Tetherstones

by Ethel M. Dell

PART I

CHAPTER I
THE MACHINE

Twelve deep notes sounded from the clock-tower of the Cathedral, and the Bishop’s secretary dropped her hands from her typewriter and turned her face to the open window with a quick sigh. The Bishop’s garden lay sleeping in the sunshine—the pure white of lilies and royal blue of delphiniums mingling together as the wrought silks on the fringe of an altar-cloth. The age-worn stone of the Cathedral rose beyond it, and the arch of the cloisters gave a glimpse of the quiet burial-ground within. A great cluster of purple stone-crop rioted over one corner of the arch, and the secretary’s tired eyes rested upon it with a touch of wistfulness as though the splendour of it were somewhat overwhelming. She herself was so slight, so insignificant, so altogether negligible a quality, a being wholly out of place in the midst of such glorious surroundings. But yet she loved them, and her happiest hours were those she spent with her little sketching-block in various corners of that wonderful garden. It was only that the purple flower seemed somehow to be the symbol to her of all that was out of reach. Her youth was slipping from her, and she had never lived.

The tired lines about the brown eyes were growing daily more marked. The little tender curve about the lips was becoming a droop. The brown hair that grew so softly about her forehead gleamed unexpectedly white here and there.

“Yes, I’m getting old,” said Frances Thorold. “Old and tired and dull.” She stretched up her arms with a sudden movement, and for a second her hands were clenched. Then they fell to her sides.

“I suppose we are all slaves,” she said, “of one kind or another. But only the rebels know it.”

She turned again to her work, and for a space only the sharp click of the machine disturbed the summer silence. It had an unmistakably indignant sound as though its manipulator were out of sympathy with the words so deftly printed on the white page. The secretary’s mouth became very firm as she proceeded, the brown eyes narrowed and grew hard.

Suddenly she lettered an impatient exclamation and looked up. “Oh, these platitudes!” she said. “How are they going to help men and women to live?”

For a moment she had almost a desperate look, and then abruptly she laughed.

“Perhaps it isn’t all your fault,” she said to the manuscript by her side, “that you give us stones for bread. You have lived on them all your life and don’t know the difference.”

“How do you know?” said a voice at the window.

The secretary gave a start. Her eyes met the eyes of a man who stood against the clematis-covered window-frame looking in upon her—a careless, lounging figure as supremely at ease as a cat stretched in the sunshine.

He marked her brief confusion with a smile. “Do tell me how you know!” he said.

Her eyes fenced with his for a moment, then were proudly lowered. It was as if she drew a veil over her face.

“His lordship is not here,” she remarked in a tone that was strictly official.

“So I have already observed,” rejoined the new-comer, with his easy tolerance that was somehow quite distinct from familiarity. “In fact, at the present moment, I believe his lordship is in the thick of an argument with the Dean as to whether Shakespeare or Bacon wrote the Bible. It’s rather an important point, you know. Have you any theories on the subject, might one ask?”

A little quiver that could hardly be described as a smile passed over the secretary’s thin features, but her eyes remained upon her work.

“I don’t go in for theories,” she said, “or arguments. I am far too busy.”

“By Jove!” he commented. “How you hate it!”

She raised her brows very slightly,—delicate brows, one of them a shade more tilted than the other, giving a quaint look of humour to a face that seldom smiled.

“I hate nothing,” she said with precision, “I have no time.”

“By Jove!” he said again, and chuckled as at some hidden joke.

The exasperating click of the typewriter put an end to all discussion, but it did not dislodge the intruder as was obviously intended. He merely propped himself against the grey stone-work of the window and took out his cigarette-case. His eyes dwelt with artistic appreciation upon the stately glories of the old garden, the arch of the cloisters against the summer blue, the wealth of purple flower adorning it. His face had the lines and the weather-tan of the man who has travelled far and wide, has looked upon the wonders of life and death with a certain cynical amusement, and returned almost to the starting-point with very little of value in his pack.

As the click of the typewriter persisted, he turned from his deliberate survey and gave his attention to a calm study of the woman seated behind it. His gaze was speculative, faintly humorous. There was something in that face of passive severity that aroused his curiosity. An insignificant type, it was true; but behind the insignificance there lurked something unusual that drew his interest. He wondered how long she would manage to ignore him.

On and on clicked the typewriter. The typist’s lips were firmly closed, her eyes resolutely fixed upon her work. The watcher summoned his own resolution to wait upon opportunity, meditatively smoking the while.

Opportunity came at the end of some minutes of persistent clicking that might well have exasperated the most patient. The end of the page was reached, and there came a check. The secretary reached a thin, nervous hand for another sheet.

“Still more platitudes?” queried the man who leaned against the window-frame.

It would not have greatly surprised him had she made no response, but the sudden flashing upwards of her eyes came as a revelation. He straightened himself, almost as if he expected a blow.

“I am sorry,” said the secretary very evenly, her eyes unswervingly upon him, “but you are disturbing me. I must ask you to go away.”

He stood looking at her in frank astonishment. No woman had ever made him so simple and so compelling a request before. This from the secretary, the insignificant adjunct, the wholly undesirable and unknown etcetera of his uncle’s household! There certainly was more here than met the eye!

He collected himself with an unwonted feeling of being at a disadvantage and instantly determined to save the situation at all costs. He leaned towards her, meeting the grave insistence of her look with a disarming smile. “Miss—Thorold, I haven’t offended you?”

“No,” said Frances Thorold briefly. “I am busy, that’s all.”

Her tone was official rather than ungracious, her eyes questioning rather than hostile, her whole attitude too impersonal for resentment. And yet it aroused resentment in the man. His smile vanished.

“I am sorry,” he said stiffly, “to have appeared intrusive. That was not my intention. I only spoke to you because I heard your voice and imagined the hour for recreation had arrived. Pray accept my apologies!”

The firm lips relaxed a little, and a short sigh came through them. “There is no need for apology,” she said. “No one apologizes to—a machine. But it has got to keep working, and it mustn’t be interrupted.”

“You can’t work all day!” he protested.

She nodded. “I can. I do. And why not? It’s what I’m here for.”

Her voice had a note of challenge. Her eyes had gone beyond him. They rested upon the wealth of purple flower that crowned the coping of the cloister-arch in the hot sunshine, and again they held that wistful look as of baffled longing for the unattainable.

The man’s eyes were upon her. They saw the longing. His anger passed.

“No machine will go for ever,” he said, “if left to itself. The very best of them need occasional rest for adjustment and lubrication. Otherwise they run down and wear out before their time.”

He was aware of the gleam of appreciation that crossed her intent face, and for the first time he marked the wary lines about her eyes. Then he met them again, and knew that he had scored a point.

She spoke in her brisk, official voice, returning to her work. “No doubt you are right. I shall have to oil it one of these days—when I have time.”

“I shouldn’t leave it too long,” he said. “Take an engineer’s advice! It’s poor economy—may lead to a break-down in the end.”

She adjusted the fresh page with deft care. “Thank you Mr. Rotherby. I shall remember your advice.”

“And take it?” suggested Rotherby. Then, as she did not reply, “It may be dry bread, but it’s better than stones, anyway.”

He got what he angled for. She threw him a fleeting smile, and in a moment he caught the charm which up till then had eluded him.

It faded almost instantly as a picture fades from a screen. Only the official mask remained. Yet as he turned to depart, the gleam of satisfaction lingered in his eyes. He had made his small bid for amusement, and he had not bid in vain.

The monotonous clicking of the typewriter continued through the summer silence as the secretary pursued her task with erect head and compressed lips. With machine-like precision she tapped out the long, learned sentences, reading them mechanically, transmitting them with well-trained accuracy, aloof, uncritical, uninterested. She did not lift her eyes from her work again for a full hour.

Page after page was covered and laid aside. The Cathedral clock chimed and struck again. Then, in a quarter of an hour, there came the booming of a heavy gong through the house. Frances Thorold finished her sentence and ceased to work.

Her hands fell upon her lap, and for the moment her whole frame relaxed. She sat inert, as one utterly exhausted, her eyes closed, her head bowed.

Then, very sharply, as though at a word of rebuke, she straightened herself and began to set in order the fruits of her morning’s work. She had laboured for five hours without a break, save for the brief interlude of Montague Rotherby’s interruption.

At the opening of the door she rose to her feet, but continued her task without turning. The Bishop of Burminster had a well-known objection to any forms of deference from inferiors. He expressed it now as he came forward to the table at which she had worked for so long.

“Why do you rise, Miss Thorold? Pray continue your task. You waste time by these observances.”

She straightened the last page and made quiet reply. “I think I have finished my task for this morning, my lord. In any case it is luncheon-time.”

“You have finished?” He took up the pile of typescript with eagerness, but in a moment tossed it down again with exasperation. “You call that finished!”

“For this morning,” repeated Frances Thorold, in her quiet, unmoved voice. “It is a lengthy, and a difficult, piece of work. But I hope to finish it to-night.”

“It must be finished to-night,” said the Bishop with decision. “It is essential that it should be handed to me for revision by nine o’clock. Kindly make a note of this, Miss Thorold! I must say I am disappointed by your rate of progress. I had hoped that work so purely mechanical would have taken far less time.”

He spoke with curt impatience, but no shade of feeling showed upon his secretary’s face. She said nothing whatever in reply.

The Bishop, lean, ascetic, forbidding of aspect, pulled at his clean-shaven chin with an irritable gesture. He had a bundle of letters in his hand which he flapped down upon the table before her.

“I had hoped for better things,” he said. “There are these to be answered, and when is time to be found for them if your whole day is to be occupied in the typing of my treatise—a very simple piece of work, mere, rough copy, after all, which will have to be done again from beginning to end after my revision?”

“I will take your notes upon those this afternoon,” said Frances. “I will have them ready for your signature in time to catch the midnight post.”

“Absurd!” said the Bishop. “They must go before then.”

She heard him without dismay. “Then I will do them first, and type the rest of the treatise afterwards,” she said.

He made a sound of impatience. “A highly unsatisfactory method of procedure! I am afraid I cannot compliment you upon the business-like way in which you execute your duties.”

He did not expect a reply to this, but as if out of space it came.

“Yet I execute them,” said Frances Thorold steadily and respectfully.

He looked at her sharply, his cold grey eyes drawn to keen attention. “With very indifferent success,” he commented. “Pray remember that, Miss Thorold, should the position you occupy ever tempt you to feel uplifted!”

She made no answer, and her face of utter passivity revealed nothing to his unsparing scrutiny. He passed the matter by as unworthy of further consideration. If any impertinence had been intended, he had quelled it at the outset. He did not ask for deference from his subordinates, but he demanded—and he obtained—implicit submission. He had a gift for exacting this, regarding everyone whom he employed as a mere puppet made to respond to the pulling of a string. If at any time the puppet failed to respond, it was thrown aside immediately as worthless. He was a man who had but one aim and object in life, and this he followed with untiring and wholly ruthless persistence. Before all things he desired and so far as his powers permitted he meant to achieve, the establishment of the Church as a paramount and enduring force above all other forces. With the fervour and the self-abnegation of a Jesuit, he followed unswervingly this one great idea, trampling down all lesser things, serving only the one imperative need. It was his idol, his fetish—this dream of power, and he worshipped it blindly, not realising that the temple he sought to erect was already dedicated to personal ambition rather than to the glory of God.

He worked unceasingly, with crude, fanatical endeavour—a man born out of his generation, belonging to a sterner age, and curiously at variance with the world in which he lived.

To him Frances Thorold was only a small cog-wheel of that machine which he was striving to drive for the accomplishment of his ends. The failure of such a minute portion of mechanism was of small importance to him. She had her uses, undoubtedly, but she could be replaced at almost any moment. She suited his purpose perhaps a shade better than most, but another could be very quickly fitted to the same end. He was an adept at moulding and bending the various portions of his machine to his will. Not one of them ever withstood him for long.

The rosy-faced Dean, with his funny Shakespearean hobby-horse, was as putty in his hands, and it never struck him that that same pink-cheeked curiosity was a tool infinitely more fit for the Master’s use than he himself could ever be. Neither did he ever dream of the fiery scorn that burned so deeply in his secretary’s silent soul as she bent herself to the burden he daily laid upon her. It would not have interested him had he known. The welfare of the dogs under the table had never been any concern of the Bishop of Burminster. They were lucky to eat of the crumbs.

And so he passed her by as unworthy of notice, merely glancing through her script and curtly noting a fault here and there, finally tossing the pages down and turning from her with a brief, “You will lunch with me, but pray be as speedy as possible and return to your work as soon as you have finished!”

That was his method of exacting the utmost from her. Under those hard grey eyes she would spend no more than the allotted half-hour out of the office-chair.

And the sun still shone upon that garden of dreams, while the bees hummed lazily among the blue and purple flowers. And all was peace and beauty—save for the fierce fanaticism in the man’s heart, and the bitter, smouldering resentment in the woman’s.

CHAPTER II
THE BREAK-DOWN

Four people sat at the old oak table in the oak-raftered dining-room of the Bishop’s palace that day, and no greater contrast than they presented could well have existed among beings of the same race.

Dr. Rotherby—the Bishop—sat in pre-occupied silence scanning an ecclesiastical paper while he ate. He never encouraged conversation at any meal save dinner, and his sister, Miss Rotherby, nervous, pinched, and dyspeptic, supported him dutifully in this as in every other whim. She sat with her knitting on the table beside her ready to be picked up at every spare moment, on the principle that every second was of value—a short-sighted, unimaginative woman whose whole attention was concentrated upon the accomplishment of her own salvation.

Montague Rotherby, the sunburnt man of travel, sat between the two, and wondered what he was doing there. He had just wandered home from an expedition in Central Africa, and he had come hither with the half-formed intention of writing a book on his experiences. He wanted peace and quiet for the purpose, and these surroundings had seemed ideal. The Bishop and his sister had given him welcome, and he had believed himself to be fulfilling a family duty by visiting them. But he had begun already to realize that there was something very vital lacking in the atmosphere of the Palace. The place was stiff with orthodoxy, and he himself as much a stranger as he had ever been in the most desert corner of his travels.

“Can’t stand this much longer,” was his thought, as he sat before the polished board on this the fourth day of his sojourn.

And then his look fell upon the secretary seated opposite to him, and his interest stirred again.

She sat, remote and silent, in the shadow of a heavy green curtain against which the pallor of her face took a ghastly hue. Her eyes were downcast, the brows above them slightly drawn, conveying somehow an impression of mute endurance to the observant onlooker. He watched her narrowly, having nothing else to occupy him, and the impression steadily grew as the meal proceeded. She scarcely touched the food before her, remaining almost statuesque in her immobility, had her obvious insignificance not precluded so stately a term. To the man who watched her, her attitude expressed more than mere passivity. She was a figure of tragedy, and as it were in spite of itself his careless soul was moved to an unwonted compassion. In silence he awaited developments.

They came, more swiftly than even he anticipated. Very suddenly the Bishop looked up from his paper.

“Miss Thorold, you have work to do. I beg you will not linger here if you have finished.”

His voice came with the rasp of authority through the sultry summer quiet. The secretary started as if at the piercing of a nerve and instantly rose to leave the table. She pushed in her chair methodically, but oddly at that point her intention seemed to fail her. She stood swaying as one stricken with a curious uncertainty, gazing straight upwards with dazed eyes that ever travelled farther and farther back as if they marked the flight of an invisible bird.

Rotherby sprang to his feet, but he was too late. Even as he did so, she threw up her hands like a baffled swimmer and fell straight backwards on the polished floor. The sound of her fall mingled with the furious exclamation that leapt to Rotherby’s lips—an exclamation which he certainly would not have uttered in a more reasoned moment—and he was round the table and by her side almost before the two other spectators had realized what was taking place.

“Oh, good gracious!” gasped the Bishop’s sister, pushing back her chair with the gesture of one seeking to avoid contact with something obnoxious. “What is it? What is the matter?”

“It is only a faint.” Curt and contemptuous came the Bishop’s reply. He also pushed back his chair and rose, but with considerably more of annoyance than agitation. “Lay her in that chair, Montague! She will soon recover. She is only overcome by the heat.”

“Overcome!” growled Montague, and he said it between his teeth. In that moment, cool man of the world though he was, he was angry, even furious, for the white face with its parted, colourless lips somehow excited more than pity. “She’s worn out—driven to death by that accursed typewriting. Why, she’s nothing but skin and bone!”

He raised the slight, inert figure with the words, holding it propped against his knee while with one hand on the dark head he pressed it forward. It was a device which he had not thought would fail, but it had no effect upon the unconscious secretary, and a sharp misgiving went through him as he realized the futility of his efforts.

He flung a brief command upwards, instinctively assuming the responsibility. “Get some brandy—quick!”

“There is no brandy in the house,” said the Bishop. “But this is nothing. It will pass. Have you never seen a woman faint before?”

“Damnation!” flared forth Montague. “Do you want her to die on your hands? There is brandy in a flask in my room. Send one of the servants for it!”

“This is dreadful!” wailed Miss Rotherby hysterically. “I haven’t so much as a bottle of smelling-salts in the place! She has never behaved in this extraordinary way before! What can be the matter?”

“Don’t be foolish!” said the Bishop, and firmly rang the bell. “She will be herself again in five minutes. If not, we will have a doctor.”

“Better send for one at once,” said Montague with his fingers seeking a pulse that was almost imperceptible.

“Very well,” said the Bishop stiffly. “Perhaps it would be the wisest course. Why do you kneel there? She would be far better in a chair.”

“Because I won’t take the responsibility of moving her,” said Montague.

“This is very painful,” said Miss Rotherby tremulously, gathering up her knitting. “Is there nothing to be done? You are sure she isn’t dead?”

“I am not at all sure,” said Montague. “I shouldn’t stay if I were you. But get someone to bring me that brandy at once!”

He had his way, for there was about him a force that would not be denied. In moments of emergency he was accustomed to assert himself, but how it came about that when the brandy arrived, the Bishop himself had gone to telephone for a doctor and the Bishop’s sister had faded away altogether, lamenting her inability to be of use in so serious a crisis, even Montague could not very easily have said. He was still too angry and too anxious to take much note of anything beyond the ghastly face that rested against his arm.

Impatiently he dismissed the servant who was inclined to hang over him with futile suggestions, and then realized with a grimace that he was left in sole charge of a woman whom he scarcely knew, who might die at any moment, if indeed she were not already dead.

“Damn it, she shan’t!” he said to himself with grim resolution as this thought forced itself upon him. “If these miserable worms can’t do anything to save her, I will.”

And he applied himself with the dexterity of a steady nerve to the task of coaxing a spoonful of brandy between the livid lips.

He expected failure, but a slight tremor at the throat and then a convulsive attempt to swallow rewarded him. He lifted her higher, muttering words of encouragement of which he was hardly aware.

“That’s all right. Stick to it! You’re nearly through. It’s good stuff that. Damn it, why didn’t that fool give me the water?”

“Yes, it—does—burn!” came faintly from the quivering lips.

“It won’t hurt you,” declared Montague practically. “Feeling better, what? Don’t move yet! Let the brandy go down first!”

Her eyelids were trembling painfully as though she sought to lift them, but could not.

“Don’t try!” he advised. “You’ll be all right directly.”

She stirred a groping hand. “Give me—something—to hold on to!” she whispered piteously.

He gripped the cold fingers closely in his own. “That’s it. Now you’ll be all right. I know this sort of game—played it myself in my time. Take it easy! Don’t be in a hurry! Ah, that’s better. Have a cry! Best thing you can do!”

The white throat was working again, and two tears came slowly from between the closed lids and ran down the drawn face. A sob, all the more agonizing because she strove with all her strength to suppress it, escaped her, and then another and another. She turned her face into the supporting arm with a desperate gesture.

“Do forgive me! I can’t help it—I can’t help it!”

“All right. It’s all right,” he said, and put his hand again on the dark head. “Don’t keep it in! It’ll do you more good than brandy.”

She uttered a broken laugh in the midst of her anguish, and the man’s eyes kindled a little. He liked courage.

He held her for a space while she fought for self-control, and when at length she turned her face back again, he was ready with a friendly smile of approval; for he knew that her tears would be gone.

“That’s right,” he said. “You’re better now.”

“Will you help me up?” she said.

“Of course.” He raised her steadily, closely watching the brown eyes, drawn with pain, that looked up to his. He saw them darken as she found her feet and was prepared for the sudden nervous clutch of her hand on his arm.

“Don’t let go of me!” she said hurriedly.

He helped her to a chair by the French window. “Sit here till you feel better! It’s a fairly cool corner. Is that all right?”

Her hand relaxed and fell. She lay back with a sigh. “Just for two minutes—not longer. I must get back to my work.”

“It’s that damned work that’s done it,” said Montague Rotherby, with unexpected force. “You’ll have to go on sick leave—for this afternoon at least.”

“Oh no,” said the secretary in her voice of quiet decision. “I have no time to be ill.”

Rotherby said no more, but after a pause he brought her a glass of water. She thanked him and drank, but the drawn look remained in her eyes and she moved as if afraid to turn her head.

He watched her narrowly. “You’ll have a bad break-down if you don’t take a rest,” he said.

She smiled faintly. “Oh no. I shall be all right. It’s just—the heat.”

“It’s nothing of the kind,” he returned. “It’s overwork, and you know it. You’ll either kill yourself or go stark staring mad if you keep on.”

She laughed again at that, and though faint, her laughter had a ring of indomitable resolution. “Oh, indeed I shall not. I know exactly what my capabilities are. I have been unlucky to-day, but I am in reality much stronger than I seem.”

He turned from her with the hint of a shrug. “No doubt you know your own business best, and of course I fully recognise that it is no part of mine to give advice.”

“Oh, please!” she said gently.

That was all; but spoken in a tone that brought him back to her with a sharp turn. He looked at her, and was amazed at himself because the faint smile in her tired eyes gave him a new sensation.

“Wasn’t that what you meant?” he said, after a moment.

“No,” she made quiet answer. “I never mean that to the people who show me kindness. It happens—much too seldom.”

She spoke with a dignity that was above pathos, but none the less was he touched. It was as if she had lifted the official mask to give him a glimpse of her soul, and in that glimpse he beheld something which he certainly had not expected to see. Again, almost against his will, was he stirred to a curious reverence.

“You must have had a pretty rotten time of it,” he said.

To which she made no reply, though in her silence he found no sign of ungraciousness, and was more attracted than repelled thereby.

He remained beside her without speaking until the irritable, uneven tread of feet in the corridor warned them of the Bishop’s return; then again he looked at her and found her eyes upon him.

“Thank you very much for all your kindness,” she said. “Please—will you go now?”

“You wish it?” he said.

“Yes.” Just the one word, spoken with absolute simplicity!

He lingered on the step. “I shall see you again?”

He saw her brows move upwards very slightly. “Quite possibly,” she said.

He turned from her with finality. “I shall,” he said, and passed out without a backward glance into the hot sunshine of the Palace garden.

CHAPTER III
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION

There was a sheet of water in the Palace garden, fed by a bubbling spring. Cypress and old yew trees grew along its banks, and here and there the crumbling ruins of an old monastery that had once adjoined the Cathedral showed ivy-covered along the path that wound beside it. It was said that the frocked figure of an ancient friar was wont to pace this path in the moonlight, but none who believed the superstition ever had the courage to verify it.

Montague Rotherby, wandering thither late that night after the rest of the household had retired, had no thought for apparitions of any description. He was wrapt in his own meditations, and neither the beauty of the place nor its eeriness appealed to him. He was beginning to realize that he had come to the wrong quarter for the peace his soul desired. A few brief, wholly dispassionate, words from his uncle’s lips had made it quite clear to him that it was possible even for a man of his undeniable position in the world to outstay his welcome, and, being possessed of a considerable amount of pride, Montague needed no second hint to be gone.

But very curiously he found an inner influence at war with his resolution. He knew very well what had actuated the Bishop in giving him that very decided hint, and that very motive was now strangely urging him in the opposite direction.

To admit that he was attracted by that very insignificant and wholly unimportant person, the Bishop’s secretary, was of course too preposterous for a man of his standing. The bare idea brought a cynical twist to his lips. But she had undeniably awakened his compassion—a matter for wonder but not for repudiation. Insignificant she might be, but the dumb endurance of her had aroused his admiration. He wanted to stop and see fair play.

Pacing to and fro beside the dark waters, he reviewed the situation. It was no business of his, of course, and perhaps he was a fool to suffer himself to take an interest in so comparatively slight a matter. It was not his way to waste time over the grievances of outsiders. But this woman—somehow this woman with her dark, tragic eyes had taken hold of his imagination. Scoff though he might, he could not thrust the thought of her out of his mind. Possibly her treatment of himself was one of the chief factors in her favour. For Montague Rotherby was accustomed to deference from those whom he regarded as social inferiors. It was true that he had taken her at a disadvantage that morning, but the very fact of his notice was generally enough to gain him a standing wherever he sought for one. To be held at a distance by one so obviously beneath him was a novel sensation that half-piqued and half-amused him. And she needed a champion too, yet scorned to enlist him on her side. It was wholly against her will that she had gained his sympathy. Though perfectly courteous, she had made it abundantly clear that she had no desire to be placed under any obligation to him. And, mainly for that reason, he was conscious of a wish to help her.

“She’ll sink if I don’t,” he muttered to himself, and forgot to question as to what on earth it mattered to him whether she sank or swam.

This was the problem that vexed his soul as he paced up and down in the moonlight on that summer night, and as he walked the resolution grew up within him not to leave until he had had the chance of speech with her again. She might refuse to grant it to him, might seek to avoid him. Instinct told him that she would; but he was a man to whom opposition was as a draught of wine, and it had never been his experience to be withstood for long by a woman. It would amuse him to overcome her resistance.

So ran his thoughts, and he smiled to himself as he began to retrace his steps. In a contest such as this might prove to be, the issue was assured and could not take long of achievement; but it looked as if he might have to put a strain on the Bishop’s hospitality for a few days even yet. Somehow that reflection appealed to his cynical sense of humour. It seemed then that he was to sacrifice his pride to this odd will-o’-the-wisp that had suddenly gleamed at him from the eyes of a woman in whom he really took no interest whatever—one, moreover, who would probably resent any attempt on his part to befriend her. Recalling her low words of dismissal, he decided that this attitude was far the most likely one for her to adopt, but the probability did not dismay him. A hunter of known repute, he was not easily to be diverted from his quarry, and, sub-consciously he was aware of possibilities in the situation that might develop into actualities undreamed-of at the commencement.

In any case he intended to satisfy himself that the possibilities no longer existed before he abandoned the quest. With no avowed end in view, he determined to follow his inclination wherever it might lead. She had given him a new sensation and—though perhaps it was not wholly a pleasant one—he desired to develop it further. To a man of his experience new sensations were scarce.

The effect of the moonlight, filtering through the boughs of the yew and striking upon the dark water, sent a thrill of artistic pleasure through his soul. He stood still to appreciate it with all the home-coming joy of the wanderer. What a picture for an artist’s brush! He possessed a certain gift in that direction himself, but he had merely cultivated it as a refuge from boredom and it had never carried him very far. But to-night the romance and the beauty appealed to him with peculiar force, and he stood before it with something of reverence. Then, very softly chiming, there came the sound of the Cathedral clock, followed after a solemn pause by eleven deep strokes.

He counted them mechanically till the last one died away, then turned to retrace his steps, realizing with a shrug the lateness of the hour.

It was thus that he saw her standing in the moonlight—a slender figure, oddly girlish considering the impression she had made upon him that day, the face in profile, clear-cut, with a Madonna-like purity of outline that caught his artistic sense afresh. He realized in an instant that she was unaware of him, and stood motionless, watching her, afraid to move lest he should disturb her.

She had come to the edge of the water and was gazing up the rippling pathway that the moonlight flung from the farther shore to her feet. Her stillness had that statuesque quality that he had marked before in her, and, oddly, here in the moonlight he no longer found her insignificant. It was as if in this world of silver radiance she had mysteriously come into her own, and the man’s spirit stirred within him, quickening his pulses. He wanted to call to her as one calls to his mate.

Perhaps some hidden telepathy warned her of his presence, perhaps she heard the call, unuttered though it was, for even as that unaccountable thrill went through him she moved, turned with a strange deliberation and faced him. She showed no surprise, spoke no word, her silence and her passivity surrounding her as though with a magic circle which none might cross without her leave. The mantle of her unobtrusiveness had fallen from her. She stood, superbly erect, queen-like in her pose and the unconscious dignity of her aloofness.

And Montague Rotherby was actually at a loss before her, uncertain whether to go or stay. It was a very transient feeling, banished by the swift assertion of his pride; but it had been there, and later he smiled ironically over the memory of his discomfiture. He had called to her too urgently, and she had replied with instant dismissal, though no word had passed between them.

Now, with determination and a certain audacity, he ignored her dismissal and took words for his weapon. With a smile he came towards her, he crossed the magic circle, protecting himself with the shield of the commonplace.

“I thought we should meet again,” he said. “Are you better?”

She thrust past his shield with something of contempt. “I certainly did not expect to meet you—or anyone—here,” she said.

His smile became almost a laugh. Did she think him so easily repulsed?

“No?” he said easily. “Yet we probably came—both of us—with the same intention. Tell me what happened after I left you this afternoon! I tried to find out from his lordship, but was badly snubbed for my pains, which I think you will admit was hardly fair treatment.”

He saw her face change very slightly at his words, but she made no verbal response to them.

“I am quite well again,” she said guardedly, after a moment. “Please do not trouble yourself any further about me! It is sheer waste of time.”

“Oh, impossible!” he exclaimed gallantly; then, seeing her look, “No, seriously, Miss Thorold, I refuse to be put off like that. I’ve no right whatever—as you have every right to point out—but I must insist upon knowing what happened. I won’t rest till I know.”

She looked at him for a few seconds, her dark eyes very intent as though they searched behind every word he uttered for a hidden motive; then abruptly, with the gesture of one who submits either from indifference or of necessity, she made brief reply.

“What happened was a visit from the doctor and a solemn warning that I must take a rest as soon as his lordship can conveniently release me from my duties.”

“Ah!” said Montague.

He had expected it, but somehow her method of conveying the news—though he realized it to be characteristic—took him by surprise. Perhaps, remembering that he had held her in her weakness a few hours before while she had wept against his arm, he had hoped for greater intimacy in the telling. As it was, he found himself actually hesitating as to how to receive it.

She certainly did not ask for sympathy, this woman of the curt speech and tired eyes. Rather she repudiated the bare notion. Yet was he conscious of a keen desire to offer it.

He stood in silence for a moment or two, bracing himself for a distinct effort.

“Does it mean very much to you?” he asked at length.

Her short laugh grated upon him. It had the sound of a wrong chord. She had smiled at him that morning, and he had felt her charm. Her laughter should have been sheer music.

Her voice had the same hard quality as she answered him. “No more than it does to most people when they lose their livelihood, I should say.”

But, strangely, her words gave him courage to pass the barrier. He spoke as one worker to another.

“What damnable luck!” he said.

Perhaps they were the most sincere words he had yet spoken, and they pierced her armour. He saw her chin quiver suddenly. She turned her face from him.

“I shall worry through,” she said, and her voice was brisk and business-like, wholly free from emotion. “I’m not afraid of that.”

But she was afraid, and he knew it. And something within him leapt to the knowledge. He knew that he had found the weak joint.

“Oh, there’s always a way out,” he said. “I’ve been in some tight corners myself, and I’ve proved that every time.” He broke off, with his eyes upon the rippling pathway of moonlight that stretched to their feet. Then, abruptly as she herself had spoken: “Is the Bishop going to do anything to make things easier?” he asked.

She made a small choking sound and produced a laugh. “Good heavens!” she said. “Do you really imagine I would let him if he would?”

“Why not?” said Montague boldly. “You’ve worked hard for him. If he has any sense of what is fitting, he will regard it in the light of a debt.”

“Will he?” said Frances Thorold sardonically.

“If he hasn’t the decency to do that—” said Montague.

She turned upon him in a flash and he saw that her bosom was heaving.

“Do you think I would take his charity?” she said. “Or anyone else’s? I’d rather—far rather—starve—as I have before!”

“Good God!” said Montague.

He met the fierce fire of her eyes with a swift kindling of admiration in his own. Somehow in that moment she was magnificent. She was like a statue of Victory in the midst of defeat. Then he saw the fire die down, and marked it with regret.

“Good night,” she said abruptly. “I am going in.”

He thrust out his hand to her with a quickness of impulse he did not stop to question. “Please wait a minute!” he said. “Surely you are not afraid of my offering you charity?”

He smiled as he said it—the smile of confident friendship. There were moments when Montague Rotherby, with the true gambler’s spirit, staked all upon one cast. And this was one of them. But—possessing also a considerable knowledge of human nature—he had small fear for the result. He knew before he put down his stake that he was dealing with a woman of too generous a temperament to make him suffer complete failure. Also, he was too old and too cynical a player to care greatly whether he won or lost. He was beginning to admit that she attracted him. But after all, what of it? It was only boredom that lent romance to this moonlight scene. In three days—in less—he could banish it from his mind. There were other scenes awaiting his careless coming, other players also . . . higher stakes. . . .

The thought was still running in his mind even as he felt the quick grip of her slender hand in his. He had not expected complete victory. It took him by surprise.

“You are far too good,” she said, and he heard the quiver of emotion that she no longer sought to suppress in her voice, “too understanding, to offer me that.”

He squeezed her hand in answer. “I’m offering you friendship,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said gently.

He smiled into her eyes. “It may be of an unorthodox kind, but that we can’t help—under the circumstances. It’s genuine anyway.”

“I am sure of that,” she said.

He wondered what made her sure, and was conscious of a moment’s discomfiture, but swiftly fortified himself with the reflection that she was no girl, and if she were still lacking in experience of the ways of the world, that was her affair, not his. On second thoughts he did not believe her to be lacking in this respect. She had shown too much caution in her treatment of his earlier advances.

He released her hand, but he stood very close to her in the shadow of the cypress-tree. “And now—as a friend,” he said, “will you tell me what you think of doing?”

She made no movement away from him. Possibly she had not the strength to turn away from the only human being in the world who had offered to stand by her in her hour of need. She answered him with a simplicity that must have shown him clearly how completely she had banished all doubt.

“I really haven’t an idea what I shall do—what I can do, in fact, if my health gives way—unless,” a piteous quiver of laughter sounded in her voice, “I go into the country and learn to milk cows. There seem to be more cows than anything else in this part of the world.”

“But have you no resources at all?” he questioned. “No people?”

“But one doesn’t turn to one’s people for help,” said Frances in her quiet way. “My parents both died long ago. I was dependent in my girlhood upon a married brother—a business man—with a family. I soon broke away, and there is no going back. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone.”

“Of course not,” said Montague. “But wouldn’t he tide you over this crisis?”

“While I learn to milk cows you mean?” The laughter in her voice sounded less precarious now. “I couldn’t possibly ask him. He has sons to educate, and a wife whom I can’t abide. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“But must you milk cows?” he questioned. “Is there nothing you can do to fill in time—till you get another secretary’s job?”

“Ah! And when will that be? Secretary’s jobs are not easily come by. I have only had one other, and then my employer died and I was out of work for months. That is why I can’t afford to be out of work now. I’ve had no time to save.”

She spoke without pathos, a mere statement of fact. He liked her for it. Her simple courage combined with her businesslike expression thereof attracted him more and more. Whatever hard blows Fate might have in store for her, he was convinced that she would endure them unflinching, would stand on her feet to the very end. It was refreshing to meet this sort of woman. With all the present-day talk of woman’s independence he had seldom found her independent when hurt. He was beginning to realize wherein this woman’s fascination lay. It was in the fact that whatever happened to herself she would accept responsibility. Whatever her losses might be, she would borrow no man’s counters. She was answerable to none, and she held herself strong enough to hold her own.

That impression came upon him very forcibly as he talked with her, and it was to remain with him for all time. Here was a woman who made no claim of equality or independence, but—she stood alone.

“You are marvellously brave,” he said, and he uttered the words almost involuntarily. “It makes me all the keener to be of use.” He paused. “You know, I could be of use if you would allow me.”

“In what way?” she said.

He hesitated. “You won’t be angry—turn me down unheard?”

“You don’t realize that I have great reason to be grateful to you,” she said.

“You haven’t,” he returned quickly. “I am not much of a philanthropist. I don’t pretend to take an interest in people who fail to interest me. I am no better than the majority, Miss Thorold, worse than a good many.”

He saw her faint smile. “But better than some,” she suggested.

He smiled in answer. “Well, perhaps,—better than some. Is there really nothing you can do to fill in time for the present? Because—I can find you another secretary’s job later on, if that is what you really want.”

“Can you?” she said. “But how?”

He was aware of a momentary embarrassment, and showed it. “It’s entirely a business proposition. I am just home from Africa. I am going to write a book on travel and sport. I’ve got my notes, heaps of ’em. It’s just a matter of sorting and arranging in a fairly digestible form. I shall want a secretary, and I have an idea we would arrive at an arrangement not injurious to either of us. You can help me if you will—if you care to—and I should think myself lucky to get anyone so efficient.”

“How do you know I am efficient?” she asked in her straight, direct way.

He laughed a little. “Oh, that! Well, mainly by the way you headed me off this morning when I showed a disposition to interrupt the progress of your work.”

“I see.” She spoke quietly, without elation. His suggestion seemed to excite no surprise in her, and he wondered a little while he waited for more. “Do you want me to decide at once?” she asked.

“Don’t you want to?” he continued. “You have no one—apparently—to consult but yourself.”

“That is true. But—” she spoke gravely—“it takes a little while to consult even oneself sometimes. What if I took up work with you and found I did not like it?”

“You would be under no obligation to stop,” he said, aware of a sudden, inexplicable desire to overcome her objections. “And you would be no worse off than you are at present. But—I flatter myself you would like it. I think the work would interest you. I am convinced at least that it would not bore you.”

“That consideration would not influence me one way or the other,” she said. “There are always drawbacks of some description to every walk of life, and boredom—well, boredom is by no means the worst of them.”

“There I disagree with you,” said Rotherby boldly. “If you can honestly say that, then you have never really lived.”

“That is quite true,” said Frances. “I never have.”

He gave her a sudden, hard look. “Don’t you want to?” he said.

She uttered her faint laugh, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t—especially—want to starve,” she said. “But—I assure you I would rather do that than fail to earn my keep.”

“I fully realize that,” he said. “Will you give me a trial then, or let me give you one? I don’t know how you put these things, but it means the same thing, I believe.”

“Oh no!” said Frances. “It means something very different. And neither you nor I had better make up our minds to-night. You are very kind, but very rash; and I think by to-morrow morning you may regret this. In any case, let us wait till then!”

“For your satisfaction or mine?” he said.

“For both.” Prompt and steady came her reply, but he was disconcerted no longer.

“Will you tell me one thing?” he said.

Her eyes came to his. “Certainly if I can.”

“Only this.” He spoke quickly, with a certain mastery. “If by to-morrow I have not changed my mind, shall you accept my offer?”

She raised her brows slightly. “Why do you ask me that?”

“Because I want to know what to expect. I want to know if you make that condition for your sake or mine.” Unhesitatingly he went to the point. He was very nearly sure of her, but still not quite.

She paused for some seconds before she answered him. He wondered if she were seeking a means of escape. Then very calmly she gave him her reply, and he knew that the game was his.

“I have said it was for both, because if you repent of the bargain, so shall I. But—if you do not repent, then I shall accept your offer with gratitude. But you have acted upon impulse, and I think you ought to take time to consider.”

“It rests with me then?” said Rotherby.

“Yes, it rests with you.” Quietly, even coldly, she yielded the point. “Of course, as you say, if you decide to take me, it will only be on trial. And if I fail to satisfy you, we are not worse off than we are at present. But please do not decide before to-morrow!”

The words were a request. The tone was almost a command. He could ignore neither, and he swept her a deep bow.

“Madam, your wishes in this matter shall be respected. To-morrow then—we decide!”

“Thank you,” said Frances quietly.

She turned to go, but suddenly stopped short. He was aware of a change in her—a tremor of agitation.

“Ah!” she said, under her breath.

She was looking out of the shadow into the moonlight, and swiftly his eyes followed hers.

A figure in black was walking slowly and quite noiselessly over the grass by the side of the path.

“Who on earth—” began Montague.

She silenced him with a rapid gesture. “Hush! It is the Bishop!”

He reflected later that from her point of view it might have been wiser to have ignored the warning and have gone forth openly to meet the advancing intruder. But—perhaps it was the romance of the hour, perhaps merely her impulse communicating itself to him—or even, it might have been some deeper motive, barely acknowledged as yet that actuated him—whatever the influence at work, he obeyed her, drawing back in silence against the trunk of the yew tree.

And so, like two conspirators trapped in that haunted garden, they drew close together in the depth of the shadow and dumbly watched the black-gowned figure advance over the moonlit grass.

CHAPTER IV
THE ACCUSER

He came very slowly, with priest-like dignity, yet in his deliberation of movement there was purpose. It was seldom that the Bishop of Burminster performed any action without a definite end in view. There was indeed something almost fatalistic in all that he did. The wandering friar himself who was said to haunt that sleeping garden could not have moved with greater assurance or more studied detachment of pose.

The man and the woman watching him from their hiding-place drew closer together as if in some fashion his coming inspired them with awe. It was true that Montague Rotherby’s lips bore a smile of cynical amusement, as though the situation appealed more to his sense of humour than to any other emotion. But it was not any humorous impulse that moved him to put his hand suddenly and reassuringly through the tense thin arm of the secretary and closely grip it.

She started sharply at his touch, made for a moment as if she would free herself, then stiffened and stood in rigid immobility.

For the Bishop was drawing nearer, and there was resolution as well as protection in Montague’s hold.

Slowly came the advancing figure, and the tension of the two who waited grew acute. Though he smiled, Montague’s teeth were clenched, and there was a glitter of ferocity in his eyes. He formed his plan of action while he waited. If the Bishop passed them by, he would release his companion instantly, bid her begone, and himself cover her retreat.

It was the only feasible plan, and in the morning she would thank him. In the morning she would realize that circumstances had placed her in his debt, and she would be ready to meet the obligation in accordance with his views. She certainly could not flout him or even keep him at a distance after this. Without forcing himself upon her, he had become her intimate friend, and she was not a woman to repudiate an obligation. She would acknowledge with gratitude all that he had done for her.

He no longer questioned with himself as to wherein lay the attraction that drew him. The attraction was there, and he responded to it, without scruple, as he had responded to such all his life. After all, it was no responsibility of his what she chose to do with her life. It was not likely that he was the first man to come into her existence. She knew very well what she was doing, and if she relaxed her guard he had no hesitation in storming her defence. After all, it was but a game, and women were quite as adroit in their moves as men, even more so in some cases, he reflected, though in this one it had certainly so far not been a difficult contest.

Swiftly the thoughts succeeded each other as he watched with a grim vigilance the advancing figure.

The Bishop was close to them now, almost abreast of them. He could see the harsh lines on the thin, ascetic countenance. There was something mediæval about that iron visage, something that was reminiscent of the Inquisition. This was the type of man who would torture and slay for the fulfilment of an ideal—a man of stern fanaticism, capable of the highest sacrifice, but incapable of that which even a dog may show to his master—the Divine offering of love.

Now he had reached the old yew in the shadow of which they stood, as if he had attained his destination he stood still.

Montague felt a sharp shiver run through his companion’s arm, and he gripped it more closely, with a steady, warning pressure. The Bishop was not looking in their direction. There was yet a chance that he might pass on and leave them unobserved. The situation was ridiculous. They had no reason for concealing themselves. But the instinct, old as mankind, that prompts the two whom Fate has thrown together to avoid the intrusion of a third, the unacknowledged dread of being caught in an equivocal position, the half-formed wish to protect that gleaming, iridescent wonder that is called Romance from the sacrilegious touch of the outside world, all of these impulses had conspired to bring about this absurd concealment which the man found both gratifying and exasperating. To be discovered now would be humiliating, but if the critical moment passed and they were left in peace he recognized that another powerful link would be added to the chain that some caprice had induced him to forge.

As for the woman, he had no clue to her thoughts. He only knew that with her whole soul she hoped to escape undetected.

The Bishop had turned towards the edge of the lake, and was standing there in sombre reflection.

“What on earth is he thinking about?” questioned Montague with himself. “He can’t know we are here! He wouldn’t play such a cad’s game as that.”

Nevertheless his heart misgave him. He had no faith in the Bishop’s sense of fair play. In his own weird fashion he believed him to be even more unscrupulous than he was himself. That any beauty of scene held him in that trance-like stillness he did not believe. He was merely thinking out some fell design for the glory of the fetish he worshipped.

Montague began to grow impatient. Were they to be kept there in suspense all night while he worked out his fantastic problems? He began to consider the possibility of making a move unheard and unseen while the Bishop remained wrapt in meditation. He had passed so close to them without seeing them that it seemed more than possible that an escape could be accomplished without any very serious risk.

He pressed his companion’s arm and was aware of her eyes strangely luminous in the shadow turned towards him in enquiry. By some trick of the moonlight, the pale features took on a sudden unexpected beauty. He saw her in that moment not as the woman she was, faded and weary with the long harassment of overwork and anxiety, but as the woman she might have been, vivid, enchanting, young. . . . The illusion was so arresting that he forgot his purpose and stood, gazing upon her, bound by a spell that he had not known for years.

There came a sound through the magic stillness—the soft chiming of the quarter from the Cathedral tower. The Bishop stirred as if a hand had been laid upon him, stirred and turned.

His face was in the full moonlight, and it was the face of a denunciatory prophet. He spoke in hollow tones that reached them like a voice of doom.

“As I thought!” he said. “As I might have known! You may come out of your hiding-place. No subterfuge will serve either of you. Go—both of you! Let me never see you again!”

“Damnation!” said Montague.

The vision flashed away from him. He saw only the red fire of his wrath. Then, strangely, the vision returned. He saw her again—a woman of amazing possibilities, a woman to dream about, a woman to love. . . .

He took her cold hand very firmly into his own and led her forth.

She tried to resist him, to free herself. He knew that later. At the time he realized but the one overmastering determination to vindicate himself and her in the eyes of the denunciatory prophet. He strode forward and confronted him.

“Damnation!” he said again, and he flung the word with all the force of his fury. “Who are you to dare to speak to either of us in this strain? What the devil do you mean by it?”

He spoke as one man speaking to another, but the calm gesture of the Bishop’s uplifted hand dispelled the situation before it could be established.

“Who am I?” he said. “I am a priest of the Lord to whom profanity is no more than the vapouring of fools. How do I dare to speak to you thus? I have never flinched from my duty in the bold rebuke of vice. What do I mean? I mean that you and this woman have been detected by me on the very verge of sin. And I tell you to go, because I cannot stop your sinning until you have endured your hell and—if God is merciful—begun to work out your own salvation.”

“The man is mad!” said Montague.

A moment before, he had been in a mood to take him by the throat, but now he paused, arrested by the fanatical fervour of the Bishop’s speech. Quite suddenly he realized that neither argument nor indignation would have the smallest effect. And, curiously, his anger cooled. Any other man he would have hurled into the placid waters of the lake without an instant’s hesitation. But this man was different. Almost involuntarily he accorded him the indulgence which the abnormal can practically always command.

He turned very quietly to the woman whose hand had closed convulsively in his own, but who stood beside him, immobile and emotionless as a statue.

“Miss Thorold,” he said, “I must apologize to you for—quite inadvertently—placing you in this extraordinary situation. The whole thing is too monstrous for discussion. I only ask you to believe that I regret it from the bottom of my heart, and I beg that you will not allow anything so outrageous to prejudice you with regard to the future.”

Her eyes were downcast. She heard him without raising them. And still no shade of feeling crossed her death-white face as she made reply.

“I am not likely to do that,” she said coldly and proudly. “I am not likely to blame you for showing kindness to me in the house of one whom mercy and humanity are unknown. I do not hold you responsible for another man’s wickedness.”

It was a challenge, clearly and unhesitatingly spoken, and Montague marvelled at the icy courage of her, the biting disdain. As she spoke, she drew her hand from his, and paused, facing him, not deigning to look upon her accuser; then, as he spoke no word, calmly, regally, with head erect but eyes cast down, she walked away over the moonlit grass, and so passed out of their sight.

CHAPTER V
THE HOLIDAY

The soft thudding of cows’ feet through the red mud of a Devon lane—the chirruping call of a girl’s voice in their rear—the warning note of a blackbird in the hedge—and the magic fragrance of honeysuckle everywhere! Was ever summer day so fair? Was ever world so green?

“Drat that young Minnie! If she hasn’t taken the wrong turning again!” cried the voice that had chirruped to the herd, and there followed a chuckling laugh that had in it that indescribable sweetness of tone which is peculiar only to those of a contented mind.

It took Frances Thorold by storm—that laugh. She got up swiftly from her knoll, sketching block in hand, to peer over the hedge.

The hedge was ragged and the lane was deep, but she caught a glimpse of the red cows, trooping by, and of the pink dress and wildly untidy hair of their attendant. Then there came a sharp whistle, and a dog went scampering by, audible but unseen in the leafy depth of the lane. There followed a blundering check among the animals, and then again the clear, happy voice calling to order and the equally cheery bark of the dog.

“That’ll do, Roger! Come back!” cried the bright voice. “Minnie won’t do it again till next time, so you needn’t scold. Now, Penelope, what are you stopping for? Get on, old girl! Don’t hold up the traffic! Ah, here’s a motor-car!”

It was not annoyance so much as a certain comic resignation that characterized the last sentence. The buzz of an engine and the sharp grinding of brakes upon skidding wheels succeeded it, and Frances, still peering over the ragged hedge, flushed suddenly and deeply, almost to the colour of the sorrel that grew about her feet.

She made a small movement as though she would withdraw herself, but some stronger motive kept her where she was. The car came grinding to a standstill almost abreast of her, and she heard the animals go blundering past.

“Thank you, sir,” called the fresh voice, with its irresistible trill of gaiety. “Sorry we take up so much room.”

“Don’t mention it! You’re as much right as I—if not more,” called back the driver of the car.

Frances stirred then, stirred and drew back. She left her green vantage-ground and sat down again on the bank. Her eyes returned to her sketching-block, and she began to work industriously. The hot colour receded slowly from her face. It took on a still, mask-like expression as though carved in marble. But the tired look had wholly left it, and the drawn lines about the mouth were barely perceptible. They looked now as if they sought to repress a smile.

She chose a tiny paint-brush from her box, and began to work with minute care. The sketch under her hand was an exquisite thing, delicate as a miniature—just a brown stream with stepping-stones and beyond them the corner of an old thatched barn—Devon in summer-time. The babble of the stream and the buzz of a million insects were in that tender little sketch with its starry, meadow flowers and soft grey shadows. She had revelled in the making of it, and now it was nearly finished.

She had counted upon finishing it that afternoon, but for some reason, after that episode in the lane, her hand seemed to have lost its cunning. With the fine brush between her fingers she stopped, for her hand was shaking. A faint frown, swiftly banished, drew her brows, and then one of them went up at a humorous angle, and she began to smile.

The next moment very quietly she returned the brush unused to its box, laid both sketching-block and paints aside, and clasped her hands about her knees, waiting.

The commotion in the lane had wholly ceased, but there was a sound of feet squelching in the mud on the other side of the hedge. Frances turned her head to listen. Finally, the smile still about her lips, she spoke.

“Are you looking for someone?”

“By Jove!” cried back a voice in swift and hearty response. “So you’re there, are you? I thought I couldn’t be wrong—through a stream and past a barn, and down a hill—what damnable hills they are too in this part of the world! How on earth does one get up there?”

Quite concisely and without agitation she made reply. “One usually goes to the bottom of the hill, opens a gate and walks up on the other side.”

“Oh, that’s too much to ask,” protested the voice below her. “Isn’t there some hole where one can get through?”

“If one doesn’t mind spoiling one’s clothes,” said Frances.

“Oh, damn the clothes—this infernal mud too for that matter! Here goes!”

There followed sounds of a leap and a scramble—a violent shaking of the nut-trees and brambles that composed the hedge—and finally a man’s face, laughing and triumphant, appeared above the confusion.

“By gad,” he said, “you look as if you were on a throne!”

She smiled at him, without rising. “It is quite a comfortable perch. I come here every day. In fact,” she indicated the sketching-block by her side. “This is how I amuse myself.”

He came to her, carrying a trail of honeysuckle which he laid at her feet. “May I share the throne?” he said.

She looked at him, not touching the flowers, her smile faintly quizzical. “You can sit on a corner of this rug if you like. It is rather a ragged affair, but it serves its purpose.”

She indicated the corner furthest from her, and Rotherby dropped down upon it with a satisfied air. “Oh, this is a loafer’s paradise. How are you getting on, Miss Thorold? You look—” he regarded her critically—“you look like one who has bathed in magic dew.”

She met his look, her own wholly impersonal. “I feel rather like that,” she said. “It has been a wonderful fortnight. I am quite ready for work.”

He leaned upon his elbow, still carelessly watching her. “Have you learnt to milk cows yet?” he asked.

“Well, no!” She laughed a little. “But I have several times watched the operation. You saw that girl just now, driving the cows back to pasture for the night. She comes from such a dear old farm on the moor called Tetherstones. I have stood at the door of the cowshed and watched her. She is wonderfully quick at it.”

“Is she going to give you lessons?” he said idly.

“I haven’t got to the point of asking her yet. We only pass the time of day when we meet.”

Frances picked up her sketching-block again. Her hand was quite steady now.

“May I see?” said Rotherby.

“When it is finished,” she said.

“No, now, please!” His tone had a hint of imperiousness.

She leaned forward with the faintest possible suggestion of indulgence, such as one might show to a child, and gave it to him.

He took it in silence, studied it at first casually, then more closely, with growing interest, finally looked up at her.

“You ought to find a ready market for this sort of thing. It’s exquisite.”

She coloured then vividly, almost painfully, and the man’s eyes kindled, watching her.

“Do you really think that?” she asked in a low voice.

“Of course I do. It isn’t to my interest to say it, is it? You’ve mistaken your vocation.”

He smiled with the words and gave her back the sketch.

“It isn’t a paying game—except for the chosen few. But I believe I could find you a market for this sort of thing. I had no idea you were so talented.”

“It has always been my pastime,” said Frances rather wistfully. “But I couldn’t make a living at it.”

“You could augment a living,” he said.

“Ah! But one needs interest for that. And I—” she hesitated—“I don’t think I am very good at pushing my wares.”

He laughed. “Well, I’ll supply the interest—such as it is. I’ll do my best anyway. You go on sketching for a bit, and I’ll come and look on and admire. Shall I?”

She gave him a steady look. “When are you going to begin your book?”

“Oh, that!” he spoke with easy assurance. “That’ll have to keep for a bit. I’m not in the mood for it yet. By and by,—in the winter——”

Her face changed a little. “In that case,” she said, slowly, “I ought to set about finding another post.”

“Oh, rot!” said Montague with lightness. “Why?”

She turned from her steady regard of him, and looked down at the sketch in her hand. “Because,” she said, her voice chill and constrained as was its habit in moments of emotion, “I haven’t money to carry me on till then. I shouldn’t have wasted this fortnight if I had known.”

“It hasn’t been wasted,” argued Montague, still careless and unimpressed. “You couldn’t have done without it.”

She did not lift her eyes. “It is quite true I needed a rest,” she said, “but I could have employed the time in trying to find another post. I could have advertised. I could have answered advertisements.”

“And ended up as you are now minus the cost of the postage,” said Montague.

She took up her brush again. “Yes, that is quite possible; but I should have had the satisfaction of knowing that I had done my best.”

“You’ve done much more for yourself by just taking a rest and sketching,” said Montague. “Have you done any besides this?”

She answered him with her eyes upon her work. “Three.”

“Will you let me see them?”

“If you wish.”

“When?”

“Whenever you like.”

“May I come round to-night then—sometime after dinner? I went round to your diggings just now. It was the old woman who sent me on here. Extraordinary old witch! Does she make you comfortable?”

“The place is quite clean,” said Frances.

“That’s non-committal. What’s the food like?”

“I don’t suppose you would care for it. It is quite plain, but it is good. It suits me all right, and it suits my purse.”

He pounced upon the words. “Then why in heaven’s name worry? A little extra holiday never hurt anyone, and you have got your sketching.”

“I can’t afford it,” said Frances.

“But if you can sell some of your work.”

“I can’t,” she said.

“Well, I can for you. It’s the same thing. Look here, Miss Thorold! You’re not being reasonable.”

She turned again and faced him. Her eyes were very quiet, quite inscrutable.

“It is not that I am unreasonble, Mr. Rotherby,” she said. “It is simply you—who do not understand.”

There was stubbornness in his answering look. “I understand perfectly,” he said. “I know what you are afraid of. But if you will only leave things to me, it won’t happen. After all, you promised to be my secretary, didn’t you? You can’t seriously mean to let me down?”

“I!” Her eyes widened and darkened in genuine surprise. “I don’t think you can very well accuse me of that,” she said.

“Can’t I? In spite of the fact that you are threatening to throw me over?” There was a bantering note in his voice, but his look was wary.

“I must think of myself,” she said. “You forget I have got to make my living.”

“No, I haven’t forgotten. But there are more ways than one of doing that.” His look fell suddenly to the trailing honeysuckle at her feet and dwelt there with an odd abstraction. “Surely you can fill in time as I have suggested,” he said. “You won’t be a loser in the end.”

“I like to feel I am standing on firm ground,” said Frances Thorold, and returned to her sketch with an air of finality as though thereby the subject were closed.

Montague took out a cigarette-case and opened it, offering it to her with the same abstracted air.

She shook her head without looking at him. “No, thank you. I’ve never taken to it. I’ve never had time.”

“It seems to me that you have never had time for anything that’s worth doing,” he said, as he took one himself.

“That is true,” she said in her brief way.

There fell a silence between them. Montague leaned upon his elbow smoking, his eyes half-closed, but still curiously fixed upon the long spray of honeysuckle as though the flowers presented to him some problem.

Frances worked gravely at her sketch, just as she had worked in the Bishop’s room at Burminster a fortnight before, too deeply absorbed to spare any attention for any interest outside that upon which she was engaged. It was her way to concentrate thus.

Suddenly through the summer silence there came a sound—the voice of a little child singing in the lane below—an unintelligible song, without tune, but strangely sweet, as the first soft song of a twittering bird in the dawning.

Frances lifted her head. She looked at Montague. “Did you leave your car in the lane?”

“I did,” he said, wondering a little at the sudden anxiety in her eyes.

“Ah!” She was on her feet with the word, her sketching almost flung aside. “She’ll run into it.”

“Absurd!” he protested. “Not if she has eyes to see!”

“Ah!” Frances said again. “She hasn’t!”

She was gone even while she spoke, springing for the gap through which he had forced his way a few minutes earlier, calling as she went in tones tender, musical, such as he had never believed her capable of uttering. “Mind, little darling! Mind! Wait till I come to you!”

She was gone from his sight. He heard her slipping down the bank into the mud of the lane. He heard the child’s voice lifted in wonder but not in fear.

“You are the pretty lady who came to see the cows. May I hold your hand?”

And Frances’ answering voice with a deep throb in it that oddly made the listening man stiffen as one who listens to undreamt-of music:—“Of course you shall, sweetheart. We will walk up the road together and find some honeysuckle.”

The man’s eyes came swiftly downwards to the flowers that trailed neglected where her feet had been. So she did love honeysuckle after all! With a movement of violence half-suppressed he snatched up the pink and white blossoms and threw them away.

CHAPTER VI
THE CAPTURE

The description that Frances had given of the lodging she had found for herself in that little Devon village on the edge of the moors gave a very fair impression of the hospitality she enjoyed. The place was scrupulously clean, and, beyond this, quite comfortless. The fare was cottage fare of the very plainest. Her hostess—a stiff-limbed old creature, toothless, ungracious—was content to bestow upon her lodger the bare necessaries of life and no more.

“I can boil you up some hot water to wash in, but it’ll be an extra,” expressed her general attitude towards all things. And Frances, being unable to afford the luxury here implied, contented herself with the sweet, soft moorland water as it came from the pump at the cottage-door. In fact, she very often pumped her own in preference to accepting the grumbling ministrations of the old woman.

But she had been happy during that fortnight of enforced rest after leaving the Palace. The solitude and the boundless leisure of her days had brought healing to her tired soul. She was beginning to feel equipped to face the world afresh. She was looking forward to taking up secretarial work again of an infinitely more congenial character. Her first instinctive hesitation was past. She was prepared to take refuge once more in professional absorption, resolutely banishing all misgivings regarding the man who had hidden with her in the Bishop’s garden and had taken his stand beside her in the Bishop’s presence.

They had been cast forth,—she thought of it sometimes still with the tremor of a smile—they had been driven out as Adam and Eve, and neither of them would ever enter that garden again. Their intercourse since that night had been of the very briefest. Rotherby had obtained from her an address by which he could find her at any time. His attitude had been as business-like as her own, and she had been reassured. She had agreed to take a three weeks’ holiday before entering upon her new duties, and now had come this. He had followed her to tell her that he would not now need her until the winter.

It had been a blow. She could not deny it. But already busily she was making her plans. He would have to understand clearly that she could not wait; but he had shown her great kindness, and if he really desired her services, she would try to find some temporary work till he should be ready. She wondered, as she sorted out her sketches in the little bare sitting-room in preparation for his coming that evening, if he really did need her, or if he had merely obeyed the impulse of the moment and had now repented. She recalled his careless gallantry which might well cover a certain discomfiture at having placed himself in a difficult position, his obvious desire to help her still by whatever means that might come to hand. Yes, it was impossible to formulate any complaint against him. He had been kind—too kind. He had allowed his sympathies to carry him away. But they should not carry him any farther. On that point she was determined. He should see her sketches—since he wished to see them—but no persuasion on his part should induce her to look upon them as a means of livelihood. She would make him understand very clearly that she could accept no benefits from him in this direction. As she had said, she must feel firm ground under her feet, and only by a fixed employment could she obtain this.

So ran her thoughts on that summer evening as she waited for his coming with a curious mixture of eagerness and reluctance. She marvelled at the kindness of heart that had prompted his interest in her. If she had been—as she once had been—an ardent, animated girl, it would have been a different matter. But she had no illusions concerning herself. Her youth was gone, had fled by like a streak of sunshine on a grey hillside, and only the greyness remained. It was thus that she viewed herself, and that any charm could possibly have outlived those years of drudgery she did not for a moment suspect. That any part of her character could in any fashion hold an appeal for such a man as Montague Rotherby she could not, and did not, believe. Pity—pity, alone—had actuated him, and he chose to veil his pity—for her sake—in the light homage which he would have paid to any woman whom he found attractive. Something in the situation, as she thus viewed it, struck a humorous note within her. How odd of him to imagine that a woman of her shrewdness could fail to understand! Ah, well, the least she could do was to let him continue his cheery course without betraying her knowledge of the motive that drove him. She would not be so ungrateful as to let him imagine that she saw through his kindly device. Only she must be firm, she must stand upon solid ground, she must—whatever the issue—assert the independence that she held as her most precious possession. Whatever he thought of her, he should never deem her helpless.

There came the click of the garden-gate, and she started with a sharp jerk of every pulse. Again, before she could check it the hot colour rushed upwards to her face and temples. She stood, strangely tense, listening.

He came up the path with his easy saunter. She knew it for the step of a man of the world. None of the village men walked thus—with this particular species of leisurely decision, unhurried assurance. He strolled between the line of hollyhocks and sunflowers and spied her by the window.

“Ah! Hullo! May I come in this way?”

He stepped over the low sill into the room. It was growing dusk. The air was extraordinarily sweet.

“There’s a mist on the moors to-night,” he said. “Can you smell it?”

“Yes,” said Frances.

She gave him no word of greeting. Somehow the occasion was too unconventional for that. Or was it merely the manner of his entrance—the supreme confidence of his intimacy with her—that made conventional things impossible? He entered her presence without parley, because—obviously—he knew she would be glad to see him. The breath caught oddly in her throat. Was she glad?

The tension of her limbs passed, but she was aware of it still mentally,—a curious constraint from which she could not break free. She laid her sketches before him almost without words.

He took them and looked at them one after another with obvious interest. “You’ve got the atmosphere!” he said. “And the charm! They’re like yourself, Miss Thorold. No, it isn’t idle flattery. It’s there, but one can’t tell where it lies. Ah, what’s this?”

He was looking at the last of the pictures with an even closer interest.

“That is the little blind child at Tetherstones,” she said. “It is only an impression—not good at all. I couldn’t get the appeal of her—only the prettiness. It isn’t even finished.”

“What, the child you went to in the lane this morning? But this is clever. You must finish this. You’ve got her on the stepping-stones too. She doesn’t cross those alone surely!”

“Oh, yes, she goes everywhere, poor mite. She is just seven and wonderfully brave. Sure-footed, too! She wanders about quite alone.”

“Poor kid!” Rotherby laid the sketch aside and turned to her. “Miss Thorold, I’ve come for a talk—a real talk. Don’t freeze me!”

She smiled almost in spite of herself, and the thought came to her that he must have had a very winning personality as a boy. Gleams of the boy still shone out now and again as it were between the joints of his manhood’s armour.

“Sit down!” she said. “Sit down and talk!”

But Rotherby would not sit. He began to pace the narrow room restlessly, impatiently.

“You accused me of letting you down this morning,” he said, “and I protest against that. It wasn’t fair. You’ve got a wrong impression of me.”

“I!” said Frances.

“Yes, you!” He met her surprise with a certain ruthlessness. “I know it sounded like the other way round, but it wasn’t actually. In your heart you felt I’d played you a dirty trick—let you down. Own up! Didn’t you?”

She replied with that slight humorous lift of the eyebrow that was characteristic of her, “I really didn’t put it quite like that—even in my heart, Mr. Rotherby. I owe you too much for that.”

He flung round as if at the prick of a goad. “What do you owe me? Nothing whatever! Let’s talk sense, Miss Thorold! You don’t owe me anything—except perhaps some sort of reparation for the restless nights you have made me go through.”

Dead silence followed his words, uttered on the edge of a laugh that somehow had a dangerous note. He had his back to her as he uttered them, but in the silence he turned again and came back, treading lightly, with something of a spring.

Frances stood quite straight and motionless, with that characteristic pose of hers that was in some inexplicable fashion endowed with majesty. She did not attempt to answer or avoid him as he returned. She only faced him very steadily in the failing light.

“Do you know what I mean?” he said, stopping before her.

She made a slight movement of negation, but she did not speak. She stood as one awaiting an explanation.

He bent towards her. “Don’t you know what I mean, you wonderful woman? Haven’t you known from the very beginning—you Circe—you enchantress?”

His arms came out to her with the words. He caught the slim shoulders, and in a moment he had her against his breast.

“Oh!” gasped Frances, and said no more, for he pressed her so closely to him that no further words could come.

She did not resist him. Burningly, afterwards, she remembered her submission, remembered how, panting, her lips met his, and were held and crushed till blindly she fought for breath but not for freedom. It all came like a fevered dream. One moment she had been a woman of the world—a business woman—cold, collected, calm; the next she a girl again, living, palpitating, thrilling to the rapture which all her life she had missed, drinking the ecstasy of the moment as only those who have been parched with thirst can drink. She was as it were borne on a great wave of amazed exultation. That he should love her—that he should love her! Ah, the marvel of it—and the gladness that was like to pain!

He was speaking now, speaking with lips that yet touched her own. “So now I have caught you—my white flame—my wandering will-o’-the-wisp! How dared you refuse my flowers this morning? How dared you? How dared you?”

He kissed her between each question, hotly, with a passion that would not be denied. And she lay there in his arms, quivering, helpless, wildly rejoicing in the overwhelming mastery of the great flood-tide on which she was borne.

Her life had been so singularly empty—just a fight for bare existence. There had been no time for new friendships—old friendships had waned. And now this! O God, now this!

She did not try to answer him. His kisses stayed all speech. His arms encompassed her—lifted her. He sat down on the little horse-hair sofa in the growing darkness, holding her. And she clung to him—clung to him—in the abandonment of love’s first surrender.

CHAPTER VII
ROGER

It was like a dream—yet not a dream. Over and over again she marvelled afresh at the wonder of it, lying on the hard little bed in her room with the sloping roof, watching the misty stars through their long night march.

They had parted—somehow he had torn himself away, she could not remember how. She only remembered that after he had gone, he had returned to the window and said to her laughing, “Why not come up on to the moor and do sacrifice to the high gods with me?”

And she had answered, also laughing—tremulously, “Oh no, really I couldn’t bear any more to-night. Besides, it is misty—we might be lost.”

“I should like to be lost with you,” he had answered, and had gone away laughing.

There had been something wild and Pan-like in his laugh. It was the laugh of the conqueror, and she tingled to the memory of it, thrilling like a delicate instrument to the hand of a skilled player. He had waked in her such music as none had ever waked in her before. She did not know herself any longer. This throbbing, eager creature was a being wholly different from the Frances Thorold of her knowledge, just as the man who had laughed and vanished like Pan into the mist had a personality wholly apart from that somewhat cynical but kindly gentleman who was Montague Rotherby.

What magic had wrought the change in them? What moorland spell was this, holding them as surely as a net about their feet? She was as one on the threshold of an enchanted world, afraid not so much of the unknown that lay before her as of the desert that lay behind—that desert which she had so miraculously quitted for this place of amazing gladness.

Once in the night she arose and went to the little cottage-window since sleep was impossible. It came to her there as she stood gazing up at those far dim stars to breathe a deep thanksgiving for this strange deliverance. But the words she sought to utter would not come. The vague mist, floating like smoke, seemed to cling about her soul. She stood speechless, and so standing she heard a voice, denunciatory, fanatical, speak suddenly within.

“I tell you to go, because I cannot stop your sinning until you have endured your hell and—if God is merciful—begun to work out your own salvation.”

So clearly fell the words upon her consciousness that she felt as if they had been uttered by her side. She almost turned to see who spoke. Then, remembering, a sharp shudder went through her. She shrank and caught her breath as though she had been pierced.

Was this the magic that had caught her—the awful magic of temptation? Was there poison in the draught which she had drunk with such avidity? This enchanted land to which she had come after weary years of desert journeying, was this to prove—her hell?

As if stricken with blindness, she stumbled back into the room and lay down. All her former doubts swept over her afresh in a black cataract of misgiving. Love her—faded and tired and dull? How could he love her? What could a man of this sort, rich, popular, successful, see in a woman of hers save an easy prey? She lay and burned in the darkness. And she had given him all he asked in that amazing surrender. She had opened to him her very soul. Wherefore? Ah, indeed, wherefore? Because he had overwhelmed her with the audacity of his desire! For no other reason—no other reason! How could this thing be Love?

So she lay, chastising herself with the scorpions of shame and fear and desolation—because she had dared to dream that Love could ever come to her. At last—in that terrible vigil—she found words wherewith to pray, and in an agony of supplication she made her prayer: “O God, keep me from making a mistake! Let me die sooner! Let me die!”

And though no answer came to her then, tears came instead and washed the burning anguish away. Afterwards she slept. . . .

In the morning she awoke to see the sun drawing up the mist like a veil from the green earth. All the evils of the night were gone. She arose wondering at the emotions that had so torn her a few hours before. After all, if she kept her soul with steadfastness, what had she to fear? She viewed the strange event of the previous evening with a curious sense of detachment, almost as if it had happened to another person, very far removed from herself. She was calm now, calm and strong and no longer afraid. The habit of years had reasserted itself. She girt herself anew in the armour which till then had never failed her. Work was her safeguard as well as her necessity. She would waste no further time in idleness.

After breakfast she set forth on a three-mile tramp to the nearest town to buy a newspaper, promising herself to spend the afternoon answering advertisements. Her way lay by a track across the moor which she had never before followed. The purple heather was just coming into bloom and the gold of coronella was scattered every where about her path. The singing of larks filled the whole world with rejoicing. She thought that the distant tors had never been so blue.

About a mile from the village, on the edge of a deep combe through which flowed the babbling stream of her sketch, she came to the farm called Tetherstones, and here, somewhat to her surprise, she was joined by the dog, Roger. He bounded to her, his brown eyes beaming good fellowship through his shaggy hair, and at once and quite unmistakably announced his intention of accompanying her. No amount of reasoning or discouragement on her part had the smallest effect upon his resolution. Beaming and jolly he refused to pay any attention to either, having evidently decided to take a day off and spend it in what he regarded as congenial society. She found it impossible to hide from him the fact that she loved his kind, and he obviously considered her honest attempt to do so as a huge joke, laughing whenever she spoke in a fashion so disarming that she was very soon compelled to admit herself defeated.

They went on together, therefore, Roger with many eager excursions into the heather, till Tetherstones was left far behind. Then, at last, Frances, growing weary, sat down to rest, and Roger came, panting but still cheery, to lie beside her.

She fondled his beautiful shaggy head with an understanding touch. “What a funny fellow you are,” she said, “to follow me like this.”

Roger smiled at her, his tongue hanging between his pearly teeth, and laid a damp, podgy paw upon her lap. She understood him to express his warm appreciation of the company in which he found himself.

“They’ll think I’ve run away with you,” she said.

And he shook his ears with a nonchalance that said very plainly that it was no concern of his what they thought.

Then there came a tramp of hoofs along the white, sandy track, and she saw a man on horseback coming towards them through the glare. Roger sat up sharply and, gulping, ceased to pant.

She saw that his eyes were fixed upon the advancing horseman though he made no movement to leave her side. The thud of the approaching hoofs had a dull fateful sound to her ears. She experienced an odd desire to rise and plunge deep into the heather to avoid an encounter. But the tenseness of the dog by her side seemed to hold her also motionless. She waited with a strange expectancy.

The dazzling sunshine made it impossible for her to see what manner of man the rider was until he was abreast of her. Then she realised that he was broad and heavy of build. He wore a cap drawn down over his eyes.

The sudden checking of the horse made her start. “Roger!” a deep voice said, “What the devil are you doing here?”

Roger started also, and she felt a quiver as of guilt run through him. He got up with an apologetic air, and stood wagging his funny stump of a tail ingratiatingly.

It seemed to Frances that even the horse looked apologetic halted there at his master’s behest.

“Roger!” the new comer said again. Roger’s tail dipped and became invisible in the bushy hair of his hindquarters. He crept forward with a slinking air as if he yearned for a deep hole in which to bury himself.

The man on horseback waited quite motionless till the dog reached his foot, then suddenly he leaned down and struck him a stinging cut with his riding-whip.

The dog cried out, and fled to a distance, and Frances, her hands gripped in the heather on both sides of her, uttered an involuntary exclamation.

The horseman, preparing to go on, paused. “Did you speak, madam?” he asked, scowling at her from under the peak of his cap.

She collected herself and rose to the occasion. “No! There are no words for a thing of that sort,” she said, icily contemptuous.

He put up a hand, ironically courteous, and saluted her. She saw the hard line of a very prominent jaw as he rode on.

The dog fell in behind and meekly followed him.

“What a bear!” said Frances. “I suppose that is the owner of Tetherstones. Or—no! Someone said that was an old man. Then this must be his son.”

She arose and pursued her way, a grim sense of amusement succeeding her annoyance. How curious it was of people to go out of their way to be objectionable! They so seldom injured anyone except themselves in the process.

She had not thought that a walk across the moors would have tired her overmuch, but the day was hot and she very soon realised that she would need a considerable rest before returning. She had breakfasted early and none too bountifully, and she had brought no refreshment with her, counting on obtaining it when she reached her destination at Fordestown.

But Fordestown was a long way off, further than she had anticipated, and she began after a while to wonder if she had done wisely in attempting the walk. She felt lonely after Roger had left her. The great spaces of the moors had a bewildering effect upon her tired senses. The solitude weighed upon her.

Then, after what seemed an endless period of walking, she came to a cross-track with no indication as to whither the branching by-path led. There was no habitation in sight, no sign of life beyond that of the larks singing interminably in the blazing blue overhead, no possibility of knowing in which direction she ought to turn.

Her heart began to fail her a little, and she sat down again to consider the problem. The whirr of grasshoppers arose in a ceaseless hum around her. The distant hills swam before her aching vision. She sank deep into the scented heather and closed her eyes.

She had meant to give herself only the briefest rest, but she was in a place where Nature reigned supreme, and Nature proved too much for her. Her lids were sealed almost immediately. The hum of insects became a vague lullaby to her jaded nerves. She slipped deeper and deeper into a sea of slumber that took her and bore her with soft billowings into an ocean of oblivion. She slept as a child sleeps—as she had not slept for years—the soul as it were loosed from the body—her whole being perfectly at rest.

CHAPTER VIII
THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

Often she wondered afterwards how long that sleep would have lasted, if it had been left to Nature to awake her. It was so deep, so dreamless, so exquisite in its utter restfulness. She never slept thus in the open before. The magic of the moors had never so possessed her. And she had been so weary. All the weariness of the weary years seemed to go to the making of that amazing sleep of hers in the heather. She was just a child of Nature, too tired for further effort. She slept for hours, and she would have slept for hours longer, but for the interruption.

It came to her very suddenly, so suddenly that it seemed to her that the soul had scarcely time to gird itself anew in the relaxed body, before the amazing battle was upon her. She sprang upright in the heather, gasping, still trammelled in the meshes of sleep, defenceless, to find the day nearly spent and a curtain of mist surrounding her; and, within that curtain, most terribly alone with her, she also found Montague Rotherby.

Her recognition of him came with a choking cry. She realized that he had only just reached her, that his coming must have called her back from that deep oblivion in which she had been so steeped. But that first sight of him—alone with her—alone with her—within that strangely shifting yet impenetrable curtain—showed her something which to her waking vision—made keen by that long spell of rest—was appalling. She was terrified in that moment as she could not remember that she had ever been terrified before.

He bent over her. “Found!” he said and laughed with a triumph that seemed to stab her. “I’ve had a long hunt for you. Have you been hiding here all day?”

“No,” she said, through lips that felt strangely stiff, compelling her voice with difficulty. “I lost my way. I fell asleep. I am just going to Fordestown.”

“Going to Fordestown! Why, it’s miles away! Why didn’t you wait till I came to you? You knew I should come.”

His voice had a caressing quality. It drew her against her judgment. Her wild, unreasoning fear subsided somewhat. She smiled at him, though still her lips felt stiff.

“I expected to be back by that time,” she said. “I started quite early.”

“But why did you start at all?” he said.

He was still bending over her. She gave him her hands with a slight gesture of appeal to help her up. He took them and drew her upwards into his arms.

Holding her so, in spite of her quick effort for freedom, he looked deeply into her eyes. “Tell me why you went!” he said.

She hesitated, trying to avert her face.

“No, that won’t help you,” he said, frustrating her. “Tell me!”

Unwillingly she answered him. “I had a bad night, and I decided—in the morning—that—I had better look for work.”

“Why did you decide that?” he said.

She made a more determined stand against him. “I can’t tell you. It’s natural, isn’t it? I have always been independent.”

“Till you met me,” he said.

She summoned her courage and faced him though she knew that she was crimson and quivering. “I shall go on being independent,” she said, “until we are married.”

She expected some subtle change of countenance, possibly some sign of discomfiture, as thus boldly she took her stand. But at once he defeated her expectations. He met her announcement with complete composure. He even smiled, drawing her closer.

“Oh, I think not,” he said. “After what happened yesterday we won’t talk nonsense of that kind to-day. What is the matter, sweetheart? Has someone been troubling you?”

She relaxed somewhat. It was impossible not to respond to the tenderness of his voice and touch. But he had not satisfied her; the misgiving remained.

“Only my own mind—my own reason,” she confessed, still painfully seeking to avoid his look.

“After—yesterday!” he said.

The reproach of his tone pierced her. She hid her face against his breast. “I couldn’t help it. You must make allowances. There has been no time for—love-making—in my life.”

“There’s time now,” he said, and again she heard in his voice the note of triumph that had so deeply disquieted her. “It’s not a bit of good trying to run away at this stage. You’re caught before you start.”

“Ah!” she said.

He held her fast. “Do you realize that?”

She was silent.

He held her faster still. “Frances! Put your arms round my neck and tell me—tell me you are mine!”

She shrank, hiding her face more deeply. He had lulled her distrust, but he had not gained her confidence.

“You won’t?” he said.

“I can’t,” she whispered back.

He felt for her face and turned it upwards. “You will presently,” he said, and bending, kissed her, holding her lips with his till she broke free with a mingled sense of shame and self-reproach.

“What is it?” he said, watching her, and she thought his face hardened. “You have changed since yesterday. Why?”

She laid a pleading hand upon his arm. Yes, she had changed; she could not deny it. But she could not tell him why.

“I think we have been—rather headlong,” was all she found to say.

And at that he laughed, easily, cajoling her. “Well, we’ve gone too far to pull up now. Perhaps it will be a lesson to you next time, what? But no more of your will-o’-the-wisp performances on this occasion, O lady mine! We’ll play the game, and as we have begun, so we will go on.”

He kissed her again, and his kiss was almost a challenge.

“Don’t you realize that I love you?” he said. “Do you think I am going to lie awake all night for you, and then not hold you in my arms when we meet?”

He laughed as he uttered the question, but it had a passionate ring. His lean, sunburnt face had a drawn look that oddly touched her pity. She was even moved to compunction.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I thought—perhaps—it was just—a passing fancy.”

“My fancies don’t pass like that,” said Montague.

He spoke almost moodily, as if she had hurt him, and again her heart smote her.

“I am beginning to understand,” she said. “But—you must give me time. We hardly know each other yet.”

“That is soon remedied,” he said. “I warn you, I am not a very patient person. There is nothing to wait for that I can see.”

“Oh, we must wait,” she said. “We must wait.”

He broke again into that odd laugh of his. “We won’t wait. Life is too short.” He stooped again to kiss her. “You amazing woman!” he said. “Do you really prefer stones to bread?”

She could not answer him. He had her defeated, powerless. She had no weapons with which to oppose him. But still deep in her heart, the doubt and the wonder remained. Was this indeed love that had come to her? If so, why was she thus afraid?

Yet she met his lips with her own, for somehow he made her feel that she owed it to him.

“That’s better,” he said, when he suffered her to go again. “Now, what are your plans? Are you still wanting to go to Fordestown?”

She hesitated. “You say it is a long way?”

“It’s miles,” he said. “You are right out of your way. What made you wander up here?”

“They told me it was a short cut across the moor,” she said.

He laughed. “Ah! These short cuts! Well, what are you going to do?”

She looked at him, “Do you know—I haven’t had anything to eat all day—not since breakfast?”

“Good heavens!” he said. “You’ve been wandering about the moor starving all this time?”

She smiled. His concern touched her. Not for years had anyone expressed any anxiety for her welfare.

“Not wandering about much,” she said. “I got as far as this this morning, and then, while I was considering which way to go, I fell asleep.” She glanced about her uneasily. “Do you think this fog is going to get any worse?”

“Oh no!” he said lightly. “It’s nothing. They often come up like this in the evening. But look here! I can’t have you starving. We had better make for Fordestown after all.”

“But—is it far?” She still hesitated. “Do you know the way?”

“I know the direction. I can’t say how far it is. But it is nearer than Brookside. There is a fairly decent inn there. I am staying there myself.”

“Oh!” she said with relief. “Then if we can only get there, you can motor me back to Brookside.”

“The point is to get there,” said Montague.

“But you know the direction. Do let us start before it gets any worse! I am quite rested.”

She spoke urgently, for he seemed inclined to linger. He turned at once.

“Yes. You must be famished. This is the way.”

He drew her hand through his arm with decision and began to lead her up one of the sandy tracks.

The mist closed like smoke about them, and Frances felt it wet upon her face. “We seem to be in the clouds,” she said.

“I think we are,” said Montague.

“You are sure we are going right?” she said.

He laughed at her. “Of course we are going right. Don’t you trust me?”

Trust him! The words sent a curious sensation through her. Did she trust him? Had she ever—save for that strange, delirious hour last night really trusted him? She murmured something unintelligible, for she could not answer him in the affirmative. And Montague laughed again.

Looking back upon that walk later, it seemed to her that they must have covered miles. It was not easy going. The track was rough, sometimes stony, sometimes overgrown. She stumbled often from weariness and exhaustion; and still they went on endlessly over the moor. Always they seemed to be going uphill, and always the mist grew thicker. Here and there they skirted marshy ground, splashing through puddles of black water, and hearing the sound of running streams close at hand but invisible in the ever-thickening mist.

It began to grow dark, and at last Frances became really anxious. They had not spoken for a long time, merely plodding on in silent discomfort, when abruptly she gave voice to her misgivings.

“I am sure we are wrong. This path leads to nowhere.”

“It leads to Fordestown,” he declared stubbornly, “if you keep on long enough.”

“I don’t think I can keep on much longer,” she said.

“I told you it was miles,” said Montague.

She heard the sullen note in his voice, and her heart sank. Progress was becoming increasingly difficult. Very soon they would not be able to see the path.

She stood still suddenly, obedient to an inner urging that would not be denied. “Oh, let us go back!” she said.

He pressed her arm to his side with sharp insistence and drew her on. “Don’t be ridiculous! Do you want to spend the night in the open moor?”

“It is what I am afraid of,” she said desperately. “If we go back we can at least find the way back eventually to Brookside. But this—oh, this is hopeless!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” he said again. “It is just possible that we have taken a wrong turn in this infernal fog, but it’s bound to lead to somewhere. There are no roads in England that don’t.”

She yielded to him, feeling she had no choice. But her alarm was increasing with every step she took. It seemed to her that they were actually beginning to climb one of the tors! Now and again, they stumbled against boulders, dimly seen. And it was growing very cold. The drifting fog had turned to rain. Her feet had been wet for some time, and now her clothes were clinging about her, heavy with damp. She felt chilled to the bone, and powerless—quite powerless—to do anything but go whither she was led.

It was as if her will-power were temporarily in abeyance. This man was her master, and she had no choice but to obey his behests. She began to move as one in a dream, dimly counting her halting footsteps, vaguely wondering how many more she would accomplish.

And then quite suddenly she seemed as it were to reach a point where endurance snapped. She pitched forward, against his supporting arm.

“I can’t go—” she cried out—“I can’t go—any further.”

He caught her as she fell. She was conscious of the brief physical comfort afforded by the warmth of his body as he held her. Then, oddly, over her head she heard him speak as if addressing someone beyond her. “That settles it,” he said. “It’s not my fault.”

She knew that he lowered her to the ground, still holding her, and began to rub her numbed and powerless hands.

CHAPTER IX
THE LIONS’ DEN

“From all evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil” . . .

Someone was saying the words. Frances opened her eyes upon blank darkness, and knew that her own lips had uttered them. She was lying in some sort of shelter, though how she had come thither she had no notion. The rain was beating monotonously upon a roof of corrugated iron. She lay listening to it, feeling helpless as a prisoner clamped to the wall. And then another voice spoke in the darkness, and her heart stood still.

“That’s right. You’re better. Gad, what a fright you gave me! Now do stop raving! You’re only tired and a bit faint.”

“I am not—raving,” she said. “I am only—I am only—” Again without her conscious volition she knew herself to be uttering those words she had heard: “From all evil, and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil—” She paused a moment, groping as it were for more, then:—“Good Lord, deliver us!” she said, and it was as if her soul were speaking in the darkness.

“Frances!” a voice cried sharply, and she stopped, stopped even her breathing, to listen. “Stop talking that absurd rot! Be sensible! Try to be sensible!”

“I am only—praying,” she said.

“Well, don’t! It isn’t the time for saying prayers. I want you to attend to me. You know what has happened?”

His voice sounded curt and imperious. She peered into the darkness, wishing she could see his face.

“I don’t know,” she made answer wonderingly. “How should I know?”

“I brought you here,” he said. “You fainted.”

“How stupid of me!” she murmured apologetically.

“It was rather.” His voice was grim. “But you’ve got back your senses, and for heaven’s sake keep them! This is just an old cattleshed on the moors and it’s all the shelter we shall get to-night.”

“Oh!” said Frances, and in her voice dismay and relief were strangely mingled. “It was better than the open moor. But yet—but yet——”

He spoke again with a species of humorous ruefulness. “Here we are, and here we’ve got to stay! That damned fog has defeated us. We can’t hope to move before morning.”

“I wish we had a light,” said Frances.

She was gradually getting a grasp of the situation, and though her body felt oddly heavy and her head strangely light, her wits were recovering their customary business-like balance.

“I have got a few matches,” said Montague. “Also a few cigarettes. Afraid it’s useless to attempt a fire. We should only smoke ourselves out—and possibly fire the shed as well. The only comfort we have got is a little hay, and you are lying on it.”

“Where are you?” she said.

“Here!” A hand suddenly touched her, and she started with involuntary shrinking. A great shivering came over her, and for a space she struggled to control her chattering teeth.

“You are cold,” he said.

“Yes,—dreadfully cold. But never mind! It—it’s better than being out in the open, isn’t it? You have no idea where we are?”

“I lost my way,” he said moodily.

She reached out to him a trembling hand, and realized that he was standing propped against the wall beside her. He stooped quickly, grasping her cold fingers.

“Frances, we’ve got to face it. You may as well give in to circumstances. We’re both of us helpless.”

His voice had an odd urgency. It was as if he pleaded with her.

“Oh, I quite realize that,” she said, and she strove to force a practical note into her reply. “We’ve been very unlucky, but what can’t be cured must be endured. We shall come through it somehow.”

She would have removed her hand, despite the physical reluctance to relinquish the warmth of his, but he held it fast.

“You don’t want me to go?” he said.

“Oh no!” she returned briskly. “I am not so selfish and unreasonable as that. We must just make the best of it. We must just—just——”

She broke off. Her teeth were chattering again, and in the effort to check them, she forgot the words she was trying to utter.

She felt him bend lower, and found him kneeling by her side. “It’s no good offering you my coat,” he said. “There’s no warmth in it. Besides, it’s wet through. But I’m not going to let you die of cold for all that—just for the sake of an idiotic convention. Frances—sweetheart—I’m going to hold you in my arms.”

Fear stabbed her—sharp and agonizing. “Oh no!” she said, and drew herself back from him. “Not here! Not now!”

Her hand remained locked in his, but he paused.

“Why not here—and now?” he said.

She gasped her quivering answer. “Because—because—I am not sure if I have done right in—in letting you make love to me. I have not been sure—all day.”

“You don’t love me?” he questioned.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t—possibly—know yet.”

“But you knew yesterday,” he said.

“Ah, yesterday!” The word came almost with a cry. “I was mad yesterday,” she said.

“Why mad?” he reasoned. “My dear, listen to me! Here we are—far away from everywhere—miles away from civilized society. What does it matter—what can it matter—if we throw aside these idiotic conventions just for one night? You know in your heart that it doesn’t matter one jot.”

“It does matter,” she gasped back painfully, still striving vainly to free the hand he held so closely. “It does matter.”

“That means you don’t trust me,” he said.

“I would if I could,” she made desperate answer. “But—but——”

“But—” he echoed grimly, and let her go.

She heard him get up from his knees, and breathed a sigh of thankfulness.

A moment later there came the rasp of a match and a sudden glare in the darkness. Her eyes turned instinctively, though dazzled, to the light. She saw his face, and again instinctively she shrank. For in the eyes that sought her own there burned a fire that seemed to consume her.

He was lighting a cigarette. He looked at her above it, and his look held a question she dared not answer. Again a terrible shivering caught her. The light went out, and she covered her face.

The man spoke no further word. He smoked his cigarette in the darkness till presently it was finished, and then he threw down the glowing end and ground it under his heel.

The silence between them, like the darkness, was such as could be felt. Only the drip, drip of the rain sounded—oddly metallic, like the tolling of a distant bell.

Frances sat huddled against the wall, not moving, not able to move. Her heart was beating with dull, irregular strokes, and her fear had died down. Perhaps she was too exhausted to be actively afraid. A sense of unreality had descended upon her. She had the feeling of one in a dream. Though from time to time violent shivers caught her, yet she was scarcely aware of them. Only now and then the cold seemed to pierce her like a knife that reached her very soul.

And when that happened she always found herself repeating in broken phrases the prayer which no conscious effort brought to her lips. “From all evil and mischief—from sin—from the crafts—and assaults—of the devil—” Sometimes she thought it was the Bishop reciting the words, but she always realized in the end that she was saying them herself, and wondered—and wondered—why she said them.

Her impressions grew blurred at last. She must have dozed, for suddenly—as one returning from a long distance—she started to the sound of her name, and realized Montague once more—Montague whom she had forgotten.

With a great start she awoke to find herself in his arms. She made an instinctive effort to free herself but he held her to his breast, and she was too numbed to resist.

“I can’t stand it,” he said. “I can’t stand by and let you die. Frances, you are mine. Do you hear? You are mine. Whatever comes of it, I’m not going to let you go again!”

She heard the rising passion in his voice. It was like a goad, pricking her to action. For a few seconds she lay passive, waiting as it were for strength. All her life she was to remember the strange calm of those waiting moments. She was as one ship-wrecked and in appalling danger, yet in some fashion aware of rescue drawing near.

And then quite suddenly deliverance came; she knew not how nor stayed to question whence. She realized only the presence of a power beyond her own, uplifting her, succouring her. She put away the arms that sought to hold her, and even as she did so, there came a sound beyond the dripping of the rain—the sound of a child’s voice singing a little tuneless song to itself out in the darkness.

Frances gasped and uttered a cry. “Is that you, child? Is that you?”

The song ceased. A child’s voice made reply. “Is that the pretty lady who gives me flowers?”

They could not see her, but she was close to them. She had entered the shed and stood before them.

“I dreamt I would find you here,” she said. “It was Daniel in the lions’ den at first, then it was you. Why are you in here?”

Frances was on her feet. The man behind her never stirred.

“I have lost my way, little darling,” she said. “How did you get here in the dark?”

“I don’t know the dark,” said the child. “What is dark?”

Frances groping, touched and held a small figure standing before her. “Can you take me back, Rosebud?” she said.

A tiny hand, full of confidence, found and clasped her own. “I will take you to Tetherstones,” said the child.

They went out together, hand in hand, into the dripping darkness.