The Bond of Black

“Yes,” I answered in despair. “My dream of felicity is over. She has cast me aside in favour of one who cannot love her as I have done.”

“But she loves you!” my monitress exclaimed.

“All that is of the past,” I replied. “She is now infatuated with this man who has recently come into her life. In this world of London she, calm, patient, trusting in the religious truth taught at her mother’s knee, was as my beacon, guiding me upon the upward path which, alas! is so very hard to keep aright. But all is over, and,” I added with a sigh, “the sun of my happiness has gone down ere I have reached the meridian of life.”

“But what have you done to cause her to doubt you?” she asked in a voice more kindly than ever before.

“Nothing! Absolutely nothing!” I declared. “We have been friends through years, and knowing how pure, how honest, how upright she is, I am ready at this moment to make her my wife.”

“Remember,” she said, warningly, “you have position, while she is a mere shop-assistant, to whom your friends would probably take exception.”

“It matters not,” I exclaimed vehemently. “I love her. Is not that quite sufficient?”

“Quite!” she said. Then a silence fell between us.

Suddenly she looked up and inquired whether I knew this man who was now her lover.

“Only by sight,” I answered. “I have no faith in him.”

“Why?” she inquired eagerly.

“Because his face shows him to be cold and crafty, designing and relentless,” I answered, recollecting how this woman now before me had once walked with him in the Park, and the curious influence he had apparently held over her.

She smiled bitterly, and her eyes for a moment flashed. I saw in them a glance of hatred.

“And you still love Muriel?” she inquired quite calmly, repressing in an instant the secret thoughts which were within her, whatever they might have been.

“I still love her,” I admitted. “She is my life, my soul.”

She hesitated, undecided whether to proceed. She was wavering. At length, with sudden resolve, she asked —

“And you still have confidence in me?”

“In what way?” I inquired, rather surprised.

“That I possess a power unknown to others,” she answered, bending to me and speaking in a hoarse half-whisper. “That the power of evil is irresistible!”

“Certainly!” I answered, glaring at her, so strangely transformed her face appeared. That glitter of hate was again in her eyes, which had fixed themselves upon me, causing me to quiver beneath their deadly gaze.

“You believe what I have already confessed to you, here, in this room?” she went on. “You believe that I can work evil at will – an evil which is overwhelming?”

“Already I have had optical illustration of your extraordinary powers,” I answered, dumbfounded, drawing back with a feeling something akin to terror. “No doubt whatever remains now in my mind. I believe, Aline, that within your human shape there dwells the Spirit of Evil, its hideousness hidden from the world beneath the beauty of your form and face.”

“Then if you thus believe in me,” she murmured, in a soft, crooning voice, as one speaking to a wayward child; “if you thus place your trust implicitly in me, I will give you further proof of my power, I will fulfil the compact made between us. Muriel shall love you?”

“And you will use your influence to secure my happiness?” I cried, jumping up enthusiastically.

“I will cause her to return to you,” the strange woman answered. “The affection she entertains for this man shall wane and fade ere another day has passed. At my will she will hate him, and again love you.”

“Truly, I believe your power to be irresistible,” I observed with bowed head.

It was on my tongue to confess how I had watched her walking on that night in Hyde Park with the man whom Muriel loved, but fearing she might be wrathful that I had acted as eavesdropper, I held my secret.

She smiled with an air of gratification at my words.

“Keep faith with me,” she answered, “and you shall ere long be afforded illustration of a volition which will amaze you. The Empire of Evil is great, and its ruler is absolute.”

If she could direct the destinies of Muriel at will, compel her to abandon this man with whom she was infatuated, and cause her to return to me repentant, then that, indeed, would be proof conclusive that she were something more than human. I had implored of Muriel to give me hope, and had used upon her all the persuasive power at my command to induce her to think more kindly of me, yet without avail. An influence which would cause her to return to my side must be irresistible, and therefore an exercise of the all-ruling power of evil.

“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.