Then what do you suppose the fellow did mean?"
barked the vicar.

"Well, you know that half crazy way of his. After
all, he may not have meant anything in particular."

"Whatever his intention he had no right to use such
words in such a connection. I am going to follow
this matter up."

Edith made a second rather distressed attempt to
clear John Smith; the look in her father's face was
quite alarming.

But Mr. Perry-Hennington was not to be appeased.
"Sooner or later there's bound to be serious trouble
with the fellow. And this is an opportunity to come

THE COMING

to grips with him. I will go now and hear what he
has to say for himself and then I must very carefully
consider the steps to be taken in a highly disagreeable
matter."

Thereupon, with the resolution of one proud of the
fact that action is his true sphere the vicar strode
boldly to the hatstand in the hall.

Ill

As Mr. Peny-Hennington surged through the
vicarage gate in the direction of the village
green, a rising tide of indignation swept the
morrow's discourse completely out of his mind. This
was indeed a pity. Much was going on arotmd and
its inner meanings were in themselves a sermon.
Every bush was afire with God. The sun of June was
upon gorse and heather ; bees, birds, hedgerows, flow-
ers, all were touched with magic ; larks were hovering,
sap was flowing in the leaves, nature in myriad aspects
filled with color, energy and music the enchanted air.
But none of these things spoke to the vicar. He was
a man of wrath. Anger flamed within him as, head
high-flung, he marched along a steep, bracken-fringed
path, in quest of one whom he could no longer tolerate
in his parish.

For some little time now, John Smith had been a
trial. To begin with this young man was an alien
presence in a well-disciplined flock. Had he been
native-bom, had his status and position been defined
by historical precedent, Mr. Perry-Hennington would

THE COMING

have been better able to deal with him. But, as he
had complained rather bitterly, "Jo^i^ Smith was
neither fish, flesh nor well-boiled fowl." There was
no niche in the social hierarchy that he exactly fitted ;
there was no ground, except the insecure one of per-
sonal faith, upon which the vicar of the parish could
engage him.

The cardinal fact in a most diflicult case was that
the young man's mother was living in Pen fold. More-
over, she was the widow of a noncommissioned officer
in a line regiment, who in the year 1886 had been
killed in action in the service of his country. John,
the only and posthtmious child of an obscure soldier
who had died in the desert, had been brought to Pen-
fold by his mother as a boy of ten. There he had
lived with her ever since in a tiny cottage on the edge
of the common; there he had grown up, and as the
vicar was sadly constrained to believe, into a free-
thinker, a socialist and a generally undesirable person.

These were hard terms for Mr. Perry-Hennington
to apply to anyone, but the conduct of the black sheep
of the fold was now common talk, if not an open
scandal. For one thing he was thought to be unsound
on the war. He was known to hold cranky views on
various subjects, and he had addressed meetings at
Brombridge on the Universal Religion of Humanity

THE COMING

or some kindred high-flown theme. Moreover, he
talked freely with the young men of the neighborhood,
among whom he was becoming a figure of influence.
Indeed, it was said that the source of a kind of
pacifist movement, faintly stirring up and down the
district, could be traced to John Smith.

Far worse, however, than all this, he had lately
acquired a reputation as a faith-healer. It was claimed
for him by certain ignorant people at Grayfield and
Oakshott that by means of Christian Science he had
cured deafness, rheumatism and other minor ills to
which the local flesh was heir. The vicar had been
too impatient of the whole matter to investigate it.
On the face of it the thing was quite absurd. In his
eyes John Smith was hardly better than a yokel,
although a man of superior education for his rank
of life. Indeed, in Mr. Perry-Hennington's opin-
ion, that was where the real root of the mischief
lay. The mother, who was very poor, had contrived,
by means of the needle, and by denying herself almost
the necessities of life, to send the lad for several years
to the grammar school at the neighboring town of
Brombridge, where he had undoubtedly gained the
rudiments of an education far in advance of any the
village school had to offer. John had proved a boy
of almost abnormal ability; and the high master of

THE COMING

the grammar school had been sadly disappointed that
he did not find his way to Oxford with a scholarship.
Unfortunately the boy's health had always been deli-
cate. He had suffered from epilepsy, and this fact, by
forbidding a course of regular study, prevented a lad of
great promise obtaining at an old university the men-
tal discipline of which he was thought to stand in need.

The vicar considered it was this omission which
had marred the boy's life. None of the learned pro-
fessions was open to him ; his education was both in-
adequate and irregular ; moreover, the precarious state
of his health forbade any form of permanent employ-
ment. Situations of a clerical kind had been found
for him from time to time which he had been com-
pelled to give up. Physically slight, he had never been
fit for hard manual labor. Indeed, the only work with
his hands for which he had shown any aptitude was at
the carpenter's bench, and for some years now he had
eked out his mother's slender means by assisting the
village joiner.

The unfortunate part of the matter was, however,
that the end was not here. Mentally, there could be
no doubt, John Smith, a man now approaching thirty,
was far beyond the level of the carpenter's bench. His
mind, in the vicar's opinion, was deplorably ill-regu-
lated, but in certain of its aspects he was ready to

THE COMING

admit that it had both originality and power. The
mother was a daughter of a Baptist minister in Wales,
a fact which tended to raise her son beyond the level
of his immediate surroundings; but that apart, the
village carpenter's assistant had never yielded his boy-
ish passion for books. He continued to read increas-
ingly, books to test and search a vigorous mind. More-
over, he had an astonishing faculty of memory, and at
times wrote poetry of a mystical, ultra-imaginative
kind.

The case of John Smith was still further compli-
cated for Mr. Perry-Hennington by the injudicious
behavior of the local squire. Gervase Brandon, a cul-
tivated, scholarly man, had encouraged this village
ne'er-do-well in every possible way. There was reason
to believe that he had helped the mother from time
to time, and John, at any rate, had been given the
freedom of the fine old library at Hart's Ghyll. There
he could spend as many hours as he wished ; therefrom
he could borrow any volume that he chose, no matter
how precious it might be; and in many delicate ways
the well-meaning if over-generous squire, had played
the part of Maecenas.

In the vicar's opinion the inevitable sequel to Ger-
vase Brandon's unwisdom had already occurred. A
common goose had come to regard himself as a fuU-

THE COMING

fledged swan. It was within the vicar's knowledge
that from time to time John Smith had given expres-
sion to views which the ordinary layman could not
hold with any sort of authority. Moreover, when
remonstrated with, "this half -educated fellow" had
always tried to stand his ground. And at the back of
the vicar's mind still rankled a certain mot of John
Smith's, duly reported by Samuel Veale the scandal-
ized parish clerk. He had said that, as the world was
constituted at present, the gospel according to the Rev-
erend Thomas Perry-Hennington seemed of more im-
portance than the gospel according to Jesus Christ.

When taxed with having made the statement to
the village youth, John Smith did not deny the charge.
He even showed a disposition to defend himself ; and
the vicar had felt obliged to end the interview by
abruptly walking away. Some months had passed
since that incident. But in his heart the vicar had
not been able to forgive what he cotdd only regard as a
piece of effrontery. Henceforward all his dealings
with John Smith were tainted by that recollection.
The subject still rankled in his mind ; indeed he would
have been the first to own that it was impossible now
for such a man as himself to consider the problem of
John Smith without prejudice. Moreover, he was
aware that an intense and growing personal resent-

THE COMING

ment boded ill for the young man's future life in the
parish of Penfold-with-Churley.

Sore, unhappy, yet braced with the stem delight
that warriors feel, the vicar reached the common at
last. That open, furze-clad plateau which divided
Sussex from Kent and rose so sharply to the sky that
it formed a natural altar upon which the priests of
old had raised a stone was the favorite tryst of this
village wastrel. As soon as Mr. Perry-Hennington
came to the end of the steep path from the vicarage
which debouched to the common, he shaded his eyes
from the sun's glare. Straight before him, less than
a hundred yards away, was the man he sought. John
Smith was leaning against the stone.

The vicar took off his hat to cool his head a little,
and then swung boldly across the turf. The yoimg
man, who was bareheaded and clad in common worka-
day clothes, looked clean and neat enough, but some-
how strangely slight and frail. Gaunt of jaw and
sunken-eyed, the face was of a very imusual kind, and
from time to time was lit by a smile so vivid as to be
unforgetable. But the outward aspect of John Smith
had never had anything to say to the vicar, and this
morning it had even less to say than usual.

For the vicar's attention had been caught by some-
thing else. Upon the young man's finger was perched

THE COMING

a little, timid bird. He was cooing to it, in an odd,
loving voice, and as the vicar came up he said : "Nay,
nay, don't go. This good man will do you no harm.**

But the bird appeared to feel otherwise. By the
time the vicar was within ten yards it had flown away.

"Even the strong souls fear you, sir," said the
yotmg man with his swift smile, looking him frankly
in the eyes.

"It is the first time one has heard such a gran-
diloquent term applied to a yellow-hammer," said the
vicar coldly.

"Things are not always what they seem," said the
young man. "The wisdom of coimtless ages is in that
frail casket."

Don't talk nonsense," said the vicar sharply.
Many a saint, many a hero, is borne on the wings
of a dove."

"Transcendental rubbish." The vicar mopped his
face with his handkerchief, and then he began:
"Smith" — he was too angry to use the man's Christian
name — "my daughter tells me you have been blas-
phemous."

The young man, who still wore the white feather
in his coat, looked at the angry vicar with an air of
gentle surprise.

"Please don't deny it," said the vicar, taking silence

_ .-.w** i*c saia siowiy ana soitiy:
have hurt her I am very sorry."

This speech, in spite of its curious gei
fuel to the vicar's anger.

"The humility you affect does nol
offense," he said sharply.

"Where lies the offense you speak of i
tion was asked simply, with a grave smil

"If it is not clear to you," said the vh
dignity, "it shall not be my part to explj
not here to bandy words. Nor do I in
logic. You consider yourself vastly clev
But I have to warn you that the path 5
full of peril."

"Yes, the path we are following is full

"Whom do you mean by 'we'?" sa
jtemly.

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we keq> to the particular, when we are all members
of one another?"

The vicar checked him with an imperious hand.

"Blasphemer." he said with growing passion, "how
dare you parody the words of the Master?"

"No one can parody the words of the Master.
Either they are or they are not."

"I am not here to argue with you. Understand,
John Smith, that in all circumstances I decline to chop
logic with — ^with a person of your sort."

It added to this yotmg man's offense in the eyes of
the vicar that he had presumed to address him as
an intellectual equal. It was true that in a way of
delicate irony, which even Mr. Perry-Hennington was
not too dense to perceive, this extraordinary person
deferred continually to the social and mental status
of his questioner. It was the manner of one engaged
in rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, but
every word masked by the gentle voice was so subtly
provocative that Mr. Perry-Hennington felt a secret
humiliation in submitting to them. The implication
made upon his mind was that the role of teacher and
pupil had been reversed.

This unpleasant feeling was aggravated to the point
of the unbearable by John Smith's next words.

(

sM. tic womo strike him. Blasphemer!

The young man smiled sadly. ''I *
truth," he said. "If it woimds you, s
not mine."

Mr. Perry-Hennington made a stem
himself in hand. It was tmseemly to
with a man of this kind. Yet, as he tx
parish, the vicar in a sense was respond
therefore it became his duty to find out
the back of his mind. Curbing as well a
indignation that threatened every momei
yond control, he called upon John Smi
himself.

"You say you only speak the truth a
shown you. First I would ask whence
then I would ask how do you know it f c

"It has been communicated by the Fat

«TN f^ t__ __ r •-•

THE COMING

"How do you know it is divine ?"

"How do I know the grass is green, the sky blue,
the heather purple? How do I know the birds sing?"

"That is no answer," said the vicar. "It is open to
anyone to claim a divine voice within did not modesty
forbid."

The smile of John Smith was so sweetly simple
that it could not have expressed an afterthought.
"Had you a true vocation," he said, "would you find
such uses for your modesty ?"

The vicar, torn between a desire to rebuke what he
felt to be an intolerable impertinence and a wish to
end an interview that boded ill to his dignity, could
only stand irresolute. Yet this odd creature spoke so
readily, with a precision so rare and curious that his
every word seemed to acquire a kind of authority.
Bitterly chagrined, half insulted as the vicar was, he
determined to continue the argument if only for the
sake of a further light upon the man's state of mind.

"You claim to hear a divine voice. Is it for that
reason, may one ask, that you feel licensed to utter
such appalling blasphemies?"

John Smith smiled again in his odd way.

"You speak like the men of old time," he said
softly.

"I use the King's English," said the vicar. "And

"You claim to be a prophet?*'
'Tfes, I claim to be a prophet/'
"That is interesting." There was a su
3f tone as the vicar realized the importan
mission. He saw that it might have a ve
[)earing upon his future course of action,
to be a prophet in order that you may bl
Creator."

"I claim to be a prophet of the good, t
ind the true. I claim to hear the voice oi
\nd if these things be blasphemous in j
an only grieve for your election."

*TLeave me out of it, if you please."
:hrust had sttmg the vicar to fury. "]
fectly well where and how I stand, and ii
lightest doubt in the matter it will be the
ny bishop to resolve it. But with you, S:

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shall interfere with it Forgive my plainness, but your
mind is in a most disorderly state. I am afraid Mr.
Brandon is partly to blame. I have told him more
than once that it was folly to give you the run of his
library. You have been encouraged to read books
beyond your mental grasp, or at least beyond your
power to assimilate becomingly, in the manner of a
gentleman. You are a half-educated man — ^it is my
duty to speak out — ^and like all such men you are wise
in your own conceit. Now there is reason to believe
that, in virtue of an old statute which is still operative,
you have made yourself amenable to the law of the
land. At all events I intend to find out And then
will arise the question as to how far it will be one's
duty to move in tWs matter."

Mr. Perry-Hennington watched the young man
narrowly as he uttered this final threat. He had the
satisfaction of observing that John Smith changed
color a little. If, however, he had hoped to frighten
the man it was by no means clear that he had suc-
ceeded.

"You follow your conscience, sir,*' he said with a
sweet unconcern that added to the vicar's inward fury.
"And I try to follow mine. But it is right to say to
you that you are entering upon a deep coil. The
soul of man is abroad in a dark night, yet the door is

. ..^ vkoui lor ail maiiKina.

'You speak in riddles."

"For the present let them soremai
give you a piece of news. At two o'clo<
a presence entered my room and said :
and I have come to pray for Germany.

The vicar could only gaze in silence s

"And I said : 'Certainly, I am very gl
Germany/ and we knelt and prayed tc
then he rose and showed me the little
quaint gables and turrets where he sleeps
I asked him to have courage and then I
and then he left me, saying he would i

The vicar heard him to the end wi
stupefaction. Such a speech in its coti
ment from the canons of reason could o
the man was unhinged. The words thet

?„^_

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once that an abyss had opened between this grotesque-
ly undisciplined mind and his own. The man might
be merely recounting a dream, indulging a fancy,
weaving an allegory, but at whatever angle he was
approached by an incumbent of the Established
Church, only one explanation could cover such law-
lessness. The man was not of sotmd mind. And
after all that was the one truly charitable interpreta-
tion of his whole demeanor and attitude. An ill-
regulated, morbidly sensitive organization had broken
down in the stress of those events which had sorely
tried an intellect as stable as Mr. Perry-Hennington's
own. Indeed it was only right to think so ; otherwise,
the vicar would have found it impossible to ctu-b him-|
self. Even as it was he dared not trust himself to say
a word in reply. All at once he turned abruptly on
his heel and walked away as on a former occasion.

A.^ liic vicar maae nis way acn
toward the village he deliberated
It was clear that such a matter i
be followed up. But he must not act
Fully determined now not to flinch f ron
task, he must look before and after.

Two courses presented themselves to
outrage. And he must choose without de
committing himself to definite action he
see Gervase Brandon, whom he felt bounc
ire to blame for John Smith's state of mil
idvice as to what should be done, or he r
roung man's mother and ask her help,
lowever, that Mrs. Smith's cottage was n
eed it skirted the common, and he hac
itch of her gate before he realized that
id somehow been made for him, appa

.. ^_?j_ 1-? ir

THE COMING

stone had been freshly whitened, and the window cur-
tainSy simple though they were, were so neat and clean
that the outward aspect of Rose Cottage was almost
one of refinement.

The vicar's sharp knock was answered by a village
girl, a timid creature of fourteen. At the sight of
the awe-inspiring figure on the threshhold, she bobbed
a curtsey, and in reply to the question: "Is Mrs.
Smith at home?" gurgled an inaudible "Yiss surr.'*

"Is that the vicar?" said a faint voice.

Mr. Perry-Hennington said reassuringly that it
was, and entered briskly, with that air of decision the
old ladies of the parish greatly admired.

A pimy, white-haired woman was seated in an arm-
chair in the chimney comer, with a shawl over her
shoulders. She had the pinched, wistful look of the
permanent invalid, yet the peaked face and the vivid
eyes had great intelligence. But they were also full
of suffering, and the vicar, at heart genuinely kind,
was struck by it at once.

"How are you today, Mrs. Smith ?" he said.

"No better and no worse than Fve been this last
two years," said the widow in a voice that had not a
trace of complaint. "It is very kind of you to come
and see me. I wish I could come to church."

"I wish you could, Mrs. Smith." The vicar took a

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chair by her side. "It would be a privilege to have
you with us again."

The widow smiled wanly. "It has been ordained
otherwise," she said. "And I know better than to
question. God moves in a mysterious way."

"Yes, indeed." The vicar was a little moved to find
John Smith's mother in a state of grace. "There is
strength and compensation in the thought."

"If one has found the Kingdom it doesn't matter
how long one is tied to one's chair."

"It gratifies me to hear you say that." The vicar
spoke in a measured tone. And then suddenly, as he
looked at the calm face of the sufferer, he grew hope-
ful. "Mrs. Smith," he said, with the directness upon
which he prided himself, "I have come to speak to you
about your boy."

"About John ?" The widow, the name on her lips,
lowered her voice to a rapt, hushed whisper.

The vicar drew his chair a little closer to the invalid.
"I am very, very sorry to cause you any sort of
trouble, but I want to ask you to use your influence
with him ; I want to ask you to give him something of
your own state of mind."

The widow looked at the vicar in surprise. "But,"
she said softly, "it is my boy John who has made me
as I am."

THE COMING

The vicar was a little disconcerted. "Surely," he
said, "it is God who has made you what you are/'*

"Yes, but it is through my boy John that He has
wrought upon me."

"Indeed ! Tell me how that came to be."

The widow shook her head and smiled to herself.
"Don't ask me to do that," she said. "It is a long
and wonderful story."

But the vicar insisted. '

"No, no, I can't tell you. I don't think anyone
would believe me. And the time has not yet come
for the story to be told."

The vicar still insisted, but this feeble creature had
a will as tenacious as his own. His curiosity had been
fully aroused, but common sense told him that in all
human probability he had to deal with the hallucina-
tions of an old and bedridden woman. A simple in-
tensity of manner and words oddly devout made it
clear that she was in a state of grace, yet it would
seem to be rooted in some illusion in which her worth-
less son was involved. Although the vicar was with-
out subtlety, he somehow felt that it would hardly be
right to shatter that illusion. At the same time the
key to his character was duty. And his office asked
that in this case it should be rigidly performed. Let
all possible light be cast upon the mental history of this

THE COMING

man, even if an old and poor woman be stricken in
tiie process. A cruel dilemma was foreshadowed, but
let it be faced manfully.

"Mrs. Smith," he said after a trying pause, "I am
very sorry, but there is bad news to give you of your
son."

The effect of the words was remarkable.

"Oh, what has happened to him?" The placid face
changed in an instant; one hand clutched at the thin
bosom.

The vicar hastened to quell her fears. "Nothing
has happened to him," he said in a grave, kind tone,
"but I grieve to say that his conduct leaves much to
be desired."

The widow could only stare at the vicar incredu-
lously.

"I am greatly troubled about him. For a long time
now I have known him to be a disseminator of idle
and mischievous opinions. I have long suspected him
of being a corrupter of our village youth. This morn-
ing" — carried away by a sudden warmth of feeling
the vicar forgot the mother's frailty — "he insulted my
daughter with a most blasphemous remark, and when
I ventured to remonstrate with him he entered upon
a farrago of light and meaningless talk. In a word,
Mrs. Smith, much as it grieves me to say so, I find

THE COMING

your son an atheist, a socialist and a freethinker and
I am very deeply concerned for his future in this
parish/'

In the stress of indignation the vicar did not temper
the wind to the shorn lamb. But the widow was less
disconcerted than he felt he had a right to expect her
to be. It was true that she listened with amazement,
but far from being distressed, she met him with frank
skepticism. It deepened an intense annoyance to find
that she simply could not believe him.

He gave her chapter and verse. But a categorical
indictment called forth the remark that, "John was
such a great scholar that ordinary people could not be
expected to understand him."

Such a statement added fuel to the flame. Mr.
Ptrry-Hennington did not pretend to scholarship him-
self, but he had such a keen and just appreciation of
that quality in other people that these ignorant words
aroused a pitying contempt. The mother's attitude
could only be taken as a desire to shield and uphold
her son.

"Well, Mrs. Smith," said the vicar, rising from his
chair, "I have to tell you that talk of this kind cannot
be tolerated here. I very much hope you will speak
to him on the matter."

THE COMING

€1'

'But who am I, vicar, that I should presume to
speak to him?"

"You are his mother."

"Of late I have begfun to doubt whether I can be
his mother."

The vicar looked at the widow in amazement-
"Surely you know whether or not he is your son?""
he said in stem surprise.

"Yes, he is the child of my body, but I grow afraid
to claim him as mine."

"For what reason ?"

"He is not as other men."

"I don't understand you," said the vicar with stem
impatience.

The widow looked at the vicar with a sudden light
of ecstasy in her eyes. "I can only tell you," she
said, "that my husband was killed in battle months
before a son was bom to me. I can only tell you that
I prayed and prayed continually that there might be
no more wars. I can only tell you that one night an
angel came to me and said that my prayer had been
heard and would shortly be answered. I was told
that I should live to see a war that would end all
wars. And then my boy was bom and I called him
John Emanuel."

The vicar mustered all his patience as he listened,

THE COMING

half-scandalized, to the widow's statement. He had
to fortify himself with the obvious fact that she was
a feeble creature who had known many sorrows, whose
mind had at last given way. Somehow he felt a
shocked resentment, but she was so palpably sincere
that it was impossible to visit it upon her. And then
the thought came to him that this pitiful illusion was
going to add immensely to his difficulties. Having
always known her for a decent woman and, when
in health, a regular churchgoer, he had counted con-
fidently upon her help. It came as a further embar-
rassment to find her mind affected. For her sake he
might have been inclined to temporize a little with the
son, in the hope that she would bring the influence of
a known good woman to bear upon him. But that
hope was now vain. The widow's own mind was
in a state of almost equal disorder, and any steps the
matter might demand must now be taken without her
sanction.

Had the mother infected the son, or had the son
infected the mother was now the vicar's problem. Re-
garding the one as a natural complement to the other,
and reading them together, he saw clearly that both
were a little unhinged. Beyond all things a good and
humane man, he could not help blaming himself a
little that he had not realized sooner the true state of

THE COMING

tLe case. Now that he had spoken with the mother,
the son became more comprehensible. Without a
doubt the one had reacted on the other. It simplified
the task it would be his bounden duty to perform, even
if it did not make it less repugnant. The fact that two
persons shared such a fantastic illusion made it doubly
imperative that immediate steps should be taken in a
matter which Mr. Perry-Hennington was now view-
ing with a growing concern.

**Mrs. Smith," he said very sternly, "there is one
question I feel bound to ask. Am I right in the
assumption that you regard your son as a — er — a
messiah ?"

The answer came at once.

**Yes, vicar, I do," said the widow falteringly. "The
angel of the Lord appeared to me, and my son John —
if my son he is — has come to fulfill the Prophecy,"

THE vicar left Rose Cottage in a state of the
deepest perturbation he had ever known. He
was not the kind of man who submits lightly
to any such feeling, but again the sensation came upon
him, which he had first felt half an hour ago in his
amazing interview with John Smith, that an abyss had
suddenly opened under his feet, into which he had al-
ready stumbled.

That such heresies should be current in his own
little cure of Penf old-with-Churley, with which he had
taken such infinite trouble for the past thirty-five
years, that they should arise in his own personal
epoch, and that of his favorite books and newspapers
and friends and fellow workers and thinkers, was so
remarkable that he hardly knew how to face the sore
problem to which they gave rise. Unquestionably such
ideas were a by-product of this terrible war which was
tearing up civilization by the roots. In a sense there
was consolation in the thought. Abnormal events give
rise to abnormal mental processes. Half-developed,
ill-regulated, mort)idly impressionable minds were very

(

THE COMING

likely to be overthrown by such a phase as the world
was now passing through. But even that reflection
did little to reduce Mr. Perry-Hennington's half -in-
dignant sense of horror, or to soften the fierce ordeal
in which he was now involved.

What should he do? An old shirker of issues he
did not look for help in the quarter where some might
have sought it He was therefore content to put his
question to the bracken, to the yellow gorse, to the
golden light of heaven which was now beginning to
beat uncomfortably upon him.

"Why do an)rthing?" answered the inner voice of
the university graduate qua the county gentleman.
''Edith is naturally a little upset, but the question to
ask oneself is: Are these poor crackbrains really
doing any harm ?"

Mr. Perry-Hennington had been long accustomed
to identify that particular voice with the highest part
of himself. In many of the minor crises which had
arisen in his life he had thankfully and gratefully fol-
lowed it. There were times undoubtedly when it was
the duty of a prudent person to turn the blind eye to
the telescope. But a very little reflection convinced
him that this occasion was not one of them.

Apart from the fact that it was quite impossible to
allow such a fantastic heresy to arise in his parish,

THE COMING

there was the public interest to consider. The country
was living under martial law, and it had come to his
knowledge that the King's enemies were receiving open
countenance. The man Smith was a poor sort of crea-
ture enough, however one might regard him, but he
was thought to have influence among persons of his
own standing, and it was said to be growing. More-
over, there was "his faith-healing tomfoolery" to be
taken into account; at the best a trivial business, yet
also a portent, which was having an effect upon the
credulous and the ignorant. Therefore the man must
be put in his place. And if possible he must be taught
a lesson. The subject was beset with thorns of the
prickliest kind, but the vicar had never lacked moral
courage of an objective sort, and he felt he would be
unworthy of his cloth if for a moment he allowed
himself to shirk his obvious duty.

While a rather hide-bound intellect set squarely to
the problem before it, Mr. Perry-Hennington marched
slowly along the only attempt at a street that the vil-
lage of Penfold could boast. At the far end was a
massive pair of iron gates picked out with gold, sur-
mounted by a medieval arch of stone, upon which a
coat of arms was emblazoned. Beyond these portals
was a short avenue of glorious trees which led to the

THE COMING

beautiful old house known as Hart's Ghyll, the seat
for many generations of the squires of Fenfold.

The symbol above the gates brought the vicar up
short with a shock of stirprise. Unconscious of the
direction in which the supraliminal self had been lead-
ing him, he was inclined to accept it as the clear direc-
tion of a force beyond himself. It seemed, therefore,
right to go at once and lay this difficult matter before
Gervase Brandon, the man whom he felt bound to
blame more than anyone else for John Smith's un-
happy state of mind.

The owner of Hart's Ghyll, having married Mr.
Perry-Hennington's niece, could claim to be his rela-
tion by marriage. Brandon, a man of forty-two, bom
to the purple of assured social position, rich, culti-
vated, happily wed, the father of two delightful chil-
dren, had seemed to possess everything that the heart
of man could desire. Moreover, he had a reputation
not merely local as a humane and liberal thinker —
a too liberal thinker in the opinion of the vicar, who
was proud to belong to a sturdier school. A model
landlord who housed his laborers in absurdly modem
and hygienic dwellings, who, somewhat to the scandal
of less enlightened neighbors, allowed his smaller
tenants to farm his land at purely nominal rents, he

THE COMING

did his best to foster a spirit of thrift, independence
and true communal feeling.

As a consequence there were those who held the
squire of Penfold to be a mirror of all the virtues.
There was also a smaller but vastly more influential
class which could not bear to hear his name mentioned.
He was mad, said the county Guys of the district.
The vicar of Penfold did not go quite to that length,
but he sympathized with the point of view. When he
lunched and dined, as he often did, with the neighbor-
ing magnates, he was wont to sigh sadly over ''that
fellow Brandon," and at the same time gravely lament,
but not without an air of plaintive htunor, that niece
Millicent had yet to teach him sense. And this state-
ment always involved the corollary that niece Milli-
cent's failure was the more surprising since the Perry-
Henningtons were a sound old Tory stock.

The opinion current in old-port-drinking cirdes was
that Grevase Brandon was as charming a fellow as
you would meet in a day's march, but that he was over-
educated — he had been a don at Oxford before he
came into the property — and that he had more money
to spend than was good for him. For some years he
had been "queering the pitch" for less happily placed
neighbors and contemporaries, and these found it hard
to forgive him. They had prophesied that the day

THE COMING

would come when his vagaries would cause trouble,
and at the moment the famous Brandon coat of arms
of the lion and the dove, and its motto: "Let the
weak help the strong, let the strong help the weak,"
came within the vicar's purview, he felt that the
prophecy had been most oddly, not to say dramatically,
fulfilled.

If blame there was for the appearance of a Mad
Mullah in the parish, without a doubt it must be laid
to the door of Gervase Brandon. In the most absurd
way he had long encouraged one whom the vicar
could only regard as a wastrel. He had allowed this
incorrigible fellow the run of the Hart's Ghyll library,
and the vicar recalled meeting John Smith in the vil-
lage street with a priceless Elzevir copy of Plato's
Thesetetus under his arm, the Brandon crest stamped
on the leather, the Brandon bookplate inside. The
vicar understood that the man had been a frequent
visitor at the house, that money had been given him
from time to time, and that the mother had been al-
lowed to occupy the cottage on the common rent free.
Was it to be wondered at that a weak, half -developed
brain had been thrown off its balance?

In tttese circumstances it was right that Gervase
Brandon should be made to understand the mischief
he had wrought ; it was right that he should be called

THE COMING

upon to take a hand in the adjustment of the coil
But as Mr. Perry-Hennington passed through the gate
of Hart's Ghyll and walked slowly up the avenue
toward the house there was still a reservation in his
mind. As matters were with Brandon now he might
not be able to grapple with a problem of a nature to
make heavy demands upon the mental and moral
faculties.

The vicar had scarcely entered upon this aspect of
the case, when the sight of a spinal carriage in the
care of two nurses forbade any more r peculation upon
the subject. He was suddenly brought face to face
with reality in a grimly practical shape.

"How arc you this morning, Gcrvasc?" said the
vicar, stopping the little procession with a hearty
voice. The question was addressed to a gaunt, hol-
low-eyed man in a green dressing gown, who was
propped up on pillows.

'Tve nothing to complain of," said Gervase Bran-
don. He spoke in a calm, gentle way. "Another
capital night."

"Do you still have pain ?"

"None for a week, I'm thankful to say. But I
touch wood!"

The optimistic, almost gay tone did not deceive the
vicar. The tragic part of the matter was that the

THE COMING

cessation of pain was not a hopeful sign. Brandon
might not have known that. This morning, at anj
rate, he had the half -defiant cheerfulness of one who
did not intend to admit physical calamity. Yet he
must have well understood the nature of the thing
that had come upon him. For three long, terrible
months he had lain on his back, paralyzed from the
waist down, the result of shell shock sustained on
the beaches of Gallipoli. There was every reason to
fear a lesion of certain ganglia, and little hope was
now held out that he would ever walk again.

To a man in meridian pride of body such a pros-
pect hardly bore thinking about. But the blow had
been borne with a fortitude at which even a man so
unimaginative as the vicar could only marvel. Not
again would the owner of Hart's Ghyll prune his
roses, or drive a golf ball, or cast a fly, or take a pot
shot at a rabbit ; not again would he take his children
on his knee.

Brandon had always been the least militant of men.
His instincts were liberal and humane, and in the hap-
py position of being able to live as he chose he had
gratified them to the full. He had had everything
to attach him to existence ; if ever fortune had had a
favorite it was undoubtedly he. It had given him
everything, with a great zest in life as a crowning

THE COMING

boon. But in August, 19 14, in coninKMi with so many
of his countrymen, he had cast every personal con-
sideration to the wind and embraced a life which he
loathed with every fiber of his being.

He had only allowed himself one reason for the
voluntary undertaking of a bestial task, and it was
the one many others of his kind had given : "So that
that chap won't have to do it" — the chap in question
being an engaging, curly-headed urchin still in the
care of a governess. Well, the father had "done his
bit," but as far as the small son was concerned there
was no guaranty that it had not been done in vain.
And none knew that better than the shattered man
propped up in the spinal carriage.

The sight of Gervase Brandon had done scmiething
to weaken the vicar's resolve. It hardly seemed right
to torment the poor fellow with this extremely dis-
agreeable matter. Yet a moment's reflection convinced
Mr. Perry-Hennington that it would be most unwise
to take any decisive step without discussing it with
the man best able to throw light upon it. Moreover,
as the vicar recognized, Brandon's mental powers did
not seem to have shared his body's eclipse. He ap-
peared to enjoy them to the full ; in fact it might be
said that complete physical prostration had added to
their perceptiveness. Whenever the vicar talked with

THE COMING

him now he was much impressed by the range and
quality of his mind.

"Gervase," said the vicar after a brief mental sur-
vey of the position, "I wonder if I might venture to
speak to you about something that is troubling me a
good deal?"

"Certainly, certainly," said the occupant of the
spinal carriage, with an alert, almost eager smile. "If
there's any way in which I can be of the slightest use,
or any way in which you think I can I shall be only
too delighted."

"I hate having to bother you with a matter of this
kind. But it is likely that you know something about
it. And I am greatly in need of advice, which I hope
you may be able to give."

"I hope I may." The vicar's gravity was not lost
upon Brandon. "Perhaps you would like to discuss it
in the library ?"

"If you don't mind."

To the library the spinal carriage was taken.
When it had been wheeled into the sunny em-
brasure of that wonderful room, which even
the vicar never entered without a slight pang of envy,
the nurses retired, leaving the two men together.

The library of Hart's Ghyll was richly symbolical
of the aristocracy of an old coimtry. It had once been
part of a monastery which had been set, as happened
invariably when religicn had a monopoly of learning
and taste, in the fairest spot the countryside could
offer for the purpose. From the large muUioned win-
dow the view of Hart's Ghyll and its enchanted vis-
tas of hill, stream and woodland beyond was a miracle
of beauty. And the walls of the room displayed treas-
ures above price, such a collection of first editions and
old masters as even a man so insensitive as the vicar
sometimes recalled in his dreams. Their present
owner, who in the vicar's opinion had imbibed the
modem spirit far too freely, had often said that he
could not defend possession in such abundance by one
who had done nothing to earn it. In an ideal state,

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had declared this advanced thinker, these things would
be part of the commonweal — ^a theory which Mr.
Perry-Hennington considered fantastic. To his mind,
as he had informed niece Millicent, it was perilously
like an affront to the order of divine providence.

The spirit of place seemed to descend upon the
vicar, as in a hushed, rather solemn tone, he asked
Brandon whether the sun would be too much for him.

"Not for a man who has been grilled in Gallipoli,*
answered Brandon with a stoic's smile. "But if you
will open that window a little wider and roll me back
a bit, I shall have my own piece of earth to look at.
Give me this and you may take the rest of Christen-
dom. It's been soaked into my bones, into my brain.
One ought to be a Virgil or a Wordsworth."

"Which I hope you may presently prove, my dear
fellow," said the vicar, touched by a sense of the man's
heroism.

"Alas, they arc bom."

"In spirit at any rate you are with them." The
vicar was moved to an infrequent compliment

But he had suddenly grown nervous. Now that he
was face to face with his task he didn't know how
to enter upon it. The wave of indignation which had
borne him as far as the library of Hart's Ghyll had
been dissipated by the presence of a suffering it was

THE COMING

surely inhuman to embarrass. The younger man, his
rare faculty of perception strung to a high pitch, saw
at once the vicar's hesitation. Like an intensely sym-
pathetic woman, Brandon began unconsciously to help
him disburden his mind of that which was trying it
so sorely.

At last Mr. Perry-Hennington found himself at
the point where it became possible to break the ice.

"My dear Gervase," he said, "there is nothing I
dislike more than having to ask you to share my trou-
bles, but a most vexing matter has arisen, and you
are the only person whose advice I fee! I can take.''

"I only hope I can be of use."

"Well— it's John Smith." The vicar took the
plunge. And as he did so, he was sufficiently master
of himself to watch narrowly the face of the stricken
man.

Brandon fixed deep eyes upon the vicar.

"But he's such a harmless fellow." The light tone,
the placid smile, told nothing.

"I admit, of course, that one oughtn't to be worried
by a village wastrel."

"I challenge the term," said Brandon with the note
of airy banter which always charmed. "Not for the
first time, you know. I'm afraid we shall never agree
about the dear chap."

THE COMING

"No, I'm afraid we shall not." The vicar could
not quite keep resentment out of his voice. But in
deference to a graceful and perhaps merited rebuke,
the controversialist lowered his tone a little. "But
let me give you the facts."

Thereupon, with a naivete not lost upon the man in
the spinal carriage, Mr. Perry-Hennington very sol-
emnly related the incident of the white feather.

Brandon said nothing, but looked at the vicar fix-
edly.

"I hate having to worry you in this way," Mr.
Perry-Hennington watched narrowly the drawn face.
"Of course it had to be followed up. At first, FU
confess, I took it to be a mere piece of blasphemous
bravado in execrable taste, but now I've seen the man,
now I've talked with him, I have come to another con-
clusion."

The vicar saw that Brandon's eyes were full of an
intense, eager interest.

"Well?" said the sufferer softly.

"The conclusion I have come to is that it's a case of
paranoia."

"That is to say, you think he intended the state-
ment to be taken literally ?"

"I do. But I didn't realize that all at once. When
I accused him of blasphemy he defended himself with

THE COMING

ar farrago of quasi mystical gibberish which amounted
to nothing, and he ended with a perfectly fantastic
statement. Let me give it you word for word. 'At
two o'clock this morning a presence entered my room
and said, "I am Goethe and I have come to pray for
Germany." And I said, "Certainly, I shall be very
glad to pray for Germany," and we knelt and prayed
together. And then he rose and showed me the little
town with its quaint gables and turrets where he sleeps
at night, and I asked him to have courage and then I
embraced him and then he left me, saying he would
return again.' "

Brandon's face had an ever-deepening interest, but
he did not venture upon a remark.

"Of course," said the vicar, "one's answer should
have been, 'My friend, he who aids, abets and har-
bors an unregistered alien enemy becomes amenable
to the Defense of the Realm Regulations.' "

"What was your answer?" The look of bewilder-
ment was growing upon Brandon's face.

"I made none. I was completely bowled out. But
I went at once to see the mother. And this is where
the oddest part of all comes in. After a little con-
versation with the mother, I discovered that she most
sincerely believes that her son is — is a messiah."

Again the stricken man closed his eyes.

THE COMING

*'Thcre we have the due. In a very exalted way
she told me how her son was born six months after
her husband had been killed in action. She told me
how she had prayed that all wars might cease, how an
angel appeared to her with a promise that she would
live to see the war which would end all wars ; she told
me how a son was born to her in fulfillment of the
prophecy, and how she christened him John Emanuel.
I was astounded. But now I have had time to think
about the matter much is explained. The man is
clearly suffering from illusions prenatally induced.
There is no doubt a doctor would tell us that it ex-
plains his fits. It also accounts for his faith-healing
nonsense. And there is no doubt that mother and son
have reacted upon one another in such a way that
they are now stark crazy."

"And that is your deliberate opinion ?"
'*With the facts before me I can come to no other.
It is the only charitable explanation. Otherwise I
should have felt it to be my duty to institute a prose-
cution under the blasphemy laws. Only the other
day there was a man — sl tailor, I believe — imprisoned
under the statute of Henry VII. But if, as there is
now every reason to think, it is a simple case of in-
sanity, one will be relieved from that disagreeable
necessity."

THE COMING

Brandon concurred.

"But as you will readily see, my dear Gervase, the
alternative is almost equally distressing. To clear him
of the charge of blasphemy it will be necessary to
prove him insane; and in that event, of course, he
cannot remain at large."

"Surely the poor chap is quite harmless?"

"Harmless P' Mr. Perry-Hennington had difficulty
in keeping his voice imder control. "A man who goes
about the parish proclaiming himself a godl''

"He has Plotinus with him at any rate." Again
the stricken man closed his eyes. "How says the
sage? 'Surely before this descent into generation we
existed in the intelligible world ; being other men than
now we are, and some of us Gods; clear souls and
minds immixed with all existence; parts of the Intel-
ligible, nor severed thence; nor are we severed even

now/ " *

t'}

'Really, my dear Gervase," said the vicar, trying
very hard to curb a growing resentment, "one should
hesitate to quote the pagan philosophers in a matter of
this kind."

"I can't agree. They are far wiser than us in the
only thing that matters after all. They have more
windows open in the soul."

«Eim VI. 4. M [F. W. H. Myers].

THE COMING

"No, no." Mr. Perry-Hennington strove against
vehemence. "Still, we won't go into that." He was
on perilous ground. Of late years Brandon himself
had been a thorn in the sacerdotal cushion. The mod-
em spirit had led him to skepticism, so that, in the
vicar's phrase, "he had become an alien in the house-
hold of faith." Now was not the moment to open an
old wound or to revive the embers of controversy.
But the vicar felt the old spiritual enmity, which Bran-
don's stoic heroism had lulled to sleep, again stirring
his blood. Therefore, he must not allow himself to
be involved in a false issue. Let him keep rigidly to
the business in hand. And the business in hand was :
What shall be done with John Smith?

It was clear at once that in Brandon's opinion there
was no need to do anything. The vicar felt ruefuDy
that he should have foreseen this attitude. But he
had a right to hope that Brandon's recent experiences,
even if they had not changed him fundamentally,
would have done something to modify the central
heresies. Nothing was further from the vicar's desire
than to bear hardly upon one who had carried him-
self so nobly, but Brandon's air of tolerance was a
laxity not to be borne. Mr. Perry-Hennington's soul
was on fire. It was as much as he could do to hold
himself in hand.

«*1

€t^

THE COMING

"You see, my dear fellow/' he said, "as the case
presents itself to me, I must do one of two things.
Either I must institute a prosecution for blasphemy,
so that the law may deal with him, or, as I think would
be the wiser and more humane course, I must take
steps to have him removed to an asylum/'

'But why do anything?"
1 feel it to be my duty."

"But he's so harmless. And a dear fellow."

"I wish I could share your opinion. I can only re-
gard him as a plague spot in the parish. Insanity is
his only defense and it has taken such a noxious form
that it may infect others."

"Hardly likely, one would think."

"We live in abnormal times. I am very sorry, but
I can only regard this man as a moral danger to the
community. Edith was greatly shocked. I was
greatly shocked. You must excuse my saying so, Ger-
vase, but I cannot help feeling that in the circum-
stances the vast majority of right-thinking people
would be."

"But who are the people who think rightly?"

Mr. Perry-Hennington raised a deprecating hand.
Yet Brandon, having acted in the way he had, was
entitled to put the question. He had given more than
life for an idea, and that fact made it immensely dif-

THE COMING

ficult for the vicar to deal with him as faithfuUy as
he could have wished. He was face to face with a
skeptic, but the skeptic was intrenched in a special
positicn where neither contempt nor active reproach
of any kind must visit him.

But in spite of himself the old slumbering antagon-
isms were now awake in the vicar. Brandon, too, was
a dangerous paradoxical man. Notwithstanding the
honor and the love he bore him, Mr. Perry-Henning-
ton felt his pulses quicken, his fibers stiffen. If ever
man did, he saw his duty straight and clear. The only
real problem was how to do it with the least affront
to others, with the least harm to the community.

"By the way," said Brandon, his gentle voice filling
an awkward pause that had suddenly ensued, 'liave
you ever really talked with John Smith ?"

"Oh, yes, many times."

"I mean have you ever really tried — if I may put it
that way — ^to get at the back of his mind?"

"As far as one can. But to me he seems to have
precious little in the way of mind to get at the back
of. As far as one's own limited intelligence will
allow one to judge, the mind of John Smith seems a
half-baked morass, a mere hotch-potch of moonstruck
transcendentalisms, overlaid with a kind of Sweden-
borgian mysticism, if one may so express oneself. To

THE COMING

me it seems a case where a little regular training at a
university and the clear thinking it induces would have
been of enormous value."

Brandon smiled. "Have you seen his poem?" he
asked.

"No." The answer was short; and then the vicar
asked in a tone which had a tinge of disgust, "Written
a poem, has he?"

"He brought it to me the other day." Again Bran-
don closed his eyes. "To my mind it is very remarka-
ble," he said half to himself.

"It would be, no doubt," said the vicar, half to him-
self also.

1 should like you to read it."

I prefer not to do so," said the vicar after a pause.
"My mind is quite made up about him. It would only
vex me further to read anything he may have writ-
ten. We live by deeds, not by words, and never more
so than in this stem time."

"To my mind, it is a very wonderful poem," said
the stricken man. "I don't think I am morbidly im-
pressionable — I hope I'm not — but that poem haunts
me. It is even changing my outlook. It is an ex-
travagant thing to say, but the feeling it leaves on
one's mind is that if a spectator of all time and all
existence, a sort of Cosmostheorus, were to visit the

f<i

THE COMING

planet at this moment, it is the way in which he might
be expected to deliver himself."

"Neoplatonism of the usual brand, I presume."
There was a slight curl of a thin lip.

"Of a very unusual brand, I assure you. It may
be neoplatonism, and yet — no— one cannot give it a
label. There is the Something Else behind it." Once
more the stricken man closed his eyes. "Yes, there is
the Something Else. The thing infolds me like a
dream, a passion. I feel it changing me."

"What is it called ?'* the vicar permitted himself to
ask.

"It is called The Door.' "

"Why The Door'?"

"Is there a Door still open for the human race? —
that is the question the poem asks."
'A kind of mysticism, I presume?"
'I wish I could persuade you to read the poem. To
my mind it has exquisite beauty, and a profundity be-
yond anything I have ever read. It asks a question
which at this moment admits of no answer. Every-
thing hangs in the balance. But the theme of the
poem is the future's vital need, the keeping open, at
all costs, of the Door."

Mr. Perry-Hennington shook his head sadly, but the
gesture was not without indulgence. He was ready

THE COMING

to make allowance for Brandon's present state. The
importance he attached to such lucubrations was quite
unworthy of an ex-Fellow of Gamaliel, at any rate
in the eyes of a former Fellow of All Saints, which
under an old but convenient dispensation Mr. Perry-
Hennington could claim to be. This morbid sensi-
bility was a fruit of Brandon's disease no doubt. But
for his own part the vicar had neither time nor in-
clination for what could only be an ill-digested fer-
rago of mystical moonshine. Unhappily nothing was
left to poor Brandon now except to ease his mind as
best he could. Such a mental condition was to be
deplored. Yet the vicar fervently hoped that the can-
ker would not bite too deep.

"Do let me get the poem for you to read." Bran-
don's eyes were full of entreaty.

"No, no, my dear fellow," said the vicar gently. "I
really haven't time to give to such things just now.
All one's energies are absorbed in dealing with things
as they are. I am quite prepared to take your word
that the poem has literary merit — ^after all, you are a
better judge of such matters than I am. But for
those of us who have still our work to do, this is not
a moment for poetic fancies or any other form of
self-indulgence. Moreover, I must reserve my right

THE COMING

to full liberty of action in a matter which is causing
me grave concern."

With these words the vicar took a chastened leave.
It was clear that nothing was to be hoped for in this
quarter. Bitterly disappointed, but more than ever
determined to do his duty in a matter which promised
to become increasingly difficult, the vicar shook Bran-
don gently by the hand and left the room. In the large
Tudor hall, with its stc«ie flags, old oak and rare tapes-
try, he came suddenly upon his niece.

Millicent Brandon looked too girlish to be the
mother of the two lusty creatures whom she was help-
ing to fit together a pictiu-e puzzle which had been
spread out on a table. Tall, slight, a picture of vivid
health, she had a charming prettiness of an unusual
kind. And in the dear, long-lashed eyes was an eager-
ness, an intensity of life which the elf-like Babs and
the sturdy, yellow-headed Joskin shared with her.
Even the vicar, who noticed so little, was struck by
the force of the contrast between this rich vitality and
the broken man whom he had left a moment ago.

It was clear, however, that above Millicent Bran-
don's high spirit hovered the dark shadow which con-
tinually haunted her. Behind the surface gayety was
an anxiety which never slept, a gnawing fear that no
preoccupation could allay. The solid, sensible vicar

THE COMING

was liked and respected by women, and he now re-
ceived the affectionate greeting of his niece, who was
genuinely pleased to see him. But her tone had much
solicitude.

"Well, Uncle Tom/* was her eager question, "what
do you think of Gervase?"

The vicar did not answer at once, but drew in his
lips a little, in the manner of a cautious physician
with a reputation for absolute and fearless honesty.

"He seems cheerful," he said.

"Everybody thinks he keeps up in the most won-
derful way. And do you know, he has begun to read
again? A fortnight ago he seemed hardly able to
bear the thought of a book ; he couldn't be got to look
at a newspaper or even to listen to one. But that is
now a thing of the past All the old interest is com-
ing back. Last night I read Pascal to him for nearly
an hour, and he followed it the whole time with the
closest attention."

"I hope you had the doctor's permission," said the
vicar with a frown.

"Oh, yes. Both Dr. Shrubb and Dr. Joliffe are
very pleased. Dr. Shrubb was here yesterday. He
thinks it is the most hopeful sign we have yet had."

"I ^m very glad indeed to hear it," said the vicar
with a puzzled face.

THE COMING

"Of course he can promise nothing — ^absolutely
nothing, but he thinks it is a great thing for the mind
to be aroused. A fortnight ago Gervase couldn't be
induced to take an interest in anything. And now
he listens to Pascal and reads the Times/'

The vicar's frown grew more perplexed "And the
doctors are pleased?"

"Oh, yes."

"How do they account for the change?*'

"They give no explanation, but I have a theory that
in a sort of way the person who is really responsible
for it — I know you'll laugh at me — is that dear fel-
low, John Smith."

"Oh, indeed," said the vicar in a hard, dry voice.

"I know you don't altogether approve of him. Uncle
Tom, but he's such a charming, whimsical, gentle crea-
ture, just a little mad they seem to think in the vil-
lage, but Gervase has always made a friend ol him."

"So I understand." The voice was that of a states-
man; the frown was growing portentous.

"Well, every day since Gervase came home the dear
tellow has picked a bunch of flowers on the common
and brought them here. And every day he has begged
to see Gervase. A fortnight ago, when Gervase had
been out of his room twice, I decided that he might.
I felt sure no harm could come of it. So he came

<'1

til

THE COMING

and it seems he talked to Gervase of a poem he had
written — ^I didn't hear the conversation so I can't
throw much light on it — ^but the next day he returned
with the poem. And the amazing part is that Ger-
vase read it, and dating from then he seems to have
found a new interest in everything."

''And you are inclined to attribute the change iq

the first place. to the effect of this man's verses?"
"Yes. It seems a little absurd. But in my own

mind I can't help thinking that the improvement is

entirely due to John Smith."

'Have you read these verses, by the way?"
'No. It's quite a long poem, I believe, stanza upon

stanza, but Gervase returned it at once. Since its

effect has been so rem^able I am thinking of trying

to get hold of it." |

"Doesn'#this strike you as very odd, that is, asstmi-

ing your theory of the poem's effect upon a man like

Gervase to be correct?"

"Yes, quite extraordinary. He was always so fas-
tidious, a man to whom only the best and highest

appealed."

"Quite so." The vicar pursed his lips. "And it is

a fact to look in the face, my dear Millicent. As you

know, I am a great believer in looking facts in the

face."

THE COMING

"You think, Uncle Tom, it implies mental deterio-
ration?"

''One hardly likes to say that/' said the vicar cau-
tiously. "But that is what we have to fear."

A deepening anxiety crept into the eyes of the wife.
"It does seem a reasonable explanation. But please
doni forget that Gervase took no interest in any sub-
ject until John Smith came, and that now he has be-
gun to read the Bible."

"It is certainly remarkable if such is the case. By
the way, do the doctors allow him to read the Bible ?**

"He may read anything."

"And they consider him quite rational ?"

"Perfectly rational." Millicent looked at the vicar
in some surprise. "Don't you, Uncle Tom?"

The vicar would have evaded the question had he
been able to do so. But with those candid eyes upon
him that was impossible. Moreover, the old habit of
fearless honesty in all things did not permit a deliber-
ate lie.

Millicent declined to accept his silence. "You
don't !" She pinned him down to a reply.

"If the doctors are satisfied," said the vicar slowly,
"that is the important thing. One doesn't set up one's
opinion against theirs, you know."

But he was not to escape in that way.

THE COMING

"Evidently you don't agree with them, Uncle Tom.
Now I want you to be perfectly frank and tell me
just how you feel about Gervase."

"Well, I will." The vicar spoke slowly and
weightily. "Since you press the question, his whole
outlook appears to me to be changing."

"But not for the worse, surely ?"

"That I cannot say. It is only my opinion and I
give it for what it is worth, but I don't quite approve
this change which is coming over Gervase."

"Didn't you find him happy and cheerful?"

"I did. But that is not the point My feeling is
that if Gervase were perfectly rational he would not
attach so much importance to the — er — ^lucubrations
of this fellow, John Smith."

"But Gervase has always been a great lover of
poetry," said the surprised Millicent. "He took prizes
for it at Eton, and at Oxford he won a medal. His
love of poetry is really nothing new ; in fact he passes
for an expert on the subject."

"That is my point. I have always shared that view
of Gervase. In common with the rest of the world,
I have greatly admired his translations from the
Greek. But that being the case, the question one must
now ask oneself is, why does a man of sure taste,
of real scholarship, suddenly surrender his mind to

THE COMING

the fantastic trivialities of a half-baked, half-educated
village loafer?"

"But you've not read the poem/' said Millicent with
a little air of triumph, in which, however, relief was
uppermost.

"No good thing can come out of Babylon. It isn't
reasonable to expect it. Why, I've known that fellow
Smith nearly twenty years. I know exactly what
education he has had, I know his record."

"I won't venture to argue with you. Uncle Tom.
Your opinion is worth so much more than mine, but
isn't there such a thing as genius?"

"There may be. Although it is a thing I am rather
skeptical about myself; that is to say I regard it pri-
marily as an infinite capacity for taking pains, a
natural fruit of learning and study. That is why to
my mind it is more wholesome to believe that Bacon
wrote Shakespeare. Nay, it must have been so, for
it is surely a rational canon that the most highly trained
mind of the age wrote Hamlet, Othello and King
Lear, rather than an inspired clodhopper who began
life as a butcher's apprentice."

"Well, Uncle Tom," said his niece demurely, "of
course I mustn't argue with you, but aren't your views
rather like those of a character in a most amusing
play I saw in London the other day? When a dra-

THE COMING

matic critic was asked to criticize a play, he said, 'How
can one begin to criticize a play until one knows the
name of the author ?' "

"Quite so, quite so," said Mr. Perry-Hennington
triumphantly. "A very apt illustration of my point."

"But it is also an illustration of mine. At least I
hope it is/'

"Then I'm afraid we are arguing about entirely
different things."

"Well, Uncle Tom," said the tenacious Millicent,
"I am arguing about what Gcrvase would call the peril
of a priori judgments. It seems ^to me that the
Christian religion itself is a proof of it. How does
your theory account for the fact that Jesus was a
village carpenter?"

The vicar drew up his long, thin, rather ascetic
frame to the topmost of its seventy-two inches. "My
dear child," he said solemnly, "my theory accounts
for that fact by simply assuming that Jesus was God
Himself. It is the only reasonable hypothesis. With-
out it there is no such thing as the Christian religion."

"But, Uncle Tom, to quote Gervase again, isn't that
the greatest of all assumptions for a rational mind to
make?"

"Undoubtedly, my dear. And it is only permitted
to us to make it by the implicit eye of faith."

THE COMING

"Do you mean that the Incarnation is the only mat-
ter in which we are to exercise faith ?"

"Ah, now we are getting into theology." Mr.
Perry-Hennington took up his niece with a little air
of bland condescension. "You mustn't bother your
pretty head about that. I must go now." A pang
shot through him as he suddenly remembered the mor-
row*s sermon. "I must leave you, my dear, to help
the children put together their picture puzzle. Good-
by. Gervase is really quite as well as I had hoped to
find him. Let us continue to have faith."

Thereupon the vicar tore himself away from a con-
troversy in which he felt he was showing, as usual, to
singular advantage. He was so sure of the ground
on which he stood, that even poor Gervase's highly
trained intellect, of which the callow, fluffy-headed
Millicent was the merest echo, was hardly able to
meet him upon it. Moreover the vicar was a bom
fighter, and the trend of the discussion with his niece
had had the effect of stirring in his mind the embers
of a latent antagonism. The truth was, Brandon had
never been quite forgiven 2l mot he had once permit-
ted himself. He had said that the Established Church
was determined to eat his cake and to have it : that is,

it was reared on the basis of two and two makes five,

THE COMING

but ordered its conduct on the basis of two and two
makes four.

As the vicar left the inner hall he heard the voice
of the curly-headed Joskin uplifted in a wail: ''Oh,
mummy, do come and help us! We can't fit it in.
There's a piece missing."

VII

THE vicar remembered his sermon and looked
at his watch. It was within twenty minutes
of luncheon; the most valuable morning of
the week was gone. The spirit of vexation rose in him
again. It was all the fault of this miserable fellow,
John Smith. Two priceless hours had been lavished
on this wastrel, this dead charge on the community.
Moreover he would not be able to make up for lost
time in the course of the afternoon. At three o'clock
he was due at Brombridge to attend the War Economy
Committee; at seven he had to take the chair at a
recruiting meeting at Grayfield, and dine afterward
with his old Magdalen friend, Whymper.

It cut him to the heart to forego the morrow's ser-
mon. He was the soul of conscientiousness, and not
since his attack of rheumatoid arthritis nine years ago
had he failed to come up to time on Sunday evening
with a brand new discourse. And if ever one was
needed it was now. The time cried aloud for pulpit
direction. The government was conducting the war
in half-hearted fashion. It had not yet dared to bring

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in a Conscription Bill, yet in Mr. Pcrry-Hennington's
opinion every man and every woman in the country
up to the age of sixty-five ought to have been forcibly
enlisted months ago. Several times already he had
made that proposal in the newspapers over his own
signature, and it had been greatly applauded by the
only sort of people who counted in war time.

The hour was certainly ripe for a rasper in the way
of a sermon. The nation wanted "gingering up." He
must find time somehow to put his ideas together
against Sunday evening. As he strode with his long
legs down the glorious avenue of Hart's Ghyll he
felt braced and reenforced with energy. Once more
his thought, began to flow. He had his text at any
rate, and it ought not to be difficult to strike some-
thing compelling out of it. By the time the porter's
lodge was reached, he had grown quite hopeful.
Phrases, ideas, were filling his mind; perhaps his
morning had not been wholly wasted after all; it
seemed to have stirred him to something. "Let us
put on the armor of light." For the vicar those
words were a bugle call to the old Adam within. The
spirit of conflict, like a sleeping giant, sprang to new
life.

Hardly had Mr. Perry-Hennington passed beyond
the iron gates into the village street, when a rather

(

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perspiring, decidedly genial-looking man on a bicycle
immediately recalled his pastoral duty to his mind.
Nay, it was more than that. The matter of John
Smith had as much to do with the state as the re-
cruiting question, the economy question, the supine-
ness of the government, and the morrow's sermon.

"Good-morning, Joliffe," said the vicar in a hearty,
detaining voice. "The very man I want to see."

"Nothing wrong at home I hope," said the man
on the bicycle, who was the village doctor. He spoke
in a simple, direct, unaffectedly practical way, which
all the same was not without a faint note of defer*
ence, ever grateful to Mr. Perry-Hennington's ear.

Dr. Joliffe slowed up and hopped from his bicycle.

"No, nothing of that kind I'm glad to say." The
vicar's reply was equally precise and to the point.
"But I want to have a little talk with you privately
about a matter that is worrying me a good deal."

"Very glad any time." Dr. Joliffe looked at his
watch. "Why not come and take potluck with me
now — ^if you are not afraid of Mrs. Small in war
time. She's not up to your form at any time, but
you are very welcome to what we have."

The vicar hesitated. He was expected at home,
but John Smith was burning a hole in his mind. He
felt there must be no delay in taking a man whom

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he could trust into his confidence, and if he lost this
present opporttuiity no other chance might arise for
several days.

"You will?" said the practical Joliffe. "Although
you'll not expect much. I'll send my boy along to
the vicarage to tell them not to wait for you."

Mr. Perry-Hennington allowed himself to be per-
suaded. Joliffe was the only person in the place to
whom he might turn for help ; moreover he was a dis-
creet, unaffectedly honest man whom the vicar had
always instinctively trusted. And disconcerted as he
was by Brandon's attitude in the matter, it was im-
perative that no time should be lost in taking compe-
tent advice.

The doctor's abode was a rather fine, small Georgian
specimen, standing back from the center of the vil-
lage street. A widower and childless in a house too
large for his needs, a man of taste in furniture and
bric-a-brac, with a capital cellar and a good cigar for
his friends, he was also a man of private means to
whom the neighboring villages owed a great deal.
He was such an excellent fellow, so widely and so
justly respected, that it was a little odd to find him
tinged with the national vice of servility. But with
all his great merits he sometimes found it rather hard
to forget that he belonged to the middle class and

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that the vicar belonged to the aristocracy. It may
have been for that reason that Mr. Perry-Hcnnington
felt so much confidence in his judgment. At any rate,
the satisfying sense that Joliffe was aware of the
deference due to a peer's brother oiled the wheels of
their intercourse, and enabled the vicar to treat him
with a bonhomie which he knew would not be abused.

Mrs. Small had cmly a cottage pie and a pancake
to offer the august visitor, but in spite of the King's
edict, to which the host apologetically referred, this
fare was eked out by a very honest glass of brown
sherry, a cup of coffee that did Mrs. Small great
credit, and a really excellent cigar.

Both gentlemen were due at Brombridge at three,
to which center of activity the doctor proposed to.
drive the vicar in his runabout. This suited the vicar
very well. He would be there and back in half the
time required by his gig. And old Alice, who was
rising twenty-four, would be able to save herself for
the evening journey to Grayfield, which old Alice's
master, fully conscious that ''the old girl was not
what she had been," and a humane man to boot, had
been inclined to view with some little concern. Things
were turning out for the best in the mundane sphere
at any rate, and the vicar was not unpleasantly aware
of this fact as, after-luncheon cigar alight, he en-

THE COMING

tered upon the incidental cause of a modest but agree-
able meal to which he had done perhaps rather better
justice than the state of his emotions justified.

"Joliffe," said the vicar, taking a long and im-
pressive pull at his cigar, ''what I really want to talk
to you about is that fellow John Smith. I am sorry
to say I've come to the conclusion that he can no
longer be allowed to stay in the parish."

"Indeed/* said the doctor casually. "A harmless
sort of creature I've always thought. Doesn't quite
know himself perhaps. A little too free with his
opinions may be, but strictly between ourselves" — ^Dr.
Joliffe's voice grew respectfully confidential — "I think
we may lay that to the door of someone else."

"Brandon, eh? I agree." The vicar grew magis-
terial. "Always an injudicious fellow. That's the
worst of your radical. Gives these intermediate sort
of people ideas."

"Quite so. I wish you'd try the brandy." The
host pushed it across.

'No. Really. War time, you know."

1 should value your opinion. Just half a glass."

"Well, half a glass. To return to John Smith.
Excellent brandy. My girl, Edith, presented this fel-
low Smith with a white feather this morning. Of
course he's a poor half-begotten sort of creature, but

tt^

<«i

THE COMING

as far as one can see there's no reason why he
shouldn't be working at munitions instead of loafing
about the common."

"Exactly. Sure you won't have a leetle more?"
"Quite. Well, if you please, he kissed the feather,
stuck it in his buttonhole, and said, 'And lo, the
heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit
of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon
him.' "

The doctor shook a grave, gray head. "Sounds de^
cidedly cracked, I must say. At any rate a most
improper speech to make to a clergyman's daughter."
"I should think so! Outrageous blasphemy!"
"Do you suppose the chap meant to insult her?"
"If he didn't, and it's charitable to give him the
benefit of the doubt, his behavior only admits of one
other explanation."

Dr. Joliffe sat, a picture of perplexity. To a se-
verely literal mind the speech was meaningless. He
had known for some time that the man claimed to see
visions, that he was a poet and a dreamer; and the
doctor had lately heard rtunors, to which he had paid
little attention, that the man was dabbling in Christian
Science in neighboring villages ; but this was the first
time it had occurred to him that the fellow was in-

THE COMING

sane. But now the doctor agreed with the vicar that
such behavior strongly suggested that condition.

"Mind you, that is not all." And the vicar gave
an account of his own visit to the common, his con-
versation with the man, his subsequent visit to the
mother and the remarkable statement she had made
to him.

"She has always been very religious," said the doc-
tor, "but up till now I have not questioned her
sanity."

"Nor I," said the vicar. "But she is not important.
She is practically bed-ridden. It is this son of hers
we have to think about. I have already made up my
mind that he must go. And that being the case, the
problem arises as to what is the best means of getting
rid of him."

Dr. Joliffe, a worldly-wise man within his sphere,
stroked his chin solemnly but offered no advice.

"Of course," said the vicar, "it is in the public in-
terest that whatever steps we may take should not
excite attention. It is sufficiently disagreeable to have
that sort of lunatic in one's parish, without having
busybodies and maliciously inclined people making a
fuss. The readiest and simplest means, no doubt,
would be to institute a prosecution for blasphemy.
He would most certainly be detained during his

THE COMING

Majesty's pleasure. But such a proceeding might play
into the hands of the enemies of the Established
Church, in which, unfortunately, the country seems to
abound. We might have Voltaires arising in the
Cocoa Press or something equally revolting."

"Quite so, vicar." Dr. Joliffe compressed his lips.
"You'll be wise to go slow in a matter of this kind,
believe me, or you might easily find public opinion
against you."

"As though one cared that for public opinion." The
vicar snapped heroic fingers. "Still, I see your point.
And broadly speaking, I agree with it. Now to pass
to the second alternative. The man said to me — ^let
me give his precise words if I can — ^*At two o'clock
this morning a presence entered my room and said, "I
am Goethe and I have come to pray for Germany."
And I answered him, "Certainly I shall be very glad
to pray for Germany," and we knelt and prayed to-
gether; and then he arose and I embraced him and
he showed me the little town with its gables and tur-
rets where he sleeps at night and then he left me,
promising to return.' "

"Perfectly preposterous," said the doctor. "I quite
agree that the man ought to be locked up. But of
course he doesn't intend to be taken literally. Ob-
viously it is his idea of a poetic fancy."

THE COMING

^^No doubt. But a man must be taught to curb
such poetic fancies in a time like the present. Now
the point which arises" — ^the vicar raised a dogmatic
forefinger — "is that a person who makes such state-
ments in public renders himself amenable to the De-
fense of the Realm Regulations. And there is no
doubt that any bench of magistrates that knew its
business would know how to deal with him."

''Personally, I'm not altogether clear that they
would," said Dr. Joliffe cautiously. "I agree with
you, of course, that a man who talks in that way needs
a strait waistcoat — one wonders what would happen
to a man in Germany who went about saying he was
praying for England! At the same time one ought
not to forget that nowadays even the county bench is
not composed exclusively of. people as clear-sighted
as you and I."

"That is so, I am afraid. Even the county bench
is getting fearfully mixed. Timson, the Brombridge
grocer, is the latest addition, by the way. But I see
your point. In such an absurd country as this one
couldn't depend on the man being dealt with in the
way that he deserves. That's where the enemy with
its wonderful internal administration has such an ad-
vantage. Their system has much to recommend it in
war time — or in any other if it comes to that."

THE COMING

Dr. Joliflfc agreed. "We have much to learn from
them in the handling of the masses."

*'Ah, well, Joliffe," said the vicar hopefully, "we
shall learn many things if this war goes on long
enough.*'

"I am convinced that the only way to down Prussia
is to adopt Prussia's methods."

"However/* said the vicar briskly, "we have not
come to them yet. Therefore we can't rely on the
county bench doing its duty in the matter, although I
hate having to say so. And that brings us to alterna-
tive the third, which is, Joliffe, that this man, John
Smith, must be put away privately — for the good of
the community.*'

This taking of the bull by the horns was followed
by a pause on the part of the doctor. He was an
admirer of the vicar's thorough-goingness, he was in
full sympathy with the main premises of his argu-
ment, but he was a conscientious man. And he had
a clear perception of the difficulties inherent in the
process of confining a lunatic.

At last Dr. Joliffe broke a dubious silence. "To
begin with, vicar, you will have to get two doctors
to certify the chap insane, and then you will have to
get two magistrates to sign a warrant for his re-
moval."

THE COMING

"I know that/' said the vicar. "And I am fully
prepared to do it. But to begin with, Joliffe, I must
have your help in the matter."

"I am willing to give it of course. It's one's duty."

"Then I shall ask you to certify him at once."

Dr. Joliffe hesitated. A cloud of indecision came
on his face. "Before I do that," he said very slowly,
"I should like the opinion of someone who has more
knowledge of mental disease than I pretend to."

"But, my dear fellow," said the vicar rather sur-
prisedly, "after what I have told you aren't you already
convinced that the fellow is insane?"

"Insanity is a complicated subject," said the cau-
tious Joliffe. "A very much more complicated sub-
ject than the layman appreciates."

The vicar, at heart an autocrat, began to bristle at
once. Scenting contradiction in the quarter where he
had least expected to find it, he grew suddenly im-
patient. "But even a layman knows," he said in a
tone of authority, "that insanity on one point is in-
sanity on all."

"Just so."

"Well, that is already proved."

"I shall not gainsay it But a general practitioner
is naturally cautious — it is his duty to be so— in a
matter of this kind. Let me suggest that we have the

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opinion of a mental specialist before we commit our-
selves to any line of action."

In the opinion of Mr. Perry-Hennington this was
perilously like a display of moral cowardice, but from
a purely professional standpoint it might not be un-
reasonable. All the mental specialists of Harley Street
would not alter the fact that the man was insane —
it was the only charitable assumption. At the same
time, Joliffe's request was quite easy to understand.

"By all means." The vicar's tone of assent im-
plied that he had to deal with a timid fellow. "We'll
consult anyone you please. Of course, only one opin-
ion is possible, but if you feel it will help and
strengthen you in your duty don't let us hesitate. By
all means let us have someone down at once."

"I am sure it is the proper course to take."

"Very well. Who shall it be? Not necessarily a
man in the first flight who will want a large fee, which
I'm afraid will have to come out of my pocket instead
of out of the Treasury. Not that I shall grudge it,
whatever it may be. Still, the case is so clear that
somebody local, such a man as Parker of Brombridge,
will not have the slightest difficulty in certifying him."
The vicar gazed fixedly at Jolifle. "Yes — ^shall we
say Parker? He'll be at the meeting this afternoon.
I'll speak to him. We ought to move without delay.

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The fellow ought not to be at large a day longer than
we can help. Yes — ^Dr. Parker — this afternoon. Get
him over on Monday. And this evening I'm dining
with Whymper and Lady Jane — I'll mention it to
Whymper. All to the good to get the local bench
interested without delay."

Dr. Joliffe nodded. But somehow he looked a little
dubious.

"I think, Mr. Perry-Hennington," he said rather
uneasily, "we ought to be very careful to satisfy our-
selves that it is a bona fide case of paranoia."
'Certainly, certainly. I fully agree."
Tve no objection to meeting Parker, of course,
but I should welcome a London opinion if it is pos-
sible to arrange for one. You see, this is rather a
serious matter."

The vicar thought so too. "But personally, I have
every conifidence in Parker's judgment. I remember
some years ago when my eldest boy George had a
murrain, Parker diagnosed it at once as a case of
measles. I've always found him quite sound per-
sonally."

"Fve not a word to say against him, I cast no doubt
upon his competence, but this is one of those delicate
things which it hardly seems right, if you'll excuse

iti

tiTf.

THE COMING

my saying so, to leave entirely to local practitioners
whose experience must necessarily be limited."

"Joliffe, I hope you are not hedging/' said the vicar
sternly.

"No, I am not hedging. But, as I say, this is a
ticklish matter."

The vicar shook a pontifical head. "For the life of
me," he said, "I can't see that it is more ticklish than
any other matter. Had there been a doubt in the case
one might have thought so. But the man is as mad
as a hatter. A child could tell that who heard him
talk as he talked to me this morning on the common."

"No doubt you are right. But he has not yet aired
these particular views to me, you know."

"Then you've evidently not talked to him on his
particular subject."

"Evidently not."

"Wait till you do, my friend ! In the meantime I'll
mention the matter to Parker at the meeting and get
him over on Monday to see him."

Further conversation on the thorny subject was
forbidden for the time being by the reappearance of
Mrs. Small, who had to inform her master that the
boy was round with the car. Thereupon Dr. Joliffe
looked at his watch and declared that they must start
at once if they were to be at Brombridge by thr^e.

VIII

THE timed journey to Brombridge in the doc-
tor's runabout was forty minutes with reason-
able driving. On the way both gentlemen
were rather silent. By tacit consent John Smith was
dismissed for the time being, and they were able to con-
fine themselves to the prospect for potatoes, war in
its relation to agriculture, the loss of tonnage, and
hearty abuse of the government. For the true Briton,
that unfortunate institution vies with that equally un-
fortunate institution, the weather, in supplying the
theme of a never-ending jeremiad. All worthy of
their salt, irrespective of creed or party, damn these
miserable makeshifts impartially. At the moment the
vicar and the doctor drove up to the Assembly Rooms,
Brombridge, they were in cordial agreement that only
one thing under divine providence could hope to make
the British people lose the war, and that thing was
the British Government.

By a graceful little act on the part of coincidence —
most charming of the minor goddesses ! — ^Dr. Parker
was about to ascend the steps of the building just as

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the car of Dr. Joliffe drew up by the curb. The vicar
hailed the leading physician of Brombridge promptly
and heartily.

"The very man we want to see." Mr. Perry-Hen-
nington was one of the fortunate people who act first
and do their thinking afterward.

Dr. Parker, an elderly, florid, bewhiskered, impor-
tant-looking personage, stopped^at once, turned about
and gave the reverend gentleman the full benefit of his
politest smile and his best bow. He then let his eyes
pass to the second occupant of the car, fully prepared
to let them infold a county magnate. Somehow Mr.
Perry-Hennington always contrived to dispense an
atmosphere of county magnates, or at least to live in
the odor of their sanctity. But as soon as Dr. Parker
saw who it was who had had the honor of conveying
the vicar of Penfold to the meeting the polite smile and
the ceremonious bow were merged almost magically in
a brief nod and a gesture bearing a perilous re-
semblance to a scowl.

The truth was, Dr. Parker had a poor opinion of
Dr. Joliffe, and Dr. Joliffe had a poor opinion of
Dr. Parker. If pressed upon the point, Dr. Parker
would solemnly confess that Dr. Joliffe was the big-
gest tufthunter in Kent, and Dr. Joliffe, also under

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duress, would return that singularly comprehensive
compliment

This was perhaps a pity. Both were good men,
both were honest men, but like so many people, other-
wise quite admirable, their sense of vision was not
acute Nodosities of character in their neighbors were
apt to overshadow the central merit In this case it
was not so much a question of professional jealousy
as a matter of social rivalry. The root of the trouble
was that Dr. Joliffe and Dr. Parker were a little too
much alike.

Dr. Parker was clearly gratified at being the very
man whom the vicar of Penfold wanted to see, but
carefully dissembled his feelings while Mr. Perry-
Hennington stepped out of the car and buttonholed
him rather ostentatiously on the steps of the council
chamber. The vicar had to suggest that they should
hold a little conference after the meeting in regard
to a matter of importance. Certainly they were not
in a position to hold it at the moment Fellow mem-
bers of the War Economy Committee were rolling up
in surprising numbers ; weird old landowners in won-
derful vehicles, local J. P.'s, retired stockbrokers, civil
servants, city men, and very affaire ladies.

For all of these the parson of Penfold had a greet-
ing. With his tall, thin, aristocratic figure, his dis-

THE COMING

tinguished air, his large, fleshy, important nose, he
was the kind of man who dominates every company
he enters. And it was so entirely natural to him to
do so that no one ever thought of resenting it. He
was not a clever man, a witty man, nor was tact his
long suit, moreover he was apt to give himself airs,
but for some reason or combination of reasons, he
was greatly respected, generally looked up to and al-
most universally popular. He seemed to carry equal
weight at Gleave Castle, the Mount Olympus of the
local cosmos, and at the board of guardians. The acid
people who dissect our naive and charming human
nature might have said that it was for no better reason
than that the vicar of Pen fold was a born busybody,
doubly blessed with a loud voice, and a total absence
of humor, but the good and the credulous who take
things on trus^ and form a working majority in every
republic always declared "it was because he was such
a gentleman."

By sheer pressure of human character, Mr. Perry-
Hennington took a seat next the chairman of the
meeting in the council chamber. And when that al-
most incredibly distinguished personage, a rather
pathetic and extremely inaudible old thing in red mit-
tens, got on to his legs, the vicar of Pen fold could
be heard rendering him very audible assistance in the

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course of his opening remarks. But it seem^ en*
tirely right and proper that it should be so. And no-
body resented it, not even the old boy in the red mit-
tens, who had retired from county business years ago,
but who, as the master of Gleave, was fully deter-
mined to do his bit toward winning the war like
everybody else.

The Clerk of the Committee, a rising Brombridge
solicitor, had to submit to correction from the parson
of Pen fold, once when the Clerk was entirely in the
right, once when he may have been wrong, but on a
point so delicate that ordinary people would never
have noticed it, and even if they had would hardly
have thought it worth while to hold up the tide of
hiunan affairs in order to discuss it. Still, it was Mr.
Perry-Hennington's way and ordinary people admired
it. Even Lady Jane Whymper, who was very far
from being an ordinary person, and who was seated
at the other side of the Chairman, admired it. The
vicar of Pen fold was such a dear man and he got
things done.

This afternoon, however, the War Economy Com-
mittee would have transacted the same amount of busi-
ness in at least twenty minutes less time had the vicar
of Penfold been in the seclusion of his study grappling
with his sermon. Still, that didn't occur to anybody ;

THE COMING

and it would have been ungenerous to harbor the
thought The vicar of Penfold was an acknowledged
ornament of any assembly he chose to enter and no
gathering of this kind could have been complete with-
out him. Everybody was amazingly in earnest, but
Mr. Perry-Hennington was the most earnest of all.
He made a number of suggestions, not one of which,
after discussion, the Committee felt able to adopt, but
the general effect of his presence was to give an air
of life and virility to the proceedings.

After the meeting, the vicar staved off Lady Jane,
with whom he had promised to dine that evening, and
tactfully withdrew from the distinguished circle
around the chairman in order to confer with Dr.
Parker at the other end of the long table.

Dr. Parker, if rather flattered by this attention, was
also a little perplexed by it. For one thing. Dr. Joliffe
was scowling at him from the other end of the room.
So little love was lost between these warriors that they
never met in consultation if they could possibly help
it. The vicar, however, had quite made up his mind
that they should meet on Monday. He declined to
give details, but maintained an air of reticence and
mystery; yet he dropped a final hint that the matter
was of immense importance, not merely to individuals
but to the state.

THE COMING

Dr. Parker, having mounted gold eyeglasses and
consulted his diary, consented in his dignified way to

lunch at the vicarage on Monday. Thereupon Mr.

■1

Perry-Hennington thanked him with equal dignity
and returned to Penfold in Dr. Joliffe's car.

■>»

NOT altogether pleased with the turn of events,
Dr. Joliffe drove the vicar home. He was a
conscientious man, and he had no more con-
fidence in "that fool Parker," than Dr. Parker had in
"that fool Joliffe." Still, the vicar could not be ex-
pected to know that. On the way back to Pen fold
he was inclined to congratulate himself. Machinery
had been set in motion which could hardly fail to deal
effectively with John Smith.

Dr. JoUffe was gloomy. All the way home he con-
fined himself to polite monosyllables, and kept his eyes
glued to the steering wheel of the car. Hitherto he
had not had occasion to question the sanity of John
Smith, whom he had always regarded as a particu-
larly harmless creature. And even if the vicar had
rq)orted the man correctly. Dr. Joliffe was by no
means clear that Mr. Perry-Hennington was not tak-
ing an extreme view of his duty.

The vicar, however, had not a doubt in the matter. A
sermon unprepared still cast its shadow over him, but
a cloud had lifted from his mind. A sanguine man

THE COMING

endowed with great animal energy, he never ques-
tioned the logic of his ovnti views, the soundness of
his judgment, or the absolute rectitude of his conduct.
It was in the interests of the community that John
Smith should be taken care of. It even gave the vicar
a certain satisfaction that his duty in a most disagree-
able matter should now stand out so clearly before
him.

Mr. Perry-Hennington had only just time to drink
a cup of tea at the vicarage before he was off on his
travels again. This time his objective was Grayfield,
a feudal sort of hamlet over on the Sussex side. He
had to speak at a recruiting meeting, arranged by his
old Magdalen friend Whymper, with whom a distin-
guished member of parliament was spending the week-
end.

Edith accompanied her father in the gig; and they
had been invited to dine at the manor after the meet-
ing. Grayfield was a good hour for old Alice, upon
whom Anno Domini had set an unmistakable seal. But
it was a rare evening for a drive. The sweet, clean air
of the Sussex uplands was like a mellow wine; the
road was straight and firm ; the sun of June still lin-
gered over Ashdown; trees and hedges wore a sheen
of glory, with a trim farm or a cowled oasthouse
nestling here and there. This calm and quiet land

THE COMING

with its mathematically parceled acres, its placid cows
and horses looking over five-barred gates to watch the
stately progress of old Alice, its occasional forelock-
pulling rustic, was like a "set" in a theater. The whole
scene was so snug, so perfect, so ordained, that na-
ture appeared to have very little part to play in it.

"Odd to think that Armageddon is herel* said the
vicar.

Edith thought it was, very.

The vicar gave a shake of the reins to encourage
old Alice. And then he said: "It's my firm belief
that there are people on this countryside who don't
realize it even yet"

I'm sure there are," said Edith.
'It will be brought home to every man, every wo-
man, every child in the land before we are through
with it."

"You think so?" said Edith, in the curious, precise
voice she had inherited from the Henningtons. "Per-
sonally I am not so sure. We are much too secure
here. I sometimes think that an invasion would be
the best thing that could happen to us."

"I am inclined to agree with you," said her father,
with another shake for old Alice. "But it's gradually
coming home to the nation. Rather than give in we
shall fight to the last man and the last shilling, and

"r-

iti

THE COMING

unless they have altered since the days of Frederick
the Great they will do the same."

"But it can't go on indefinitely. It means extermi-
nation."

"The end of civilization at any rate," said the vicar
mournfully. "The clock has already been put back
a century."

'Sooner or later something must surely happen. *•

'But what can happen? We don't begin to look
like downing them, and it's unthinkable that they can
down us."

**There's God," said Edith^ in a voice of sudden,
throbbing softness. "I'm convinced that He must put
an end to it soon."

Before the vicar continued the conversation he gave
Alice a little touch of the whip.

"Have you ever thought, my dear girl, what an
awful weight of sin there is upon the human race?
Instead of expecting God to put an end to it soon,
it will be little short of miraculous if He ever puts
an end to it at all."

"But think of the awful suffering which falls for
the most part on those who are the least to blame."

"There is Biblical precedent for all that has hap-
pened, nay for far more than has happened. It is a

THE COMING

judgment on the world, and the innocent have to suf-
fer with the guilty/'

Edith was silent a little while.

''It all seems so horribly unfair/' she said at last,
in a deep, palpitating tone which the vicar had not
heard her use before. "It is not the people who have
made the war who are really suffering by it."

"They who question!" and the vicar shook up old
Alice yet again.

A long silence followed, through which old Alice
jogged in her placid way. Hardly a ripple stirred the
evening air. It was very difficult to realize what was
happening within a hundred miles.

I can't help tliinking of that man," Edith sud-
denly remarked.

"What man?" said her father. For the moment
his thoughts were far away. An unwritten sermon
was looming up at the back of his brain.

"John Smith. I can't tell you what a curious im-
pression he has left upon me. Somehow I have done
nothing but think of him ever since the thing hap-
pened."

It was a wrench for the vicar to quit the sequence
of ideas which was being formed so painfully in his
mind. And for the time he had had quite enough of
the subject of John Smith, nay, was in process of

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THE COMING

suffering a reaction from it. Besides it was such a.
vexatiously disagreeable matter that he had no wish
to discuss it more than was absolutely necessary.

"I should forget the man if I were you," was his
counsel to Edith.

^'Somehow I can't. He's made a most curious im-
pression upon me. I begin to feel now that I had no
right to take for granted that what he said was meant
for blasphemy."

The vicar dissented forcibly. "There can be no
possible excuse for him. It was a most improper re-
mark for any man to make in such circumstances, and
you were quite right to feel as you did about it. But
if you are wise you will now put it out of your mind;
at the same time I should like you to give up the prac-
tice of distributing feathers."

'Yes, father, I will," said Edith with a quick flush.
'You will be wise. I am arranging for an inquiry
to be made into the man's mental condition."

"Is that absolutely necessary?" The flush grew
deeper.

"The public interest calls for it. This incident is
a climax of many."

"Yet somehow he doesn't seem exactly insane."

"Not even when he talks in that way?" said the

lOI

ti"

THE COMING

vicar surprisedly. ''My dear girl, it is the only charita*
ble explanation.''

''Do you really think so?" said the reluctant Edith.

"Demonstrably."

"And yet somehow, when one really thinks about
him, he seems so sweetly reasonable."

"Sweetly reasonable !" The vicar pinned down the
unfortunate phrase. "How can you say that? A
mild and harmless creature, perhaps — ^apart from his
opinions — ^but reasonable! — surely that is the very
last word to apply to him."

Perplexity deepened upon Edith's face. "Some-
how, I can't throw off the curious impression he has
left upon me."

"Try to forget the man." The vicar spoke sternly.

"Dismiss him from your thoughts, at any rate while
the case is sub judice. You have done your duty by
reporting the matter to me, and I am doing mine by
putting in motion proper machinery to deal with it."

"I sincerely hope that nothing is going to happen
to him."

"He will be sent to an asylum."

Edith shivered. "Oh, I hope not," she said, draw-
ing in her breath sharply. "To my mind that is the
cruellest fate that can overtake any human being.''

"One doesn't altogether agree," said the vicar. "He

IQ2

THE COMING

will be taken care of as he ought to be, and treated,
of course, with the greatest humanity. You must re-
member that asylums are very different places from
what they were sixty years ago, when Dickens — ^I
think it was Dickens — ^wrote about them."

''But it must mean dreadful suffering to be held for
the rest of one's life within four walls among luna-
tics without hope of escape."

"Why should it, if the mind is really unsound?
You must remember that such people don't suffer in
the way that rational people do."

''But suppose he doesn't happen to be insane?"

"If he doesn't happen to be insane the law cannot
confine him as a lunatic."

"Who wiU decide?"

"He will be certified by two doctors."

Again came silence, only broken by the peaceful
plodding of old Alice. And then said Edith suddenly :
"Father, whoever certifies John Smith will take an
awful responsibility upon himself."

"No doubt," said the vicar. "Yet hardly so grave
a one as you might think. It is the only right, reason-
able and charitable view to take of him. And if the
medical profession cannot be brought to do its clear
and obvious duty, the man will have to be dealt with
in some other and less gentle way."

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"I am beginning to wish I hadn't spoken of the
matter/' said Edith, in an anxious tone.

"My dear," said the vicar, shaking up old Alice,
''in mentioning it, disagreeable and distressing as it
may be, you did no more than your duty. You must
now leave other people to do theirs, and at the same
time you must have the good sense to dismiss the mat-
ter entirely from your thoughts."

Again Edith shivered. But further discussion was
forbidden by their journey's end. They had now
reached the outskirts of Grayfield, and the gates of
the manor were before them.

THERE was a very stimulating meeting in the
parish room. The squire of Grayfield, the
vicar's Magdalen friend, Whymper, was by
divine right in the chair. He was a dry, melancholy,
exanimate sort of creature ; a man of few words and
very pronounced dislikes, not without force in a nar-
row way, but locally of more account as the husband
of Lady Jane than from any native quality. Still,
he made an excellent chairman. Brief, concise, self-
effacing, he loathed his job; anything in the nature
of speechifying bored him extremely, and he had a
rooted objection "to making an ass of himself in
public,'' but natural grit and a high sense of duty
pulled him through. In fact he did his job so well
that it would have been hard for any man to improve
on his performance.

There were only two speakers. One was the vicar
of Penfold, but he was not the person who had filled
the parish room to overflowing. A famous member
of Parliament, a reputed master of the forensic arts,
was spending a week-end at the manor house, and he

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THE COMING

had kindly consented to rouse the young men of the
district.

This paladin, who spoke before the vicar, was a tall
thin-faced man of forty-five, who hardly looked his
age. George Speke by name, he was the kind of man
no British government is ever without, and he dis-
coursed the commonest of common sense with an air
of ease and authenticity. He put the case for Britain
and her allies with a force and a cogency that none
could gainsay. And in that room at any rate, there
was not the slightest wish to gainsay it. Even the
group of young men at the back of the room, upon
whom the local constable and two specials kept a
vigilant eye, and to whom Mr. Speke's remarks were
addressed officially, showed no inclination to traverse
his clear statement of historical fact. It was a very
finished effort, and somehow it moved his audience.

Mr. Pcrry-Hennington came rather in the nature
of an anticlimax. He had no pretensions to be con-
sidered an orator, as he was careftd to warn his hear-
ers at the outset ; he had nothing to say that had not
already been said far better in print, yet he felt it to
be his duty to stand on a public platform and declaim
obvious truths which the newspapers of the realm had
weeks ago made banal and threadbare. But some-
how there was a driving force, a contained ferocity

io6

THE COMING

about Mr. Perry-Hennington's sincerity, trite and ill-
phrased as it was, which, with the aid of copious ''hear,
hear's" from Mr. Spcke and his old Magdalen friend,
Whymper, first staved off an epidemic of coughing
and then of feet-shuffling, and then of coughing again.
At last he got fairly into his stride, a strong, unmusi-
cal voice increasing in violence as he did so. And
as the more violent he grew the more his audience
aj^roved, they soon began to march together toward
a thrilling climax. Finally he swung into his fine
peroration : "We shall not lay down the sword, etc.,"
which belonged to another, and ended stronger than
he began amidst quite a storm of cheering.

It was a mediocre performance, well within the
range of any member of the educated classes, yet all
who heard it seemed greatly impressed. Even Mr.
Whymper and Mr. Speke seemed greatly impressed,
and what was of still more importance it went home to
a number of young men at the back of the room.
When the meeting was over these came forward to
the table at the side of the platform, at which a re-
cruiting officer sat, and gave in their names. No-
where else could such a scene have been enacted. To
the ordinary intelligence, it was almost unbelievable
that magnificent fellows in the pride of manhood could
be moved to the supreme sacrifice by the jejune lu-

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THE COMING

cidities of Mr. Speke, and the brand of spirituality
that the vicar of Penfold had to offer. Something
must have been in the air of that overheated room.
Behind the trite phrases, behind the rather otiose pom-
posities of the one, the deliberately quiet, over-var-
nished style of the other, must have been that spirit
which, by hardly more than the breadth of a single
hair, had temporarily saved civilization for mankind.

AFTER the meeting, eight people sat down to
dinner at the manor house. These were
Mr. Speke, Mr. Perry-Hennington and his
daughter, the host, the redoubtable hostess, and three
rather crushed and colorless Miss Whympers, who
were evidently in great awe of their mother.

Lady Jane Whymper was a large, htmiorless wo-
man, a local terror, whom most people found it very
hard to like. For one thing her connections were so
high, and her family so good, that she never had to
please or conciliate anyone, and there was nothing in
her nature to lead her to do so. She gave so little
thought to the feelings of others, that she always made
a point of saying just what came into her head, with-
out regard to time or place or company; moreover
it was always said in a voice of an exasperatingly
penetrative quality. In her little comer of the world
there was no one to stand against her, therefore she
could hector, trample and dogmatize to het heart's
content. And being a person with many social strings

109

THE COMING

to pull, in London also she was able to order the world
pretty much to her own liking.

Still even she, if as a general rule she was insuffera-
ble, kept a reserve of tact for special occasions. By
no means a fool, she could sometimes rise to gracious-
ness; and the knowledge that violence was thereby
done to the order of her nature seemed to invest her
hours of charm with greater significance. And this
evening at dinner, she happened to be in her most
winning mood. For one thing George Speke was a
fiavorite of hers; she had also a regard for the vicar
of Penfold; thus the augurs had doubly blessed the
meal. It was true that Lady Jane reserved her im-
bendings for the other sex, certainly never for her
own, unless she had some very portentous ax to grind ;
but on the present occasion the three Miss V/hympers
and their rather mournful and ineffectual sire fotmd
the evening much more agreeable than usual.

Speke was a favorite of Lady Jane's for severa!
reasons. To begin with, like herself he was highly
connected. It may seem an anachronism that in the
year 191 5 a woman of the world should attach the
slightest importance to such a fortuitous matter, but
even at that time a type of mind still survived in the
island to which degrees of birth were of vast conse-
quence. Lady Jane owned a mind of that sort. Dear

THE COMING

George was ''next in" for a dukedom, and Lady Jane
was a duke's daughter.

Ducal aspect apart, Speke was an able and likable
fellow. He had once been described by one who
knew the world as a member of a first-rate second-
rate family. The Spekes had always been "in it" ever
since they had been a family ; they ran to prime minis-
ters, field marshals, ambassadors, archbishops, all
down the scroll of history. George's particular blend
^of Speke was an immensely distinguished clan; yet
somehow when Clio, the muse, cast her searchlight up-
on their achievements they loomed far less in the eyes
of posterity than in those of their own generation.
Ten years before, Mr. Speke's own little world of
<* friends, relations and sconce bearers, had seen in him
a future prime minister. But 19 14 had modified their
views. All the same a place had been fotmd for him
in the Coalition. As Lady Jane said, "We cannot hope
to win the war without him."

Speke had no such estimate of his own abilities, or
at least, if he had, he knew how to conceal it. He
talked modestly and well at the dinner table; his con-
versation was full of inside knowledge, and it had a
grace of manner which Edith and the three Miss
Whympers admired. He had met the vicar of Pen-
fold before, and rather liked and respected him as

III

THE COMING

most people did; also he claimed him as a distant
kinsman, as the Perrys of Molesworth appeared in
the Speke family tree.

"By the way, Mr. Perry-Hennington," he said, "I
was trespassing in your parish this afternoon. I went
to see Gervase Brandon."

"Poor fellow/' said the vicar. "But don't you
think he is bearing up remarkably?"

"Quite wonderfully. But he's a pathetic figure.
Six months ago when I saw him last, he was at the
apex of mental and bodily power. And now he lies
helpless, never expecting to walk again."

"And yet not a word of complaint," said the vicar.
"This morning when I went to see him I was greatly
struck by his splendid courage and cheerfulness."

"Truly a hero— and so pathetic as he lies in that
room — a, wonderful room it is — ^among his books."

'Can nothing be done for him ?" said Lady Jane.

The doctors are beginning to despair," said the
vicar. "Everything that medical science can do has
been done already, and there's no sign of an improve-
ment.

The higher nerve centers, I suppose ?"

'So I understand. The mere concussion of this
modem artillery is appalling."

"It is amazing to me that the human frame ever

112

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THE COMING

succeeds in adapting itself to war under modem con-
ditions/' said Speke.

"And the awful thing is," the host interposed in his
melancholy tones, "that there appears to be no limit
to what can be done in the way of self-immolation.
The chemist and the inventor have only to go on long
enough applying their arts to war to evolve conditions
which will destroy the whole human race. We live
in a time of horrors, but let us ask ourselves what the
world will be twenty years hence?"

"Don't, I implore you, Edward," reproved his wife.
"Spare us the thought."

"No, it won't bear speaking about," said Speke.
"We are already past the point where science destroys
organic life faster than nature can replace."

"Not a doubt of it," said the vicar. "And if we
cannot find a means of bridging permanently the
chasm that has opened in the life of civilization, the
globe will cease to be habitable for the human race."

"Really! really!" said the hostess.

"Only too true," said the host. "There's hardly
a limit to what modern devilry can do. Take avia-
tion to begin with. We are merely on the threshold
of the subject."

"I agree," said George Speke. "The other day.
Bellman, the air minister, told me it is quite within

THE COMING

the bounds of possibility to drop a poison from the
clouds that will exterminate whole cities."

"Which merely goes to prove what I have always
contended/' said the hostess. "Sooner or later all
nations will be forced into an agreement for the abo^'-
tion of war."

"My dear Lady Jane," said the vicar, shaking a
mournful head, "such a contingency is against all ex-
perience. It is not to be thought of unless a ftmda-
mental change takes place in the heart of man."

"A change must take place," said Lady Jane, "if the
human race is to go on. Besides, doesn't the Bible
tell us that there will be a second coming of Christ,
and that all wars will cease?"

"It does," said the vicar ; "but that is the millennium,
you know. And I am bound to say there's no sign
of it at present. I am convincea that only one thing
now can save the human race and that is a second
advent. Only that can bridge the chasm which has
opened in the life of the nations."

"In the meantime," said George Speke, "the watch-
ers scan the heavens in vain. The miserable, childish
futility of our present phase of evolution 1 So many
little groups of brown grubs slaving night and day
to make human life a worse hell than nature has made
of it already. People talk of the exhilaration of war.

114

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tt^

THE COMING

Good God! they can't have seen it They can't have
seen colonies of organized hatreds, profaning all art
and all science, poisoning the very air God gave us to
breathe. It makes one loathe one's species. We are
little, hideous, two-legged ants, flying around in foul
contraptions of our own invention. And to what end?
Simply to destroy."

'In order to recreate," said the vicar robustly.

'I don't believe it. The pendulum of progress-
blessed word! — ^has swung too far. Unless we can
contrive a means of holding back the clock, the doom
of the world is upon us."

'^t all comes of denying God, of banishing him
from the planet," said the host.

''But is he banished from the planet ? Take a man
like Gervase Brandon. Life gave him everjrthing.
No man had a greater love of peace, yet when the
call came he threw to the wind all his most cherished
convictions, went to the war in the knightly spirit
of a crusader, and for the rest of his days on earth
is condemned to a state of existence from which death
is a merciful release."

'By sacrifice ye shall enter," said the vicar.

1 am not competent to speak upon that. But one's
private conception of God is not banished from this

tt^

oo uie ueacnes ot Liallipoli will be
in the history of the race to which he I
only to think of Gervase Brandon to i
is more potent in the world than he
that is the awful paradox/'

"I don't presume to question that,"
"But the problem now for the world is,
power be made supreme ? That is what
lization has now to ask itself. All c
SLgree that war itself must cease, yet be
so there will have to be a conversion o

man."

Tou are right," said Speke, in his d
"And to my mind, as the world is C(
problem admits of no solution."

"In other words," said the host, "thcr
be wars and nmiors of wars until Go

« ^ ••

THE COMING

"I wonder if we shall realize it when it occurs,"
said Speke, his hand straying to his champagne glass.
"In all its fundamentals the world is as it was two
thousand years ago in Palestine. If Christ walked
the earth again, it is certain that he would be treated
now as he was then/'

"That, one cannot believe," interposed Lady Jane
with ready vehemence. "Even you admit, George,
the amount of practical Christianity there is in the
world. I, for one, will not believe all this sacrifice
has been in vain."

"I agree with you, Lady Jane," said the vicar.
"When He comes to resume His ministry, as come
He will, at all events He will find that His Church
has been true. But at present, I confess, one looks
in vain for a sign of His advent."

Speke shook his head. "With all submission," he

said, "if Christ appeared today he would be treated

as a harmless crank, or he would be put in an asylum.

Think of his reception by the yellow press — ^the ruler

of nations, the maker of governments, the welder of

empires. He would find it the same pleasant world

he left two thousand years ago. Man, in sum, the

vocal working majority, whether in London, Paris,

Berlin, New York, or Petrograd, could not possibly

117

THE COMING

meet the Master face to face or even hope to recc^-
nize him when he passed by."

"That is true, no doubt/' said the vicar, "of the
mass of the people. Men of truly spiritual mold are
in a hopeless minority. But they are still among us.
Depend upon it, when the hour comes they will recog-
nize the Master's voice, depend upon it, they will
know His face."

'I wonder?" said George Speke.

1 am absolutely convinced of that, George." And
Lady Jane, one with the law and the prophets, gave
the signal to the ladies and rose superbly from the
dinner table.

«'

<<i

WHEN the ladies had left the room the vicar
took the chair on the right of his host, and
then he said across thetabletoGeorgeSpeke :
'Talking of poor Brandon, what opinion did you form
of him mentall} when you saw him this afternoon?"
"Mentally! ... I thought him rather wonder fuL''
The eyes of the vicar searched those of the man
opposite. If this was a conventional statement it was
the clear desire of those eyes to expose it.

'^The poise of his mind seemed to me perfect. And
somehow one hadn't quite expected it.''

"You felt he was in full possession of his whole
mental faculty?"
"Didn't you?"

The vicar's failure to answer the question might be
taken for a negative.

"Moreover, he greatly impressed me," Speke added.
There were two George Spekes. One had the de-
partmental mind ; the other was something more con-
siderable than a rather arid public record indicated.
I always knew that he had a very first-^rate intellect,

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THE COMING

but this afternoon it was even more striking than
usual."

"But," said the vicar cautiously, "don't you think
it may be misleading him?"

"How? In what way?"

"I will give you a concrete instance of what I mean."

The vicar spoke very gravely. "And by the way,

Wh)rmper, it is a matter I want to talk to you about

particularly. At Penfold, we are cursed with a sort

of village ne'er-do-well, who has taken to writing

poetry, blaspheming the Creator, and upholding the
cause of the enemy. I am sorry to say that for some

years now Brandon has been this man's friend, lent
him books from his private collection, helped to sup-
port him, and so on. Well, this morning, when I
went to Hart's Ghyll, Brandon told me that he had
lately read a poem of this fellow John Smith's, and
that it had made a very deep impression upon him."

"That's interesting," said Speke. "He told me the
same. He said that a young man who lived in the
village had lately produced the most wonderful poem
he had ever read."

"On the face of it, didn't that strike you as non-
sense ?"

"No, not in the way that Brandon said it. He spoke

I20

THE COMING

as one having authority ; and in the matter of poetry,
he is thought, I believe, to have a good deal."

"It may be so. But one mustn't forget that in this
case he is claiming semidivine honors for a half-edu-
cated, wholly mad village wastrel/'

"Mad!"

"So mad that we are having to arrange for him to
be taken care of."

"But surely such a man as Brandon could hardly
be deceived by one of that caliber ! He gave chapter
and verse. He said that John Smith was a great clair-
voyant, who had more windows open in his soul than
other people."

"Didn't it strike you as a fantastic statement?"

"Why should it? I haven't seen the poem, and he
.«as; I don't know John Smith and he does. Why
should it strike one as a fantastic statement?

"No, of course, you couldn't be expected to know
that John Smith is as mad as a hatter. But Brandon
should know that as well as I do."

"He says the man's inspirtd—Gottbctrunken was
the word he used."

"The man is a blasphemer and an atheist, and a
pro-German to boot. And, as I say, steps are being
taken to put him in a place of safety. We shall need
your help, Whymper; there'll be a magistrates' order

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THE COMING

for you to sign presently. But the distressing thing
is that such a mind as Gervase Brandon's should be
susceptible to the man's claptrap. The only explana-
tion that occurs to one is that the poor dear fellow's
brain is going."

"Well, I can only say that there seemed no trace of
it this afternoon. I'll admit that I thought him a
little exalted, a little more the seer and the visionary
than one quite liked to see him. But after all he must
have walked pretty close with God. If a man gives
up all the fair and easy things of life to storm the
beaches of Gallipoli, it is not unlikely that a comer
of the prophet's mantle may be found for him — even
if one agrees that it is a rather uncomfortable vest-
ment."

"There may be something in what you say." The
vicar shook a sad, unconvinced head. "But we have
to deal with the thing as it exists. We have to look
the facts in the face."

"But what are the facts — ^that the poet bears the
prosaic name of John Smith, that he belongs to the
charming village of Penfold, and that he is an atheist."

"A blasphemer and a pro-German, and that circum-
stances have made it necessary to inquire into his men-
tal condition. His recent conduct in the village has

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THE COMING

made him amenable to the Blasphemy Laws and the
Defense of the Realm Regulations."

*'Does Brandon know this?"

*'Un fortunately he does. And that is why one is
compelled to take such a gloomy view of the poor dear
fellow at the present time."

"Very odd," said George Spdce.

'*yery tragic," said the vicar.

XIII

IT was nearly midnight when old Alice turned in
at the vicarage gate. Having handed her to the
care of his man-of-all-work, the ancient HoBson,
who was sitting up for her, the vicar said good-night to
Edith and then went to his study. He had had a par-
ticularly trying day, and a man of less strength of will
would have been content for this to be its end. But
he could not bring himself to go to bed while that
page of an accusing emptiness lay upon his blotting
pad. It was within five minutes of Sunday and his
sermon was hardly begun.

The clock on the chimneypiece struck the hour. The
vicar turned up his reading lamp and sat down at his
desk. He was really very tired and heart-sore, but
for many a long year he had not failed in his pastoral
duty, and he was not going to fail now. There was
one line already traced in a bold, firm hand on the
sheet before him. "Let us cast off the works of dark-
ness, let us put on the armor of light."

The words came upon him with a shock of surprise.
He could not remember having written them. And

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at this moment, weary in body and spirit, he was not
able to meet their implication. Overborne by the
weight of an unintelligible world, he was unequal to
their message. He drew his pen through them and
wrote; "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I will
repay.'* It was lower, easier ground for a man tired
and dispirited, and, after all, it was the ideal text for
wartime. He had preached from it many times al-
ready, but in that hour it seemed the only one for his
mood.

Yes, such a vengeance had come upon the world as
had been long predicted. Once more those prophetic
words glowed on the page with a living fire : 'There
shall be wars and rumors of war." Terrible, ancient
phrases, vibrating with emotion, came with a sublimi-
nal uprush into his mind. How miraculously had the
Word been fulfilled. But one thing was needed to
complete the tale, and that the far-off divine event to
which the whole creation moves.

But, the vicar asked, as phrases and thoughts of
his own began to take shape, was this Second Coming
to be regarded as a literal fact of the physical world,
was it only to be regarded by the eye of faith, or was
it merely the figment of a poet's fancy ? It behooved
thiTworld of men to search its heart. Let all face the

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question that the time-spirit was asking; let all face
it fully, frankly, fearlessly.

The Christ was overdue. In the opinion of many,
if civilization, if humanity was to continue, there must
be a divine intervention. These organized and deepen-
ing hatreds were destroying the soul of the world.
Even average sensual men had come to realize this
vital need. But — the vicar began to gnaw the stump
of his pen furiously — an age that had ceased to believe
in miracles was now crying out for a miracle to hap-
pen.

"O ye of little faith," wrote the vicar as the first
subheading of his great theme. Only a miracle could
now save a world that had so long derided them. The
vicar wrote the word Nemesis, and then in brackets,
'Terrible word — retributive justice."

Yes, the only hope remaining for a blood-soaked
world was to accept the miracle of the Incarnation.
And to accept that miracle was to affirm the second
advent.

How will He come? The vicar left a space on the
slowly filling page, and then wrote his question in the
form of a second subheading. How will He appear
to us, this Christ of pity, and purity, and peace?
Would the heavens open, as the Book of Revelation
had foretold; would the King of the World emerge

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THE COMING

from the clouds to the blowing of trumpets, crowned
in a chariot? Or would He come as a spirit on the
face of the waters? Who should say? But come
He must, because of the promise He had made.

"The duty of faith in this present hour," wrote the
vicar, as a third subheading. It was a man's duty to
reject the carping^ of science and the machinations
of modem denial. He must believe where he could
not prove. The vicar wrote in brackets, "It is very
difficult to do that in an age of skepticism."

"The watchers." The vicar drew a line under his
fourth subheading. All men must stand as upon a

tower, their eyes fixed on the far horizon, in the hope
that they might see in the eastern sky the herald of a
new heaven and a new earth. And by that portent,
which was the light of sublime truth, must they learn
to know the Master when He came among them. But
only the faithful could hope to do that.

"The danger of His coming to a world in which none
should know Him," was the final clause of the vicar's
sermon. That would be the supreme tragedy.

The sudden striking of the clock on the chimney-
piece startled the vicar. "Four o'clock T he said. And
he went to bed.

XIV

MR. PERRY-HENNINGTON was troubled
by many things, but he was tired out by his
long day and fell asleep at once. He was
still sleeping when Prince, the parlor maid, brought
him a cup of tea at a quarter to seven. Another try-
ing day was upon him. He had to take three services,
and to give the children's address in a neighboring
parish in the afternoon. A hard but uninspired work-
er, he never flinched from his duty, but did the task
next him. It pleased him to diink that he got things
done, and, like all men of his type, never allowed
himself to doubt for a moment that they were worth
the doing.

At the morning service Mr. Perry-Hennington
preached a sermon that had done duty on many occa-
sions. It was his custom to keep the new discourse
for the evening, when the congregation was larger as
a rule. ''He came to His own and His own knew
him not," was the text of the morning homily. It had
always been one of his favorites, and every time he
rendered it he fotmd some new embroidery to weave

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THE COMING

upon that poignant theme. And this morning, in the
emotional stress of a recent event which lurked a
shadow at the back of his thoughts, his mind played
upon it with a vigor that surprised even himself. He
was at his best. Such a feeling of power came upon
him as he had seldom known.

While the last hymn was being sung the vicar's eyes
strayed to the back of the church. He was surprised
and a little disconcerted to see John Smith standii^
there. The young man was singing heartily, and as
the bright rays from the window fell upon his face it
became a center of light Yet that unexpected pres-
ence cast a shadow across the vicar's mind. It was
as if a cloud had suddenly darkened the sun.

At the end of the service Mr. Perry-Hennington
was the last to leave the church. By the time he had
taken off his vestments the small congregation had
dispersed. But one member of it still lingered near
the lich gate, at the end of the churchyard, and as the
vicar came down the path this person stopped him. A
rather odd-looking man wearing a white hat, he gave
the vicar an impression of being overdressed, but his
strong face had an individuality that would have com-
manded notice anywhere.

This man, who had been scanning the tombstones
in the churchyard, had evidently stayed behind to

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THE COMING

speak to the vicar. Yet he was a total stranger to
the neighborhood, whose presence among his flock Mr.
Perry-Hennington had noted that morning for the
first time. At the vicar's slow approach the man in
the white hat came forward with a hearty outstretched
hand.

"Delighted to meet you, sir," he said.

To the conventional mind of the vicar this was a
very tmconventional greeting on the part of one he had
not seen before; and he took the proffered hand with
an air of reserve.

"Allow me to congratulate you on your discourse,"
said the stranger in an idiom which struck the vicar
as rather unusual. "It was first-rate. And I'm a
judge. I think I am anyway." The man in the white
hat spoke in such a cool, simple, forthcoming manner,
that the vicar was nonplused. And yet there was such
a charm about him that even a spirit in pontificalibus
could hardly resent it.

"Ah, I see," said the stranger, noting the vicar's
stiffening of attitude with an amused eye, "you are
waiting for an introduction. Well, I'm a neighbor,
the new tenant of Longwood."

"Oh, really," said the vicar. The air of constraint

lightened a little, but it was too heavy to vanish at

(Mice. "I am glad to meet you."

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THE COMING

"Let mc give you a card." The new neighbor sud-
denly dived into a hidden recess of a light gray frock
coat, and whipped out a small case.

Mr. Perry-Hennington with a leisureliness half re-
luctant, and in almost comic contrast to the stranger's
freedom of gesture, accepted the card, disentangled his
eyeglasses from his pectoral cross, and read it care-
fully. It bore the inscription: Mr. Gazelee Payne
Murdwell, 94 Fifth Avenue, New York.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Murdwell," said the vicar,
with a note of reassurance coming into his tone. "Al-
low me to welcome you among us." The voice, in its
grave sonority, rose almost to a point. It didn't quite '
achieve it, but the fact that the man was an American
and also the new tenant of Longwood accounted for
much. For the vicar was already quite sure that he
didn't belong to the island. The native article could
not have had that particular manner, nor could it have
dressed in that particular way, nor could it have shown
that extraordinary, half quizzical self-security. A
new man from the city might have achieved the white
hat (with modifications), the gray frock coat, the
white waistcoat, the white spats, the wonderful
checked cravat, but he could not have delivered a
frontal attack on an obviously reverend and honorable
gentleman, for long generations indigenous to the soil

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THE COMING

of the county, on the threshold of his own petrish
church.

"Now look here, vicar/' said Gazelee Payne Murd-
well, with an easy note of intimacy, "you and I have
got to know one another. And it has got to be soon.
This is all new to me." Mr. Murdwell waved a jew-
eled and romantic hand, a fine gesture, which included
a part of Kent, a part of Sussex, a suggestion of
Surrey, and even a suspicion of Hampshire. "And
Pm new to you. As I figure you out at the moment,
even allowing a liberal discount for the state of
Europe, you are rather like a comic opera" — the vicar
drew in his lips primly — "and as you figure me out,
if looks mean anything, I'm fit for a Mappin Terrace
at the Zoo. But that's a wrong attitude. We've got
to come together. And the sooner the better, because
you are going to find me a pretty good neighbor."

"I have not the least doubt of that, Mr.— er—
Murdwell," said the vicar, glancing deliberately and
augustly at the card in his hand.

"Well, as a guaranty of good intentions on both
sides, suppose you and your daughter dine at Long-
wood on Wednesday ? I am a bachelor at the moment,
but Juley — my wife — and Bud — my daughter — will
be down by then."

"Wednesday!" The vicar's left eyebrow was mo-

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THE COMING

bilized in the fonn of a slight frown. But the invita-
tion had come so entirely unawares that unless he
pleaded an engagement which didn't exist, and his con-
science therefore would not have sanctioned, there
really seemed no way of escape.

"You will? Wednesday. A quarter to eight
That's bully." And in order to clinch the matter, Mr.
Murdwell slipped an arm through the vicar's, and slow-
ly accompanied him as far as the vicarage gate.

{

MANY things, however, had to happen in the
parish before Mr. Perry-Hennington could
dine at Longwood on Wednesday. And the
first of them in the order of their occurrence was an
inquiry of Edith's at the Sunday limcheon in regard
to their new neighbor.

^'A most curious man has just waylaid me," the
vicar said. ''An American, who says he has taken
Longwood."

"Oh, yes," said Edith, in her precise voice. "The
^{/{/-looking man in church this morning, I suppose?*'

"He gave me his card." The vicar produced the
card, and requested Prince, the parlor maid, to hand
it to Miss Edith. "He insists on our dining at Long-
wood on Wednesday. It seems only neighborly to do
so.

"Immensely rich, I believe," said Edith, scanning
the card at her leisure, with the aid of a pair of tor-
toise shell spectacles, which she wore with consider-
able effect.

"Who is he ? What is he ?" There might, or there

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might not have been a slight accession of interest to
the vicar's tone.

'Tady Tyrwhitt was talking about him the other
day. He is a great American inventor, the discoverer
of Murdwell's Law."

"Ah-h," said the vicar, intelligently. But Murd-
weirs Law was a sealed book to him.

"Immensely important scientific fact, I believe,'*
Edith explained. "Lady Tyrwhitt seems to know all
about it. I couldn't grasp it myself. I only know that
Lady Tyrwhitt says it is going to revolutionize every-
thing."

"Ah-hr said the vicar.

"It has something to do with radioactivity I believe,
and the liberation of certain electrons in the ether.
That may not be exactly correct. I only know that
it is something extremely scientific Lady Tyrwhitt
says Mr. Murdwell is tremendously pro-Ally, and that
he is over to help us win the war."

"Oh-h !" said the vicar. "He seems an uncommonly
interesting man."

"A very wonderful person. Lady Tyrwhitt says he
is one of the most remarkable men living. And she
says he is never out of sight of private detectives,
because of the number of attempts that have been
made on his life."

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THE COMING

''I shall look forward to meeting him again on Wed-
nesday."

Before Wednesday came, however, the vicar had
much else to think about. Ever in the forefront of
his mind was the vexatious matter of John Smith. It
had been arranged that on the next day, Monday, Dr.
Parker should come out from Brombridge, lunch at
the vicarage, and then, if possible, interview the young
man.

On Monday morning the vicar made a preliminary
survey of the ground. He went down to the village,
and had a little talk with Field, the carpenter. From
him he learned that John Smith had downed tools for
a fortnight past, that he had been roaming the country-
side at all hours of the day and night, and that '%e
wor shapin' for another of his attacks." Field was a
sensible man, whom the vicar respected in spite of the
fact that he was not among the most regular of the
flock ; therefore at some length he discussed with him
a very vexed question. In reply to a direct canvass
of his judgment, Field admitted that "John might be
a bit soft-like." At the same time he confessed the
highest affection and admiration for him, and some-
what to the vicar's annoyance volunteered the opinion
that "he went about doing good."

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THE COMING

*'How can you think that, Field?" said Mr. Perry-
Hennington, sternly.

"Well, sir, they say he keeps the chaps out of the
publics."

'^Whosaysso?"

"At Brombridge, sir. They are getting to think a
lot of him there."
Are they indeed ?"

He preaches there you know, sir, on Sunday after-
noons at the market cross."

The vicar was shocked and scandalized. ' "I hope,"
he said, "that he doesn't give vent to the sort of opin-
ions he does here."

"Yes, sir," said Field, with respectful perplexity.
"I know you parsons think him a bit of a freethinker,
but I'm sure he means well. And begging your par-
don, sir, he knows a lot about the Bible too."

"I take leave to doubt that. Field," said the vicar,
who had suddenly grown so deeply annoyed that he
felt unable to continue the conversation. He left the
shop abruptly. A little more light had been thrown

on the subject, but somehow it increased his sense of
worry and discomfort. He had not thought well to
enlighten Field as to the gravamen of the charge, yet
it was hard to repress a feeling of irritation that so

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THE COMING

sensible a man should hold such a heterodox view of
his employee.

True to his appointment, Dr. Parker arrived at one
o'clock. Before he came Mr. Perry-Hennington told
Edith in a casual way the reason of his coming to
Penfold. To her father's consternation, something in
the nature of a scene had followed.

"Then you intend to have him removed to an
asylum !" she exclaimed in a tone of horror.

"Undoubtedly. The public interest demands noth-
ing less."

The girl was greatly upset. And nothing her father
could say had any effect upon her distress. She felt
herself responsible for this tragic pass;. Her unhappy
intervention in the first place had brought the thing
about, and now she rued it bitterly. She implored her
father to let the matter drop. But her prayer was
vain. At all times a singularly obstinate man, upon
a question of conscience and duty he was not likely
to be moved by mere words.

Out of respect for his daughter's feelings, and also
out of regard for the ears of Prince, the parlor maid,
Mr. Perry-Hennington did not refer to the matter in
the course of the meal. But as soon as it was over he
discussed it at length with his visitor. And he pre-
sented his view of the matter with such a cogent

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THE COMING

energy that, for such a mind as Dr. Parker's, whose
main concern was ^'things as they are," the case of
John Smith was greatly prejudiced. He did not say
as much to the vicar, indeed he did his best to keep
an open and impartial mind on the subject, but he
would have been more or less than himself had he not
felt that only the strongest possible justification could
have moved such a man as Mr. Perry-Hennington to
his present course of action.

In the privacy of the study the vicar explained the
situation to Dr. Parker at considerable length, giving
chapter and verse for the theory he had formed. And
then the two gentlemen set out to find John Smith.

Fate went with them. A slow, solemn climb from
the vicarage to the village green brought a prompt
reward. Straight before them a frail, bareheaded,
poorly-clad figure was outlined against a rather wild
June sky.

"Our man," the vicar whispered.

Dispositions of approach were made automatically.
The two gentlemen stepped on to the common sedate-
ly enough. As they did so, the vicar ostentatiously
pointed out the grandeur of the scene, and its wide,
sweeping outlook on two counties, while the doctor
lingered in examination of the heath and the plucking
of a flower.

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THE COMING

As usual the young man was leaning against the
priest's stone. Near by was a delicate flower which
Dr. Parker stooped to gather.

"Tell me, what's the name of this little thing?" he
said to the vicar, in a loud bluff voice.

"You're overtaxing my knowledge," said the vicar,
with a similar bluff heartiness. "I don't think I've
ever noticed it before. But here is a man who can help
us, no doubt."

With a courteous, disarming smile, the vicar sud-
denly brought his eyes to bear on John Smith. And
then he added in a voice full of kindness and encour-
agement : "I am sure you can tell us the name of this
flower."

"Yes, I should very much like to know." As the
doctor gave John Smith the flower, he seized the mo-
ment for the closest possible scrutiny of the man
before him. Not a detail was lost of the extraor-
dinarily sensitive face, with its gaunt but beautiful
lines, the luminous eyes, whose pupils were distended
to an abnormal width, the look of fastidious cleanli-
ness, which the poor clothes and the rough boots
seemed to accentuate.

"It is a kind of wild orchis," said the young man
in a gentle tone, which to the doctor's ear had a rather
curious sound. "It is not common hereabouts, but

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THE COMING

you will find a few in Mr. Whymper's copse over at
Grayfidd/'

''You seem well up in the subject of flowers/' said
Dr. Parker.

''I study them/' said the young man with a quick
intensity which caused the doctor to purse his lips.
"I love them so." He pressed the slender, tiny petals
to his lips. "What a wonderful, wonderful thing is
that little flower ! I weep when I look at it."

Involuntarily the doctor and the vicar looked at
the young man's face. His eyes had filled with tears.

"Why do you let a harmless little flower affect you
in that way?" said Dr. Parker.

"I suppose it's the joy I feel in its beauty. I love
it, I love it!" And he gave back the little flower tor
the doctor with a kind of rapture.

'Do you feel like that about everything?"
'Oh, yes. I worship the Father in all created
things." The too-sensitive face changed suddenly. A
light broke over it "I am intoxicated with the won-
ders around me, I am enchanted with the glories of
the things I see."

"It certainly is a very wonderful world that we live
in," said the vicar, who sometimes fell unconsciously
into his pulpit voice.

"Think of the continents of divine energy in the

141

«i

€ii

THE COMING

very air we breathe." There was a hush of awe in
the voice of John Smith. "Think of the miracles
happening under that tiny leaf."

"They are not visible to me." Dr. Parker impres-
sively removed his gold-rimmed eyeglasses and rubbed
them slowly on a red silk handkerchief.

The yotmg man drew aside a frond of bracken, and
disclosed a colony of black ants.

"Does the sight of that move you also?" said Dr.
Paricer.

"They are part of the mystery. I see the Father
there."

"I presume you mean God?" said the vicar.

"Male and female created He them," said the yoimg
man in a hushed tone. "I hardly dare look at the
wonders around me, now the scales have fallen from
my eyes and the heavei^ have opened."

The heavens have opened !" said Dr. Parker.
'Oh, yes. I can read them now. I gaze upon the
portals. I see the chariots. There are the strong souls
of the saints riding in glory across the sky. Look!
look 1"

The doctor and the vicar followed the lines of the
young man's hand, which pointed straight into a bril-
liant, but storm-shot sun. They had instantly to

lower their eyes.

142

it*

«1

i*^

THE COMING

"'It wotild blind one to look at that/' said Dr.
Parker.

"Nothing can blind you if you have learned to see,"
said the young man. It astonished them to observe
that his gaze was fixed upon the flaming disc of light.
Suddenly he placed a finger on his lips, entreating
them to listen.

The doctor and the vicar listened intently.

"Do you hear the music?"
1 am afraid I hear nothing/' said Dr. Parker.
'Nor I/' said the vicar.
'There are harps in the air."
1 don't hear a sound/' said Dr. Parker.

"Nor I/' said the vicar, straining his ears ; "or if I
do it :s the water of the mill by Burkett's farm."

"The longer I listen, the more wonderful the music
grows."

The vicar and the doctor shook their heads gravely.

"There are also times, I believe, when you hear
voices?" said the vicar.

"Yes, a voice speaks to me continually."

"Would you say it belonged to any particular per-
son," said the doctor, "or that it came from any par-
ticular source?"

'It is the voice of the Father."

The voice of God, I presume?"

143

«i

THE COMING

''Yes— the voice of God."

"Does It lay a charge upon you ?'* the vicar a^bed.

"It tells me to save the world.*'

The complete simplicity of the statement took the
vicar and the doctor aback. They looked solemnly at
each other, and then at him who had made it.

"And you intend to obey it?" The doctor man^
aged to put the question in a tone of plain matter-of-
course.

The young man's face took a strange pallor. "I
musty I must/' he said. And as he spoke his question-
ers noticed that he had begun to shake violently.

"Are we to understand/' said the vicar, speaking
very slowly, "that you expect supernatural powers to
be given you?"

"I don't know. I cannot say." A light brdkc over
the gentle face. "But a way will be found."

"How do you know that ?" said the vicar.

"It has been communicated to me."

"Is that to say/* the vicar sternly demanded, "that
you are about to claim plenary powers ?"

Before the young man answered the question he

covered his eyes with his hands. Again he stood in

an attitude of curious listening intensity. The doctor

thought he could hear a wind, very faint and gentle,

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THE COMING

stirring in the upper air, btit to the vicar it was the
sound of water flowing by Burkett's farm.

The vicar repeated his question.

''I am to claim nothing," said the young man at
last

''You do not claim to be a Buddha or a Messiah, or
anything of that kind?" said the vicar, compressing
stem lips.

Again there was silence. Again the young man
closed his eyes.

''I am to claim nothing," he said

XVI

INVOLUNTARILY, as it seemed, and without an
attempt to carry the matter further, the vicar and
the doctor turned abruptly on their heels and left

the common.

**A case of possession," said the doctor, by the time

they had reached the top of the village street. "And

quite the most curious in my experience."

"At any rate," said the vicar, "now you have seen

the man for yourself, you will have not the slightest

difficulty in certifying him!"

"You really feel it to be wise and necessary ?"

"I do." The vicar spoke with his habitual air of

decision. "I feel very strongly that it will be in the

public interest. In fact, I go further. I feel very

strcHigly that it will be in the national interest to have

this man certified as a lunatic."

"He seems a singularly harmless creature."
"There is always the fear that he may get worse.

But apart from that, he is having a bad effect on weak,

uneducated minds. He already pretends to powers he

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. THE COMING

doesn't possess, and has taken lately to faith-healing,
and mischievous nonsense of that kind."

The rubicund visage of Dr. Parker assumed a grave,
professional look. "There can be no doubt,*' he said,
"that he is on the verge of, if he is not already suffer-
ing from, mania."

"In a word," said the vicar, "you fully agree that
it will be wise to have him taken care of?"

"From what you have told me," said Dr. Parker,
with professional caution, "I am inclined to think
that, in a time like the present, it may be the right
course to adopt."

"Very well," said the vicar gravely. "Let us now
go and see Joliffe, and get him to indorse your opinion
as the law requires. And then tcwnorrow morning I
will run over to Grayfield and get Whymper to move
in the matter without delay."

XVII

THE vicar and Dr. Parker slowly descended the
long, straggling village street, until they came
to Dr. Joliffe's gate. They found their man at
home. In shirt sleeves and pipe in mouth he was
mowing the back lawn with a very creditable display
of energy for a householder of fifty-five, on an ex-
tremely oppressive afternoon.

The perspiring Dr. Joliffe donned a light alpaca
coat, and then led his visitors to the summerhouse at
the bottom of the garden, where they could talk with-
out fear of being overheard.

The vicar began at once in a concise, businesslike
way.

"Dr. Parker has seen John Smith. And he is quite
ready to certify him."

"Hopelessly mad, poor fellow, I'm afraid," said
Dr. Parker.

A quick frown passed across the face of Dr. Joliffe.

"Dangerously?" The tone was curt.

Dr. Parker slowly weighed out a careful reply.

"Not exactly, in an active sense. But there is no

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THE COMING

saying when he will become so. At any time acute
mania may intervene."

*'It may, of course." But it was a reluctant admis-
sion. Moreover, there was an implication behind it
which Dr. Parker was not slow to understand. No
love was lost between these two, nor was their esti-
mate of each other's professional abilities altogether
flattering.

"Highly probable," said Dr. Parker, in a warming
tone.

"Contrary to my experience of the man. I've
known him some years now, and though I'm bound to
own that he has always seemed a bit cracked, it has
aever occurred to me that it was a case to certify,
and with all deference I am not quite convinced even
now,"

"But surely, Joliffe," the vicar interposed, with
some little acerbity, "the need for the course we pro-
pose to take was made clear to you on Saturday ?"

The look of doubt deepened in Dr. JolifFe's red face.
"I'm very sorry" — ^there was obvious hesitation in
the tone — "but you are really asking a general prac-
titioner to take a great deal on himself."

"But why?" There was a perceptible stiffening of
the vicar's voice. "I thought I had fully explained
to you on Saturday what the alternative is. You see

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THE COMING

if we can't get the man into an asylum quietly and
humanely, he must be made amenable to the Defense
of the Realm Regulations. If you would prefer that
course to be taken I will go over to the Depot and
see General Qarke. We are bound in honor to move
in the matter. But Dr. Parker agrees with me that
an asylum will be kinder to the man himself, less
disturbing to the public mind, and therefore in the
national interest."

"I do, indeed," said Dr. Parker.

But the frown was deepening upon Dr. Joliflfe's
face.

"I see the force of your argument," he said. "But
knowing the man as I do, and feeling him to be a
harmless chap, although just a little cracked, no doubt,
I'm not sure that you don't take an exaggerated view
of what he said the other day."

"Exaggerated viewl" The vicar caught up the
phrase. "My friend," he said imperiously, "don't you
realize the danger of having such things said in this
parish at a time like the present ?"

"Yes, I do." There was a stiffening of attitude at
the vicar's tone. "But even in a time like the present,
I shouldn't like to overstate its importance."

The vicar looked at Dr. Joliffe almost with an air

ISO

THE COMING

of pity. "Don't you realize the effect it might have
on some of our young villagers?"

"Well, that is the point, and Fm not sure that you
don't overstate it, vicar."

"That's an Irishman all over," said Mr. Perry-
Hennington to Dr. Parker in an impatient aside. "One
can never get him to agree to anything."

"Even if I was bom in Limerick," said Dr. Joliffe,
with an arch smile, "it gives me no particular pleasure
to be unreasonable. I'll own that when the best has
been said for the man he's not so wise as he might be."

"And don't forget that he claims to be a Messiah."

"So I understand. But there's historical precedent
even for that, if we are to believe the Bible."

The vicar drew his lips into a straight line, and Dr.
Parker followed his example.

They did not venture to look at each other, but it
was clear they held the opinion in common that Dr.
Joliffe had been guilty of a grave breach of taste.

"The trouble with you Saxons," said Dr. Joliffe,
who had been getting his back gradually to the wall,
"is that you have too little imagination; the trouble
with us Celts that we have too much."

"Joliffe," said the vicar, in a tone of pain and sur-
prise, "please understand that such a thing as imagina-
tion does not enter into this matter. We are face to

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face with a very unpleasant fact There is a mad
person in this parish, who goes about uttering stupid
blasphemies, who openly sides with the enemy, and we
have to deal with him in a humane, but practical and
efficient way. Dr. Parker and I are agreed that the
public safety calls for certain measures; we are also
agreed that the national interest will be best served by
their adoption. Are you ready to faU in with our
views? — ^that is the question it is my duty to ask you."

Dr. JolifFe stroked a square jaw. He resented the
vicar's tone and at that moment he disliked Dr. Parker
more intensely than he had ever disliked any human
being. In Dr. Joliflfe's opinion both stood for a type
of pharisee behind which certain reactionary forces^
subtle but deadly, invariably intrenched themselves.
But Dr. Joliffe, although cursed with an average share
of human weakness, was at heart a fair-minded man.
And his one desire, now that he was up against a
delicate problem, was to hold the balance true between
both parties. From the Anglo-Saxon standpoint the
vicar and that old fool, Parker, were right no doubt;
but from the Celtic outlook there was also somethiQg
to be said of John Smith.

"Now, JolifFe,*' said the vicar, "please understand
this. Our man has to be put away quietly, without
any fuss. He will be very comfortable in the county

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asylum. I speak from experience. I go there once a
month. Everything possible is done to insure the well-
being of the inmates. It may be possible to let him
take his books with him. He is a great reader, I hear
— even writes verses of sorts. Anyhow I will speak to
Dr. Macey about him at the first opportunity, and
do all I can for his comfort and happiness."

But Dr. Joliffe compressed obstinate lips, and stared
with a fixed blue eye at the storm clouds coming up
from that dangerous quarter, the southwest.

"By the way, as I think I told you," continued the
▼icar, "I spoke to Whymper on Saturday evening.
He sees as I do. And he said the bench would support
my action, provided the man was duly certified by two
doctors to meet the requirements of the Lord Chancelr
lor. Now come, Joliffe, be reasonable."

But Dr. Joliffe shook a somber head.

"I don't like to do it on my own responsibility,"
he said.

"But you have our friend Parker to share it."

"The fact is," said Dr. Joliffe slowly, "I walked as
far as Hart's Ghyll this morning to have a little talk
with Brandon on the subject."

"Gervase Brandon!" To the mind of the vicar
much was explained. "Wasn't it rather a pity to trou-

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THE COMING

ble the poor fellow with a thing of this kind in his
present condition?"

"I understand that you didn't hesitate to trouble
him with it on Saturday/'

"I did not. I felt it to be my duty."

The retort was so obvious, that Dr. JoHffe did not
trouble to make it. \Vhen the vicar chose to look at
things from the angle of his official status it was
hardly worth while to argue with him.

*'May I ask what you said to Gervase Brandon?"

"I told him what you proposed to do."

The vicar shook a dubious head. "Was that wise,
do you think — in the circumstances ?'*

Dr. Joliffe ignored the question.

"I informed him also," he added, "that I didn't feel
equal to taking such a great responsibility upon my-
self."

"You went so far as to tell him that ?"

"I did. This affair has cost me a great deal of
anxiety since I saw you on Saturday. I feel very
strongly that we ought to have further advice."

"We have it." The vicar inclined a diplomatist's
head in Dr. Parker's direction.

"I told the squire," said Dr. Joliffe, with a menac-
ing eye upon Dr. Parker, "that I didn't feel able to

IS4

THE COMING

move in the matter without the advice of a mental
specialist."

"The man is as mad as a hatter," said Dr. Parker,
with the air of a mental specialist.

"But is he certifiable— that's the point?"

"He's a source of danger to the commimity," the
vicar cut in. But Dr. Joliffe had asked Dr. Parker
the question, and his eye demanded that Dr. Parker
should answer it

"I think we may take Mr. Perry-Hennington's word
for that," said Dr. Parker.

"Well, with all deference," said Dr. Joliffe, "the
squire feels very strongly that the man ought not to be
interfered with."

The vicar was plainly annoyed. He caught up Dr.
Joliffe sharply. "I am sorry to say that Brandon
with all his merits is little better than an atheist."

The tone and the manner were a little too much for
Irish blood. "And so am I if it comes to that," said
Dr. Joliffe ; and then like a true Hibernian he added :
"And I thank God for it."

The vicar and Dr. Parker were greatly pained by
this indiscretion, but both were careful to refrain by
word or gesture from making the slightest comment
upon it

"Well, Joliffe," said the vicar, when at last he was

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ble the poor fellow with a thing of this kind in his
present condition?"

"I understand that you didn't hesitate to trouble
him with it on Saturday."

"I did not. I felt it to be my duty."

The retort was so obvious, that Dr. Joliffe did not
trouble to make it. AVhen the vicar chose to look at
things from the angle of his official status it was
hardly worth while to argue with him.

"May I ask what you said to Gervase Brandon?"

"I told him what you proposed to do."

The vicar shook a dubious head. ''Was that wise,
do you think — in the circumstances ?"

Dr. Joliffe ignored the question.

"I informed him also," he added, "that I didn't feel
equal to taking such a great responsibility upon my-
self."

"You went so far as to tell him that ?"

"I did. This affair has cost me a great deal of
anxiety since I saw you on Saturday. I feel very
strongly that we ought to have further advice."

"We have it." The vicar inclined a diplomatist's
head in Dr. Parker's directicm.

"I told the squire," said Dr. Joliffe, with a menac-
ing eye upon Dr. Parker, "that I didn't feel able to

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<<1

41'

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move in the matter without the advice of a mental
specialist."

"The man is as mad as a hatter/' said Dr. Parker,
with the air of a mental specialist.

'But is he certifiable — that's the point ?"
'He's a source of danger to the community," the
vicar cut in. But Dr. Joliffe had asked Dr. Parker
the question, and his eye demanded that Dr. Parker
should answer it.

"I think we may take Mr. Perry-Hennington's word
for that," said Dr. Parker.

"Well, with all deference," said Dr. Joliffe, "the
squire feels very strongly that the man ought not to be
interfered with."

The vicar was plainly annoyed. He caught up Dr.
Joliffe sharply. "I am sorry to say that Brandon
with all his merits is little better than an atheist."

The tone and the manner were a little too much for
Irish blood. "And so am I if it comes to that," said
Dr. Joliffe; and then like a true Hibernian he added:
"And I thank God for it."

The vicar and Dr. Parker were greatly pained by
this indiscretion, but both were careful to Jefrain by
word or gesture from making the slightest comment
upon it

"Well, Joliffe," said the vicar, when at last he was

155

THE COMING

ble the poor fellow with a thing of this kind in his
present condition?"

"I understand that you didn't hesitate to trouble
him with it on Saturday."

"I did not. I felt it to be my duty."

The retort was so obvious, that Dr. Joliffe did not
trouble to make it. AVhen the vicar chose to look at
things from the angle of his official status it was
hardly worth while to argue with him.

**May I ask what you said to Gervase Brandon?*'

"I told him what you proposed to do."

The vicar shook a dubious head. "Was that wise,
do you think — in the circumstances ?"

Dr. Joliffe ignored the question.

"I informed him also/' he added, "that I didn't feel
equal to taking such a great responsibility upon my-
self."

"You went so far as to tell him that ?"

"I did. This affair has cost me a great deal of
anxiety since I saw you on Saturday. I feel very
strongly that we ought to have further advice."

"We have it." The vicar inclined a diplomatist's
head in Dr. Parker's direction.

"I told the squire," said Dr. Joliffe, with a menac-
ing eye upon Dr. Parker, "that I didn't feel able to

154

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move in the matter without the advice of a mental
specialist."

^The man is as mad as a hatter/' said Dr. Parker,
with the air of a mental specialist.

"But is he certifiable — that's the point?"

"He's a source of danger to the community," the
vicar cut in. But Dr. Joliffe had asked Dr. Parker
the question, and his eye demanded that Dr. Parker
should answer it.

"I think we may take Mr. Perry-Hennington's word
for that," said Dr. Parker.

"Well, with all deference," said Dr. Joliffe, "the
squire feels very strongly that the man ought not to be
interfered with."

The vicar was plainly annoyed. He caught up Dr.
Joliffe sharply, "I am sorry to say that Brandon
with all his merits is little better than an atheist."

The tone and the manner were a little too much for
Irish blood. "And so am I if it comes to that," said
Dr. Joliffe; and then like a true Hibernian he added:
"And I thank God for it."

The vicar and Dr. Parker were greatly pained by
this indiscretion, but both were careful to refrain by
word or gesture from making the slightest comment
upon it

"Well, Joliffe," said the vicar, when at last he was

I5S

€('

((^

THE COMING

ble the poor fellow with a thing of this kind in his
present condition?"

"I understand that you didn't hesitate to trouble
him with it on Satiu'day."

"I did not. I felt it to be my duty."

The retort was so obvious, that Dr. Joliffe did not
trouble to make it. AVhen the vicar chose to look at
things from the angle of his official status it was
hardly worth while to argue with him.

'May I ask what you said to Gervase Brandon?"
1 told him what you proposed to do."

The vicar shook a dubious head. "Was that wise,
do you think — in the circumstances ?"

Dr. Joliffe ignored the question.

"I informed him also," he added, "that I didn't feel
equal to taking such a great responsibility upon my-
self."

'You went so far as to tell him that ?"
1 did. This affair has cost me a great deal of
anxiety since I saw you on Saturday. I feel very
strongly that we ought to have further advice."

"We have it." The vicar inclined a diplomatist's
head in Dr. Parker's direction.

"I told the squire," said Dr. Joliffe, with a menac-
ing eye upon Dr. Parker, "that I didn't feel able to

154

«l

THE COMING

move in the matter without the advice of a mental
specialist."

"The man is as mad as a hatter," said Dr. Parker,
with the air of a mental specialist.

"But is he certifiable— that's the point ?"

'*He's a source of danger to the community," the
vicar cut in. But Dr. Joliffe had asked Dr. Parker
the question, and his eye demanded that Dr. Parker
should answer it

"I think we may take Mr. Perry-Hennington's word
for that," said Dr. Parker.

"Well, with all deference," said Dr. Joliffe, "the
squire feels very strongly that the man ought not to be
interfered with."

The vicar was plainly annoyed. He caught up Dr.
Joliffe sharply. "I am sorry to say that Brandon
with all his merits is little better than an atheist."

The tone and the manner were a little too much for
Irish blood. "And so am I if it comes to that," said
Dr. Joliffe; and then like a true Hibernian he added:
"And I thank God for it."

The vicar and Dr. Parker were greatly pained by
this indiscretion, but both were careful to refrain by
word or gesture from making the slightest comment
upon it

"Well, Joliffe," said the vicar, when at last he was

155

THE COMING

able to achieve the necessary composure, ''if you can-
not see your way to act with us we must find somo-
one who will/*

By now the blood of Dr. Joliffe was running dan-
gerously high. But fresh with his talk with Brandon,
which had greatly impressed him, he somehow felt
that big issues were at stake. Therefore he must hold
himself in hand.

"Mr. Perry-Hennington," he said, after an inward
struggle, in a voice scrupulously mild, "I must tell you
that Mr. Brandon has offered to pay the fee of any
mental specialist we may like to summon, and that
he will abide by his decision."

"Abide by his decision!" The words were unfor-
tunate, but tact was not one of Dr. Joliffe's virtues.
"Very good of Brandon I'm sure. But may one ask
where he stands in the matter ?"
He's the friend of John Smith."
It hardly seems a friendship to be proud of." The
vicar continued to let off steam. "Still I think I see
your point. The law entitles the man to have a friend
to speak for him, and if Brandon constitutes himself
his champion we can't complain. What do you say,
Parker?"

"By all means let him be given every chance," said
Dr. Parker, in a suave, judicial tone. "Personally I

156

THE COMING

don't think there is a shadow of a doubt that the man
is of unsound mind, and I am convinced, after what
you have told me, that he ought to be taken care of ;
but as JoUffe doesn't agree, and as Mr. Brandon will
pay a specialist's fee, I am quite willing to meet him
in consultation. **

"Very well, Parker," said the vicar, in his getting-
things-done voice, "that seems reasonable. Let us
have a man down at once. Suggest somebody, and
we'll telegraph here and now."

Dr. Parker thought for a moment

"Shall we say Murfin? A sotmd man, I believe,
with a good reputation."

"Belongs to the old school," said Dr. Joliffe. "Why
not Moriarty ?"

Dr. Parker stiffened visibly at the interruption.
*'Wrote a cranky book, didn't he, called 'The Power
of Faith' or something?"

"Moriarty is a pioneer in mental and psychical mat-
ters. And Mr. Brandon has a high opinion of his
book. It is only the other day that he advised me to
read it."

But the vicar shook his head in vigorous dissent.
"The trouble is," he said, "that Brandon is getting
more than a little cranky himself."

f 157

THE COMING

"Dq)ends upon what you mean by the term," said
Dr. Joliffe bridling.

"You know, Joliffe, as well as I do,*' the vicar ex-
postulated, "that our friend Brandon, fine and com-
prehensive as his intellect may be, is now in a very
curious state. His judgment is no longer to be
trusted."

"Fd trust his judgment before my own in some
things," was Dr. Joliffe's rejoinder.

"I'd trust no man's judgment before my own in
anything," said the vicar. "I'm no believer in the
gloss that is put on everything nowadays. White is
white, black is black, and two and two make four —
that's my creed, and no amount of intellectual smear
is going to alter it However, we shall not agree about
Brandon, therefore we shall not agree about Dr. Mor-
iarty. And as it will devolve upon our friend Parker
to meet the specialist and issue the certificate, it seems
to me only fair and reasonable that he should make
his own choice."

With a touch of professional rigor, Dr. Parker
thought so too.

"Well, it's immaterial to me," said Dr. Joliffe, "as
I'm retiring from the case. All the same I think it
would be best for the squire to decide. He who pays
the piper has a right to call the tiine."

158

THE COMING

"It doesn't apply in this case/* said the vicar in-
cisively. "One feels that one is making an immense
concession in studying Brandon's feelings in the way
one is doing. You seem to forget, Joliffe, that we
have a public duty to perform."

"I am very far from forgetting it. But Brandon
and I feel that we have also our duty to perform. And
that is why I take the liberty to suggest that he should
choose his own mental specialist."

"Preposterous. What do you say, Parker?"

Dr. Parker tacitly agreed.

"Well," said Dr. Joliffe, "if the squire will consent
to Murfin, it's all the same to me, but if my opinion
is asked, I am bound to say that to my mind Moriarty
is by far the abler man."

"Why do you think so?" Dr. Parker asked.

"More modem in his ideas. Sees farther. Knows
we are only at the threshold of a tremendous subject."

"Nonsense, Joliffe." The vicar was losing a little
of his patience. "White's white, and black's black.
This man John Smith ought not to be at large, and
neither you nor Brandon nor all the mad doctors in
Harley Street can be allowed to dictate to us in the
matter. We have our duty to do, and very disagree-
able it is, but fortunately there is the county bench
behind us."

159

THE COMING

'Quite so," said Dr. Joliffe, drily.

'At the same time we don't want to put ourselves
wrong with public opinion, nor do we want to act in
any way that will hurt people's feelings. And it is
most undesirable that it should be made into a party
or sectarian matter. Therefore, before we take defi-
nite action, I think I had better walk as far as Hart's
Ghyll, and have a few further words with Gcrvase
Brandon myself."

Both doctors promptly fell in with the suggestion.
There seemed much to be said for it. Dr. Parker was
invited to await Mr. Perry-Hennington's return and
to join Dr. Joliffe in a cup of tea in the meantime.
To this proposal Dr. Parker graciously assented ; and
the vicar, already inflamed with argument, went forth
to Hart's Ghyll to lay his views before Gervase Bran-
don.

XVIII

As Mr. Perry-Hennington impatiently clicked
the doctor's gate, "Village pettifogger!"
flashed along his nervous system. Only a
stupid man, or a man too much in awe of Hart's Ghyll
could have been guilty of Joliffe's scruples, at a mo-
ment so ill-timed.

The afternoon's oppression was growing into the
certainty of a storm. There were many portents from
the southwest to which the vicar, walking rapidly and
gathering momentum as he went, paid no attention.
He was really angry with Joliffe; a spirit naturally
pontifical had been fretted by his attitude. Apart from
the fact that the issue was clear to all reasonable
mindsy Joliffe, having to make a choice between Caesar
and Pompey, had chosen the latter. It was very an-
noying, and though Mr. Perry-Hennington prided
himself upon his breadth of view, he could not sup-
press a feeling of resentment.

In the middle of Hart's Ghyll's glorious avenue a
fine car met the vicar, drove him under the trees and
glided by with the flight of a bird. A lean-looking

rather unwelcome surprise awaited him.
seated in the inner hall with niece Millie
by the pangs of conscience, she had com
help for John Smith* But for Millicenl
the horns of a dilemma. Her sympatl
keenly aroused by her cousin's strange co:
Gervase had been too much troubled by tl
ready y and his wife was very tm willing
further.

The arrival of the vicar, while Edith a
were still anxiously discussing the line t
very embarrassing for all three. It only n
to set Mr. Perry-Hennington on the track (
versation. And when he realized, as he
at once, that Edith was in the very act
against him, he felt a shgck of pain.

Dissembling his feelings, however, he

THE COMING

bor, the new tenant of Longwood, who had stayed
more than an hour. But the vicar was net in a mood
to be thwarted. The matter was important, and he
would only stay five minutes.

"Well, Uncle Tom," said the wife anxiously, "if
you see Gervase for five minutes, you must solemnly
promise not to refer to John Smith."

Mr. Perry-Hennington could give no such tmder-
taking. Indeed he had to admit that John Smith was
the sole cause and object of his visit. Thereupon to
Edith's horror, Millicent suddenly flashed out:

"I think it*s perfectly sh-'incful, Uncle Tom, that
you should be acting toward that dear fellow in the
way that you are doing."

The vicar was quite taken aback. He glanced at the
disloyal Edith with eyes of stem accusation. But it
was not his intention to be drawn into any discussion
of the matter with a pair of irresponsible women.
He was hurt, and rather angry, but as always there
was a high sense of duty to sustain him.

"Not more than five minutes, I promise you," he
said decisively. And then with the air of a law-giver
and chief magistrate, he marched along a low-ceiled,
stone-flagged corridor to the library.

XIX

BRANDON was alone. The spinal chair had
been set in the oriel that was so dear to him,
and now he was propped up, with a book in
his hand and his favorite view before him.

The vicar's greeting was full of kindness, but the
stricken man met it with an air of pain, perplexity
and secret antagonism.

"The very man I have been hoping to see,'* he said
in a rather faint voice. And then he added, almost
with distress, "I want so much to have a talk with
you about this miserable business.''

"Don't let it worry you in any way, my dear fel-
low," said the vicar in a tone of reassurance. "Proper
and amp. provision can easily be made for the poor
man if we behave sensibly. At least Whymper thinks
so.''

"Hideboimd donkey I What has he to do with it ?"

The abrupt querulousness of the tone was so unlike
Brandon that it rather disconcerted the vicar.

"I have always found Whymper a very honest man,"
he said soothingly. "And he is also a magistrate.'

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THE COMING

"Oh, yes, a local Shallow/'

The vicar was hurt, but the high sense of duty was
with him in his task. And that task was to tell Bran-
don in a few concise words of Dr. Parker's visit, of
his opinion of John Smith, and his views concerning
him.

"And I felt it my duty to come and tell you," said
the vicar, in a slow, calm, patient voice, "that Parker
will meet a specialist in consultation. But the ques-
tion now is, who shall it be? To my mind the point
does not arise, but Joliffe, who I am sorry to say
is not as helpful as he might be, is making diffi-
culties. Parker would like Murfin, but Joliffe thinks
Moriarty. But Murfin or Moriarty, what does it
matter ? They are both first-rate men ; besides the case
is so clear that it doesn't present the slightest difficulty.
It is really a waste of money to pay a big fee for a
London opinion when a local man like Sharling of
Brombridge would do quite as well."

Brandon shook his head. A look of grave trouble
came into his eyes. "No," he said, "this is a case for
the best man the country can provide."

"Well, you shall choose him, my dear fellow." Mr.
Perry-Hennington's air was all largeness and mag-
nanimity. "Murfin or Moriarty, or why not such a
man as Birdwood Thompson? He is in quite the front

i6S

coarse wmch may stir up local feeling u
tions, and breed undesirable publicity iti
papers. Still that is neither here nor
prepared to face all consequences, be wl

"Mr. Perry-Hennington/* said Brand
tone, ''I can't help thinking that you
tragic mistake."

"The matter hardly admits of discussi
My duty lies before me. Cost what it m
to be done."

'But what possible harm is the man

The vicar deprecated the question by
his large, strong hands. "We can't go
said in a kind tone. "We don't see ey<
lieve me, a matter of this sort doesn't
cussion. Besides it will onlv excit** von

i«^

tiU

THE COMING

«<'

Then why immure a constructive thinker?"

In spite of the watch he was keeping on himself
the vicar caught up the phrase abnost with passion.

But Brandon held his ground. ''In common fair-
ness/' he said, "I feel you ought to read his noble work
before you take any action,'*

'Words, words, words."

'Here are words also." Brandon indicated the open
book beside him.

"The Bible!" The vicar could not conceal his
surprise. It was almost the last thing he expected to
see in the hands of so distinguished a skeptic

Brandon was secretly amused by the air of sudden
perplexity. "You see I am making my soul," he
said.

The vicar was puzzled. It was hard to forbear
from being gratified. But fearing the ironical spirit
of the modem questioner, he kept on his guard.
Brandon, he knew, had a secret armory of powerful
weapons. A primitive distrust of the intellect knew
better than to engage him at close quarters.

"Our friend, John Smith, has led me back to the
Bible," said Brandon, with a simplicity which Mr.
Perry-Hennington greatly mistrusted.

"John Smith !" The tone was frankly incredulous.

"Until the other day I had not opened it for twenty

THE COMING

years. But that wonderful work of his has suddenly
changed the angle of vision. And in order to read
the future by the light of the past, which is the advice
he gives to the world, I return to the fount of wis-
dom."

The vicar was more and more puzzled. To be led
to the Bible by John Smith was like being inducted
by the devil into the use of holy water. If Brandon
was sincere he could only fear for the state of his
mind. On the other hand an intellectual bravo of the
ultramodern school might be luring one of simple faith
into a dialectical trap. Therefore the vicar hastened
to diverge from a perilous subject.

The divergence, however, was only partial. All the
vicar's thought and interest played upon this vital
question of John Smith, and he was there to carry it
to a crucial phase. At this moment, he must see that
he was not sidetracked by one whom he could only
regard, at the best, as a dangerous heretic.

"Whom do you choose, my dear fellow ?" said Mr.
Perry-Hennington, after a wary pause. *'Murfin?
Moriarty? Birdwood Thompson?"

"I decline to make a choice," Brandon spoke bitter-
ly. "It would be an insult and a mockery."

"But don't you see that it offers a protection, a
safeguard for the man himself?"

l68

THE COMING

"In the eyes of the law, no doubt. But, in my view,
John Smith stands above the law."

"No htmian being stands above the law."

"That is where I dissent."

Brandon's tone simply meant a deadlock. The vicar
needed all his patience to combat it. One thing was
clear : a change for the worse had set in. It would be
an act of simple Christian kindness not to argue with
the poor dear fellow.

**Very well," the vicar's tone was soothing and
gentle, "Joliffe shall choose. He is acting for you
in the matter."

"I beg your pardon. No one is acting for met in
this affair. I won't incur the humiliation of any
vicarious responsibility."

"But one understood from Joliffe that you would
abide by the decision of a London specialist."

"That is not my recollection of the exact position
I took up. In any case, I withdraw from it now.
Second thoughts convince me that you mean to de-
stroy a very exquisite thing. I am further convinced
that as the world is constituted at present you can
work your will, if not in one way, in another. His-
tory shows that. But it also shows that you will only

be successful up to a point. Immure the body of John

169

wornea one in a aelicate state ot neaitr
which, after all, did not concern him.
dear, excitable fellow as well as he cou
to withdraw from the room. But Bn
in a mood to let this be the end of the n

"Before you go," he said, "I would
of something else. It has a bearing <
we have been discussing."

Although conscience-bitten by the st
tion of his promise to Millicent, the vica
self to be further detained.

''I have just had a visit from the i
Longwood."

"Yes, I met him in the avenue as I c
has very simply invited me to dine
Wednesday.'*

THE COMING

"TcU mc, what is Murdwell's Law exactly ?"

"At present it can only be rendered in terms of the
highest mathematics, which I'm afraid is beyond a
layman's power. But Murdwell himself has just told
me that he expects soon to be able to reduce it to a
physical formula."

"And if he does r

"It will be the worst day this planet has known.
For one thing it will revolutionize warfare completely.
Radioactivity will take the place of high explosives. It
may become possible to wipe out a city like London
in less than a minute. It may become possible to
banish forever organic life from a whole conti-
nent."

"But surely that will be to abrogate the functions
of the Creator."

"Quite so. And science tells us that Man is his
own Creator, and that he has been millions of years
in business. And now this simple, gentle, peace-loving
American of the Middle West comes along with the
information that, Man having reached the phase in
which he bends the whole force of his genius to de-
stroy his own work, successes of that kind are open
to him beyond the dreams of his wildest nightmares.
As the learned professor said to me just now : *Any

171

«1

"He may. On the other hand he
a great and daring thinker, and he d
hidden forces in the universe that i
harness in the way he has already
tricity, which, by the way, less than j
ago was a madman's dream."

1 hear he is subsidized by the gov(
'He takes no payment for his servic
our cause to be that of civilization. 1
are with the French Army, as he sa
bit to keep a lien on the future.' "
"His country can be proud of him/^
Brandon could not repress a smile,
of the tone was so typical of the man '
he was tempted to look at him in his i
events which were tearing the world
any man a right to sit in judgment oi

THE COMING

smile at after all; he had a sudden craving for a
tomahawk,

"It seems to me," said Brandon after a pause, "that
modem materialism has at last managed to produce
the kind of man it has been looking for. This charm-
ing church-going American says he hopes presently
to be able to establish war on a scientific basis. So
far, he says, man has only been toying with the sub-
ject''

"If he can bring the end of this war a stage nearer,
all honor to him/' said the vicar in a measured tone.

"He certainly hopes to do that. He says thiat his
committee of Allied scientists, which sits every day
in Whitehall, is already applying Murdwell's Law to
good purpose. It has every hope of finding a formula,
sooner or later, which will put the Central Empires
permanently out of business."

'Really I" said the vicar.

'He says that so awful are the potentialities of self-
destruction inherent in Murdwell's Law that future
wars may involve the planet, Earth, in cosmic suicide."

'Really !" said the vicar.

'He says that science sees already that warfare
cannot remain in its present phase. Moreover, at the
present moment it is an interesting speculation as to
which side can first carry it a step further. Enemy

173

THE COMING

scientists are already groping in the direction of the
new light They will soon have their own private
version of Murdwell's Law; they know already the
forces latent in it. If we are the first to find the
formula we may be able to say a long farewell to
the Wilhelmstrasse, and even to deep, strong, patient
Germany herself. And if they find it first it may be a
case of 'Good-by, Leicester Square/ because the first
intimation the world may have is that there is a small
island missing in Europe."
'Really !" said the vicar.

It sounds fantastic. But there is not the slightest
doubt that Murdwell's Law opens up a mental vista
which simply beggars imagination. And there is no
doubt, in the opinion of its discoverer, that by its
means Man will get into touch with unknown elements
capable of sealing the doom of the group of things
to which he belongs."

"We'll hope not," said the vicar. "At any rate, if
that is so, it seems to me that Murdwell's Law im-
pinges upon the order of divine providence."

"There we enter upon the greatest of all questions.
Just now all creeds are asking: What is Man's rela-
tion to God and the universe? Theology has one in-
terpretation, science another. Which is right? Phi-
losophy says that each has a glimpse of the truth, yet

174

THE COMING

it is now inclined to believe that we have touched a
new stratum which literally turns all previous theories
inside out. Of course, it is not so new as it seems.
Plato reached similar conclusions by a different road,
but the world of empirical science has hitherto been
content to regard them as brilliant but fantastic specu-
lations. Gazelee Pa}me Murdwell claims to have
brought them within the region of hard fact ; he says
science and philosophy are already half converted to
his view. We enter a new era of the world's history
in consequence, and very amazing manifestations are
promised us.'*

"Whatever they may be," said the vicar stoutly, "I
will not allow myself to believe that Man can abrogate
the functions of the Deity."

"But what are the functions of the Deity? Would
you say it was the exercise of those functions which
saved Paris from being blown to pieces by the Hun?"

^^Undoubtedly!"

"And yet permitted him to sink the Lusitamaf^

"Undoubtedly. Don't let us presume to question
that God had a reason for his attitude in both cases."

"Well, in my view I am bound to say that T. N. T.
and the U-boat abrogate the functions of the Deity in
their humble way, just as surely as Murdwell's Law

175

«Tx».

It's the way of these inventive geni
other hand, should it seem good to the
dence to destroy all the inhabitants <
planet, let the will of God prevail. Bt
my dear fellow, I hope you will not a
of the American to excite you."

"They are far from doing that, bui
civil of a man like Murdwell to take 1
come and see a man who couldn't go anc
is one of the forces of the modem wor
near future he will be the problem fc

race.'*

It may be so," said the vicar. **I 1
of science. But to return to this prol
Smith. Shall we say Birdwood Thomp
is waiting to know ?"

THE COMING

unprofitaUe subject. I'm afraid you have been talk-
ing too much/'

"A little too much, I'm afraid," said Brandon rather

feebly.

"Well, good-by, my dear fellow," said the vicar

heartily. "And forget all about this tiresome busi-
ness. It doesn't in any way concern you if only you
could think so. Whatever happens, the man will be
treated with every consideration. As for Professor
Murdwell, I'm afraid he draws the long bow. These
brilliant men of science always do. Good-by. And
as I go out I'll ask the nurse to come to you."

IN the meantime in Dr. Joliffe's su
pipe of peace was being smoked,
cigars had a virtue of their own, a
who was no mean judge of such thin
weakly allowed the flesh to conquer,
perverse fellow, but even he, apparently
impossible. His cigars somehow just s

The third whiff of an excellent Co:
transformed Dr. Parker into a man of

"The fact is," said he, "our friend
country parsons who have been too lon{
is a bit too dogmatic''

An answering twinkle came into th
Joliffe. Somehow the admission seeme
air considerably.

'He wants humoring."

'No doubt. But this poor chap is a

«i

t{^

THE COMING

time. You see this chap is not pulling his weight in
the boat. He's a bad example. Our parson is rather
down on him no doubt; still, in the circumstances,
he's quite right to bring him under controL"

"You think so?"
It can do no harm at any rate."
'But, you see, it's going to upset the squire. And
he's such a good chap that it seems a pity."

"Well, it's no use trying to please everyone."

"Quite so."

"Why not certify the fellow and have done with
it?"

"I can't, after what I said to Brandon."

"Tell me, Joliffe, why does Brandon take such an
interest in him?"

"Nay," said Joliffe, "that's more than I can
fathom."

"Do you think his mind has been affected by Gal-
lipoH?"

"They seem to think so/*

^Do you?"

1 seem to notice a change coming over him. But

it's so very gradual that one can hardly say what it

may be."

"At any rate it is not a good sign for a man like

179

if]

tt'i

— ^,

■VkK« »AAV>

Ghyll, after an absence of more
found the moral temperature much
fact the lion and the lamb were lyi
Moreover, he had only to make kn
posal that Murfin and Moriarty sho
in favor of Birdwood Thompson i
be acceptable to both. Dr. Joliffe at
tors to his study, in order that a lettc
up for the purpose of summoning th
ist

It took some little time for this
formed. There were niceties of pro
to consider; also the nature of the
certain amount of discreet descript
letter was written, and then Dr. Pari

XXI

PRESSED for time, Dr. Parker fled. But he
took the letter with him in order that he might
post it in Brombridge, and so insure its earlier
delivery in London. As soon as Dr. Parker had gone
the vicar made a survey of the elements, and then set
off at his best pace on a ten-minute walk to his
house.

In doing this he knew that he ran the risk of a
soaking. Storm clouds which had hovered all the
afternoon were now massed overhead. Hardly had
he entered the village street, when he perceived large
drops of rain. But in his present frame of mind he
did not feel like staying a moment longer under
Joliffe's roof than he could help. He was still seeth-
ing within. He was still marveling at the crassness
of certain of his fellow creatures. The open defection
of one whom he had counted a sure ally was very hard
to forgive.

However, by the time he had reached the edge of
the common he realized that he was in a fair way of
being drenched to the skin; moreover the rainstorms

i8i

nmg, toilowed by thunder m a sern
crashes. Devoutly thankful that he 1
to gain shelter he crouched low, turned
lar and looked out at the rain descen
A hundred yards or so away, an old
village woman, very thinly clad, was
ward her cottage. As she came near tl
in the middle of the village green, a
hat, and no better protected from the s
self> suddenly sprang up before her.
he had taken off his coat and placec
shoulders.

The old woman went slowly on tc
tage, while the man stood coatless ir
did not seem to cause him any concern
fact, almost to welcome the storm, as h(
its midst> the elements beating upon hi

THE COMING

The man was John Smith. The vicar was amazed ;
such sheer insensibility to what was going on around
was tmcanny. Bar^eaded, coatless, drenched to the
skin, the man scorned the shelter so dose at hand.
The first thought that passed through the vicar's mind
was one of pity for the man's physical and mental
state. But hard upon that emotion came regret that
the stubborn Joliffe was not also a spectator of the
scene. Any doubts he still held as to the man's sanity
must surely have been dispelled.

A great wind began to roam the uj^r air. The
lightning grew more vivid, the thunder louder, the
weight of rain still heavier. The vicar crouched
against the bole of the best tree. And as he did so,
his thoughts somehow passed from the poor, demented
figure of fantasy still before his eyes, to those over-
whelming forces of nature in which they were both
at that minute engulfed.

Intellectually the vicar was a very modest man.
Sometimes, it is true, he had been tempted to ask him-
self poignant questions. But he had never presumed
to give an independent answer of his own. For him
the solution of the central mystery of man's relation
to the forces around him was comprised in the word
"Faith."

But now that he was the witness of poor John

183

THE COMING

Smith's dementia, the sense of human futility recurred
to him. It needed a power of Faith to relate that
drenched scarecrow, a mere insect upon whom Nature
was wreaking a boundless will, to the cosmic march
and profluence. For a moment the vicar was almost
tempted to deny the still, small voice within and sub-
mit entirely to the judgment of the senses. His eyes,
his ears, his sense of touch assured him that the poor
madman out in the rain was lost in the sum of things.
What relation could he have to those majestic pow-
ers by whom he was buffeted ? Surely that lone, hair-
less figure was the symbol of Man himself.

And yet the act of devotion the man had just per-
formed must have a meaning. It was a mystery with-
in a mystery. Of whom had this poor blasf^emer
learned that trick ; by what divine license did he prac-
tice it ? . For nearly half an hour it continued to rain
pitilessly, and during that time the vicar searched and
questioned his heart in regard to the man before him.
At last the storm subsided ; he came out of his shelter
and went thoughtfully home. But in bed that night,
when he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, he found
the image of John Smith printed inside his eyelids.

XXII

THE next morning, when John Smith called as
usual at Hart's Ghyll with his bunch of flow-
ers, he was allowed once more to see his
friend. The stricken man received him in the library
with the most affectionate intimacy.

"My dear, dear fellow," he said, "how good it is
to see you. You bring the light of the sun to this
room whenever you enter it**

The visitor took Brandon's hand with the caress-
ing touch of a woman. "Dear friend," he ^d, "I
always pray that the light may accompany me wher-
ever I go."

The simplicity of the man, which it would have been
easy to misread, had now, as always, a strange effect
upon Brandon. And yet he was heart-sore and miser-
able. The weight of sorrow now upon him seemed
to transcend all his other sufferings. A cruel sense
of the futility of his terrible sacrifice had overtaken
him. What proof was there that it had not been in
vain? After all, what hope could there be for the
future of men ; what was there to expect from a pur-

185

THE COMING

blind, material world? He was now in the throes
of a cruel reaction. Somehow his talk with the vicar
had struck at his faith in his own kind.

He took no comfort from the thought that Mr.
Perry-Hennington was a profoundly stupid man.
Turning his mind back, he saw the parson of Pen-
fold as the spiritual guide of the race of average men,
of a race which allowed itself to be governed by the
daily newspaper, which in one feverish hour threw
away the liberties it had cost its father hundreds of
years to win. Prussia was being met with Prussia,
Baal with the image of Baal.

Throughout a wakeful night, that had been the
thought in Brandon's heart. Behind all the swelling
heroics and the turgid phrases of organized opinion,
was this Frankenstein monster. The world was mov-
ing in a vicious circle. The public press had somehow
managed to recreate what it had set out to destroy.
The question for Brandon now was, had he been the
victim of a chimera? In the course of a long night
of bitterness, the thought had taken root in him that
all the blood and tears humanity was shedding would
merely fix the shackles more cruelly on generations
yet unborn.

This morning Brandon saw no hope for the ill-
starred race of men. Hour by hour his fever-tinged

i86

THE COMING

thoughts had flown to one for whom he had conceived
an emotion of the highest and purest friendship, to
one whom his fellows were seeking a means to
destroy.

"I have been wondering," said Brandon, "whether
you will consent to have your poem published? I
know you are shy of print, but this is a rare jewel, the
heritage of the whole world."

"Don't let us talk of it just now." There was a
shadow upon the eloquent face. "I have need of
guidance. My poem, such as it is, is but one aspect
of a great matter. I pray that I may find a more
universal one."

Brandon dissembled his surprise, but he could not
bridle his curiosity. "Your poem is a great matter,"
he said. "To me it is wonderful. You call it 'The
Door.' Why not let all the world pass through?"

"Such is my task, but I do not know that it can be
fulfilled by the printed word. There may be a surer
way. The question I have to ask myself is, can I do
the Father's will more worthily ? By prayer and fast-
ing perhaps I may."

"But the thing is so perfect. Why gild the lily?"

"It is only one of many keys, dear friend. It is

not the Door itself. It is no more than a stage in a

187

THE COMING

long, long pilgrimage; no more than a means to the
mighty end that has been laid upon me/'

Brandon, however, had set his heart upon the
poem's publication. To him it was a perfect thing.
Moreover, he saw in it a vindication of its author,
a noble answer to those who were conspiring to destroy
him.

Strangely, however, John was not to be moved from
his resolve. And more strangely still, as it seemed
to Brandon, intimations had come to him already of
the terrible fate that was about to overtake him. ''It
has been communicated to me that I am about to be
called to a great trial," were the words he used.

Brandon, sick at heart, had hardly the courage to
seek an explanation. "You — ^you have been told
that?" He scanned anxiously the face of the man at
his side.

'*Yes," was the answer. "The inner voice spoke to
me last evening. I don't know when the blow will
fall, or what fate awaits me, but a sword han^s by a
single hair above my head."

"And — and you are not afraid ?" To Brandon this
calmness was almost superhuman.

"I am not afraid. The souls of the just are in the
hands of God. And I ask you, my dear friend, to
share my faith. You are one of two witnesses to

i88

THE COMING

whom I have been allowed to reveal myself. The
other is an old woman who can no longer work with
her hands. You have long given her a roof for her
heady and I have kept a loaf in her cupboard and
found her fire in the winter. But there is only the
poorhouse for her when I am taken, and I think she
fears it."

"Whatever happens, that shall not be her fate."

"I will not thank so good a man. But it is your
due that you should know this."

"It is my great privilege. Is there any other way
in which I may hope to be of use?"

"At the moment, none." John Smith laid his hand
on the arm of the stricken man with a gesture of
mingled pity and solicitude. "But a time is surely
coming when a heavy tax will be laid upon your
friendship."

"I cannot tell you how I shall welcome it." As
Brandon spoke he gazed upward to the eyes of the
man who bent over him. As he met those large-pu-
piled orbs, a curious thrill passed through his frame.
In the sudden sweep of his emotion was an odd sense
of awe.

"I foresee, dear friend, that you are about to be
called to a hero's task." The soft, low voice seemed
to strike through Brandon as he lay.

189

uic wiiuie wona.

For many days to come these crypt
puzzle Brandon, and to linger in his *
moment of their utterance he could
tion. His whole soul was melted by
It was as if a new, unknown power ^
enfold him.

John Smith kissed Brandon grave
head and then went away. The strick
in a state of bewildered perplexity,
load of misery was now upon him t
known. A rare, exquisite thing had 1
him in a miraculous way. It was a
cruel fate, and he had not the power

XXIII

BRANDON was still brooding over a tragedy he
could aot avert when a nurse came into the
room. She was a practical, vigorous creature,
plain and clean of mind, and after a single shrewd
glance at the patient she proceeded to take his tempera-
ture with a clinical thermometer.

"'Just as I thought/' An ominous bead was shaken.
'That man always has a ba4 effect upon you. I shall
have to forbid him seeing you in the future."

''What nonsense!" said Brandon.

**This speaks for itself." The nurse held up the
thermometer. ''He always puts you up to a hundred.
You are nearly a hundred and one now, and you'll
have to go to bed and stay there until you are down
a bit." ,

It was vain for Brandon to desist. He was at the
mercy of Olympians who did not hesitate to misuse
their powers. He was whisked off to bed like a
naughty child, and the privilege of a further talk with
John Smith was withdrawn indefinitely. He protested
strongly to the nurse and bitterly to his wife, but he
was told that it would not be safe to see the yotitvsL

191

THE COMING

man again until he could do so without playing tricks
with his temperature.

Brandon fumed in durance for the rest of the day.
The patience which had borne him through all his
trials threatened to desert him now. He was tor-
mented with the thought of his own helplessness. The
recent visit had moved Brandon to the very depths of
his being, and the longing to help John Smith escape
the coil that fate was weaving now burnt in his veins
a living fire. As he lay helpless and overwrought, on
the verge of fever, the stupidities of the little world
around him were magnified into a crime for which
humanity itself would have to pay.

The next morning, Wednesday, at eleven o'clock
came Dr. Joliffe. The higher medical science had be-
gun to despair of ever restoring to Brandon the use
of his limbs, and he was now in the sole care of his
local attendant, who came to see him every other day.

Dr. Joliffe found the patient still keeping his bed
by the orders of the nurse. In the course of an un-
comfortable night he had slept little, and his tempera-
ture was still a matter for concern. Moreover, not
the nurse alone, but Mrs. Brandon also, had already
delivered themselves vehemently on the subject of John
Smith.

For one reason or another Dr. JoliflFe would have

192

THE COMING

been very willing just now to consign John Smith to
limbo. Nor was this desire made less when the pa-
tient, after being duly examined, reported upon, and
admcMiished, requested the nurse to withdraw from the
room in order that he might talk with the doctor pri-
vately.

Joliffe knew well enough what was coming. And
he would have done much to avoid further contact
with a most unhappy subject, from which conse-
quences were flowing of an ever-increasing embarrass-
ment. But there was no means of escape. For Bran-
don, the subject of John Smith had become almost
an obsession; a fact which the doctor had begun to
realize to his cost.

"What steps have been taken?" Brandon began as
soon as they were free of the nurse's presence.

'Steps r Joliffe fenced a little.

'In regard to John Smith." There was a sudden
excitement in the bright eyes. "He's in my mind night
and day. I can't bear the thought that he should be
destroyed."

"I'm sorry to say that Birdwood Thompson can't
come here." The professional voice was dulcet and
disarming. "He's in a very bad state of health and
giving up practice. His second boy went down on the
Victorious, and his eldest was killed the other day in

193

**{

THE COMING

France, so I suppose that may have something to do
with it."

"Well, what is being done?"

"As you ask the question/' was the cautious reply,
"we have agreed upon Murfin. Personally, I don't
think he's as good as Moriarty or the other man, but
we wrote to him in order to save trouble."

"In order to save trouble!" Brandon gasped.
"Save trouble in a matter of this kind?"

"Certainly. And we are all of us very anxious that
you should not worry over it any more.''

"But — don't you see — ^what a terrible thing it is?**

"Not exactly terrible." Dr. Joliffe spoke gravely
but cheerfully. "Quite an everyday occurrence, you
know, if one looks at it in the right way."

"An everyday occurrence — if — one — lck>ks — ^at — it
— in — ^the right way !"

"Undoubtedly. Cases of this kind are always aris-
ing. Whatever view one may take of the man, he
is certainly on the border line; therefore, whether he's
certified or not is merely a question of expediency.
And what I have to point out to you is that in the
last resort, as the world is just now, with all these
public safeguards in operation the final decision will

be taken by the authorities."

194

«l

THE COMING

"How cruel I" said Brandon, with growing excite-
ment.

"Not necessarily cruel," said Dr. Joliffe in a mel-
lifluous tone.

"To think of our local Shallows sitting in judg-
ment on the first spirit of the age I''

The irony of circumstances."
'No." Brandon's eyes were hectic "It takes more
than two thousand years to change the world. An
old story is being retold with a few modem improve-
ments. I see that. But, JolifFe, I believe you to be
a just man, and I count on your help. For the love
we both bear the Republic, I want you to put up a
fight for John Smith.'*

*There, my dear fellow, calm yourself," said the
doctor soothingly. "I will tmdertake to see that no
injustice is done in the matter."

In other words, that he is not molested."
That is beyond my power, because, as I say, the
Bench will move if we don't."

"Then leave it to them to take the first step. And in
the meantime we'll get legal advice."

"Murfin comes down on Friday."

"Easy to stop him."

"The vicar won't consent to that, I'm afraid."

"No, I suppose not. But if you love this country

195

«i

it*

THE COMING

you will do your best to restrain a profoundly stupid

man."

Plain, common-sensible Dr. Joliffe thought the line
of argument a little high-flown, and said so in a tone
of scrupulous kindness.

"I don't overstate," said Brandon. "Let me ex-
plain my meaning. The Republic is rising to a height
of moral grandeur that few would have dared to
prophesy for her. But as always, there is a flaw in
her armor. The enemies of the light are seeking it,
and if they should find it there is absolutely nothing
between this world and barbarism."

"I'm afraid I don't follow." Dr. Joliffe shook a
grave head.

"I can tell you that she is about to treat her most
august citizen as Rome, her great prototype, treated
Another."

Dr. Joliffe continued to shake his head. Not only
was he puzzled, he was rather distressed by such an
extravagant statement. "How I wish I could get
your mind off this subject!" he said.

"You must not hope to do that," said Brandon. "It
is decreed that I should lie supine, a helpless log, while
night and day my brain is turned into a weaver's shut-
tle. I can do nothing, yet I somehow feel that the
high gods have called me to do everything. This man

196

THE COMING

has no other friend, and it is for that reason, Joliffe,
that I ask you to stand my proxy in his defense."

"But I assure you no defense is possible," said
Joliffe, with a feeling of growing distress.

"Let us brief counsel."

"No purpose will be served. As you know, the
vicar is a most stubborn man. And if he doesn't
succeed one way he will another. If we doctors are
obdurate he will turn to the Bench, and if the Bench
won't oblige he'll have recourse to the military."

"It hardly seems credible."

"I agree. But that's the man.- And the worst of it
is that from his own point of view in a time like the
present he may be perfectly right."

"I refuse to believe that he can be right at any
time."

"But surely, a man who sides openly with the enemy
ought not to be at large."

"Has he gone beyond what Jesus would have done
in such circumstances?"

"Hardly a practical analogy, I'm afraid. In any
case, John Smith is not Jesus, even if his half-witted
old mother may think so. The law is bound to regard
him as a crack-brained rustic, and in my humble opin-
ion anyone who tries to persuade it that the poor fel-
low is anything else, will be very unwise."

197

tanatic on the subject, but the poor, fei
amenable to the law as it exists at preset
no means of escape. It will be far wise
to accept the inevitable. All that his f ric
to do is to make things as tromfortable f o
sible."

That shall be done at any rate/' ss
It is Perry-Hennington's intention, I
have him sent to the county asylum."

^'It is the only place for him, I'm afn
course, even there he will be extremely \

''I don't question that, but assuming
destination, I should like him to live in
dignity. Wouldn't it be possible for h
some such place as Wellwood Sanatoriu

"Well, of course." said Dr TrAlff^ '**i

*<1

4S}

THE COMING

''No matter what it may be/' said Bnuidon^ '*I shall
be only too happy to bear it."

It will not be less than five hundred a year.^
If it were twice as much I should count it a high
privilege to be allowed to do that for him."

Dr. JolifFe shook the head of a prudent man over
this piece of quixotism. ''Very generous of you/' he
said, "but they look after their patients so extraordi-
narily well at Broad Hill, that I am sure this ex-
pense is quite unnecessary."

Brandon, however, stuck to his plan.

He had now made up his mind that if the worst hap-
pened, Wellwood should be the home of John Smith.

"Very well." Dr. JolifFe saw that a purposeless
opposition could do no good. "If the necessity arises
it shall be arranged for him to go there. And now
I want you to forget all about this miserable matter.
Dismiss it entirely from your thoughts."

"Impossible," said Brandon. "We are deliberately
closing the Door."

"Closing the door?"

"For the human race."

The doctor looked sadly, uncomprehendingly at his

patient "I don't understand," he said.

"Of course you don't, my dear friend. It is not to

199

ine state in which he found him. He felt ]
duty to give a little serious admonition, ai
withdrew from the room. The nurse was
the dressing room adjoining, and to her h
certain misgivings. The patient must stay
must not read, he must avoid all things like
worry or excitement. And beyond every
his mind must be kept from the subject
Smith.

XXIV

IN the evening of the same day the vicar dined at
Longwood. Edith accompanied him. Mr. Murd-
well had the forethought to send a car for his
guests, so that a mile journey on a wet night was
made en prince,

Mr. Perry-Hennington was not in a mood for din-
ing out. A certain matter was still in abeyance, and
it seemed to hang over him like a cloud. He felt it
was weak and illogical to allow such an affair, which
was one of simple duty, to disturb him. But some-
how he was far more upset by it than he cared to
own.

Fortunately, the evening made no great demand up-
on the guests. Indeed, it proved to be an agreeable
relaxation. There was nothing in the nature of a
party, a fact of which the vicar had been expressly
apprised beforehand; five people, to wit: Mr. Murd-
well, his wife and daughter, Edith and himself.

Mr. Perry-Hennington was well able to appreciate
a good dinner. And in spite of his present rather
disgruntled state, he did not remember ever to have

201

..^.vu wiin ine vicars recent pronounce
hardly possible to rebuke it in the prese
sides, these people were American; thcii
said to be beyond the dreams of avarice ;
by the frame in which they were set, the;
be little need for them to economize in ai
The vicar confided to Edith afterward
found their new neighbors "most entertaii
this was strictly true. Intellectually he w
so ossified as his theological outfit made
Behind the arrogance, the dogmatism, the <
was a certain shrewd man-of-the-world
ceived on broad and genial lines, which is !
ing in the English upper class. And of th
Perry-Hennington was not an unworth;
He could tell a storv wif^ — •

THE COMING

Mr. Murdwell was a man of international reputa-
tion, though sprung from quite small beginnings in his
native Ohio. And behind the sophisticated naivete of
Jooly his wife, and Bud his daughter, was a well-
marked tendency to think in dukes and duchesses.
They had known them on the Riviera, had studied
them in hotels and cotmtry houses in divers lands, and
there was little doubt that sooner or later Bud would
burgeon into a princess.

The famille Murdwell had traveled far in a very
short time. Its rise had been one of the romances of
scientific and social America. The genius of Murd-
well p^e, to which the whole world was now paying
tribute, had, among many other things, raised a palace
on Fifth Avenue, acquired property on Long Island,
and a villa in Italy. To these was now added an
English country house "for the duration of the war."

This was the first appearance of the Murdwell ladies
in the United Kingdom, and they were immensely in-
terested in it. They had only been three months in the
country and everything was new. Hitherto their
knowledge of it had been based on the Englishman
abroad, the reports of travelers, and the national out-
put of fiction. As a consequence, they frankly owned
that they had rather underrated it. So far they had
been agreeably surprised to find it not altogether a

203

rmmm WX/AX

oiiu nis aaugnter were coming to
had good-humoredly resigned themselves
ing of acute boredom. But one of the sod
ties of England^ as far as they had seen il
was that things are always just a bit bett<
look for — ^the evening, when it came, wa
much more entertaining than a similar func
have been in Kentucky, which they took as
lent for Sussex.

On sight, the meager, high-shoulder
frumpish, rather myopic Miss Thing, with 1
barreled name and the tortoise-shell spectai
she wore with effect, promised to be all thi
less fancy of Bud and Jooly had painted
that was a first view. By the time dinnei
they had found thin^rs in commr-* — :^^ «-

THE COMING

took everything, Bud and Jooly included, so very much
for granted, that their curiosity was piqued. Her
dress was worth about a shilling a yard, her hair was
done anyhow, her features did not conform to their
idea of the beautiful, yet she was not in the least
parochial, and both ladies agreed, that had you
searched America from the east coast to the west it
would have been hard to find anything quite like her.

The vicar puzzled them even more. They were not
able to range him at all. Perhaps the thing which im-
pressed them most was ''that he didn't show his goods
in the window."

Indeed, this fact may have struck Mr. Murdwell
himself. For as soon as the meal was under way he
began to discuss, with a frankness and a humor to
which his guests didn't in the least object, the English
custom of "not showing their goods in the window."

"And a very bad one, too," said Mr. Murdwell,
raising his glass. "To my mind it's one of the reasons
that's brought this war about."

The vicar asked for enlightenment.

"If your diplomacy had said: 'Now look here,
Fritz, old friend, if you don't try to be a little gen-
tleman and keep that torch away from the powder f

keg you'll find big trouble,' you wouldn't have had

205

i iC

Mr. Murdwell coolly. "If yo
the strength of your hand th^
dared to raise you."

The vicar shook his head in s
This trouble goes back some >
well. "It was in the sixties that
ing people the impression that th
\\ mats of you. And then came t

tion business in which you curlec
We said, 'England's a dud/ and
ever since. And why? Because
all the rest of the push, in diplom
tion for weakness."

"Would you have our diploma
armor?" said the vicar.

Ct-KT

THE COMING

strong complaint against you. Yqu've underplayed
your hand a bit too much. If you had been the King-
pin of Europe, as you ought to have been, and kept
the other scholars in their places, things might have
been different.'*

This airy dogmatism amused the vicar. But in most
other people it would have annoyed him extremely.

"Of course I can't agree," he said mildly. "I am
glad to say we don't regard this war as a material
issue. For us it is a conflict between right and wrong."

"Quite so," said Mr. MurdwcU. "And I've already
figured that out for myself and that's why I am here.
If I criticize it's in the spirit of friendship. In this
war you've gone big. The fact is, you are a bigger
proposition than outsiders thought. And the longer
I stay here the sharper it bites me. Nobody knows
what your resources are. Take our neighbor at Hart's
Ghyll. When I went the other day to make friends
with him, it took my breath away to think of a man
like that volunteering as a tommy to be frizzled in
Gallipoli."

"But why shouldn't he," said the vicar, "if he felt it
to be his duty?"

"As you say, why not? But it's large — for a man
like that."

"Surely not more so for him than for anyone else."

207

^ w^ vibitca, aiinougn i ve noi y
But Gervase Brandon is not of
against every instinct that man's g
every fiber of his nature."

"There are many thousands 1
vicar; "many thousands who have
lives — ^and more than their lives —

"I know. But the quarrel was nc
make it. And it was not as if, lik
French, and the Russians, he hac
doorstep. It would have been qui
like that to say : *Leave it to the Bril
or later they are bound to clear up

"He was too honest to do thai
"He saw that a test case had arisen
wrongf, between OnH ^-'^ *-*

• «

THE COMING

mentally. He has always had a skeptical mind, and
there have been times when I've been tempted to think
that he gave it too much latitude. And just now he
is suffering a bad reaction after the horrors he's been
through. And of course he has had to give up the
hope of ever walking again. But whatever the opin-
ions of such a man may be, it is only right and fair
to judge him by his actions."

"Yes, he's made a big sacrifice. And the tragedy
of it is he feels now that he's made it in vain."

"His mental health is not what it might be just now,
poor fellow. He has said things to me about Prussia
winning, even if she loses and so on, which I know
he cannot really believe."

"Why not?"

"Because Gervase Brandon is too true an English-
man ever to doubt the spirit of the race. He is de-
pressed just now about a very trivial matter. He has
magnified it out of all proportion, whereas had he
been fit and well he would not have given it a second
thought. No, Gervase Brandon is not the man to
despair of the Republic. He is part and parcel of
England herself, flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone."

"I see he's all that. In fact he belongs to one of
your first families, with the most beautiful place on
the countryside, and the manes of his ancestors, who

209

'And yet that man's a highbroi
knowledge amazed me — ^not on
which he didn't speak, and I did
know nothing about it, but on
I I claim to know just a little mon

"On the subject of Murdwell
vicar with an air of keen interest
But dinner was now at an enc
I haustible subject of Murdwell's Lj

I a little too much for the ladies

made good their escape before i
hoist himself upon a theme which
lutionize the world of physical scie

XXV

PLATO apart/' said Mr. Murdwell, as soon as
Bud, Edith and Jooly had fled, "or whatever
our neighbor's secret vice may be, he's got the
strongest brain I've come up against lately."

"I'm surprised to hear you say that," said the vicar.
"Of course he's by way of being a scholar, a poet, an
independent thinker, and all that sort of thing, but
since he's been knocked out I'm afraid he can never
be the man he was."

Mr. Murdwell confessed to surprise also. "I don't
know what he may have been," he said, "before he
went to Gallipoli ; I can only say that when I made his
acquaintance the other day, it seemed a great privi-
lege to talk to him."

'Very interesting to know that," said the vicar.
'He's the only layman I've met who could grasp,
on sight, the principle on which Murdwell's Law de-
pends. And more than that. When by his request I
explained to him as briefly as I could the theory of
the whole thing, he laid his finger at once on the weak

2X1

tt^

but he said at once that I had only to re
ula to alter the nature of war altogetl

"And is that true?"

"Not a doubt of it. That's why I'm
dentally that's why I have sudi a queer-
You noticed him, no doubt?"

The vicar had.

"rU tell you a little secret. That r
New York's smartest detectives, and he
out of his sight"

"Really I" said the vicar, drawing wa
large cigar.

"You see, at present it's a nice questio
tain people can hand Gazelee Payne
medicine before he hands them theirs,
it all boils down to. voii Imnw '*

THE COMING

•'Do I understand," said the vicar, drawing at his
cigar, **that you are trying some terrible experiment ?"

"You may take it that it is so. And we are already
causing sleepless nights in certain quarters. The next
few years may see warfare of a very different kind."

"But surely,*' said the vicar, "every law, human and
divine, forbids further diabolism?"

"Nothing is forbidden to science. It works mir-
acles. And it is merely at the threshold of its power."

"Yet, assuming, Mr. Murdwell," said the vicar sol-
emnly, "that your theory is correct and that you are
able to do all this, what do you suppose will be the
future of the human race?"

Mr. Murdwell did not answer the question at once.
When answer he did, it was in a voice of much gravity.
"There we come up against something that won't bear
looking at. Strictly speaking, the human race has no
future. Unless another spirit comes into the world
the human race is doomed."

"Undoubtedly," said the vicar.

"Science can destroy organic life quicker than na-
ture can replace it. And what it does now is very
little compared to what it may do a few years hence."

"Quite so," said the vicar.

"The vistas opened up by Murdwell's Law in the
way of self-immolation don't bear thinking about. A

213

XI uc a aouDt of It/ said Mr. Murdwd
way. "It seems to me that some of you g
broadcloth will soon have to think about (
bit of overtime."

XXVI

GOING home with Edith in his host's car, the
vicar was thoughtful and depressed. He had
enjoyed his evening, he had been entertained,
even exhilarated by it, yet in a curious, subtle way it
had diown him the writing on the wall. His host was
a portent Regard as one would this lean-faced,
diurch-^oing American, he was a very sinister phe-
nomenon. The vicar had little or no imagination, but
he saw that Mr. Murdwell's conclusions were inescap-
able.

For the next few oays, however, Mr. Perry-Hen-
nington was not able to give much attention to the
doom of mankind. There were matters nearer at
hand. He led a busy life in his parish, and in the
larger parish of his local world. A mighty sitter on
committees, a bom bureaucrat, it was hardly his fault
that he was less a spiritual force than a man of busi-
ness. He was an extremely conscientious worker,
never sparing himself in the service of others, yet that
service connoted the common weal rather than the
personal life.

215

v/iic evening ne ainea tnree qua)
than usual, and then as the sh
upon Ashdown he took his hat
the common along the familiar
Parson's Comer, the village na
bouch to the green, he stopped
about. By the priest's stone, stil
evening half-light, a slight, fra
was kneeling as if in prayer. T
watch and consulted it anxiously,
all points of the compass with a
pectancy. Careful arrangements
the proper authorities and disag
nant as was the whole matter, he
to see them carried out.

THE COMING

within a few yards and two burly, sinister-looking men
got out.

"Good evening, sir," said the foremost of these.

Involuntarily the vicar held up a finger.

"He's there," he whispered. And he pointed to the
figure kneeling by the stone. He then added in a
voice of deepening emotion, "I trust you will not use
any kind of violence."

There was no need to do so, for it proved an ex-
tremely simple matter. Yet one witness of it was
never to forget the scene that followed. Very cau-
tiously the two men crept across the grass, while the
vicar, unwilling to be seen by the victim, concealed
himself in a thicket near by. From his ambush he saw
the man rise to his feet at the approach of his
captors, he saw his calm, fixed look, and he heard the
singular words proceed frotn his lips, "Father, forgive
them ; for they know not what they do."

A feeling of indignant horror swept through Mr.
Perry-Hennington. He could only interpret the speech
as one more atrocious blasphemy, for he had caught
the strange upward look, as if to the God in the sky,
which had accompanied the words. Somehow the ges-
ture had revolted him, yet in another in such circum-
stances it would have been sublime. And the almost
beautiful humility of the man walking passively be-

217

of submission. From his ambusl
turn and go swiftly away, past
and then faint of soul, but sust
duty, he walked slowly down the
Bent's. To that simple dame, w
to his knock, he said: '^Kindly
Mrs. Smith, that John may be 1
and that if he is not home by ten
return tonight."

Anxiously pondering whether
wisest and gentlest means of breal
invalid woman, Mr. Perry-Henn
the vicarage. He passed a wakeful
in which he was troubled by m;
luncheon next day, in the course oi

THE COMING

growing emotion, "that the shock killed his mother?*'

"Killed his mother !" Mr. Pcrry-Hennington heard
that news for the first time. "The old lady is dead !"

"She died last night."

The vicar was much upset. He did not speak for
some time, but at last he said : "Someone has blun-
dered. I warned her neighbor, Mrs. Bent, to be par-
ticularly careful how she broke the news to her. I
was at pains to choose Mrs. Bent, a sensible woman
whom I thought I could trust. I felt the shock would
be less if the news came from a neighbor instead of
from me. But I see" — ^bitterness mingled now with
the concern in the vicar's tone — "that it would have
been far wiser had I taken the whole responsibility
upon myself."

"I'm not sure that it would," said Edith. "Mrs.
Bent says the poor thing knew what had happened
without being told."

"She couldn't have known anything of the kind.
That's quite impossible. Every precaution was taken
to spare her a shock. I saw to it myself that all the
arrangements were properly carried out. Last evening
at dusk a car with two attendants from Wellwood
Sanatorium drove up to the common, popped the poor
fellow inside and took him away without a soul in
the village being the wiser. I was there and saw the

2ig

order I have given the matter anxious
The details of the plan were most cai
out in order to spare the poor old wom
possible, and to defeat public curiosity,
am quite sure that unless Mrs. Bent ex
structions, which is hardly likely to !
case, the poor old thing could not hi
shock.*'

"Mrs. Bent's own version," said E
as soon as she entered the cottage a:
spoke a word, Mrs. Smith said to hei
you've come to tell me that they've t
I shall never see him again this side the
But I am not afraid. The God of Rig
promised to take care of me.' Mrs. I

THE COMING

even then. Dr. Joliffe was sent for at once, but before
he could get there Mrs. Smith was dead."

The vicar was deeply moved by the tragic story.
It was a sequel which he had not been able to foresee.
The swiftness of the stroke in a measure softened the
terrible sense of direct responsibility; none the less
he was much upset

As for Edith, the sequence of events had filled her
with an emotion little short of horror. It was in her
voice and her eyes as she now discussed them. A
feeling of intolerable pain came upon her as she real-
ized what a very important part in the tragedy she
had played. It was her complaint against John Smith
which lay at the root of all.

Father and daughter were very unhappy. Edith
was inclined to blame herself more than she blamed
the vicar. Her loyal nature was capable of great
generosity, and it showed itself now in taking the
chief share of the catastrophe upon herself. She was
bound to believe that her father had taken a greatly
exaggerated view of John Smith's heresies, but his
sincerity was beyond question. The vicar's zeal had
wrought irreparable harm, but knowing him for the
man he was, it was impossible to blame him.

As soon as luncheon was over the vicar set out for
Dr. Joliffe's. He was a man of strong, imperious

221

mto nis Dram as he crossed tne village g
on the one hand a deserted pile of stone
the lowered blinds of the widow's cottag

It was futile to ask the question now.
call the dead to life. Nor could he rev
esses of the law. John Smith was un
key at Wellwood Asylum for the good
Armed with the opinion of Dr. Parker i
fin, a Welbeck Street specialist, it had no
cult matter to convince the county bench 1
would be the safer for a measure so dras
it? All the vicar's power of will was m
the horrid demon voice. In fact he li
succeeded by the time he entered Dr. Jol

As was to be expected, Joliffe had scai

THE COMING

*Tity you didn't take advice,** Joliffe ventured to
remark.

"I don't reproach myself/* said the vicar stiffly. **It
had to be done. The public interest called for it. But
I wish that old woman could have been spared the
shock. Every precaution was taken, the removal was
most carefully planned, the whole thing went without
a hitch. I can't think how the news' got out."

Dr. Joliffe confessed that he was equally at a loss.
He had questioned Mrs. Bent closely upon the matter,
and she had declared that John's mother had said that
God had told her something terrible was going to hap-
pen to her son. He had told her also that they were
about to be parted, and that she would never see him
again in her present life.

**An amazing prepossession,** said the vicar.

Dr. Joliffe was inclined to consider it a remarkable
piece of clairvoyance.

''I was not aware that she laid claim to powers of
that kind,** said the vicar.

"Nor I,'* said the doctor. "Of course she was al-
ways an unusual sort of woman, and deeply religious."

"Evidently there was a great bond of sympathy be-
tween her and her son.**

Dr. Joliffe agreed. There was reason, also, to be-
lieve that the son was a man of unusual powers.

223

ourselves I fear his mind is goii
The doctor was loth to admit
feared for Brandon, it was true ;
had gained such an intellectual
that it seemed to point to the via
same time Joliffe was unwilling
don's estimate of the man's ge
fruit of aberration.

''But/' rejoined the vicar, "Bra
educated man. And a highly e
right to such an opinion."

"Well, you know, when I wa
other day I met old Dunn, the
grammar school where John Smi
I asked him if he remembered hi

THE COMING

"Because the lad's health forbade hard regular
study. Otherwise he must have gone far."

"That is more than one can believe."

"I can only say that Dunn is reckoned a first-rate
judge of a boy's possibilities."

"Unduly partial to his own pupils I believe. It
was on his advice and due to his interference that my
gardener's eldest boy took his law final and became
a solicitor, and I felt obliged to part with a good
servant in consequence."

"This poor fellow is hardly a pupil to be proud of.
Dunn says he looks upon it as the tragedy of his own
scholastic life that such powers as John Smith's have
borne no fruit. He had the most original mind of
any boy he has known."

"In other words the most cranky mind,'* said the
vicar impatiently. "I believe he has suffered all his
life from hallucinations."

"Dunn didn't say that."

"Had he heard of the course we were taking?"

"He didn't mention the matter and I was careful not
to refer to it. But I won't answer for Parker."

"Parker promised not to speak of it to anyone. It
is known to Whymper and Jekyll and one other magis-
trate, and I believe was mentioned to General Clarke
at the Depot, but in the public interest it was thought

225

iNu uouDi, saia ut. joune rain
"There again Brandon has bd
After all, this man belongs to the i
would have been quite well looked ;
asyliun at Broad Hill, where sud
care of at the public charge. Still,
your authority, Joliffe/'

''Brandon insisted that it should t

"Well, it all goes to show that '

not the man he was. Of course he

cost him at least five hundred a yea

period to keep this man at Wdlwoa

"I pointed that out to him. But

up his mind. And he was so upset 1

that it seemed wise not to raise diffic

"All very well. But I think mv

«1

€€*

THE COMING

"Still confined to his room with lingering traces of
a temperature/'

"Had he heard that Murfin's report was tmfavor-
abler

'He takes it for granted/'

Takes it for granted! Pray why should he? I
hope he doesn't think that Murfin is not entirely im-
partial and dependable/'

"He has nothing against Murfin personally/' There
was a gleam of malice in Joliflfe's eye. "But he says
it is too much to hope for fair play for John Smith in
such a world as the present/'

"There speaks a disordered mind." Heat was in
the vicar's tone. 'We have taken every possible pre-
caution. Brandon mast realize that. Every consid-
eration has been shown, and I am bound to say, speak-
ing from first-hand knowledge, that our local bench
has behaved in a most humane and enlightened man-

ner/'

€i^

'Brandon will not agree with you there, I fancy."
"Would he have had us send the man to jail?"
Mr. Perry-Hennington's temperature was still going
up steadily.

"He says John Smith has been condemned without
a trial." For a reason Joliffe could not explain he
was beginning to dislike the vicar intensely. "And he

227

XXVII

THE interview with Dr. Joliff e ruffled the vicar.
The repetition of Brandon's words was ill-
timed, nor was it easy to forgive Brandon for
Uttering them. Action had been taken in the public
interest and Mr. Perry-Hennington could not endure
a breath of criticism. One way and another it had
cost him a good deal. It was only the inspiration of
a high and pure motive and the fact that he had no
personal ax to grind which had enabled him to carry
out the most difficult, the most delicate, and quite the
most thankless task in which he had ever been involved.
In the vicar's opinion he had reason to be satisfied
with the finesse he had used; moreover, he had not
the slightest doubt that the body politic, of which
Brandon and Joliffe were members, had been laid
under a deep obligation. Certainly he had no need
to reproach himself in the matter. Without exciting
remark of any kind, a very undesirable person, ca-
pable of doing infinite mischief, had been placed out of
harm's way. Officious villagers had been referred to
the police ; and the vicar hoped to soften any stab his

229

destroyed. The cause of his frien
so heavily that at first it seemed 1:
from the blow. He mourned him
ently arose the fear that he was al
In this perilous phase only one
the sufferer and the death which h
have been welcome. The will to 1
in him by wife or children or i
society; in the last resort it was
a sacred task had been laid upon hii
had been put out of life by the kind
which the world has always bee
from which history is the only co
the sense of a great wrong, whi*
must be his life's business to redi
Brandon the motiv#» nrtwA«- f/^ ^r^i

THE COMING

and discreet, yet with the power to imbue a shattered
existence with the will to be.

As soon as the new purpose took shape in his mind,
he grew visibly stronger, in outward mental life at
least. By now he had small hope or none that he
would ever recover the use of his legs, but the sense
of utter, futile weariness which had fastened upon
him began to pass. And the new power came from
a source deep down in the soul, of which for the first
time he gained apperception.

For several weeks after the mischief had been
wrought, Brandon declined to see the vicar. He did
not impugn his sincerity. Too well he knew the
nature of the man to believe that he had acted from
a trivial or unworthy motive. But it seemed impos-
sible for one of Brandon's liberal mind to forgive crass
wrongheadedness raised to the n*** power.

Now that the will to live had been evoked, Brand6n
clung with pathetic tenacity to any frail straw of hope
of physical recovery. He felt within himself how
slight they were, but as the weeks of slow torment
passed he never quite gave up. All the resources of
modem science were at his service and they were used
to the full. No known means was neglected of restor-
ing the vital current to the outraged organism. Mas-
sage and radiant heat were applied, electricity was

231

cu lu asK nimseii wnetner ne naa oeen "w
instance to drive the will to its almos
eflFort to retain physical life. Time and
weeks of darkness that doubt recurred
act of despotism pi which he had beer
against which he had struggled with all
still possessed, weighed upon him increas
how the whole miserable affair seemed
the sources of his faith.

What was that faith? He had gone
of his country in the spirit of a modem
one not expecting too much from the
fellow men, of one who was inclined to :
the whole of the Bible as a legend, but
believer in the essential decency of his o\
own people, and imbued with the idea th

XXVIII

FOR several months Brandon heard nothing of
John Smith. Not able to write himself, he had
not the courage to dictate a letter. In such
circumstances there was nothing to be said which did
not seem an impertinence, yet many times he was
possessed by an intense desire to communicate. Day
by day the man himself remained at the root of Bran-
don's thoughts.

In their last interview John had said that he had
a great work to do. Although his fate had even then
been foreshadowed, he had made that declaration;
moreover, he had expressed a serene confidence that
grace would be given for his task.

From the first Brandon had had a great curiosity
as to what that task could be. Believing implicitly
in the full mental and moral responsibility of his
friend, he would not permit a doubt of his capacity.
And yet it was only too likely that the conditions in
which his life was now passed would paralyze a won-
derful mind. Brandon had done all that lay in his
power to lighten its lot; he had not spared money to

233

THE COMING

provide reasonable comfort, reasonable amenity of
surroundings; books and papers had gone to Well-
wood from time to time ; all that could be done by
a friend's devotion had been done to sustain John
Smith and keep his soul alive.

At last the silence was broken. Brandon received a
letter from Wellwood, expressing deep gratitude for
this solicitude. But it also expressed far more. It
disclosed a penetration of thought, a power of vision,
above all a real nobility of temper whose only parallel
in the mind of Brandon was that of Socrates in similar
but less degrading circumstances.

Somehow Brandon was comforted. The transcen-
dent qualities he had long perceived in this man were
here in their fullness. Amid the Stygian glooms of
a world ever groping in darkness, a great light shone.
In Brandon's opinion it was better to be immured with
John Smith in Wellwood Sanatorium than to enjoy
the sanctions of human freedom.

In the course of a full letter, which Brandon read
again and again, John Smith referred to a work upon
which he was engaged. He was going forward with
his task, and with the help of others it was nearing
fulfillment He did not disclose what the task was,
nor did he refer to "the others" specifically.

Weeks passed. Visibly helped by John Smith's

2S4

THE COMING

letter, Brandon, to the joy of his friends, regained
much of his mental poise. The dark clouds of a few
months back were slowly dispersed, but in body he
remained inert, and now without hope of cure. And
then one morning at the beginning of December there
came a second letter from Wellwood.

It merely contained these words : "Come soon. I
need you."

Such authoritative brevity was for Brandon a com-
mand which he felt he must obey. But he was at
once aware that he could only get to Wellwood in the
teeth of a junta. Wife, doctor, nurse, all had very
strong reasons to urge against a journey of nearly
twenty miles in the middle of winter to such a place
on such a pretext. To them the summons itself was
the caprice of an unsound mind, the wish to obey it
the whim of a sick man.

But in this, as they were to learn, they underrated
the forces now at work. Fully set on obeying the
stmimons, Brandon would brook no refusal. In vain
Millicent dissuaded, in vain Joliffe and the nurse issued
a ukase. Come what might he must see John Smith;
if the heavens fell he must go to Wellwood.

Opposition raised Brandon's will to such a pitch
that at last his guardians had to consider the question
very seriously. And they reluctantly saw that beyond

235

growing excitement threatened a reti
sent was reluctantly given for a let
to the chief medical officer at Wellwo
to see John Smith.

Millicent Brandon wrote the lette
dictation, devoutly hoping the while
would fail. Alas for the frailty of
the scale of official perversity! B]
came full permission to visit the pat
In the presence of this bombshell not
to submit with a good grace to the in

Accordingly, in the gray of a Dec
Brandon made the journey to Wellwc
hardly took an hour. Little of the la
ible in the winter half-light, and the

THE COMING

luxury; to those whose lot had been cast on more
liberal lines there was little to complain of in regard
to food, housing, reasonable recreation. Yet to each
and all of its inmates, from the most open and amen-
able to the most sullen and defiant, it had one truly
dreadful drawback. They were not there of their own
free will, but were held by the order of the State.

That simple but terrible fact galled one and all like
a chain. And few cherished any real hope of ever
getting free. "Abandon hope all ye who enter here,'*
might have been engraved above the pleasant portals
of this polite prison. Once behind those doors, the
young and the old alike felt themselves caught in the
meshes of a deep-laid conspiracy, of a darkness and
a subtlety beyond belief. Every attempt at freedom
was a struggle against fate, every effort to break the
fetters of the law riveted them more securely. From
time to time the patients were visited by doctors,
magistrates, clergymen, commissioners in lunacy, but
these came as a concession to the wisdom and humanity
of an abstract conception. Insight, hope, healing,
came not in their train.

Brandon felt a sudden chill of soul as he was lifted
by his chauffeur and his valet from the car and car-
ried into the light and the suffocating wannth beyond

«37

this emotion had its source in his o\
his own state of extreme mental tensio

Brandon was carried into a private
there received by the chief medical off
to whom he was known by hearsay,
privilege to have a conversation with
enlightened man, which interested hin

Dr. Thorp stood very high in his
his many years' experience of mental
and deep. For him the subject with
terrible as it was, had an all-absorbi:
offered to the researches of science a
moreover, this expert had a power ov
was therefore able to keep a sane, cool,
ment in the midst of perils which too (

« •

THE COMING

things. The chief medical officer spoke with a f rank-
nesSy a fair-minded desire to be inqmrtial, which Bran-
don somehow had not looked for. To begin with he
did not hesitate to describe the case of John Smith as
quite the most remarkable that had ever qome into his
ken. And the fact that Brandon had known him
intimately for many years, that he had always been
his friend and champion, and that grievously stricken
as he was, he had come to see him now, appeared in
the eyes of Dr. Thorp to give this visitor an importance
altogether unusual

"I welcome you here, Mr. Brandon, for several
reasons," he said. "Apart from the fact that you pay
John's bills every quarter, and that he always speaks
of you in the most affectionate terms, I am hoping
that you will be able to add to our knowledge of the
dear fellow himself.''

Somehow Brandon was a little startled by the epi-
thet. It had an odd sound on official lips. He would
have expected it to fall almost as soon from the gover-
nor of a jail. The doctor met Brandon's look of sur-
prise with a smile. "It's the only way to describe
him," he said. "But he is a great puzzle to us all
And if in any way you can help us to solve him we
shall be much in your debt."

"There is little I can tell you," said Brandon, "that

239

J Thorp. "It is my province to disa,

said very gravely. "Not for a moi
myself to hold anyone here against Y
him entirely sane, normal, rational/
"I readily understand that," said
air of charming courtesy. "But
means are open to you in an instit

{ of forming an impartial judgment;

Dr. Thorp answered the question
which greatly prepossessed Brandon
readily admit that for us here an ir
is hardly possible. John Smith has
sane in the particular way that the
we are only able to approach his a
that knowledge."

THE COMING

will answer it as well as I can. As a private indi-
vidual, although he shows certain symptoms which
sooner or later are bound, in my judgment, to lead to
serious mental derangement, he is not likely at present
to do actual harm ; in fact he is capable of doing posi-
tive good ; but of course, in a time like this he has to
be considered as a political entity, and it is on these
grounds I imderstand that he is here to be taken care
of imtil the war is over/'

*'Prifna facie, that is true," said Brandcxi. "In other
words, a man of pure and noble genius is the victim
of a shallow, sectarian ignorance which deserves to
be the laughing-stock of the universe."

The words were extravagant, and a certain violence
of gesture accompanied them, but the reaction of Dr.
Thorp was serious, even troubled. "You are bent on
involving me in the most difficult problem of my ex-
perience," he said, after a pause.

"I am. And perhaps — ^who knows? — in the most

difficult problem the civilized world has yet had to

face."
"As you say, who knows ?" said Dr. Thorp, a cloud

growing on his sensitive face.

"In other words," said Brandon, "you are ready to

admit that a man of very profound and beautiful

genius is being held here."

241

ii
1

face. "One somehow expected i
"Whatever his mentality may
I am not competent to judge, th
only call a largeness of soul whi
others. One of our old men, one
intellects, of whom we have scve
they are, has christened him th<
scMnehow we feel it is a title tiu
serves."

That is to say, he is a good i
patients ?"

"Yes; in fact a moral force. 1
since he came here their work is
an instance of what I mean, let
anecdote which our head attends

THE COMING

excq)tiQn to the rule and that he can simply make him
do anything. This morning it appears the Herr Pro-
fessor had decided that he wotdd no longer wear a
tie. 'Put it on at once/ said Boswell, our head attend-
ant. 'I shall not/ said the Herr Professor, 'except
by the command of God and the Emperor.' 'Very
well/ said the head attendant, 'then I shall ask the
Master to come to you/ Well, the Master came —
that, by the way, is the name the patients have given
him. The head attendant stated his case and the
Master said to the Herr Professor, 'Put on your tie,
my dear friend. It is the rule here in Elysium and
you are botmd to obey it. Otherwise the gods will
turn you out and you may find yourself wandering in
outer darimess for another hundred years or so.' "

"And did the Herr Professor put on his tie ?" asked
Brandon.

"He put it on at once," said Dr. Thorp with a
laugh. "Of course it's a very trivial anecdote. But
to me the whole thing is a remarkable piece of make-
believe."

Tm afraid I don't quite understand."
'Well, you see, our friend John has persuaded the
old fellow that he is Goethe, talks to him in German
and treats him with a deference which raises a smile.
And the odd side of the affair is that the poor old

243

"J'-

jl tically no limit to the power of st

a hundred patients here, and his
astonishing. There seems to be ni
some of them do; and as he is ;
law and order we bless the day 1:
"As I understand your theory,
ancy has been gained over your ps
of suggestion?''

"Yes ; to put it crudely the effect
a kind of hypnotism of the imagins
a truly remarkable case is that of
once have done great things in mi
man by the way. But for years h
deranged. Yet in his case John S
performed a miracle. By his pov
has hvonotized tli#» mori Jnf*-*

r*^x««

THE COMING

'Indeed 1" said Brandcm.

Dr. Thorp laughed. "And the oddest part of the
whole matter is that the music only came to be written
because John Smith was able to persuade our poor
friend that he really was Beethoven."

"Again the power of suggestion?'

"Undoubtedly. And one that deserves to become
a classical instance of the power of sjrmpathetic im-
agination rightly applied. I am not sure that John
Smith is not a great thinker who has discovered a
profotmd truth."

"I am inclined to believe that he has discovered
more than one." A glow of excitement had begun to
course in Brandon's veins.

"At any rate," said the doctor, "I defy anyone to
see him here in the midst of our patients — ^very
obscure and baiBing mental cases, some of them are —
without a feeling that he wields a quite remarkable
power over certain types of his fellow creatures."

"One is immensely interested to know that."

"It is hardly too much to say that the atmosphere
of the whole place has changed. Six months ago we
could hope for nothing better than the sullen bicker-
ings of Bedlam; today certain of our best cases are
rising to a kind of high intellectuality which, I frankly
confess, is amazing."

245

for yourself. In the meantime pe
me in a cup of tea." And in defc
arrival of a well-filled tray, Dr. T
a moment further consideration of

TEA was Brandon's f avprite beverage. And this
afternoon it seemed to work a wonder upon
him. It caused his veins to thrill and bum with
an exhilaration he had never expected to feel again.

''I learn from our amazing friend/' said Dr. Thorp,
pointing a finger at the tray, ''that one of the most
powerful deities of the astral world is in that teapot"

''He seems," said Brandon, "to have taken all
imagination for his province."

"He lives upon the theory, nothing is but thinking
makes it so. He says if one can only grasp it truly,
it covers all the phenomena in the universe."

"In other words," said Brandon with a smile, "you
are not ashamed to sit at the feet of the prophet who
has come into your midst."

"I confess it I confess it frankly and fully." And
the doctor laughed.

Brandon felt a thrill of delight He was like a
chemist who learns from a flame in his test tube that
he has not deceived himself, and that his great dis-
covery has received the sanction of science.

a47

mony. Somehow, he oils the
course. And there is one innovj
yourself if you care to do so."
"There is nothing I should HI

"It is one of his devices for h
amused and interested. He say:
the soul, and that creative imag
function. And he has formed
society, which meets every aftc
problems of the present and the i

"Are your patients able to
ably?"

"Not merely reasonably, I
foundly. We have some intelle<
have read and thought perhaps tc

havft jrivpti nuf fv»fnrA tlipir fin

THE COMING

their powers. I tell you aU ihis^ because what you are
about to see will most probably astonish you. John
Smith wields a marvelous regenerative influence in
this institution, and I want you to see it at work."

"I shall be delighted to do so."

"Very well. But let us first find out whether the
portents are favorable." Thereupon with a smile Dr.
Thorp rose and pressed the button of an electric bell
three times.

Presently the summons was answered by no less a
person than the head attendant, a tall, deliberate, very
dour looking Scotsman.

"Boswell," said Dr. Thorp, as it seemed to Brandon,
with a twinkle in his eye, "is the Court sitting this
afternoon ?"

"Yes, sir,*' said the head attendant with perfect
gravity. "The Master took the chair at three o'clock."

"What are they discussing?"

"Germany, sir." The head attendant spoke with a
slow solemnity which nearly provoked Brandon to a
laugh. ^'Toujours VAllemagnef* said the doctor.
"Still the only question for the Court."

"And likely to be for some little time yet, sir,"
said Boswell impressively. "What they are now try-
ing to arrive at is, can Germany be readmitted on any
terms to the comity of nations ?"

249

I I

"Two of the best we've had
get better and better."

At the note of enthusiasm k
attendant, Dr. Thorp directed a
amusement at his visitor.

''We had Abraham on his It^
us a regular rasper.^'

"For your information/' said
dryly, "Abraham is none othe
coto.''

"He didn't half let German
tone of the head attendant was

"How did Goethe take It?*' i
a diuckle.

"Like a Iamb, sir. He just ss
like a child."

Dr. Thorp rose and took a ni

**i

THE COMING

very good in its way. I should like you to have heard
it, sir/'

"I should like to have done so." The doctor's tone
was half pride, half amused indulgence.

'^Universal brotherhood was his ticket, sir. Rights
of man. Nonresistance to evil and so on. Of course
it doesn't quite work out, but it was a very creditable
effort, very creditable indeed— especially for an old
man who can't button his own collar."

^Quite so," said the doctor.

'And I think you'll like to know, sir" — a note of
pride entered the head attendant's voice — **that we
also had a speech from the brother who came here the
other day from Broad Hill. It was his first attempt,
and to my mind one of the best yet."

"That's interesting," said the doctor, smiling at
Brandon. "What's his name, by the way ?"

"The Master introduced him as Spinoza."

"I hope he was well received."

"He was, sir, and yet not altogether as you might
say. Both Plato and Aristotle seemed inclined to
criticize him, and they were dead set against his pro-
posal that Germany should be more fully represented.
Spinoza seemed to think that she was entitled to more
friends than Goethe and himself and Beethoven."

251

the Master said if the Court
was entitled to call them, there
in causing them to appear."

"Then I hope the Court decid
said Dr, Thorp. "It will be int
Master contrives to make good

"When I left them, sir, they ^
tion. But it will not surprise m<
the proposal."

"What reason have you for
Brandon*

"It's Plato's opinion, sir," ss
pressively, "that Germany, hai
ligion, and having perverted
Luther nor Leibnitz has any hi
as Kant is concerned he agree

THE COMING

attendant still very impressively, "they'll rule it out,
unless the Master himself intervenes/'

"Yes, and rightly," said Dr. Thorp. "Before his
mental breakdown, some years ago, he was a man of
great parts, a professor of Greek at Cambridge, a
beautiful speaker. Now that John Smith has taken
him in hand we are delighted to think that his fine
powers are being reawakened. When he is in his
best form it is well worth anyone's while to hear him.
What is he like this afternoon, Boswell ?"

"I've never heard him to better advantage, sir,"
said the head attendant, with a slow and proud solem-
nity. "He's quite a treat, especially to a man like my-
self, who all my life have made a hobby of philos-
ophy."

"Then let us go and hear what he has to say/'

• ■ »

XXX

BRANDON was carried in his chair along a
dimly lighted corridor. At the end of it was
a large room, lit more dimly still, in which, as
it seemed, a number of ghostly figures were seated
round the fireplace. For the most part they were old,
bearded men, and they were smoking their pipes and
listening with grave attention to one gi their number,
who was addressing them in a low, soft, persuasive
voice.

Brandon was borne in very quietly by the doctor
and the head attendant. He was placed at the back
of the room, at the farthest point from the group
around the fire. His entrance, even if observed, ex-
cited no attention. Without a moment's interruption,
the charming voice, whose every word was clear and
distinct, continued as if nothing was happening.

To Brandon the whole thing was like a dream. The
ghostly half-light in which the speaker and his audi-
ence was wrapped, the flicker of the distant fire, the
curious stillness which the soft voice seemed to en-

254

THE COMING

hance, all added their touch of eeriness to the scene.
Suddenly Brandon was stung to an imaginative inten-
sity he had never felt before. The image of the spec-
trum altered, and he was completely possessed by a
weird feeling that he had made the descent into Hades.

In a kind of entrancement he listened to the voice.
It seemed a little older than the world, and yet he
had heard it many times, as it seemed in many ages,
for every word it used was somehow enchantingly
familiar. Even the fall of the sentences, the rh3rthm
of the phrases was like music in his ears. Whose voice
could it be ? It was a dream voice that swept his soul
back through unnumbered ages, and yet now with full
authority upon his senses in the terrestrial phase of
being. He knew he was in the presence of a great
mystery, and yet hearing that voice he was filled with
strange joy.

'Tlato,'^ whispered the doctor at his side.

Somehow the entranced listener felt that such a
voice, touched by a divine grace, could have belonged
to no (Hie else.

"My friends" — as the words floated upon Brandon's
ear, they seemed to submerge his senses — "what is the
race of men to do? The goal was in sight. Its sons
were about to enter the kingdom their prayers and
their fidelity to the gods had won for them, when one

255

THE COMING

among them betrayed his brethren without pity and
without shame. The tragedy has happened more than
once in the history of an ill-starred planet, but as
you have lately learned from the lips of Herodotus the
circumstances of this case exceed all others in their
poignancy.

"Those who have kept the faith, who have not pro-
faned the high and awful mysteries to which in youth
they were inducted, are permitted by the gods to as-
semble in the Court of First and Last Instance, to con-
sider a most terrible Apostasy. They are to judge by
the light of all the circumstances, they are to make
their recommendations in accordance therewith.

"The Court is agreed that it is in the presence of
the worst crime in its archives. A deed has been done

that words cannot paint, a horror wrought which
Justice cannot condone. Yet here among the wise
and the good, as you have heard, are those who invoke
in the name of the gods, the divine clemency for the
doers of this evil.

"Some who speak for the Apostate have pleaded
that the onus is not upon the common people of an
outlaw state, but upon its ruler and guardians. This
Court is asked to make a distinction between those
whose innocence was wrought upon by cunning, who
were goaded by fear to those bestial acts, which will

256

THE COMING

cause the very name they bear to stink for generations
in the nostrils of men, and the savage lust, the ignoble
greed of those who held the reins of power. It is said
that what they did they could not help doing. In the
name of the Highest, appeal is made to the universal
brotherhood existing among men, which they betrayed
without pity and without remorse.

"Let me remind you, that pray for a miserable and
perverted people, of the words of Socrates. He has
said that the citizens of a state must in all circtun-
stances accept full responsibility for its rulers. What-
ever the form of its government, it is neither better
nor worse than it deserves. And he has said that as
the commonalty yearned to fatten on the spoils of
victory, it is the divine justice that it drink the cup of
defeat to the last drop of its bitterness.

"My friends, emboldened by the words of an in-
spired teacher, I ask you to take care lest mercy be-
come weakness, and weakness supine folly. This is
a conflict of philosophies, but even if the gods are
many. Justice and Truth are one.

"It follows, therefore, that there can be no com-
promise between the evil and the good. Violence and
insult have been offered to mankind, to the divine jus-
tice, and therefore to that Heaven in which we hope

257

THE COMING

to dwell. With those who have kept the faith, I ask
that a pitiless crime be punished without pity.

''According to the old law, those who offend the
gods suffer banishment. The very name they bear
is forever accursed, they are shunned by the virtuous,
they suffer eternal ostracism and the death of the soul.
In the name of all that is sacred, I ask that the law
now take its course. Let those who drew the sword
perish by the Sword. Let them and their kindred,
their children, and their children's children be cast out
forever. Such is the demand of justice. By no decree
less awful can it be met."

There came silence. The voice, to whose every
word Brandon had listened in a kind of entrancement,
could be heard no longer. He strained his eyes and his
ears, but through the haze of shadows he was unable
to distinguish the speaker among those seated round
the fire. The hush that followed excited him strange-
ly. And then another voice was heard, a voice remote
yet familiar, which seemed to cause his heart to break
inside him.

'Brethren" — ^the new voice was curiously soft and
gentle, yet its every word was like a sword — "I am the
eye of the west wind. I am the voice of the evening
star. I am one with Brahm. I am the soul of Islam.
I am the destined Buddha. I am the Light of the

258

*t^

THE COMING

World, and I say to you there is no crime that cannot
be purged by the Father's love.

"I stand here at the apex of this world's history,
and I say to you the old way is not enough. If the
spirit of Man is not to bleed in vain, if the sorrowing
earth is to yield the fruits for which her sons have
died, the God of Righteousness must be avenged by
the God of Love.

''The Father's kingdom is the hearts of men. And
I say to you, unless the Son of Man came in vain
among you, my word shall not be as Dead Sea fruit.
I speak not to a party or a sect, but to all who would
keep the faith, of whatever countenance or caste. ,

''In this slender folio which I hold in my hand is
contained the divine genius of the ancient and the
modem world, the gold of its dreams, the bread of
its aspiration. The souls of the just through whom
the Father spoke of old time have been summoned
anew ; the prophets, the magicians, the makers of har-
mony, have been gathered together, so that the terms
of the Truce may take visible shape in the sight of all
nations.

"I say to you, let none oppose it. This Mandate
speaks to the bosoms and the business of men.
Through it man shall cast off his chains. Through it
he shall hear the voice of his Father, which is in

259

THE COMING

Heaven. The Kingdom shall be made manifest; and
all wars shall cease ; and this old unhappy earth shall
see the light of the promised day.

"There are strong spirits who do not approve this
Mandate. They have their place in the hierarchy ; they
are of the chosen friends of mankind ; sacred Hellas
and imperial Rome are with them ; they have the sanc-
tion of the elder gods, but I say to them, judge not
that you be not judged. The Apostate has sinned
against the Light, but millions of her children have
been purified by sacrifice. Man may live a slave, and
in a vile cause may die a king. The enemy of the
human race has bred great souls. And in the last ac-
count let these stand the surety of her that bred them.
Therefore I say to you again, judge not that you be
not judged."

There was a pause of curious intensity. When the
familiar voice ceased for a moment, Brandon, as if in
a dream, peered through the stifling silence to the
figures round the fire. One there was standing in their
midst, whom he could not yet see, but of whose magi-
cal presence his every fiber was aware. Suddenly he
caught a gesture of the uplifted head and the voice
flowed on.

"Empires and kings shall pass away, but My Word
shall not pass away. And I say to those who pray

260

THE COMING

for the Apostate, let her cast out the devil in her
entrails and return to the old way. Let her seek again
the voice of the Father in the trees and the grass, the
rivers and the mountains, let her weave again her
enchanted harmonies in homage of the Love He bears
her. Then shall her fields again grow fruitful, the
sweet past shall renew itself with increase, her grate-
ful brothers in science shall again take her hand.

"I see around me the souls of the saints waiting to
be reborn. Through unnumbered ages they have held
on high the lamp of Truth. Let them return to a
sweeter world, a world enkindled and renewed in the
Father^s Love.

"Here, in the presence of all that is, and all that
was, I affirm the Beautiful, and the Good.

"I affirm Justice, Truth, and Mercy.

"I affirm the universal brotherhood of men.

"I say to you, fear God, honor the King; which
being interpreted means, obey the Law.

"See the Father in all things.

"I say to you finally, man is the question, God is
the answer.

"This is the law and the prophets. If you would
see the Kingdom deny it not."

Again the voice ceased, and Brandon heard the
doctor's whisper: "The Master is at his best this

261

THE COMING

afternoon. It is better not to interrupt him if you
don't mind. He will ccmie to you presently. He
knows you are here.'*

Brandon shook violently. Possessed by an excite-
ment now almost terrible, he was unable to speak.

XXXI

HE is coming now/' the doctor whispered.
''I will leave you for a little while so that
you may talk without interruption." And
the doctor passed out noiselessly.

Silence had fallen again at the other end of the
long room. Brandon was sensible of a faint stir
among the dim figures round the fire. And then his
heart leaped to his throat, his veins seemed to run with
flame as there emerged and came slowly toward him
an outline wholly different from that of the man he
expected to see. John Smith — if John Smith it was 1
— ^had let his hair grow long, he had acquired a beard,
and he wore a loose robe tied round his middle by a
cord.

The wide-pupiled eyes and the strange pallor of the
face struck with vivid intensity through the ghostly
half-light of the room.

The shock of this appearance was like a knife in
Brandon's flesh.

'Dear friend"— even the voice had changed — "you
have heard great argument. And here is the matter

263

THE COMING

of it.'' A mantiscript bound in brown paper was placed
in Brandon's hands. ''I charge you in the name of
humanity to give this to the world with the Father's
love."

A shiver of strange joy passed through the frame
of the stricken man. The simple words pierced to a
hidden spring. Forces long pent were released within
him, new light, new power, seemed to suffuse him.
Enfolded by his presence, he was conscious of a kind
of rapture which was like a rebirth. He felt the
caress of lips on his forehead, the great eyes sank
into him. And then came the voice, familiar and
yet strange, "Faithful servant, if you believe in me
rise from your bed and walk."

The words were as a fire. In the same tone of
gentleness they were repeated, and Brandon felt the
icy touch of a hand upon his cheek. His heart seemed
to break and thrill with joy, as, overborne by an
anguish of feeling, he suddenly rose from his chair
and cast himself at the feet of him in whose presence
he was.

"Master!" he cried. "Master 1"

XXXII

IN the course of a few minutes two attendants
entered for the purpose of conveying the visitor
to the doctor^s room. Brandon returned to his
chair, his friend bade him good-by, and then the
sufferer allowed himself to be carried down the cor-
ridor as if nothing had happened.

His brain was in a state of wild ferment, yet he
was sufficiently its master to refrain from letting Dr.
Thorp know that the power of motion had returned
to his limbs. At the instance of faith he had risen
from his bed and walked, but now was not the time
to proclaim a miracle in the sight of men.

"I hope you had an interesting talk with our friend,"
said the doctor, with a smile of professional politeness.
"And what is that I see? Is that the great work?
How high you must stand in his favor!" The voice
of the doctor rose to a sympathetic laugh. "You
should be a proud man. Quite extraordinary pains
have been bestowed upon it by him and his friends
here.'* •

265

THE COMING

''Have you read it?" asked Brandon, the blood
drumming in his ears.

"Oh, yes."

Brandon, startled by the sound of his own voice, had
just enough courage to ask the doctor's opinion of the
play.

Dr. Thorp replied with a happy frankness : ''Don't
laugh at me if I confess that to my mind it's a sublime
work."

Tou really think so r

1 do, and I'll tell you why. There's such a great
idea at the back of it, that I feel a better, a stronger,
a saner man for having come in contact with it. That
play takes one into another world. It draws aside
the curtain, and gives us harassed mortals a peep into
the kingdom of the Something Else. Nothing is but
thinking makes it so. Believe me, that's a sublime
conception. And the Master has made us all feel here
that we have a share in it. Shakespeare, Moliire,
Sophocles, Menander, and other august old gentlemen
you saw round the fire in the other room, have all
been consulted, and Beethoven has composed some
enchanting music for it, so we can't help thinking it
wonderful." The doctor's laugh was now a note of
pure joy. "Believe me, in its way, the whole thing
is incomparable."

266

THE COMING

"What is the titled

"It is called, 'A Play Without a Name/ but I am
convinced that it ought to be called, The Something
Else/ or The Power of Love.' And although you'll
begin to doubt my sanity, I can't help feeling that if
the play were performed in every town in Europe at
the present hour, it would be the beginning of a new
era for the human race."

"That is to say, the whole world might be bom
again through the power of the spoken word."

"Exactly," said the doctor, with enthusiasm. "And
that, by the way, is what the author aims at. Of
course you realize what his particular form of delu-
sion is, and you will have noticed that he begins to
bear a remarkable resemblance to his prototype."

"Yes," said Brandon, in a hushed, broken tcme,
It's quite imcanny."

ttlA.f.

BRANDON returned to
as he had left it. With,
had happened, he allow
to his ro(»n and put to bed.
worn out with the strange e^
noon. The visit to Wellwoo(
call on a devitalized nervous s
rather feverish and overstrunj
his pillows in a reaction of w(
that for a time he should forgi
As he lay trying to reconstr
ence he had just been through,
of mystery flowed through h:
moment only. He had hardi
whether the new life was still

THE COMING

first sensation was that something had happened,
something which had forever changed the current of
his life. What could it be? Before the question was
answered, before he cotild relate himself to the life of
the senses, and the mind could gain perception of it-
self, he grew conscious of a thought half formed. It
was full of strange joy, of strange fear. Then he
tried to cast his mind back, and in the very act of
doing so, he suddenly heard a voice in the room : "If
you believe in me rise from your bed and walk."

Involuntarily he sat up, flung aside the bedclothes,
pressed his lifeless feet upon the carpet. An instant
he stood swaying, expecting to fall, and then he felt
himself sustained by a new power. Foot by foot he
groped his way to the window and drew its curtains
aside.

The risen moon was shining on the trees of the
park. As its cold light flowed into Brandon's eyes,
he was able to assure himself that he was fully awake.
He was able to assure himself that a miracle had made
him whole, and that his being was rooted now in some
subtle but profound alchemy of the soul. For long he
stood looking out on the night, while a growing joy
prevaded him. Tears of pure happiness, whose shed-
ding was an exquisite physical relief, ran down his
cheeks. Again and again his flesh responded to the

269

THE COMING

thrill of a recollected touch; a rapture he had never
known coursed through his veins; his bonds were
bcc^en ; he was borne upon the wings of a new destiny.

Almost delirious with joy he got back into bed»
and lay a long hour shivering with excitement Even
now he hardly dared to meet the hard logic of the
matter. The events of yesterday besieged him like a
fantastic dream. He had risen from his bed, and he
had walked at the command of One in whom he had
implicitly believed. But at this moment he dare not
ask himself to restate that faith in its superhuman
aspect.

Long before daylight came, his thoughts had grown
so insurgent, that he put out a hand and switched on
the light. On a table by his bed was laid the manu-
script he had brought from Wellwood. In an ecstasy
of growing bewilderment he turned to it now, devour-
ing it greedily, almost with a sense of ravishment.

It was called simply, 'A Play Without a Name.'
It set forth a "religion of humanity,'* in a series of
parables crystal-clear to the humblest mind, yet by a
superhuman cunning, as it seemed to Brandon, ful-
filling the laws which govern the enchanting art of the
dramatist. The action had been devised for repre-
sentation, the words that they might be spoken in the
theater. The theme was the power of love, human

270

THE COMING

and divine, and it was illustrated by vivid, moving,
beautiful pictures.

Daylight found Brandon still pondering this won-
derful play. He was now in the thrall of an all-
absorbing event. A few hours back he had passed
through a miraculous experience, and the problem now
was to relate it to the known facts of organic life.
The difficulties of the situation were foreshadowed as
soon as the nurse came into the room.

^^Who has drawn back the curtains?" she demanded
at once, in a tone of stem surprise.

Brandon, in spite of his excitement, was able to
affect a torpid indifference to the question.

"I could have taken an oath,'' said the nurse, ^^that
when I left you last night the ctutains were pulled
across the window as usual 1'^

XXXIV

ON the afternoon of the following day, MilH-
cent Brandon took the great news to the vicar-
age, that Gervase had walked across the room.
It was a thrilling announcement, and Millicent's ex-
citement was reflected in Edith and the vicar, for like
all his friends they had given up hope that he would
ever walk again.

It appeared that something very like a miracle had
happened. And, strange to say, it coincided with the
visit to Wellwood. But doctor and nurse were loath
to believe that that unsanctioned journey had anything
to do with a most astonishing matter. As for Bran-
don himself, walking the path of an extreme wariness
in the midst of new and overwhelming perplexities, he
was ver' careful not to claim it as the fount of heal-
ing.

A week passed, a truly wonderful week of return-
ing life, of unsealed physical power. The sensory
apparatus had been repaired, the dead limbs were
again alive, the sufferer had risen from his bed; and
in his own mind it was absolutely clear to what agency

272

THE COMING

the fact was due. Moreover, it carried with it a very
special obligation.

Brandon had never regarded himself as a religious
man. Before he went to the wars of his country he
had been a skeptic. He understood well enough the
great part faith had played in human affairs, but he
had conceived it as the fruit of a peculiar mental and
physical constitution. He knew that the religious
sense had the power to create an amazing world of
its own, but he had been glad to think that he could
meet the facts of existence without its aid. Now,
however, he felt himself to be a new Faust, who had
sold himself, not to the devil, but to the Christian God.
He had been miraculously restored to physical health,
but only on condition that he obeyed without mental
reservation of any kind, the implicit will of Another.

He must lay all questioning aside. Body and soul
were now in the care of a superhuman power. He had
entered into a most solemn pact, to whose fulfillment
he must bend the whole force of his will. And its
first fruits were to be seen in a letter which he ad-
dressed to an old school and college friend, one Robert
Pomfret, urging him to come and spend Christmas at
Hart's Ghyll.

Brandon hardly dared to hope that the letter would
succeed in its purpose. There was little in such an

273

THE COMING

invitation to lure a regular man of the town from his
accustomed round. But the unexpected happened.
Pomfret, being "at a loose end" in Christmas week,
found his way to Hart's Ghyll, prompted, no doubt,
by a generous desire to cheer up an old friend in the
hour of aiiKction.

The two men were curiously unalike. Pomfret was
not a creature of delicate perceptions, or intellectual
curiosity. Apart from a large and rich geniality,
which endeared him to a wide circle of acquaintances,
he was merely a shrewd, eupeptic man of business,
whose supreme merit was, that he knew exactly how
many beans made five. But a subtle bond may exist
between diverse characters, if each is sound at the
core, and in this case a humorous respect was paid to
the other's peculiar qualities.

Brandon was delighted, and perhaps just a little
flattered by the arrival of his sagacious friend on
Christmas Eve. He had not dared to hope that a
casual note, at such short notice, would lure a pagan
and worldling from his orbit. But a divinity shapes
our ends. His old fagmaster at school was the one
man of practical experience to whom Brandon could
turn in the diflicult and unknown country he had now
to traverse. Robert Pomfret had really been sum-
moned to Hart's Ghyll, not as he innocently and mag-

274

THE COMING

nanimously believed, on the score of old friendship,
but in his capacity of prosperous lessee of three West
End theaters.

It was not until Christmas Day was far spent that
the host disclosed his fell design. Immediately after
dinner he contrived to get the redoubtable Robert into
the library on the plea of '"a little advice on an impor-
tant matter/' without his victim suspecting the trap
that had been laid for him. Brandon, moreover, led
up to the subject with the discretion of a statesman.
And then, in order to get a direct and reasoned ver-
dict, he read aloud the first act.

His own experience of the stage was confined to one
appearance with the O. U. D. S. in a very humble part.
Moreover, his knowledge of general theatrical condi-
tions was extremely slight. At the same time he knew
that for a tyro to force the portals of the English
theater was a superhtunan task. But now, sustained by
a very odd sense of the author's plenary inspiration, he
read with a devout eagerness which puzzled and rather
intimidated Pom fret. However, he was still awake
at the end of the first act.

"What do you think of it?" asked Brandon.

"Go on," was the curt rejoinder.

Sustained by this Olympian encouragement, Bran-
don passed to the second act.

275

THE COMING

'^Go on/' was still the command.

With a puzzled attention, which he somehow yielded
in spite of himself, Pomfret listened to the end of Act
Four. And then the flushed, excited, triumphant read-
er asked his question again.

"It's certainly very unusual,'' said Mount Olympus
cautiously.

Brandon somehow felt as if a bucket of cold water
had been dashed over him. He had allowed himself
to expect more sonorous epithets. Intoxicated by the
play's magic, he suddenly took the bull by the horns.
"I want you to put it up at your best theater in the
next six months," he said.

"My dear boy," Pomfret gasped, "do you want to
ruin me?"

What's the objection?"

Simply that it isn't a commercial proposition.
Mind, I'm not saying a word against the play. You've
got a wonderful head to have thought of it all, but as
I say, it isn't a commercial proposition."

"It isn't my head that's thought of it, you old
dunce," said Brandon. "Therefore I invite you to
express yourself quite freely and frankly."

"Well, in the first place," said the great man, draw-
ing at his cigar, "the subject itself is not suited to
the theater."

276

THE COMING

"You think so?"

*rm sure of it. T^e whole thing is far too fan-
tastic."

"Don't you think the central figure is a wonderful
conception ?"

"Yes, I do. But who do you suppose is going to
play a god who works miracles, who is the genius of
love and laughter, who heals the wounds of the world
by converting it to a religion of universal brother-
hood, universal fellowship, universal joy? Of course,
in its way it's sublime, but the whole thing is full of
peril."

"It has pitfalls, no doubt But if only the players
will have courage, I am convinced that the play will
carry them."

"It would be a terrible risk. And then there's the
Censor."

Brandon confessed that he had forgotten the
Censor.

He's very shy of religion as a rule," said Pomfret.
And he's very likely to object that it's far too gentle
with the Boche. The creed of love your enemies is
all very well in the Bible, but it's quite impossible to
practice — ^at any rate just now. And then the par-
sons won't like their pitch being queered. Their stock
in trade has always been gloom, reproach, damnation,

277

THE COMING

mumbo jumbo, but your deity is a sort of Pied Piper,
who converts a bleeding world to the love of God
by the charm of his music, his power of sympathy, and
his care for the doers of evil. Yes, it's a remarkable
idea, but Pm afraid it's pro-Boche, and as far as the
religious aspect goes, the people whom it might hope
to interest are the most likely to take offense at it."

"I can't think they will," Brandon protested, "if it's
given in the spirit in which it's conceived. Don't you
see that it restates the central truths of Christianity,
and presents them in a clearer, fuller, more universal
light?"

"It may, but that is not likely to appeal to the big
public, which goes to the play to be amused, and not
to be edified."

"Why not let the two states be one and the same?
Why not let them march together?"

"My boy, you don't know the theater."

"But the idea behind this play is that the theater is
capable of becoming a great moral and spiritual force.
And that's what it ought to be. It's appeal is irresisti-
ble; and religion brought from its superhuman pedes-
tal might be humanized, individualized, made attractive
to all the world. Now, my friend, produce this play

at your best theater, with all the wonderful technical

278

THE COMING

resources at your conunand, and you will have a suc-
cess that will simply astonish you."

''Or failure that will cause me to file a petiticMi in
bankruptcy."

"I will indemnify you against all loss."

Pomfret shook a solemn head. "My dear boy," he
said, "it would be madness to put up a play of this
kind.''

"Tell me, what would be the cost of a first-^lass pro-
duction ?"

"At the Imperial, five thousand pounds, and you
would have to be prepared to lose every penny. It's
not the kind of thing the public wants, particularly
just now."

"Well, let them have their chance and see what
happens."

They continued to discuss the matter until mid-
night, and even returned to it the following day.
Brandon marshaled his arguments with such skill that
Pomfret, against his deepest instinct as a theatrical
manager, began to weaken a little. Like all men who
succeed in life, the sense of his own limitations was
ever before him. He knew that there were more
things in earth and heaven than were dreamed of in
the philosophy of Robert Pomfret. Brandon was a
poet, a scholar, a man of taste, and even if his quali-

279

THE COMING

ties had no place in a theater run on sound commer-
cial lines, after all they stood for something. And
when they had a solid backing of five thousand pounds,
they became doubly impressive.

By the time Pomfret was at the end of his brief
stay, he was thinking furiously. And if he saw no
cause to alter the judgment he had formed, he was
too shrewd a man not to fortify it with sound tech-
nical advice. Therefore, the next day, when he left
Hart's Ghyll, the precious manuscript went with him.
He promised to have it copied and submitted to hi&
reader of plays.

XXXV

A FORTNIGHT passed, which for Brandon
was a time of hope, increasing physical well-,
beings steadily returning faculty, and then
came a letter from Pomfret. A second reading of the
play had deepened his interest ; moreover his reader, on
whose judgment he relied, was inclined to think that
it had possibilities. He agreed, however, that the sub-
ject was a thorny one in the present state of public
feeling, and before any proposal was made it would
be well, perhaps, to sound the Censor of plays.

A week later there came a second letter which se-
verely dashed Brandon's hopes. The Lord Chamberlain
was not prepared to license the play unless the chief
character and two of the principal scenes were re-
moved, in other words Hamlet must be played with-
out the Prince of Denmark. "But," the letter added,
"my reader and I are agreed that these 'cuts' will give
the production as a whole a far better chance with
the large public. The big scenes are full of danger
and religion is not wanted in the theater. Therefore,

281

jDranaon was rainer aismayea.
trying position. Every week that j
belief in the plenary inspiration <
whole. His physical and mental pc
day by day and the more firmly he
the living world of the present thi
in the miracle which had made him :
fore, every word of the play was ss
of the official ukase there was onl
done: he constrained himself to w
giving the history of the negotiati
Pom fret's letter.

He had not long to remain in dc
there came a reply. "Dear friend/'
ters of Wisdom in council assembl
none impair the Truce of God. It ii

THE COMING

done^ and the fact could be accepted with a clear
conscience. But his faith being now as it was, and re-
enforced by his daily, his hourly experience, he felt
his duty to the world at large bearing upon him more
and more heavily.

Although the matter seemed to have reached its
logical end, Brandon, somewhat to his wife's dismay,
suddenly determined to go up to town. Even if there
was nothing to hope for by still pursuing it, he would
give himself the satisfaction of doing his utmost in
the charge laid upon him.

Millicent did her best to keep him from London.
His recovery had been so recent and so imforeseen
that she could not help feeling that he was still on pro-
bation, and that undue stress, either of mind or body,
would involve a serious relapse.

Dr. Joliffe, as puzzled as herself by the new turn of
events, seconded her vigorously. He was sure, from
the nature of the case, that his patient was still on very
thin ice. But he was met now by a will of iron. Even
if the heavens fell, Brandon had set his mind on going
to town; yet he would not give a reason. The rueful
Millicent had to order her trunks to be packed ; more-
over, she had to crave the shelter of the paternal roof
in Hill Street for the peccant invalid imtil such time

283

warmth and comfort of the car
relation to what it had been han
ago, simple gratitude became t
She must never forget that sev<
tors in the land had by that ti
as hopeless. It had been finally
lesion whose baffling obscurity
even for modem therapeutic si
no longer hoped for, yet here w
by her side in full possession c
mental faculty. A miracle had
ken of science, which it could 01
most general terms. A severe s
clock in the first instance and
now assume that a counter-sh<
again.

THE COMING

known the nadir of the soul» he was now a giant newly
risen and refreshed with strong wine. The universe
was rare and strange; the secret hope at the core of
every human life had been verified in a way to surprise
. the expectations of the wildest dreamer.

The next morning he went to see Pomfret. As he
set out for Half Moon Street the air was raw, the
wind bitter, but he felt like an awakened sleeper walk-
ing in a new and wonderful world. Not again had
he hoped to feel the London pavement under his feet ;
not again had he hoped to experience the thrill of
the world's metropolis. Somehow its old, drab streets
put an enchantment upon him. He was fired as he
had never been by their magic and their mystery. And
now he had a power within which set him so miracu-
lously in tune with the infinite that he saw new colors
in the gray sky, the dull grass, the bare trees ; he heard
noble harmonies in the flowing air and the sharp wind.

The great man, in a vivid chocolate breakfast suit,
was dallying with a poached egg.

"By all the gods !" he cried, rising with outstretched
hands. "What brings you to town, my son ?"

"There is but one God," said Brandon, allowing
himself to be pressed into the chair nearest the fire.
"And John Smith is his prophet. In a word, he has
brought me to town."

285

vviiiic iromirci rcaa nc waicnea nis lan
One thing was clear: since the great ms
Hart's Ghyll a good deal of water had fi
the bridge. At any rate disappointmen
perplexity, were fiow freely displayed in
sive countenance.

"What a rum letter!" was the first cor
the chap cracked or is he trying to pull you

" 'Nothing is but thinking makes it s<
don's gravity was almost stem. ''This is
man, and one day, I hope, a topsy-turvy
know it."

"I can only say it's a great pity he w<
to the cuts." The rejoinder was measured
businesslike. "A very great pity. Morris

THE COMING

**That can be got over. And as I say, the cuts will
be all for the good of the play."

"But don't you see, old dunce, that this is a thing
no one can touch?"

"In that case there's an end of the matter." Pom-
fret's jaw fell three inches. "The law won't allow
it to be produced in London."

"Then so much the worse for London."

"No doubt," said the cynic at the breakfast table.
"But seriously, if you can persuade your crackpot to
be practical we may have a pretty big thing. Honey-
bone, the composer, has seen the music He says it's
great, and he thinks that theme in the second act might
go all over the world."

'Well, we shall see."

"But you won't, my friend, I assure you, unless you
can make the man hear reason."

"We have his last word, I'm afraid," said Brandon
gravely, as he put the letter back in his pocket "And
we musn't forget that there's a great purpose at the
back of it all. I believe this work to be inspired, just
as the gospels are inspired — ^although I own that a
month ago I daren't have made any such statement."

Pom fret opened round eyes of wary amazement.
"Well, well," he said. And he rose from the table and
offered his visitor a cigarette.

I I
i

III

moment he was a very
"So now you knov
Brandon, looking at him eagerly,
in my humble opinion the thing m
is. Moreover, you now know wh
bounden duty to give it to the wor
be put up here I shall take it to N<

The mention of New York had i
Pomfret. "Rather a coincidence/
Meyer is over here. He's lunchinj
the Ritz. You'd better come and r

It was a grave confession of ig
don owned that the name of Urbj
ncihing.

"He's the biggest thing of his kir

THE COMING

you may get further light oo the matter. But if you're
wise you won't be quite so frank with him as you've
been with me. A little bird tells me that he's inter-
ested. But he's a regular Napoleon in business. Still
you may like to hear what he has to say, and there's
just a chance that he may save you a journey to New
York."

"He may," said Brandcm, "but I'm not hopeful.
His name bewrayeth him."

"A hyphenated American," said Pomfret, %ut he
began life as a little Frankfort Jew. A remarkable
man with a still more remarkable career behind him.
Exact study of the public taste has made him a million-
aire. Still, we're old friends and I'm bound to say
I've always found him a very decent fellow. And if
you care for human documents I think he will interest
you."

In a fraternal manner they passed the time till one
o'clock. About noon a wintry sun came out and they
took a gentle turn in the Green Park to get an appetite
for luncheon. The shrewdly humorous man of affairs
was so full of advice that he was like a kindly uncle.
"Whatever you do, my son, don't talk to Urban Meyer
as you've talked to me," was the burden of his homily.
Even now the practical Pomfret had not quite over-
come a feeling of sheer amazement. A fantastic illu-

289

THE COMING

sion had declared itself in a brilliant mind, and no
matter how cautiously he approached the subject he
felt the oppression of its shadow. Continuing his sage
advice, he finally led his freakish friend through the
revolving doors of the Ritz on the very stroke of one
o'clock.

XXXVII

IN the hall was an odd little man in a brown hat.
Appearance marched with intellect in such a naive
way, that Urban Meyer had an unmistakable air
of being the only one of his kind in existence. And
this was fit and proper. There was only one Urban
Meyer in the world, and nature had been at some pains
to emphasize the fact for the benefit of all whom it
might concern.

He was a singularly accessible little man, simple and
modest, and not aflEcted with '^f rills" or shyness. But
the queer, birdlike eyes, while they smiled a gently
diffused benevolence, missed no crumb of what passed
around. He was delighted to meet Mr. Brandon —
there was a curious habit of cutting up his words into
syllables, the voice was soft and kind to the verge
of the feminine, the handshake prompt and hearty
and almost embarrassingly full of friendship. Alto-
gether he was such a disarming little man on the sur-
face, that it was hard to believe that any real depth
of guile could be masked by such charm and innocence.
But somehow the infallible Pomfret, in spite of his

291

range ot the cunous, and as
almost uncanny came up(»i
about to prove the most mei
Outwardly cool, he was so :
had diligently to rehearse thi
"Let Old Uncle do the tal
sage.

To begin with, however, L
a tangent. The keen eyes i
distant table, and then he said
"It may interest you to know
brain is in the room."

Brandon and Pomfret wer
"Indeed," said Pomfret wi-
"You mean the man ovei
following the eyes of Urban '.
"Yes, the sallow one with

THE COMING

"Straight ahead," said Brandon. "The long, lean,
pale man. That's Murdwell the scientist — Gazelee
Payne Murdwell who is giving his nights and days to
making a worse hell of this planet than it is already."

"You know him?" said Urban Meyer.

"He's a neighbor of mine," Brandon explained.
"Personally I like him, but he won't bear thinking
about. He's all new and all true I suppose?" He had
the air of one seeking for information.

"Sure." It was Urban Meyer's favorite word, but
it seemed to do the work of many at this moment.
"Murdwell's the problem for the near future. He's
getting through to things that are best left alone. He's
the writing on the wall. The best that can happen
to the human race just now is for Murdwell to be
closed down."

The tone had a curious authority. Somehow it
made a deep impression on Brandon.

"That man's intellect is colossal. But he's on the
wrong tack, and I tell him so, as I told Orville Wright
when he first said that he was going to fly. The day
the Wrights got home with their damned contraption
was the worst the human race has seen since the inven-
tion of gunpowder ; and now Gazelee Payne Murdwell
comes along with a promise which it is humanity's
business to see that he never fulfills."

:;i

i^w, ana tnat ining's uoa.
to hope that the Professoi
Two years ago I didn't bcB
I've changed my outlo<rft."
himself to an excellent mot
ordered a bottle of Ponunei
down in the Lusitania, Y-\
Europe, and I've still hopes c
for mankind. I say this bet
standing behind it and he's
I was bom at Frankfort in
Pnissia at Gravelotte." Th
shirt sleeve and showed a
"That's a Frenchman's sabei
I loved the fatherland. E\
was the enemy of the humai
be expected to know that an

THE COMING

for seeing this war impartially, but my nature is to
look to the future. I've always planned and built
ahead. And as I figure it out Prussia is going to be
downed and Germany bled white. But take it from
me, my friends, it will be a very long and slow
process." There was a slight pause in the little man's
monologue, but no ccmtradiction was offered.

"And in the end civilization will have to save Ger-
many. Unless she gets a change of heart there's no
security for the time ahead. At present she's outside
the pale, but it won't be wise or right to let her remain
there forever. She's a big proposition and the world
owes her something. She will have to be helped to
rid herself of Prussia. How's it to be done — ^that's
the problem for the future. One thing is sure: you
won't get her to cut herself free of her protector
by ramming a pistol down her throat"

Brandon agreed.

'What's your alternative?" said Pomfret.
'We must keep the ccxnmunications open as well as
we can. It's the duty of those who lodk to the time
ahead to try to get into touch with the German
people."

"But that's quite impossible," said Pomfret. "They
are a set of outlaws and perverts."

"I admit that the present plight of the German peo-

295

THE COMING

pie is just about the biggest problem in all history."

"You're right And every effort made by outsiders
to help them will simply recoil on itself."

"It may be so. But if there is a God in the world
he cares just as much for the Teuton as he cares for
anyone else."

"Very true," said Brandon. "And Germany must
be made to see the light But that can only be done
indirectly. The German, as the world is now begin-
ning to realize, has a very curious psychology. He
doesn't see through his eyes, but through his emotions.
Therefore he calls for very special treatment"

"Why not let him alone?" said Pomfret "Why
not let him find his own level ?"

"Because civilization can't afford to do that It
owes it to itself to help Germany."

"I fully agree," said Brandon.

"I entirely dissent," said Pomfret, filling the glasses
of his guests. "Germany by her own considered acts
has put herself outside the comity of nations, and
there's no need to readmit her. She may lie down
with the Magyar, the Turk and the Bulgar till the
crack of doom. Civilization can do without Germany.
The question is, can Germany do without civiliza-
tion?"

"In spite of her errors and her crimes," said Urban

296

THE COMING

Meyer, "you do an injustice to a great people if you
close all the doors against her/'

''We shall not agree about their greatness/' said
PomfreL "They are a race of barbarians, with a
dangerous streak of madness/'

"That's one side of the Teuton, I admit. But on
the other he's an idealist, a lover of the arts, an ex-
emplary citizen. And the task of the future is to get
him back to where he was. He's got to return to the
old ways. By the bye, that play has set me thinking/'
Pom fret and Brandon exchanged glances, but Urban
Meyer went on with a curious spontaneity, as if he
were thinking aloud. "Yes, it has set my mind work-
ing. Last night I dreamed about it, and I believe if
the Kingdom of Something Else could be presented
just as I saw it in my dream it would speak to the
real heart of Germany. It has the very spirit of her
folk tales; it has the romance, the poetry, the music,
the kindly people my childhood used to make and
adore. And it teaches a gospel which might have a
universal appeal. You know I've an immense belief
in the theater. To me it's the true church of the
time to come. And I don't see why the next world
religion shouldn't begin with a great play."

Again Pom fret and Brandon exchanged glances.

"People ask what's wrong with Christianity. Its

297

THE COMING

great flaw to my mind is that it asks too much ; it is
sublime but it isn't quite a working proposition. We
wcMi't go into a tremendous argument, but there isn't
the slightest doubt that in its present form it doesn't
touch the crowd. It needs simplifying, modifying,
humanizing, before it can get right home to the man
in the street. A lot of old lumber and obsolete formu-
las will have to find their way to the scrap heap. The
great truths can still be there, but the religion of the
future has got to think more of this world and less
of the next. And I'm by no means stu'e that the
mind which conceived the idea of the Kingdom of
the Something Else is not going to meet the deepest
need of mankind at the present time."

Brandon shot a glance of triumph at Pomfret, but
even in that moment of exaltation he remembered the
counsel of the sage.

''At the first opportunity I should like to put up that
play in New York at my biggest theater. There would
be an all-star cast and a special orchestra, and in every
detail it would be absolutely the greatest production
ever seen in the States or anywhere else."

''And you would present it exactly as it is written ?"
said Pomfret in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Yes. Not a line would be altered It's not ordi-
nary theater stuff. In this case it's the spirit of the

298

THE COMING

thing that is going to matter and that must not be
tampered with on any account/'

Pomfret sat, a picture of whimsical incredulity, but
Brandon, burning with the zeal of the evangelist, was
now unequal to the change that the prudence of this
world had laid upon him. Urban Meyer had been
visited by the divine wisdom, and Brandon could not
withhold acknowledgment of a fact so signal and so
astonishing.

"The theater is my religion/* the little man went on,
and his queer eyes grew suddenly fixed as if they were
looking at something. "I believe in it as I believe in
nothing else. When you've watched millions of peo-
ple going crazy over stunts like 'Baby's Bedsocks,' the
original smile-with-a-tear-in-it, you ask yourself what
could be done by a real play with a live message. As
I say, the theater is the church of the future. There's
no limit to its power; it spealcs to the masses, cheers
them, strengthens them, makes them healthy, lifts
them up; it takes them into worlds beyond their own.
And they understand its language.

"Now this play, as I see it, is a test case. It's not
theater stuff of the ordinary brand and it's got to be
played just as it is, in the spirit of reverence. It may
fall down, and fall down badly, but I'd like to produce
it as an act of faith, for the love I bear humanity."

299

THE COMING

Pomfret could hardly belieVe his ears. Something
had happened to the little man. He had known Urban
Meyer nearly twenty years, and it was hard to relate
this gush of altruism with the impresario whose
astuteness was a byword all over the world. For one
thing, and it amused Pcmif ret vastly, in the stress of
his enthusiasm he had even forgotten to discuss the
terms of the contract.

They came to that presently, and then a sight for
the gods presented itself. With the aid of racial in-
stincts ruthlessly applied, Urban Meyer had taken an
immense fortune out of the theater, but now, entering
it as a missionary, he was willing to make a contract
which added greatly to Pomf ret's perplexity.

"It's double what I've ever offered to a new man,"
said Urban Meyer, "but as I say, this production is
going to be an act of faith. I believe in God, I believe
in the theater, I believe in this play and that's the
basis on which I invite the world to come in. If it
falls down I may be out a hundred thousand dollars^
but I shall not grudge a nickel, because no man can
serve God and serve Mammon at the same time."

Moreover, to judge by a new glow in a quaintly
Semitic countenance. Urban Meyer felt immensely
strengthened by being in a position to make that asser-
tion. He was not puffed up, but a light of enthusia^n

300

THE COMING

played over his face which somdiow made him better
to look at. ''Nothing is but thinking makes it so ! To
a man of imagination that means all that ever was
and ever will be. And if you keep on expecting mir-
acles to happen, miracles are bound to happen — if only
you expect in the right way.''

Pomf ret could cmly smile perplexedly, but'Brandon,
flooded by a happiness rare and strange, was over-
borne by the workings of the divine providence. For
a moment he was submerged by wild speculations, and
then he awoke with a start to the fact that a sadden
hand liad been laid on his shoulder.

XXXVIII

HULLOA, Murd! YouVe looking cheap/'
Brandon awoke to the sound of the
yoioe of Urbai\ Meyer. En route from
the luncheon tablci Professor Murdwell had tarried
to pass the time of day with a celebrated compatriot.
A kind of freemasonry exists in all lands among the
supereminent, and these two shining examples knew
how to pay the tacit homage due to conspicuous merit.

•'Not well, Murd?" The all-seeing eye of Urban
Meyer was fixed like a bead on the scientist

"Nothing, my boy," was the light answer. "A bit
run down, that's all. As a fact I'm off now to see
my doctor. I can soon be put right How are you,
my friend ?" The kindly pressure increased on Bran-
don's shoulder. "It's very good to see you on your
feet again. I heard the other day from old Parson
What's-his-name that you had managed to find a cure,
although I'm bound to say that when I saw you last,
back in the fall, Td about given you up. However —
I'm more than glad — I'm simply delighted." And
with the benign air of the bon enfant, Professor

302

THE COMING

Murdwell followed in the wake of Bud and Jooly, who
had gone into the hall.

"He mayn't know it," said Urban Meyer in a low
voice, ''but that man's got death in his face/'

Brandon was startled by the tone. It had an un-
canny prescience which made him feel uncomfortable.

"If looks mean anything his number's up. Per-
sonally he's a good fellow — one of the best alive —
but he's been touching things which up till now were
verhoten. Let us pray to God they always will be."

How do you know all this? — ^was the question
which rose to the tip of Brandon's tongue. But he
refrained from asking it. Murdwell's face had a
curious ashen hue, and now that its meaning had been
pointed out it was not to be mistaken. As for the
second part of the statement, made with equal author-
ity, it gave an impression of curious insight into
certain phenomena, which it would be futile to discuss.

In the hall, over coffee and cigars, the talk went on.
Brandon felt himself living in a kind of wonderland
of whidi Urban Meyer was king. The little man's
words jRowed on in soft, odd, detached syllables, yet
they were alive with a magic interest for one who
shared his faith. As for Pomfret, tasting deliberately
a masterpiece among cigars, he had to admit in the
recesses of an almost uncomfortably sagacious mind,

303

THE COMING

that never in the whole course of its owner's experi-
ence had it been so completely at a loss.

It was impossible to recognize the Urban Meyer
of commerce. And to find one of the strongest brains
of the age thrown off its balance by a mere stage play,
the stuff in which it was always trafficking, was sim-
ply ludicrous. In the case of Brandon it was less
surprising. For one thing he had hardly recovered
from a terrible illness ; and again he came to the thea-
ter a raw amateur. But Urban Meyer 1 Yes, it was
quite true that the day of miracles was not yet past!

By the time they had said good-by to the little man
and had sauntered round the comer into Saint James's
Street as far as Brandon's club, Pomfret's amazement
had grown quite disconcerting.

"I fancy when Old Uncle jumped from the Lusi-
tarda it shook him up a bit," he said in a feeble
attempt at self -protect ion. "He can't be the man he
was."

"Because he sees the plenary inspiration in die
Kingdom of the Something Else ?"

"To think of that old hard-shell turning the theater
into a church ! Ye gods t It's the most ircmical thing
I ever heard. Still, he can afford himself little lux-
uries of that kind. He's making his soul no doubt."

304

THE COMING

**At any rate," said Brandon, "he'll deserve well of
heaven if he can reform the Boche/'

Before Pomfret could make suitable reply they
walked into the arms of George Speke, who was au-
gustly descending the steps of the stronghold of the
Whigs.

"Whatr he cried. "Your His eyes raked Bran-
don from top to toe. "I can't believe it. And one
hears people say that miracles don't haiq>en."

"I plead guilty to being among them," said PcMn-
fret; in the presence of Speke's amazement he had a
sense of intellectual relief.

"Science won't acknowledge it as a miracle/' said
Brandon. "It has a theory which fully covers the
case. It was explained to me last night by Bowood,
the nerve man. I forget what he called it — but what
the thing amounts to is that functional reaction has
been induced by counter-shock— excuse the phrase-
ology — ^but Bowood says the thing is constantly oc-
curring."

"I affirm it as a miracle/' said Speke.

"I, too/' said Brandon. "More has happened in
my case than therapeutics can explain. I've been
given a new soul as well as a new body. But we
won't go into that now. At this particular moment X

305

THE COMING

want to talk to you about that fantastically absurd
official, the Censor of Stage Plays."

But the subject was deferred until the following
evening when the two men dined together. Even then
George Speke was not very illuminating. After all, the
censorship of stage plays was a departmental matter,
and this habitual member of governments had the de-
partmental mind. A harmless ftmctionary had been
much attacked in the public press I>y the kind of people
who attack every kind of institution, but experience
had proved him to be at once wise, necessary, and
convenient

'^ise! Necessary I Convenient!" said Brandon,
''to invest a single individual of cynical mediocrity
with absolute power? It's an insult to every pen in
the realm."

Speke laughed at the vehemence but admitted the
truth. Yet a threadbare controversy left him cold«
To be quite candid, the theater was negligiUe, the art
of dramatic writing equally so. Far better that both
should perish than that either should sully the mind
of the humblest citizen of Imperial Rome.

XXXIX

IN the course of the next f^ days Brandon inter-
viewed various specialists, and then by their ad-
vice he went to Brighton for two months. The
result was such a steady gain in physical force and
mental equilibrium that he wa& able to.resume his mili-
tary duties.

Not by his own request was he spared the boredom,
the misery, the ghoulish horror of the trenches. The
higher expediency was able to realize that men of
Brandon's age, particularly if they have once been
badly knocked out, don't pay for cartage to France.
Therefore he was given a commission and sent to the
north to train new units.

He didn't complain. Whatever his job, he would
have taken off his coat and set to. He was no sub-
scriber to the military fetish, nothing would ever
make him one, but in August, 1914, he had given his
services unconditionally to his country and he was not
the man to shirk the obligation into which he had
entered.

To one of subtle perceptions and fastidious cul*

307

THE COMING

ture, the teaching of a lot of ''bandy-legged coal-
sfaovders'' to form fours, and to hurl an imaginary
bomb at an imaginary Hun should have been a weari-
some^ soul-destroying affair. Yet somehow it was not
There was a time when in spite of his honest, demo-
cratic liberalism, he would have been tried beyond
endurance by the fantastic boredom of it all. But
that time had passed. Never again could the human
factor, however primitive, be without its meaning.
He had been wrought upon by a miracle, and it abided
with him during every hour of the new life.

His thoughts were often with John Smith. En-
shrined in Brandon's heart as a divine symbol, he
was the key to a Mystery which had the power to
cleanse even the thing called war of its bestial ob-
scenity. Many a night when he came back dog-tired
and heart-sore, to a dirty, ccxnfortless room and an
ill-cooked meal in a rude, miserable colliery township
whose like he had never seen, he was sustained by the
sublime faith of one who, for the sake of the love
he bore his kind, had dared to transcend reason in
order to affirm it.

Many a night in the fetid air of a bedrcKMn whose
window could not be persuaded to open, he lay on a
broken-backed mattress trying to relate this divine
friend with the humanity through whose travail he

308

THE COMING

had found expression. Who and what was tiiis por-
tent? Was he akin to the August Founder of Chris-
tianity? Was he a madman hugging a crazy but
pathetic and terrible delusion ? Or was he the super-
man of which the World Spirit had long been dream-
ing, a great clairvoyant able to summon representative

souls from the astral plane?

It must be left to the future to decide. At the best

thpse were fantastic speculations, but they were now
the clou of a forward-looking soul. Only these could
sustain it in the path of duty. Week by week, it was
being borne in upon Brandon that the sword could
never hope to achieve anything worth achieving. Hu-
manity was too complex and it was poisoned at the
roots. Prussia after all was only a question of
degree. Unless a change took place in the heart of
man, these splendid, simple chaps with their debased
forms of speech, their crudeness and their ignorance,
would hurl their bombs in vain.

How he loved these bandy-legged warriors who
never opened their mouths without defiling his ears.
Deeper even than the spirit of race was the sense of
human brotherhood. It resolved every difficulty, it
unlocked every door. And the key had come to him
by means of the inmate of Wellwood who had re-

309

THE COMING

ceived it in turn from the divine mystic of the hills
of Galilee.

The weeks went by in their weariness, yet nothing
happened to the world. Months ago Urban Meyer
had returned to America and the play had gone with
hinu The shrewd Pomfret had been made an agent
for the author, in order to protect the interests of
John Smith, but he received no word from New York
beyond an intimation that the play had been mysteri-
ously "hung up.** The news was not uqexpected, yet
he never doubted that sooner or later Urban Meyer
would carry out his fixed intention of producing it

In the meantime, Brandon wrote several letters to
the inmate of Wellwood. The new turn of events
was revealed, and great stress laid upon the supreme
good fortune which so far had attended the play. To
have convinced such a man as Urban Meyer of its
almost plenary inspiration meant that its destiny was
on the way to fulfillment.

The letters Brandon received in answer must have
puzzled him greatly, had they not squared so exactly
with the theory he had formed. Full as they were of
warm and deep feeling, they yet seemed remote from
the ccmditions of practical life. Even their note of
sure faith was open to misinterpretation. There was
no recognition of the singular providence which had

310

THE COMING

set Urban Meyer on the track of the play, or if there
was, it took for granted that the little man was the
chosen instrument of God. Like Brandon himself, he
was only a medium, through which Heaven was to
resolve a high and awful issue.

Brandon received no second command to Wellwood,
and he had not the courage to make pilgrimage with-
out it But as the long months passed and he grew
more secure in physical power, the impression of the
dreamlike December journey remained ineffaceably
vivid. Time strengthened a fervent belief in the
soUime genius of John Smith, but the wild specula-
tions to which that belief gave rise led to one inescap-
able conclusion which in the last resort he could not
qtiite find the courage to embrace openly. The disciple
was thrilled by the tone of each letter he received, but
nineteen centuries had passed since the Master had
walked among men ; and Brandon, with his own work
in the world yet to do, could only feel that Faith itself
besought him not to go too far beyond the poor, lim-
ited, human ken.

In order to fulfill the common daily round, he felt
bound to bold aloof from John Smith, yet the man
himself was never out of his thoughts. And not for
a moment did he forget a sacred task. Months went
by, the brief occasional letters ceased, and then Bran-

THE COMING

don sent an emissary to Wellwood, so that he might
gain first-hand knowledge without incurring the terri-
ble risk his every instinct warned him must attend a
personal visit.

Mr. Perry-Hcnnington was the chosen vehide.
Between the two men there had been a reoonciliation.
The return of health had enabled Brandon to shed
much of his animosity; besides, he saw that if John
Smith's view of his mission was the true one, sudi
a man as the vicar of Penfold could hardly be more
than a humble catspaw of destiny. That good, but
narrow and obtuse man, was perhaps only the uncon-
scious means by which a second world-drama was to
unfold itself.

In the autumn Brandon was granted a few days'
leave. After weary months of servitude in the arid
north, a week at Hart's Ghyll, among his own people,
was like a breath of heaven. And it synchronized with
a tide of greater events.

These began with a morning call from the vicar. A
very different Gervase Brandon received him now in
that glorious room, which, however, for them both,
must always hold memories of anxious and embittered
conflict The squire of Hart's Ghyll had emerged
from the long night of the soul, and even to this
closed mind he was far more than the Gervase Bran-

31^

THE COMING

don of old. In returning to that physical world which
he loved so well> he had gained enlargement Some-
thing had been added to a noble liberality ; a softness,
an immanence of the spirit, which Mr. Perry-Henning-
ton was quick to ascribe to his favorite process of
purification by suffering.

The vicar was pleased by the warmth of his recep*
tion; and he had already had a sign of Brandon's
diange of attitude. The previous day, at Brandon's
request, he had paid a visit to Wellwood. And in that
request, Mr. Perry-Hennington saw a tacit admission
of the justice of his actions ; he also saw that Brandon,
now clothed in his right mind, was fully alive to his
own errors in the past.

**Well, my dear Gervase,'* he said with fuU-toned
heartiness, the tmderside of which was magnanimity,
"yesterday, as you suggested, I went to Wellwood to
see our friend.''

"More than good of you,*' said Brandon, his eyes
lighted by gratitude and eagerness. "An act of real
charity. I could have gone myself, of course, but I
don't quite trust myself in the matter — ^that is to
say — **

"Quite so — I understand and appreciate that. And
I am particularly glad you left it to me to form my
own impressions."

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THE COMING

"WeUP'

"In the first place, I had a long talk with Dr. Thorp,
who by the way is a singularly experienced and broad-
minded man/'

"I fully agree;"

"Well, I'm bound to say that he grew quite enthusi-
astic over the poor dear fellow. In every way he is
a most exemplary patient ; indeed, I was told that he
wields a truly remarkable moral influence over the
whole establishment, inmates and nursing staflF alike.'*

"I learned that many months ago.'*

"It is very surprising that it should be so,'* The
vicar's air was one of perplexity. "But Dr. Thorp
considers John Smith an extraordinary case."

"So I have gathered."

"He suffers, of course, from an obscure form of
religious mania, which fully justifies his detention,
but at the same time he leads the life of a saint"

"How is his health?"

A cloud came on the vicar's face. He did not
answer the question at once. At last he said: "Let
me prepare you for bad news. I regret to say that
he is slowly dying."

Brandon caught his breath sharply. He did not
try to conceal his distress. He put a dozen eager

THE COMING

questions. The announcement had come as a great
blow.

""Dr. Thorp holds out no hope that his life will be
a long one,'' said the vicar. ^'Apart from the ravages
of his disease, the spirit appears to be wearing out
the body. He doesn't take enough nourishment. He
simply can't be induced to touch flesh meat in any
form; in fact for many weeks he has been existing
almost entirely on bread and water.''

"He does not wish to live ?"

"I think he longs for the other and the better
world.*'

"That, at any rate, is perhaps not altogether sur-
prising."

The thrust might not have been intentional, but the
shadow deepened on the vicar's face. "It is not," he
said. "Yet he is so well cared for, he is allowed such
liberty, his relations with all the other inmates are so
charmingly harmonious, that it is hard to see how the
freedom of the outer world could add to his present
happiness ; that, at any rate, is Dr. Thorp's view. His
troubles, odd as it may seem, do not spring from his
immediate surroundings ; they spring from the present
state of the world. His mania has crystallized into a
strange form. He has become pathetically convinced

315 '

THE COMING

that he is the Savior, and he spends his whole time
in fasting and prayer/'

"Did you see him?*'

"Yes.'' The vicar paused an instant, and in that
instant Brandon literally devoured the subtly changing
face of the man before him. "Not only did I see him,
I was permitted to speak to him. Moreover, he sent
you a message. You are always to remember that one
imconverted believer may save the whole world." As
the vicar repeated the odd phrase, his eye met Bran-
don's and a silence followed.

"I shall never forget the way he said it," Mr. Perry-
Hennington went on. "The tone of his voice, the
look of his eyes gave one quite an uncanny feeling.
Whether it was the mental and physical state of the
poor man himself, or whether it was his surroundings,
I cannot say, but somehow I can't get the picture of
him as he spoke those words out of my mind. It's
weak, I know, but the whole of last night I lay awake
thinking of Wellwood, and this poor dear fellow, John
Smith."

"Was he so different from what you expected to
find him?"

"Somehow he was. His disease has taken such a
curious form. And in that strange place, in the midst
of a lot of old men, afflicted like himself with various

316

THE COMING

fantastic delusions, he has an air of authority which is
really most striking — I am bound to say is really most
striking/'

''I cannot tell you how interested I am to hear yoa
say that/' was Brandon's eager rejoinder.

''If one had not continually said to oneself : 'This
gloomy place, haunted with dead souls, is Wellwood
Asyltun/ one might even have come under a strange
spelL Dr. Thorp says the freakish power of some
of these brdcen-down intellects is amazing ; and to see
them seated arotmd that large and somber room en-
gaged in what John Smith calls 'the correlation of
human experience/ is at once the most tragic and the
most pathetic sight I have ever witnessed/'

"It is a sight that I, at any rate, shall take to my
grave." As Brandon saw again the picture by the
inward eye, he was shaken by a wild tremor. "Hence-
forth, I shall see it always in this life, and I look to
see it in the next"

"Yes," said the vicar. "I can well understand your
feeling about it/'

Brandon gave a little shudder; and then, after a
silence he said: "May I ask what impression you
formed of our poor friend ?"

"It is most difficult to put it into words. Physically
and mentally he has undergone a very curious change;

317

THE COMING

and he appears to wield a strange power over all with
whom he comes in contact As I say, I felt it myself.
I shall never forget the shock I had when those eyes
emerged from that bearded face. For a moment one
could have almost believed oneself in the presence of
Someone Else. Then I remembered where I was, but
it needed an effort I assure you."

"Do you still feel that Wellwood is the place for
himr

"Yes, I do. I discussed the matter with Dr. Thorp,
and he is strongly of the (pinion that the poor fellow
is better off at Wellwood than he would be elsewhere.
They have come to love him there. He is extremely
well cared for, he never complains of the loss of per-
sonal liberty, and, as I say, there is every reason to
think that his days are numbered."

'Dr. Thorp has no doubt on that point ?^

'None. The poor fellow is failing physically. At
the present time he appears to live more in another
world than he does in this. One does not pretend to
know what that other world is or may be. Apparently
it is a kind of mystical dreamland, in which he per-
suades himself that he communicates with departed
spirits. And there are times when he enters a soul
condition which lies outside Dr. Thorp's own experi-
ence of psychical phenomena. In fact, he considers

318

f<i

THE COMING

John Smith to be by far the most baffling and com-
plex case with which he has ever had to deal."

A number of other questions Brandon put to the
vicar, in the hope of light from an authentic source
upon a very remarkable matter. For himself he could
only account for it by means of a far-fetched hy-
pothesis, with which he knew that Mr. Perry-Henning-
ton was the last man in the world likely to agree. All
the same, one clear fact emerged from this conversa-
tion. There was a change in the vicar. Could it be
that, since his recent visit to Wellwood, Mr. Perry-
Hennington had begim to realize that there might be
more things in earth and heaven than his philosophy
had dreamed of hitherto?

FTER luncheon that same day, the salutary
process now at work in the vicar^s mind re-
ceived a further stimulus. He was to find
himself involved in a matter at once painful and un-
expected, and the impression left upon him was deeply
perplexing.

At the urgent request of Professor Murdwell, who
had just returned from New York, he had promised
to go to Longwood that afternoon. Mr. Murdwell
had been out of the country six months, and now that
he had got back, almost his first act had been to send
for the vicar.

As Mr. Perry-Hennington made stately progress on
an antiquated tricycle along the leafy carpet of the
wind-bitten autumn lanes, he was far from anticipat-
ing the sad surprise that was in store. In the spring,
when last at Longwood, he had been struck by the fact
that his neighbor was not looking particularly well,
and he had ventured to remark upcMi it. Mr. Murd-
well had made light of the matter. But this afternoon,
as soon as the vicar had been ushered into the cozy

320

THE COMING

room in which the scientist sat alone, he received a
shock. A great change had taken place in a few
months. The alert, far-looking eyes had lost their
luster, the cheeks had fallen in, the face of keenness
and power was terribly ravaged by disease.

Mr. Murdwell rose with the old air of courtesy to
receive his visitor, but the effort was slow and painful.

"Good of you to come, sir," he said, motioning his
visitor to a chair, and then half collapsing into his
own. He looked at the vicar with a rather forlorn
smile. 'Tm a very sick man these days," he said.

The vicar was a little distressed by the air of com-
plete helplessness. "I hope it's nothing serious," he
said.

"I've come home to die,** said Mr. Murdwell, with
the calmness of a stoic.

The words were a shock to the vicar.

"The word 'home' mustn't surprise you. I come of
clean-nm stock ; I belong to the old faith and the old
blood. As the world goes just now, I feel that I am
among my own people, and I want you to lay me
yonder in your little churchyard on a good Sussex
hillside."

Mr. Perry-Hennington felt a growing dismay. "I
venture to hope," he said, "that you will be spared to
us a long time yet."

321

THE COMING

'*A week or so at the most." Infinite weariness was
in the voice. "You are a good and sensible man, and
I am going to talk to you frankly. The thought of
leaving my wife and girl hurts like a knife; and of
course my work means a very great deal to me. I
have simply lived in it ; indeed the truth is, I have lived
in it too much. And it is now being brought home to
me that it is for the ultimate good of humanity that
it should remain unfinished.

The vicar, grieved and amazea, was unable to say
anything. He had quite a regard for this man of
original and powerful mind, and it shocked him deeply
to find him in his present state.

"It seems that at present there are certain things
which are still forbidden to science. A year ago I
was fully convinced that such was not the case. But
that view was premature. At that time the whole
question raised by Murdwell's Law was still sub
judice. The verdict has now been given. I have a
cancer, which must kill me long before I am able to
complete my researches. And I think you, sir, and all
who see the cosmos at your particular angle are fully
entitled to regard this as the act of God."

The vicar remained silent, but with an intense and
painful interest he followed the revelations of the
dying man.

322

THE COMING

"Thus far shalt thou go and no farther ! The power,
or the group of powers, which controls the develop-
ment of mankind, whispered those words to me a
year ago. But I chose to disregard them. I was too
deeply committed to my studies, which, had I been
allowed to pursue them to their logical conclusion,
would have revolutionized war and everything else
on this planet There is no need to make a secret of
the fact that, by the operation of Murdwell's Law, I
have been able to trace the existence of an element
hitherto unknown. It has been given the name of
vitalium, and my hope, and the hope of the distin-
guished men of science associated with me, was that
its bearing on present events would be decisive. I
still hold the theory that this element contains powers
and properties compared with which all others in the
purview of man are insignificant. For instance, I
said that it was within the competence of vitalium to
destroy an enemy fleet at a distance of twenty thou-
sand miles. But as I was warned at the time the
prophecy was made, and as I know beyond all question
now, I am not to be allowed to prove my proposition.

"Prometheus is not to be allowed to steal the fire
from heaven. And well it is for mankind that some
things are still forbidden to it. Whether that will
always be the case I dare not prophesy. But at this

323

THE COMING

moment I have no doubt that Gazelee Payne Murd-
well is the writing on the wall for the human race.
Put that on my tombstone in your Sussex church-
yard/'

The vicar was strangely moved.

*' Another theory I have f ormed, which I am not to
be allowed to prove, is that with the aid of vitalium
it is possible to communicate with other planets. There
is little doubt that some of them do communicate with
one another, and I am inclined to think that the terri-
ble crisis the world is now passing through is a reac-
tion to events in other places. Man is only at the
threshold of the knowable. He is surrounded by many
forces of which he knows little or nothing. Some of
these are inimical. The future has terrible problems
for the human race, and well it is that it cannot fore-
see them.

''As for this terrible struggle, in which I am proud
to think my two boys are bearing a part, the end is
not yet in sight. The resources of the enemy exceed
all computation, and we don't know what forces hos-
tile to man stand behind them."

"It may be so, Mr. Murdwell." The vicar, greatly
wrought upon, spoke in a voice of deep emotion. "We
are in the hands of God. And I am convinced that

324

THE COMING

He is fighting for us, and therefore in the end our
cause must prevail."

The man of science smiled wanly. ''I cannot form
a conception of God in terms of atomic energy. And
yet I feel with you, as I have always felt, that there
is a Friend behind phenomena. And I am inclined to
believe, now that we have a mass of evidence to guide
us, that the first phase of this war proved that very
clearly. The victory of the Manle was a signal mani-
festation. By all the rules of the game, at the moment
the enemy of mankind fell on Europe in her sleep,
France was irretrievably lost, and civilization with
her. But something happened which was not in the
textbooks. And in the perpetual recurrence of that
Something lies the one hope for the human race."

"Well, Mr. Murdwell" — ^the vicar spoke very ear-
nestly — "as a humble servant and minister of God, I
can only say that I share your belief. Whatever may
happen to us, I feel that the human race could not
have got as far as it has, unless a special providence
had always stood behind it. My faith is, that this
providence will not be withdrawn in the world's dark-
est hour."

"I venture to think that you are right," said the
dying man. "But as I say, do not ever forget that

325

THE COMING

Gazelee Payne Murdwell is the writing oa the wall
for the human race/*

This talk with Mr. Murdwell made a deep impres-
sion on the vicar. Unable by nature or mental habit
to accept all the premises of an abnormal thinker, it
was beginning to strike Mr. Perry-Hennington with
new and rather bewildering force, that truth has many
aspects. At Wellwood the previous day he had felt
a vague distrust of his own perceptions. Things were
not quite as they seemed. Even poor, deranged John
Smith could not be dismissed by a simple formula. It
had suddenly dawned on a closed mind that a door
was opening on the unknown. Somehow the relation
of John Smith to many dimly understood phenomena
could not be bridged by a phrase. And a feeling of
imperfect knowledge was intensified by ccmtact with
this other remarkable personality. One must be read
in the light of the other. Murdwell was the antith-
esis, the negation of John Smith. And the nature of
things being as it was, each must have his own mean-
ing, his own message to be related to the sum of
human experience.

DISTRESSED by the interview with his neigh-
bor, the vicar took the first chance of going
to Hart's Ghyll with the sad news. He had a
craving to unburden his mind. And Brandon, with
whom he was now on terms of complete amity, was
the one person likely to share an almost painful inter-
est in Murdwell's Law and its discoverer.

Brandon, indeed, was only too ready to discuss the
matter. The tenant of Longwood had loomed large
in his thoughts from the hour in which he had first
had the privilege of knowing him. To the mind of a
Gervase Brandon, he was a portent, a phenomenon;
in sober truth "the writing on the wall for the human
race.*' But the vicar's news caused Brandon less
concern than might have been the case had he not been
able in a measure to anticipate and therefore to dis-
count it. He recalled his last glimpse of Professor
Murdwell in London, and the prophetic words of
Urban Meyer.

"A terrible nemesis," said the vicar. "A great
tragedy."

327

THE COMING

"An intervention of a merciful providence," was
Brandon's rejoinder.

"No doubt — if his theories are rooted in scientific
fact. To me, I confess, they seem wholly fantastic.
They suggest megalomania. How does Murdwell's
Law stand scientifically?"

"It is accepted by the mathematician, and is said
to provide a key to certain unknown forces in the
physical world. It has given rise to an immense
amotmt of speculation, and for some little time past
very remarkable developments have been predicted."

"Which may not now materialize ?"

"Let us hope not. Murdwell himself is another
Newton, but his Law opens the door to sheer diabol-
ism on a cosmic scale. May its terrible secrets perish
with him! — ^that's the best the poor race of humans
has to hope for."

The vicar fully agreed. "Researches of this kind
are surely the negation of God," he said.

"I think with you. But heads vastly better than
mine think otherwise. Good and evil are interchange-
able terms in our modern world of T. N. T. and the
U-boat."

"That I shall never believe. Black is black, white
is white." It was the fighting tone, yet there was
somehow a difference.

J28

THE COMING

"I shall not contradict you/' said Brandon, with a
smile, which had none of the old antagonism. "For
one thing, the spectrum has shifted its angle since
last we discussed the subject. I see you, my dear
friend, and the views you hold, in a new light. But
apart from that I am simply burning to talk about
something else. I think I once told you that John
Smith had written a play.''

"A play, was it?" Almost in spite of himself,
there came an odd constraint to the vicar's tone. "I
was under the impression that it was a poem."

"There was a poem. But there was also a play,
which I think I once mentioned."

"You may have." Constraint was still there. "But
whichever it is— does it really matter? Poor dear
fellow!"

"Yes, it matters intensely." The sudden gleam of
excitement took the vicar by surprise. "The news
has just reached me that the play has been produced
in New York."

Mr. Perry-Henning^on agreed that the fact was
remarkable, but far less so than its production in Lon-
don would have been. After all, the Americans were
a very curious people.

"But it starts with every augury of world-wide

success."

329

THE COMING

"Isn't that the American way? Mustn't they al-
ways be licking creation over there ?"

Brandon was inclined to admit the indictment.
"But," said he, "they generally have a solid basis of
fact to work on before they start doing that. And in
this case they appear to have found it. The man who
has dared to produce this play is convinced that it
will prove a landmark in the history of the drama at
any rate."

"Really!" The vicar pursed cautious, half-incredu-
lous lips. "But Tm afraid the theater conveys nothing
to me — the modem theater, that is. Of course I've
read Shakespeare and the Greek tragedies, and I once
saw Irving in Hamlet — very impressive he was — but
to me the theater in general is so much Volapuk."

"Still," persisted Brandon, "I hope you will allow
it to be truly remarkable that a people so sagacious,
who in works of creative imagination are better judges
than ourselves, should be carried off their feet by the
dramatic genius of our local village idiot."

An ever-increasing perception of the situation's
irony lured Brandon to a little intellectual byplay.
Perhaps to have resisted it would have been more
than human. And as he had staked all upon the
transcendent powers of his friend, and an impartial
court had now declared in his favor, this moment of

330

it
ti

THE COMING

self-vindication came to him as the most delicious of
his life.

Somehow it did him good to watch a cloud gather
slowly over the vicar's craggily unexpressive face.
An abyss was opening in Mr. Perry-Hennington's
mental life. Things were happening which threatened
to undermine his moral and intellectual values. Bran-
don could almost have pitied him. And yet it was
hardly possible to pity the vicar's particular brand of
arrogance, or, in this case, to forget the crime it had
wrought.

Urban Meyer," Brandon went on in his quiet voice,
is the world's foremost theatrical manager. And
he writes to say that, were his theater six times its
present size, it could not accommodate the crowds
which flock to it daily."

"Really!" said the vicar. "A very curious people,
the Americans."

"As you say, a very curious people. And this
abnormally shrewd and far-sighted little German Jew
has already arranged for the play's production at
Stockholm, Christiania, and also at the Hague."

"Some kind of propaganda, I presume." There was
a sudden stiffening of the vicar's tone.

"It may be so. The aim of the play is to heal the
wounds of the world, so I suppose it is a kind of

331

I A

IMI

oannea in i^onaon.

"Ah r said Mr. Perry-Henni
a show of fight which amusec
"Wisely, no doubt'*

"In other words, the Censoi
completely justified his existeno

"I'm afraid I can't offer an o
said the vicar, slowly renewing i

"Only the pen of a Swift oi
justice to that sublime individu
country whose proud boast is
European states is really free, \
young men by the million in
Prussianism, imposing such fet
liberty that one can only gasp."

"Rightly no doubt." Of la
been aimed at the vicar's ment

THE COMING

check. Of this play I know nothing, nor am I com-
petent to speak of [Jays in general, but prima facie
the government is fully justified in suppressing it
No good thing can come out of Babylon/*

"Or in other words out of Wellwood Asylum."

"One does not go quite so far as to say that," said
the vicar thoughtfully.

"An interesting admission!"

"Which perhaps one oughtn't to make," said the
vicar rather uneasily. And then, as if a little shocked
by his own boldness, he hastened to quit such perilous
ground. "To return to stage plays. Things of that
kind will not help us to win the war."

"And yet the pen is mightier than the sword."

"That is a dark saying I have never been able to
understand. We live not by words but by deeds, and
never more so than in this stem time."

"A play may be a great deed."

"If it be sufficiently inspired. But there is much
virtue in an 'if.' "

Brandon did not continue the argument Feeling
the ground on which he stood to be impregnable, he
could well afford not to do so. Besides it was scarcely
the act of a friend to press the vicar too hard in the
present amazing circumstances. He was no longer
intrenched in self -security. If certain odd changes

333

THE COMING

of manner meant anything, the walls of his little world
were falling in, and a perplexed and bewildered
Thomas Perry-Hennington was now visible amid the

ruins.

XLII

THE very remarkable news from New York
gave Brandon, for the rest of his brief stay

at Hart's Ghyll, a feeling of almost perilous
exhilaration. Since his recovery, less than a year ago,
his whole life had been a subtle embodiment of the
miraculous. And the letter from Urban Meyer had
intensified the sense of the miraculous to such a degree,
that at first it hardly seemed possible to meet the bald
facts of the case in its new aspect and remain perfectly
rational. For more years than Brandon cared to coimt,
he had held the cold faith that miracles do not occur ;
it had now been proved to him, beyond a doubt, that
miracles do occur, and he had to face the truth
squarely, and yet continue in the work of the world.
To make his task the more difficult, he could not
help feeling that his present job was one for which
he was ill-qualified; certainly it was not the one he
would have chosen. Somehow it filled him with a
deep repugnance to train others in the art of killing,
even in the art of killing the Hun; but it was not for
him to decide where such powers as he had could be

335

THE COMING

of most use to the state. He did not quarrel with the
edict which declared him unfit for the trenches, but
there were times when he would almost have preferred
their particularly foul brand of boredom to the dismal
routine of acquiring a parade voice, and the grind of
rubbing up his mathematics, a branch of knowledge
in which he had never shone.

It came to him, therefore, with a sense of grateful
relief, when one day, about a week after he had re-
turned to his unit, a letter reached him of an informal
friendliness, yet written on government paper. It
said:

WhitehaU,
December 2.

My dear Brandon :

If a square peg can be persuaded to forsake a round
hole, some of us here feel that the country might make a
more profitable use of your services, that is to say, there
is an opportunity to give your highly specialized qualities
freer play. A ministry of Social Reconstruction is being
formed, to deal mainly with post-war problems — it is
not quite our English way to take time by the forelock
in this audacious fashion, but some of our Colonial
friends are teaching us a thing or two — ^and last night in
conversation with Prowse and Mortimer among others,
your name came up. We agreed that your particular
light is not one to hide under a bushel of coal. One shud-
ders to think of the number of tricks of the kind that
have been played already, but at last we are beginning
to realize that the country can't afford it. So if you will

336

THE COMING

consent to work under Prowse, with or without pay-
menty I think the War Office can be persuaded to spare
you for a lai|;er sphere of usefulness.

Yours ever,

George Speke.

In the depths of his boredom Brandon could have
kissed the letter, and have wept for joy. The tact of
an expert handler of men, who well understood the
bundle of quixotisms with whom he had to deal, had
played the tempter's part with rare success. A letter
of that kind left no doubt that the country was about
to gain enormously by depleting the Tynesi dc Terriers
of a morbidly conscientious subaltern, while at the
same time enriching a government department with
a real live ex-fellow of Gamaliel.

It was not until early in the new year, however, that
Brandon was transferred to a wooden structure in
Saint James's Park, the headquarters of the newly-
created department. He was almost ashamed to find
how much more congenial was the work he had now
to do. To the really constructive mind, there is some-
thing repellent in the naive formulas, and the crude
paraphernalia of mere destruction. Here in the new
"billet" was scope for a rather special order of brain.
He was able to look forward to a future in which a
new England would arise. There were already por-

337

THE COMING

tents in the sky, portents which told him that the
world of the future was going to be a very different
place from the world of the past. Much depended on
whether the grim specter of war could be laid with
reasonable finality for a long time to come, but from
the day in which he took up his new labors he did not
doubt that, whatever the final fate of Prussia, the issue
of Armageddon itself would be a nobler, a broader
spirit in the old land which he loved so dearly, and a
freer, humaner world for every race that had to live
in it

His position in the Social Reconstruction Bureau
was one of importance. Long before the war, even
before he came into the Hart's Ghyll property, it had
been his ambition to make the world a rather better
place for other people to inhabit. And the oppor-
tunities which came to him now gave rare scope to a
reawakened energy. A marvelous field had been of-
fered to this protagonist of works and faith.

In spite of the last terriWe clinch in which the new
world as well as the old was now involved, these were
great days for Brandon. His powers burgeoned nobly
in the service of that nation which had now definitely
emerged, in spite of all her limitations and her lega-
cies from the past, as the banner bearer of civilization.

Deep in his heart lay the faith that through blood

THE COMING

and tears the whole race of men would be bom again.
And month by month that faith grew, even amid the
final stupendous phase when the specter of famine
stalked through the land. Moreover, he had a sense
of personal election. A promise had been made to
him, and through him, to his fellows. ''One uncon-
verted believer" was now the living witness that all
the old prophecies were true.

Every living thing in the world around him, of
which a supernal Being was the center, had a new
meaning, a new force, a new divinity. Unsuspected
powers were now his; 'latent faculties allowed him to
live more abundantly. He looked up where once a
skeptic's eye had looked down, and the difference was
that between a life in the full glory of light and sorry
groping in darkness.

The news always reaching him of the growth of
the miracle was now the motive power of a great
belief, yet to one able to trace it from the germ it
hardly seemed credible or at the best too good to be
true. From many sources there came tidings of the
new force at work in the world. The play was making
history; wherever it appeared, reverberations fol-
lowed. From one end of North America to the other,
it had gone like fire. Irenic in tone and intention it

339

the stage had become an in
the sanctioa of the few,
many. The message it ha
truth itself, yet the divine
haunted even the smallest
of the Kingdom of the 5c
appeal was so lemaricable tl
lived for the time when tl
was a draught from the w
them who drank of the Pier
vistas of what the world m
ship, works and faith, were
Urban Meyer had said th
again through the power of
first mcwiths of its" product
that he was a true prophe

THE COMING

too little. A divine simplicity spoke to all sorts of
men. The pillar of the Church and the despiser of
all religions, the over-good and the average person
received frcxn the well of a pure and infinite love, a
new evidence, a new portent of the risen Christ.

It was said of those who saw it, that they were
never quite the same afterward. An enchantment
was laid upon the heart of man. Feeling, htunor,
imaginative truth, formed the basis of its triumph.
A desire to do good was evoked, not because it was
a sound spiritual investment or because others might
be induced to do good to oneself, but it made of well-
doing a natural act, like the eating of food or the
drawing of breath.

Among the evidences of the new magic now at work
in the world was a remarkable letter which Brandon
received at the beginning of February. It said :

Independence Theater,

New York,
January 24,
Dear Mr. Brandon :

I cannot tell you what an effect the play is making here.
You will remember that, when I read it, I set my heart
on the greatest production ever seen. And it was be-
cause the spirit of the play made me feel that I owed it
to a world which had suffered me sixty-eight years, in
which I had prospered exceedingly, and from which I
have on the whole derived much happiness. Well, after

341

THE COMING

many unforeseen trials, difficulties and disappointments,
this aim has been achieved. Having at last brought to-
gether the cast I wanted, with £^eat players in the chief
parts, and having made sure of a noble interpretation,
I opened the doors of this theater, for the first time in
its history, at a democratic price, so that the downtown
seamstress could have a glimpse of the Something Else,
as well as her sister on Fifth Avenue.

That was not the act of a man of business, although
it has proved a business action. I am not out to make
money by this play. I don't want to make money out of
it, because I feel, and this will make you smile, that it's
like trafficking in the Word of God. But under the terms
of the contract entered into between us on behalf of the
unknown author, who I am sorry to learn from Mr.
Pomf ret is seriously ill, large sums are going to be earned
by it in all parts of the world. In the course of the next
few months it will be played here and in Canada, by at
least fifty stock companies. Next month I start for
Stockholm, in order to produce it at the state theater.
Christiansen, the poet, has prepared a version which I
believe to have true inspiration. As you know, his repu-
tation has European significance, and several of his
German friends, among them the Director of the National
Theater, will be present at the first performance. The
fame of the play has already reached Europe, and Chris-
tiansen hopes for an early performance in Berlin. Ar-
rangements are also being made in Paris, Rome, Petro-
£^ad, and Vienna, and in the course of a few months I
expect versions of it to appear in all these places. Van
Roon's beautiful version for the Hague, Hjalmar's for
Christiania and Ximena's for Madrid, will be produced
within a few weeks, so you see that the grass is not grow-
ing under our feet.

342

THE COMING

There is every reason to look for g^eat developments.
It is hoped that the play may be a means of keeping open
the door for civilization.

Believe me, dear Mr. Brandon,
Very sincerely yours,

Urban Meyer.

P. S. I have just heard that the play has been awarded

the Nobel Prize for peace. Christiansen writes that he

has been asked to go to England and offer an address

to the author on behalf of the Scandinavian Government.

U. M.

THE blinds were down
whose stealthy graci
of the perfect parlor
than usual delicacy. Her mas
bed for two nights. Miss E
Paris hospital, and news had
Mr. Tom was gone.

In the absence of Miss Ed
to be the most authoritative f ei
household ; and she was much <
ter, whom she adored. It wa
to adore. In her face was th
worn by nearly every English
tion. It seemed but yesterday
a wedding dress she was never
boy/' a lusty towheaded young
Regiment, had gone to sleep on

THE COMING

never see their father again. It had called for a
great effort, for he was stunned by the sense of loss.
To a father, the first-bom is a symbol. And there is
nothing to replace an eldest son in the heart of a
lonely man who lives in the memory of a great happi-
ness. He had only to look at gifted, rare-spirited Tom
to see the mother, to watch the play of her features,
to behold the light of her eyes.

Of his four children he. had never disguised the fact
that Tom was the fine flower. Like many men of
rather abrupt mental limitation, the vicar had, at
bottom, a reverence for a good brain. This boy had
been given a talent, and many a time had the father
amused himself with the pious fancy that the brilliant
barrister, of whom much was predicted, would be the
second Lord Chancellor of his name and blood.

On the third morning of the news, as the vicar sat
at breakfast solitary and without appetite, Prince
brought him a letter. It bore a service postmark. It
was from Somewhere in France, and it said :

jst Metropolitan Regiment.
Dear Sir :

It is with the deepest regret that I have to inform you
that Captain Perry-Hennington was killed on the 5th
inst. His loss falls very heavily indeed upon his brother
officers and the men of his Rq;iment. I will not attempt
to say how much he meant to all ranks, for no man

345

THE COMING

could have been more looked up to, or more generally be-
loved. All knew him for what he was, a good soldier,
a true Christian, a great gentleman. He was in the act
of writing you a letter (which I inclose) when word was
brought to him that a man of another battalion, mortally
hit, had asked for Captain Perry-Hennington. He went
out at once, across the danger zone to a communication
trench, where the poor fellow lay, but half way he was
caught by a shell and killed instantly. If it was his turn,
it was the end he would have asked for, and the end
those who loved him would have asked for him. Assur-
ing you of the Regiment's deepest sympathy in your great
loss,

I am, very sincerely yours,

G. H. Arbuthnot,
Lieutenant Colonel.

Inclosed in the letter was a scrap of paper on which
was written :

Dearest Dad :

I fear the will is going. For nearly three years it has
been my continual prayer to Our Father in Heaven that
the mind be not taken before the soul is released, but

if "

As soon as the vicar had read these strange words
he rose unsteadily from the table, went into the study
and locked the door. Then kneeling under a favorite
portrait of the boy's mother, he offered a humble
prayer of thanks. A little afterward, unable to bear
the restraint of four walls, he went out, hatless, into

346

THE COMING

the sunlight of a very perfect day. Very slowly, yet
hardly knowing what he did, he passed through the
vicarage gate, and turned into the steep and narrow
path leading to the village green. Half way up some
familiar lines of Milton began to ring oddly in his
ears:

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave.

And they were accompanied by an odd phrase he
had oooe heard <m the lips of Gervase Brandon. In
the height of a forgotten controversy, Brandon had
said that "for him the image of the spectrum had al-
tered." As the phrase now came to the vicar he
caught a glimpse of its meaning. Somehow he per-
ceived a change of mental vision. At that moment
he seemed to walk closer with God than he had ever
walked; at that moment he was in more intimate
communion with an adored wife, a beloved son. Even
the sweet upland air and the flow of the sun through
the leaves had a new quality. The feeling of personal
loss was yielding to praise and thanksgiving; never
had the vicar been so sure of that loving mercy upon
which his boy had implicitly relied.

Filled with a new, a greater life, he found himself,
without knowing it, on the village green. And then

347

J''!

presence of God alone could b
he looked up, came the words :
opened unto him, and he saw
scending like a dove and lightii
Thrilled by a joy which wa
leaned against the stone. And
of wild thoughts swept his mind
grew dark as he saw again a si
frail figure of fantasy kneeling t
he was now rooted. In a series
and strange scene was reena
glided stealthily past the door oi
it came round the bend of the i
the edge of the green, two he
scended from it, and from his <
a few yards off, he saw them ca

THE COMING

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they
do." Again he saw the grim procession move across
the grass, he saw the upward gesture to the God in the
sky, which at the moment had revolted him ; and then
he saw the car stealthily tiu^n the bend in the track
and fade among the dark-glowing gorse.

A nausea came upon the vicar. Sick with sudden
terror, he realized what he had done. To the fate
which his own boy could not face and had been al-
lowed, as a crowning mercy, to escape, he had himself
condemned a fellow creature without a hearing, and
perhaps against the weight of evidence. By what
authority had he immured a fellow citizen in a living
tomb? By what authority had he denied the first and
highest of all sanctions to a human soul? The doom
that his 0¥m poor lad, with all his heroism, had not
the superhuman courage to meet, this defenseless viU
lager had embraced in the spirit of a martyr and a
saint.

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what
they do."

Again the vicar saw him rise from his knees, and
with a wan but happy smile go forth to a fate by
comparison with which the grave was very kind.
Overborne by a sudden passion of illogical remorse,
the vicar sank to his own knees by the stone, on a spot

349

.^ • '«..*» •w^

THE COMING

bare of grass, the fniit, perhaps, of John Smith's
many kneelings in many bygone years. Broken and
bereaved, a lone animal wounded and terrified, he
humbly asked that he might be allowed to meet his
wife and his boy in Heaven.

The vicar rose from his knees. Faint and chill of
heart, he hardly cared to look up for a visible answer
to his prayer. He was now in outer darkness. For
Thomas Perry-Hennington there was no descent of
the Spirit ircm the hard sky, glowing with strange
beauty. He listened wildly, yet he could only hear
the water flowing by Burkett's mill.

"Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they
do."

The living words were spurring him to frenzy. But
the soul of man, naked and shuddering, helpless and
lonely, recoiled upon itself with the fear that there
was none of whom to seek forgiveness. For one,
Thomas Perry-Hennington, there was no means of
access to the Father. By an idolatrous act, setting the
state above the Highest, he had severed all ccMnmuni-
cation. In bigotry, arrogance, imperfect faith he had
betrayed the Master; in pharisaic blindness he had
crucified the Son of Man.

Thoughts like these, coming at this moment, were
too much for human endurance; in that direction

350

THE COMING

madness lay. A little while he stood by the stone,
trying to hold on to the thing he called "himself."
And then a strange desire came upon him to crave the
light of one whom he had traduced. He dare not set
his act higher, he dare not state his treason in other
terms; at that moment the will itself forbade his so
doing. An issue was now upon him which reason
could not accept. To the inner eye within the mind
itself all was darkness, but looking now with the ear
alone he thought he heard a far, faint voice in the in-
finite stellar spaces, a voice telling him to go at once
to Wellwood.

Suddenly he turned and trailed off back to the
vicarage, like some hapless, hunted thing of the fields,
that flees too madly for hope of escape. As he half
ran down the steep path, his white face gleaming in
the sun, he began to repeat mechanically, in order still
to keep in touch with the central forces :

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave.

By the time he had reached the middle of the lane,
it came to him that he was obeying his wife's voice.

Turning in at the vicarage gate he called across the
privet to the ancient Hobson to leave his roots, and go
and put the harness on old Alice.

xuv

VIA Grayfield, Easing and Chettleford the dis-
tance to Wellwood was nearly twenty miles.
He might train from Brombridge, but the
service was bad and there would be three miles to
walk at the end. So he decided that old Alice should
take him to Grayfield, and then he would ask Whym-
per to lend him his car.

But long before he came to Grayfield he felt that
this could not be. At that moment his old Magdalen
friend was the last person in the universe he de^red
to meet. If he had now to face his kind it must be
some other. Thus, as the stately chimneys and fine
gables of the Manor house, rising proudly behind an
enchanted copse of fern and Canterbury bells, came
into view, he urged old Alice past them at her best
pace and on to the Chequers, Grayfield's model public
house. Its landlord, Hickman, a civil, obliging fellow,
was known to the vicar, who in this dilemma was very
glad of his help. It was not fair to ask the full jour-
ney of poor old Alice.
He was able to exchange her temporarily for the

352

THE COMING

landlord's young mare. But in the process he had to
submit to an ordeal that he would have given much to
be spared.

"I see, sir, in the Advertiser," said Hickman, as he
gave the ostler a hand in the inn yard, "that the Cap-
tain 's gone. My boy went the same day. He was
not in the Captain's lot, but I happen to know that he
thought there was no one like him. He was such a
gentleman, and he had a way with him that had a
rare power over young chaps."

The vicar could not answer the honest fellow,
whose voice failed suddenly and whose eyes were full
of tears. But he held out his hand very simply, and
Hickman, his tears now falling softly, like those of a
child, took it.

"Excuse me, sir. Bill was my all. You see, I
buried the wife in the spring. Things are at a dead
end for me now."

The vicar, unable to speak, offered his hand again.

All at once Hickman took him firmly by the coat-
sleeve and led him a dozen paces away from the ostler.
"Excuse the great freedom, sir" — ^the big, not
over-bright fellow's whisper was excessive in its hu-

mility — "but, as a minister of the Gospel, there's one
question I'd like to ask you."

353

THE COMING

Mr. Perry-Hennington shuddered at the perception
of what was coming.

"The only hope for a chap like me is that I'll meet
the wife and the boy in Heaven. Otherwise, I'm at
a dead end as you might say. As one man to another,
what chance do you think there is?"

The vicar grew cold at the heart.

"Of course, I'm not a churchgoer; I am not a reli-
gious man or anything of that kind. My father wasn't.
I've always tried to go straight, keep sober, pay my
way and so on, but of course, I've never taken Com-
munion or read the Bible or done anjrthing to curry
favor. That's not my nature. Still, I reckon myself
a fairish, decentish chap; and on Sunday evening,
after the service, I went round to talk to our vicar
here, Mr. Pierce."

"Yes." Mr. Perry-Hennington gave an eager gasp.
"That was very wise. What did he say to you?" His
lips could hardly shape the questicMi.

"Why, sir, he said that a Christian couldn't doubt
for a moment that one day he would be with his wife
and children in Heaven."

"Mr. Pierce said that!"

"He did. And I told him I didn't pretend to be a
Christian and I asked him if he thought I had left
it too late."

354

THE COMING

"Yes?"

"Well, sir, he said it was never too late to be a Chris-
tian. And he gave me a prayer book — ^he's a very nice
gentleman — ^and told me to take it home and read it."

"Yes?''

"I've tried to read it, sir, but to be quite honest,
I don't feel that I shall ever be much of a Christian."

"Well, Hickman — " suddenly Mr. Perry-Henning-
ton found his voice — "always try to remember this:
Jesus Christ came to us here in order that you might
be with your dear wife and jour dear boy in Heaven,
and — ^and — ^we have His pledged Word — and we must
believe in that."

"But how is a chap to believe what he can't prove ?"

"We must have faith — ^we must all have faith."

"All very well, sir," said Hickman dourly, "but sup-
pose He has promised more than He cair perform ?"

"In what way? How do you mean?"

"According to the Bible He was to come again, but
as far as I can make out there doesn't seem much sign
of Him yet."

Mr. Perry-Hennington was silent a moment and
then he took one of the landlord's large hands in
both of his own and said in an abrupt, half grotesque,
wholly illogical way, "My dear friend, we are all mem-
bers one of another. It is our duty to hope for the

355

THE COMING

best— our duty to believe that the best will happen."
And as he turned aside, he added with another curious
change of voice, which he could not have recognized
as belonging to himself, ''You see, we are all in the
same boat."

Saying these words, the vicar climbed into his trap
with almost the stagger of a drunken man. He hardly
knew what he said or what he did, but as soon as
the mare was out of the inn yard it came upon him
that he had to go to Wellwood, and that the way to
get there was through Easing and Chettleford.

Why at that particular moment that particular place
should be his destination he didn't quite know, unless
it was in obedience to a voice he had heard in the
sky. A modem man, whose supreme desire was to
take reason for his guide in all things, even if the vows
of his faith forced him to accept the supernatural in
form and sum, he feared in this hour to apply it too
rigidly.

As the publican's mare went steadily forward along
the winding, humid lanes of a woodland country, a
feeling of hopelessness came upon him. What did he
expect to do when he got to the end of his journey?
Such a question simply admitted of no answer. It
was not to be faced by Thomas Perry-Hennington on

356

THE COMING

his present plane of being. The logic of the matter
could not be met.

That was the case, no doubt, but a compromise was
equally impossible. Something would have to happen.
Either he must go forward or he must go back. A
soul in strange, terrible torment passed unseen and
unseeing through the tiny hamlet of Easing and on
and on up a steep hill and then down through a long
valley of trees and a gloom of massively beautiful
furze country. There was not a ripple of wind in
the tense air, and in the early afternoon it grew very
dark, with an occasional growl of thunder over the far
hills. On the outskirts of Chettleford it began to rain
in large slow drops ; and as his sweating face perceived
the soft, cool splash he half dared to take it as the
explicit kindness of Heaven. Upon the wings of that
thought came the automatic intrusion into his mind
of the words :

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave.

And with theig came the strange fancy that these tears
out of Heaven were those of his wife and his boy.

A mile beyond Chettleford, at the dark edge of a
wood, the sudden fear struck him that the soul of
Thomas Perry-Hennington was about to enter unend-

357

THE COMING

ing night. A recollection dread and spectral, which
might have been Dante or the far distant ages of the
past, engulfed him swiftly and completely. It was im-
possible to turn back now or he woidd have done so.

The narrow road grew darker and darker as it
wound under the heavy, rain-pattered canopy of the
wood. Earth and sky were without form, and void.
He lost touch with time and place; he began to lose
touch with his own identity. He only knew that
Thomas Perry-Hennington was his name and that his
destination was Wellwood Asylum.

The rain grew heavier, but there was no comfort in
it now. He was already far beyond any kind of physi-
cal aid. A grisly demon was in him, urging him on-
ward to his doom. His soul's reaction to it was be^
yond pity and terror. Quite suddenly, and long be-
fore he expected to see them, the heavy iron gates of
the asylum were before him. At the sound of wheels
an old man, very bent and grim, whom in the wet half-
light he almost took for Charon, came slowly out of
his lodge and fitted a key to the lock.

XLV

THE vicar and his trap passed through the gates
of Wellwood and along a short drive, flanked
by wet bushes of rhododendron to the main
entrance. In a voice not at all like his own he said to
a heavy, rather brutal-looking man wlio opened one of
the doors, "Mr. Perry-Hennington to see Dr. Thorp."

He was admitted at cmce to a dim, somber interior,
and ^own into a small, stuffy waiting room in which
he could hardly breathe. It was perhaps a relief to
find himself quite alone, but in a very short time the
doctor came to him.

The two men were known to each other. It was
not Mr. Perry-Hennington's first visit to Wellwood;
and from time to time they had sat together on various
committees affecting the social welfare of the county.

The vicar's state of mind did not allow him to give
much attenticoi to Dr. Thorp, otherwise he could hard-
ly have failed to notice that the chief medical of-
ficer of the establishment was in a state of suppressed
exQtement.

"I am particularly glad to see you, Mr. Perry-Hcn-

359

THE COMING

nington/' he said. "I am afraid we are about to lose
one of our patients under remarkable and tragic cir-
cumstances. He has not asked for the sacrament to
be administered, but now you are so providentially
here, I have no doubt he will welcome it if he is still
able to receive it."

Dr. Thorp paused, but the vicar did not speak.

"It is our poor dear friend, John Smith. For
months he has been slowly dying. But the end is now
at hand. And it comes in very singular circum-
stances.'*

Again Dr. Thorp paused, again the vicar did not
speak.

"I will tell you what they are. Our dear friend, in
the course of his stay among us, wrote a stage play.
It was given by him to Mr. Brandon, who gave it to
Mr. Urban Meyer, the great American impresario,
who has caused it to be played all over the world. And
its success has been so extraordinary that it has been
awarded the Nobel Prize for peace. But perhaps you
know all this?"

The vicar shook his head.

"The whole story seems incredible," the doctor went
on. "But there it is. Further, I am informed that
Dr. Kurt Christiansen, the great Scandinavian poet
and thinker is coming here this afternoon to present an

360

THE COMING

address on behalf of his Government. And he is to
be accompanied by Mr. Sigismund Prosser, C.B., rep-
resenting the Royal Academy of Literature, by Mr.
Brandon, representing our own Government, and by a
representative of the press.

"Of course, Mr. Perry-Hennington, I needn't say
that not only are the circumstances very unusual, they
are also extremely difficult and embarrassing. The
first intimation of this arrangement was from the
Home Office, saying that out of regard for the activi-
ties of a neutral Power, our Government lent its
sanction ; and that if the patient was able to receive this
act of homage it was felt to be in the public interest
that he should do so. But at the same time it was
pointed out that it would be a further public advan-
tage if the distinguished visitor was not enlightened as
to the nature of this establishment, or the circum-
stances in which the play had been written. Well, I
mentioned the matter at^nce to our poor friend, and
I was able to reply that, although the patient was ex-
tremely weak and his death perhaps a question of a
few days, he would gladly receive the deputation.

"On the strength of that assurance the arrange-
ments have gone forward. The dq>utation is due at
Wellwood in rather less than half an hour, but I
grieve to say that our poor dear, but evidently greatly

361

it
it

THE COMING

gifted, friend, whose loss we shall all mourn deeply,
is now losing consciousness/'

"Losing ccmsciousness/' The vicar repeated the
words as if he hardly understood them.

Yes." The doctor spckc in a matter-of-fact tone.
It may or may not be a final phase. There may be a
slight rally which will enable him to receive the honor
about to be paid him. On the other hand it is almost
too much to hope for now. Every kind of stimulant
has been already administered, but the action of the
heart is very feeble and I am sadly afraid that the dep-
utation is making its journey in vain."
Am I too late?" gasped the vicar.
Not to do your office, I hope. The patient may
still be able to receive the sacrament."
"May I see him?"

"I shall be very glad for you to do so."
'1^ me go to him at once," gasped the vicar wildly.

€t
*i'

XLVI

HIS eyes growing dark, the vicar asked for a
prayer book. When this had been procured,
the doctor led him through a maze of dismal
corridors to a small door at the extreme end of a long
passage.

At the doctor's gentle tap it was opened by the head
attendant

*'Any change, Boswell?" whispered the doctor.

There was no change it appeared.

At first the vicar stood irresolute on the threshold
of the cell. His manner made it clear that he desired
to be alcme with the dying man, and in a few moments
the doctor and the attendant went away. The vicar,
grasping his prayer book like a staff, then passed in
alone, and the heavy door swung to behind him with
a self-closing dick which locked it securely.

The room had only a bedstead. It was very hard
to see in that night of time through which the vicar
was now looking. Not daring to approach the bed,
he stood hopelessly by the door, naked in spirit, faint
of soul. He could neither speak nor move. There

363

THE COMING

was not a sound in the room, nor any light. He stood
alone.

He stood alone and without any kind of power ; he
could neither hear nor see ; he was in a void in which
time was awfully revealed in a new notation. Broken
with fear, he began slowly to lose apperception.

How long he remained solitary there was no means
of knowing, but at last he heard a voice in the room.
It was hardly more than a sigh, yet so strangely famil-
iar and expected was the sound that the vicar knew it
at once for the voice of One.

"You did as your light directed. Faithful servant,
kiss me."

Transfigured with a wild emotion, like music and
wine in his heart, the vicar moved to the bed. He fell
on his knees, and flung his arms round the form which
lay there. He pressed wild kisses upon the luminous
face. At the contact of his lips, the image of the
spectrum altered and Truth itself was translated to
a higher value. Then he seemed to realize that he
was holding in his arms a heroic son .

"My darling boyl" he whispered. "My darling
boyr

Again he rained kisses on the upturned face.

He suddenly perceived that a third presence was by
his side. He knew it for the happy mother and be-

364

THE COMING

loved wife. Again the image of the spectrum altered.
He was bom again. There came to him with new, in-
tenser meaning the doctrine of the Trinity and through
it the mystic union of husband, wife and child in the
Father's Love.

After a further lapse of time which was measure*
less, the ecstasy of the human father was terminated
by the sound of a key turning in the door of the room.
Instantly the spell was broken and he realized that he
was fondling the face of a corpse.

The vicar rose from his knees as the doctor entered
the room. He stood by the bed, shivering now with
strange happiness, while the doctor lifted the hand and
looked at the face of his patient.

"I was afraid," said the doctor in a hushed voice,
"that he would not be able to receive the deputation.
Dear fellow! He is now with the souls in whom he
believed."

"And who believed in Him," said the vicar in a
tone that the doctor could hardly recognize.

"Yes, there were souls who believed in him," said
the doctor in a matter-of-fact voice which had a kind
of gentle indulgence. "There must have been. More
than one of our poor old men here died with his name
on their lips. You would hardly believe what an in-
fluence he had among us. We shall miss him very

36s

THE COMING

much. In his way he was a true saint, a real teacher,
and he has left this place better than he found it/'

"If only he could have received the homage that
awaited him," the vicar whispered.

"Yes, if only he could have done so! But it is writ-
ten otherwise. Still, we all feel that a very remark-
able honor has been paid to one of our inmates. By
the way, isn't it Aristotle — or is it Plato? — ^who says
that it is a part of probability that many improbabili-
ties will happen?"

XLV

AS the vicar and the doctor left John Smith's
cell, there came out of the deep shadows of the
long corridor a figure, old, forlorn, very in-
firm. With a haunted look this rather grotesque crea-
ture shuffled forward, and fixing tragic eyes upon the
doctoi^s face muttered in an alien tongue :

"He is risen. He is risen."

The doctor reproved him sharply. "Why, Goethe,
what in fortune's name are you doing here! Go at
once to your own side and don't let me see you here
again. Strict instructions were given that none of the
patients were to be seen in the west wing just now.
I must look into this. Go at once to your own side."

The old man slunk away, still muttering softly, "He
is risen. He is risen."

The doctor was obviously annoyed by the incident.
"Gross carelessness on the part of someone," he said.
"The deputation is already due, and the Home Office
desires us in the special and quite unprecedented cir-
cumstances of the case to present as normal an ap-
pearance as we can. In other words, it doesn't want

367

THE COMING

representatives of our own and foreign governments
to be welcomed by a parcel of lunatics. That will
not help anybody; besides, as the Home Office says,
it is desirable that no slur should be cast on the pro-
fession of literature/'

"And on the memory of the Master," whispered the
vicar in his hushed voice.

"Quite so. I fully agree. The dear fellow ! And

to think he was able to win a prize of seven thousand

pounds, not to mention the many thousands his work

is earning all over the world, from which, by the way,

deserving charities are benefiting."

"Did he know that his work was producing these
large sums?"

'Oh, yes. And I think the knowledge gave him
pleasure. But he never regarded a penny as his own.
He left it to Mr. Brandon and myself — ^two just men I
am proud to think he called us — ^to give back again,
as he said, 'that which had been given to him, in the
way likely to do the most good.' "

"He was quite selfless," said the vicar.

"Absolutely. And he is the only man I have known,
or am ever likely to know, of whom that statement
could be truly made. I have known good men, I have
known men with high, forward-looking souls, but I
have never known a man so near His model that if it

368

il'

THE COMING

had not existed already one almost felt that such a
man must have created it In fact, John Smith will
stand out in my experience as the most remarkable case
I have known. He believed until he became."

"As you say, he believed until he became. And he
made a prophecy which he has lived to fulfill."

*'What was the prophecy he made?"

That he would heal the wounds of the world."
1 wonder, I wonder."

'Oh ye of little faith 1" whispered the vicar. The
tears that rose to his eyes were like the blood of
his heart.

Hardly had Mr. Perry-Hennington spoken the
words when both he and Doctor Thorp perceived a
stir at the doors of the main entrance to the institu-
tion, now in view at the far end of the corridor along
which they were passing. No more than a glance
was needed to tell them that the deputation was in
the act of arrival. Beyond the open doors, a large
motor car and an imposing array of silk hats were
clearly visible in the half-light of the wet afternoon.

As the doctor and the vicar came to the main en-
trance, several persons entered the building. Foremost
of these were Gervase Brandon and a very noble-look-
ing old man with snow-white hair and the eyes of a
child. In one hand he carried his hat, in the other a

369

THE COMING

large bunch of lilies held together with a broad ribbon
of white satin.

"Dr. Thorp," said Brandon, with a happy and proud
smile. "I have the great honor and privilege to pre-
sent Dr. Kurt Christiansen, whose reputation has
long preceded him. At the instance of a neutral gov-
ernment he has come to this country to pay in the
name of humanity the world's homage to our dear
friend."

Solemn but cordial bows were exchanged and then
Dr. Thorp replied, "I grieve to have to tell you, sir,
that our dear friend has already passed."

The childlike bearer of the lilies looked very simply
into the doctor's eyes. "Dead," he said.

"But being dead liveth," said a tall clergyman from
the background in a whispered tone of new authority.

There followed a moment of silence and constraint.
And then it was very unexpectedly shattered by a wild
appearance, grinning with strange joy and crying in
an alien tongue, "He is risen ! He is risen I"

Only the prompt intervention of Dr. Thorp pre-
vented this figure of fantasy flinging its arms round
the neck of Mr. Sigismund Prosser, C.B. An interna-
tional incident of somt magnitude was thus averted,
for the representative of the Royal Academy of Liter-

370

THE COMING

ature had recently said at a public meeting that ''he
had done with Goethe forever."

EPILOGUE

Strictly conRdewtial.

Whitehall,
Friday.

Dear Brandon :

Your moving account of the proceedings at Wellwood
Sanatorium was read at the Cabinet meeting this after-
noon and you will be glad to know that the Lord Cham-
berlain is being advised to license the production of the
Play in this country. In the present state of the public
mind it is felt to be the best course to take. It is hoped
that further questions will not arise in the House, other-
wise it may be impossible to avoid an inquiry into all the
circumstances of a most singular case, and this, I think
you will agree, would be undesirable just now from every
point of view.

Yours,

George Speke.

(I)

-1

}

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