ost seemed to lurk at the back of every bush
and tree, and sometimes it would leap out on me and laugh.

"It is months since I saw your father, but they tell me he has lately
burned his bureau, making one vast bonfire of the gatherings of twenty
years. That is not such ill news either; and maybe, now the great ado
that worked such woe is put by and gone, he would rejoice to see you back
at home, and open his hungering arms to you.

"But my eyes ache and my pen is shaking. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell! An
old man leaves you his blessing, John. God grant that in his own good
time we may meet in a blessed paradise, rejoicing in his gracious mercy,
and all our sins forgiven!

"Adam Quayle."

X.

Glory's letter and its inclosure fell on John Storm like rain in the face
of a man on horseback--he only whipped up and went faster.

"How can I find words," he wrote, "to express what I feel at your
mournful news? Yet why mournful? His life's mission was fulfilled, his
death was a peaceful victory, and we ought to rejoice that he was so
easily released. I trust you will not mourn too heavily for him, or allow
his death to stop your life. It would not be right. No trouble came near
his stainless heart, no shadow of sin; his old age was a peaceful day
which lasted until sunset. He was a creature that had no falsetto in a
single fibre of his being, no shadow of affectation. He kept like this
through all our complicated existence in this artificial world,
absolutely unconscious of the hollowness and pretension and sham that
surrounded him--tolerant, too, and kind to all. Then why mourn for him?
He is gathered in--he is safe.

"His letter was touching in its artful simplicity. It was intended to ask
me to apply for his living. But my duty is here, and London must make the
best of me. Yet more than ever now I feel my responsibility with regard
to yourself. The time is not ripe to advise you. I am on the eve of a
great effort. Many things have to be tried, many things attempted. It is
a gathering of manna--a little every day. To God's keeping and protection
meantime I commit you. Comfort your aunts, and let me know if there is
anything that can be done for them."

The ink of this letter was hardly dry when John Storm was in the middle
of something else. He was in a continual fever now. Above all, his great
scheme for the rescue and redemption of women and children possessed him.
He called it Glory's scheme when he talked of