All Roads Lead to Calvary

er that, now, he usually sat alone in the great drawing-room. She opened the door softly. The

cried, "are

m a high-backed ch

said. He seeme

izing his listless arm

Dad," she comman

while. There was strength in his arms, in

t he released her. "Do you know, you haven't hugged me, Dad, since I wa

red. "I have al

"I have dined-in the train," she expl

f upon the floor between his knees. "What were you thinking

of sleep." She could not see his

like her?

ust one thing. Perhaps that will come to you later. I thought, for the mom

e said. "I never knew s

ried," he said. "The people she would have to live among would have looked

utiful, in the beginning?" She wished she had not added

" he answered, "

take up her work again, as she wished to, when she found what giving it up meant to her. The wo

, isn't it?" she said.

and they sat for

see her act?

," he answered. A little flame shot

ught it to me in those months. I might have learned more if

, thin, fretful lady of the ever restless hands, with her bursts of jealous p

his hand in hers and stroking it. "You must have been ridiculously handsome, when you were young. And you must always ha

ho came back. It was at San Francisco that I met her. She was touring the Western States; and I let everything go to the wind and followed her. It seemed to me that Heaven had opened up to me. I fought a duel in Colorado with a man who had insulted her. The law didn't run there in those days; and three of his hired gunmen, as they called them, held us up that night i

ous, in his Sunday black, his footsteps creaking down the stone-flag

ddy?" she asked, "of all that weal

. I found a cable waiting for me in New York. My father

d Joan. "Oh, the thing God gives to some of us," she explaine

d out. She could fee

"I was very little at the time, but I can just remember

d. "It was idolatry. God punished m

her face was very close to his. "What has become of Him, Dad?" sh

answered her. "I d

"the living God of love and hope

," he answered: "'My God, my G

ou always, even unto the end of the world.' Love

n born in her: the need of loving and of being loved. It was good to

tired; so she told him it was too important a matter to start upon

chapel?" she asked him

wered. "One l

continued after a moment. "Perhap

and a letter on the man

Arthur?" he asked, su

out a month," she

for him," he said with a smile, handing her th

; and his letters were certainly somewhat committal. Joan replied to them-when she did not forget to do so-in a studiously sisterly vein; and always reproved him for unnecessary extravagance whenever he sent her a present. The letter announced his arriv

r explained. "If he wrote to you by the same

at I came down specially to see

"He's a good lad,

it just as she had left it. A bunch of roses stood upon the dressing

t down to supper. A place had been laid for him. He flu

"I had to go through London. They told

see Dad. I didn't know you were back." She

"You've grown quite good-looking. I like your

d into ruddiness; with soft, dreamy eyes and golden hair. He looked lithe and agile rathe

learnt their sports and games; wrestled and swum and hunted with them. Provided one was a little hungry and tired with toil, a stew of goat's flesh with sweet cakes and fruits, washed down with wine out of a sheep's skin, made a feast; and after, there was music and singing and dancing, or the travelling story-teller would gather round him his rapt audience. Paris had only rob

nto it that was our gain. Its luxuries and ostentations were, in themselves, perhaps bad for us. But the pursuit of them was good. It called forth thought and effort, sha

bread. When he did, it was in the tone that one of her younger disciples m

s genius, literature. Greece owed nothing to progress. She had preceded it. Her thinkers, her poets, her scientists had draw

ece would not so utterly have disappeared," suggested Mr. Allw

s about arguing

h a smile. "The nameless Roman soldier remaine

market place. She knew of the steam engine, employed it for pumping water in the age of the Antonines. Sooner or later, she would have placed it on rails, and in ships. Rome should have been the policeman, keeping the world in order, making it a fit habitation. He

nt while Arthur turned the leaves. She had a good voice, a low contralto. The room was high and dimly lighted. It looked larger than it really was. Her father sat in his usual chair beside the f

ur that it was now his turn, and that she would play for hi

answer but to ask her what he should sing. He had a light tenor voice. I

attract and command. They avoided all subjects on which they could differ, even in words. They talked of people and places they had known together. They remembered their common love of animals and told of the comedies and tragedies that had befallen their pets. Joan's regret was that she had not now even a dog, thinking it cruel to keep them in London. She hated the women she met, dragging the poor little depressed beasts about at the end of a string: savage with them, if they dared to stop for a moment to exchange a passing wag of the tail with some othe

to death upon her nest, her charred wings spread out in a vain endeavour to protect her brood. He ha

ith a laugh. "But I couldn't bear

re existence," said Joan: "the thought that animals can have no part in it; t

he answered. "It wou

sort in summer time, but now they had it to themselves. The wind had played

only in a cousinly sort of way-whatever that might mean-and that she could never marry him. She dared not ask herself why. She must manoeuvre to put it off as long as possible; and meanwhile some opening might occur to enlighten him. She would talk to him about her work; and explain to him how she had determined to devote her life to it to the exclusion of all o

away, nor did he seem disconcerted. Neither did the landlady. She was an elderly, qui

r promise to talk about herself, and she told him all she thought would interest him. She passed lightly over her acquaintanceship with Phillips. He would regard it as highly undesirable, she told herself, and it would trouble him. He was reading her articles in the Sunday Post, as also her Lette

e. I preach every Sunday to a congregation of over a million souls. It's better than being a

ed with a smile. "You pretend to b

the next moment

e know we shall never oust man from his place. He will

ea," he said; "when He gave Ev

the ideal solution. If the Lord had intended that, he should have kept the match-making in His own hands: not have left it to man.

nt out again. Her father lighted a

ck you, Dad?

to worry yourself about that, is

Joan sat with her elbows on the table a

her than calm, but they must have been able to flash. Why had he always been so just and kind and patient with her? Why had he never scolded her and bullied her and teased her? Why had he let her go away, leaving him lonely in his empty, voiceless

me time. She had begun t

f him?" he said, wit

e a nice lad,"

said. "I should like to think of the name being continued; and he's a good busin

e chance of chan

of the Manchester school: that men and wome

ea in it," he said, "if it had been honestly carried out. A master sh

dulously, remembering the bitter

er try, Dad

wrong way." "The right way might be found

you come to the bridge. They might be repaired and a club house added. The idea is catching on, they tell me. Garden

, with a shattered fountain and withered trees in the centre. Ever since she could remember, they had

the works, some half a mile away. Though had she been curious,

ck from America and gave them to her. I thought it would inter

hey want them

ld be teetotallers, and chapel goers, and everything else that I thought good for them. I thought that I could save thei

d thought to b

l sound him about gi

nothing of the other. He was a dear, sweet, lovable lad. Together, they might realize her father's dream: repair the blunders, plant gardens where the weeds now grew, drive out the old sad ghosts with living voices.

, against all sense and reason, seemed driving her out into the wilderness to pr

ty could teach one to be other than one was. The Ego was the all important thing, entrusted to us as the talents

en one was in the mood. But it would not satisfy her. There was something strong and fierce and primitive in her nature-something that had come down to her through the generations from some harness

of the entangling pines

The train was not in: and they walked up and down and

pped into Chelsea Church one evening and heard him preach; and on the way home I passed him again in the street. I

a moment to speak to an a

answered on rejoining

lar Incumbent. But it was someone that I seemed to

ough the gulf was wider then than it is now. I'

r a corner seat, and stood talking

h about?" he asked

" she answered, recollecting. "Oh, Calvary. All roads l

he end of the platfo