Page:The Great Secret.djvu/297

Rh her only consolation. Like the royal singer and sinner, she rung the changes of the one fierce and bitter desire and cry of her angry spirit: "Revenge! revenge!"

"The Lord reigneth, let the people tremble.

"Let God arise; let his enemies be scattered.

"Break their teeth, Oh God, in their mouths.

"Let them melt away as water.

"Let death seize upon them, and let them go quick down into hell."

She was reading at random from the Psalms of David—the man of mad impulse, subtle passion and ruthless violence, who never resisted a desire nor forgave a foe. Her dark eyes glowed luridly as she fixed them now on the evil words of hatred, now on the moonlit sky, which bathed the great city in its silvery lustre.

Her window was open, for it was a hot and close night in August, and the liar vest moon was shining full and mellow in the upper space. From her window, which was high up on the Lambeth side of the Thames, she could see down a narrow street the river with the hay-laden barges moored at the wharf, and beyond that the silver-burnished river, so pregnant with past memories, rolling down to the sea. On the other side were warehouses and wharves, with St Paul's dome looming up misty and grand.

She had fixed upon this humble room as a lodging, partly because of that picture, partly because she wished to know more about the London poor, for she was charitable and tender towards the outside sufferers, if warped in judgment and miserable. She did not gain much love by her efforts, for her manners were harsh and fierce, and her hatred of men prejudiced the women against her. They would rather have had a less Onerous but lighter-hearted sinner going about them