"It 's got its stummick
full an' it 'll go to sleep fast enough."
So they sat again in the weird
circle. Neither the strangeness of
the group nor the squalor of the
hearth were of a nature to be new
things to the curate. His eyes fixed
themselves on Dart's face, as did the
eyes of the thief, the beggar, and the
young thing of the street. No one
glanced away from him.
His telling of his story was almost
monotonous in its semi-reflective
quietness of tone. The strangeness
to himself--though it was a strangeness
he accepted absolutely without
protest--lay in his telling it at all,
and in a sense of his knowledge that
each of these creatures would
understand and mysteriously know what
depths he had touched this day.
"Just before I left my lodgings
this morning," he said, "I found
myself standing in the middle of my
room and speaking to Something
aloud. I did not know I was going
to speak. I did not know what I
was speaking to. I heard my own
voice cry out in agony, `Lord, Lord,
what shall I do to be saved?' "
The curate made a sudden move-
ment in his place and his sallow
young face flushed. But he said
nothing.
Glad's small and sharp countenance
became curious.
" `Speak, Lord, thy servant
'eareth,' " she quoted tentatively.
"No," answered Dart; "it was
not like that. I had never thought
of such things. I believed nothing.
I was going out to buy a pistol and
when I returned intended to blow
my brains out.
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