The Angel. Thorne Guy
also have a prescience," she had said, "that Joseph has a work to do for God. He does not know it. He cannot realize it. He has made no submission to the Divine Will, but nevertheless he will be an instrument of It. I know with a strange certainty that this is his high destiny."
The rapid and vivid remembrance of all this went through Hampson's brain as a bullet goes through a board, when he heard Joseph's last words.
He caught him by the hand, holding the long, wasted fingers in his own, chafing them to bring back some living warmth into their icy coldness.
The strange voice ceased finally, and Joseph closed his eyes. The rigid tension of his face relaxed and a little color came back into it.
Then he gave a long sigh, shuddered and once more opened his eyes.
"I feel unwell," he said, in faint and hesitating tones. "I saw our dear, kind nurse in a carriage with another lady. We were all stopped by a block in the traffic, weren't we? I saw Nurse Mary, and then I can remember nothing more. I have been in a faint. I did not know I was still so weak."
"Don't you remember anything then, Joseph?"
"Nothing at all. But I feel exactly as I felt when I was lying in hospital, and suddenly fainted there. It was the time when I said those extraordinary words to nurse and she went and found you, poor old chap, just in the nick of time."
Hampson quivered with excitement.
"Then you felt just the same sensation a few minutes ago as you did when you were inspired to save my life by some mysterious influence?"
"Exactly the same. It is a weird feeling. It is as though suddenly my whole mind and body are filled with a great wind. I seem to lose my personality entirely, and to be under the dominion of an enormous overwhelming power and force. Then everything goes away like a stone falling through water, and I remember nothing until I regain consciousness."
Hampson took his friend's hand.
"Joseph," he said in tones that were strangely moved and stirred, "have you yourself no explanation? How do you account for the fact that you told Nurse Mary to go and save my life?"
"I suppose it was owing to some sort of telepathy. The mind, so I believe, gives off waves of electricity exactly like the instrument which sends the wireless telegraphy messages. You know that if a receiver in Marconi's system is tuned exactly to the pitch of a transmitter it picks up the messages automatically, even if they are not intended for it in the first instance. Some thought wave from your sub-conscious brain must have reached mine when you were preparing to hang yourself. That is the only explanation possible."
"No, Joseph," Hampson answered. "It is not the only explanation. There is another, and if you could know the words that you spoke in your trance but a few moments ago, you would think as I do."
"Did I speak? What did I say?"
"I think I will not tell you yet. Some day I will tell you. But I am certain that every act of yours, every word you say, and every step you take, are under special and marvellous guidance. The Holy Spirit is guiding and leading you."
Joseph made a slight movement with his hand. There was something almost petulant in the gesture.
"Let us not talk of that," he said. "I think we are agreed not to speak of it. Certainly I will own that some curious things have happened. That there is a destiny that shapes our ends may possibly be true. But that any man does know anything of the nature and qualities of that destiny I am unable to believe. You and that dear, sweet Nurse Mary have put your own interpretation on the strange events of the last few weeks. Certainly I seem to be the sport of some dominating influence. I admit it, my friend. But it is coincidence, and nothing more. In my weaker moments I have something of this sense; in my stronger ones I know that it cannot be so."
"Well, Joseph, we shall see what the future has in store. For my part I am certain it is big with events for you."
"I shall owe everything to Nurse Mary," Joseph answered, changing the conversation. "It was extraordinarily kind of her to write to her brother, and ask him to have me as his guest until I recover! Such charity is rare in life. I have not often met with it, at any rate, on my way through the world."
"She is a saint," Hampson answered, with deep reverence in his voice.
"She is something very like it," Joseph answered. "Some day I hope to repay her. This long stay in the beautiful Welsh hills will give me the necessary strength and quietness of nerve to get to work again. The brother, I understand, is a sort of mystic. He lives a hermit's life, and is a sort of mountain prophet. It is a strange thing, Hampson, that I should be going as a pauper to stay with the brother of a dear girl who took pity on my misfortunes! They have given me the money for my journey. When I am well again I shall be given the money to return to London, I, who am a graduate of Cambridge, and I may say it without ostentation, a mathematician of repute, depend for my present sustenance upon the charity of strangers. Yet I don't feel in the least embarrassed. That is more curious than anything else. I have a sense that my troubles are over now, that I shall come into my own again. We are nearly at the station, are we not?"
Hampson made some ordinary remark of assent. He knew the history of the almost incredible circumstances which had led to this journey of Joseph to Wales. He had seen the letter from Lluellyn Lys which bade Mary to send the man Joseph to him.
But Joseph did not know.
The patient had been told nothing of the mysterious circumstances that had brought about this plan of his journey. Joseph simply thought that he was invited to stay with Mary's brother, so that he might get well and strong and recover power to enter the battle of life once more. But Hampson was quite certain that before many days had passed his friend would realize not only the truth about his mysterious summons, but also the eternal truths of the Divine forces which were animating his unconscious will and bringing him nearer and nearer to the consummation of a Will which was not of this world, and of which he was the instrument.
The cab was rolling through the wide squares and streets of Bloomsbury. In three or four minutes it would arrive at Euston.
"You will soon be in splendid health, old fellow," Hampson said, anxious to turn the conversation into an ordinary and conventional channel. "Meanwhile, I'll have a cigarette. You mustn't smoke, of course, but you won't grudge me the single comfort that my poor health allows me?"
He felt in his pocket for the packet of cigarettes that he had bought that morning. Then, quite suddenly, he paused.
A sense of the tremendous incongruity of the present situation came to him.
He was riding in a London cab to a London station. He was going to see a sick friend start in a modern train for healing airs and a quiet sojourn among the hills.
And yet—and yet he firmly believed—almost knew, indeed—that this friend, this man who was called Joseph, was, so to speak, under the especial convoy of the Holy Ghost!
It was incredible! Were there indeed miracles going on each day in the heart of modern London? Was the world the same, even now, as it was in the old, dim days when Jesus the Lord walked among the valleys and the hills of Palestine?
Euston and cabs, and yet the modern world was full of mystery, of wonder. Yes, indeed, God ruled now as He had always ruled.
Joseph was going towards some divinely-appointed goal! He had been told nothing of the vision which had made Lluellyn Lys, the recluse of Wales, write to Mary, commanding her to send him to his mountains. He was moving blindly to meet his destiny.
Yet soon Joseph also would know what his friends knew. And with that knowledge—
Hampson's thoughts had passed through his brain in a single instant, while he was feeling for the cigarettes. He withdrew his hand mechanically from his pocket and found that it grasped a letter—a letter which had not been opened.
"Hullo," he said, "I have quite forgotten about my letter! It came by the afternoon post just as I was leaving my room to go to the hospital