The Bond of Black

“And when may I expect her to relinquish this man?” I inquired eagerly.

She rose slowly, a strange, rather tragic-looking figure, so slim, pale-faced and fragile that she seemed almost as one from whom the flush of life had faded. Her brows contracted, her thin lips twitched, and the magnificent marquise ring of turquoises and diamonds upon her ungloved hand seemed to glitter with an iridescence that was dazzling.

She raised her hand with an imperious gesture, describing a semicircle, while I stood aghast watching her.

“I have commanded!” she said a moment later, in that curious far-off tone. “At this instant the change is effected. She no longer loves that man who came between you!”

“And she loves me?” I cried, incredible that she could at will effect such changes in the affections of any person. Truly her power was demoniacal.

“Yes,” she answered. “She will be penitent.”

“And she will come to me?”

“Wait in patience,” the mysterious woman answered. “You must allow time for the thoughts of regret now arising within her to mature. When they have done so, then will she seek your forgiveness.”

“Why have you done me this service, Aline?” I asked, utterly mystified. “It is a service which I can never repay.”

“We are friends,” she responded simply. “Not enemies.”

Then for the first time the terrible thought flashed upon me that by making the agreement I had made with her I might be aiding the murderer of poor Roddy to escape. She had set a seal upon my lips.

Next day was Sunday, and as Jack Yelverton had not called upon me, and I did not know his address, I suddenly, early in the evening, resolved to go down to Walworth and see whether I could find him.

Having no idea where the church of St. Peter was situated, I took a cab through Newington to a point halfway along the Walworth Road, that great artery of Transpontine London, and there alighted. Some of those who read these lines may know that road, one of the busiest in the whole metropolis. Even on a Sunday evening, when the shops are closed, the traffic in that broad thoroughfare never ceases. From the overcrowded districts of Peckham and Camberwell, districts which within my own memory were semi-rural, this road is the main highway to the City, and while on week-days it is crowded with those hurrying thousands of daily workers who earn their bread beyond the river, on Sunday evenings those same workers take out their wives and families for a breath of air on Camberwell Green, Peckham Eye, or some other of those open spaces which have aptly been termed “the lungs of London.” Only the worker knows the felicity of the Sunday rest. People of means and leisure may talk of the pleasure and brightness of the Continental Sunday, but for the worker in the great city it would be a sad day indeed if the present custom were altered. It is now a day of rest; and assuredly rest and relaxation are required in the ceaseless, frantic hurry of the life of London’s toilers. The opening of places of amusement would be but the thin end of the wedge. It would be followed, as in France and Italy, by the opening of shops until noon, and later, most probably, by the half-day working of factories.

The leisure of the English Sunday was well illustrated in the Walworth Road, that centre of lower and middle-class life, on that evening, as I walked alone until, by direction, I entered a narrow, rather uninviting-looking turning, and proceeding some distance came to a large, old-fashioned church with pointed spire, surrounded by a spacious, disused burying-ground, where the gravestones were blackening. The bell, of peculiarly doleful tone, was quite in keeping with the character of the neighbourhood, for the houses in the vicinity were mostly one-storied, dingy abodes, little more than cottages, let out in floors, many of their inhabitants being costermongers and factory hands. The old church, cracked and smoke-blackened, was a substantial and imposing relic of bygone times. Once, as was shown by the blackened, rain-stained tombstones in God’s-acre, the residents in that parish were well-to-do citizens, who had their rural residences in that quarter; but during the past half-century or so a poor, squalid parish had sprung up in the market gardens which surrounded it, one of those gloomy, miserable, mean, and dreary districts wherein life seems so full of sadness, and disease stalks hand-in-hand with direst poverty.

I was shown by the verger to a pew well in front, and found that the congregation was by no means a small one, comprising many who appeared to be tradespeople from the Walworth Road. Yet there was about the place a damp, mouldy smell, which rendered it a very depressing place of worship.

As I had hoped, my friend, Yelverton, conducted the service, and afterwards preached a striking sermon upon “Brotherliness,” a discourse so brilliant that he held his not too educated congregation breathless in attention.

At length, when the Benediction had been pronounced, and the congregation rose to leave, I made my way into the vestry, where I found him taking off his surplice.

“Hulloa, Clifton!” he cried, welcoming me warmly, “so you’ve found me out, eh?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Why haven’t you called, as you promised?”

I simply uttered the first words that arose to my lips, for truth to tell, I had a moment before made a surprising and unexpected discovery. As I had risen from my seat I saw behind me a tall, thin lady in deep mourning, wearing a veil.

I could not see the face, but by her figure and her gait as she turned to make her way out I recognised her.

It was Aline Cloud. She had come there to listen to the preaching of the man she loved. Once again, then, had she come into the life of this man who had fled from her as from a temptress.

The verger went back into the church, and my friend pushed to the door in order that whoever remained should not witness us, then answered —

“I’ve been busy – terribly busy, my dear fellow. Forgive me.”

“Of course,” I answered. “But it was a surprise to me to hear that you had left Duddington, although, of course, we couldn’t expect you to bury yourself down there altogether.”

“Well, I had this offer,” he answered, hanging up his surplice in the cupboard, “and being so much interested in the work here, I couldn’t refuse.”

“It seems a dismal place,” I observed, “a terribly dismal place.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “There’s more misery and poverty here than even in the East End. Here we have the deserving poor – the people who are too proud to throw themselves on the parish, yet they haven’t a few coppers to get the bare necessaries of life with. If you came one round with me, Clifton, you’d witness scenes which would cause your heart to bleed. And this in London – the richest city in the world! While at the Café Royal or Jimmy’s you will cheerfully give a couple or three pounds for a dinner with a friend, here, within fifty yards of this place, are people actually starving because they can’t get a herring and a pennyworth of bread. Ah! you who have had no experience in the homes of these people can’t know how despairing, how cheerless, is the life of the deserving poor.”

“And you live here?” I asked. “You prefer this cramped, gloomy place to the fresh air and free life of the country? You would rather visit these overcrowded slums than the homely cottages of the agricultural labourer?”

“Certainly,” he responded simply. “I entered the Church with the object of serving the Master, and I intend to do so.”

“And the lady who was once a parish-worker here,” I said, with some hesitancy. “Have you seen her?”

“Ah!” he sighed, as a dark shadow crossed his thoughtful brow, and his lips compressed. “You alone know my secret, old fellow, you alone are aware of the torment I am suffering.”

“What torment?” I inquired, surprised.

At that instant, however, the old verger, a man who spoke with a pronounced South London drawl, interrupted by dashing in alarmed and pale-faced, saying —

“There’s been a robbery, sir – an awful sacrilege!”

“Sacrilege!” echoed Yelverton, starting up.

“Yes, sir. The chalice you used this morning at Communion I put in the niche beside the organ, meaning to clean it to-night. I’ve always put it there these twelve years. But it’s gone.”

My friend went forth into the church, and I followed until we came to the niche which the old verger indicated.

There was no chalice there, but in its place only white ashes and a few pieces of metal melted out of all recognition.

All three of us stood gazing at the fused fragments of the sacramental cup, astonished and amazed.

Chapter Nineteen

The Result of the Compact

“There’s some Devil’s work been performed here!” gasped the newly-appointed vicar, turning over the ashes with trembling hands, while at the same time I, too, bent and examined the fused fragments of the Communion cup.

The recollection of the miraculous changes effected in my own room was fresh within my memory, and I stood amazed. The agency to which was due the melting of the chalice was still a mystery, but had I not seen Aline, the Woman of Evil, leave the church?

It was apparent that Yelverton had not detected her presence, or he would most probably have referred to it. He loved her with an all-absorbing love, yet, like myself, he seemed to hold her in some mysterious dread, the reason of which I always failed to discover. His theory that the clergy should not marry was, I believe, a mere cloak to hide his terror of her. This incident showed me that now he had come back to his old parish she haunted him as she had done in the past, sometimes unseen, and at others boldly greeting him. That night she had sat a few pews behind me listening to his brilliant discourse, veiled and unrecognised in the half-lighted church, and had escaped quickly, in order that none should be aware of her presence.

But I had caught a glimpse of her, and knowledge of her visit had been immediately followed by this astounding discovery. Her evil influence had once more asserted itself upon a sacred object and destroyed it.

Truly her power was Satanic. Yet she was so calm, so sweet, so eminently beautiful, that I did not wonder that he loved her. Indeed, I recollected how enthusiastically I once had fallen down and worshipped her.

And now had I not a compact with her? Had I not given myself over to her, body and soul, to become her puppet and her slave?

I shuddered when I recollected that hour of my foolishness. This Woman of Evil held me irrevocably in her power.

“How strange!” I exclaimed at last, when I had thoroughly examined the ashes. I would have told him of Aline’s presence, but, with my lips sealed by my promise, I feared to utter a word, lest I might be stricken by her deadly hate, for she certainly was something more than human.

“Strange!” he cried. “It’s marvellous. Feel! The ashes are quite warm! The heat required to melt and fuse a heavy vessel like that would be enormous. It couldn’t have been done by any natural means.”

“How, then, do you account for it?” I inquired quickly.

“I can’t account for it,” he answered in a hoarse voice, gazing about the darkened church, for the lights had been nearly all extinguished, and the place was weird and eerie. Then, with his lips compressed for a moment, he looked straight at me, saying in a strange, hard voice: “Clifton, such a change as this could not be effected by any human means. If this had happened in a Roman Catholic church, it would have been declared to be a miracle.”

“A miracle wrought by the Evil One!” I said.

And he bowed his head, his face ashen, his hands still trembling.

“I cannot help thinking,” he said after a pause, “that this is a bad augury for my ministry here. It is the first time I have, as vicar, administered the Sacrament, and the after result is in plain evidence before us – a result which absolutely staggers belief.”

“Yes,” I said pensively. “It is more than extraordinary. It is an enigma beyond solution; an actual problem of the supernatural.”

“That the chalice should be thus profaned and desecrated by an invisible agency is a startling revelation indeed,” he said. “A hellish influence must be at work somewhere, unless,” and he paused, “unless we have been tricked by a mere magician’s feat.”

“But are not the ashes still hot?” I suggested. “See here!” and I took up some of the fused metal. “Is not this silver? There seems no doubt that the cup was actually consumed here in the spot where the verger placed it, and that it was consumed by an uncommonly fierce fire.”

Without responding, he stood gazing blankly upon the ashes. I saw that his heart was torn by a thousand doubts and fears, and fell to wondering whether he had ever had any cause to suspect the woman he feared of possessing the power of destruction.

Again he glanced round the cavernous darkness of the silent church, and a shudder went through him.

“Let’s go, my dear fellow,” he said, endeavouring to steady himself. “I’m utterly unnerved to-night. Perhaps the efforts of my sermon have been a little too much for me. The doctor told me to avoid all undue excitement.”

“Keep yourself quiet,” I urged. “No doubt some explanation will be forthcoming very soon,” I added, endeavouring to reassure him.

But he shook his head gloomily, answering —

“The Prince of this World is all-powerful. The maleficent spirit is with us always, and evil has fallen upon me, and upon my work.”

“No, no!” I cried quickly. “You talk too hopelessly, my dear old chap. You’re upset to-night. To-morrow, after a rest, you’ll be quite fit again. You’ve excited yourself in your sermon, and this is the reaction.”

He shrugged his shoulders, and together we left the church. I walked with him across to his lodgings in a poorish-looking house in Liverpool Street, facing the disused burial-ground. He had not entered upon residence at the vicarage, for, as he explained to me, his wants were few, and he preferred furnished apartments to the worries of an establishment of his own. As I entered the small, rather close-smelling house, I could not help contrasting it with Mrs Walker’s clean, homely cottage in Duddington, where the ivy covered the porch, and the hollyhocks grew so tall in the little front garden. He took me into his shabby little sitting-room, the window of which overlooked the churchyard, and I saw how terribly dreary was his abode.

I remarked that the place was scarcely so open and healthy as at Duddington, but as he sank into his chair exhausted, he answered simply —

“My work lies here among the poor, and it is my duty to live among them. Many men in London live away from their parishes because the locality happens to be a working-class one, but such men can never carry on their work well. To know the people, to obtain their confidence, and to be able to assist them, one must live among them, however dismal is the life, however dreary the constant outlook of bricks and mortar.”

With this theory I was compelled to agree. Surely this man must be devout and God-fearing if he could give up the world, as he had done, to devote himself to the poor in such a locality, and live the dismal life of the people among whom his work lay.

Yet in his acquaintanceship with Aline there was some strange mystery. His hiding from her, and her clandestine visit to Duddington, were sufficient in themselves to show that their friendship had been strained, and his words, whenever he had spoken of her, were as though he held her in fear. Mystery surrounded her on every side.

I sat with my friend for a long time smoking with him in that dingy, cheerless room. Once only he referred to the curious phenomenon which had occurred in the church, and noticing that I had no desire to discuss it, he dropped the subject. He was enthusiastic over his work, telling me sad stories of the poverty existing there on every side, and lamenting that while London gave liberally to Mansion House Funds for the relief of foreigners, it gave so little to the deserving poor at home.

Suddenly, glancing at the clock, he rose, saying that he had a visit to make.

“It’s late,” I exclaimed, seeing that it was after ten o’clock.

“Not too late to do my duty,” he answered.

Then we passed out, and in silence threaded our way back through the narrow alleys until we gained the Walworth Road, where we parted, after I had promised to call soon and see him again.

When he had left me, I turned once to look after him. His tall, athletic figure was disappearing in the darkness of the slums. Truly this man, who had been my old college chum, was a devoted servant of the Master.

Several days went by, during which I reflected a good deal upon the strange occurrence at St. Peter’s, and the promise made me by Aline. Would Muriel return to me? Was the influence possessed by the Woman of Evil sufficient to cause her to abandon her newly-found lover and crave my forgiveness?

She had told me to possess myself in patience, and I, in obedience to her command, neither sought Muriel or wrote to her.

A week passed. It was Saturday evening. I had been dining early over at the club, and on entering my chambers with my latch-key about eight o’clock, having returned there before dropping in at the Alhambra, I perceived through the crack of the half-open door that some one was in my sitting-room.

I held my breath, scarcely believing my eyes. It was Muriel.

Slowly she rose to meet me with a majestic but rather tragic air, and without a word stretched forth her hand.

“Why, Muriel!” I cried gladly. “You’re the very last person I expected!”

“I suppose so,” she said, adding in a low, strained voice, “Close the door. I have come to speak with you.”

I obeyed her; then, returning to her side, stood eager for her words. The enigmatical influence of Aline was upon her, for I saw that to her dark, brilliant eyes there had already returned that love-light which once had shone upon me, and noticed how her sweet, well-remembered voice trembled with an excitement which she strove vainly to conceal. Her dress was of grey stuff, plainly made as always, but her black hat with a touch of blue in it suited her well, and as she sat before me in the chair wherein the mysterious Temptress had sat, she seemed extremely graceful and more handsome than ever.

“You have, I suppose, almost forgotten me during this long separation, haven’t you?” she faltered with abruptness, after some hesitation. Apparently she had carefully prepared some little diplomatic speech, but in the excitement of the moment all recollection of it had passed from her mind.

“Forgotten you, Muriel!” I echoed, gazing earnestly into her soft, beautiful eyes. “When we last met, did I not tell you that I should never forget?”

Her breast heaved and fell; her countenance grew troubled.

“Surely it is you who have forgotten me?” I said, with a touch of bitter reproach. “You have cast me aside in preference for another. Tell me what I have done that you should treat me thus?”

“Nothing!” she responded nervously, her grave eyes downcast.

“Then, why cannot you love me, Muriel?” I demanded, bending towards her in desperation.

“I – I’m foolish to have come here,” she said, in sudden desperation, rising from her chair.

“Why foolish?” I asked. “Even though you may love another you are always welcome to my rooms as of old. I bear you no ill-will, Muriel,” I said, not, however, without bitterness.

A silence fell. Again she sighed deeply, and then at last raising her fair face to mine, she exclaimed in an eager, trembling tone —

“Forgive me, Clifton! Forgive me! I have come here to-night to ask you to have pity upon me. I know how I have wronged you, but I have come to tell you that I still love you – to ask whether you consider me still worthy of your love?”

“Of course, darling!” I cried, springing forward, instantly placing my arm about her neck and imprinting a fond kiss upon her white brow. “Of course I love you,” I repeated, enthusiastic in my newly-found contentment. “Since you have gone out of my life I have been sad and lonely indeed; and when I knew that you loved another all desire for life left me. I – ”

“But I love you, Clifton,” she cried, interrupting. “It was but a foolish passing fancy on my part to prefer that man to you who have always been my friend, who have always been so kind and so thoughtful on my behalf. I wronged you deeply, and have since repented it.”

“The knowledge that you still love me, dearest, is sufficient. It gives me the completest satisfaction; it renders me the most happy man in all the world,” and still retaining her hand I pressed it warmly to my lips.

“Then you forgive me?” she asked, with a seriousness that at such a moment struck me as curious.

“Forgive you? Certainly!” I answered. “This estrangement has tested the affection of both of us. We now know that it is impossible for us to live apart.”

“Ah, yes!” she answered. “You are quite right. I cannot live without you. It is impossible. I have tried and have failed.”

“Then in future you are mine, darling,” I cried, in joyous ecstasy. “Let the past remain as a warning to us both. Not only were you inconstant, but I was also; therefore on my part there is nothing to forgive. Let happiness now be ours because we have both discovered that only in each other can we find that perfect love which to the pure and upright is as life itself.”

For me the face of the world had changed in those moments. A new and brighter life had come to me.

“Yes,” she answered in a low tone, which showed plainly how affected she was. And raising her full, ready lips to mine, she kissed me passionately, adding: “You are generous, indeed, Clifton. I feared and dreaded always that you had cast me aside as fickle and unworthy a thought.”

“No, no!” I said, my arm around her protectingly. “Think no more of that. Don’t let us remember the past, dearest, but look to a brighter future – a future when you will always be with me, my companion, my helpmate, my wife!”

There were tears in her dark eyes, tears of boundless joy and abundant happiness. She had come there half expecting a rebuff, yet had found me ready and eager to forgive; therefore, in a few moments her emotion overcame her, and she hid her tear-stained face in her hands.

The prophecy of the Woman of Evil had been fulfilled. Yet at what cost had I gained this felicity? At the cost of a guilty silence – a silence that shielded her from the exposure of some mysterious, unknown guilt.

Such thoughts I endeavoured to cast from me in the dreamy happiness of those felicitous moments. Yet as I held Muriel in my arms and kissed her pale, tear-stained cheeks, I could not help reflecting upon the veil of mystery which surrounded the woman whose inexplicable influence had caused my love to return to me. In my sudden happiness there still remained the dregs of bitterness – the strange death of the man who had been my most intimate friend, and the demoniacal power possessed by the woman to whom I had unconditionally bound myself in return for Muriel’s love.

The words I uttered caused her to hesitate, to hold her breath, and look up at me with those dark, brilliant eyes which had so long ago held me beneath their spell. Again her hand trembled, again tears rose in her eyes, but at last, when I had repeated my sentence, she faltered a response.

It was but a single word, but it caused my heart to bound for joy, and in an instant raised me to the seventh heaven of delight. Her response from that moment bound us in closer relationship than before.

She had given me her promise to become my wife.

Chapter Twenty

One Man’s Hand

In the hour that followed many were our mutual declarations, many were the kisses I imprinted upon those lips, with their true Cupid’s bow, without which no woman’s beauty is entirely perfect.

From her conversation I gathered that the assistants at the great shop in the Holloway Road were treated, as they often are, as mere machines, the employers having no more regard for their health or mental recreation than for the cash balls which roll along the inclined planes to the cash-desk. Life within that great series of shops was mere drudgery and slavery, the galling bonds of which only those who have had experience of it can fully appreciate.

“From the time we open till closing time we haven’t a single moment’s rest,” she said, in reply to my question, “and with nearly eighty fines for breaking various rules, and a staff of tyrannical shop-walkers who are always either fining us or abusing us before the customers, things are utterly unbearable.”