The Socialist

"You're getting very tired of the movement, duke!" the thin voice went on.

The duke started; the nurse held a cup of some stimulant to the lips of the dying man. There was a silence for a minute.

"I don't quite understand you, Burnside."

"But I understand you, though I have never said so before. After all your splendid and wonderful renunciations, you are beginning to have doubts and qualms now. Tell the truth to a man who's dying!"

The duke bowed his head. At that moment of mute confession, he knew the deep remorse that cowards and traitors know – traitors and cowards for whom circumstances have been too strong, who are convinced of the cause they support, but have been, in action or in thought, disloyal to it.

Burnside spoke again.

"But don't be faint-hearted or discouraged," he said. "The truths of what we call Socialism are as true as they ever were. But only a few Socialists, as yet, have realised the only lines upon which we can attack the great problem. All of us have a wonderful ideal. Only a small minority of us have found out the way in which that ideal can be realised. And there is only one way…"

Suddenly Burnside stopped speaking. He raised himself a little upon his pillow, some colour came into his face, some light into his eyes. The front door bell of the house could be heard ringing down below.

The young doctor withdrew to a side of the room, and sat down upon a chair, with a watchful, interested expression on his face. The nurse suddenly knelt down. Then the door of the bedroom opened, and a tall, clean-shaven man in a cassock and surplice came in, bearing two silver vessels in his hand. Instinctively the duke knelt also. Some One Else had indeed come into the room. And in the light of that Real Presence many things were made clear, the solution of all difficulties flowed like balm into the awe-struck heart of the young man who had surrendered great possessions.

God and Man, the Great Socialist, was there, among them, and a radiance not of this visible world, was seen by the spiritual vision of four souls.

* * * * * *

It was evening as the duke walked home to Chelsea. The clergyman who had brought the Blessed Sacrament to Burnside walked with him. Father Carr had remained by the bedside till the quiet end – a peaceful, painless passing away. The duke had remained also, and his grief had become tempered by a strange sense of peace and rest, utterly unlike anything he had ever known before. It was his first experience of death. He had never seen a corpse before, and the strange waxen thing that lay upon the bed spoke to him – as the dead body must to all Christians – most eloquently of immortality. This shell was not Burnside at all. Burnside had gone, but he was more alive than ever before, alive in the happy place of waiting which we call Paradise.

The duke had asked the priest – who, as it happened, had no other engagement – to come home and dine with him, and as they walked together by the river, Father Carr told him many things about the dead man – of a secret life of holiness and renunciation that few knew of, the simple story of a true Socialist and a very valiant soldier of Christ.

"He saw very far indeed," said Father Carr. "I wish that all Socialists could see as far. For, as Plato pointed out long ago, we shall never have perfect conditions in this life until character is perfected. Burnside knew that as well as an imaginary and revolutionary Socialism, there is also a moral, that is, a Christian Socialism. Christianity paints no Utopias, describes to us no perfect conditions to be introduced into this world. It teaches us, on the contrary, to seek perfection in another world; but it desires at the same time to help us to struggle against earthly care and want, so that the kingdom of God, and therewith the true kingdom of man, embracing as it does not only his spiritual but also his material life, may come upon earth and prosper."

"These aspects are new to me," said the duke. "I must hear more of this."

"I can send you books," replied Mr. Carr, "and you might come to some of the meetings of the Christian Social Union also. You will find all your present doubts and difficulties solved if you examine our contentions. As you have just told me, you are as convinced as ever as to the truth of a moderate and well-ordered Socialism. But you see, little progress being made and you are uneasy in your environment. I am a convinced Socialist also, but I see the truth – which is simply this. The nearer we all get to our Lord Jesus Christ, the nearer we get to Socialism. There is no other way."

It was late when Mr. Carr left the house in Chelsea, and the two men had talked long together. The duke sat in his study alone, waiting for his wife's return from the theatre – on matinée days she did not return home for dinner. He was filled with a strange excitement, new and high thoughts possessed him, and he wanted to share them with her.

At last he heard the sound of her key in the lock and the jingle of her hansom as it drove away. He went out into the hall to meet her. A small round table with her soup and chicken had been placed by the library fire, and as she ate he told her of Burnside's death, and with eager words poured out the ferment of thought within him.

"I don't know if you quite see all I mean yet, dear," he said, "and, of course, it's all crude and undigested with me as yet. But we must make more knowledge of it together."

An unconscious note of pleading had come into his voice as he looked at her. She sat before him tired by the long day's work, but radiant in beauty and charm, and he saw so little of her now! – this, and the most priceless boon of all, it seemed that he must surrender for the good of the Cause. Then, suddenly, she left her seat and came to where he was, putting her arms round his neck and kissing him.

"Darling!" she said. "Together, that is the word. We have not been enough together of late years. But I had to do my work for the Cause just as you had. But now we shall be more together and happier than ever before. In a few weeks I shall leave the stage for ever. I shall have another work to do."

"You mean, darling – "

"I also have something to tell you"; and pressing her warm cheek to his, with sweet faltering accents, she told him.

He held her very close. The tears were in his eyes.

"Oh, my love!" he whispered. "At last!"

The End