Halfway House: A Comedy of Degrees

by Maurice Hewlett

BOOK II

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I
IN WHICH WE PAY A FIRST VISIT TO SOUTHOVER

The house—Southover House, Farlingbridge, Berks—stands terraced above formal gardens in the Italian taste; ribbony borders, edged with white stone, form a maze of pattern. Urns on pedestals, statues of nymphs and fauns, stone seats, stone cisterns, gleam among the carpeted flowers. Beyond these is the great park, with a wall (they tell me) six miles round. The herd of fallow deer is praised by Cotton in his famous book. Mr. Germain used to show you the passage.

The mansion, built by Wyatt, is classical; an exact rectangle of pink brick faced with Bath stone. It has a pediment and a balustrade, with white statues at intervals along the garden front. Within, it is extremely proper, having narthex and atrium, or, if you please, vestibule and hall. The reception rooms open out of this last, and above it a gallery gives on to the chambers, about whose doors the valets are to be seen collected at seven-thirty or so of an evening. They wait for their masters, while they observe and comment in monosyllabic undertones upon the doings of their betters below. Surprising how much a man-servant can get into how little. From April to June, from September to November, the hall is used for tea and after-dinner lounging. It is the core and heart of the house. During the summer months tea should be on the terrace unless Nature is willing to see Mr. Germain vexed; in wintertime it is always in the little library where the Murillo hangs.

I choose the time of tulips for our visit, when Southover has had a new mistress for two years come the fall of the leaf. The family, as they say down here, has been abroad this year; has not long returned. It went to the Riviera directly after Christmas, to Mentone; was in Rome in February, and studying churches in the Rhone valley in March. It Eastered in Seville, going thither by Barcelona and Granada, and came home by Madrid and Paris. Now it is mid-May, and the Italian gardens glitter with tulips. Tea is served, according to custom, in the hall at a quarter before five. The footman on duty—his service passed by the butler—has retired, but the statelier functionary stands at his post, tapping his teeth with a corkscrew. The hour is now five—gone five. Silver chimes have proclaimed it to an empty hall. There he stands, a solemn, florid personage, full of cares, regarding in an abstracted manner the glittering array of covered dishes, cups, and covered jugs. Now and again he adjusts a teaspoon, now and again humours a spirit-flame. At a quarter past five Mr. Germain enters the hall from the library, his secretary, young Mr. Wilbraham, at his heels.

The butler, with a careful hand, placed a rack containing three triangles of toast upon a little table. He poured a cup of chocolate from a porcelain jug, and added that to the feast. The afternoon’s post, upon a salver, was held for Mr. Wilbraham. These things done, he waited until Mr. Germain was in his deep-seated chair. “The ladies are not returned, Sir,” he said, and went his noiseless way.

Mr. Germain, who looked white and had faded eyes, munched his toast in silence. Young Mr. Wilbraham, quick, gentlemanly, pleasantly alert, demolished envelopes and their contents while he ate muffin. Three or four letters he handed to his patron.

“Those look to me personal,” he said. Mr. Germain, having adjusted his pince-nez, inspected the envelopes and put them unopened into his pocket. Toast-munching was resumed, and silence. Once or twice Mr. Germain looked at his watch, once compared it with the hall-clock, but made no other sign.

Wilbraham poured more tea, spread himself honeycomb on bread and butter, and went on with his letters. He broke the silence. “The Association has written again to know whether you have decided. They hope you will come forward. Sir Gregory has gone to Madeira. They say, he’s quite made up his mind.”

Mr. Germain blinked solemnly at space, without reply.

“And I’ve a note here from Mr. Jess—rather, from his secretary. There was a meeting at the Reform on Monday. Your name was mentioned. Mr. Jess hopes that he hasn’t been indiscreet. He referred to the possibility.”

Mr. Germain, without turning his head or ceasing to munch, asked here, Who was Mr. Jess’s private secretary.

“Duplessis,” said brisk Mr. Wilbraham, adding, as if to himself,

“Clever beggar.” After a pause Mr. Germain got up.

“I shall rest for a little, Wilbraham. We will consider these things before dinner. Meantime I will ask you to remember that they are between you and me. Strictly so.”

“Oh, of course! Quite understood,” the friendly young man nodded.

The master of the house had his hand on the library door when a step on the flags of the vestibule caused him to look quickly round. There was a moment during which he could have been observed to hold his breath in suspense. A tall and sumptuously fair lady, free-moving, deep-bosomed, robed in white—all her dresses robed her—came into the hall. She wore a broad-brimmed Tuscan hat, which set about her like a halo, and carried flowers. This was the Honourable Hertha de Speyne, the last of the Cantacutes.

Mr. Germain turned away from his refuge and stood attentive; Wilbraham jumped to the upright.

“Shall I have in some more tea?” he asked at large. “This has been here since five.”

“Not for me,” said Miss de Speyne. “I hate it. But the others are coming. I saw them in the bottom. They’ve been on the lake, I think.”

“And you?” This was from Mr. Germain, with a courtly inclination.

“Oh, I’ve been painting, of course.”

“Happily, I hope.”

“Miserably. Deplorably. I’ve scraped out everything, and come away at least with a clean canvas. Few painters can say as much of a day’s work.”

“Few would confess it.”

“Ah, I’ve been taught the blessing of an uncharged heart. Mr. Senhouse taught me that last year. What I was trying to do was perfectly impossible. One knows too much; one has botany, flower-shows, catalogues behind one. Fields of asphodel! But suppose you had been shown how asphodel grows?”

“Have I fields of asphodel here?” Mr. Germain looked his polite misgivings.

“You have a glade of Poets’ narcissus—like a Swiss valley. Mr. Senhouse could have done it—an Impressionist. It’s not for me. I see them stiff in vases; I know that they have stalks.”

“So, surely, does Mr. Senhouse.”

“Indeed he does. He knows that they have souls. But he’s ruthless with his brushes; he forgets their souls, and his own science.”

“And you——?”

“I’m so proud of mine that I could never forget it.” She looked out into the vestibule, to the sunlight beyond. “Here comes Mary. Do get some tea for them,” she urged Wilbraham—who flew to the bell.

Mr. Germain remained where he was—long enough to see his wife’s eyes dilate at the sight of him there, long enough to hear the laugh falter upon her lips; and then he turned and slowly gained the library. He shut the door behind him. Mrs. Germain, with a high colour and gleam of light in her fine eyes, came quickly to the tea-table. She was followed by two young men in flannels—self-possessed, assured, curt-spoken young men with very smooth heads.

“Oh, we’re dreadfully late!” she cried. “Hertha, have you been in long? Have you had everything?” In a much lower key she asked, “Has—was—he here when you——?”

Miss de Speyne looked kindly at her friend. “He was just going when I came in; but he stayed and entertained me. It was awfully kind of him. I know he’s very tired.”

Mary stood by the tea-table, fidgeting a cup by the handle. She looked uncomfortable. “I’m frightfully sorry. Hertha, I meant to be in by a quarter to five.”

“It’s all right, you know,” said one of the young men—the youngest of them—lengthily at ease in a chair. “You’re only an hour slow. I call that good.”

She made no answer, but went on fidgeting the teacup. The entry of butler and footman with supplies did not move her.

Young Lord Gunner stood to his muffin, and confidently explained:

“It’s my fault, you must know. I was diving after half-crowns—and getting ’em, too.”

“He was though,” said Mr. Chaveney from his chair. “I ought to know. They were my half-crowns.”

“Well then, of course, I had to change. I’m not a mermaid, as it happens.”

“Not yet, my boy,” said the loser of half-crowns.

“So I sent a chap up for my chap with some things, and changed in the châlet. That’s why we’re late, if you must know.”

Miss de Speyne was pouring out tea. “I see. And the others reckoned up their losses——”

“Words to that effect,” said Mr. Chaveney.

Lord Gunner put down his cup. “Don’t know what they did. But I’ve brought them safe to port. Wilbraham, I’ll play you squash rackets before dinner. It’ll do you good. You’re overdoing it, you know, and you’re not used to it. You’ll get a hemorrhage or a nervous breakdown, and we shall have to give you a rest-cure. Chaveney shall score.”

“Can’t,” said Mr. Chaveney. “Ordered my trap. My people are going to take me out to dinner. They won’t be denied.”

“England hath need of him,” said Wilbraham. “Come along, Gunner. My things are in the court. I’m due at the desk at seven.”

Mr. Chaveney—very young, very fair, and very flushed, with long and light eyelashes—was now at the piano. He swayed as he played.

“Do you like that?” he said, looking at Mrs. Germain, who was still pensive. “It’s ‘Carmen.’”

“Beg pardon,” said Lord Gunner. “It sounded like Chaveney.” The youth ran up a scale.

“Go and play rackets, Gunner, and leave me to my art. I’m going.”

“He’ll stay to dine—you see if he don’t,” was Lord Gunner’s passing shot. He was answered by a crashing chord.

Miss de Speyne, regarding the pianist’s back, said in a gentle voice, “He’s in the library. You’d better go to him for a minute.”

Mrs. Germain had the knack of making her eyes wide and round so that you got the full-orbed splendour of their brown light. “I expect he’s asleep. I’ll see him before dinner.” Her friend shook her head.

“He’s walking up and down. He’ll rest after you have been.”

“Do you think so—really?”

“I’m sure. You had better go.” Mrs. Germain stayed no longer, but went quickly, holding her head stiff.

She stood in the doorway of the library, inside the closed door, a charming figure for all her anxious eyes. She was in blue linen, with a wide straw hat; was sunburnt and fresh, looked ridiculously young. Mr. Germain paused in his pacing of the long carpet and waited for her to speak—which presently she did, rather breathlessly.

“Oh,” she said, “I was afraid you might be resting, or I should have come——”

He shut his eyes for a moment. “No. It is not possible just now,—nor desirable. I have much to think of.”

She went quickly to him and held out her hand a little way. “Aren’t you well? May I stay with you? I meant to have been in early, but——”

“But it was not convenient, you would say?”

“No, not that. I couldn’t get them to leave the water. They were absurd—like children. One was throwing money in for the other to dive after. I did try—but they went on just the same. Did you expect—did you want me? I promise you that I tried to come. I tried hard.”

Something of the sort had been what his self-esteem exacted of her; something of the sort must have been tendered him or he had been really ill. He was now softened, he smiled, took up her offered hand. “My little love,” he said, drew her near and kissed her forehead. For a moment she urged towards him, but then, having glanced timidly up and seen his averted eyes, she sighed and looked to the floor, her hand still held.

He led her to his escritoire, put a chair for her beside it, and sat in his own. “Constantia writes to me, Mary, that she and James would like us to pay them a visit—in July, as usual. What do you say?”

She considered this for some moments. Her head was bent towards her hands in her lap; she looked at her weaving fingers—a habit of hers. “That would be to the Rectory, I suppose?”

“Obviously,” said Mr. Germain. “You will remember that it was a yearly custom of mine.” She had every reason to remember it; but he must hear her say so. “You will not have forgotten that, Mary?”

“No! Oh, no! Of course I haven’t.” She looked at him for a moment—trouble in her eyes and flame in her cheeks.

“Last year,” he resumed, “I had Southover to show you—and there were reasons why I should not take you back so soon. This year there could be no such reason. I think that you might be pleased to see Misperton again; more particularly since you and Hertha de Speyne have struck up such a happy friendship. She is a noble young creature in every way; nothing could have pleased me more. Constantia will, of course, write to you; but, being my sister-in-law and happening to have other matters of which to speak, she mentioned it to me in the first event. I can assure you that there has been no want of respect——”

She flashed him another reproachful look—reproachful, not that he should think her offended, but that he should pretend to think her so. “Oh, of course not! How could you imagine such a thing? It is absurd—really absurd.”

He made no reply, was evidently waiting for her decision. She gave it reluctantly. “We will go, if you wish it,” she said.

He was immediately piqued. “That is hardly cordial, is it? I am not sure that I should, or could, wish it, on those terms.”

She had reasons of her own for disliking it extremely; but she kept her counsels in these days. “I will tell you exactly how I feel, if you will be patient with me,” she said. “I am sure that the Rector would be glad to have me there with you; and of course Hertha would like it. If there was nobody else I should love to go. I shall remember Misperton as long as I live. Wonderful things happened to me there; don’t think that I can forget them for an hour. But Mrs. James—Constantia, I mean—doesn’t like me at all. Why should we disguise it? She disapproves of me, doesn’t trust me, thinks me a nobody—which I am, of course——”

“I beg your pardon, my love—” he would have stopped her; but she saw what in particular had offended him, and ran on.

“I am your wife, I know. But I am a person, too; and I own that I would rather be with people who—who respect me for what I am in myself, as well as for what you have made me. Forgive me for saying so; it is rather natural, I think. And it happens that I should like to see my parents again, and my sisters. It is six months since I was at Blackheath. So that would be an opportunity, and a reason—while you were at the Rectory.”

“You wish me to go there alone?” She could guess at the scalding spot beneath his armour-plate.

“I should love to go with you,” she said, “if—if it could be managed.”

“I may mention to you,” he said coldly, “that you will not find an old acquaintance there. Since his mother’s death my young relative, Tristram Duplessis, has bestirred himself. He has sold the cottage.”

She had not been prepared for an attack in flank, and blenched before it. Then she told her fib. “My reason against going with you had nothing to do with Mr. Duplessis,” she said; and, watching her, he did not believe her.

He turned to his papers. “It shall be as you wish, my love,” he said. “I will write to Constantia. It may well be that I shall not care to resume a broken habit. Are you going up to dress? If so, and if you should happen to see Wilbraham, would you tell him that I am ready?”

She hovered about his studious back, as if on the brink of speech; but thought better of it and went slowly out of the room. Intensely conscious of her going, he cowered at his desk, looking sideways—until he heard the door close. Then he began to read, with lips pressed close together.

In the hall Mrs. Germain almost ran into the arms of Wilbraham, who, scarlet in the face and wet as with rain, was racing to his room.

“By jove, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Germain!”

“You only made me jump,” she laughed. “Have you been playing all this time?”

“I know, I know! It was Gunner’s fault, upon my honour.”

“It always is Lord Gunner’s fault. Mr. Germain asked me to tell you that he was ready.”

“Good Lord!” cried the unhappy youth. “And I’m sw—as hot as anything.”

“Go and change,” she said kindly. “I’ll go back to him.”

He was fervent. “You are an angel! But I’ve told you that before.” Their eyes met; they laughed together. He pelted upstairs.

“Mr. Wilbraham will be with you in a second,” she said, entering the library again. Had she seen him spring round as she came in? No doubt of it. “I left my book down by the lake—and I know you don’t like that. Do you?”

“No, dearest, no. I confess the foible.” His eyes invited her nearer. She advanced to his table and stood by him, her hand touched his shoulder. He was inordinately happy, though he made no immediate sign. But presently his arm went about her waist, and then she bent down and leaned her cheek for his kiss. They remained together, saying nothing, until she heard Wilbraham coming down, three stairs at a time. Then she slipped away and just caught him outside the door.

“I had to tell a fib,” she told him. “I said that I had left my book by the lake.”

“Well!” He looked at her. “I’ll bet that’s not a fib.”

“No,” she laughed. “But it was meant to be. Now I’m going to get it myself.”

“You are an angel!” he said. “Don’t. I’ll go presently. I should love to.”

“No. I shall go myself. I deserve it.”

“You deserve—!” He stopped himself. “Look here,” he said, “send Gunner. No, he’s changing. Send young Chaveney.”

She opened her eyes—fatal use! “Is Mr. Chaveney here? I thought he said——”

Wilbraham chuckled. “Did you suppose he’d go when it came to the point? Not he! Why, before we’d played half a set he came to borrow some clothes off me.”

He glided smoothly into the library. Mrs. Germain fetched her book.

II
REFLECTIONS ON HONEYMOONS AND SUCHLIKE

The years fly, we know, and come not again, and there’s balm in that for the wounds they leave. For we forget a good deal, and Hope is a faithful lover, and never quits us for long together; and then there’s honest Use-and-Wont, surely our friend. Because you were a fool yesterday, you’re wise to-day; and if you’re a fool to-morrow—why, the alternation is established. There’s a progression; it is like the rotation of crops.

There’s a mort of healing in a brace of longish years. The county, which had found little Mrs. Germain stiff when she came home from her honeymoon, now looked to her for stiffness when it felt relaxed. Her idiosyncrasy was accepted, you see; once admitted to be a person, she became a personage. And, discovered by the county, she discovered herself. She found out that she had a character; she had never known that before, nor had any others who had had to do with her: Mrs. James, to wit, Miss de Speyne, her husband. The process of these discoveries ought to entertain us for a chapter, and its resolution shall be attempted. But the county learned it first, when it came to rely upon her stiffness. The Chaveneys, the Gerald Swetebredes, the Trevor-Waynes, the Perceforest people, before the two years were over, forgot that they had ever eyed each other, with brows inquiring “Colonial?” or spelling “Hopeless, my dear!” Such looks had passed, but now, on the contrary, they leaned—some heavily. Lady Chaveney was one. “She is charming with Guy,” she said more than once, “quite charming. An influence—in the nicest way.” She added, once, as if the news was sacred, “I believe he’s told her everything.” Guy was the Chaveney heir, the florid, assured youth whom we met just now on our visit; he had been pronounced “wild” by Mr. Germain; and he had told her everything. She took herself quite seriously with Guy, in the elder-sister fashion, Mr. Germain, at first approving, as, at first, he had approved every sign of her making way. He came, before the end of two years, to feel differently, lost touch with the sense of his benevolence, felt to be losing grip of many things. But in the early days he had approved, there’s no doubt—in those days of stress and taut nerves when, returning from a honeymoon by much too long, she had found Mrs. James pervading the great, orderly house, and had, without knowing it, braced herself for a tussle, and unawares found herself in it, and amazingly the winner. Her husband had backed her up there, in his quiet way. Short, quick, breathless work it had been—a fight in spasms. She had been crossing the hall when the great lady came out of the Little Library.

“Ah, Mary—A Mrs. Burgess has called, I see—wife of some one in Farlingbridge. She called while you were out. A politeness very natural under the circumstances—but not the custom here, I think. Lady Diana, I happen to know, never—I suppose you will send cards by the carriage. That would answer the purpose very well. We have never known the townspeople, you know—in that sort of way. There is a tenants’ party in the summer. They come to that.”

Mary had listened. She was pale, but her eyes smouldered.

“I can’t do that, Mrs. Germain. I mean, I must return the call.”

“Ah? It will be against my recommendation.”

“I am very sorry. I asked Mrs. Burgess to call when I met her the other day at Waysford.”

“Really? Waysford? One would meet her there, I suppose. A Sale of Work?”

“Yes. But I asked her to call upon me. It was kind of her to come so soon.”

Mrs. James pressed her lips together. So soon! Why, the woman would fly! “Does my brother know of this, may I ask?”

“I don’t know,” said Mary, out of breath. She was scared, but meant to go on.

“It will be better that he should be told.”

“If you think it will interest him—yes,” Mary said, and went upstairs—to stare out of window, clench and unclench her hands. Mrs. James reported the case to her brother-in-law, and Mary drove, the next day, to Farlingbridge—her husband with her—and returned the call. Nothing more was said; nor, when the visit of a Colonel Dermott, V.C., and his lady, townspeople, too, had to be witnessed, was a word of warning uttered. But Mrs. James left within a fortnight of her rout, staying only for the first dinner-party at Southover. That was how she learned that Mary Middleham had character. It shocked her; and it was annoying, too, that she could expect no sympathy from James.

The house-parties for the winter shooting, and those dinner-parties for the county had to be gone through with somehow. She set herself squarely to the task, and was glad enough to believe towards the end of her two years that she was learning the business. There was little to do, indeed, but be agreeable, but she found that more than enough. Agreeable she could be when she felt happy; her nature was as sweet as an apple. But if she felt hurt she must show it, and she discovered that that was a cardinal sin. Then there was the language to master, the queer, impertinent, leisurely laconics of these people—expensive, perfectly complacent, incredibly idle young men, old men without reticence, airy, free-spoken women, and girls who unaffectedly ignored her. To cope with such as these she must be even as they were, or seem so. The quickness of their give-and-take in conversation, the ripple and flow, the ease of the thing, asked an alertness of her which excited while it tried her to death. Perpetually flagging at the game, she spurred herself perpetually; for she discovered that there is no more deadly sin in the code than an awkward pause, that being all of a piece with the end and aim of living—which is smooth running. A woman should die sooner than drop a conversation, or murder it.

She was at her best with the men, as perhaps she might expect. She could run, she could walk all day, chatter, laugh outright, seem to be herself; they paid her the compliment of approving looks. But among the women she knew that she must be herself, a very different thing. She felt infinitely small, ill-dressed, ill-mannered, clumsy, and a dunce. It was from them, however, that she gained her reputation of being stiff; she had them to thank for that. It had come to her in a flash of spirit one day in the summer of her first year, that if ignoring was in the wind, she could ignore with the best. She chose to ignore Mrs. Chilmarke, Mrs. Ralph Chilmarke, a beauty, a dainty blonde and a wit. She did it steadily for three days, at what a cost she could never have guessed when she began it, and her reward was great. Mrs. Chilmarke respected her for it, and the Duchess—a duchess was in the house—was frankly delighted, and said so. She had watched out the match, and had backed the brune.

Under such exertions as these character will out, while it may slumber through years of pedagogy. But she worked hard at her lessons directly she had found out what she wanted, and was tolerably equipped for her tour in France and Italy when the time came. She made no way with Latin—Mr. Germain had to give that up; and English literature made her yawn. She insisted on botany, for reasons unknown to the good gentleman, and became great friends with the head gardener, a Scotchman, who made the initial mistake of supposing her a little fool, and was ever afterwards her obedient servant. Shall we do wrong in putting this study down to Senhouse’s credit? I think not. Quietly and methodically, after a method all her own, Mary Germain began to find herself, as they say. But before she did that her husband had to find her; and he, poor gentleman, who had had to begin upon their wedding day, was at the end of his discoveries before he was at the end of his honeymoon. So far he struggled, but after that he suffered—dumbly and in secret, within his plate armour. The fact is, there had been too much honeymoon. His evident discomfort had made her self-conscious, killed her ease, threatened her gratitude—upon which he had proposed to subsist—and turned him from an improbable mate into a rather unsuccessful father of his wife.

October is a bad time for honeymoons; the evenings are so long. Nevertheless, at Torquay, her mind had been fairly easy about him. He had liked the hotel. At Saltcombe he had been pretty miserable, much on her conscience. He had taught her chess, it seems, and if she had known what she was about, chess might have done pretty well. But unfortunately she took to chess, and began to beat him at it by audacious combinations and desperate sallies quite unwarranted by science. That vexed him sadly. He abandoned the game, telling her frankly that he could not help being irritated to see skill out-vailed by temerity. “One plays, you see, my love, for the pleasure of playing, not to win. That is the first condition of a pastime.” She told him she was very sorry, and he kissed her. But after that Villiers used to lay newspapers and reviews on the sitting-room table while they were dining. She consoled herself with the remembrance of that kiss on the lips; it was nearly the last of them. He selected her forehead, from Saltcombe onwards, or her cheek. From Saltcombe they went down into Cornwall—Truro, Penzance, Sennen, St. Ives. There it was that she learned to be happy in her own company. She spent hours alone, scrambling among the rocks, watching the sea.

Her life was filling, her vistas opening. This was great gain, to feel the triumph of discovery. She had never been so far afield before, and the wild splendours of rocks and seas made her at times like a thing inspired. She was amazed at herself—at the stinging blood in her which made her heart beat. She used to get up early at Sennen, steal, hatless, out of the sleeping inn, and fleet over turf to the edge of the cliffs. There she stood motionless, with unwinking eyes and parted lips, while the wind enfolded her. All was pure ecstasy; she was like a nymph—bare-bosomed, ungirdled, unfilletted, in the close arms of the Country God. From such hasty blisses she returned drowsy-eyed, glossed with rose-colour, with a sleek bloom upon her, and ministered to her husband’s needs, dressed with care, with the neatness which he loved. She sat quietly by him, hearing but not heeding his measured tones, dreaming of she knew not what, save that the dreams were lyric, and sang of freedom in her ears.

They took more tangible shape as they waxed bolder in outline and scope. There was a tumble-down white cottage on the cliff beyond the coastguard station; two rooms and a wash-house below green eaves. It faced the open sea, but lay otherwise snugly below a jutting boulder, and was so much of a piece with rock and turf that the sea-pinks had seeded in the roof and encrusted it with emerald tufts. Her fancy adorned this tenement; she saw herself there in a cotton gown, alone with wind and sea. What a life! The freedom of it, the space, the promise! Not a speck could she descry upon the fair blue field of such a life. Childlike she built upon the airy fabric, added to it, assured herself of it. Some day, some day she would be there—free! The thought made her perfectly happy; she felt her blood glow.

Mr. Germain complained of the damp Cornish air and took her to St. Ives and Newquay on the way to Southover. Once on the homeward path, he had no eyes for her in Cornwall; all his hopes were now set upon the feast he should have of her, queening it there in his hall—queen by his coronation. She, for her part, was all for lingering good-byes to her glimpses of the wild. She went obediently, but carried with her the assurance that she should see her cottage again; and by some juggling of the mind, in the picture of it which floated up before her at call, she came to see always near it the tilt-cart and its occupant, her friend of the open Common. A community down there! The tilt-cart stood in a hollow of the rocks within sound and sight of the sea; the Ghost cropped the thyme above it; Bingo ran barking out of the tent, and, seeing her, lowered his head and came wriggling for a caress. Above them all, dominant, stood her friend, bareheaded to the buffeting gale, so clearly at times that she could see the wind bellying his white trousers or flacking the points of his rolling collar. His face unfortunately was not always to be seen; a mist over it baffled her, but egged her on. For a flash, for a passing second, his bright, quizzing eyes might be upon her; she could hear the greeting of the dawn laugh from them, and feel her bosom swell as she answered it, and knew the long day before them—and every long day to come. What a comradeship that might be—what a comradeship! She came to thank God daily that she had such a friend, and to declare stoutly to herself that she had no need to see him. Friendship was independent of such needs; the necessities of touching, eyeing, speaking—what were these but fetters? Lovers might hug such chains and call them leading-strings. Poor lovers could not walk without them. But friends had their pride in each other and themselves. Each stood foursquare in the faith of his friend; the independence of each was the pride of the other. So far was she from loving Mr. Senhouse that she learned without a pang of his visit to the Cantacutes in the following summer, of his painting days with Hertha de Speyne, and was surprised at herself. It drew the two girls closer together; it gave zest to letter-writing, and brought Miss Hertha more than once to Southover. Senhouse was the presiding genius of their fireside talks; between Hertha and Senhouse Mary began to find herself—a person, with a reasonable soul in human flesh.

Her wedding-day, and the days that followed it, had dismayed the flesh; she could not be one to whom marriage was a sacred mystery, to be unveiled to piercing music. She had cried herself to sleep—once; but she cried no more. If she had been in love with her husband, even if she had ever been in love with anybody, she might have been won over by pity or by passion; but poor Mr. Germain was incapable of the second, and somewhat to her surprise she found herself unpersuaded, though she was touched, by the first. She did pity him, she pitied him deeply, but she could not help him. Esteem she gave him, gratitude, obedience, meekness, respect. But herself—after that once—never, never! For that discharging of her conscience of its poor little trivial, human load had been forced upon her by pure generosity on her part (she knew it), and had cost her an agony of shame. And it had chilled him to the bone—she had seen his passion fade before her eyes, such passion as he had. Her generosity had stultified her, played the traitor. She never taxed him with want of magnanimity, didn’t know the word—but she found herself resolute, and was as much surprised as he was. What dismay she had, as the honeymoon wore on, was brought her by her own position, not by her husband’s; that a girl such as she, with undeniable proofs to hand of her attractiveness of face and person, with experience of men and their ways, should find herself daughter to her husband! An indulged, courted, only daughter, if you please—but certainly a daughter. Here was an anti-climax, to say the least of it; and her dismay endured through the honeymoon—until Cornish cliffs gave her happier things to dream of. It disappeared as the great red flank of Southover House filled up the scene. Tussles with Mrs. James, the sweets and perils of victory, ordeals of shooting-parties, dinner-parties, household cares, and, above all, routine—such drugs as these sent her heart to sleep. By the time she had been eighteen months a wife she had forgotten that she had never been other than a maiden.

Now, what of Cratylus, poor Cratylus the mature, who, clasping his simple Mero (or Marina) to his heart, found that he had to reckon with her character first? Good, honest man, he had never supposed her to have one; and the bitter thing was that the finding of her character woke up his own. He saw himself again in full plate-armour, cowering behind it, hiding from himself as well as from the world a terrible deformity—an open sore in his self-esteem which could never be healed again, which, at every chance of her daily life, must bleed and ache. Oh, the pity of it, on how light a spring all this had depended—a hair, a gossamer! Exeter—fatal day of Exeter! He had believed himself young again. As she clung to him, half-sobbing, after dinner, he had pressed her to his bosom, called her his bride, his wife. She had not dared to look at him, had bowed her head, hidden her face in his shoulder, let him feel the trembling, the wild beating of her heart. Then her broken confessions; pitiful, pitiful! What did they amount to, when all was told? But they, and what followed upon them—his own conduct, his own curse; and her conduct, and her curse—were his nightmare. He had found out that he could not live if he must remember them. He fought, literally, for life; and after a six months’ toil had succeeded in living. He spent himself in benevolence and care, gave her everything she could want, before she asked, taught her, prayed for her, watched over her. She was never out of his thoughts—and, poor girl, without knowing it, she stabbed him deeply every day.

He had his benevolence to fall back upon. He could be King of Southover, of the Cophetua dynasty; he could dazzle her, take her breath away, and have the delight, which he had promised himself, of seeing her misty eyes and cheeks flushed with wonder. Yes, yes; but the æsthetic nerve, you see, dulls with use, and the worst of a king’s homage to a beggar maid is that the more obsequious the homage the less beggar is the maid. If you set a coronet in her hair she will blush deliciously for a week; but in two years’ time it will be there as a matter of course, put there nightly by her woman—and bang goes your joy of that. So with all the other enrichments of society, travel, book-learning. The more she had of them, the more she was able to take for herself. He who put her in the way of knowledge could not grumble if she acted upon what he had taught her. Such gifts as his destroy themselves. It had filled his eyes with tears to see his wilding in the great terraced house, to watch the little airs of dignity of matronhood, wifehood (alas, poor gentleman!) flutter about her, and, like birds, take assurance, and alight. Her cares were charming, too. It was pretty to see her knit her brows over some tough nugget of Dante’s, exquisite when she came faltering to him, coaxing for help. But then, naturally, the more help she had the less she came. It grew to be her pride to get through alone—her pride and his disaster. No. Tristram Duplessis had been wiser in his generation than he. If you love to fill a thing you must take care to keep it pretty empty. Thus it was that King Cophetua kneeled in vain. He had kneeled too low.

But there’s a balm in the passing years for Cratylus as well as for Marina. The musical clockwork of Southover, which he had promised himself, became his. He went about his duties as landlord, county magnate, patron of reasonable things, tolerably sure of a welcome home from a pair of kind brown eyes. Kisses might be his if he chose to call for them, clinging arms, a warm and grateful heart. Such things had to be his solace; and sometimes they were. And he still fought for his treasure, against all the odds, with his teeth set hard. If he had lost grip it was because her muscles were more practised. He must try another, and another, if he would whirl her in the air. He must impress her anew, prove to her that he was a man, honour-worthy and loveworthy. His ambitions were rekindled: that was the result of his musings. In the spring of the year, when the tulips blazed in the Italian gardens, and Mary Middleham had been Mary Germain for a good eighteen months, we heard him speak with young Mr. Wilbraham of Sir Gregory and the Farlingbridge division of the county. There was a chance of lighting up the wonder again in a pair of brown eyes. He hoarded the thought for the month, and by June had made up his mind. Then he broke it to his Mary. “I will gladly put my experience at the service of the country,” he told her, “and convince you, if I can, that I am not too old for a public career.” She had told him that he wasn’t old at all, and had kissed his forehead. They happened to be alone for a few days just then; so that he could draw her down to his knee and talk to her about himself, and the part she would have to play for him in London. The house in Hill-street must be reopened.

III
MATTERS OF ELECTION

The country showed the periodic symptoms the moment Parliament was dissolved; the market-place of Farlingbridge hummed with rumour. Farmers in gigs pulled up to discuss the affairs of the nation with farmers on horseback, with hedgers, ditchers, tinkers, anybody. Class flowed over class, and The Reverend Stephen Burgess, Vicar of the town, exchanged evening papers with Reverend Samuel Rock, Congregational minister. Blue and red were in the air; Mr. Germain had long sittings with young Mr. Wilbraham. Presently a deputation attended, by leave, at Southover and was received in the library. The seat was to be contested, it seemed; the Honourable Leopold Levitt intended to fight. Now would Mr. Germain fight him? In a weighed speech of twenty minutes Mr. Germain declared his loins to be girded. “Pompous old boy,” said Mr. Tom Blyth, the Liberal harness-maker, to Mr. Peake, the Liberal agent; “but he’s good enough for the Honourable Levitt.” Mr. Peake thought he was just good enough. It was to be a narrow thing, a close-run thing. The addresses of the candidates showed as much. “Those great institutions to which this country of ours—” cried the Honourable Mr. Levitt in ink. “Those institutions to which this great country of ours—” was the peroration of Mr. Germain. There was to be very little in it. Mr. Peake, the agent, said that the ladies would do the trick. The Honourable Mrs. Levitt was stout, and twenty years older than her Leopold.

The writs were out in August, the election was to be in October. Mary, who had begun to lose colour during the summer heats, grew animated again at the prospect of the bustle. She had been getting introspective, too, had been sometimes fretful, sometimes glum. She thought more than was good for her about things which could not be helped. But for a flying Sunday visit, she had not seen her own people since her wedding day; for Mr. Germain had given up Misperton once more, and seemed to dislike the notion of her leaving him at such a time as this. Here, then, was a chance for her to be useful. She told her husband that she felt sure of Farlingbridge, and when he shook his head despondent she told him why. “They like me there, you know,” she said, blushing and laughing. “I know they do; besides Mrs. Blyth told me so. Oh, and Colonel Dermott stopped me yesterday and said that you might be easy. He’ll speak for you wherever you want him.” Colonel Dermott was an introduction of hers to the penetralia of Southover; a fiery Irishman with a turn for sarcasm. What he had really said to her was that he’d go to the stake for her, but that it wouldn’t be necessary. He admired her unaffectedly.

As the campaign progressed on its roaring way Mr. Germain became conscious that greater efforts than his own were necessary. The Honourable Mr. Levitt was untiring. He drove his own drag, and seemed to have a speech on the tip of his tongue for every village green. To Mr. Germain speeches were matters of enormous preparation, literary and economic. He balanced his periods as carefully as his convictions; he polished them, gave them form; but he could not fire them, because he had no fire. “We must give it ’em hot, Mr. Germain, we must indeed,” said Peake, the agent. Mr. Germain knew very well that he gave it them cold. The charming spectacle of his young wife, in red cloth, driving her ponies in red harness, a red bow on her whip and red roses in her bosom, far from kindling him, whitened the ashes of his hearth. She was pretty, she was gay, she went again and again to the attack, and coaxed for votes as a child for sweets. One great sensation was when Guy Chaveney ratted, and wore red; another when Levitt publicly alluded to her as his “fair enemy,” and was drowned in the cheers of his own party. Colonel Dermott swept her into debate with his hand. “Here’s the lady we follow and serve, gentlemen,” and he turned to her where she sat glowing on the platform. “By the powers, gentlemen, I’d run her up to Westminster by myself,” he went on; “but we’ll share in the enterprise, if you please.” A little more of that and we were in, said Mr. Peake.

Help from on high was promised, of an exciting kind. The Right Honourable Constantine Jess, President once of the Board of Trade, now Secretary of State apparent, offered to come down and help his old friend. He offered, I assume, in such a way that he could not be refused; for his approach was announced to Mary one morning over the breakfast table, and received by her with the calmness proper to county ladies. But there had been more. “He brings Tristram, his private secretary. You remember Tristram Duplessis, Mary?”

She managed it. “Yes,” she said. “I remember him very well.”

Mrs. Hartley—Mrs. Leonard Hartley, I mean—said that she had heard him speak. He reminded her of Mirabeau. Sir James Plash had asked, “Which Mirabeau?” and driven Mrs. Leonard into a corner.

“Oh, Carlyle’s, of course!” she answered—and the talk flowed over Tristram Duplessis.

But behind her fortification of silver urns and coffee-cups, she did remember him. Her eyes wide, sombre, and brooding, made no sign. It is the prerogative of county eyes to be still, and of married eyes to be indifferent. She did not smile at her thoughts, nor betray that they were not of a smiling kind. But she felt her heart quicken its beat, knew that she was to be put to the proof, and that her husband had chosen it to be so. To the racing rhythm in her head ran the refrain, “I knew he must come. He never forgets.”

Notes must be written and answers received. His was very short:—

“Dear Mrs. Germain,—I am very glad to come and help you. Certainly, we must bring him in. Yrs. sincerely, Tr. Duplessis.” It required sharp scrutiny to read between the lines of such a letter, and sharp scrutiny was applied—more than once. She pinched her lip over it as she sat alone, and carried it with her as she walked the park—but when she found herself doing that she tore it up. “I am very glad to come and help you”; that “you” was an after-thought. “Certainly, we must bring him in”; that “we” proved it. She knew, better than most, how Tristram could imply himself in a note. He had forgotten nothing, never would forget anything. No! No more had she forgotten.

Of all her former lovers this was the one man who could cause her any disquiet, or have evoked any sensation. She could never have recalled herself as she had been, two years ago, by any other aid than his. John Rudd? Ambrose Perivale? It is doubtful if she would have known them again. Sharper memories, a sharper fragrance clung about Tristram. Of all of them, it was with him that her relations had been the least explicit; but it had been he, also, who had thereby implied the most. He was master of implication—that delicate art which leaves it to the imagination of the object to read what precisely is implied. Had Tristram implied love? She never knew: that made Tristram’s dealing so exciting. Of course he had admired her; his savage looks, as if she stung and vexed him, had assured her of that. Her presence—her near presence—seemed always to make him angry; her absence angrier still, since he always came after her, and never forgot to let her see how angry he had been. Yes, he admired her; but admired other things more, much more: his books, his scholarship, the power he had, and, vastly more, himself. He was endlessly interested in himself, only “liked” her as showing him himself in new aspects; but she accepted that as a part of him, like the cut of his clothes; and there was no doubt as to her own feeling; she had admired Tristram on this side adultary, just on this side. Tristram intended to be Somebody: he used to tell her so, in a way which made her understand that he knew her to be a little Nobody. All the same, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, or his steps from turning to where she was, or was like to be. In a sense, then, she had drawn Tristram Duplessis; and that’s an exciting thing for a little nobody to do.

If he had been her lover as well, it had been in a way of his own. He had told her often and often that he disapproved of her—of her too speaking eyes, for instance (which could and did speak in those days), of her little affairs with Dick or Tom, as to which he had given himself the trouble to be exactly informed; of her lack of ambition; and because she was a dunce. And she had laughed or blushed, or been offended—she had never been hurt; and had allowed herself to be put under the rod of his tongue, or the gibe of his eyes again and again. She thought now—with hot cheeks—that she ought to have felt herself insulted, and, with hotter cheeks, that it was doubtful even now whether she would feel herself so. To have a book thrown into her lap, with the inference that she couldn’t read it; to be kissed without leave asked, or to kiss again without notice taken—these should have insulted Mary Middleham: but would they insult Mary Germain? Tingling cheeks were no answer.

Tristram had indeed been very exciting; he had been unaccountable, arbitrary, splendid; to have attracted his scowling looks had been one of her triumphs. It had been a triumph, even, that Misperton Brand knew all about it, and that part of it had been scandalized. Yet—and for all that—thinking over it now, with his coming again so close at hand, she knew perfectly well that she had not been in love with him, and was not in love with him now. He had treated her in too lordly a fashion altogether. Dimly she could guess that love was another affair. It might be possible for a girl to worship a man as a god—but that was never love. She knew better than that now. But certainly she must confess, even now, to a tenderness for her reminiscences of Tristram, who had singled her out of a herd, watched, followed, engrossed her, and in his own morose and grudging way had seemed to be in love with her. He had known how to kiss, anyhow. As she inhaled the sharp fragrance of those days she was again excited. There had been glamour. She recalled, with a thrill, the Sunday afternoon when Mrs. James had caught him reading Shelley to her under the apple tree, and blushed anew as she had blushed then. And the continuous alarm of the affair! The moments snatched in pauses of the chase! Yes, there had been glamour, and it had been sweet—perilous and sweet. It was a thing to remember, but not to fear. She didn’t think she need fear anything, especially as she had told Mr. Germain all about it—or as good as told him.

But it’s always ticklish work, meeting an old heart’s acquaintance on new terms. Neither party to the business can face it quite unmoved. For him, there’s the painful, curious inquiry:—“This, this is she with whom I had fondly hoped—! Now, look, there is knowledge stored within those limpid eyes—and I might have put it there! She and I share experiences, which He—that interloper—can never share. With this I must dress my wounded side.” All that his handshake, or his bow, may convey to her. Upon her side—the sedately conscious of two men’s regard—veiled within her eyes there’s this for the ousted lover: “You may spare me the rod. I am another’s, who might have been yours. You loved me once, you told me; be charitable now!” And all that she will express in the flutter of her greeting.

Tristram Duplessis, loose-limbed, flushed, frowning as of old, may have implied it, or she, who played him hostess of Southover, may have appealed in that fashion. “How d’you do?” was what he said in words, when he took her hand, which she held out, in a nerveless clasp. He had arrived late in the afternoon, when the hall was fully occupied; stockinged young men, in from shooting, short-kirtled ladies, in from getting in their way; a dowager or two reading evening papers, and a whiskered professor in slippers. One must imply skilfully in such a company.

And then, to be sure, there was Mr. Constantine Jess, ponderous, benevolent, all for domesticity, to be reckoned with. All women liked Mr. Jess because, although he was prodigiously learned, he owned to a weakness for small talk and soft voices. It was he, then, who had the triumph of the entry. “Ah, Mrs. Germain, this is a welcome indeed. And doth not a meeting like this make amends?” His quick, full-cushioned eyes swept the corners of the room—“My dear Lady Barbara—! Lady Wentrode, your servant—How d’ye do? How d’ye do?” These things accomplished, he turned to his hostess, cup in hand, and sank into the cushions by her side. “We have not met, I think, since that auspicious day—two years ago? Is it that? Dear me, how Time makes sport with us! One should hear the Titans laugh. I had promised myself an earlier contemplation of your felicity, but—business! business!” He sighed, drained his teacup, and asked for more. “It must have been within a week of your marriage that my young friend and I took a fancy for each other. A marriage of minds! Tristram, my dear fellow, when was it?” He had taught his secretary the duty of playing chorus. That was very necessary to Mr. Jess.

Tristram, leisurely, as of old, sipped his tea before answering, got up and waited for another cup while he collected his reply. “It’s a long time—I know that. Thanks, no sugar.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry—I forgot.” She looked up at him hazardously. “You always took it, I thought?”

“I know. But I’ve dropped all that. Better without it.” He spoke lightly.

The campaign was broached by Mr. Jess. “Well, and how does my friend in the field? Gallantly, I am sure; happily, I hope.”

Mrs. Germain thought that he would win. “He works very hard. He’s speaking now, somewhere—out of the carriage, at a harvest home. I ought to have been with him, but——”

“You stayed to be hospitable to us. We are grateful. At least, I speak for myself. Tristram there takes kindness for granted.”

“Not Mrs. Germain’s,” said Tristram, and startled her.

However, she laughed. “I don’t think it was very kind of me; I was glad to be let off. I’m sure everything will go right now. Did you know that you must begin to-night, Mr. Jess? Do you mind? There’s a meeting at the Corn Exchange at eight. We are dining early.”

Mr. Jess laid his comfortable hand upon his heart. “I follow my leader. Where she calls me I am ever to be found.”

And then she raised her eyes to Tristram. “Will you speak for us, Mr. Duplessis?” He started, as out of a stare.

“Who? I? Oh, I’ll do as I’m bid, of course.”

“Enlist him, my dear lady, enrol him,” cried Mr. Jess, twinkling, “but if you love me, let him follow me. He has a note like a trumpet.”

“Really?” She opened her eyes upon Tristram.

“I can make a row,” he admitted. “But perhaps Germain won’t like that.”

“I am sure he will like whatever you do,” said she. Duplessis made no answer, but did not shirk the reflection that, if he did, it would indicate a striking change in the gentleman’s views.

At this moment a fair-haired young lady in a riding-habit—Miss Nina Swetebrede of Copestake—came in, craving tea. She distributed her nods and smiles on either hand as she advanced to the table. “Dear Mary, I’m so tired,” she pleaded. “Do feed me, and make a fuss of me, and I shall love you.” The newly arrived gentlemen were made known to her, and Mr. Jess courtly and tenderly jocular, ministered to her needs. She annexed him without scruple. This left Duplessis in possession of the tea-table. But the attack was Mary’s.

“So you have taken to politics in earnest?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know that I’m in earnest. That’s putting politics rather high. The game is as good as another.”

She might have known that he would never admit earnestness—to her. But she felt snubbed.

“The fact is,” he went on, “that either every side in politics is partly right, in which case it’s only common honesty to say so—or that all sides are entirely wrong, which means that only rascals can succeed at it. So that, in any event, one must be more or less of a rogue.”

She ventured a little laugh. “I know what you mean—or think I do. I know more about politics than I did—once.”

He parried that. “One gets to know something, of course. You talk of nothing else here, I suppose?”

There seemed to be a sting in this. Loyalty must meet it. “But indeed we do—” she began, and he saved the position for her by saying that he wished he could say the same for himself. “But there’ll be no chance of rational conversation,” he told her, “until that fellow’s safely in the Home Office.”

Mr. Jess was placidly contemplating Miss Nina Swetebrede’s candid blue eyes, and knew nothing of what may have tickled his hostess. Tristram, in a few minutes, asked to be shown his room. “I’ve got a heap of letters to write, and some to read. May I ring?”

In the pauses of the party strife, when the champions were out in the lists, Mrs. Germain played lightly upon her heart-strings, plucking chiefly that chord of glamour as she remembered it to have been. Duplessis, who noticed everything about her down to the smallest detail—her clothes, her neatly cut shoes, her manner with servants, with Germain, with the roaring public of the hustings—thought that she carried off the thing very well. Better, no doubt, in his absence; but still, very well. She was shy of him, and that was charming, because it gave her colour and sparkle; she was quickly on her dignity—and that was touching. She seemed to court his good opinion, to dress her little window wistfully. She made him think of a pullet with its first egg; still more touching, by Jove! because there was no egg, and little likelihood of one. And how careful she was! And how she appealed! “Here I am,” she seemed to be saying, with every look, “trusted and responsible, but oh, so safe! Be generous!” He began to judge her again. A girl of her sort, she could no more help using her eyes than avoid breathing through her nose. With every darted look, with every droop of the lids she put herself at his discretion. Well, she needn’t be afraid, poor little soul. He could afford to be generous to one who amused and touched him at once.

Pity is a heady wine. In a man of this sort—your conqueror-by-instinct—it inspires magnanimity; and the worst of that virtue is—you can’t be truly magnanimous until you have reduced the object of your charity to destitution and misery. Before you can lift her out of the mire you must see her in it. He may have been tempted, but her appealing look tempered his rage. Even his grudge against Germain was less sharp than it had been. Germain! Germain, and this love-lorn little creature with her peering eyes! Good Heavens, let her take her joy where she could.

They were rarely alone together, and when they were she was extraordinarily circumspect. But he was master of inuendo, and knew her a good scholar. There was no need for him to say Heigho! to hear it echo from her breast. And the less he said the more she would have him say, he fancied. But he was wrong there.

He said to her once before he left Southover—“I must ask you this. You are happy?”

She stiffened instantly, and looked steadily in front of her—at the south front of Southover, it so happened. “I am very happy.”

“That’s good. I had to ask, you know.”

“Had you?” she said naïvely—and then, “I wonder why?”

“You would say I have no business to care?”

She faced him. “No, I shouldn’t. You are free to do as you like.”

“And you—?” He frowned. “Aren’t you free, too?”

She touched the flowers in her breast, looking at them. “Yes, of course, I am. It was nice of you to ask me. I am very happy.”

A cul de sac, that way. Damn it.

Once, at dinner, the person of Jack Senhouse came up for debate. Several persons present had some hand in the game. Mr. Jess and Tristram tossed the name about, across and across. Lady Barbara Rewish flicked it as it passed; Mr. Germain gave it a sedate lift into the air. When it came to Mary, she let it drop. Mr. Senhouse belonged to her innermost self; nobody present knew that she had had anything to do with him. But two things nearly lost her her self-possession. One was to hear her friend in public discussion—and here she exulted in her secret. The other was Duplessis’s scorn of him. That made her hot.

“I was at school with that idiot,” he had said, “and at Cambridge. He was always a waster—but he used to comb his hair in those days.” He looked down the table at Mary; the shuttlecock was with her, and she let it drop. He saw her do it.

Mr. Germain was now under way, and gave it a lift. “I remember that Mr. Senhouse proposed on one occasion to sleep near my coverts—too near to suit the views of Cradock, however. I regretted what followed.”

“What did follow?” somebody asked.

“Well—I regretted it,” said Mr. Germain, closing his eyes for a moment. “Mr. Senhouse accepted my explanation in the kindest way. I must confess that I took no particular notice of his hair, save to observe that he wore it uncovered.”

“He wears it long,” said Tristram, and glanced at Mary Germain.

“If he wears it uncovered,” said Mr. Jess, “he’ll wear it longer than you, my young friend.”

“He may wear it to his heels,” Tristram replied; “but not in my company.” Here Mrs. Germain gave the signal, and the gentlemen were left to politics.

“That idiot” robbed Tristram of some chance of magnanimity. In the drawing-room he found it out.

“You know Senhouse?” he asked her. She had no fear of him now.

“Quite well. He is a friend of mine.”

“Has he been here?”

“I think not. He doesn’t like big houses.”

“Oh, he’d come, you know. He’s mighty affable.”

“I should be very pleased to see him. I like him extremely.”

He laughed. “He’s a great talker. Always was.”

“He talks very well,” said she, “and listens very well.”

“Personally, he leaves me speechless.” Here Duplessis rose, and added with fatigue, “But I see we are not going to agree about Senhouse.”

She looked blankly before her. “No—obviously.” Mr. Germain asked her to sing, and she obeyed with alacrity. She sang prettily, but not well. Ordinarily she failed in attack; but under Duplessis’s watching brows it seemed that some new spirit had entered into her. She had never sung better.

The election came and was made, and John Germain, Esquire, of Southover House, triumphed over Mr. Leopold Levitt. The very next day the new Secretary of State (for all had gone well with the party) made his farewells, and took his private secretary with him. Tristram, wanting scope for magnanimity, had been morose since the Senhouse discussion.

She thanked him lightly “for helping us.” “Us!” to Duplessis.

But he gulped it. “I am glad to have been of any use. You’ll be in town for the session, of course.”

“I suppose so. We shall hope to see you.”

“Many thanks. You are not supposed to see through Secretaries of State—but Jess should be a good medium. So it’s arrivederci.”

She gave him her hand. “Good-bye—.” But he held it for a minute.

“We are friends again—after this?”

She withdrew. “Yes, indeed. Good-bye.”

Friends! It was the result of some very careful balancing, and an odd result, that if Senhouse lost nothing in her regard, Duplessis lost nothing either. His arrogance, you see, was so entirely in character; and it is satisfactory to a woman to find a man come out true to type; it’s assurance of strength in him. He had been very odious, and his judgment of a better man was laughable; but he had been superb, all the same. So that it seemed she could be friendly with the pair of them.

There was still a third friend to reckon with. On the day of the departure of the election guests Mr. Germain was very talkative at dinner, and drank more wine than usual; two glasses of port, for instance. He was full of his projects, high in hope; you could detect the cheer under his voice. “Does my Mary see—?” or “I hope my dear one can follow that line of thought,” or “I think my child may be satisfied with such a position of trust”—it might be. He thanked her for the “loyal help” she had given him; made her sit with him after dinner, instead of sending her to the drawing-room; held her hand, patted or stroked it, and presently fell asleep, holding it still. Finally, when it was bedtime, he took her in his arms.

She submitted to his embrace, and gave him the kisses he sought; but no more. Presently she looked kindly at him, with a certain power unknown to him before. It spelled gentle negation—pronounced with extreme gentleness, but not to be mistaken. Then she kissed him of her own accord, disengaged herself, and went away. He sat, with shaded eyes, for a long time motionless, but not asleep. His eyebrows were arched to their highest; once or twice his lips moved; he seemed to be crying out upon himself. When they met in the morning it was as usual, or seemed to be so. But his dream was over for good and all; and he had muffled himself against the cold.

IV
LONDON NIGHTS AND DAYS

We are to see her now spread her wings for London, and butterfly flights about the flowers and sweets there. Hill-street affords a standard by which to measure her growth. That decorous house in Hill-street which had cowed her when she went to it on trousseau-business, and had driven her once, fairly crying, upon the mercies of Mrs. James, she could now find small and dark. She thought it a stuffy little house, and wondered how many the table would dine, how many must be shut out of the drawing-rooms. There’s a famous anecdote of Mrs. James’s, often and impressively told by her, which comes to mind here.

It concerns Gerald Gunner, “Laura Gunner’s second boy,” a famous gentleman-jockey, and, though his years were few, remarkably a rip. “Charming manners, like all that family, but most high-spirited, wild, they say. Bad influences were at work, no doubt. His friends were loyalty itself; everything was hushed up, and more than once. But—” and Mrs. James used to lower her voice—“there was a fracas at Sandown. Lord Windlesham's horse—they say, my dear, that he ‘pulled’ it. You will know what that means, I dare say. I believe there was no room for doubt. Lord Gunner—” that was, of course, the old lord, father of our recent acquaintance—“allowed him fifty pounds a year, so long as he remained in Canada, cutting logs or building railways—or whatever they do in the wilds; and the poor boy went out—in the steerage. The Heskeths, during their tour, went to see him some years ago, and, my dear, it was deplorable! Miles and miles into desert-swamps. No neighbours, and, of course, no church privileges. A hovel, literally a hovel, built by his own hands; barely weather-proof—not quite that, I am told, in one corner. They arrived in the evening, rather late, and found him shelling peas into an old biscuit-tin. His Eton birch and a portrait of the Queen were absolutely the only ornaments; but this, to my mind, is deeply pathetic. Would you believe it? That poor young man dressed for dinner every night, directly he had cooked it. It got cold, and his jacket was in holes—but he never omitted it. Mrs. Hesketh assured me that she wept. And fifty pounds a year! Think of it. Of course, he made nothing. What could he make, with his training?”

It is a sad story. Mrs. John Germain’s polite education had begun later than Gerald Gunner’s; but to find a house in Hill-street stuffy is symptomatic of broadening views.

On the other hand, she showed the bourgeoise undismayed when she permitted herself to be excited. She was all agog for town delights. Lady Carhawk, a Berkshire dame, was to present her, and photographs of her little person, stiff, feathered and bejewelled, making her look, as some wit said, like a Spanish Madonna strayed into a fair, went down to Blackheath with promises of a speedy visit in full dress. Cards fluttered daily upon the hall-table. Mr. Germain engaged a second secretary: Mrs. Germain began to think of one, too.

She attacked her pleasures, as once her task-work, with zest and spirit; she made scores of acquaintances. Lady Carhawk must have liked her—herself a likable, florid lady; the Duchess of Lanark showed that she did; Lady Barbara Rewish and others of the sort found their old hearts touched by the grateful, graceful girl, who never took a favour without showing that she was much obliged, never refused one (and that’s a rare abnegation), and if she asked you to do anything for her, coaxed for it with bright eyes and wooing lips. The Duchess called her a nice little thing, a pretty soul, a good girl; and the Duchess’s third son, Lord Vernon, did his best to prove how good she was—and succeeded. She got nothing but good out of that, for his weaknesses were well known.

Much of this little success she owed to her Southover drilling, which had taught her how little she had to fear, how little was expected of her in a world where chatter is the staple, and high spirits a matter of good taste. Practically, she only had to listen and to smile. Now she looked her best when she smiled—her teeth were really perfect. As for listening, excitement gave her colour and glitter, her gowns were as good as they could be—and what more do you want but the wish to please? That she had. She courted your good opinion, was anxious to be approved. Besides, she could be patronized, and liked it.

There had never been any question of her success with the men, so little, indeed, that it was curious to see how well she stood with the women. Her early years, it has been hinted, did not want of experience: she proved her femininity before she was sixteen. And betwixt the cubs of the village and the young lions of politics is no difference in kind. You vary the allure; but brown eyes are still brown, and ginger is always hot in the mouth. Of these splendid youths Palmer Lovell must perhaps be reckoned with first, he who, for her sake (or so it is said), forsook a young and handsome Viscountess. After a stormy sowing in one field he was now complacently reaping in another. Mr. Germain’s party owned him an acquisition, and the same feeling was to be expected of Mr. Germain’s wife. Lovell constituted himself her Mentor, waited about great stairways for her, attached himself to her side, and sat out all and sundry. He explained himself unaffectedly as a Hope of the Party, and she was very willing to believe him. But somehow the information did not thrill her as it had when she received it from Tristram Duplessis; with the rising of whose light above the firmament sank the orb of Mr. Lovell.

Horace Wing—romantic to the waist, thence downwards dancing master, approved himself in her eyes. He was handsome, affable, an artist in his way. She had an instinct for style; and he had that. He knew where to depart from the tailor’s ideal, which is tightness; he knew where to be loose. He could unbutton a coat to better purpose than any man living—or a phrase, when he saw his way. He always coloured his phrases. You were thought to hear birds in the brake, to see cowslips adrift in a pasture—happy country things—when he discoursed. Some considered his flowers forced, things of the hot-bed. But he was discreet, because really he was timid. The Byron of the Boudoir, Lovell called him, scorning Mr. Wing. But Mrs. Germain, who knew little to Byron’s discredit, and understood boudoirs to be made for two, was much taken with this fine gentleman. On his part, he found her attractive because his world did. He was acutely sensitive to opinion, with the feelers of a woman for it. I don’t mean that he knew what was in fashion—of course he did; but that he could detect what was going to be. There he was almost infallible.

There were others about her—it was quite a little triumph in its way,—whom to name would be tedious. But one was a very great man indeed. Robert John Bernard, Marquis and Earl of Kesteven, a Knight of the Garter, and an Ambassador. Lord Kesteven was no less than sixty-odd years old, had a Marchioness somewhere and three mature children, and a reputation for incisive gallantry second to no man’s. He managed his affairs of the kind deliberately; he had method. When he died it was said that not one single note in a woman’s hand was to be found among his papers. That was not for want of hunting for them: and yet—well, if old Kesteven looked at you twice you were worth looking at. That was said. Now, he looked at Mrs. Germain more than twice.

With these tributes at her feet, with such heady incense in her nostrils, it isn’t wonderful if she attended the coming of Duplessis with assurance of amusement, wondering what offerings he would bring. Real goddesses, we may suppose, take their worship as of right, but a make-believe goddess discovers an appetite for it the more she gets. She felt perfectly ready for Tristram, and more than ready by the time she had him. It seems that he had thought her out—she might have inferred it had she not been piqued by delay—and decided that he must give himself value. At any rate, he did not present himself at Hill-street until the card for her first evening party made it a matter of duty. Then he came, and was received with airy smiles—as if he had been an old crony! He found her to be extremely at ease in his company, was disconcerted, and showed it. He had come as one prepared to be fatigued; he departed with frowns as one who fears that he has been fatiguing. “Good God!” he said to himself, “she’ll be calling me Tristram in a day or two.” He reflected that, if she did that, he was done for; that would show that he had ceased to strike her imagination, had become so much furniture, a sort of house-dog. Deeply mortified, brooding over it, he began to need her. His self-esteem sickened; she only could restore its tone. He became really alarmed about himself, couldn’t work, failed of audacity, missed his spring. He saw her again—he was in a black mood. She rallied him upon it, and sent him away to entertain Lady Barbara, whose rights no man dared dispute.

Lady Barbara accepted him as a target for some of her archery. “I saw that young lady married to our friend”—and she nodded towards their hostess. “You, I fancy, did not. A most hopeless business I thought. I remember a sister with fluffy hair. Hopeless it would have been if she had been clever—but, thank goodness, she’s not. She has just sense enough to be herself; no airs, no smirks nothing to hide. She told old Kesteven all about herself, I hear, at a dinner-party; father, mother, sister Jinny. Kesteven was charmed. That’s a sensible girl, you know, not a clever one, who’d spend herself in scheming how to let bygones be bygones. On the contrary, this girl hoards them, for a relish.”

Tristram looked very glum. Was she hoarding him? For a relish? The old archer went on with her practice.

“Look at her now with Horace Wing. Horace is weaving his gossamers; he thinks she’s enmeshed. She’s not, you know; she’s only pleased. I tell you, she’s exactly what she always was. Once upon a time Tom Styles ‘took notice’ of her, as she would say, hung about the church-door, Sundays. That was a triumph in its way. Now it’s Lovell, or Jocelyn Gunner, or old Kesteven. I don’t suppose she has ever been in love in her life—but I fancy that you can correct me if I am wrong.”

Duplessis faced about. “I? I’m afraid I can’t help you. She knew my people in the country. We were rather friendly; we liked her. I’m glad to think that you do, too.”

“She amuses me,” said Lady Barbara, “and I certainly admire her honesty. Horace Wing won’t, I think. She’ll puzzle him with her gratitude. Horace wants dearer tributes. All you young men do.”

Mr. Germain came up to bow over his friend’s hand. “I’m talking of your speech, Germain,” she told him.

“Kindly, I know,” said he.

“You were rather magisterial, I thought; but at least you knew what you were talking about. Tristram here says that’s not necessary.”

Mr. Germain blinked. He never looked at Tristram, and did not know. “Fortunate, if true,” he said coldly; “but I cannot myself afford to believe it.”

“Ah, Germain, you’re too rich, you see,” Tristram said, as lightly as he could, and withdrew to a doorway, whence he could see Mary. Lady Barbara inquired, with eyes and eyebrows, to no purpose. Mr. Germain was blandly obtuse.

“She’s charming,” said the old gentlewoman, and caught him unawares. He started, coloured.

“Yes, yes, I find her so—hourly.”

“Who dresses her?” Mr. Germain raised his head.

“Really—. I believe there are consultations—. She looks well to-night. A happy nature, my friend.”

“Charming, charming,” Lady Barbara murmured; and then—with a look from the door to her friend. “What is he doing now?” Mr. Germain grew alert.

“Tristram? He goes his way, I believe. He was bickering with poor Jess the other day. Jess is the soul of good-nature; but there are limits.”

“Plenty!” cried the lady. “There should be more. He’ll be in the House by-and-by—a thorn in all your flesh.”

Mr. Germain repressed himself. “If he could get a seat. Want of means would restrict his chances. I fear he is arrogant.”

“He’s able.”

“He believes it. That is his only capital sum, I fancy. But I am not in his confidence.”

“He has the run of your house?”

Mr. Germain again lifted his head. “He is Constantia’s first cousin. My wife is interested in him. She has known him for some years; but she shares my anxieties.”

Lady Barbara was touched by his gallantry, but not put off. “An old friend?” she persisted.

“She is willing to believe him so.”

Lady Barbara nodded her head. She was a stoic herself.

V
LORD GUNNER ASCERTAINS WHERE WE ARE

George Lord Bramleigh, roundest and youngest of men of six-and-twenty, overtaking Jocelyn Lord Gunner in St. James’s-street, tipped him on the shoulder with his stick-handle. Gunner turned, red in the face.

“Damn you, Bramleigh, shut up,” he said.

“Couldn’t shut up to save my life, old chap,” his friend replied. “I’m so fit I don’t know what to do with myself. Come back into the Fencing Club and make passes at me.”

Gunner growled, “See you shot first,” and walked on. Bramleigh joined him, humming an air.

“Look here,” said Gunner, after a time. “D’you know a man called Duplessis?”

“Rather,” says Lord Bramleigh. “Go on.”

“That’s what he’s doing,” Lord Gunner mused. “His goings-on are awful. He’ll make the lady talked about—and she don’t deserve it.”

The lady must be named, and Lord Bramleigh whistled at her name. Reminiscences of a morning at San Sebastian came upon him, but were withheld. Lord Gunner poured out his grievances.

“I don’t mind a chap hanging round—not one bit. If I wasn’t hanging round myself a good lot I shouldn’t see it, and shouldn’t much care if I did. There’s nothing in that. Besides, there are plenty of us. But he messes about; that’s what I can’t stand. He messes about. And he seems to think she belongs to him.”

“That’s the way to make her,” said the sapient youth. “That’s his little plan.”

“No, it’s not, my boy,” he was corrected. “You’re off the line. That’s what he really thinks—and, by God, he shows it. He’s like a dog with a bone. He snarls and turns up his lip the moment you come into the place. Or if he comes late and finds any one there—as he mostly does—he sulks. ’Pon my soul, I hate the brute.” The young man tilted back his hat, and looked up at the sky—a pale blue sky, irradiated by the sun and by the burnished copper wires of our affairs. “Where are we now—end of April?—beginning of May? She came to town in February—and here we are in May. I believe he’s only been away from the house for three days on end—and that’s just now when he’s in Paris.”

“You ought to know,” said Bramleigh: the other snorted.

“I do know. He’s up to no good, that chap, I’ll bet you he’s not. He’s not a good sort with women, I happen to know. Now—”

“May a man ask,” Lord Bramleigh interjected, “what you are up to?”

Lord Gunner looked down at him in surprise.

“Oh, you may, Bramleigh. I can stand it from you. I’m all right, you know; I wouldn’t hurt her. She’d have a pretty stiff time of it with old Fowls-of-the-air Germain[^[A]] if it wasn’t for some of us, who go and amuse her. She’s a jolly girl, you know, and she deserves something.”

“Dash it all,” cried Bramleigh, “she got something when she married old Germain. She had nothing at all. I’m told he picked her up in a nursery.” Lord Gunner jerked an angry head.

“Yes, I know, I know. That wasn’t the game, I’ll be shot. Why, any one could have done it! He played the God in the Machine; came bouncing out of the sky, and sent the servant in for her. ‘Beg pardon, miss, but here’s the Archangel Michael come for you. Best clothes, please, shut your eyes, and you’ll be married to-morrow.’ That was the way it was sprung upon her. What was a girl to do but bless her stars, and say she’d be with him directly? Well, and what I say is, If old Fowls-of-the-air finds he ain’t up to the part, he can’t drop it and leave her in the lurch. If he can’t make himself entertaining, he must be helped.”

“That’s what Duplessis says,” Lord Bramleigh supposed. But Gunner could not allow it.

“I beg your pardon. He says, ‘My bread, I believe.’ He’s a grabber. The mischief of it is that I can’t say anything.”

“I think not,” said Bramleigh tersely. “But I know a man who could. Just left him.”

“Who’s your friend, Bramleigh?”

Lord Bramleigh would not be drawn. “Oh—man you wouldn’t know. Not your sort. But the lady knows him.”

“Couldn’t you give him a hint?”

“I could,” said Bramleigh with deliberation. “I could, but”—he looked up at his tall friend—“but if I did, I shouldn’t leave you out, old chap.”

Lord Gunner halted and faced him. “You may say what you please about me. I don’t care what you say.” He looked over to Bond-street. “That’s my road,” he said.

“The way to Hill-street?” asked Bramleigh.

“The way to Hill-street,” he was told.

Lord Bramleigh remained upon the Piccadilly pavement for some minutes, lost in what must be described as thought. His lips were framed for whistling, but no sound came. His eyes stared at nothing in particular. Then he was heard to say, “I’ll do it, by Gad,” and seen to turn on his heel. He walked down the hill again, the way he had come up.

---

Her life was such a whirl, it may well be that she had no time to wonder whither she was flying. At any rate, she marked neither time nor direction, nor was aware that her friends were remarking on both. If you had checked her suddenly with the question, Was she happy? she would have stared before she answered you, Of course!

From day to day she hardly saw her husband alone. He breakfasted, as of old, in his room; his secretary came at ten, and stayed to luncheon. He had a nap after that, and went down to the House at four. He might return to dinner, he might join her at a party in time to take her home; but by then he would be so tired that he would drop asleep in the carriage. She may have known, or she may not, that his eyes were often upon her, intensely observant of her gaiety and appreciative of her good manners; she can hardly have known that she was seldom out of his thoughts. It must be confessed that he was not more than a perfunctory guest in hers: she wore his name in her prayers as she wore it abroad—in that world of his to which he had enlarged her, where she now fluttered her happy wings. She paid him, in fact, the service of lip and eye which we pay to God in church. He was, no doubt, the Author of her being. “My husband says”—“My husband thinks—”: she never used such a phrase without the little reverential hush in her voice, or without a momentary curtsey of the eyelids. When he showed himself in a room she went instantly to his side; when he was present at a dinner-table her tones were lower, her laughter less infectious. He was Disposer Supreme: he was secure of that dignified but remote office. It was one which he was well qualified to fill; and it was, unfortunately for him, the only one about her person which was then at his service. Nobody knew this better than the poor Stoic himself, nobody knew it less than the engrossed little lady.

It was not until the end of April, or, as Lord Gunner had ascertained it, the beginning of May that she became aware of the fact that she had been seeing Duplessis every day since the short Easter recess. It was forced upon her notice by this other, that for those days he was absent, and that she missed the homage of his knit brows. They were more to her, she found, than Horace Wing’s postures or Palmer Lovell’s placid contemplation of her charms. Yet each of these rising statesmen was much more her servant than Tristram could care to be. Lovell used to advise her about her gowns: it had got to that. His aunt, Lady Paynswick, had a shop—so that it was reasonable. Mr. Wing took each new apparition of her as an occasion for poetry—surface poetry, so to speak, which a more experienced subject might have found pert; but it sounded very well at the time. Duplessis did none of these things, neither saw, nor admired: he simply frowned. But she liked to be frowned at in that sort of way—she had always liked it. It meant, “You sting me. I have no rest. You could cure my scowls, but you won’t. I detest you, because I love you.” It was a tribute, implied power—and how could she help liking that? One of the great joys of power is that you can sit back at your ease, twiddle your thumbs and say to yourself, “An I would, I could—!” You must needs feel charitable to him who puts you in the way of that.

After his three days’ truantry, when he returned to her side, she showed him that she was glad to see him. Generous, but mistaken: it made him crosser than ever. He could be abominably rude when he chose—and he chose to be so now. She was at the Opera, alone in her box. He came in after the first act, nodded and sat down. This she forgave, even to the extent of offering her hand. “You’ve been away—it is nice of you to come. I’m all alone, you see.”

He said, one must go somewhere. She laughed that off. What had been the favoured country? He named Paris, as if it hurt him horribly. Paris! She had been there once—on her way home from Madrid. Some day she must be taken there again. It had been extraordinary—had seemed like walking on light. Duplessis said that it hadn’t been like that at all, but like walking in smells among a leering populace. All this was far from gay; but she was very good-tempered.

It would seem that he had come there to quarrel with her; for that is what he did. After an act and an interval of monosyllabic answers, spells of brooding, moustache-gnawing, and other symptoms of the devil, she roundly asked him what ailed him. He affected blank astonishment. Ailed him? Ailed? What on earth should ail him?

“Then,” said she, with colour, “I think you might be civil.” He stared, and met a pair of stormy eyes.

“Am I to understand—?” he began.

“You are to understand,” she told him, “that you are making me very uncomfortable. I have done you no harm.”

Her ancestry, you see, must peep out. She was preparing a scene—and what can one do then?

“Is that a hint?” he asked her. She turned to the stage.

“You drive me to it,” she said. “You have been very rude.” He rose.

“I can spare you that, at any rate,” he said, opened his hat with a clatter, bowed and left her. Her bosom rose and fell fast, and faster, as the clouds gathered and swept across her eyes. Hateful man—but what had she done? A tyrant: he bullied women. She felt very lonely; the great house seemed to grow dark, the great music to howl and bray. Palmer Lovell came in presently, after him came Gunner; but she could get no joy out of them, and waited on miserably for her husband. She found herself praying for him, who at least would be gentle with her. He was late, however, and she could bear no more. She left after the third act.

In her brougham she had a vision—it could have been nothing else. At the corner of Endell-street, under a gas-lamp and in the full light of it, she saw a tall man standing. He was reading a newspaper, and had no hat on his head. Her heart jumped—oh, that could be but one person in the world! Her friend! Senhouse in London!

The detestable Tristram was forgotten; Palmer Lovell, the mellifluous Wing went down, soused in Cornish seas. Cornish seas, sluiced rocks, green downs, birds adrift in the wind, opened out across the yellow flare of a London night. She went wide-awake to bed, and lay sleeplessly there. The very next afternoon, as she was coming out of a great shop in Regent-street, crossing the pavement to get into her carriage, she almost ran into his arms.

---

[A]	The poor gentleman must have been more than usually on stilts when he made the speech (on poultry farming) which earned him this sobriquet.

VI
SENHOUSE ON THE MORAL LAW

She could have jumped into them. “You!” she cried. “Then it wasn’t a dream at all. I saw you last night—near the Opera.”

He teased her with his wry smile. “And I saw you last night at the Opera.”

“You were there! Oh——”

“I was in the gallery. I left because, much as I love Wagner, I love air more. I suffocated.”

“Oh, but you might have come to see me,” she said, with a pout not at all provocative—a pout of sincere regret. “It was quite cool down there. In fact”—she laughed at a memory—“it was very cool indeed. Too cool.”

“I don’t follow you,” said Senhouse.

“You needn’t. Perhaps I’ll tell you”—she looked doubtfully at him, pondering. “I should like to tell you lots of things. Oh, heaps! Everything—from the beginning. I’m married, you know.” He nodded gravely.

“I can see that you are. All well?”

This made her think. “Rather well. But we must talk—it’s obvious. Will you—?” She looked at the carriage and the footman at the door of it.

“If that’s your carriage—no, I won’t, thanks. Have you walked five yards to-day? No? Then we’ll walk somewhere and have it out. You might send that sepulchre away. I’ll see you home.” Her eyes shone.

“I should love it. It shall go.” She told the footman her intentions, and sailed happily away in convoy with that tall, loosely clad young man who, to the footman’s concern, carried his hat in his hand. “Blooming Italian feller—airing his ’ead of ’air,” he told the preoccupied Musters, who said, “Tlk! Tlk!” to his horses.

She, too, remarked it. “Why, you have got a hat!” He held it up.

“Yes, indeed—and I’ll wear it if you insist upon it.”

“But I don’t,” she told him. “I shouldn’t know you if you did.”

He led her at a brisk pace—to meet his long strides she had to break into a run now and again. But she was prouder of his company than of any she had had yet, and caught herself humming airs by the way. There was indeed heaps to say. She plunged into her stored reminiscences as a boy into a pool—went in deep and rose shaking her head, breasting the flood.

“I must tell you—I believe I saw you on my wedding day! From the train—just a glimpse. I saw the Ghost plodding along—Bingo running in the grass—you were sitting on the tilt, smoking, of course. You were in white. Were you there? It must have been you. We had passed Swindon, I know—it was before we got to Bath. You were going West, and so was I—so were we, I mean. I wondered if we should meet out there—Exeter? Were you there? Oh—and I mustn’t forget. It is the most important of all. He—my husband—took me to the Land’s End.”

He looked down quickly at her. “When were you there?”

“In October. It was about the middle of October. Do you mean to say——?”

“I was there in November,” said Senhouse, “and stayed till February—there or thereabouts. I am always there for the winter. I have business there.”

She had put her hand to her side. Her eyes spelled ecstatic conviction. “I knew it—I felt it. How wonderful!”

“What’s your wonder, my friend?”

“Why, that I should have seen you there!”

“But you didn’t.”

“Ah, but I did. That’s just it. I was certain you were there—I expected to find you in every hollow of the rocks. The place told me of you—it seemed to bear your mark. If I were an animal I should say that I could smell you there.”

He was amused. “You’re not far wrong. I was thereabouts. You might have smelt some of my deeds—Flowers—I grow ’em on those cliffs. You might have seen ’em.”

Her eyes were roundly open now—wonderfully—but she shook her head.

“No, no. I saw nothing of the sort. Do you mean—gardens?”

“Sort of gardens. I work those rocks. I plant things—they are natural rock gardens, those boulders. I started it some six or seven years ago—naturalizing alpines. I’ve got some good saxifrages to do there—androsaces of sorts—drabas, campanulas, columbines. Then I began on hybridizing—that last infirmity. There’s a scarlet thrift I’m trying—fine colour. It don’t always come true yet, but it’s a pretty thing—Armeria Senhusiana, if you please.”

Now she was inclined to be serious, with a confession to make. Hertha de Speyne had told her something of all this, and given her an interest in it. Mischief prevailed; she sparkled as she probed him.

“I don’t quite understand. You have a rock garden—you! I have remembered your scorn of property—of owning anything—and—! Really, I am rather shocked. A garden of yours!”

He looked blandly interested. “Mine? Bless you, no. I haven’t got a garden for these things. I grow ’em out there on the rocks. They’re anybody’s—yours, Tom’s, Harry’s. I’m only the gardener. And you prove to me that I know my business, because you must have been through my nursery half a dozen times—and saw nothing of it.”

“Nothing at all, I promise you.” Her share in his little triumph was manifest, she was intensely pleased. “That’s lovely,” she said—and then, “You know, if I had caught you out—I should have been awfully disappointed.”

“I hope I shall never disappoint you, ma’am,” he told her. “No. If I owned all that I don’t think I should care for it. I esteem those things down there for taking their chance. Tourists hardly ever hurt them. It’s the wet that does most harm; the winter wet—sluicing mists, rotting rains—” She touched his arm—nearly stopped the walk.

“I can’t keep it up,” she said. “I have tried, but it’s not to be done. I knew, afterwards, that you did these things. Hertha de Speyne told me. Are you angry?”

He looked closely at her—not at all angrily.

“You talked me over with her, did you?” She blushed.

“Among other people. I know that you were with the Cantacutes the summer before last.” Then, with a sudden memory, she stopped again, almost took his arm.

“Did you see—do you know a white cottage—right up on the cliff? A green roof?”

His eyes twinkled. “Rats’ Castle! Rather. It has sheltered me more nights than one.”

Her lips pressed together as she nodded her head. “I might have known that. I beg your pardon.” Thinking of what she was to speak, presently she told him in a grave voice that she intended to live in that cottage—“before I die.”

He took that calmly. “You might do worse.”

He had come to London, he said, to supply his needs—to sell some pictures in Cranbourne-street, and to see some books. His library was in Bloomsbury; she gathered, the British Museum. He wanted “Aristophanes,” the “Arabian Nights.” He had nearly everything else. Narrow inquiry revealed his tastes. He owned two books. “Don Quixote” was one, “Mangnall’s Questions” the other. No—Bible? No. “Don Quixote” was better than the Bible, because it was our own. We were not Orientals—at least not now. Everything that a man could need for his moral and spiritual supplies was in “Don Quixote”—religion, poetry, gorgeous laughter, good store of courage, wisdom, fortitude. Mangnall was enough for the rest. Old-fashioned, perhaps: but then he, Senhouse, was old-fashioned. “I always read “Don Quixote” before I say my prayers.”

They were by now in Hyde Park, beyond the carriage road, nearly alone with the trees and grass and certain sooty sheep which cropped there. He found her a chair, but himself sat on the ground and clasped his knees. She must hear his views upon the Bible; but she had to press for them. No, no, he told her at first—it wasn’t his business to preach. Presently, however, he broke out. “You’re just a counter in a game at this hour—put up between the dressmaker and the policeman. You are property—and that’s the Bible’s doing. Why—why—look at the Ten Commandments—‘His wife, servant, maid, ox, ass—everything that is his!’ You come after his house, if you remember; you come with the flocks and herds—there you are, even now—and there you must be until the system breaks down. Your jealous God, your jealous husband—don’t you see that they’re one and the same? The policeman and the dressmaker; the dueña and the eunuch of the door. Oh, good Lord! That’s Oriental, you know, Turk’s delight. You won’t find that in ‘Don Quixote’—a sane, Latin book; but it’s in half of the New Testament. Saint Paul! Women must cover their heads in church. Why? I’ll tell you: the yashmak! The harem is not to be seen—shameful. . . .

“The Catholics are right. They keep the Bible for the learned. They know it won’t do. If the Italians, for instance, the most practical, clear-headed people in Europe, were to get familiar with the Bible, the Pope might have his throat cut. There’d be a revolution. . . .

“That’s only one point out of a thousand, but it’s a good one. It concerns the welfare of more than half mankind, and its relation with the other fraction. If men are to buy and hoard women, it’s quite clear that women mayn’t have souls of their own. . . . The whole social system depends upon their having none. You are property my friend—marketed by the dressmaker, safeguarded by the policeman. It is really too degrading. It degrades the man more than the woman; makes him a kind of stock-keeper, the most atrocious form of capitalist there can be. The Bible, of course, did not establish that—the system’s as old as Hell; no, but it sanctioned it once and for all. Ever since that Levantine sophist saw ‘big business’ in Christianity, and ran it in Europe, the only hope of religion has been in what lurked of paganism—lurked in the uplands of Tuscany, in the German forests and Irish swamps. . . .

“Religion is a habit of mind—not a taught thing. We are all religious in a thunderstorm. But we don’t get it out of the Decalogue. We are all religious when we are in love; laws of property are forgotten—men and women are themselves. The accursed part of the system is this, that they can’t be themselves from the beginning. You must learn the rules before you can break them. Now if there were no rules at all there would be no rebels. I hope that’s clear.”

She listened with head gently inclined and pondering eyes, partly amused, partly disturbed by his vehemence, but not scandalized, because it was so like him, and because he was he. Womanlike, however, she must reduce his theories to practice, apply his rules, bring them home, or near home. Women, he had said, were property—well, was she her husband’s property? Bought? Marketed by the dressmaker? What did that mean, exactly? When, with a grunt, he stopped his harangue, she tried to formulate her speculations.

“I believe that I see what you mean about rules—keeping and breaking. It’s all very puzzling. Women are put wrong with men from the very beginning—I see that now. What did you mean about ‘being themselves?’ Have I ever been myself?”

He laughed, staring at the ground. “Never.”

“Well, but—how am I to begin?”

“Go your own way. Defy the dressmaker.”

She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “Do tell me what you mean about the dressmaker.”

He stared at the ground again. “I don’t know that I can get much nearer. She teaches you to—to set snares—to lead the eyes—I don’t think we can talk about it.”

“What am I to do?” She asked him that in a tone so serious that he knew she must be answered.

“Ah,” he said, “I can’t help you, you know. You must fudge it out as best you can. I’m dreadfully sorry—but that’s the truth. You might come to a pass where I could be of use—I hope you won’t—there’s no reason to suppose it. Meantime——”

“He’s kindness itself,” she said, looking beyond him. “He was kind from the very beginning—but—I know that I ought not to have married him.”

“Perhaps,” said Senhouse, “he ought not to have asked you.”

Her eyes fell. “No,” she said, “perhaps not.”

After a pause of some intensity on her part, she broke out. “What you tell me of yourself fills me—makes me excited. It’s glorious. You stand on your feet—you are free as the air—owe nothing—while I—what am I? Not even myself. The dressmaker made me—the policeman guards me. My husband—but if I had no husband, what could I do? Belong to somebody else? If I broke a rule——”

He stopped her with a gesture—a quick jerk of the head. She met his eyes.

“The pity will be if you break a rule without getting full value for the escapade. Don’t do that.”

“I wasn’t thinking—I didn’t mean you to think—” He had frightened her; she was quite breathless.

“You must understand,” he said, “that, in my view, you are no wiser to put your body in a cage than your mind. Both must be free. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a woman who breaks our law of property in one way is worse than the shop thief who breaks it in another. To wound the feelings of a good and generous man is a serious thing—but not to take bread when you are starving. At least, that is how I look at it. But—you must be very sure you are starving. Sincerity is the supreme virtue, and insincerity the only deadly sin.”

She nursed her cheek, while dreams showed themselves in her grave eyes. Whether she was pondering what he said or no, there’s no doubt she was giving it personal application again. Tristram was in her mind—her morose, exclusive lover. Was her friend giving a benediction to Tristram’s plain desires? What was she to do then? Was she to be possessed by Tristram—at last? Sincerity, he said, was all. Was she sincere? Could she ask—dared she? She knew that what he told her she should believe—Yes; and she juggled. She did not want to know what he would say—because she knew it already. Blame her as you will—that’s the fact.

Very woman that she was, she went about and about the thing she dared not—peering for the assurance of her fears. She looked softly at him as he sat there, plucking the grass by handfuls or making mounts of torn plantains—she looked wistfully. “You are my friend then—whatever happens to me?”

He met her melting eyes candidly. “Depend upon me.”

“Ah,” she said, “but I do! Well, then, I must do what seems to me best—I must be brave.” He smiled.

“Have your adventures, of course. Don’t be afraid of them. Be true to yourself, though—at every cost.”

“Yes, yes, I promise you that. . . . When shall I see you again?”

He gazed blankly at the sky. “I don’t know, really. I’m a wanderer, you know. But the Land’s End finds me from November to February mostly. I begin to work West about October. I am due in the North now—in the Lakes. Wastwater will find me—somewhere thereabouts. I shall be there till September. I leave London to-night—no, to-morrow—” Their eyes met again, without embarrassment. He was the only man she could have commerce with in this way. “I shall see you at Land’s End some day or other,” she told him. “When I’m wounded——”

“Caught in a wire by the foot,” he laughed. “All right—I’ll set you free.”

“But suppose you were in Berkshire when I was there—How should I know that you were there? Would you call at Southover?”

He laughed. “No, indeed I shouldn’t. I’m a hedgerow chap. I move by night mostly.”

“Well, but—you might be within a mile of me, and I should never know it.”

“Yes, you would, of course,” he said, simply. “You’d know by the trail.”

“What trail?”

“Don’t you know that? I’ll show you. Old Borrow calls it the patteran, and swears he got it from a gipsy girl called Ursula. You needn’t believe him; I don’t. But the trail is certain. A woman who lived in a cave at Granada showed it to me. Look here.” He plucked up a handful of grass. “Here’s a four-went way”—he marked it with his finger in the dust. “Now watch”—he scattered the grass, which took, roughly, the form of a curved pointer. “You see that on a road—it means the way I am gone. But I do mine with leaves, when leaves there are—with leaves from the sunny side of a hedgerow. You can always tell them.” Her brows inquired—she was intensely interested. “Dunce, they are bigger of course, and darker. I use them because the gipsies, who are everywhere, use leaves, too, but never take the trouble to select them. Now you’ll always know my trail by that. Do you see?”

She clasped her hands together—her eyes danced. “How splendid! How glorious! Then we have a language. I can find you whenever I want you. For if I wanted you very badly, I could set a patteran for you, couldn’t I?” He nodded. She said in a low voice, “You don’t know how strong you have made me—you can never know. Thank you a thousand times.”

“Not a bit,” he said, lightly. “If we’re friends, you are entitled to know my little games.”

“And may I speak to you like that—when I go anywhere?”

“Do. We share.”

She sighed. “How can I ever thank you!”

The sun was low when she got up, saying that she must go home. It was discovered to be seven o’clock. “Why,” she cried, “they had forgotten to have any tea!”

“Poor girl! Will you have some now?”

“No, no. I don’t want it. But I must go. Will you come with me? Or are you engaged?”

“You know I’m never engaged. I shall come with you, of course. Will you drive?”

She shook her head. “No, that’s too quick. Let’s walk over the grass. It’s no distance.”

She talked to him of her friends—of all her friends but Duplessis. This he observed. Did he know Mr. Horace Wing? By repute only, it seemed. He could be seen in photograph shops—a very “pretty fellow”; too pretty, Palmer Lovell? Unlicked, he judged. Then he tried her. “I know young Bramleigh,” he said with one of his straight looks into the deep of you. “I met him yesterday.”

She received the shock unfaltering. “Lord Bramleigh? I hardly know him.” He had failed. Lord Kesteven—for she went on blandly with her list—he had never heard of. He asked “What he did?” and made her open her eyes. “Do!” she said, with a comical air of being shocked. “He’s a Marquis.” This made Senhouse perfectly happy, but he apologized for laughing. “I’ve nothing against him, you know. I believe it’s an honest calling. Does he do nothing else but be a kind marquis to you?”

She affected scorn. “He’s an Ambassador—in Paris. I hope that’s honest enough for you.”

“I hope so, too,” said Senhouse, “but I’d rather be a marquis. Is he your friend?”

“He says so. I think he means to be.” All of a sudden she leaned towards him; he felt her urgency. “You are my friend. I have no others. You have promised me your friendship.”

“You have it, my dear,” said Senhouse. They walked the rest of the way in silence; but he stopped once, and interested her again. It was in Mount-street—of all places. He stopped short, as if he was listening; his head high, eyes closed. He was sensing the air, listening to it, smelling it. Narrow Mount-street took the semblance of a forest path, brambled, dusty, hemmed with bracken fronds and silvered roots. “There’s rain—there’s rain,” he said—“I can hear it coming. May be a day off, but it’s on the way.” She watched him incredulous. “Are you a magician? What are you?” He laughed. “I’ve got feelers, that’s all.”

At the door in Hill-street he left her. She was inclined to be tremulous, tender—but he was completely cheerful. He would have gone with a wave of the hand had she not held out her own. As it was, she had prepared a little formal speech—“I cannot tell you how glad I am that we met—I——”

“Don’t try to tell me,” he said. “I know it. One takes that for granted—among friends, you know. That’s the privilege of the estate.”

“Yes, yes—of course. Well, I won’t thank you for doing what pleases you. I am sure that it has pleased you.” She fished for an answer.

“Take it for granted,” he repeated.

That braced her. “I will. I do. Good-bye.” This time he did wave his hand.

“Mr. Duplessis have called, Madame,” said Greatorex at the door. “He have left a parcel. Lord Kesteven have called—and Mr. Wing.”

The parcel—discreetly phrased—proved to be most palpably a truss of roses. She unfastened it herself, and found a slip of paper pinned to the stalk of one. “Forgive,” was written on it. Smiling wisely, she went upstairs to dress, her bouquet in her hand.

VII
SHE GLOSSES THE TEXT

Had Duplessis, flowers in hand, sued his forgiveness at any time, she was not the woman to be stern. That was not in her; she was at once too sensitive to the flattery of the prayer, and too generous to refuse it. But at this particular time she felt very strong; fresh from communion with her friend, secure in him, she felt equal to judging a dozen Tristrams—and to judging them leniently. “They know not what they do.” That was why she had smiled so wisely to herself on her way upstairs; and it may have been why she wore some of his flowers in the waistband of her gown that night. It was one of her most charming gowns, too; mouse-coloured tulle. In the belt of this she set crimson roses, of Tristram’s offering.

She dined out, and went on to a party. Duplessis was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs; they went up together. He had never yet taken possession of her in that manner, and cannot be excused of brutality. But he was quick to presume; was not at all a good object for generosity. Her eyes had answered his inquiry—“Forgiven?” before he touched her hand; she had said “Of course,” and the rest followed as a matter of course. He assumed from it his right to be offensive, and her privilege to be unoffended. She went upstairs by his side, so far as he was concerned, possessed to all intents and purposes—under his protection. She did not know it then or even feel it; her lightness of heart buoyed her up. Had she not been encouraged in adventure?

By the time they were well past their hostess at the door Tristram had resumed this air of the vaguely irritated lion. He looked grandly about him over heads—his height gave him pretence.

“What are we to do here—? All these people—a wilderness of monkeys—” When a young man, sure of welcome, had come up on toe-tips to shake hands with Mrs. Germain—had bowed, prattled, bowed and gone, Duplessis showed more than fatigue. He had seen his crimson flowers at her belt, and they bretrayed him. “I want to talk to you. Let’s go and sit down somewhere. It can’t be here.” He spoke shortly, as if he meant it.

She took his arm without question, and he pushed a way through a couple of full rooms. Beyond these was a little boudoir, beyond that a library, empty. She sat, and he stood fidgeting with reviews on the table, taking up and throwing aside like a child sick of toys. And she sat softly there with cast-down eyes, waiting until he chose to remember her.

She was very conscious of his mood, and not unsatisfied with it. The whole thing was a game, an adventure, say, and this a recognized move in it. “Have your adventures—don’t shirk them. Sincerity is the great matter. Be yourself whatever happens.” He had been plucking up the grass at her feet as he told her that, and she had not been able to see his face, though she had tried. He spoke deliberately, as if he was screwing the words out one by one—as if they ought to be said, cost him what they might to say. Had they cost him anything? Ah, if she could have known that!

But—“Be yourself whatever happens!” Had she a self? What was it? Was it that of a young woman who—of one of those women who like to be coveted, are ready to be owned, who indeed always are owned by one or another? “His servant or his maid, his ox or his ass—” Must she be property, personal property? Ah, but let her never forget that, such as she was, Jack Senhouse was to be her friend—always—at the call of her need. Then she remembered the patteran, and smiled to herself.

Presently she looked up at Tristram, scowling over the Deux Mondes. “What are you going to do with me, now I am here?” she asked him lightly; whereupon he turned short, and sat down near her.

“What can I do with you? What’s possible? What am I allowed to say? I feel like a caged cat. Am I to pay you compliments, ask you if all’s well? Has it come to that? I know what you would say if I did. You are not happy. It’s evident.”

It was only in this man’s company that she failed of self-possession. With men far greater than he, such as Kesteven; with men defter than he, men of the Wing vein, she could, as it were, hold the reins, and feel the mouth. With Duplessis she was always liable to strike back upon former days. At any moment, had he but known it, he could have put her, so to speak, into a white muslin frock, turned her into the fluttered village coquette. Oddly enough, with all his wits, he had never known it until this moment; he had always read her new position into her old ways. But now it was too plain to mistake; he had but to lift his hand and—! The discovery ran through his veins like a strong wind—to make him shiver.

She was looking down at her hands in her lap, picking up her fan plumes one by one, and running them between her fingers. A latent trembling possessed her, which he felt rather than saw. The same fever caught him.

“Where’s Germain?” He spoke masterfully.

Her reply was studiously simple. “He’ll come for me by-and-by. He’s at the Speaker’s dinner.”

“He’s always somewhere else.” Mischief prompted her to ask if he complained of that; but he was not to be drawn.

“If you were my wife,” he told her, “I should never leave your side. If you were my wife, I should be your lover always.”

Here was a lie, obvious even to her; but the devout imagination in it was enough to thrill her. Watching her closely, he saw that she was thrilled.

“You’re not happy,” he said, “and I’m not happy. You made a frightful mistake—but mine was worse.”

It was hardly the moment to assure him that he was quite wrong. If a gentleman does you the honour to discern misery, even where none exists, it proves attention, at least, to your circumstances. It’s an oblique compliment.

She said gravely, “I don’t think we ought to talk about such things. I have never given you any reason to think me dissatisfied with——”

“Oh,” he broke in, “we’re not considering the creature comforts, I imagine. You came here in a carriage from your big house—and you’ll go back to a big house in your carriage. I can understand that these are pleasant arrangements; and after two years of them, for what they are worth, you may well confuse them with the real thing. But that—! A full cup, nodding at the brim! Life together! No world, nobody in the world but two souls—ours! And work: work together! Good God, it’s ghastly to think of.”

He looked haggard, and there was a hollow ring in his voice, the hoarseness of a consumptive. Her heart went out to him in pity, and her hand was laid for a moment on his sleeve. “You are not well—you work too hard. Please don’t.”

“Work!” he said, “I have none. I wish I had. I’ve quarrelled with Jess.”

“I know. I’m very sorry. I wish that we—that I——”

He suddenly and squarely faced her. “Look here, Molly,” he said, and made her heart beat and her eyes quail. He, and he only, had called her Molly. “You know what’s the matter. There has hardly been a day since you’ve been in town that I haven’t seen you—I’ve found out where you were to be—and I’ve been, too. You possess my mind; I think of nothing else, can’t sleep for thinking. I believed that I should get over it, and perhaps I should if I hadn’t seen you again last autumn. There was the mischief. I vow to you I didn’t want to come, shouldn’t have come if Jess hadn’t insisted. A confounded ass—! It all began again then—and now, I tell you fairly I shan’t get over it. I’m not going to try. It’s stronger than I. . . . And I believe that you care, too. I do believe that, I know you do. You wouldn’t sit there so still if you didn’t—you wouldn’t hide your eyes if you didn’t. You dare not show me how bright they are. Ah, but I know how bright they can be, and what makes them shine! No, no, you and I belong——”

“Oh, don’t, don’t—please don’t!” The cry was wrung from her, and the courage to look at him came. But then, as she turned her head away, she said faintly, “You mustn’t,” and made things ten times worse.

His next words beat her back. “I love you, do you hear? I adore you—I care for nobody, no rights or claims in the world; I can’t live without you. If you won’t listen to me, if you drive me too hard, I shall—No, no, that’s wicked. Molly, I’ll do you no harm, I swear to that. But you and I have got to be together, or I shall go mad. Now you know it all.”

She rose, and he with her. Both were shaking; but she spoke first.

“Let me go now, please—take me back. I mustn’t be found here.” He was ready.

“I’ll take you away, now. I’m glad I’ve had it out with you. Now you know the facts at least.”

She put her face in her hands. “It’s dreadful. I ought not to have listened to you. It was very wrong. What are we to do?”

“Love each other dearly,” said Tristram, and took her in his arms and kissed her. She shuddered and shut her eyes, but did not try to move. Her lips were parted; there came a long sigh. “My darling, my darling girl,” he said, and kissed her again. They heard steps, and sprang apart. Her terror was manifest. “Come,” he said, “we must get out of this.”

She took his arm—she looked as sleek as a stroked dove. They went into the rooms without another word. She was almost at once confronted with people whom she knew, and Duplessis left her with the first group she encountered. She saw him shoulder his way through, nodding to right and left in his grand, careless way; she saw him go out and knew that he would not come back. Engaged in the chatter usual to such times, she talked at random, laughed without knowing what amused her. When she was told that Mr. Germain had been seen—was here looking for her, she gathered her wits at once and went to find him.

He was talking in his calm, superior way to a great lady. His Court dress suited him—he looked like his ancestor, Sir William, pictured in the dining-room at Southover.

The great lady put up her glasses and smiled at Mary. “Here comes that pretty person you’ve given us. How d’ye do, my dear. What’s the secret of your bright eyes? Late hours agree with you, it’s plain; but this poor man of yours wants care.”

“Yes, indeed,” said she, thankful of the turn-off.

Mr. Germain made her a bow. “If you have come to take me away, my dear, I shall not deny you the pleasure. The whole duty of a wife in the season is to take her husband from parties. Am I not right, Duchess?”

“My dear man,” said she, “I don’t pretend to such privileges. My husband has been in bed these two hours. Good-night, you happy pair. Now, my dear, when will you come to me? The 20th, of course—my ball. I trust you for that. But do come in to luncheon—positively any day except to-morrow and Thursday—oh, and Saturday. Saturday is hopeless.” She tapped Mary’s cheek with her fan—“What a dawn colour!”—and smiled herself onwards, fat, satiny, and benevolent. The Germains gained their carriage, and he was asleep before they were in Carlos-place. She sat absorbed, gazing out of the window, still under the spell of Tristram’s love-making. She went to bed—lay wide-eyed in the dark for a while; then sighed deeply, and smiled, and slept. Her last waking thought was sophistical. “He told me to have adventures—and to be myself. And he’s my friend, whatever happens.” Entrenched behind her philosopher, she had no dreams.

VIII
ADVENTURE CROWDS ADVENTURE

Odd thing! The rain nosed out by the man of weather came to pass. But it delayed for a week or more, which was time enough for many other prophecies to be fulfilled. When, however, it did come it struck her imagination. She awoke late from a night of deep sleep to hear it thudding on roof and balcony and to see, when she looked out, the heavy trees of Berkeley-square streaming like waterweed under a sluice. Here and there a cruising hansom thrashed a way through, now and again a milk-cart. The butcher-boys wore their baskets on their heads. Her first conscious thought was of Senhouse, bare-crested to the wild weather. It would be wild in the open, and, of course, he was in the open. On some wide common, perhaps, facing the gale, with the rolling collar of his jersey flacking like ship’s cordage. Ah, to be there with him, sharing the joy of battle!

It was with a sense of suddenly leaving the wholesome, great air for that of a hot-house that she turned to her breakfast tray and pile of letters. She picked up the first of them; the hand was Tristram’s. A letter from him, and a visit, were now daily events. A letter to him, also, must be written daily, and somehow delivered.

This one was cavalier in tone. “Sweetheart,—I must see you, if only to arrange how best we may meet. What a storm last night! But what a clear blue promise before us! I shall be in the Burlington Arcade—Gardens end—at noon. Come.” “Tr.”

Even she, never yet free from her early subjection to him, felt that this was not how lovers write to their sovereign ladies. An assignation—and in such a place—proposed to Mrs. Germain! She coloured high and clear. He had done what she could never have believed possible; he had really offended her. Nothing in the whole world could have persuaded her to go.

But by-and-by that sophistry which is ever at hand to clinch a woman’s argument the way she wants it to travel, modified her view, suggested a duty. Insolent, arrogant, exorbitant lover that he was, he must be taught his place. He should see her inaccessible; he should see her cold profile as she drove by him without so much as a turn of the head. Perhaps then he would know that she was not a village girl at his disposal. Perhaps. Thus, at least, she reasoned—and thus she did. The brougham was ordered for a quarter to twelve—she kept it fifteen minutes, and then gave the order, “Bank.” Her bank was that of England, and stands in Burlington Gardens.

She had no real errand there, but she feigned one. A cheque was to be cashed. The footman was to take it—and even as she gave it him she saw Tristram at the mouth of the Arcade—in an overcoat to his ankles, his wet umbrella in his hand.

She sat rigid in her place, wide-eyed for events. While looking at Musters’s careful back it was perfectly possible to see her lover at his post. He was watching her intently, she knew; but he did not move. He did not intend to go a step out of his way to meet her. True, he had walked to the Arcade—he, who lived in the Albany! A most cavalier lover, this.

The game went on . . . the minutes passed. The footman came back with her money and waited for orders. She named a shop—a jeweller’s close by, in Vigo-street. Jinny Middleham was to be married, to a Mr. Podmore, a clergyman, and must have a present. How happily things turned out; the cheque would serve. The touch of Musters’s whip caused the hoofs to clatter on the asphalt; the brougham lunged forward and swept her by the shameful trysting-place. She peered sideways as she passed; Duplessis, looking full upon her, did not even lift his hat. Nor, during the hour she spent, fingering enamels, rivières, and rings, did he appear at the shop-door. When she went by the Arcade on her return he was not there. She felt strongly the sensation of escape, and was surprised to be so free from disappointment. Senhouse came back to his own place in her thoughts—he and the wind on the heath. Both good things.

But in the afternoon, at about six o’clock, her cavalier was ushered into her drawing-room, where she sat alone, and stood by the door looking at her until the man had gone out. Then he crossed the room quickly, came straight to her, knelt, took both her hands and kissed them.

He humbled himself. She hardly knew him for the same man. And he did the thing handsomely, too, named himself grievous things, exalted her, wouldn’t hear of any excuse. Her generosity, easily moved, was all on his side in a few minutes. She could not hear him accuse himself. Perhaps he had been thoughtless; but she had had no right, she said, to be so angry.

Finally, she wouldn’t listen. “If you go on talking so wildly,” she told him, “I shall begin to think you don’t mean it.” And then he did explain.

It appeared that there had been reason in what he had proposed. A certain delicacy taught him that he could not continue calling at the house after what had happened. That could hardly fail to appease her. His seeming insult, then, had really been intensely prompted by his fear of insulting her. She considered this with hanging head.

“Mind you, Molly,” he went on, being master of her hand, “I can’t withdraw one word of what was forced out of me that night; I can’t wish undone one single act. I adore you, and I must tell you so; I love you, and must show my love.” Here he kissed her. “The question is, how and when am I to see you. See you I must and will. I wanted to talk to you about that—and how was I to do it? Would you have had me ask you to my rooms?”

It did occur to her here that a better place could have been found, since they met most nights in the week in somebody’s house; but she put the cavil by as unworthy. Since he was in her husband’s house, however, not disturbed unduly by the delicacy which had troubled him overnight, it would be as well to hear what he suggested.

“I’m not going to be unreasonable,” he told her; “I shall settle down presently, and things will jog along, no doubt, for a bit. But at this moment, when I have just won you—after two years, Molly, after two years—I must have you more or less alone for a few days. Upon my soul, I think you owe me that.”

He made her feel that she really did; but he frightened her, too. She looked quickly into his face, where he knelt gazing at hers. “You must tell me what you mean,” she said. “I don’t understand. Alone? For a few days? That is surely impossible.”

He explained with eagerness. “Of course, of course! Don’t, for God’s sake, misunderstand. I would not ask you to do anything which would cause you discomfort. Heaven forbid. I said, ‘more or less alone.’ Isn’t that plain enough? If I can’t see you here, it can only be at some of these infernal crowds we all flock to—and how can we be sure of a moment there? Look here, my dearest, think of this plan. I should like you to go and stay with your people for a bit.”

That did sound feasible. Her quick mind jumped after his instantly. “My people?” she said, wondering. “Yes, I should love to see them all again. Jinny, my sister, is going to be married. I should have gone for that in any event. Yes, of course, I could go there if——”

He poured out his plans. She should go to Blackheath at once, and he would take her down, leave her at the door. He should take rooms in Greenwich: there was an hotel there, not bad at all. You looked over the river; the shipping was magnificent. Every day he would meet her somewhere—they would both be unknown. Every day they would spend together: Greenwich Park, the river; they could sail to the Nore, round the Mouse. It would be Heaven, he said. And then he pleaded—his love, his misery, his longing. “Without you I’m a lost soul, Mary; if I’m worth saving, come and save me. In the sight of Heaven you were mine on the day I kissed you first. Do you remember when that was? How long ago? Do you think I have forgotten it? Never, never. That kiss sealed you mine—mine for ever. And what am I asking of you now? A few days’ human companionship—a sop which you are to throw to a starving man. Haven’t you charity enough for that? Ah, but I see that you have—you can’t hide it from me.” She could not.

He went on from strength to strength. “I save the proprieties by this plan; I secure you absolutely from prying eyes and profane tongues. You will have your people, your mother, to fall back upon if I could be—if you could fear me scoundrel enough—My beloved! I wrong you to name such a thought. You may disapprove of me—you may be hurt—God forgive me! by things that I say, do, look. They are things wrung from me by this throttling passion—for three years I have been gripped by the throat. Ah, and it must end, or be the end of me! Well—Molly, look at me. What will you tell me?”

She did look at him then—for one dewy moment. Pity, kindness, infinite wistfulness, pride—mingled in the fire, melted, and lay gleaming in her eyes. Wonderingly she searched his face, ready to quail before the savagery she expected to read there; but he was wise—she could find nothing there but honesty, frank and manly desire; for he saw to it that she should not. Before she turned her head she had given him her hand. He stooped and kissed it softly; then went away.

Before dinner she went to her husband in the library where he sat, with his reading-lamp, blue-books, and spectacles. “Come in,” he had called in answer to her knock, but did not turn when she entered. As she approached his desk, approached his studious back, she felt like a school-girl, coming to ask if she might leave early—with a fibbing reason for the teacher, which disguised the secret, fearful joy of the real reason. The school-girl showed in every halting word, in every flicker of the covering eyelids. . . .

“I was going to ask you—Would you mind if I were to go to my people for a few days—soon? Would you be able to spare me, do you think?”

He turned quickly, hurt by her meekness. “My love! Of course! Can you ask me such things?”

She could not afford tenderness from him just now. She took a business-like tone.

“My sister is to be married shortly, as you know. There is a good deal to do. I could help mother, you know. Jinny is staying with Mr. Podmore’s family.”

He nodded approvingly. “Quite so, quite so. It would be only kind. You have engagements, no doubt—but nothing pressing, I suppose. Have we not people here, by the way?”

“Not until the 26th. This is the 11th.”

“Yes, yes, my dear. Make whatever arrangements suit you. When do you think of going?”

“I thought, the day after to-morrow. But——”

“Well, my love?”

“I should not care to go, if I thought—that you might want me.”

He turned to his desk. “Want you!” he said under his breath. “Want you!” So careful was he that she could never have guessed the bitterness of that soft cry.

But she lingered yet. “Of course—it is quite close to town. You could write—or telegraph—I could come in a moment.”

“Yes, my dear one, yes,” he said, his face averted. “It would be easy enough. But I am not likely to disturb you in your happiness.”

This would never do. “It would be my duty to come.”

He groaned. “Oh, my dearest, spare me!”

She must misconstrue that, or she must fail; she must gulp it down, and she did—but it turned her sick.

“Thank you,” she said staidly. “Then I will write to mother.” Her fingers were within an inch of his shoulder; they hovered over, almost touched it. Then she went. He covered his face with his hands. I think he prayed.

IX
THE PATTERAN

As she lay watchful in her bed the night before her escapade, she vowed that she had no love for Tristram, none whatever. At the same moment she protested with a cry that she had none for her husband either; indeed, it was rather the other way. Surely, surely, she was entitled to resentment against that poor gentleman. For what reason under Heaven had he broken in upon her laborious days if, now that he had her, she was to be no more to him than a figure at his table? Was this the whole duty of wives? She knew better than that. Nay, then, had wives no rights? Was she bought to be a nun? She declared to herself that she would be willing, should that enable her to help him in his work. But she knew that nothing would enable her; she had insight enough into character to read what manner of man he was. “He can tell me nothing—nothing. And the more he needs me the less he can say so. If I went to him on my knees and begged him to be open with me, he would shrivel before my face. No, no, he must be for ever bestowing favours—he loves to be the benefactor—and that’s all he loves. If he could pity me he would love me again—in his way. But—” and she clenched her little hands and stiffened her arms—“he shall never pity me—never.” And then she blushed all over to feel how she had crept to him to ask his leave of absence, and how she had cowered there, with drooping eyelids too heavy to be raised. Alas! and how she had fibbed.

A thought of Tristram here, of his kisses and strong arms about her, made her heart beat. The wild joy of being possessed by so fine a creature was not to be denied, once you blinked the truth that in the very act of taking possession he would despise you for suffering it. That had to be blinked, though. Whatever she might have become by right of marriage, by intercourse with Tristram’s own world, by familiarity with its ways—to Tristram she was still a little governess, sent into this world to be kissed and fondled—but no possible companion for a gentleman, or man of parts. Formerly, if she had felt this, she had accepted it; but now—well, it had to be blinked. Mary was no fool. She knew quite well that she had learned the ways of the great. She knew that she was a success. She had been clever enough from the beginning to see that safety lay only in being absolutely herself. While she had gone in and out of Misperton Brand, from school-house to church and back, she had turned her eyes and ears—all her senses—upon these lords of the earth who were lords without effort. Her Cantacutes, James Germains, and their friends—every gesture of theirs had been a study to her. By instinct she had bored into the very marrow of these people. They alone in the world could afford to be themselves. And directly she could afford it she put that into practice—with success, as she knew very well. Tristram Duplessis, however, would have none of that, ignored it. He was entirely himself, too, and never allowed her to forget that she was his inferior. Every look he gave her was, in its way, an insult, implied “You are mine, my dear, for the picking up.” She knew that she ought to be offended—but she was not offended. She knew that such a homage as his was not flattering—and yet she was flattered by it. Then why should she run away from what pleased her? As she asked herself this question, to which the answer had been so easy a little while before, she found herself now echoing more faintly her “Why, indeed?” Was not love a necessity to women? Was she to have none of it? Was she to be an unwedded wife for ever, and unloved? What had her friend told her, that wonderful day in the Park when, it had seemed, the scales fell from her eyes and she saw men and women where before she had seen herds, dressed by the milliner and marshalled by the police? Love, he had said, is a real thing—one of the few real things we have; and it has been turned by the lawyers into a means of securing real property. “It’s bad enough that women should lend themselves to that; but worse things are done in love’s name, I believe.” Well then, if Tristram loved her, in his way, was she not justified in giving him what she had left to give? At that moment she felt his arms about her, his breath upon her cheeks. Yes, yes, he loved her—he had always loved her. Let come what might of that.

She turned on the light and left her bed; she sat at her writing-table and scribbled a few words on a sheet—“I am going to Blackheath to-morrow—by train. I shall leave Charing-cross at 4.15.” She put that in an envelope, wrote his name and address, stamped it. Now, what was the time? Two o’clock? It could still be posted so that he would get it at eight. Dressing gown, slippers, a hasty twist to her hair, a cloak and hood—she opened her door noiselessly and crept downstairs.

She was some time unfastening the front door—time enough to cool; time enough to decide with a leaden heart that she had no love for Tristram. The keen pale air tempered her still further. “Be yourself,” she had been told; and “Sincerity is the whole matter.” Insincerity! There lay the sin. She had to go to the corner of the Square to the pillar-box; but not a soul was in sight: it could be done. Gathering her cloak about her, she ventured out, and walked tiptoe forward, with eyes all astare for a policeman or late cab. . . .

The houses seemed made of eyes; there was not a blind window but had a witness in it. Mocking, leering, incredulous, curious, heavily reproving she dragged before them her load of shame. Oh, that it should have come to this, that she was a spectacle for all London’s reproach! But she sped onwards on light feet, her letter in her hand.

Where Hill-street broadens into the Square stands a great lamp, the centre, as it were, of a pool of light. There had been a storm of wind and rain in the early part of that night, and the surface of the road was fretted with gleaming reflections where mud and water had been blown up into billows. As she stood for a second or two by the pillar-box, her letter not yet posted, her eyes, painfully acute, fell upon this wide, dimpled and cresseted bay, and, although her mind was disturbed, took some sort of interest in the effect. Following the light inwards, she found her looks arrested by something else—a torn spray of a tree, blown, no doubt, from one of the planes in the Square garden—which lay by the pillar-box, almost at her feet. It was about eighteen inches long, bent in the midst, and pointed to the north. Strictly, it pointed north-west.

Immediately she remembered the patteran which Senhouse had explained to her. Wonderful thing—if he had passed this way while she was contending with her sin, and had laid this sure sign in the road to show her where he was to be found! It pointed to the north—no! to the north-west. That seemed to make a certainty of it. Her heart beat high, and the flood of happiness rose within her until she seemed to be bathed in it to the chin. She stood alone in that great glaring emptiness, unconscious of everything but her triumphant release from bondage. To the north—safety was in the north, comradeship, health, freedom to breathe and move her limbs! Smiling to herself, she dropped her letter into the pillar-box, picked up the patteran and returned swiftly to the house, to bed and to happy sleep. Absolved! She was absolved.

In the morning she arose with the feeling of elation one has at the opening of an honest adventure; the day is before you, the world lies mapped out; you are not to fail—you cannot. She dressed, breakfasted and read her letters. There was one from Tristram, which she had not even the curiosity to open. She lit the corner of it at the spirit-lamp and held it daintily out while it curled and blackened under the flame and dropped in charred flakes into the slop basin. Ghosts of words in silver characters flickered as they perished—she saw “homage,” “heart’s queen,” “kiss,” and “my arms.” She wrote to her mother at Blackheath that she was unexpectedly delayed but hoped to come soon. She would write again, she said, or send a telegram. Meantime a trunk would arrive and might wait for her. At eleven she asked if Mr. Germain was up, and being told that he was, went in to see him.

If he had been in the mood to notice anything but his own troubles, he must have remarked upon her altered habit. She was radiantly well, self-possessed, and cool. She kissed his forehead lightly, asked how he had slept, and then told him that she was lunching out and should have her luggage sent down to Blackheath. She had given orders to her maid, and should not want the carriage.

Mr. Germain listened heavily, fingering a blue-book and a pencil. He made no inquiries, had no suggestions to offer. She anticipated what he might have had to say as to an approaching visit of the James Germains by telling him that all arrangements had been made—and then she said, “I won’t disturb you again. I know that you are very busy.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “My work presses upon me.” He sighed, and then asked with studied politeness, “You go to-day?”

She laughed. “I’ve just been telling you about it.” She stooped and kissed his forehead again. “Good-bye,” she said, “I’ll write, of course—if you’ll promise to read what I send you.”

He caught his breath, and shut his eyes tightly as if something hurt him; but he did not move from his chair. Nor did he once seek to meet her eyes. She could see that he was deeply depressed, but felt no pity for him just then. Her youth was too strong within her, her adventure too near, and her freedom too certain. Yet she hovered above him looking down at him drooped in his chair, quivering over him, as it were, like some gossamer insect new-dawning to the sun. A word, a sigh, a look would have netted her in; but nothing came. He sat stonily astare, his face hidden by his hand—the other keeping his page in the blue-book. Looking down, as from the battlements of heaven an archangel might survey the earth, she touched his shoulder with her finger-tips, and was gone.

In reasoning it all out, or rather in flashing her instinct upon events—for that was her way—she knew that Senhouse could not himself have laid the patteran for her guidance. None the less, she was sure it was intended for her, and that it pointed truly to where he was. It was June; he would be in Cumberland. Wastwater would find him, he had said. Her plan, as she worked it out, was to take train to Kendal and inquire.

This she did. While her trunk and dressing-case were being delivered at Heath View, and while Duplessis was biting his nails under the clock at Charing Cross Station, she was being carried smoothly to the north, snugly in a corner of a third-class carriage, her cheek to the window-pane, and her bright unwinking eyes watching the landscape as it rushed up to meet her. The villa gardens and hedgerows of Herts, the broad Leicestershire cornfields, Bletchley with its spire, Rugby, Crewe, then the dark over all; but scarcely for a moment did her eyes leave the nearing north. She arrived at Kendal at midnight, and had some tea. Then she found the ladies’ waiting-room, lay on the sofa, and slept.

X
THE BROTHERS TOUCH BOTTOM

The James Germains paid a visit to Hill-street in June. It was most unfortunate that it was so wet, but the time was otherwise convenient, since Mary was away on a visit to her people. This was how Mrs. James put it—she was never remarkable for tact. Nor did she care to be. Surely, she would say, openness is best. Mary once departed, then, Mrs. James was installed the very next day. The Rector followed her.

From the first he did not like his brother’s looks. John, he thought, was ailing—ailing and ageing. He showed an unwholesome white in the cheeks, a flabby quality in the flesh, poor appetite, low spirits. Vitality was low; he was feeble. He ate hardly anything, and betrayed a tendency to fall asleep in pauses of the conversation. Yet he talked, in flashes, during dinner of his projects, with something of the old hopefulness. He had lately been asking a series of questions, agricultural questions, “somewhat carefully framed”; he had pressed the Minister in charge of such matter. He was “not without hope” that some good might result. Then a deputation of tenant-farmers had been talked of; he “should not be unwilling” to introduce that. It was very characteristic of him to talk negatively; the Rector used to trace it to a Scots ancestress—a Forbes of Lochgour. But he owned to being weary—alas, that a legislator should admit that in June! and said that he looked forward to the recess “like any schoolboy.” Mrs. James, who loved “plans,” asked him his. He had none, it seemed. “Time has pressed upon us both of late; my work and her dissipations! But I must talk it over with Mary so soon as she returns. Her wishes must carry weight with me. I should delight in showing her Switzerland—or Norway——”

“You would not, perhaps, delight in the thousands of people doing the same thing?” Here was Mrs. James, with her challenging note. The Rector marked with concern that John let it go.

She inquired whether he would resume his visits to Misperton Brand. “The Cantacutes often speak of you,” she told him, and then remembered that of course he saw the Cantacutes here in town. He bowed his head.

“Then you know, of course, that Tristram’s affair—if it ever was an affair—with Hertha is quite at an end?”

No—Mr. Germain had not known that. “I see very little of Tristram,” he told her, and resumed the question of holiday-making.

Mary had great leanings to Cornwall. She had been attracted to it upon her first visit, had often talked of it, and lately had seemed to prefer it to Switzerland. She would like to be there later in the year; spoke of November as a good month. “I cannot say that it agrees with me,” he added. “A languid, relaxing air—and in November! To my mind a visit to the Land’s End in November would be the act of a suicide. But Mary is young and strong; and her wishes are naturally mine—and her pleasures also . . . her pleasures also.” If he sighed he was not aware of it. A silence fell upon the table, which became painful to two of the three, though not to be broken. The Rector plunged back into politics. “They tell me at the clubs that Lord Craye leaves India. . . .” But it would not do. Mrs. James had the good taste to rise. The carriage was ordered at 10 to take her to a party.

When she had gone the brothers sat without speaking for some minutes. The Rector drank his claret; John Germain was in a brooding stare. The younger broke the silence.

“Dear old boy, I wish that we could have stopped up a few more days—but the Diocesan Inspector can’t be put off. I tried him with my silkiest—he’s inexorable—adamant. And then there’s Constantia, with a bazaar on her conscience. A bazaar—in July!”

John Germain did not lift his head from the hand that propped it. “My dear fellow, I understand you perfectly. We all have our duties. We must all face them . . . whatever it cost . . . whatever it cost us.”

The Rector looked keenly at him. “You are not yourself, John—that’s as clear as day. I do wish that Mary had not left you. It was not like her. She should have known—” His goaded brother sat up sharply—like one who lifts his gory head from the press of battle, descrying fresh foes.

“Mary wished to go. I could not deny her. Indeed, I wished it also. Her parents are alone, and she is useful to them. I believe, nay, I am sure that she is happy there.”

“Your belief,” said the Rector, “is as pious as the fact, and as rare. The fashion of the day is for children to tolerate their parents. The cry is, ‘You brought us into the world, Monsieur et Dame; yes, and thank you for nothing!’ Thank God, Mary hasn’t caught that trick. But I do think that, if she is needed here, a hint from you——”

“But I will give her no such hints,” Germain said fiercely. “I am not so self-engrossed. I am inured to a solitary life, and she is not. I remember her youth, I remember her activity.”

“One would have thought that London in June—” the Rector began, and was checked at once. Germain said shortly that the activity excited by London in June was not wholesome. “She is better there than here,” he added, and snapped his lips together.

James Germain, having raised his eyebrows at this oracle, immediately lowered them again, and his eyes with them. After a pause he spoke more intimately, feeling his way along a dark, surmised passage.

“I believe you to mean that all this whirl is very new to her, and over-exciting. Must you not be patient, must you not lead? Accustom her to it by degrees? You know what I think of Mary, and that I have followed her steps with interest. You have told me how bravely she held her own in the country; and you aren’t likely to forget that she had two years in which to do it. You speak of our duties—meaning, I take it, your own among others? Well, where do these lie, these duties? Where we find ourselves, or where we may choose to put ourselves? You may tell me that public life is, in a sense, your sphere—and so it is, I grant you. But when you entered Mary’s little sphere—as you did, something of the suddenest—had you not then to inquire whether that could be made elastic enough to include your own? Surely you had. This Parliamentary career of yours, now. Nobody is more naturally at Westminster than yourself: that’s of course. I wish there were more like you, men of sober judgment, weighted with their private responsibilities. Upon my conscience, Parliament seems a place for buccaneering now-a-days—a high sea. I rejoiced, I say, when you stood up. But whether you could fairly ask a girl of Mary’s training to take over such work with you—by your side—” Here John Germain held up his hand.

“One moment. You are right, James. I could not. I acted for the best, so far as I could see my way. I listened to my hopes. It was important that I should do something to interest her in—in our life together. There were reasons, serious reasons, into which I cannot now enter. Her life at Southover. . . . She was not happy, she was not contented. She could not be.”

James had now nothing to say. He frowned, to conceal his pain. John spoke on slowly, as if labouring both words and breath.

“I have failed her—I have failed her. And since that—I have held out my hands, tried to speak. I am dumb before her youth and eager life. I love her dearly, I need her—but she cannot know it, will never know it. Experience is what she cries for, not of the mouth, but of the heart and blood. I have no blood to give her, and my heart is in a cage.” He spoke calmly, with the icy breath of despair upon his mouth; but it was to be seen that his thin frame trembled. . . . “A barrier grew up between us, not made with hands. Fate made her speak when I was at my lowest; it called me to listen when she was made strong by need. Since then she has respected me through fear; loved me by duty. I should have charmed her fears away, made love her food. Alas! You know that I have failed—from the very first.”

What could the other say? What could he do but bow his head?

“. . . I have endeavoured not to be selfish in this serious matter. It would have been easy for me to have kept her in the country; a plausible thing—it was implied when I took her. But I was not able to do that. The idea of the sacrifice of one so salient and strong, so well-disposed, with so much charm, was abhorrent to me. Deliberately, knowing full well what risks I ran, I chose for this Parliamentary work; and now I have, under my eyes, the result which I feared—the snares are all about her; she cannot walk without danger. And I must watch, and be dumb.”

He sat bitterly silent for a while. Then his eyes flamed, and he struck the table with his closed hand.

“Nobody shall take her from me. There is a point beyond which I cannot go. She is mine in all duty and conscience. I am vowed to protect her, and I will do it—both now and hereafter. Where she is now she is safe from the dastardly designs which beset her here. Her father will protect her, her father’s house. When she returns, I must take some steps—I must consider my plans—I have time enough. On this I am utterly resolved, that I will rescue her soul from destruction . . . my darling from the lions . . . from the power of the dog.”

His voice broke; he could say no more; but his face was white and stern. James Germain had no help for him.

XI
OF MARY IN THE NORTH

She had followed out Senhouse’s precepts as nearly to the letter as might be; neither staff nor scrip had she—no luggage at all, and very little money. In her exalted mood of resolve it had seemed a flouting of Providence to palter with the ideal. To follow the patteran unerringly—a bird’s flight to the north—one could only fail by hesitation. Time, and the pressure of that alone, had insisted on the railway. The road, no doubt, had been the letter of the law.

Perhaps, too, a map was another compromise; but she found one in the station where, having made full use of its water, hair-brushes, and looking-glass, she dallied in the gay morning light—hovering tremulous on the brink of the unknown. It showed her Wastwater—where he had told her he was always to be found; and it showed her Kendal, too, dim leagues of mountain and moor apart. A loitering lampman entered into conversation with her. He was a Langdaler, he told her; used to walk over once a week to see the old folks; and there was another call he had thither, it seems. There was a lady—his “young lady,” who took it hard if he missed his day.

He spoke profoundly of Rossett Gill and Green Tongue, of Angle Tarn and Great End, and of the shelter under Esk Hause, which many a man had been thankful of before to-day. He advised the train to Windermere, the coach to Ambleside; thence, said he, you would get another coach to the Langdales, and there the road stops and you must take to Shanks’s mare. Here he looked her up and down, not disapprovingly. “Yon’s a rough road for you,” he considered, “and the track none so sure where the ground is soft. But you’ll do it yet,” said he; “and I’m thinking there’ll be looking for ye out of Wastwater.” She blushed, and denied. “Then he’s a fule,” said the lampman. His final warning was that she should inquire at the hotel before she started off to walk. She promised, and went into the town for a breakfast.

Fold within fold, height above height, wood and rock and water, the hill-country opened to her and took her in. When she changed coaches at Ambleside she was driven into the arms of the west wind, and could feel that every mile brought her nearer to her friend. Before the end of this sunlit day she would be face to face with the one being in all this world who might know, if he would, every secret of her heart. As she thought this, she pondered it. Every secret of her heart? Might he then know all? Yes—and she could tell herself so without a blush—even to that which she dared not confess to herself; even to that, he might know them all. She was in great spirits, and there were those in her company upon the coach who could have commerced with her, by way of exchange or barter. But though her eyes sparkled, and her parted lips were dewy, she had no looks for gallant youth. She faced the north-west, and never turned her face.

The horses drew up, and stretched their necks for water and the nose-bag; the passengers tumbled into the inn for luncheon. Mary, faltering no more, struck out along the valley, up Mickleden, for the sheep-fold and Rossett Gill. The coachman had told her that this road could not be mistook; her trouble would begin from the Gill. “Follow the beck,” he said, “to Angle Tarn—that on your left hand—and over the pass. Make you then for the gap betwixt Great End and Hanging Knott. Esk Hause we call it—a lonesome place. You shall not turn to right or left, if you mind me. Due nor’-west lies your road, down and up again to the Sprinkling Tarn. Maybe you’ll find a shepherd there. ’Tis a place to want company in, they tell me. You should strike the Styhead pass near by—if you’re in luck’s way.”

At starting, she felt that she was; springs in her heels, music in her heart. Up the broad valley, over rocks and tufted fern, beside clear-running water she sped her way, until under the frowning steep of the Pikes she began to climb. Here she had needed both patience and breath; but being alone with all this mountain glory, she must frolic and spend herself. She took off boots and stockings and cooled her feet in water and moss; she crossed the beck, and re-crossed it, picked a knot of harebells for her belt, stooped to drink out of clear fountains, rested supine in deep heather, fanned herself with fronded fern, watched the clouds, the birds, bared her arms to the shoulder and plunged them after trout. She played with her prospect, and had never been so happy in her life. At five o’clock, biscuits and chocolate; and instead of being by Sprinkling Tarn she was not yet at Esk Hause.

It was here that she misgave herself, and for a moment knew the wild horror of the solitude. Man is not made for the fells; Pan haunts them, and the fear of him gripes the heart suddenly and turns man to stone. The sun, sloping, had hidden himself beyond Great End. The world looked dun and sinister—estranged from her and her little joys and hopes. She stood on a trackless moorland encompassed by mighty hills. The black earth oozed black water where she trod; right over against her stood a mass of tumbled rock, spiked at the top as with knives. She was to go neither right nor left, she had been told; but which was right and which left by now, when she had roamed broadcast and at random a few times?

The knowledge that she was intensely alone braced her against her nerves. She beat back panic and considered what had best be done. Here stood the shelter, a rude circle of stones breast-high. Within was a seat half hidden in tall fern and foxgloves. Until she knew her road more certainly, she would not leave that refuge from the night wind; but at the thought of night coming down and finding her here, alone with bat and crying bird, made her shiver. With the shelter, then, always in her eye, she explored the tableland where now she was on all sides. The walking was rough and boggy; she was near being mired more than once. Fatigue settled down upon her as her spirits fell dead; despair rose up in their place and drove her to frantic efforts. She climbed heights which could give her no helping prospect—since all was alike to her, one intricate puzzle of darkening purple valleys and clouded peaks. And here the darkness came down like a fog and found her still. She huddled closely into her cloak and sat in the shelter, while fear, reproach, and doubts of which she would never have dreamed drove howling over the field—like the warring women of the Rheinfels scenting havoc from afar off, who, or whose likes, we suppose, people the uplands in the night-time while men and women in the valleys sleep with their children about them.

At nine o’clock it was dusk, but not dark; she heard quite suddenly and with distinctness a child crying. “Boohoo! Boohoo!”—a merry note. There was no doubt that it was silver music to her. A child crying, and not far away; she left the shelter immediately, her heart clamative for this blessed solace.

It led her further than she had expected, directly away from the shelter to the edge of the moorland and down hill among rocks and boulders. She knew that she could not find her way back, knew that she had risked everything. Stopping, with her heart beating fast, she listened for the sobbing wail; caught it again, more clearly than before, and went down after it. The descent became steep, and she very hot; but now the scent also was hot, and she in full cry. Presently it struck upon her close at hand. “Boohoo! Boohoo!”

“Don’t cry,” she called out clearly. “I’m coming—don’t cry.”

The wailing stopped, but not the snivelling, by whose sound she was led. She peeped round a great buttress of rock and saw a barefoot boy, his face in his arm, crying pitifully. She ran forward and knelt by him—“What is it? Tell me what the matter is.” He showed neither surprise nor alarm—he was beyond that stage—but as she continued to coax him, put her arm round his neck and tried to draw him to her, he turned up presently his bedabbled face and gave her to understand that he was lost and hungry. Mary laughed for joy. Here was one in worse case than she. “But so am I, my dear!” she told him; “we’re lost together. It’s not half so bad when there are two of us, you know. And I’ve still got some food left. Now dry your eyes and come and sit by me—and we’ll see what we shall see.”

He had a pinched, pale face, freckled, and a shock of sandy hair which tumbled about his eyes. So far as could be seen he had no shirt; but he was company, and more—he was poorer-hearted than herself. The mother in all women awoke in her; here was a child to be nursed.

He came to her without preface and sat by her side. She did not scruple to wipe his eyes and mouth with her handkerchief; she embraced him with her arms, snuggled him to her, and fed him with chocolate and biscuits. He seemed hungry, but more frightened than hungry, and more tired than either; for when he had finished what she first gave him he lay still within her arm for some time, with his head against her bosom. Presently she found that he was simply asleep. Happier than she had been for some hours, she let him lie as he was, until presently she also felt drowsy. Then she laid him gently down in the brake, took off her hat, and lay beside the lad. The cloak covered them both; in two minutes she was asleep.

He awoke her in the small grey hours by stretching in his sleep, and then, by a sudden movement, flinging his arm over her and drawing himself close. She took him in her arms and held him fast. He was still deeply asleep. She could hear his regular breath, and feel it too. “Poor dear,” she whispered, “sleep soundly while you can.” Then she kissed him, and herself slept again.

A sense of the full light, of the warmth of the sun upon her, added to the drowsy comfort of the hours between sleep and waking. The boy was still fast, and she hardly conscious, when some shadow between her and the comfort in which she lay basking caused her to open her eyes. Above her, looking down upon her, quietly amused, stood Senhouse, holding his horse by the bridle. The long white sweater, the loose flannel trousers, bare feet, bare head—but he might have been an angel robed in light.

She sat up, blushing and misty-eyed. “It is you! You have come in my sleep. I have been two days looking for you.” The extraordinary comfort she had always felt in the man’s presence was upon her immediately. Nothing to explain, nothing to extenuate, nothing to hide—what a priceless possession, such a friend!

“Two days!” he said. “You might easily have been two months—or two years for that matter. But you have made a mighty good shot. My camp is not six hundred yards away. I’ll show you. But who’s your sleeping friend?”

She looked down at the lad, whose face was buried deep in bracken. She put her hand on his hair.

“I don’t know—some poor boy. I heard him crying last night when I had completely lost myself, and followed the sound. We comforted each other. He gave me a good night, anyhow. We kept each other warm. But I know no more of him than that. We’ll find out where he belongs to when he wakes. He wants food mostly, I think.” And then she laughed in his face—“and so do I, I believe.”

“Of course you do,” said Senhouse. “Come along, and we’ll breakfast. I’ve just been out capturing the Ghost. He had wandered far, the old beggar.”

Mary jumped up. “What are we to do with the boy?”

“Oh, he’ll sleep for an hour yet. We’ll fetch him when his grub’s ready. You must help me, you know, now you’re here.”

“Of course,” she said, and walked by him, carrying her hat in her hand. “Are you surprised to see me?” she must needs ask him.

Senhouse raised his eyebrows. “No—I won’t say that. I should like to know why you came, though. No trouble, I hope?”

She looked at him, radiant. “No trouble now. I saw your trail—your patteran—in London.”

He started. “No, indeed, you did not. I haven’t been near London since I saw you there. I came straight here by train. But I’ll tell you a curious thing. Three nights ago I dreamed of you.”

Her eyes shone. “Tell me your dream.” But he would not, and she could not make him.

Past Sprinkling Tarn, and by the pass which hangs round about the Great Gable, he led her to a green plateau, high above the track, where she could see the tent. Bingo stood up and barked a welcome short and sharp. Then he came scrambling down the scree to meet her, knew her again immediately, and was profusely happy to see her. It was all like coming home for the holidays. She turned her glowing face to Senhouse, and her brimming eyes.

“Oh, why are you so good to me, you two?” she asked him, with Bingo’s head and fore-quarters in her lap.

“Why not?” said Senhouse.

XII
COLLOQUY IN THE HILLS

By the time the coffee was made, and the porridge, and Mary had emerged from the tent, washed and brushed and sparkling, she bethought her of the boy. “I’ll fetch him,” she told Senhouse. “He must be fed.” Senhouse nodded, so she went back to her gîte of the night. The boy had disappeared, and with him her cloak.

Senhouse chuckled when he heard her faltered tale. “Nature all over—bless her free way,” he said. “She’ll lap you like a mother—and stare you down for a trespasser within the hour. She takes her profit where she finds it, and if she can’t find it will cry herself to sleep. Don’t you see that you were so much to the good for our friend? Well, what have you to regret? You warmed him, cuddled him, fed him—and he’s gone, warmed, cuddled, and fed. You’ve been the Bona Dea—and he’s not a bit obliged to you; very likely he thinks you were a fool. Perhaps you were, my dear; but I tell you, fools are the salt of the earth.”

“Yes, I know,” Mary said. “Of course I don’t mind the cloak. He wanted it more than I did. But what will become of him—poor little pinched boy?”

Senhouse picked up a bleached leaf of rowan—a gossamer leaf—and showed it to her. “What will become of that, think you? It all goes back again. Nothing is lost.” He threw it up, and watched it drift away on the light morning wind. Then, “Come and have your breakfast,” he bade her.

As they ate and drank she found herself talking to him of matters which London might have shrieked to hear. But it seemed not at all strange that Senhouse should listen calmly, or she candidly discuss them. He had not shown the least curiosity either to find her here or to know why she had come; in fact, after his question of “No trouble, I hope?” and her reply, he had become absorbed in what he had to do that day—the meal to be prepared, and the plantation of Mariposa lilies which he was to show her. “The work of three years—just in flower for the first time. You’re lucky in the time of your visit—another week and you would have missed them.” But her need to speak was imperious, and so she gave him to understand.

She told him, therefore, everything which had been implied in former colloquies—and found him prepared to believe her. Indeed, he told her fairly that when he had first heard from her that she was to marry John Germain he recognized that she would not be married at all. “Mind you,” he went on, “that need not have mattered a bit if the good man had had any other career to open to you. It was a question of that. You might have been his secretary, or his confidante, or his conscience, or his housekeeper. But he’s so damned self-contained—if you’ll forgive me for saying that—that he and the likes of him start in life filled up with everything except nature. There was really nothing for you to be to him except an object of charity. Nor did he want you to be anything else. He actually bought you, don’t you see, so that he might do his benevolence comfortably at home. You were to be beneficiary and admiring bystander at once. And you must have made him extremely happy until you began to make use of his bounties, and learn by what you had to do without them. Where was he then? It’s like a mother with a sucking child. She makes it strong, makes a man of it; and then, when it leaves her lap and goes to forage for itself, she resents it. What else could she expect? What else could Germain expect? He gives you the uses of the world; you find out that you are a woman with parts; you proceed to exercise yourself—and affront him mortally. I’ll warrant that man quivering all over with mortification—but I am sure he will die sooner than let you know it.”

Her eyes shone bright. “Yes, that’s true. He is like that. Well, but——”

Senhouse went on, speaking between pulls at his pipe. He did not look at her; he looked at his sandalled feet.

“I may be wrong, but I do not see what you owe him that has not been at his disposal any day these two years and a half. I suppose, indeed, that the blessed Law would relieve you—but by process so abominable and disgusting that a person who would seek that way of escape would be hardly fit to be let loose on the world. That being so, what are you to do? The fact is, Germain’s not sane. One who misreads himself so fatally, so much at another’s expense, is not sane. Then, I say, the world’s before you, if you have courage enough to face the policeman. He can’t touch you, you know, but he can stare you up and down and make you feel mean.” Then he looked at her, kindly but coolly—as if to ask, Well, what do you make of that? And if he saw what was behind her hot cheeks and lit eyes he did not betray the knowledge.

She could herself hardly see him for the mist, and hardly trust herself to speak for the trembling which possessed her. “Oh, I would dare any scorn in the world, and face any hardships if—” but she bit her lip at that point, and looked away; he saw tears hover at her eyes’ brink.

Presently he asked her, “What brought you up here to see me?” and she almost betrayed herself.

“Do you ask me that?” Her heart was like to choke her.

“Well,” said he, “yes, I do.” She schooled herself—looked down and smoothed out the creases in her skirt.

“There’s some one—who wants me.”

“I can’t doubt it. Well?”

She spoke fast. “He has—wanted me for a long time—since before I was married. Perhaps I have given him reason—I didn’t mean to do that—but certainly he used to think that I belonged to him. I was very ignorant in those days, and very stupid—and he took notice of me, and I was pleased—so he did have some reason, I think. Well, it all began again last year—imperceptibly; I couldn’t tell you how. And now he thinks that I still belong to him—and when I am with him I feel that I do. But not when I am away from him, or alone. I am sure that he does not love me; I know that I don’t love him. I feel humiliated by such a courtship; really, he insults me by his very look; and so he always did, only I couldn’t see it formerly. But now I do. I desire never to see him again—indeed, I dare not see him; because, if I do, I know what must happen. He is stronger than I, he is very strong. I know, I know very well that he could make me love him if I let him. You have no conception—how could you have? You don’t know what a woman feels when she is—when such a man as that—makes her love him. Despair. But I must not—no, no, I would sooner die. I could never lift up my head again. Slavery.” She shuddered, and shut her eyes; then turned quickly to Senhouse. “Oh, dear friend, I came to you because I was nearly lost one night. I had all but promised. I saw your sign in the road—or thought that I did—just in time, just in the nick of time. And when I saw it, though I had my letter to him in my hand, telling him where to find me the next day—Do you know, I felt so strong and splendidly free that I posted the letter to him—and came straight here without any check—and found you. Ah!” she said, straining her two hands together at the full stretch of her arms, “Ah! I did well that time. Because that very night when I was fighting for my life you were dreaming of me.” If Senhouse had looked at her now he would have seen what was the matter with her. But he was sunk in his thoughts. “This fellow,” he said, broodingly, “this fellow—Duplessis, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“I used to know Duplessis—at Cambridge. And I’ve seen him since. He’s not much good, you know.”

She was looking now at her hands in her lap, twisting her fingers about, suddenly bashful.

“But I think,” Senhouse went on, in a level voice, “I think you had better go back and face him.”

She started, she looked at him full of alarm. “Oh, don’t tell me to do that—I implore you. Let me stay here a little while, until I’m stronger.” He smiled, but shook his head.

“No, no. Too unconventional altogether. Really I mean what I say. If you are to be free you must fight yourself free. There’s no other way. Fight Germain, if it is worth your while; but fight Duplessis at all events. That is essential. Bless you, you have only to tell him the truth, and the thing’s done.”

She was very serious. “I assure you, it is not. He won’t care for the truth; he won’t care what I tell him—No, don’t ask me to do that. It’s not—kind of you.”

Senhouse got up. “Let’s go and look at my lilies,” he said. “We’ll talk about your troubles again presently.” She jumped to her feet and followed him down the mountain.

He led her by a scrambling path round the face of Great Gable, and so past Kirkfell foot into Mosedale, bright as emerald. As they neared the mountains, he showed her by name the Pillar, Steeple and Red Pike, Windy Gap and Black Sail. High on the southern face of the Pillar there was, he said, a plateau which none knew of but he. To reach it was a half-hour’s walk for her; but he encouraged her with voice and hand. There! he could tell her, at last; now she was to look before her. They stood on a shelf which sloped gently to the south. Mary caught her breath in wonder, and gave a little shriek of delight. “Oh, how exquisite! Oh, how gloriously beautiful!” A cloud of pale flowers—violet, rose, white, golden yellow—swayed and danced in the breeze, each open-hearted to the sun on stalks so slender that each bell seemed afloat in air—a bubble of colour; she thought she had never seen so lovely a thing. Senhouse, peacefully absorbing her wonder and their beauty, presently began to explain to her what he had done. “I had seen these perfect things in California, growing in just such a place; so when I lit on this plateau I never rested till I got what it was plainly made for. Full south, you see; sheltered on the east and north; good drainage, and a peaty bottom. I had a hundred bulbs sent out, and put them in three years ago. No flowers until this year; but they’ve grown well—there are nearly two hundred of them out now. I’ve had to work at it though. I covered them with bracken every autumn, and kept the ground clean—and here they are! With luck, the tourists won’t light on them until there are enough and to spare. They are the worst. I don’t mind the Natural History Societies a bit; they take two or three, and publish the find—but I can stand that, because nobody reads their publications. The trippers take everything—or do worse. They’ll cut the lot to the ground—flowers and leaves alike; and, you know, you kill a bulb if you take its leaves. It can’t eat, poor thing—can’t breathe. Now just look into one of those things—look at that white one.” She was kneeling before the bevy, and cupped the chosen in her two hands. “Just look at those rings of colour—flame, purple, black, pale green. Can such a scheme as that be matched anywhere? It’s beyond talk, beyond dreams. Now tell me, have I done a good thing or not?”

She turned him a glowing face. “You ought to be very happy.”

He laughed. “I am happy. And so may you be when you please.”

“Ah!” she looked ruefully askance. “I don’t know—I’m not sure. But if I am ever to be happy it will be by what you teach me.”

“My child,” said Senhouse, and put his hand on her shoulder, “look at these things well—and then ask yourself, Is it worth while troubling about a chap like Duplessis, while God and the Earth are making miracles of this sort every day somewhere?” Thoughtful, serious, sobered, she knelt on under his hand.

“Love between a man and a woman is just such a miracle—just as lovely and fragile a thing. But there’s no doubt about it, when it comes—and it ought not to be denied, even if it can be. When there’s a doubt, on either side—the thing’s not to be thought of. Love’s not appetite—Love is nature, and appetite is not nature, but a cursed sophistication produced by all sorts of things, which we may classify for convenience as over-eating. ‘Fed horses in the morning!’ Well, one of these days the real thing will open to you—and then you’ll have no doubt, and no fears either. You’ll go about glorifying God.” He felt her tremble, and instantly removed his touch from her shoulder. He sat on the edge of the plateau with his feet dangling. “Let’s talk of real things,” he continued after a time, “not of feelings and symptoms. This is one of my gardens—but I can show you some more. Above this plateau is another—just such another. I filled it with Xiphion iris—what we call the English iris, although the fact is that it grows in Spain. It’s done well—but is nearly over now. I just came in for the last week of it. And of course I’ve got hepaticas and auriculas and those sort of things all over the place—this mountain’s an old haunt of mine. But my biggest job in Cumberland was a glade of larkspurs in a moraine of Scawfell Pike. I surpassed myself there. Last year they were a sight to thank God for—nine feet high some of them, lifting up great four-foot blue torches off a patch of emerald and gold. I lay a whole morning in the sun, looking at them—and then I got up and worked like the devil till it was dark. . . .

“Some brutal beanfeasters from Manchester fell foul of them soon after—fell upon them tooth and claw, trampled them out of sight—and gave me three weeks’ hard work this spring. But they have recovered wonderfully, and if I have luck this year I sha’n’t fear even a Glasgow holiday let loose on them.”

She was caressing the flowers, half kneeling, half lying by them. “Go on, please,” she said when Senhouse stopped. “Tell me of some more gardens of yours.”

He needed no pressing, being full of his subject, and crowded upon her his exploits, with all England for a garden-plot. To her inexperience it seemed like a fairy tale, but to her kindling inclination all such wonders were fuel, and he could tell her of nothing which did not go to enhancing the magic in himself. Peonies, he told her of, in a Cornish cove opening to the sea—a five years’ task; and a niche on a Dartmoor tor where he had coaxed Caucasian irises to grow like wholesome weeds. Tamarisks, like bushes afire, in a sandy bight near Bristol—“I made the cuttings myself from slips I got in the Landes”—Wistaria in a curtain on the outskirts of an oak wood in the New Forest. That had been his first essay—ten years ago. “You never saw such a sight—the trees look as if they were alight—wrapped in mauve flames. And never touched yet—and been there ten years!

“I’ve got the little Tuscan tulip—clusiana is its name, a pointed, curving bud it has, striped red and white—growing well on a wooded shore in Cornwall; I’ve got hepaticas on a Welsh mountain, a pink cloud of them—and Pyrennean auriculas dropping like rosy wells from a crag on the Pillar Rock. Ain’t these things worth doing? They are worth all Chatsworth to me!”

She caught his enthusiasm; her burning face, her throbbing heart were but flowers of his planting. Once more she was splendidly conscious of discovery, of unsuspected distances seen from a height and once more exulted in the strength which such knowledge gave her. No education could have bettered this—an interest in life itself, in work itself. All that day she laboured by his side—digging, weeding, fetching and carrying in that sunny hollow of the hills. She cooked his meals and waited upon him; she grimed her hands, scratched and blistered them, tore her gown, blowsed herself, was tired, but too happy to rest. This, this was life, indeed.

Towards dusk, after dinner, she was so tired that she could hardly keep her eyes open; and Senhouse who had been watching her with shrewd amusement, bade her to bed. The tent was at her disposal, while she remained. Slowly she obeyed him, unwillingly but without question. The day was fading to a lovely close; night, as it were, was drawing violet curtains over the dome of the sky. The great hills were intensely dark, and the valley between them and below lay shrouded in a light veil of mist. It was so quiet that they could hear the Lingmell beck crisping over the pebbles or swishing between the great boulders; and once a fish leapt in a pool, and the splash he made was like a smack on the cheek.

Mary obeyed slowly. She stood behind him where he sat watching all the still wonder of the dusk, hoping he would speak, afraid herself to break the spell of her own thoughts. She was excited, she felt the exquisite luxury of ease after toil; if she had dared she would have indulged her quivering senses. She could deceive herself no more; she had no need in the world which Senhouse could not satisfy, and no chance of happiness unless he did. But she respected him more than she loved him; it never entered her head for a moment that it would be possible for her to draw such a man on. Still she stayed, as if unable to leave him; his mere neighbourhood was balm to her fever.

So they remained for some unmeasured time, while the silence became crushing and the dark blotted out hill and hollow. She could not hear her heart beating, and the pulses in her temples. In a manner she was rapt in an ecstasy: she thought no more; she was possessed; her happiness was at the point of bliss.

Senhouse sat on, motionless, he, too, absorbed in contemplation—like a priest before his altar-miracles. He may not have known that she was so close to him; or he may have known it very well. If he did, he showed no sign of it. His thoughts, whatever they were, held him, as he sat, his chin between his clasped knees, rigid as a dead Viking, crouched so in his tomb of stones. His black, glazed eyes were fixed sombrely towards the shrouded valley—across it, to the mountains beyond. So at last, when her pleasure became a pain so piercing that, had it endured much longer, she must have cried aloud, she shivered as she clasped her hands together over her breast—and then lightly let one fall to touch his shoulder.

She must needs speak to him now. “Do you wish me to go?”

He answered shortly. “It will be better. Yes, you had better go.”

“Very well—I will. But to-morrow? Am I to go home to-morrow? I shall do exactly what you tell me. You know that.”

He did not move, nor answer her immediately. She hung upon his silence.

Then he said, “I’m a man, you know—and you’re a woman. There’s no getting away from that.”

“And you wish me——?”

“I’m a compromise—by my own act. This is Halfway House. You may rest here, you see—and go on—or go back.”

She could school her voice, but not her hand which touched his shoulder. She had to move it away before she spoke. “And if I decide—to go on?”

“You must not—until you know what it means. Some day—possibly—when you see—not feel—your way, it may be— Look here,” he said abruptly, “we won’t talk about all this. I told you—in cold blood—what I thought you ought to do. Go back and see Duplessis. Don’t ask me to reconsider that—in hot blood. I’m not myself at this time of night. I saw straight enough when you put it to me. I value your friendship—I’m proud of it. More I must not say. It is something to have made a woman like you trust me. That’s too good a thing to lose, do you see? And I’ll tell you this, too—that you may trust me. If you do as I tell you, it will work out all right.”

“Yes, yes—I believe that. But you told me this morning to follow—my heart.”

“I did, my dear, and I meant it. But not what your heart calls out at midnight.”

She stood where she was a little longer; presently she sighed.

“I will do as you bid me—because you bid me;” and he laughed.

“Reason most womanish.”

“Don’t laugh at me just now,” she said.

He folded his arms tightly, and stooped his head towards them. “I daren’t do anything else,” he told her; “and I will not.”

In the dark she stretched out her hands to him; but soon she gave over, and gloried in the strength he had.

“Good-night,” she said; and he answered her without moving, “Good-night.”

She stole away to his tent; but he sat on where he was, far into the night.

In the morning light they met as if nothing had happened; and after breakfast he took her by Wastwater to Seascale—to the train for the south. He was the old informal, chatty companion, full of queer knowledge and outspoken reflections. He told her his plans, so far as he could foresee them. He should be going to Cornwall in November.

Then he put her in the train, and touched her hand lightly, as his way was. He looked into her face, and smiled half ruefully. “Don’t forget Halfway House,” he told her. She could only sob, “Oh, no! Oh, never, never!” He turned away—waited for the train to move—then waved his hand. As the train carried her under the arch, and bent on its course, she had her last glimpse. He stood, white and slim, against the grey buildings. She waved her hand, and was carried onwards to the south.

XIII
THE SUMMONS

She knew now that she loved Senhouse, and that knowledge filled her with indescribable triumph, and gave her unimagined strength. At the same time, the quietude of her new joy really amazed her. She could lie back in her corner seat of the train and watch her flight to the south, be conscious that every thresh of the great driving wheels was taking her from her beloved, reflect that she could neither write to him nor hear from him—wanderer that he was, and sojourner in tents—and regret nothing, and long for nothing more tangible than she possessed already. He had her heart; she had made her surrender on that night of intense colloquy. That had been her true bridal night—by that mysterious intercourse she had become his irrevocably. A great security possessed her, a conviction, which it would have been blasphemous to question, that all was well. If one had told her, you and he may never meet again, she would have laughed in his face at the absurdity. Such a thing was not worth argument, spelt its own refutation.

An immense content possessed her, a security which excused her from looking back, and made the future indifferent. She thought neither of her husband with remorse nor of Duplessis with apprehension. She was not appalled by the flatness of her immediate prospect: of a return to town and its round of flurry, chatter, and dress; of Southover and its autumn rites. These things were shadows of life: the real life was hidden in her heart. She would send her tricked-out body to dinner-parties and other assemblies of dolls, while she herself would be elsewhere, in some blue immensity of air, breasting some great hill, breathing the breath—which was food—of her mother the Earth—her mother! Their mother! She and her beloved were brother and sister. Entertainment here, for the flying miles, to which the threshing wheels lent processional music.

If she hardly knew herself it is no wonder. She crossed London by rote, reached Blackheath, walked sedately to her father’s little house, entered the little dull door, and kissed her parents, whom she found at tea—all in a dream. They made much of her, the great lady she was become; found it not amiss that she appeared in tumbled gown, with soiled blouse, and hat remarkable for its unremarkableness. Great ladies could do as they pleased, being a law unto themselves. Nor were they confused by her replies to the proper inquiries. “Mr. Germain?” she said, “I think he’s very well. I haven’t seen him since I left London. We don’t see much of each other, you know, Mother.” A stack of forwarded letters was indicated, telegrams among them. She nodded her head, and passed her cup for some more tea.

She heard of the girls’ progress—all out in good boarding schools of her providing; next of Jinny’s triumphs in the Lincolnshire home of the Podmores. “Jinny has a bold way with her, as you know, Mary. They were not inclined towards her at first. There was a question whether she should not pack up her box again the day after she got there—but Mr. Podmore—her Mr. Podmore—went on his knees, on his knees, Mary—and she consented to stay. Very bold of Jinny, considering that old Mr. Podmore is a Rural Dean——”

Mary smiled. The simple talk went on. By-and-by it came out that a visitor had called to see Mary several times—a Mr. Duplessis, a very tall young man. “He came here the evening we had expected you, and I thought the chimney was afire when I heard his knock. Exactly like the fire brigade. I opened the door in a twitter—and there he was—six feet-two of him, and a tall hat atop of that. “Is Mrs. Germain at home?” he asks me, and I say, “She may be, for she’s not here.” Then he says, “You are Mrs. Middleham, I take it.” I tell him he takes me rightly. “Don’t you expect your—Mrs. Germain?” I told him the truth. “I’ll call to-morrow,” he says—“and he did, Mary, and to-day, too. A handsome, upstanding young man—very much at home with the likes of me. I suppose—but you know your own business best, of course.”

Mary stroked her mother’s cheek. “Dear little old Mother,” she said, “I know you’re afraid for me. Mr. Duplessis is quite harmless. I’ll see him, if he comes to-morrow.”

In the intervals of housework—for she insisted upon being useful—she wrote to her husband from day to day, telling him in her first letter that she had been unable to write before as she had been travelling. On this particular information he made no comment whatsoever; indeed, he confined himself to such generalities as the state of the weather, his cold, “which, under medical advice, I am nursing at home,” and the proceedings of Mrs. James. “Constantia is a great comfort to me. You will be pleased to hear that I am not without hope of inducing her to prolong her visit. She speaks very kindly of you. My brother, I regret to say, has been called home by parochial cares. . . . The Cantacutes dined here last evening. I regretted that I could not be down to receive them. However, Constantia. . . .” She replied pleasantly to all this, feeling not one grain of discomfort out of anything which Mrs. James could or could not do. She begged to be kept informed of his cold. “You know that I will come to you the moment you care to have me.” In answer to that, by return of post, he wrote that “on no account” must she alter her plans. “Believe me, I am fully contented that you should be with your parents. It is, I understand, reckoned a failing of the past generation that children should admit any claim in them who bore and nurtured them. Personally, I do not pretend to be abreast of the times in this particular; nor should I wish you to be so. I am assured that there is no cause for uneasiness on my account, and will most certainly see that you are kept supplied with bulletins. I beg my sincere respects to your father and mother.”

After that she heard nothing more from him.

Duplessis had called two days after her arrival, but she had been out, and he had not waited. He came again after three days’ interval—having written to announce his intention—at 11 o’clock in the morning. She was on her knees, in pinned-up skirt and apron, her arms bare to the elbows, scrubbing the kitchen floor, when his knock resounded through the house. The quick blood leapt into her cheeks, but she held to her task. Her mother came fluttering in. “That’s your visitor, Mary. What am I to do?—and you in such a state!”

“Show him in here, Mother,” says Mary.

“Never, child. He’ll think you demented.”

Mary was inflexible; her eyes glittered. “I shall see him nowhere else,” she said.

Upon his second attack, a scared and serious Mrs. Middleham opened the door. Mary, pausing in her scrubbing, heard the dialogue.

“Oh, good-morning. Mrs. Germain?”

“My daughter is here, Sir.”

“Oh, she’s come, has she? Do you think she would see me?”

“She says so, Sir. I have asked her. But she hopes you will excuse her untidiness——”

“Oh, of course——”

“She has been kind enough to help us here—she is at work now. You will please to overlook——”

“My dear Mrs. Middleham——”

“If you will follow me I will show you where she is.”

Mary rose from her knees to receive him, having wiped her hands and arms on her apron. Her cheeks were burning and her eyes alight—but she looked none the worse, assuredly, for that.

When Duplessis, stooping his fair head, entered the kitchen, she came forward lightly to receive him. “Good-morning,” she said. “You will take me as I am?”

“I’ll take you how I can,” said Tristram, shaking hands. “Your mother prepared me for this attack of industry. You might let me help you.”

Mary laughed. “Don’t destroy my mother’s illusions. She is convinced of the complete idleness of the upper classes. If she lost that she would have to alter all her ideas of society.”

“I don’t know anything about the upper classes; but Mrs. Middleham can have no notion how hard I can work,” Duplessis said. “I was at it all last night. Dancing till Heaven knows when.”

“I’ll warrant Heaven does,” said Mrs. Middleham to herself. She was not able to find anything to say to this magnificent visitor.

Duplessis and Mary made a fairer show, for she had learned to dread, with the high world, a single second of awkwardness. She was even able to continue her work on her knees and chat with Tristram, who, for his part, sat calmly on the kitchen table and talked nineteen to the dozen. It is difficult to say which side of this simple performance scandalized Mrs. Middleham the more—that Mary should be on her knees with a scrubbing brush, or that Duplessis should not be. The good blunt woman sat it out as long as her endurance would last, growing more and more stiff in the back, primming her lips in and in until she showed none at all. Finally she rose with a “You will excuse me,” and stalked out of her own kitchen. She sat in the empty parlour and looked at a photograph album as a protest. Meanwhile Mary’s hour had come. It had been on the edge of her tongue to ask her mother to stay—but she had dismissed the thought as unworthy. She fixed her mind upon the plateau of Mariposa lilies, and her eyes on her work, and scrubbed for life.

“Molly,” said Duplessis, “why did you run away from me?”

She elbowed her brush stoutly. “Because I was afraid of you,” she said—then stopped and looked up at him. “But I’m not now—not in the least afraid.”

“You need not be. You wrote to me that you were coming on the 13th.”

“I know.”

“And this is the 20th, and you are only just here.”

“No. I have been here four or five days.”

“Where were you—when you were not here?”

“I was travelling.”

“Travelling!”

“Yes. But I decline to be questioned.”

“You mean, I suppose, that you will decline to answer.”

Her colour rose. “You always correct my language, I know. My exact meaning is that I deny your right to question me about my own affairs.”

“But if they are my affairs, too? May I not know what you are doing with them?”

She thought. “Yes—I suppose you may do that.”

“Very well. Then I will ask you why you sent me word that you were to come here on the 13th ‘by train,’ and then did nothing of the sort?”

On her knees still, she faced him with her answer. “Yes, I will answer that. When I wrote, I intended to come—and expected that you would meet me. But when I posted the letter I had changed my mind. I did not intend to come.”

He stared, with very cold, bright eyes. “You did not intend to come when you posted the letter? Pray, did you intend me to expect you at the station?”

She answered him, “Yes, I did expect it.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Really, my dear friend, you interest me extremely. Did you think that six hours or more at Charing Cross Station would be good for my nerves, morals, or constitution?”

“I will tell you what I thought,” she said. “I thought that waiting at Charing Cross would be no worse—to say the least—for a man than an appointment in Burlington Arcade could be for a woman.”

Duplessis bit his cheek. “That was your gentle reproof, then, for my blunder?”

“Yours was only a blunder because I saw what it really was. It had never entered your head that I could be other than honoured to meet you anywhere. You presumed that I should run there.”

“You ran very near to it, my friend,” he said. “That is, you had yourself driven.”

She bowed her head. “I admit it. I was a fool—but I am not a fool now.”

“No,” said Duplessis, “you are not. You are, as a matter of truth, extraordinarily beautiful just now, and I am more ridiculously in love with you than ever. But—” She rose from her knees and stood before him.

“Let me finish what I have to say to you, please,” she said. “That was not my only reason for deceiving you. I wished you to wait for me in vain, because I wished you to understand that I could not see you any more. I wished you to believe that our intercourse must be over. I chose the harshest means I could think of. I might have written it, no doubt, but you would have answered the letter, and I am no match for you in writing. I might have seen you and told you—but I couldn’t do that.”

“Molly,” said Duplessis, folding his arms, “why couldn’t you see me?”

She looked down. “Because I couldn’t.”

“It was because you dared not,” said Duplessis.

She did not answer; she was trembling a little now, and he saw it. But presently she looked him straight in the face.

“Yes,” she said, “that is true. I did not dare.” He laughed gaily and started forward to take her; but she put her hand up.

“No,” she said, “you are mistaken. I dared not then, but now I dare. I can meet you now whenever you please, and have no fear at all.”

Duplessis, red in the face, scowled and watched her from under savage brows. “Am I to understand by that that you have ceased to care?”

“You must understand that I do not love you.”

He left the table where he had been sitting and took a turn about the room. Presently he stopped in front of her. His height gave him great advantage.

“I decline to take that answer. I cannot believe that you mean it seriously. I think that you loved me two, nearly three years ago, and that you have loved me of late since last October—some nine months. I know that I have never for a moment ceased to love you. Through your engagement—horrible entanglement as it was—through your years of married life—miserable eclipse—my love has gone on, my need has increased. You know that; you cannot doubt me. It was not my doing that you were false to our love; I couldn’t interfere; it was begun without my suspicion, and all the mischief done before I could get home. After that I did my honest best to get on without you—and then your fool of a husband must drag me in. What next? The inevitable, the undoubted. We two were drawn together: it had to be. And now you ask me to believe that—for no reason at all—it must stop. My dear girl, you can’t swap horses crossing the stream, you know. I decline to be switched off like so much electric current. Who’s the other man?”

This surprising turn to his speech nearly threw her off her pedestal. But she could answer him truthfully.

“There is no question of caprice or of other people at all. The real truth is that I have grown wiser. I know now that I was losing my self-respect by permitting you to love me as you did—in the manner you saw fit to use. It was not love at all—you had got into the habit of considering me as your property, and you could not bear that anybody else should claim a right to me. Directly I saw that, I knew that I couldn’t allow myself to think of you, to be with you—if I was to be—if I could hope to hold up my head.”

He was very angry. “May I know what, or who, enabled you to see this unfortunate aspect of my affairs?”

“I can’t tell you that,” she said. “It came to me suddenly. I think your asking me to meet you in such an extraordinary place had something to do with it.”

“I beg your pardon for that,” he said at once. “Honestly and sincerely I am ashamed of that. Only it is fair to say that I meant no possible disrespect to you. I couldn’t well meet you in your own house. The weather was beastly—I thought we could discuss our plans—and might as well do it under a glass cover as under umbrellas. We might have been there five minutes. Really, I can’t admit that the base is broad enough to hold all the superstructure.”

“It was nothing,” she admitted; “I was only offended for a moment—and of course if I had still been nursery governess I should have gone, without a question. I should have been flattered, I am sure. But—ah, surely you can be honest with yourself, surely you know what it is you want of me. Why, if I could bring myself—would it be worthy of you to—?” She broke off, impatient at the hopelessness of convincing him. “Mr. Duplessis,” she said, and he frowned at the style, “I have been wicked, I think—at least, I have been so foolish that I can hardly believe it was I. I am sure you won’t be so ungenerous as to pin me down to a mistake. I beg you to take what I say now—as I mean it.”

Looking up at him, she saw that she had made no way. The more she said, she could see, the greater the fire in the man. He stooped right over her, and she could hear the fever in his voice.

“My love, my adorable love—I shall never give you up—never—never——”

She cowered. “Ah, be merciful——”

He said, “My mercy shall be my love and service”—and took her hands.

She strained away—she turned her head—“No, no,” she murmured, “I implore you.” But he drew her in—“My beloved—my darling——”

The street knocker clamoured—a double call—and as he started she sprang back to the wall, and gained the door. She went down the passage and met her mother with a telegram in her hand. “For you, Mary. No bad news, I hope.”

Mary read. “Think it would be well if you could come to-day.—Constantia Germain.”

She had not heard from Hill-street for three days. Yes, certainly she must go.

“Mother, I must go home immediately. Mr. Duplessis will take me. I’ll tell him to wait.”

She returned to the kitchen; Duplessis was biting his cheek leaning against the table with folded arms. His breath was still quick.

“Mr. Duplessis,” said she, “I have had a telegram from home—from Mrs. James. My husband is ill and I must go to him. Will you take me, please?”

He jumped forward. “Of course. I’m very sorry. I’ll do everything. Go and get ready—I’ll find a cab.”

XIV
VIGIL

A shadow, not hers, which moved, kept Mary silently employed. She was watching it. She was not conscious of having spoken a single word from the moment of farewell to her mother until her arrival at Hill-street. Duplessis had accompanied her from door to door. She cannot have been aware of it, or she would have dismissed him at Victoria.

Not that he had been obtrusive—far otherwise. He saw to everything, and what conversation there had been, he had made it. She might have been grateful to him for all this, had she observed it. Once only had a cry escaped her. “He is dying. He will die thinking me wicked. What shall I do?”

He had answered her. “No. He is a just man. You have nothing you need fear to tell him.”

“He is dying,” she repeated, her eyes fixed upon the dun waste of houses and chimney-stacks. Duplessis could not doubt this. It seemed as certain to him as to her. He, too, discerned the moving shadow.

As he helped her out of the cab in Hill-street the carriage came quickly up and the Rector of Misperton in it. He and she met on the pavement. Duplessis lifted his hat, re-entered the cab and departed—seen, therefore, by the Rector, by Musters, and the carriage-groom, and by the stately butler and his familiar at the open door. She and James Germain went up the steps without greeting. As she went straightforward to the stairs she heard the Rector’s inquiry, “Well, Greatorex?” and Greatorex’s reply, “The doctors are there, Sir. There is no change.”

She went lightly up the stair, to the door of her husband’s room; she knocked lightly. A nurse opened. “Who is it, please! I don’t think——”

“I am Mrs. Germain. I must come in.”

Mrs. James, the doctrine of the Soul’s immortality lambent upon her features, stood by the window talking in whispers to a great physician. Another, equally imposing, was by the bed, his hand on the sick man’s pulse. At Mary’s entry the lady broke away and came towards her. The light of conflict was in her eyes, tight upon her lips; she was prepared for reproof in any form—but none came. Mary did not see her. She walked past her on tiptoe, to the edge of the bed, and sat herself in a chair which stood there, and looked at the shadow which was not her own. It hovered, now, moved no more. Sir Lambton Tweedale, his investigation ended, joined his colleague by the window.

Mary thought that he was dead. He lay on his back with nearly closed eyes, and she could discern no movement for breath. His face was colourless, and so frail, so diaphanous did he look, she thought that she could see the colour of his eyes through the lids, a haunting thought. He seemed to be watching her through them, as if they were a thin veil—to be reading her, whether guilty or not. Of pity for him lying there so noble, so patient, and so fordone; of awe before his remoteness from her lot, his immortal indifference; of remorse for what had been, or a shudder for what might have been—she had none. But her eyes watched him intently, with a new power in them, a fierce and feverish light—as if she had the will and the means to draw the dead back to life. For one half-hour only, to fulfil one need. He must hear her tell him her story; and then he might die in peace.

One of the great pair came to where she sat on the watch, and bowed. “Mrs. Germain, I think?”

She nodded sharply, without turning her eyes.

“I could—we could—have wished that you had received earlier notice of this serious turn. It seems to have been Mr. Germain’s express desire that you should not be needlessly alarmed. He was perfectly conscious and master of himself twenty-four hours ago. But a great change took place yesterday afternoon, it appears. Neither Sir Lambton nor myself can be held answerable for——”

She stopped him by an impatient movement of her head. “Do you think he is—in danger?”

“Undoubtedly. It is right that you should know that it is serious.”

“He will die?”

“Ah, we must not say that.”

She looked him through and through. “Then he is not dead?”

“No, no.”

“Thank you. That is all I want to know.”

The learned pair went out together and Mrs. James with them. The nurse remained—to drink her tea and hover. She was very ready with whispers; but Mary sat, with fixed, intense eyes, willing her husband to live, and asked for no details. By-and-by the Rector came in on noiseless feet and stood by her. Between these two there had always been sympathy; generosity on his part repaid with gratitude on hers. But now she would not turn her head. Nor even, when she felt his hand touch gently on her shoulder and stay there, could she bring herself to acknowledge the kindly act.

He remained by her so for a long time. Then, “My child,” he said, “have you had any tea?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you. I don’t want any.”

“It could be brought you here.”

“No, thank you.”

“You must be brave, Mary.”

Ah, she knew that! “I must, indeed,” she said.

“Remember, please, that I knew of this no sooner than you did.”

She started, she flushed. What did this mean, then? Was it possible that Mrs. James—for reasons—Ah, and if it was, did it matter? Did anything matter? Only one thing—and that was of her provision. She resumed her hungry, patient watch.

The Rector still stood by her, his hand on her shoulder.

“Be patient, my dear. Trust the future to the good God.”

She said, “I do. But he will not die yet. I am sure.”

“Ah, my dear—” he began, in his despair. But she spoke on vehemently.

“He cannot—he will not. He will know me again presently—and speak to me. That is necessary for us both. We have things to talk about. Then he will die.”

The Rector shrank. “You talk strangely. What do we know? My dear old brother! . . . Will you not come and rest—after your—?” He stopped there, and she understood his reason.

“I’m not at all tired,” she told him. “I shall sit here until he wakes, and knows me. I can rest here quite well. I don’t want any food or anything.” The Rector urged her no more, and presently left her.

She sat on through the dinner-hour, the change of nurses, motionless and absorbed. Once the patient stirred, sighed, muttered with his lips. Listening to him, breathless herself, she could now hear his breath—so short and light it was that she must have overlooked it all these hours. From this time onwards through the ministrations of the night-nurse, through visits of the Rector, through ominous absence of visits from the Rector’s wife, through the bustling entry of Dr. Goodlake and his voluble explanations—double pneumonia—absence of will-effort—and the like—she was in a fever of hope and anticipation, waiting, like one tense at the starting-post, for the signal.

At midnight Mr. Germain stirred and began to moan, regularly, hopelessly, in a way to break your heart. This, too, her certainty gave her the heart to endure. Such nourishment as he could be given set him wandering. He spoke ramblingly—often of her—cited scripture—“My darling from the lions,” she caught; and “the lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet.” Once he cried aloud, “Ha! Tell Wilbraham I will not see him—” and again, moaning, “No, no, it is untrue—it cannot be true.” There followed a time of broken sleep—at three o’clock, with a grey line of light between the curtains, she saw his open eyes fixed earnestly upon her.

She was on her knees by the bed in a moment. “I am here,” she said. “Do you know me?”

His lips moved, “Yes.”

“I was at home when I heard of your illness—but I did not go home when I left you. I went to the north to consult a friend—about myself. Do you hear me? Can you hear me?”

Again he sighed “Yes.” His eyes were fixed upon hers—with interest, she thought—but without any judgment. The night-nurse discreetly left the room.

She asked his patience, and plunged into her story—her story and his own, with Tristram’s part interwoven. “There was one who used to see me,” was her way of bringing in Duplessis, and after that Tristram was “he” throughout. She would not use his name; felt she could not, and knew that she need not. Full understanding lay behind those unwinking, charged eyes, terribly watchful and indifferent to anything but curiosity. She saw them as the patient eyes of an investigator, expectant of a final experiment. “I have studied this case for three years—now, at last, I am to have it.” He knew everything—had known everything from the beginning: she had no news for him; “how she would put it,” was what he was waiting for—for that only she had drawn him back to life.

This knowledge, this realization drove her to candour past belief. She felt as if she was stripping herself for public exhibition—found herself talking in a dry voice of lovers’ intimacies and of still more secret things—of things which women feel but do not even think. She had to examine herself unflinchingly during this confession, which reduced itself, for lack of matter, to one of motives. In the course of it she had to face a fact never faced before only felt. She could not love Tristram, she did not love Germain—whom, then, did she love? The fine colour flushed her cheeks, the true light flamed in her eyes as she told herself—and then told her husband.

“I know myself now. There is one man who could do with me as he pleased. But he will do nothing with me. I trust him utterly; he has changed me. He has given me a soul, I think. He has taught me the worth of things which I never valued before; and what life is, and happiness, and truth. It is through him that I went home and faced what I was afraid of—left him and all the wonderful things he could make me see. I might never see him again—but I left him. I am doing what he would wish now in telling you all this. Untruth is impossible to him, and must never be possible to me again. That is why I have waited here to tell you. I had to tell you—I had to tell myself. Now I have told you everything——”

She stopped there because she felt that if she were to go on she would have to be insincere. Contrition for what she had done and allowed to be done in the days of her blank ignorance, prayers for forgiveness, promises of amendment—such things, proper for bedside confession—what would they imply, what involve? That she loved this poor watcher? Alas! Pity might have urged her to deceive him so; but she dared not deceive him—and, moreover, she was certain that he could not now be deceived. The light of another world shone upon him, shone through him, and enabled him to read hearts. She did not shrink from this supernatural power of his—if it had been profitable she would have given him her life-blood. It seemed to her as clear as daylight that the utmost she could do for him had now been done—when she had discharged her conscience before him, and cleared her honour. She believed that he would feel himself honoured by that act; and as she stooped over him to kiss him she told him as much.

“It is kind of you to have listened to me. You have done me so much honour, so much kindness—but this is the greatest you have ever done me. Do you understand that I feel it so?” For a moment his terrible intelligence pored upon her as she hung over his bed. It searched her, explored her, wondered, judged. A flicker of a smile—a momentary relaxation of his rigid lips—a faint wavering of his attention; then he signed, and closed his eyelids down. The strain was over, she had been heard, assessed, acquitted. When the night-nurse came in she found the patient at peace, and Mary Germain crouched on the floor asleep, her head upon the edge of the bed.

XV
THE DEAD HAND

Her calmness, which was not the stupor of grief, from this point onwards shocked her friend and disturbed her enemy in the house. The Rector could not but feel it a slight upon his dead brother and an attitude most unbecoming to so young a widow; but Mrs. James was made uncomfortable by an attitude for which she had not been prepared. Whatever the girl’s faults may have been, she had never been brazen. Why, then, was she brazen now? Why almost—yes, indecent in her indifference? Mary proposed nothing, objected to nothing; took no part in the funeral arrangements, answered no letters, read none, allowed her sister-in-law entire control, sank back, with evident contentment, to be the cipher in her own house, which, of course, she ought to have been from the first. There was something behind all this; Mrs. James was far too intelligent to misread it. This did not mean that Mary was over-whelmed—by grief, or shame, either; it did not mean that she felt herself in disgrace. No. This was impudence—colossal.

The Rector, to whom this reading of the girl was propounded, could not deny it colour. “She’s very young to have such troubles upon her, and of course she’s still very ignorant. She can’t express herself. I don’t at all agree with you, Constantia; but I own I should have preferred to see her in tears.”

“Why should she cry, pray? She has all that she wants—a sure income and her liberty. At least, that is what she supposes; but we shall see.”

“You paint your devils so impossibly black, my dear,” said the Rector, “that really they refute themselves. I am sorry to have to say it, but you are incapable of being just to this poor girl. However, as I own, tears had been a sign of grace.”

Certainly she shed no tears, that any one could see. She was frequently in her room alone, and may have cried there. The Rector made advances, by look, by gesture, even by words. He was not an effusive man; would sooner have died than have invited anybody to pray with him—but for all that he did put himself in her way, heart in hand, so to speak—and when she gently disregarded him he felt chilly.

She did not attend the funeral, nor did she choose, though she was urged, to be present at the reading of the will. She told the Rector, who pressed this duty upon her, that she couldn’t oblige him. “Please don’t ask me to do that. I have nothing to expect—and if he had left me anything I should have to think about it very seriously. He took me from nothing; I brought him nothing; he has done more for me, and allowed me to do more for my parents than I could ever have asked—even of him. I make no claims at all, and have no expectations. I have never thought about such things——”

“Naturally, my child, naturally not. But—after such a shock as this—after the first pang of loss—it is wise to think of the future. You had no settlement, you know.”

“How could I?” she asked simply. He smiled at the question.

“Well, my dear, well. Your parents might reasonably have looked—my dear brother was very impulsive in some ways—I can’t doubt but that he intended to make proper provision. But he kept his affairs very much to himself—too much. However, at such a time—to judge the beloved dead—! No, no. For the same reason I can’t press you——”

“No—please do not,” she said, and turned to the window. He left her.

The will, then, was read before the Rector and Mrs. James, Miss Germain, and Miss Hester Germain, and produced its effect. It bore the date of a month before the testator’s second marriage and was expressed to be made in view of that coming ceremony, and to take the place of any settlement. It left her Porchfield House in Farlingbridge, “otherwise known as the Dowry House,” with all its furniture and household gear, and three thousand pounds a year charged upon his Southover estate “so long as she remain chaste and unmarried.” Mr. Dockwra, solicitor, slurred his phrase, excusing it. Mrs. James liked it extremely. In the case of remarriage, Mary was to have five hundred pounds. That was all, said Mr. Dockwra, so far as Mrs. Germain was concerned; and he only said this much because he was asked by Mrs. James Germain if there was no further reference to her. For the rest the deceased gave handsome legacies to his sisters, though they were otherwise provided for, and liberal remembrances to his servants—annuities calculated upon their years of service; and referred to the fact that the Southover property and the London property alike were in strict settlement upon his own children, should he have any, and, failing them, upon his brother James.

Mr. Dockwra then produced a small bundle of papers. “There was a codicil,” he said, “which bore date the 26th of August—a week before Mr. Germain’s wedding. By this document he left five hundred a year to “my cousin Tristram Duplessis,” so long as he remained unmarried.” Thus tersely expressed, the Rector started as if he had been shot, and his wife compressed her lips.

“I think that I should explain,” said Mr. Dockwra, “that this codicil was not drawn by me, and that I had no knowledge of its existence until the day after Mr. Germain’s death. Mr. James Germain, however, as executor, handed me then the sealed envelope containing it. That envelope contained one other paper—a telegram, which (as it has no obvious reference to the disposition) may have been put there by oversight. I shall hand it now to Mr. Germain.”

The Rector took it, opened it, looked at it, and raised his eyebrows. Presently he put it quietly on the table before him. Mrs. James, without turning her head, read it. It was very short—Middleham, Hill-street, Berkeley-square—Look out. Mrs. James smiled at her thoughts—and presently left the room.

Mary must now be told what she had not cared to hear. The Rector broke her the contents of the will but said nothing of the codicil. He had not asked his wife the meaning of that second document, and did not mean to. It pointed to a domestic mystery. Without being a prude, all such matters were distasteful to him.

He was very kind, as he had always been. “You will be very comfortably left, you see, Mary,” he said, “at any rate, let us say, while you are looking about you.”

Mary had shown no more than a polite interest in his report. Three thousand a year? Porchfield? She may have been dazed, but she certainly was not dazzled. James Germain reflected to himself on the ease with which one gets acclimatized. Little more than two years ago this child was working hard for sixty pounds a year; now she hears that she is secured three thousand—without moving a muscle.

“I need not tell you,” he went on, “that your home is here or at Southover for any length of time convenient to you. Indeed, I am sure I might include the Rectory in my general invitation. We have been so nearly related; I could not bear to think the tie severed by my dear brother’s death. Apart from that, we have learned to love each other, I hope. I shall always look upon you as one of us—if you will let me; and your settlement at Porchfield will be a reason the more to keep me at Southover.”

“That is very kind of you, Mr. Germain,” Mary said—but without enthusiasm. After a few more efforts, the worthy man left her alone.

It was then Mrs. James’s turn. She came in, after knocking, with the telegram in her hand.

“This, I think, belongs to you,” she said.

Mary took it, read it, and remembered. A quick flush of colour showed that she did.

“Yes,” she said, “but it is of no importance now.” And she tore it across.

But Mrs. James was not to be balked. “You must allow me to explain its importance. It was found in the envelope containing the codicil to my dear brother’s will—a codicil which he made within two days of your receiving it.”

Mary, still looking out of the window, commented idly. “A codicil? Was there a codicil? That meant that you changed your mind, didn’t it?”

“In this case,” said Mrs. James, “it means, I think, that my dear brother explained his mind. I thought that the Rector might have informed you.”

“No,” said Mary. Mrs. James cleared her throat and began to enjoy herself.

“By that he left five hundred a year to my cousin Tristram Duplessis—so long as he remained unmarried.”

Mary was puzzled at first. She knew by the speaker’s tone that she was in disgrace—and connected it with Duplessis at the mention of his name. She stared at the bitterly incisive lady. “Mr. Duplessis—five hundred—if he doesn’t marry? What has that to do with—?” She stopped—her eyes widened and deepened—showed fathomless. “Ah!” she said, and picked up the torn paper. She read the date, August 24th. “What did you say was the date of the will?”

“It was a codicil,” said Mrs. James.

“The date, please, the date,” Mary asked her, fretfully.

“It was dated the 26th of August.”

Jinny’s birthday! Mary remembered it perfectly. He had had tea with the two of them, and she had clung to him afterwards, with a confession on the tip of her tongue. He had never been more loving to her than on that afternoon—and he had Jinny’s telegram in his pocket—in his breast pocket—while she had clung sobbing to his breast! And he had left her that evening, full of love, as he had seemed to be, and gone home and tied Tristram by the leg. Ah—so he had known everything—always! Before that night at Exeter—he had known it from the beginning.

She sat very still—the telegram in her lap—and her eyes cast down, as she played idly with the pieces, lifting them up and letting them fall. The triumphant foe could see nothing but her heavy eyelids, and the fringe of her lashes curving upwards as they brushed her cheeks. If she expected victory she was to be disappointed.

“I am glad you sent him my telegram,” she said. “I am glad he knew about Mr. Duplessis and me.”

Mrs. James lifted her head. “It was certainly advisable that he should be told. Personally, I could not interfere. I told him nothing that may have presented itself to me——”

“No,” said Mary, “of course not. It was no business of yours.” Mrs. James jumped.

“It seems to me that it was very much a business of yours, if you will forgive me.”

“It was,” Mary said. “And I told him all about it.”

Mrs. James started. “I told him,” Mary said, “on the night he died. He quite understood.”

“It is horrible to me,” cried Mrs. James, “that he was kept in the dark so long.”

“He wasn’t at all in the dark,” Mary said. “That is plain now. I wish that I had known it before.”

“You may well say so. Apart from candour, apart from sincerity, surely it is the sacred duty of a married woman to have no secrets from her husband.”

Mary looked up. She had the eyes of a woman acquainted with grief. “I am not a married woman,” she said. “I fancy that you must know it.”

XVI
WINGS

The tale of Germain’s posthumous disposition of his chattels ran, as such tales will, all about town, and lost nothing in the running. Women took it complacently, after their kind. Of course it was odd; and yet, in its way, was it not a tribute? One or two pretty young wives told each other that it was touching; a Miss Lavender shed tears. In the clubs they said plainly that Duplessis had been bought off. Palmer Lovell, with his back to the fireplace, cried out in his strident boy’s voice, “If that’s not compounding a felony, it’s compounding a felon. But what the devil of a right has old Germain, alive or dead, to whip his wife in public?” No clubman had an answer to this. The best thing of all was said by Lord Kesteven in Paris: “God be good to us, what Turks we all are! Here’s old Germain taking the harem-key into the grave with him.”

That keen-faced old lord came to London and called on Mary in Hill-street. He observed her pale in her black weeds, but with a haunted kind of beauty upon her which she had never had before. Her eyes were enormous, he said. She was very quiet in her manner, seemed dazed, but not cowed—apprehensive, you might think. She looked up at him in a mutely expectant way, as if she expected him momentarily to hit her, and was too tired even to flinch at the impending blow. He felt deeply for her—all sorts of things, and after his manner, therefore, was more bluff and direct than usual. “Well, my young friend, and what are you going to do with yourself? I should advise you to get out of this. No woman can be expected to stand it.”

She flushed at the bold attack, but did not avoid it. “I hear nothing of what is being said. I am sure he did not mean to be unkind. That is not like him. I was to blame.”

“I won’t talk about it, or I shall get angry. Cant—in a man’s will—to disguise something worse, and nastier—pouf! Look here, my dear, try France—try Paris. My sister Margaret de Guiche would like you to pay her a visit. She said so. She’s alone, and you need see nobody. De Guiche is in Petersburg. You couldn’t have a better dueña than Margaret. It will be a kindness to her—and a kindness to me. I wish you’d think of it.”

She listened with hanging head, and veiled eyes. Her eyelids, always heavy, seemed now as if they were of intolerable weight. She watched her twisting fingers as she thanked him for the proposal. She would think of it, she told him—she had everything to think of.

“I know that very well,” Kesteven said; “but there are some things which I hope you need not consider. One of them is the great regard I have for you.”

Oh, yes, she was sure of that. He had shown her so much kindness.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he continued; “and I’ll go as far as this. If you decide to renounce your legacy—on reflection—I should claim the privilege of helping you to do it. I can hardly go further—but so far I am ready to go. Remember that. Remember that I am allowed to call myself your friend. Remember, if you choose, that I am five-and-sixty, and take heart—if you need heart.”

It was clear what was implied in this speech; but she did not feel equal to quieting the anxiety which underlay it. She made no remark.

“At any rate,” said his lordship, “I tell you that you may command the Hôtel de Guiche. Margaret may be trusted—and perhaps I need not add that you may trust me, too.” But he couldn’t get her to say more than she would think of it, so took his leave. He kissed her hand.

So far she had not seen Duplessis, nor heard from him; but the sense that an interview with him was impending, was, as it were, swinging like a sword over her head, fretted her nerves so badly that she was incapable of thinking what she could say to him when he came to her—as of course he would—with an offer of instant marriage. That would be, in his view, the only possible answer to the public affront he had received. But as the days went on and he made no sign she began to wonder dimly whether, after all, she might not escape—and from such faint sighings thrown out into the vague she came by degrees to hopes—and from hopes to plans and shifts.

Everything in town conspired together to make her position impossible. The chill reserve of Mrs. James—whose frozen civility was worse than any rebuke; the letters of her parents from Blackheath, kind, repining, half-informed letters which said in effect, We don’t know what is being cried against you, but be sure that we are on your side; and the terrible letters of Jinny (almost Mrs. Podmore by now, and vigorously on the side of decorum)—“the disgrace which has been cast upon our family . . . your unfortunate liaison, . . . One can only hope that you will let them be a warning, child. . . . Let us be thankful that things are no worse . . .”—all this made the poor girl so self-conscious that she could hardly lift her head. She thought that the very servants were judging her—as, no doubt, they were; she felt beaten to the earth; and the fund of common-sense, the fund of charity, which she had at her call—through mere panic—suspended payment.

If she had been left to herself she would have borne her husband no grudge for seeking to tie her publicly to his name. She would have pitied, not blamed him, for supposing that three thousand or thirty thousand a year could have held her. And certainly that midnight confession absolved her in her own conscience. If she had looked back upon her dealings with Duplessis it would have been to see what a little fool she had been—to blush at her ignorance, not at her shame. But now her world insisted on her disgrace; she was made to stand in a sheet like a Jane Shore; the straight, clinging, disgraceful robe imprisoned her body and soul. She felt that she must die if she stayed where she was, a public mock; but until Duplessis delayed so obviously his coming she had felt bound in honour to see him.

To be just to Duplessis, he kept himself away by violence, obeying an instinct—which was a true one. He had no doubt but that she would marry him now—he could not for the life of him see how any two people could otherwise reply to posthumous impudence of the sort. Indeed, he felt in his heart of hearts that she owed him that. But his instinct told him that that could not be put to her for the present, and that to be seen in her society, to visit her, even to write to her, would make her burden heavier to bear. He contented himself by renouncing his legacy in the most precise terms—in a letter to Dockwra the lawyer, and in another to James Germain. If this act came to Mary’s ears, as he hoped it would, no harm would be done to his affair. Rather, she would see in it a plain declaration of his feelings. But, unfortunately for him, it did not. James Germain was at Misperton by this time, and Dockwra communicated directly with him, not through his wife. James Germain, true to his fastidious sense, thought it no business of Mary’s—and was thankful it was none of his.

The delay of a week, ten days, a fortnight, gave her courage. Her feverish dreams, hopes of a release, left her. She knew now that she was to be free, and, once resolved, schemes began to gather in her brain, to develop; her mind went to work, and she became happy. There was no doubt at all where she would go. All her ideas of freedom were centred in one place—Land’s End. The sea, the rocks, the birds—and the low white cottage facing them all—open-doored to them all. Her dream of nearly three years; now to come true! If Senhouse was at the back of her mind, he was kept rigorously there. She felt virginal now when she thought of Senhouse, found herself blushing, and put the image away as not lawful. Freedom from the intolerable eyes about her—the butler’s—her maid’s—Mrs. James’s—this ghastly mummery of clothes and ceremony—she agonized to be quit of it all; but now she intended to be, and could not afford time to agonize. She turned all her quick wits to the work, applied method and deliberation to it, and could almost fix a day, so plain did everything seem.

Method cautioned her to go slowly to work; the first thing to do was to accustom Mrs. James to her walks abroad. She devoted a week to this—went alone, deeply veiled, into the park every day, and spent gradually increasing hours there, doing nothing more.

Then, one morning, she went circuitously to the Bank in Burlington-gardens, and asked for her pass-book. There was some £300 to her credit—the remains of her pin-money allowance. Two days later she presented a cheque for £300—which left her a balance of £27 10s.—and asked for the money in gold. The porter took the sack to her cab, and she gave the direction “Hill-street”—but once out of hearing she put her hand through the window at the top and gave another order—the Army and Navy Stores.

Leaving her sack of money in the cab, she bought herself a Gladstone bag. Perhaps it is evidence at once of the folly and fortune of women that she was not robbed; she may well have deserved to be, for, being full of her ingenious schemes, she had given no thought to the matter—had neither taken the man’s number, nor told him what she was entrusting to him. She had not so much as troubled to shut the cab door after her. The man himself, with a “Well, I’m damned!” had done that, and it may be that the very magnitude of his opportunities had bereft him of the means of using them; for she found him smiling on the rank when she came out. The bag was handed in to her—uncovered—she gave the new direction “Paddington,” and en route deposited her sack of sovereigns and locked it in the bag.

At Paddington she dismissed the cab, not extravagantly, and disappeared with a porter and the bag. She put it in the cloak-room, took a ticket for it, then went back to Hill-street.

Two things must be done, two letters be written—one to her mother, one to James Germain. He had always been her friend; she was really fond of him, and liked to think that he would regret her loss, while she was bound to guard against his trying to recover her. To her mother she wrote very simply that she was suddenly called away on affairs connected with her husband’s death, and might have to go abroad. It would be difficult to write—but she would send an address as soon as she had one of any permanence. She added, “Darling Mother, be as sure of my love for you and father and all of you, as I am of yours. I promise to tell you how I succeed in my business, or if I fail in it. You will never be out of my thoughts, as you are never out of my prayers. Love me always, in spite of anything that you may hear against me. I have been foolish, very ignorant, and very blind—but no worse, Mother, upon my honour. I am wiser now, and intend to be a good woman. Trust your Mary; who loves you and kisses this paper.”

She wrote in the same strain to the Rector of Misperton. “I am not able to bear the strain of London for the present, and intend to travel for some time before making my plans. I feel the need of quiet, and shall trust in you to do all you can to ensure it to me. After the comforting words you gave me I am sure that you may rely upon my doing nothing which should make me unworthy of them. I am resolved not to see Mr. Duplessis again. I could never be happy with him, nor make him happy after what has passed. If he should inquire for me, pray tell him that this is my sincere conviction, and ask him not to attempt to dissuade me from it. I can never thank you enough for your invariable kindness to me; that must always be one of my happy recollections of the life that I have ended. If I have to begin again without it, it is because I cannot ask you to continue it until I have proved myself more worthy to have it. I am going away now by myself, to work and to learn, and to forget much, but never to forget your kindness. I beg you to, remember sometimes with charity your affectionate friend, Mary S. Germain.”

It was on the tip of her pen to write to Tristram; as she sat hesitating the phrases printed themselves, one after another in her head, and she wrote them down. “You never loved me—but I was proud to be even in your notice. I am greatly to blame for the renewal of what was idle on your part and foolish vanity on mine in the beginning. I can only be glad that my husband, though he knew everything, heard it all again from my own lips—I told him the night he died. I hope that you will be happy and famous, I know that both are in your power. Do not try to find me, I beg of you. Forget me, and love a woman who is more suited to you by birth and education. I know that if you try you can succeed in this. If you have any feeling of regard for me you will do as I ask you now.—Mary S. Germain.”

Two of these letters she posted with her own hand that night. Tristram’s she reserved.

Then she made her last preparations. She packed her jewel-case carefully, tied and sealed it, and addressed it to the bank. She dined in her boudoir and spent the rest of the evening with Bradshaw, planning out her route. Love of secrecy, love of intricacy, which were both characteristic of her, decided her against so simple a course as a journey from Paddington to Penzance. She worked out a way more to her taste: Waterloo to Basingstoke, thence to Swindon, and thence by the Great Western to Exeter, where she would stay for a while. This necessitated an early start in the morning, for she must go to Paddington and recover her three hundred pounds. She would take no luggage whatever, would buy what she wanted in Exeter. Loyalty to Senhusian ethics decided her to this.

Meantime, it was necessary to be rid of her maid for an hour. That she effected by the simple means of sending her with the note to Duplessis, and with her jewel-box, to be taken to the bank, and a receipt obtained. The moment she was alone she dressed herself as she intended to appear—in black jacket and skirt and a grey silk blouse—in hat and veil studiously plain. Then she left the house in Hill-street on foot, got a cab in Davies-street, and was free.

All went well with her as far as Basingstoke; but there she was imprudent. She asked at the office whether she could book through to Penzance, and break her journey for a week, and being told, after some delay, that she could not—“Then Exeter, please,” she said. “Second single to Exeter,” and receiving it, holding it in her mouth, she half turned to get a better light into her purse, and caught sight of Horace Wing—the courtly Horace—who must have heard her. In the shock, as he hastened forward, cap in one hand, golf-clubs dragging by the other, she left her change on the counter, bowed and fairly ran. This was very indiscreet; but she escaped, and the porter came after her with her bag. Horace Wing, after gaping, had a shuddering fit. He did not follow her, and was not able to smile at the encounter for some weeks.

Her carriage was empty: she was alone now, with all her life, like an open sea, in front of her. She sat, looking out towards the West, her hands quiet in her lap; she had no sense of high adventure, no bosom full of hope—peace possessed her altogether. She felt that she could lie her length upon some green bank, sheltered from the wind, and sleep herself to death. Such a feeling as this was so foreign to her nature that she was surprised at herself, asked herself whether some chord in her had not been broken. She was sanguine by temperament and always lived in the future; if on any morning of any week she could not wake up with the sense of an excitement to come, to be waited for, to be felt nearer—that day was so much dead weight, so much space of drab, to be got through, in order that she might live to-morrow. She told herself that she was mortally tired—that her present reward was to be able to live unwatched and unjudged. That was enough for any girl surely—let the morrow’s outlook provide for the morrow.

Even while she was thinking these thoughts she caught herself unawares. She found herself watching the flying landscape anxiously, and smiling as she watched. The open common, the duck-pond, and the white road—yes, and the tilt-cart drawn by a white horse—plodding to the West! Three years ago, almost to a day—she and the tilt-cart had taken that road. And then she had been a bride of an hour—and now she was a widow of an hour. She caught herself blushing, was confused, felt eyes upon her: the carriage seemed full of eyes. For a while, she continued to watch, to watch through the mist in her own eyes—and then she turned suddenly in her place, opened her novel and read diligently in it until the train, stopping at Taunton, showed her that the place of dangerous memories was past.

She would not allow her thoughts to recur to that curious little drama of the mind: in fact, she worked hard to avoid the temptation. She abandoned her novel, opened her purse, and did her accounts. She made lists of necessary purchases, and began to post up the diary with which she had provided herself.

When she reached Exeter she stepped out—Miss Mary Middleham. Her bag bore a label to that effect.

XVII
FIRST FLIGHT

Mrs. Merritt who had been housekeeper to the late Canon Blackrod and now let lodgings in a house of her own, was amiable, and by the possession of that quality was able to keep her curiosity within bounds: but it was her daughter Polly, a Devon maid of apple cheeks and sloe-black eyes, who taught her enthusiasm for her lodger. Polly Merritt adored the quiet and pretty young lady who, though she wore such beautiful clothes, gave herself none of the airs which were clearly within her rights; who would wash her own blouses, trim her own hats, or sit below-stairs chatting affably, while she trimmed one for Polly herself. In such familiar intercourse all the necessary safeguards of landladies were proved to be secure. Miss Middleham, it seemed, was an orphan, by profession a teacher of languages, who had found it necessary to leave her London employment to escape a gentleman’s attentions. Most reasonable, most proper. The gentleman was one indeed, highly connected, in fact, cousin of an Honourable; but impecunious and not very steady. Girls who are orphans must look after themselves: there had been nothing for it but flight. Admirable forethought! Nothing, certainly, but praise could be given to Miss Middleham for conduct so discreet.

“It’ll bring him round, Miss, depend upon it,” Mrs. Merritt had considered. “It’ll make him look nine ways. As good as a slap in the face, any day.”

“Better, I hope,” Mary said.

“Some of ’em wants one thing, some another, Miss. Let him know that you’re in earnest, whatever you do.”

“I am quite in earnest, Mrs. Merritt,” Mary told her; “and I think I have made that plain.”

“Did you tell him so, or write it, Miss?” Polly must ask. “Writing’s better—but it’s dull work.”

“I have done both, Polly. He doesn’t know where I am. I made it quite clear to him that he could not.”

Mrs. Merritt, having observed her guest, passed the back of her hand rapidly across her nose. “To be sure you could, Miss. It’s easy to be seen that God Almighty never gave you that pair of eyes for nothing. To call a man, or send him about his business—ah, I’ll warrant you.”

“Poor fellow,” mused the tender Polly. “I pity him.”

In private conversation afterwards Mrs. Merritt assured her daughter that she need not. We should have the young gentleman here before the swallows were away: let Polly mark her words. Our young lady was a snug young lady—that was a certainty. She was not a girl who would go without letters of a morning for long together. Letters! That sort live on ’em, as a man on his eleven o’clock beer. No, no. She was used to company, any one could see. She was meant to be somebody’s darling. How else did she get her pretty ways—and why to goodness wear her pretty frocks, but for that? Meantime, she had been used to the best, you could see; and she should have it here.

What Mrs. Merritt, however, did not know, and Polly did know, was that another gentleman stood in the background. Here lay the root of Polly’s passionate interest in her friend: a constant appeal to her imagination and judgment and wonder. A gentleman was to be expected; there was always a gentleman. But two gentlemen! One more gentleman, and Polly might have felt the responsibilities of Paris. In fact, she did feel them as things were.

Mary had come to Exeter, meaning no more than a passage-bird’s rest there—a night or two, and away. Her cottage at the Land’s End, solitary vigil face to face with the sea and the rocks, tending of the hidden garden there, a waiting and watching—and a great reward: that had been her fixed intent. Nothing seemed to be in the way. She was free as air: why should she wait?

It is very odd, though, how you cannot carry through these hot-blood thoughts in the cold blood. That momentary shyness which had come upon her in the train, when she had caught herself looking out for a remembered village-green and had been abashed, came upon her the moment she began to think of Cornwall with a view to going there. She found herself trembling, found herself delaying, drawing back. Had she been her old self, never sought and never mated, in this tremulous plight she had remained; but she had learned to face such difficulties, and did not shirk it. The more she thought of it the plainer it became that she could not have the cottage, could not sit down there and wait for Senhouse. Virgin as she was, and virginal as she was now become again, the picture of herself in such an attitude, and in such an act, filled her with shame. And if to picture it was dreadful, what would the day-long reality be but unendurable? But where, then, was her sense of comradeship, of perfect amity between him and her? She did not know. It was gone. And what would he—wondrous, clear-seeing friend—say to her for this prudery? That she did know: she could see him appeal for laughter to the skies. Alas, it could not be helped. She was a maiden, therefore might be wooed. She was a maiden, therefore could not go a-wooing. So he and she might never meet again! Better so—oh, infinitely better—than that they should meet by her act.

Thus it was that Polly Merritt came to learn about the other gentleman. Mary’s perplexities had been stated, and Polly was thrilled.

“Oh, Miss! And he’s never spoken?”

“No,” said Mary. “At least—not about that.”

“What was the nearest he ever got to?”

Mary looked wise. “He told me to go away, once.”

“He did! Why were you to go then?”

“Because—oh, because he could see, I suppose, that I didn’t want to; and——”

“Well?”

“Because—I sometimes fancy—he didn’t want me to. At least, I think he didn’t. He said, ‘You had better go home. I’m a man, you know.’”

Polly opened her eyes wide. “That’s as plain as my nose. I should think so! So, of course——”

“Yes, of course I had to go.” She looked down at her toes, just as if Senhouse had been standing above her, bidding her go.

“I dream sometimes,” she said, “that he comes to me in the night, and looks at me—never speaks, but just looks. Not at me, you know, but through me—right through to the pillow. That’s enough. Then he turns and goes away, and I follow him out of door, into the warm dark—and he turns sharply upon me and is dreadfully angry. I’ve never known him angry; but dreams are like that. I see his face quite changed—wild and cold at once, and terribly stern. And I run away into the empty house, and wish that I were dead. No, no. I could never bear that—to seek him and be spurned. I would sooner never see him again.”

Polly was deeply moved, but practical. A girl must look ahead—far beyond dreams. “You had best not, Miss,” she said, “if that’s likely to be the way of it. Is he that sort—your hot-and-cold?”

“Oh, I don’t know—how can I tell? That has never been between us, save that once, when he told me to go away. He’s a wonderful talker about all sorts of things; he can make them all extraordinary. I feel, after listening to him, that I understand all life, all experience. Everything seems reasonable. But when it comes to—us—he won’t speak. I believe he can’t. And I understand him better when he doesn’t.”

“So would any one, I should think,” said Polly Merritt. “But how’s he going to look at you if he never sees you, and don’t know where you are?”

“Ah,” said Mary with far-sighted eyes, “I don’t know.”

“You might write to him, I suppose—and slip in your address, by accident like.”

Mary shook her head. “I couldn’t. Besides, he has no address. He just comes and goes—like the wind.”

“Has he no house of his own?”

“No. He lives in a tent—in a cart.”

“What! Like a gipsy? Oh, Miss!” This would never, never do.

But Mary admitted it, thoughtfully. “Yes. I think he might be a sort of gipsy.”

This, to Polly, was final. “I do think you’re better here, Miss Middleham, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Perhaps I am,” said Mary.

Polly had veered. “I’ll warrant the other gentleman would have a house to offer you.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so. But——”

“Ah, that’s just it—that’s just it.”

Mary admitted it. “I suppose it is. But he says that he will never marry. He doesn’t believe in marriage.”

“Ho, indeed!” cried Polly. “Then pray what does he believe in?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

Polly tossed her young head. “It wouldn’t take long for me to be sure.”

Then Mary showed her face, and her eyes shone clear. “I am sure of this, that if he called me I should follow him over the world, however he chose me to be. But I know he never will. He is unlike anybody else—he comes and goes like the wind.”

“Let him, for me,” said Polly, “’specially when he’s going.”

The summer waned and fainted; autumn mists crept about, and found her still in Exeter. Pupils came slowly, but she got one or two, and there was promise of more. The Vicar of the parish helped her. She taught in his Sunday school, did him some visiting, danced with his boys and sang with his girls. Through him she got an engagement in September, in a young ladies’ academy—to teach Italian two days a week. She got to know a few people. There was a gentlemanly young man called Bloxam, who escorted her home from choral evenings; then there was a curate—quod semper, quod ubique—who lent her books and professed himself ready to discuss them afterwards, by correspondence or otherwise.

These things faintly amused her; the simplicity of such devices, for instance, the little buildings-up of the little architects! She felt herself, ruefully, slipping back into the parochial, losing touch with her wide horizons. The tonic properties of freedom, which at first had been as delightful as the mere ease of it, were now staling by use. She began to find herself grow dull. The one fact upon which she could build was that she was again earning her living.

XVIII
ENTER A BIRD-CATCHER

October was in, mild and languorous; the trees dripped all day, the mist seemed unable to lift itself from the low-lying city. Mary grew restless and discontented. The usual things happened, but had ceased to entertain. Mr. Bloxam, after taking her for excursions by water, had one day proposed that she should take tea with his people, prosperous hucksters in the town. She agreed—to find out very soon that she was on exhibition, on approval, you might say. Mrs. Bloxam, the mother, addressed her particular inquiries, Mr. Bloxam, the father, gave her a carnation out of the conservatory. Shortly afterwards Mr. Bloxam, the son, made her another proposition, and was exceedingly surprised that she did not jump at it. Can such things be? he inquired, looking about. She had shaken her head at him very gently when she told him that really she couldn’t. It was charmingly done, with kindness, but complete finality. That he saw.

He told her that his heart was broken, that she saw before her a man beaten down. “It is dreadful,” he said. “My mother liked you so much. She is hard to please. I suppose you wouldn’t care to think it over?”

Again she shook her head. A Mr. Bloxam of Exeter! If he only knew, or could be made to know! “No, no,” she said. “I sha’n’t alter. But I hope we are not to be bad friends.”

Mr. Bloxam had bowed, and said, “I should be most happy”—and one sees what he meant. “My mother, you know, won’t like it. Naturally she is partial. She will say that you led me on.”

“Then she will say what is very untrue,” cried Mary, with flashing eyes, “and I hope you will tell her so. It is very hard if I may not have friends without being accused of ridiculous things.”

“Girls do them, you know,” said Mr. Bloxam dubiously. “I’ve met with several cases.”

“If you are likely to include this among them, I must ask you to let me go,” she said with spirit; “but perhaps you would like to give me some tea first.”

Mr. Bloxam, murmuring about the sacred rites of hospitality, assured her that he would; and they parted on good terms. He told her that he intended to travel; and indeed he did afterwards go to Weston-super-Mare for a month.

The unfortunate but absurd episode taught her to be circumspect with the literary curate. He, however, was of a more cautious temperament, and went away for his holiday with no more pronounced symptom than a promise to send her picture postcards from the Cathedral cities which he purposed visiting. “You may like to have these afterwards,” he darkly said, and then took himself away on a bicycle.

The year was come to a critical point for her. About this time Halfway House would be plodding its way to the West, its owner, loose-limbed and leisurely, smoking on the tilt. Almost any day now it might pass by Exeter, or through it; almost any day she might come plump upon it—and what was to happen to her then? Could she endure the year’s round, or know him by her Cornish sea, in her white cottage on the cliff, and stay here nursing her wound, feeling the throb and the ache? It seemed impossible—and yet women do such things. It was almost the worst of her plight that she knew she could do it. It was in her blood to do it. The poor were like that: dumb beasts.

And now the delicacy which she had felt at first, and which had kept her away from Land’s End, became a tyrant, as the temptations grew upon her. It prevented her riding afield by any road leading into Exeter from the East. She had a bicycle; more, she had a certain way of bringing him directly to her side. He had taught her. The patteran. But no! She couldn’t. So she worked on doggedly, with the fret and fever in her bones; and day by day October slipped into November; the days slipped off as the wet leaves fell.

Early in November, on a day of sunny weather, Polly Merritt announced a visitor, who followed her immediately into the room, his straw hat under his left arm, his right hand held out.

“A gentleman to see Miss Middleham, if you please,” says Polly Merritt, and Mary had sprung up, with her hand to her side.

“It’s the tall one, mother, not the windy one,” was explained in the kitchen, but Mrs. Merritt, sniffing, had declared they were all the same.

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Polly. “But this gentleman talks like asking and having, if you want my opinion.”

The riot in her breast was betrayed by her shining eyes and the quick flood of colour from neck to brows; but he played the man of the world so well that she was able to recover herself.

He made his excuses for breaking in upon her. He had been going through Exeter in any case. It was hardly to be resisted, she would allow. He owned that Horace Wing had given him the clue. “Poor Horace, you hurt him. It took two months’ hard talking in town and at least a month of surmise in Scotland before Horace could find strength enough to own up to the fact that he had met you, that you had bowed—and bolted. He mentioned it with tears in his eyes, as an extreme case. He had heard you book to Exeter—second single.” Then he looked at her and smiled. “But why Miss Middleham?”

“Why not?” she echoed him bravely. “I had to be somebody.”

“Weren’t you person enough?”

“Ah, yes, I was too much of a person, I was almost a personage. I was never happy in that disguise. My clothes never fitted me.”

“You should let other people judge of that. If you would like my opinion of your clothes, for instance——”

She shook her head, without speaking. He tried a more direct attack.

“You forgive me for coming?”

She suspected a tenderness. “Oh, it is very kind of you. I don’t have many visitors. I am glad to see you.”

“That’s good. May I see you again, then, while I can?”

She inquired: “Are you likely to be here long?”

A light hand was necessary now. “Oh, dear no—unfortunately. A day or two at the outside; time to buy cartridges. You remember the Ogmores? I am due at Wraybrook on the seventh. Pheasants. But until then——”

This was the fourth, you see. He would be horribly in the way. “I am occupied a good part of the day,” she told him. “I have pupils.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Really! Have you—” he flushed, and leaned forward. “Have you renounced your——?”

“Not in so many words,” she said. “I have simply dropped it. Nobody knows where I am.”

“You knew that I had formally renounced mine?”

She had not known that. There was an implication in it—which she had run here to avoid; and here it was. “Did you?” she said shortly. “I’m not surprised.”

“Of course not,” he agreed. “You could not expect me to do anything else. And you have done precisely the same. That, also, I took leave to expect.” He saw concern gather in her eyes, broke off abruptly, and plunged into gossip. “Does your late world interest you still? Do you want to hear the news? Palmer Lovell’s engagement, for instance? A princess of Italy, I give you my word—a Donna Teresa Scalchi, rather a beauty, and a great shrew. Palmer can bite a bit, too. That will end in tears. And Hertha de Speyne marries abroad. Morosov, an anarchist of sort. They can collect plants in Siberia—” he broke off again, remembering that others had collected plants in Siberia. Watching her, he saw that she remembered it, too. “Oh, and old Constantine and I have kissed; we are fast friends. Once more I write speeches, which he mangles. He’s to be at Wraybrook, waiting for me. He can’t bear me out of his sight—he’s like an elderly wife. Frightful nuisance, of course—but I hope you are pleased.”

She looked at him for a moment. “Of course I am pleased. I always wanted you to succeed.”

He rattled on. She had never seen him in such good spirits or manners. When he left her after an hour she was quite at her ease. He said that, if he might, he would come in the evening, and take her for a walk. It would do her good; and as for him she might have pity upon a fellow at a loose end, with nothing on earth to do but buy cartridges.

When he had gone she sat still, looking at her hands in her lap. Could she maintain herself for three days? Already she felt the fences closing in—she had felt them, as they moved, though never once had she been able to hold up her hand or say, Stop: that you may not assume. Tristram was master of implication, and her master there. Throughout his airy monologue he had taken her for granted—her and her origin, her humility, her subservience to his nod, her false position with Germain, her false position now. Why, his very amiability, his deference to her opinion, his tentative approach—what were these but implications of his passion for her, a passion so strong that it could bend his arrogant back, and show a Tristram Duplessis at the feet of a Mary Middleham? She writhed, she burned to feel these things, and to be powerless against such attack. And he was to come again this evening, and every day for three days he was to come—and no help for her, she must fall without a cry. Yes, without a cry; for she was cut off from her friend, by the very need she had of him. What was she to do? What could she do—but fall?

She struggled. At three o’clock in the afternoon she told Polly Merritt that if the gentleman called again he was to be told that Miss Middleham was not well and had gone to bed. Polly wondered, but obeyed. “Lovers’ tricks!” quoth Mrs. Merritt. “That’ll bring him to the scratch.” It did. He received the news at the door, with an impassive face—all but for his eyes, which, keen and coldly blue, pierced Polly’s sloe-blacks to the brain, and extracted what might be useful to him. “Many thanks, Miss Polly,” he had said presently. “You’re a good friend, I see. Look here, I’ll tell you what to do. I’ll bring some flowers round presently, and you shall put ’em in her room, and say nothing about it. Do you see?” Polly saw.

The next day was a busy one for her, and she saw nothing of Tristram until the evening. Then, to her dismay, she found him waiting for her outside the gates of Rosemount Academy, where her Italian lesson had been given. If she bit her lip, she blushed also; and if he remarked but one of these signals it was not her fault. Cavaliers had attended at those gates before—not for her only, but for her among others. Such a cavalier, however, so evidently of the great world, had never yet been looked upon by the young ladies of Rosemount.

“Oh,” cried Mary, startled, “who told you——?”

“Your amiable friend, Miss Polly, betrayed you. I hope you’ll forgive her.”

“I suppose I must. Probably you frightened her out of her wits.” But he swore that they were very good friends indeed. He thought that Miss Polly liked him, upon his word; and Mary could not deny that. Polly undoubtedly did.

His admirable behaviour inspired confidence; inquiries after her health, no reference to ambiguous exotics, no assumptions, no plans for evening walks. He went with her to her door, and left her there with a salute. But before she could get in, while she stood with her hand on the knocker, as if by an after-thought he came back to her from the gate. Jess had summoned him to Wraybrook, he said. He knew that there was something to tell her. Positively he must go the day after to-morrow. Now, was she free to-morrow?

She was; but she hesitated to say so. Well, then, would she give him a great pleasure? Would she come with him to Powderham—explore the park and the shore, have a picnic luncheon and all that sort of thing? Would she? As he stood down there below her, with flushed face and smiling, obsequious eyes, she thought that she really might trust herself, if not him. Polly, opening the door, was nodded to, and told that she need not wait. Polly needed no telling.

“Come, Mrs. Mary,” he urged her, “what do you say? Will you let me look after you for this once? Will you please to remember that never once since we have known each other—how many years?—have we had a whole day together? Extraordinary fact.”

“It’s quite true,” she reflected, “we never have. Once we very nearly did, though.”

“Twice,” he corrected her; but she could not admit that. Well, which was her instance?

It was long ago, when she had been at Misperton—had been some six months there. One Midsummer Day—surely he remembered! He had promised to take her to Glastonbury; the dog-cart was to meet them at Clewgate station——

“Ah, yes,” he cried—“And I called for you—and you were ready—in a brown holland frock——”

“Had I a brown holland? I remember that I was quite ready. And then a note came down from Mrs. James——”

“Beloved Mrs. James——”

“And you pretended to be angry——”

“Pretended! Oh, my dearest friend—I swore.”

“I know you did. And I——”

“You pretended to cry——”

“No, no, there was no pretence. I did cry.”

“Mary,” he said, “why did you cry?”

She recovered herself. “Because I was very young, and very stupid.”

“Now for my instance,” he said. “Not so very long ago, you were to go to Blackheath—by train; and I went to Charing Cross station.” But, with a flaming face, and real trouble in her eyes, she stopped him.

“Please, don’t—you hurt me. I think that you forget.”

He begged her pardon so sincerely that she could not refuse the morrow’s appointment.

They met at the station—she in a straw hat and linen frock—for the weather was wonderful; he in flannels. The perils of adventure glittered in her eyes; he played the courtier, sure now of his game. She begged for third-class tickets, but he compromised for second—and flagrantly bribed the guard to keep the carriage. It was impossible that she should avoid the knowledge that she was practically in possession—impossible that she should not see the approving smiles of the bystanders. “A pretty girl and her sweetheart”; simple comedy, of never-ending charm. Abhorrent to the Senhouses of this world, but not to be extirpated until Birnam come to Dunsinane.

Softly the knowledge brooded upon her, softly virginal she sat, very much aware. The epicure returned to Master Tristram, who by a whisper could have had her, but refrained. He sat by her, but respectfully—he discoursed at large. Powderham Castle—he spoke of that. It was a pity that the fine place could not be seen; but the Courteneys had let it, and he didn’t know the people. It was full, he happened to have heard. He believed that Bramleigh was staying there. He forgot if she knew Bramleigh; a quaint little man. But probably she wouldn’t want to be bothered with a lot of people; so they must be contented with the park. Thus Tristram discoursed; and at his discretion sat she, saying little, looking at him never, heeding every shade of inflection, and every hair’s breadth of movement of his. They reached the station; he helped her to descend.

All seemed well with Tristram’s wooing. His lady was in a pensive mood, softly receptive of his implications. The temptation to paint in bolder masses was not resisted, nor that more subtle form of art—the silent art. Speechless they loitered together; and sometimes their hands touched, and sometimes he hovered over her, as if protecting her with wings. Her eyes were veiled; she appeared sleek as a dove under his hand. Once he breathed her name—“Mary, oh, Mary—”; but he saw her shiver and stiffen, and knew that she was still to be won. So be it! But he could not give over the delicious chase. To have her thus wide-eyed, quivering, straining beside him—like a greyhound taut at his leash; he was beside himself with longing, and like a fool gave way.

“My dearest—” he began, but she checked him with a fierce cry—“No, no!—Not that—” and though he could see nothing but the sharp outline of her cheek and chin he knew that she was watching something. He looked about him vaguely. What on earth—? The sea—a narrow strip of blue tumbling water, spuming where it touched the yellow sands—the flecked, pale sky—the gorse—larks above it—in a far corner a gipsy’s tent, and a white horse foraging—. What on earth—?

He drew back. She seemed to start forwards as if to escape from him—but then she turned suddenly, and he saw that she was pale, that she trembled, and that there was real trouble in her eyes.

“I am tired,” she said, “very tired. May we go home now?”

“Of course—what a brute I am. But I thought that you— Won’t you tell me what has tired you all at once?”

“I don’t know—it came over me—suddenly. But I do want to go home, please—immediately.” Her eyes were full—brimming. He was touched.

“Come then, we’ll go to the station. It’s no great distance. Unless you would rather sit——”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly! No, no, indeed, I must go home. My head aches dreadfully. I think a sunstroke—perhaps. I can hardly stand up——”

He saw that that was true. “Come,” he said, “take my arm. We’ll go at once.”

When they had turned back she seemed to recover. She walked, at any rate, as fast as he did—set the pace. But she would not talk any more. In the train she sat apart, looking out of the window—and after a time he let her alone.

At Exeter when he put her in the fly and would have followed her, she put her hand on his arm. “Please don’t come with me. I shall be myself directly. I beg you not to come. And don’t think me ungrateful—indeed, you have been kindness itself. I’m very much ashamed of myself——”

“I’ll see you to-morrow—to say good-bye. You will let me do that? I must know how you are, you see.”

“Yes—come to-morrow if you will. Good-bye. I am much better. I shall be quite well. But come, of course, if you had rather.”

“Of course I shall come.” He lifted his hat, bowed, and turned away. She watched him walk towards his hotel. Then, with a face of flame, she turned to her own affair.

This was to be her last bid for freedom; her last chance. If she was to be the crying shame of her sex, it must be so. Come what might, she must call for help.

She stayed the fly at the door, paid the man, and watched him turn and go galloping down the hill. Then she turned to her affair—across Exeter it took her, to the Honiton road.

She walked the whole way, some two miles out of the city, beyond the suburbs to where the open country began. And here she laid her patteran, with branches of crimson maple, torn from the sunny side of the hedge. At the corners of two by-roads she laid them—one to the South, one to the North. Not satisfied with that, she went North herself to the Cullompton road, and laid two patterans more. Her cheeks burned like fire, and in her heart was a bitter pain; she felt that she had unsexed herself, was bedraggled and bemired. But her need had racked her—you can’t blame the wretch writhing there if he call upon his God.

XIX
HEARTACHE AND THE PHILOSOPHER

Love, which had given her heart wings to soar, clogged Senhouse about the feet, hobbled him and caused him to limp. If she had never loved before, she had played with love; but to him the woe was new. One need not inquire into his relations with women, or believe him immune, to understand that. It was so entirely new to him that he refused to believe in it. She was present with him, though with her face veiled, night and day; the thought of her was joy; his ledge of calochortus took a value in his eyes because she had looked at them, knelt among them, stroked and fondled one, at least. He mocked at himself for searching out and cherishing the marks of her feet, for stooping to touch what seemed to be the printings of her knees; and yet, when he went down the Pillar and stood among other precious growths of his, he saw them a huddle of wet weeds.

The outlook was a bad one. He tried to paint, and smeared out everything he tried; to write, and had nothing to say. He slept badly. And yet he could not leave the north; for he had an appointment in October which would take him to Penrith. A learned man from Baden was coming out to meet him, with proposals in his pocket of Grand Ducal dimensions; two years’ plant-hunting in the Caucasus, and three years’ gardening—with the Schwarzwald for his garden. So far the Grand Ducal Government was prepared to go upon report. The thing had been a year coming to a head, for Senhouse was a difficult man to inoculate with other people’s ideas; but to such a head it was now brought, and he felt that, whatever else he did, he must by all means meet Herr Doktor Löffner.

What was he to do, then, between June and October? Characteristically, with the south calling him, he went north. He shipped at Leith and went to Iceland with Bingo and a saddle-bag for all his luggage. He traversed that island from end to end; and though he could not tire himself, he got his sleeping powers back, began to paint and to believe in his painting, to botanize and to be sure it was worth while. He knew next to nothing of Danish, and was driven in upon himself for company. Upon that fare he throve. He moped no more, forgot Mary for whole hours together, and believed himself cured. In September he returned to Leith and went afoot down to Penrith to meet the Herr Doktor.

Their greeting was cordial. “Oh, man of silences, oh, thou unlettered one, do I find thee in truth?”

“My dear Doctor Löffner, you do indeed. Come into the yard and I’ll show you some things worth having.”

“Where have you been, my friend?”

“Iceland.”

“Iceland! Ach, then you haf—? No, you haf not—? Never in the worlt!”

“I’m not sure. But I rather think that I have.” What he had was some earth and broken limestone in a sponge-bag—so far as could be seen. But there was enough beside to occupy the pair of them until dinner. Before that meal was ready the Doctor had fallen weeping on Senhouse’s neck, had clasped him to his breast. “Thou hast it—thou hast it—oh, wonder-child!”—and then, as he wiped the dew from his glasses, with a startling lapse into idiom—“I say! Dot was cholly.”

The dinner was very gay; Bingo had an indigestion.

Next morning, the great man was taken out and about to view the various fields of tillage; the ledge where calochortus had been fair in Mary’s eyes, the larkspur slope, and what could be done with Alpines upon a Cumberland moraine. He was more than amazed, he was convinced. “You are chust the man for us. We pick you up cheap, I consider, for ten thousand mark.” Senhouse was not concerned to affirm or deny; but he insisted upon it that he was selling his liberty very cheaply indeed. “And I wouldn’t do it, you know, for a hundred thousand,” he said, “if it weren’t for the two years in the Caucasus. You have me there, I own. I’ve hungered after that for years, and now I’ll take it as it comes to me. There must be irises there which neither Leichtlin nor Korolkov have spotted—I’m certain of it.”

“And you are the man to spod them,” said Herr Löffner with deep feeling. “Bod, mind you, we haf them wid you in Schwarzwald.”

“Honour among thieves,” said Senhouse. “Depend upon me.”

Herr Löffner passed by the proposal that he should be taken to the Dukeries to see the cyclamen, or to Wales for the peonies, or to Cornwall for the Ramondias; but he could not resist the promise of Syrian irises growing wild on Dartmoor. That he must see before he died; and he would take Kew and necessary business there on the way. Agreed; they would start in the morning by the express from Carlisle.

This they did; Löffner, Senhouse, and Bingo journeyed to London, and put up at the Grand Hotel, which was chosen by the savant solely on account of its name. “I feel grand to haf got you my Senhouse,” said he; “let us therefore go to the grandest hotel we can find.” It was not in his friend’s power to correct this simplicity; and the Grand Hotel was too grand for him.

In the “lounge” of this palace—“all looking-glasses and whisky,” as he described it—it was necessary for him to spend certain moments while Herr Löffner briskly inspected rooms, menus, and lists of wines. Briskly, but with method, he went to work. Senhouse, having discovered that most of the plants were imitation and the others dying, flung himself upon a plush settee and picked up journal after journal, in the hope of finding one which did not contain either photographs of ladies or advertisements. He was grumbling over an evening sheet when his friend joined him and, sighing his content at a good dinner ahead of him, produced and lighted a cigar. Senhouse found himself reading for a second time a paragraph of a leading article which began thus:—

“Ever since the by-election in Farlingbridge, caused by the death of Mr. Germain, the Government has been losing seats with a steadiness as reasonable as reason can require.” Midway through his second reading he stiffened and sat up.

“Excuse me, Löffner,” he said, “but I must leave you for an hour or so.”

Herr Löffner beamed and bowed. “I am sorry, but submit. Only—you must promise me to come back, or I lose you, du wilder Mann.”

Senhouse was not vague; on the contrary, he was remarkably collected. “Yes, I’ll come back. But this is a matter of losing myself—or the reverse, as the case may be.” He nodded, and walked straight out of the hotel into the street. Bingo, stepping delicately, with ears set back and muzzle to earth, followed close to his right heel. He shared his master’s contempt of London, but added fear.

The hour was late for callers, since it was now half-past seven, but he knew nothing of hours. He went directly to Hill-street and rang the bell. After a long interval a caretaker released many a bolt and peered round the edge of the door. A respectable, grey-haired lady, very anxious.

“Mrs. Germain?” said Senhouse. He almost heard her sigh.

“Out of town, sir.”

“So I see. But where is she?” Bingo lifted his head high, snuffed the air, misliked it, and yawned.

The elderly lady had no more doubts. “She would be at Southover House, Sir. The family is expected on the 15th for a few days, on their way abroad.”

Senhouse jerked away all this surplusage. “The family? What family? It is Mrs. John Germain, I mean.”

Whatever caution may have lingered in the caretaker now disappeared, in the occasion of a treasured wonder to be revealed. “Oh, Sir, we don’t know anything about her. It’s all a mystery, Sir, and has been since Mr. John—passed away.”

“What do you mean by that?” she was asked.

Her cue! “She’s not been seen or heard of, Sir—not by her own family nor by ours. She went away by herself in July—after the event. Sir—and here’s October come round, and never heard of yet.”

Senhouse betrayed nothing; but his mind moved like lightning. “Tell me exactly what you mean,” he bade her; and she did, omitting nothing. He listened, made no comments, and gave no chances.

Then he asked her, “Do you know Mr. Duplessis’s address?”

She did not.

“His club?” She said she would call her husband.

The husband in his shirt-sleeves was all for speculation upon the affair—speculation at large, illustrated by reminiscences. Duplessis was a good gambit; but the moment he had opened by saying that many a time had he stood behind Mr. Duplessis’s chair at the Reform he found himself rehearsing to his wife things that she had heard but an hour ago. Senhouse had snapped out his “Reform! Thanks,” and gone his way.

At the Reform—Bingo coiled on the steps, with one eye wary for peril—he learned that Duplessis was in Devonshire. “Wraybrook Park, near Honiton,” was his address. He returned to the hotel and found Herr Löffner immovable in his place, and still with a cigar. But he was deplorably hungry, and leapt to his feet the moment he saw Senhouse.

“Thank God for you,” he warmly said. “Come and dine.”

“I can’t dine, Löffner. You must hoard your thanksgiving. I’m going down to Devonshire.” The savant gazed at him.

“To Devonshire—without dinner! That is not possible, my friend. To begin, it is bad for you—secondly, it is late.”

“Oh,” said Senhouse, “I’m a night-bird, you know. I don’t want you to come with me—in fact, I’d rather you didn’t. You’ve got lots to do at Kew, and can meet me there. But I must be off in half an hour. I shall catch the 9.25.”

Herr Löffner looked at his watch, then at his friend’s dog, then at his friend. Smiles played about his face and eyes. “What mischief do you meditate? What dark work?” he said; and you could hear the enthusiasm gurgling beneath, like flood water in a drain. But Senhouse was unfathomable, and for once not smiling.

“It’s serious work I’m after. Life-and-death work, I believe. My trip to the Caucasus hangs on it—and all my trips to come.”

“Herr Je! Du lieber——!”

“I know. It’s a queer thing. Nothing seemed to hang upon anything this morning, and now everything upon one thing. It’s no good, my dear man, I can’t explain. Trust me, I’ll telegraph to you from Exeter and wait for you there.”

“Bod—” said Herr Löffner out of his chest. “If you haf here a life-and-death-works—I cannot understand. If you make of it life-works, you telegraph and I come. But if it is a death-works—what then?”

“It won’t be,” said Senhouse. “It can’t be. Good-bye.” Herr Löffner went to his dinner.

At Wraybrook Park his lean face was announced to Duplessis at half-past ten in the morning, at the breakfast-table, by a respectful butler. It was not told him that it had awaited him since eight o’clock.

“Some one to see me—in the drive?” he had asked, suspecting nothing. “Why in the drive?”

“The gentleman preferred to be outside, Sir. He had a dog with him.”

Duplessis stared at his plate. “All right. I’ll come in a minute,” he said, and resumed his meal.

At eleven he came out of the front door, cigar in mouth, and saw immediately what was in store for him. The carriage drive at Wraybrook sweeps round the lake, which is the great feature of the place. On the edge of that he had seen in a moment the tall man in grey, bareheaded, talking with one of the gardeners, and had flushed. His eyes narrowed, and glittered; he paused perceptibly, then drew a breath and went down over the lawn.

Bingo, sitting up on his haunches, gave a short yap of warning, then apologized to his master. Senhouse finished what he had to say to the gardener, nodded and went up to meet his man.

They encountered without recognition: Bingo, with lifted forefoot, reserved his judgment. His custom was to run in and apply the test of nose to calf; but in this case he stayed behind.

“You wish to see me, I’m told.” Duplessis spoke first.

“Yes,” said Senhouse, “I do. I have to trouble you. I have just heard of John Germain’s death.”

In some sort Duplessis had been prepared for this—but in no way which could have been explained. He was able to take it quietly.

“News travels slowly your way,” he said. “Germain died in July.”

“So I have learned; but it must have been sudden. I happen to know that he was quite well at the beginning of that month; and had not the least reason to expect any such thing.”

“Why should you?” Duplessis was rather famous for impertinence.

Senhouse said, “I’ll tell you. I saw Mrs. Germain early in July”—Duplessis grew red—“In fact, she must have gone directly from the North, where I met her, to her husband’s bedside.”

“I think I’ll interrupt you for one moment,” Duplessis said. “You are probably as interested in saving time as I am. Therefore the sooner I know how I can serve you the better for both of us.” Bingo who had been looking with gloomy interest at the root of his tail, here attacked it with ferocity. Senhouse laughed.

“I’ll tell you. Mrs. Germain has disappeared.”

Duplessis asked, “Do you want me to find her for you?”

“I want you,” said Senhouse, “to tell me where she is.”

Duplessis looked him full in the face. “Really, I don’t know what business you have to ask me that.”

“Then I’ll tell you, if you please,” said Senhouse. “When she left the North she did not, I believe, go directly to London. She went to Blackheath, to her people. There she saw you.”

“Who told you that, Sir?” Duplessis was angry.

“She told me that she should see you there. It had not been her intention; but she changed her mind.”

“Then I have to thank you, Mr. Senhouse, for an insufferable interference in my affairs,” said Duplessis.

“I advised her to see you—yes. Come, now,” he said with a change of tone which Duplessis found hard to bear, “you have had your innings, I was careful not to touch on that. You have had more than one, if I don’t mistake you. I think now that I go in.”

Duplessis was not the man to give candour for candour. His eyes were steady on his enemy. “I don’t give ladies’ addresses without their leave, you know.”

“You may assume it here. When I saw Mrs. Germain in Cumberland she gave me to understand that she might wish to see me again.”

“If she had wished it,” said Duplessis, “I suppose she would have told you where she was. Apparently she does not wish it.”

“Obviously you do not,” Senhouse replied; “and I have reasons for putting your wish and her action together. And, as a matter of fact, she could not let me know anything, because I have no certain address.”

“Your addresses are nothing whatever to me,” said Duplessis. “I decline to tell you anything.”

“Very well,” said Senhouse slowly. “Then you must get what good you can out of that.”

Duplessis turned on his heel and walked away. Bingo, sleek and swift, ran after him and sniffed daintily at his calves. Curiosity, so to speak, was behind him, drove his tail in between his legs. It wanted but a spark to kindle the smouldering young man, and here it was. He turned again, blazing. “Call in your cur, will you? They don’t allow dogs here.”

“Bingo, heel,” said Senhouse, and watched him, smiling quietly.

XX
IN WHICH BINGO IS UNANSWERABLE

Swinging along his miles from Honiton back into Exeter he saw the patteran just within the two-mile-stone. “She wants me. She’s here. Bless her wild heart.” Then he walked into the city, sat in the tree-shaded alley of the inn by Exebridge, and breakfasted, as well he might. He had eaten nothing since yesterday’s noon.

At two o’clock, as he leaned, smoking his pipe and looking at the river, he saw Duplessis in a dog-cart drive over the bridge. This was precisely what he had expected the moment he saw the patteran in the road. “He’ll lunch before he moves; he’ll treat himself handsomely. I’ll give him till half-past three. Then we go together—the three of us.” Bingo lowered his ears. Senhouse and he were too old friends for eye-service or tail-signals. Together they crossed the bridge and strolled up the curving street. The second inn-yard they visited showed them the Wraybrook dog-cart, high and yellow-wheeled. “He’s put up. He goes back to-night. He’s lunching. Now what shall we do? I think, a walk.”

He addressed himself to the wooded heights which look down on Exeter. His spirits were high to meet the evening’s battle; he urged Bingo to extend himself, infected him with the fray to come. “My friend, do you know who lives in this town? Do you know whom we are to see by-and-by? A gentle-handed acquaintance, my friend—a lover of yours, whose troubles have been told you and me by signs. Not by words, Bingo, my boy; for words have not been made fine enough to voice her thoughts, half-thoughts and quarter-thoughts: no, but by a sigh scarcely heard, or a hand on your head, by caresses, and lingering touches, and suchlike pretty talk. That’s how we know her, and what we love her for, Bingo; because she’s timid and full of alarms—all on the edge of the real thing, hovering on the threshold of the cage.”

Bingo pricked up his ears, then whined. He moved his head to acknowledge a friendly speech, but he was trembling and looking up the road.

“Bingo, come in,” said Senhouse, and trembled, too. He saw Mary coming up the road, books under her arm. She was rosy with breasting the hill; and he could see that her eyes were very bright. He could see, from the gate at which he leaned, that she was charged with excitement; that her lips were never still, that she looked sideways for events. He had to put his hand on Bingo’s head to keep him back—and to keep himself back. “I’ll give him one more chance,” he told himself, and stayed where he was. Mary passed him, all unconscious, went quickly up the road, stopped at a white gate, and slowly pushed it open. As she went in he saw her pause and look down the road by which she had come. Then she went in, and the gate swung to and fro, and clicked as the latch caught.

Senhouse inspected the gate, then his watch. “Rosemount Academy for Young Ladies—three o’clock. She’s teaching till four. She expects him.” He retired to his trees; but had to call Bingo twice. He was halfway up the drive, nosing out his friend.

Duplessis came up the hill at five minutes to four, and smoked three cigarettes one after another. He looked at his watch incessantly, as he walked up and down the road. Senhouse watched him calmly, not making any effort at concealment—but concealed, because, it was obvious, Duplessis had no notion of his whereabouts. Ladies—young ladies in straw hats—came out of Rosemount Academy in twos and threes and vanished up or down the road, as the case might be. Some rode bicycles, and waved the prouder farewells to their friends afoot. One was fetched in a brougham by a furred matron; two had a maid; and one joined a brother in a cricket cap. Ladies of severer mien, tightly jacketed and in black, came presently; a long-haired music-master—and Mary.

As she stood beyond the gate she saw Duplessis. Senhouse knew that by her look. She had a trick, when she was at a pass, of driving all expression from her eyes. They showed then as masks of black: it was her way of defence. You could not tell whether she was glad or afraid of you.

But she addressed herself to her task; completed, or allowed the young musician to complete, the conversation, bade him a smiling farewell which sent him happily on his way, and then waited, blankly, but with colour, for Duplessis. The road was now empty but for these two.

He came up, lifting his hat; he took her hand, and held it while he bent to speak to her. Senhouse saw her so held, but with averted face; saw that she was listening, that she was serious—too serious to be frightened. Once he saw her look up at the man, and frame No with her grave lips; once again look up and frame Yes. At that second answer Duplessis took her hand again—her left hand which had been idle by her side—and held it while he continued to talk vehemently, in low tones. He watched her now intently, as she fought these long odds; and had Bingo by the scruff—Bingo on his hind legs, shivering and whining in whispers—“Steady, boy; hold yourself——.”

Mary was now pale, and in her eyes was the light of distress. They beaconed across the way: but no help came. As she listened she began to breathe quickly; he could see her bosom’s unrest. Her hand was caught up to Tristram’s lips—but she sprang away then, and her “Oh, no, no! Never, never—I could not do it,” gave Senhouse the cue for which he shook. He loosed Bingo, who, like a streak of grey light, shot across the road.

Duplessis started violently; but a low glad cry came from Mary’s heart. “Bingo! Oh, my dearest friend! Oh, Bingo!” She stooped in the road, and the two were one. Then she rose vividly bright and waited for Senhouse.

He crossed the road leisurely—with no looks for Duplessis. He held out the maple-branch. “My excuse,” he said. She took it from him, and kept it in her hand. But she could not speak. In the presence of the two men she showed nothing common or mean—no consciousness. She was perhaps at her best: her colour high, but not painful, her eyes serious, but not veiled. Modesty had been jarring affectation here: modesty was not possible. Her left hand still held Bingo’s head to her side: Bingo on his hind legs, revelling in her hand.

The two men, each in his way, put their fate to the touch. Neither took his eyes off her, neither gave an inch. Duplessis would not have compromised if he could. His sullen rage was patent: he let it smoulder. Senhouse smiled—all the faun showed in him: the stored secret knowledge, the power of the adept, of the seer into the dark, of him who would mock if he were not full of pity.

He spoke first. “It seems that you are to choose,” he said. “I can ask you to do that.”

Her soft eyes beamed, and her smile met his in the way. “Halfway House?” she said, asking.

He nodded. “Halfway House, we’ll put it still.”

Duplessis said nothing at all; but fixed her with his knit brows. A good ear might have heard three hearts beating. I think that Bingo’s did, for he nozzled in Mary’s hand.

She let him gently down, stooped over him, kissed his head, whispered in his ear. Then, rising to her assize, with a look divinely mild and a gesture of confidence which brought tears into one pair of eyes, she put her hand in Senhouse’s, and stood by his side.

Duplessis stiffened and looked at the pair of them. “I take your answer,” he said, bowed to her, and walked down the hill. Bingo, sitting sagely on his haunches, suddenly yawned.

Shyly they turned to each other, shyly kissed. Senhouse kissed her twice, then threw his head back and laughed his joy to the skies. “Oh, wonder of the world!” he cried, and took her to his heart.

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Here’s for the last of her. In the train, on their way to London and Löffner, Senhouse was commenting upon what lay before them: the Caucasus, the Schwarzwald. What would she do in the Caucasus, for example? That was easy. “I shall sit in the door of the tent, waiting for you,” she told him. In the Black Forest? What else?

He believed her. “We are to leave Halfway House, then?” and then he looked out of the window at the rolling hills of Wilts. “At any rate, here I am a bondslave—yoked by Baden for five years. Make what you will of it.”

She said nothing; she was always slow of speech with her betters when they talked above her head. But she pondered the saying, it was clear, for presently she picked up his hand, stooped to it, and kissed it; then, lowering her head, put his arm over her neck, and looked at him from below it. It was a pretty act, one of her prettiest. He saw the beauty of her gentle rebuke.

It sent him to his knees. Bingo, sitting on her skirt, looked pityingly at his master, for a few seconds, and then up into her face.

The End

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