Elizabeth's malignant providence, using with ingenious dexterity every

particle of advantage wealth in those days gave a man over his

fellow-creatures. A resort to the consolations of religion hindered

these operations not at all. He would go and talk with an interesting,

experienced and sympathetic Father of the Huysmanite sect of the Isis

cult, about all the irrational little proceedings he was pleased to

regard as his heaven-dismaying wickedness, and the interesting,

experienced and sympathetic Father representing Heaven dismayed, would

with a pleasing affectation of horror, suggest simple and easy penances,

and recommend a monastic foundation that was airy, cool, hygienic, and

not vulgarised, for viscerally disordered penitent sinners of the

refined and wealthy type. And after these excursions, Bindon would come

back to London quite active and passionate again. He would machinate

with really considerable energy, and repair to a certain gallery high

above the street of moving ways, from which he could view the entrance

to the barrack of the Labour Company in the ward which sheltered Denton

and Elizabeth. And at last one day he saw Elizabeth go in, and thereby

his passion was renewed.

So in the fullness of time the complicated devices of Bindon ripened,

and he could go to Mwres and tell him that the young people were near

despair.

It's time for you," he said, "to let your parental affections have

play. She's been in blue canvas some months, and they've been cooped

together in one of those Labour dens, and the little girl is dead. She

252

Tales of Space and Time-1