Missing

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

CHAPTER XI

In the summer of 1916, a dark and miserable June, all chilly showers and lowering clouds, followed on the short-lived joys of May. But all through it, still more through the early weeks of July, the spiritual heaven for English hearts was brightening. In June, two months before she was expected to move, Russia flung herself on the Eastern front of the enemy. Brussiloff's victorious advance drove great wedges into the German line, and the effect on that marvellous six months' battle, which we foolishly call the Siege of Verdun, was soon to be seen. Hard pressed they were, those heroes of Verdun!—how hard pressed no one in England knew outside the War Office and the Cabinet, till the worst was over, and the Crown Prince, 'with his dead and his shame,' had recoiled in sullen defeat from the prey that need fear him no more.

Then on the first of July, the British army, after a bombardment the like of which had never yet been seen in war, leapt from its trenches on the Somme front, and England held her breath while her new Armies proved of what stuff they were made. In those great days 'there were no stragglers—none!' said an eye-witness in amazement. The incredible became everywhere the common and the achieved. Life was laid down as at a festival. 'From your happy son'—wrote a boy, as a heading to his last letter on this earth.

And by the end of July the sun was ablaze again on the English fields and harvests. Days of amazing beauty followed each other amid the Westmorland fells; with nights of moonlight on sleeping lakes, and murmuring becks; or nights of starlit dark, with that mysterious glow in the north-west which in the northern valleys so often links the evening with the dawn.

How often through these nights Nelly Sarratt lay awake, in her new white room in Mountain Ash Farm!—the broad low window beside her open to the night, to that 'Venus's Looking Glass' of Loughrigg Tarn below her, and to the great heights beyond, now dissolving under the moon-magic, now rosy with dawn, and now wreathed in the floating cloud which crept in light and silver along the purple of the crags. To have been lifted to this height above valley and stream, had raised and strengthened her, soul and body, as Farrell and Hester had hoped. Her soul, perhaps, rather than her body; for she was still the frailest of creatures, without visible ill, and yet awakening in every quick-eyed spectator the same misgiving as in the Manchester doctor. But she was calmer, less apparently absorbed in her own grief; though only, perhaps, the more accessible to the world misery of the war. In these restless nights, her remarkable visualising power, which had only thriven, it seemed, upon the flagging of youth and health, carried her through a series of waking dreams, almost always concerned with the war. Under the stimulus of Farrell's intelligence, she had become a close student of the war. She read much, and what she read, his living contact with men and affairs—with that endless stream of wounded in particular, which passed through the Carton hospital—and his graphic talk illumined for her. Then in the night arose the train of visions; the trenches—always the trenches; those hideous broken woods of the Somme front, where the blasted soil has sucked the best life-blood of England; those labyrinthine diggings and delvings in a tortured earth, made for the Huntings of Death—'Death that lays man at his length'—for panting pursuit, and breathless flight, and the last crashing horror of the bomb, in some hell-darkness at the end of all:—these haunted her. Or she saw visions of men swinging from peak to peak above fathomless depths of ice and snow on the Italian front; climbing precipices where the foot holds by miracle, and where not only men but guns must go; or vanishing, whole lines of them, awfully forgotten in the winter snows, to reappear a frozen and ghastly host, with the melting of the spring.

And always, mingled with everything, in the tense night hours—that slender khaki figure, tearing the leaf from his sketch-book, leaping over the parados,—falling—in the No Man's Land. But, by day, the obsession of it now often left her.

It was impossible not to enjoy her new home. Farrell had taken an old Westmorland farm, with its white-washed porch, its small-paned windows outlined in white on the grey walls, its low raftered rooms, and with a few washes of colour—pure blue, white, daffodil yellow—had made all bright within, to match the bright spaces of air and light without. There was some Westmorland oak, some low chairs, a sofa and a piano from the old Manchester house, some etchings and drawings, hung on the plain walls by Farrell himself, with the most fastidious care; and a few—a very few things—from his own best stores, which Hester allowed him to 'house' with Nelly from time to time—picture, or pot, or tapestry. She played watch-dog steadily, not resented by Farrell, and unsuspected by Nelly. Her one aim was that the stream of Nelly's frail life should not be muddied by any vile gossip; and she achieved it. The few neighbours who had made acquaintance with 'little Mrs. Sarratt' had, all of them been tacitly, nay eagerly willing, to take their cue from Hester. To be vouched for by Hester Martin, the 'wise woman' and saint of a country-side, was enough. It was understood that the poor little widow had been commended to the care of William Farrell and his sister, by the young husband whose gallant death was officially presumed by the War Office. Of course, Mrs. Sarratt, poor child, believed that he was still alive—that was so natural! But that hope would die down in time. And then—anything might happen!

Meanwhile, elderly husbands—the sole male inhabitants left in the gentry houses of the district—who possessed any legal knowledge, informed their wives that no one could legally presume the death of a vanished husband, under seven years, unless indeed they happen to have a Scotch domicile, in which case two years was enough. Seven years!—preposterous!—in time of war, said the wives. To which the husbands would easily reply that, in such cases as Mrs. Sarratt's, the law indeed might be 'an ass,' but there were ways round it. Mrs. Sarratt might re-marry, and no one could object, or would object. Only—if Sarratt did rise from the dead, the second marriage would be ipso facto null and void. But as Sarratt was clearly dead, what did that matter?

So that the situation, though an observed one—for how could the Farrell comings and goings, the Farrell courtesies and benefactions, possibly be hid?—was watched only by friendly and discreet eyes, thanks always to Hester. Most people liked William Farrell; even that stricter sect, who before the war had regarded him as a pleasure loving dilettante, and had been often scandalised by his careless levity in the matter of his duties as a landlord and county magnate. 'Bill Farrell' had never indeed evicted or dealt hardly with any mortal tenant. He had merely neglected and ignored them; had cared not a brass farthing about the rates which he or they, paid—why should he indeed, when he was so abominably rich from other sources than land?—nothing about improving their cows, or sheep or pigs; nothing about 'intensive culture,' or jam or poultry, or any of the other fads with which the persons who don't farm plague the persons who do; while the very mention of a public meeting, or any sort of public duty, put him to instant flight. Yet even the faddists met him with pleasure, and parted from him with regret. He took himself 'so jolly lightly'; you couldn't expect him to take other people seriously. Meanwhile, his genial cheery manner made him a general favourite, and his splendid presence, combined with his possessions and his descent, was universally accepted as a kind of Cumberland asset, to which other counties could hardly lay claim. If he wanted the little widow, why certainly, let him have her! It was magnificent what he had done for his hospital; when nobody before the war had thought him capable of a stroke of practical work. Real good fellow, Farrell! Let him go in and win. His devotion, and poor Nelly's beauty, only infused a welcome local element of romance into the ever-darkening scene of war.

* * * * *

The first anniversary of Sarratt's disappearance was over. Nelly had gone through it quite alone. Bridget was in London, and Nelly had said to Cicely—'Don't come for a few days—nor Sir William—please! I shall be all right.'

They obeyed her, and she spent her few days partly on the fells, and partly in endless knitting and sewing for a war-workroom recently started in her immediate neighbourhood. The emotion to which she surrendered herself would soon reduce her to a dull vacancy; and then she would sit passive, not forcing herself to think, alone in the old raftered room, or in the bit of garden outside, with its phloxes and golden rods; her small fingers working endlessly—till the wave of feeling and memory returned upon her. Those few days were a kind of 'retreat,' during which she lived absorbed in the recollections of her short, married life, and, above all, in which she tried piteously and bravely to make clear to herself what she believed; what sort of faith was in her for the present and the future. It often seemed to her that during the year since George's death, her mind had been wrenched and hammered into another shape. It had grown so much older, she scarcely knew it herself. Doubts she had never known before had come to her; but also, intermittently, a much keener faith. Oh, yes, she believed in God. She must; not only because George had believed in Him, but also because she, her very self, had been conscious, again and again, in the night hours, or on the mountains, of ineffable upliftings and communings, of flashes through the veil of things. And so there must be another world; because the God she guessed at thus, with sudden adoring insight, could not have made her George, only to destroy him; only to give her to him for a month, and then strike him from her for ever. The books she learnt to know through Farrell, belonging to that central modern literature, which is so wholly sceptical that the 'great argument' itself has almost lost interest for those who are producing it, often bewildered her, but did not really affect her. Religion—a vague, but deeply-felt religion—soothed and sheltered her. But she did not want to talk about it.

After these days were over, she emerged conscious of some radical change. She seemed to have been walking with George 'on the other side,' and to have left him there—for a while. She now really believed him dead, and that she had got to live her life without him. This first full and sincere admission of her loss tranquillised her. All the more reason now that she should turn to the dear friendships that life still held, should live in and for them, and follow where they led, through the years before her. Farrell, Cicely, Hester—they stood between her weakness—oh how conscious, how scornfully conscious, she was of it!—and sheer desolation. Cicely, 'Willy,'—for somehow she and he had slipped almost without knowing it into Christian names—had become to her as brother and sister. And Hester too—so strong!—so kind!—was part of her life; severe sometimes, but bracing. Nelly was conscious, indeed, occasionally, that something in Hester disapproved something in her. 'But it would be all right,' she thought, wearily, 'if only I were stronger.' Did she mean physically or morally? The girl's thought did not distinguish.

'I believe you want me "hatched over again and hatched different"!' she said one evening to Hester, as she laid her volume of 'Adam Bede' aside.

'Do I ever say so?'

'No—but—if you were me—you wouldn't stop here moping!' said Nelly, with sudden passion. 'You'd strike out—do something!'

'With these hands?' said Hester, raising one of them, and looking at it pitifully. 'My dear—does Bridget feed you properly?'

'I don't know. I never think about it. She settles it.'

'Why do you let her settle it?'

'She will!' cried Nelly, sitting upright in her chair, her eyes bright and cheeks flushing, as though something in Hester's words accused her. 'I couldn't stop her!'

'Well, but when she's away?'

'Then Mrs. Rowe settles it,' said Nelly, half laughing. 'I never enquire. What does it matter?'

She put down her knitting, and her wide, sad eyes followed the clouds as they covered the purple breast of the Langdales, which rose in threatening, thunder light, beyond the steely tarn in front. Hester watched her anxiously. How lovely was the brown head, with its short curls enclosing the delicate oval of the face! But Nelly's lack of grip on life, of any personal demand, of any healthy natural egotism, whether towards Bridget, or anybody else, was very disquieting to Hester. In view of the situation which the older woman saw steadily approaching, how welcome would have been some signs of a greater fighting strength in the girl's nature!

* * * * *

But Nelly had made two friends since the migration to the farm with whom at any rate she laughed; and that, as Hester admitted, was something.

One was a neighbouring farmer, an old man, with splendid eyes, under dark bushy brows, fine ascetic features, grizzled hair, and a habit of carrying a scythe over his shoulder which gave him the look of 'Old Father Time,' out for the mowing of men. The other was the little son of a neighbouring parson, an urchin of eight, who had succumbed to an innocent passion for the pretty lady at the farm.

One radiant October afternoon, Nelly carried out a chair and some sketching things into the garden. But the scheme Farrell had suggested to her, of making a profession of her drawing, had not come to much. Whether it was the dying down of hope, and therewith of physical energy, or whether she had been brought up sharp against the limits of her small and graceful talent, and comparing herself with Farrell, thought it no use to go on—in any case, she had lately given it up, except as an amusement. But there are days when the humblest artist feels the creative stir; and on this particular afternoon there were colours and lights abroad on the fells, now dyed red with withering fern, and overtopped by sunny cloud, that could not be resisted. She put away the splints she was covering, and spread out her easel.

And presently, through every bruised and tired sense, as she worked and worked, the 'Eternal Fountain of that Heavenly Beauty' distilled His constant balm. She worked on, soothed and happy.

In a few minutes there was a sound at the gate. A child looked in—black tumbled hair, dark eyes, a plain but most engaging countenance.

'I'm tomin in,' he announced, and without any more ado, came in. Nelly held out a hand and kissed him.

'You must be very good.'

'I is good,' said the child, radiantly.

Nelly spread a rug for him to lie on, and provided him with a piece of paper, some coloured chalks and a piece of mill board. He turned over on his front and plunged into drawing—

Silence—till Nelly asked—

'What are you drawing, Tommy?'

'Haggans and Hoons,' said a dreamy voice, the voice of one absorbed.

'I forget'—said Nelly gravely—'which are the good ones?'

'The Hoons are good. The Haggans are awfully wicked!' said the child, slashing away at his drawing with bold vindictive strokes.

'Are you drawing a Haggan, Tommy?'

'Yes.'

He held up a monster, half griffin, half crocodile, for her to see, and she heartily admired it.

'Where do the Haggans live, Tommy?'

'In Jupe,' said the child, again drawing busily.

'You mean Jupiter?'

'I don't!' said Tommy reproachfully, 'I said Jupe, and I mean Jupe. Perhaps'—he conceded, courteously—'I may have got the idea from that other place. But it's quite different. You do believe it's quite different—don't you?'

'Certainly,' said Nelly.

'I'm glad of that—because—well, because I can't be friends with people that say it isn't different. You do see that, don't you?'

Nelly assured him she perfectly understood, and then Tommy rolled over on his back, and staring at the sky, began to talk in mysterious tones of 'Jupe,' and the beings that lived in it, Haggans, and Hoons, lions and bears, and white mice. His voice grew dreamier and dreamier. Nelly thought he was asleep, and she suddenly found herself looking at the little figure on the grass with a passionate hunger. If such a living creature belonged to her—to call her its very own—to cling to her with its dear chubby hands!

She bent forward, her eyes wet, above the unconscious Tommy. But a step on the road startled her, and raising her head she saw 'Old Father Time,' with scythe on shoulder, leaning on the little gate which led from the strip of garden to the road, and looking at her with the expression which implied a sarcastic view of things in general, and especially of 'gentlefolk.' But he was favourably inclined to Mrs. Sarratt, and when Nelly invited him in, he obeyed her, and grounding his scythe, as though it had been a gun, he stood leaning upon it, indulgently listening while she congratulated him on a strange incident which, as she knew from Hester, had lately occurred to him.

A fortnight before, the old man had received a letter from the captain of his son's company in France sympathetically announcing to him the death in hospital of his eldest son, from severe wounds received in a raid, and assuring him he might feel complete confidence 'that everything that could be done for your poor boy has been done.'

The news had brought woe to the cottage where the old man and his wife lived alone, since the fledging of their sturdy brood, under a spur of Loughrigg. The wife, being now a feeble body, had taken to her bed under the shock of grief; the old man had gone to his work as usual, 'nobbut a bit queerer in his wits,' according to the farmer who employed him. Then after three days came a hurried letter of apology from the captain, and a letter from the chaplain, to say there had been a most deplorable mistake, and 'your son, I am glad to say, was only slightly wounded, and is doing well!'

Under so much contradictory emotion, old Backhouse's balance had wavered a good deal. He received Nelly's remarks with a furtive smile, as though he were only waiting for her to have done, and when they ceased, he drew a letter slowly from his pocket.

'D'ye see that, Mum?'

Nelly nodded.

'I'se juist gotten it from t' Post Office. They woant gie ye noothin'
till it's forced oot on 'em. But I goa regular, an to-day owd
Jacob—'at's him as keps t' Post Office—handed it ower. It's from
Donald, sure enoof.'

He held it up triumphantly. Nelly's heart leapt—and sank. How often in the first months of her grief had she seen—in visions—that blessed symbolic letter held up by some ministering hand!—only to fall from the ecstasy of the dream into blacker depths of pain.

'Oh, Mr. Backhouse, I'm so glad!' was all she could find to say. But her sweet trembling face spoke for her. After a pause, she added—'Does he write with his own hand?'

'You mun see for yorsel'.' He held it out to her. She looked at it mystified.

'But it's not opened!'

'I hadna juist me spectacles,' said Father Time, cautiously. 'Mebbee yo'll read it to me.'

'But it's to his mother!' cried Nelly. 'I can't open your wife's letter!'

'You needn't trooble aboot that. You read it, Mum. There'll be noothin' in it.'

He made her read it. There was nothing in it. It was just a nice letter from a good boy, saying that he had been knocked over in 'a bit of a scrap,' but was nearly all right, and hoped his father and mother were well, 'as it leaves me at present.' But when it was done, Father Time took off his hat, bent his grey head, and solemnly thanked his God, in broad Westmorland. Nelly's eyes swam, as she too bowed the head, thinking of another who would never come back; and Tommy, thumb in mouth, leant against her, listening attentively.

At the end of the thanksgiving however, Backhouse raised his head briskly.

'Not that I iver believed that foolish yoong mon as wrote me that Dick wor dead,' he said, contemptuously. 'Bit it's as weel to git things clear.'

Nelly heartily agreed, adding—

'I may be going to London next week, Mr. Backhouse. You say your son will be in the London Hospital. Shall I go and see him?'

Backhouse looked at her cautiously.

'I doan't know, Mum. His moother will be goin', likely.'

'Oh, I don't want to intrude, Mr. Backhouse. But if she doesn't go?'

'Well, Mum; I will say you've a pleasant coontenance, though yo're not juist sich a thrivin' body as a'd like to see yer. But theer's mony people as du more harm nor good by goin' to sit wi' sick foak.'

Nelly meekly admitted it; and then she suggested that she might be the bearer of anything Mrs. Backhouse would like to send her son—clothes, for instance? The old man thawed rapidly, and the three, Nelly, Tommy, and Father Time, were soon sincerely enjoying each other's society, when a woman in a grey tweed costume, and black sailor hat, arrived at the top of a little hill in the road outside the garden, from which the farm and its surroundings could be seen.

At the sight of the group in front of the farm, she came to an abrupt pause, and hidden from them by a projecting corner of wall she surveyed the scene—Nelly, with Tommy on her knee, and the old labourer who had just shouldered his scythe again, and was about to go on his way.

It was Bridget Cookson, who had been to Kendal for the day, and had walked over from Grasmere, where the char-à-banc, alias the 'Yellow Peril,' had deposited her. She had passed the Post Office on her way, and had brought thence a letter which she held in her hand. Her face was pale and excited. She stood thinking; her eyes on Nelly, her lips moving as though she were rehearsing some speech or argument.

Then when she had watched old Backkhouse make his farewell, and turn towards the gate, she hastily opened a black silk bag hanging from her wrist, and thrust the letter into it.

After which she walked on, meeting the old man in the lane, and run into by Tommy, who, head foremost, was rushing home to shew his glorious Haggan to his 'mummy.'

Nelly's face at sight of her sister stiffened insensibly.

'Aren't you very tired, Bridget? Have you walked all the way? Yes, you do look tired! Have you had tea?'

'Yes, at Windermere.'

Bridget cleared the chair on which Nelly had placed her paint-box, and sat down. She was silent a little and then said abruptly—

'It's a horrid bore, I shall have to go to London again.'

'Again?' Nelly's look of surprise was natural. Bridget had returned from another long stay in the Bloomsbury boarding-house early in October, and it was now only the middle of the month. But Bridget's doings were always a great mystery to Nelly. She was translating something from the Spanish—that was all Nelly knew—and also, that when an offer had been made to her through a friend, of some translating work for the Foreign Office, she had angrily refused it. She would not, she said, be a slave to any public office.

'Won't it be awfully expensive?' said Nelly after a pause, as Bridget did not answer. The younger sister was putting her painting things away, and making ready to go in. For though the day had been wonderfully warm for October, the sun had just set over Bowfell, and the air had grown suddenly chilly.

'Well, I can't help it,' said Bridget, rather roughly. 'I shall have to go.'

Something in her voice made Nelly look at her.

'I say you are tired! Come in and lie down a little. That walk from
Grasmere's too much for you!'

Bridget submitted with most unusual docility.

The sisters entered the house together.

'I'll go upstairs for a little,' said Bridget. 'I shall be all right by supper.' Then, as she slowly mounted the stairs, a rather gaunt and dragged figure in her dress of grey alpaca, she turned to say—

'I met Sir William on the road just now. He passed me in the car, and waved his hand. He called out something—I couldn't hear it.'

'Perhaps to say he would come to supper,' said Nelly, her face brightening. 'I'll go and see what there is.'

Bridget went upstairs. Her small raftered room was invaded by the last stormy light of the autumn evening. The open casement window admitted a cold wind. Bridget shut it, with a shiver. But instead of lying down, she took a chair by the window, absently removed her hat, and sat there thinking. The coppery light from the west illumined her face with its strong discontented lines, and her hands, which were large, but white and shapely—a source indeed of personal pride to their owner.

Presently, in the midst of her reverie, she heard a step outside, and saw Sir William Farrell approaching the gate. Nelly, wrapped in a white shawl, was still strolling about the garden, and Bridget watched their meeting—Nelly's soft and smiling welcome, and Farrell's eagerness, his evident joy in finding her alone.

'And she just wilfully blinds herself!' thought Bridget contemptuously—'talks about his being a brother to her, and that sort of nonsense. He's in love with her!—of course he's in love with her. And as for Nelly—she's not in love with him. But she's getting used to him; she depends on him. When he's not there she misses him. She's awfully glad to see him when he comes. Perhaps, it'll take a month or two. I give it a month or two—perhaps six months—perhaps a year. And then she'll marry him—and—'

Here her thoughts became rather more vague and confused. They were compounded of a fierce impatience with the war, and of certain urgent wishes and ambitions, which had taken possession of a strong and unscrupulous character. She wanted to travel. She wanted to see the world, and not to be bothered by having to think of money. Contact with very rich people, like the Farrells, and the constant spectacle of what an added range and power is given to the human will by money, had turned the dull discontent of her youth into an active fever of desire. She had no illusions about herself at all. She was already a plain and unattractive old maid. Nobody would want to marry her; and she did not want to marry anybody. But she wanted to do things and to see things, when the hateful war was over. She was full of curiosities about life and the world, that were rather masculine than feminine. Her education, though it was still patchy and shallow, had been advancing since Nelly's marriage, and her intelligence was hungry. The satisfaction of it seemed too to promise her the only real pleasures to which she could look forward in life. On the wall of her bedroom were hanging photographs of Rome, Athens, the East. She dreamt of a wandering existence; she felt that she would be insatiable of movement, of experience, if the chance were given her.

But how could one travel, or buy books, or make new acquaintances, without money?—something more at any rate than the pittance on which she and Nelly subsisted.

What was it Sir William was supposed to have, by way of income?—thirty thousand a year? Well, he wouldn't always be spending it on his hospital, and War income tax, and all the other horrible burdens of the time. If Nelly married him, she would have an ample margin to play with; and to do Nelly justice, she was always open-handed, always ready to give away. She would hand over her own small portion to her sister, and add something to it. With six or seven hundred a year, Bridget would be mistress of her own fate, and of the future. Often, lately, in waking moments of the night, she had felt a sudden glow of exultation, thinking what she could do with such a sum. The world seemed to open out on all sides—offering her new excitements, new paths to tread in. She wanted no companion, to hamper her with differing tastes and wishes. She would be quite sufficient to herself.

The garden outside grew dark. She heard Farrell say 'It's too cold for you—you must come in,' and she watched Nelly enter the house in front of him—turning her head back to answer something he said to her. Even through the dusk Bridget was conscious of her sister's beauty. She did not envy it in the least. It was Nelly's capital—Nelly's opportunity. Let her use it for them both. Bridget would be well satisfied to gather up the crumbs from her rich sister's table.

Then from the dream, she came back with chill and desperation—to reality. The letter in her pocket—the journey before her—she pondered alternatives. What was she to do in this case—or in that? Everything might be at stake—everything was at stake—her life and Nelly's—

The voices from the parlour below came up to her. She heard the crackling of a newly lighted fire—Farrell reading aloud—and Nelly's gentle laughter. She pictured the scene; the two on either side of the fire, with Nelly's mourning, her plain widow's dress, as the symbol—in Nelly's eyes—of what divided her from Farrell, or any other suitor, and made it possible to be his friend without fear. Bridget knew that Nelly so regarded it. But that of course was just Nelly's foolish way of looking at things. It was only a question of time.

And meanwhile the widow's dress had quite other meanings for Bridget.
She pondered long in the dark, till the supper bell rang.

At supper, her silence embarrassed and infected her companions, and
Farrell, finding it impossible to get another tête-à-tête with Nelly,
took his leave early. He must be up almost with the dawn so as to get to
Carton by nine o'clock.

* * * * *

Out of a stormy heaven the moon was breaking as he walked back to his cottage. The solitude of the mountain ways, the freshness of the rain-washed air, and the sweetness of his hour with Nelly, after the bustle of the week, the arrivals and departures, the endless business, of a great hospital:—he was conscious of them all, intensely conscious, as parts of a single, delightful whole to which he had looked forward for days. And yet he was restless and far from happy. He wandered about the mountain roads for a long time—watching the moon as it rose above the sharp steep of Loughrigg and sent long streamers of light down the Elterwater valley, and up the great knees of the Pikes. The owls hooted in the oak-woods, and the sound of water—the Brathay rushing over the Skelwith rocks, and all the little becks in fell and field, near and far—murmured through the night air, and made earth-music to the fells. Farrell had much of the poet in him; and the mountains and their life were dear to him. But he was rapidly passing into the stage when a man over-mastered by his personal desires is no longer open to the soothing of nature. He had recently had a long and confidential talk with his lawyer at Carlisle, who was also his friend, and had informed himself minutely about the state of the law. Seven years!—unless, of her own free will, she took the infinitesimal risk of marriage before the period was up.

But he despaired of her doing any such thing. He recognised fully that the intimacy she allowed him, her sweet openness and confidingness, were all conditioned by what she regarded as the fixed points in her life; by her widowhood, legal and spiritual, and by her tacit reliance on his recognition of the fact that she was set apart, bound as other widows were not bound, protected by the very mystery of Sarratt's fate, from any thought of re-marriage.

And he!—all the time the strength of a man's maturest passion was mounting in his veins. And with it a foreboding—coming he knew not whence—like the sudden shadow that, as he looked, blotted out the moonlight on the shining bends and loops of the Brathay, where it wandered through the Elterwater fields.