“Well, all this is what Father H. calls the ‘Illuminative Way,’ and I think I understand what he means.  It came to a sort of point on All Souls’ Eve at the monastery.  I saw the whole thing then for a moment or two, and not only Purgatory.  But I will write that down later.  And Father H. tells me that I must begin to look forward to a new ’process’—­what he calls the ‘Way of Union.’  I don’t understand much what he means by that; I don’t see that more could happen to me.  I am absolutely and entirely happy; though I must say that there has seemed a sort of lull for the last day or two—­ever since All Souls’ Day, in fact.  Perhaps something is going to happen.  It’s all right, anyhow.  It seems very odd to me that all this kind of thing is perfectly well known to priests.  I thought I was the first person who had ever felt quite like this.

“I must add one thing.  Father H. asked me whether I didn’t feel I had a vocation to the Religious Life; he told me that from everything he could see, I had, and that my coming to the monastery was simply providential.

“Well, I don’t agree, and I have told him so.  I haven’t the least idea what is going to happen next; but I know, absolutely for certain, that I have got to go on with the Major and Gertie to East London.  Gertie will have to be got away from the Major somehow, and until that is done I mustn’t do anything else.

“I have written all this down as plainly as I can, because I promised Father H. I would.”

PART III

CHAPTER I

Mrs. Partington was standing at the door of her house towards sunset, waiting for the children to come back from school.

Her house is situated in perhaps the least agreeable street—­Turner Road—­in perhaps the least agreeable district of East London—­Hackney Wick.  It is a disagreeable district because it isn’t anything in particular.  It has neither the tragic gayety of Whitechapel nor the comparative refinement of Clapton.  It is a large, triangular piece of land, containing perhaps a square mile altogether, or rather more, approached from the south by the archway of the Great Eastern Railway, defined on one side by the line, and along its other two sides, partly by the river Lea—­a grimy, depressed-looking stream—­and partly by the Hackney Marshes—­flat, dreary wastes of grass-grown land, useless as building ground and of value only for Saturday afternoon recreations of rabbit coursing and football.  The dismalness of the place is beyond description at all times of the year.  In winter it is bleak and chilly; in summer it is hot, fly-infested, and hideously and ironically reminiscent of real fields and real grass.  The population is calculated to change completely about every three years, and I’m sure I am not surprised.  It possesses two important blocks of buildings besides the schools—­a large jam factory and the church and clergy-house of the Eton Mission.