CHAPTER XII
A SOUL ALONE ON THE SEA-SHORE
THE little village of Eastworld is set on a low headland by the sea, remote from towns and any haunt of men. The white cottages of the fisherfolk, an inn, the church, and a low range of coast-guard buildings, are the only buildings there. Below the headland there are miles upon miles of utterly lonely sands which edge the sea in a great yellow scimitar as far as the eye can carry, from east to west.
Hardly any human footsteps ever disturb the vast virgin smoothness of the sands, for the fisherfolk sail up the mouth of a sluggish tidal river to reach the village. All day long the melancholy sea-birds call to each other over the wastes, and away on the sky-line, or so it seems to any one walking upon the sands, the great white breakers roll and boom for ever.
Over the flat expanses the tide, with no obstacle to slacken or impede its progress, rushes with furious haste — as fast, so the fisherfolks tell, as a good horse in full gallop.
It was the beginning of the winter afternoon on the day after Gortre had visited Eastworld.
There was little wind, but the sky hung low in cold and menacing clouds, ineffably cheerless and gloomy.
A single figure moved slowly through these forbidding solitudes. It was Gertrude Hunt. She wore a simple coat and skirt of grey tweed, a tam-o'-shanter cap of crimson wool, and carried a walking cane.
She had come out alone to think out a problem out there between the sea and sky, with no human help or sympathy to aid her.
The strong, passionate face was paler than before and worn by suffering. Yet as she strode along there was a wild beauty in her appearance which seemed to harmonise with the very spirit and meaning of the place where she was. And yet the face had lost the old jaunty hardihood. Qualities in it which had before spoken of an impudent self-sufficiency now were changed to quiet purpose. There was an appeal for pity in the eyes which had once been bright with shamelessness and sin.
The woman was thinking deeply. Her head was bowed as she walked, the lips set close together.
Gortre's visit had moved her deeply. When she had heard his story something within her, an intuition beyond calm reason, had told her instantly of its truth. She could not have said why she knew this, but she was utterly certain.
Her long connection with Llwellyn had left no traces of affection now. As she would kneel in the little windy church on the headland and listen to the rector, an old friend of Father Ripon's, reading prayers, she looked back on her past life as a man going about his business in sunlight remembers some horrid nightmare of the evening past. She but rarely allowed her thoughts to dwell upon the former partner of her sin, but when she did so it was with a sense of shrinking and dislike. As the new Light which filled her life taught, she endeavoured to think of the man with Christian charity and sometimes to pray that his heart also might be touched. But perhaps this was the most difficult of all the duties she set herself, although she had no illusions about the past, realised his kindness to her, and also that she had been at least as bad as he. But now there seemed a great gulf between them which she never cared to pass even in thought.
Her repentance was so sincere and deep, her mourning for her misspent life so genuine, that it never allowed her the least iota of spiritual pride — the snare of weaker penitents when they have turned from evil courses. Yet, try as she would, she could never manage to really identify her hopes and prayers with Llwellyn in any vivid way.
And now the young clergyman, the actual instrument of her own salvation as she regarded him, had come to her with this story in which she had recognised the truth.
In sad and eloquent words he had painted for her what the great fraud had meant to thousands. He told of upright and godly men stricken down because their faith was not strong enough to bear the blow. There was the curate at Wigan, who had shot himself and left a heart-breaking letter of mad mockery behind him; there were other cases of suicide. There was the surging tide of crime, rising ever higher and higher as the clergy lost all their influence in the slums of London and the great towns. He told her of Harold Spence, mentioning him as "a journalist friend of mine," explaining what a good fellow he was, and how he had overcome his temptations with the aid of religion and faith. And he described his own return to Lincoln's Inn, the disorder, and Harold's miserable story. She could picture it all so well, that side of life. She knew its every detail. And, moreover, Gortre had said "the evil was growing and spreading each day, each hour." True as it was that the myriad lamps of the Faithful only burned the brighter for the surrounding gloom, yet that gloom was growing and rolling up, even as the clouds on which her unseeing eyes were fixed as she walked along the shore. Men were becoming reckless; the hosts of evil triumphed on every side.
The thought which came to her as Gortre had gradually unfolded the object of his visit was startling. She herself might perhaps prove to be the pivot upon which these great events were turning. It was possible that by her words, that by means of her help, the dark conspiracy might be unveiled and the world freed from its burden. She herself might be able to do all this, a kind of thank-offering for the miraculous change that had been wrought in her life.
Yet, when it was all summed up, how little she had to tell Gortre after all! True, her information was of some value; it seemed to confirm what he and his friends suspected. But still it was very little, and it meant long delay, if she could provide no other key to open this dark door. And meanwhile souls were dying and sinking. . . .
She had asked Gortre to come to her again in a week.
In that time, she had said, she might have some further information for him.
And now she was out here, alone on the sands, to ask her soul and God what she was to do.
The clouds fell lower, a cutting wind began to moan and cry over the sand, which was swept up and swirled in her face. And still she went on with a bitterness and chill as of death in her heart.
She knew her power over her former lover, — if that pure word could describe such an unhallowed passion, — knew her power well. He would be as wax in her hands, and it had always been so. From the very first she had done what she liked with him, and there had always been an undercurrent of contempt in her thoughts that a man could be led so easily, could be made the doll and puppet of his own passion. Nor did she doubt that her power still remained. She felt sure of that. Even in her seclusion some news of his frantic attempts to find her had reached her. Her beauty still remained, heightened indeed by the slow complaint from which she was suffering. He knew nothing of that. And, as for the rest — the rouge-pot, the belladonna — well, they were still available, though she had thought to have done with them for ever.
The idea began to emerge from the mist, as it were, and to take form and colour. She thought definitely of it, though with horror; looked it in the face, though shuddering as she did so.
It resolved itself into a statement, a formula, which rang and dinned itself repeatedly into her consciousness like the ominous strokes of a bell heard through the turmoil of the gathering storm, —
"If I go back to Bob and pretend I'm tired of being good, he will tell me all he's done."
Over and over again the girl repeated the sentence to herself. It glowed in her brain, and burnt it like letters of heated wire. She looked up at the leaden canopy which held the wind, and it flashed out at her in letters of violet lightning. The wind carved it in the sand, —
"If I go back to Bob and pretend I'm tired of being good, he will tell me what he has done."
Could she do this thing for the sake of Gortre, for the sake of the world? What did it mean exactly? She would be sinning terribly once more, going back to the old life. It was possible that she might never be able to break away again after achieving her purpose; one did not twice escape hell. It would mean that she sinned a deadly sin in order to help others. Ought she to do that! Was that right?
The wind fifed round her, shrieking.
Could she do this thing?
She would only be sinning with her body, not with her heart, and Christ would know why she did so. Would He cast her out for this?
The struggle went on in her brain. She was not a subtle person, unused to any self-communing that was not perfectly straightforward and simple. The efforts she was making now were terribly hard for her to endure. Yet she forced her mind to the work by a great effort of will, summoned all her flagging energies to high consideration.
If she went back it might mean utter damnation, even though she found out what she wanted to find out. She had been a Christian so short a time, she knew very little of the truth about these matters.
In her misery and struggle she began more and more to think in this way.
Suddenly she saw the thing, as she fancied, and indeed said half aloud to herself, "in a common-sense light." Her face worked horribly, though she was quite unconscious of it.
"It's better that one person, especially one that's been as bad as I have, should go to hell than hundreds and thousands of others."
And then her decision was taken.
The light died out of her face, the hope also. She became old in a sudden moment.
And, with one despairing prayer for forgiveness, she began to walk towards her cottage — there was a fast train to town.
She believed that there could hardly be forgiveness for her act, and yet the thought of "the others" gave her strength to sin.
And so, out of her great love for Christ, this poor harlot set out to sin a sin which she thought would take Him away from her for ever.
END OF BOOK II