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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/37975-8.txt b/37975-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a010217 --- /dev/null +++ b/37975-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4853 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Diana Tempest, Volume III (of 3), by Mary +Cholmondeley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Diana Tempest, Volume III (of 3) + + +Author: Mary Cholmondeley + + + +Release Date: November 11, 2011 [eBook #37975] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA TEMPEST, VOLUME III (OF 3)*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images +generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illuminations. + See 37975-h.htm or 37975-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37975/37975-h/37975-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37975/37975-h.zip) + + + Project Gutenberg also has Volumes I and II of this + work. See + Volume I: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37973 + Volume II: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37974 + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/dianatempest03chol + + + + + +DIANA TEMPEST. + +by + +MARY CHOLMONDELEY, + +Author of +"The Danvers Jewels," +"Sir Charles Danvers," etc. + +In Three Volumes. + +VOL. III. + + + + + + + +London: +Richard Bentley & Son, +Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. +1893. +(All rights reserved.) + + + + +DIANA TEMPEST. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + "Time and chance are but a tide." + + BURNS. + + +Between aspiration and achievement there is no great gulf fixed. God +does not mock His children by putting a lying spirit in the mouth of +their prophetic instincts. Only the faith of concentrated endeavour, +only the stern years which must hold fast the burden of a great hope, +only the patience strong and meek which is content to bow beneath "the +fatigue of a long and distant purpose;" only these stepping-stones, and +no gulf impassable by human feet, divide aspiration from achievement. + +To aspire is to listen to the word of command. To achieve is to obey, +and to continue to obey, that voice. It is given to all to aspire. Few +allow themselves to achieve. John had begun to see that. + +If he meant to achieve anything, it was time he put his hand to the +plough. He had listened and learned long enough. + +"My time has come," he said to himself, as he sat alone in the library +at Overleigh on the first day of the new year. "I am twenty-eight. I +have been 'promising' long enough. The time of promise is past. I must +perform, or the time of performance will pass me by." + +He knit his heavy brows. + +"I must act," he said to himself, "and I cannot act. I must work, and I +cannot work." + +John was conscious of having had--he still had--high ambitions, deep +enthusiasms. Yet lo! all his life seemed to hinge on the question +whether Di would become his wife. Who has not experienced, almost with a +sense of traitorship to his own nature, how the noblest influences at +work upon it may be caught up into the loom of an all-absorbing personal +passion, adding a new beauty and dignity to the fabric, but nevertheless +changing for the time the pattern of the life? + +John's whole heart was set on one object. There is a Rubicon in the +feelings to pass which is to cut off retreat. John had long passed it. + +"I cannot do two things at the same time," he said. "I will ask Mrs. +Courtenay and Di here for the hunt ball, and settle matters one way or +the other with Di. After that, whether I succeed or fail, I will throw +myself heart and soul into the career Lord ---- prophesies for me. The +general election comes on in the spring. I will stand then." + +John wrote a letter to the minister who had such a high opinion of +him--or perhaps of his position--preserved a copy, pigeon-holed it, and +put it from his mind. His thoughts reverted to Di as a matter of course. +He had seen her several times since the fancy ball. Each particular of +those meetings was noted down in the unwritten diary which contains all +that is of interest in our lives, which no friend need be entreated to +burn at our departure. + +He was aware that a subtle change had come about between him and Di; +that they had touched new ground. If he had been in love before--which, +of course, he ought to have been--he would have understood what that +change meant. As it was, he did not. No doubt he would be wiser next +time. + +Yet even John, creeping mole-like through self-made labyrinths of +conjecture one inch below the surface, asked himself whether it was +credible that Di was actually beginning to care for him. When he knew +for certain she did not, there seemed no reason that she should not; now +that he was insane enough to imagine she might, he was aware of a +thousand deficiencies in himself which made it impossible. And yet---- + +So he wrote another letter, this time to Mrs. Courtenay, inviting her +and Di to the hunt ball in his neighbourhood, at the end of January. + +And his invitation was accepted. And one if not two persons, perhaps +even a third old enough to know better, began the unprofitable task of +counting days. + + * * * * * + +It was an iron winter. It affected Fritz's health deleteriously. His +short legs raised him but little above the surface of the earth, and he +was subject to chills and cramps owing to the constant contact of the +under portion of his long ginger person with the snow. Not that there +was much snow. One steel and iron frost succeeded another. Lindo, on the +contrary, found the cold slight compared with the two winters which he +had passed in Russia with John. His wool had been allowed to grow, to +the great relief of Mitty, who could not "abide" the "bare-backed state" +which the exigencies of fashion required of him during the summer. + +It was a winter not to be forgotten, a winter such as the oldest people +at Overleigh could hardly recall. As the days in the new year +lengthened, the frost strengthened, as the saying goes. The village beck +at Overleigh froze. By-and-by the great rivers froze. Carts went over +the Thames. Some one, fonder of driving than of horses, drove a +four-in-hand on the ice at Oxford. The long lake below Overleigh Castle, +which had formerly supplied the moat, was frozen feet thick. The little +islands and the boathouse were lapped in ice. It became barely possible, +as the days went on, to keep one end open for the swans and ducks. The +herons came to divide the open space with them. The great frost of +18-- was not one that would be quickly forgotten. + +John kept open house, for the ice at Overleigh was the best in the +neighbourhood, and all the neighbours within distance thronged to it. +Mothers drove over with their daughters; for skating is a healthy +pursuit, and those that can't skate can learn. + +The most inaccessible hunting men, rendered desperate like the herons by +the frost, turned up regularly at Overleigh to play hockey, or emulate +John's figure-skating, which by reason of long practice in Russia was +"bad to beat." + +John was a conspicuous figure on the ice, in his furred Russian coat +lined with sable paws, in which he had skated at the ice carnivals at +St. Petersburg. + +Mitty, with bright winter-apple cheeks and a splendid new beaver muff, +would come down to watch her darling wheel and sweep. + +"If the frost holds I will have an ice carnival when Di is here," John +said to himself; and after that he watched the glass carefully. + +The day of Di's arrival drew near, came, and actually Di with it. She +was positively in the house. Archie came the same day, but not with her. +Archie had invariably shown such a marked propensity for travelling by +any train except that previously agreed upon, when he was depended on to +escort his sister, that after a long course of irritation Mrs. Courtenay +had ceased to allow him to chaperon Di, to the disgust of that +gentleman, who was very proud of his ornamental sister when she was not +in the way, and who complained bitterly at not being considered good +enough to take her out. So Mrs. Courtenay, who had accepted for the sake +of appearances, but who had never had the faintest intention of leaving +her own fireside in such inhuman weather, discovered a tendency to +bronchitis, and failed at the last moment, confiding Di to the charge of +Miss Fane, who good-naturedly came down from London to assist John in +entertaining his guests. + +And still the following day the frost held. The hunt ball had dwindled +to nothing in comparison with the ice carnival at Overleigh the night +following the ball. The whole neighbourhood was ringing with it. Such a +thing had never taken place within the memory of man at Overleigh. The +neighbours, the tenantry, cottagers and all, were invited. The +hockey-players rejoiced in the rumour that there would be hockey by +torchlight, with goals lit up by flambeaux and a phosphorescent bung. +Would the frost hold? That was the burning topic of the day. + +There was a large house-party at Overleigh, a throng of people who in +Di's imagination existed only during certain hours of the day, and +melted into the walls at other times. They came and went, and skated and +laughed, and wore beautiful furs, especially Lady Alice Fane, but they +had no independent existence of their own. The only real people among +the crowd of dancing skating shadows were herself and John, with whom +all that first day she had hardly exchanged a word--to her relief, was +it, or her disappointment? + +After tea she went up with Miss Fane to the low entresol room which had +been set apart for that lady's use, to help her to rearrange the men's +button-holes, which John had pronounced to be too large. As soon as Di +took them in hand, Miss Fane of course discovered, as was the case, that +she was doing them far better than she could herself, and presently +trotted off on the pretext of seeing to some older lady who did not want +seeing to, and did not return. + +Di was not sorry. She rearranged the bunches of lilies of the valley at +leisure, glad of the quiet interval after a long and unprofitable day. + +Presently the person of whom she happened to be thinking happened to +come in. He would have been an idiot if he had not, though I regret to +be obliged to chronicle that he had had doubts on the subject. + +"I thought I should find Aunt Loo here," he said, rather guiltily, for +falsehood sat ungracefully upon him. And he looked round the apartment +as if she might be concealed in a corner. + +"She was here a moment ago," said Di, and she began to sort the flowers +all over again. + +"The frost shows no signs of giving." + +"I am glad." + +After the frost John found nothing further of equal originality to say, +and presently he sat down, neither near to her nor very far away, with +his chin in his hands, watching her wire her flowers. The shaded light +dealt gently with the folds of Di's amber tea-gown, and touched the +lowest ripple of her yellow hair. She dropped a single lily, and he +picked it up for her, and laid it on her knee. It was a day of little +things; the little things Love glorifies. He did not know that his +attitude was that of a lover--did not realize the inference he would +assuredly have drawn if he had seen another man sit as he was sitting +then. He had forgotten all about that. He thought of nothing; neither +thought of anything in the blind unspeakable happiness and comfort of +being near each other, and at peace with each other. + +Afterwards, long afterwards, John remembered that hour with the feeling +as of a Paradise lost, that had been only half realized at the time. He +wondered how he had borne such happiness so easily; why no voice from +heaven had warned him to speak then, or hereafter for ever hold his +peace. And yet at the time it had seemed only the dawning of a coming +day, the herald of a more sure and perfect joy to be. The prophetic +conviction had been at the moment too deep for doubt that there would be +many times like that. + +"Many times," each thought, lying awake through the short winter night +after the ball. + +John had discovered that to be alternately absolutely certain of two +opposite conclusions, without being able to remain in either, is to be +in a state of doubt. He found he could bear that blister as ill as most +men. + +"I will speak to her the morning after the carnival," he said, "when all +this tribe of people have gone. What is the day going to be like?" + +He got up and unbarred his shutter, and looked out. The late grey +morning was shivering up the sky. The stars were white with cold. The +frost had wrought an ice fairyland on the lattice. While that fragile +web held against the pane, the frost that wrapped the whole country +would hold also. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + "A funeral morn is lit in heaven's hollow, + And pale the star-lights follow." + + CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. + + +Towards nine o'clock in the evening carriage after carriage began to +drive up to Overleigh in the moonlight. When Di came down, the white +stone hall and the music-room were already crowded with guests, among +whom she recognized Lord Hemsworth, Mr. Lumley, and Miss Crupps, who had +been staying at houses in the neighbourhood for the hunt ball the night +before, and had come on with their respective parties, to the not +unmixed gratification of John. + +"Here we are again," said Mr. Lumley, flying up to her. "No favouritism, +I beg, Miss Tempest. Tempest shall carry one skate, and I will take the +other. Hemsworth must make himself happy with the button-hook. Great +heavens! Tempest, whose funeral have you been ordering?" + +For at that moment the alarm-bell of the Castle began to toll. + +"It is unnecessary to hide in the curtains," said John. "That bell is +only rung in case of fire. It is the signal for lighting up." + +And, headed by a band of torches, the whole party went streaming out of +the wide archway, a gay crowd of laughing expectant people, into the +gardens, where vari-coloured lines of lights gleamed terrace below +terrace along the stone balustrades, and Neptune reined in his dolphins +in the midst of his fountain, in a shower of golden spray. + +The path down to the lake through the wood was lit by strings of Chinese +lanterns in the branches. The little bridge over the frozen brook was +outlined with miniature rose-coloured lights, in which the miracles +wrought by the hoar-frost on each transfigured reed and twig glowed +flame-colour to their inmost tracery against the darkness of the +overhanging trees. + +Di walked with John in fairyland. + +"Beauty and the beast," said some one, probably Mr. Lumley. But only the +"beast" heard, and he did not care. + +There was a chorus of exclamations as they all emerged from the wood +into the open. + +The moon was shining in a clear sky, but its light was lost in the glare +of the bonfires, leaping red and blue and intensest green on the further +bank of the lake, round which a vast crowd was already assembled. The +islands shone, complete circles of coloured light like jewels in a +silver shield. The whole lake of glass blazed. The bonfires flung great +staggering shadows across the hanging woods. + +John and Di looked back. + +High overhead Overleigh hung in mid air in a thin veil of mist, a castle +built in light. Every window and archer's loophole, from battlement to +basement, the long lines of mullioned lattice of the picture-gallery and +the garret gallery above, throbbed with light. The dining-hall gleamed +through its double glass. The rose window of the chapel was a rose of +fire. + +"They have forgotten my window," said John; and Di saw that the lowest +portion of the western tower was dark. Her own oriel window, and +Archie's next it, shone bravely. + +Mitty was watching from the nursery window. In the fierce wavering +light she could see John, conspicuous in his Russian coat and peaked +Russian cap, advance across the ice, escorted by torches, to the +ever-increasing multitude upon the further bank. The enthusiastic +cheering of the crowd when it caught sight of him came up to her, as she +sat with a cheek pressed against the lattice, and she wept for joy. + +Di's heart quickened as she heard it. Her pride, which had at first +steeled her against John, had deserted to his side. It centred in him +now. She was proud of him. Lord Hemsworth, on his knees before her, +fastening her skates, asked her some question relating to a strap, and, +looking up as she did not answer, marvelled at the splendid colour in +her cheek, and the flash in the eyes looking beyond him over his head. +At a signal from John the band began to play, and some few among the +crowd to dance on the sanded portion of the ice set apart for them; but +far the greater number gathered in dense masses to watch the "musical +ride" on skates which the house-party at Overleigh had been practising +the previous day, which John led with Lady Alice, circling in and out +round groups of torches, and ending with a grand chain, in which Mr. +Lumley and Miss Crupps collapsed together, to the delight of the +spectators and of Mr. Lumley himself, who said he should tell his mamma. + +And still the crowd increased. + +As John was watching the hockey-players contorted like prawns, wheeling +fast and furious between their flaming goals, which dripped liquid fire +on to the ice, the local policeman came up to him. + +"There's over two thousand people here to-night, sir," he said. + +"The more the better," said John. + +"Yes, sir, and I've been about among 'em, me and Jones, and there's a +sight of people here, sir, as are no tenants of yours, and roughish +characters some of 'em." + +"Sure to be," said John. "If there is any horseplay, treat it short and +sharp. I'll back you up. I've a dozen men down here from the house to +help to keep order. But there will be no need. Trust Yorkshiremen to +keep amused and in a good temper." + +And, in truth, the great concourse of John's guests was enjoying itself +to the utmost, dancing, sliding, clutching, falling one on the top of +the other, with perfect good humour, shouting with laughter, men, women, +and children all together. + +As the night advanced an ox was roasted whole on the ice, and a cauldron +of beer was boiled. There was a tent on the bank in which a colossal +supper had been prepared for all. Behind it great brick fire-places had +been built, round which the people sat in hundreds, drinking, singing, +heating beer and soup. They were tactful, these rough Yorkshiremen; not +one came across to the further bank set apart for "t' quality," where +another supper, not half so decorously conducted, was in full swing by +the boathouse. John skated down there after presiding at the tent. + +Perhaps negus and mutton-broth were never handed about under such +dangerous circumstances. The best _Consommé à la Royale_ watered the +earth. The men tottered on their skates over the frozen ground, bearing +soup to the coveys of girls sitting on the bank in nests of fur rugs. + +Mr. Lumley and Miss Crupps had supper together in one of the boats, Mr. +Lumley continually vociferating, "Not at home," when called upon, and +retaliating with Genoese pastry, until he was dislodged with oars, when +he emerged wielding the drumstick of a chicken, and a free fight ensued +between him and little Mr. Dawnay, armed with a soup-ladle, which ended +in Mr. Lumley's being forced on to his knees among the mince-pies, and +disarmed. + +John looked round for Di, but she was the centre of a group of girls, +and he felt aggrieved that she had not kept a vacant seat for him beside +her, which of course she could easily have done. Presently, when the +fireworks began, every one made a move towards the lower part of the +lake in twos and threes, and then his opportunity came. + +He held out his hand to help her to her feet, and they skated down the +ice together. Every one was skating hand in hand, but surely no two +hands trembled one in the other as theirs did. + +The evening was growing late. A low mist was creeping vague and billowy +across the land, making the tops of the trees look like islands in a +ghostly sea. The bonfires, burning down red and redder into throbbing +hearts of fire, gleamed blurred and weird. The rockets rushed into the +air and dropped in coloured flame, flushing the haze. The moon peered in +and out. + +And to John and Di it seemed as if they two were sweeping on winged feet +among a thousand phantasmagoria, in the midst of which they were the +only realities. In other words, they were in love. + +"Come down to the other end of the lake, and let us look at the +fireworks from there," said John; and they wheeled away from the crowd +and the music and the noise, past all the people and the lighted islands +and the boathouse, and the swinging lamps along the banks, away to the +deserted end of the lake. A great stillness seemed to have retreated +there under shadow of the overhanging trees. The little island left in +darkness for the waterfowl, with its laurels bending frozen into the +ice, had no part or lot in the distant jargon of sound, and the medley +of rising, falling, skimming lights. There was no sound save the ringing +of their skates, and a little crackling of the ice among the grass at +the edge. + +They skated round the island, and then slackened and stood still to look +at the scene in the distance. + +One of the bonfires just replenished leapt one instant lurid high, only +to fall the next in a whirlwind of sparks, and cover the lake with a +rush of smoke. Figures dashed in and out, one moment in the full glare +of light, the next flying like shadows through the smoke. + +"It is like a dream," said Di. "If it is one, I hope I shan't wake up +just yet." + +To John it was not so wild and incredible a dream as that her hand was +still in his. She had not withdrawn it. No, his senses did not deceive +him. He looked at it, gloved in his bare one. He held it still. He could +not wait another moment. He must have it to keep always. Surely, surely +fate had not thrown them together for nothing, beneath this veiled moon, +among the silver trees! + +"Di," he said below his breath. + +"There is some one on the bank watching us," said Di, suddenly. + +John turned, and in the uncertain light saw a man's figure come +deliberately out of the shadow of the trees to the bank above the ice. + +John gave a sharp exclamation. + +"What has he got in his hand?" said Di. + +He did not answer. He dropped her hand and moved suddenly away from +her. The figure slowly raised one arm. There was a click and a snap. + +"Missed fire," said John, making a rush for the edge. But he turned +immediately. He remembered his skates. Di screamed piercingly. In the +distance came the crackling of fireworks, and the murmur of the +delighted crowd. Would no one hear? + +The figure on the bank did not stir; only a little steel edge of light +rose slowly again. + +There was a sharp report, a momentary puff of light in smoke, and John +staggered, and began scratching and scraping the ice with his skates. Di +raised shrieks that shook the stars, and rushed towards him. + +And the cruel moon came creeping out, making all things visible. + +"Go back," he gasped hoarsely. "Keep away from me. He will fire again." + +And he did so; for as she rushed up to John, and in spite of the +strength with which he pushed her from him, caught him in her arms and +held him tightly to her, there was a second report, and the muff hopped +and ripped in her hand. + +She screamed again. Surely some one would come! She could hear the +ringing of skates and voices. Torches were wheeling towards her. +Lanterns were running along the edge. Good God! how slow they were! + +"Go back--go back!" gasped John, and his head fell forward on her +breast. He seemed slipping out of her arms, but she upheld him clasped +convulsively to her with the strength of despair. + +"Where?" shouted voices, half-way up the lake. + +She tried to shriek again, but only a harsh guttural sound escaped her +lips. + +The man had not gone away. She had her back to him, but she heard him +run a few steps along the frost-bitten bank, and she knew it was to +make his work sure. + +John became a dead weight upon her. She struggled fiercely with him, but +he dragged her heavily to her knees, and fell from her grasp, exposing +himself to full view. There was a click. + +With a wild cry she flung herself down upon his body, covering him with +her own, her face pressed against his. + +"We will die together! We will die together!" she gasped. + +She heard a low curse from the bank. And suddenly there was a turmoil of +voices, and a rushing and flaring of lights all round her, and then a +sharp cry like the fire-engines clearing the London streets. + +"I must get him to the side," she said to herself, and she beat her +hands feebly on the ice. + +Away in the distance, in some other world, the band struck up, "He's a +fine old English gentleman." + +Her hands touched something wet and warm. + +"The thaw has come at last," she thought, and consciousness and feeling +ebbed away together. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + "And dawn, sore trembling still and grey with fear, + Looked hardly forth, a face of heavier cheer + Than one which grief or dread yet half enshrouds." + + SWINBURNE. + + +When Di came to herself, it was to find that she was sitting on the bank +supported by Miss Crupps' trembling arm, with her head on Miss Crupps' +shoulder. Some one, bending over her--could it be Lord Hemsworth with +that blanched face and bare head?--was wiping her face with the +gentleness of a woman. + +"Have I had a fall?" she asked dizzily. "I don't remember. I thought it +was--Miss Crupps who fell." + +"Yes, you have had a fall," said Lord Hemsworth, hurriedly; "but you +will be all right directly. Don't be all night with that brandy, +Lumley." + +Di suddenly perceived Mr. Lumley close at hand, trying to jerk something +out of a little silver lamp into a tumbler. She had seen that lamp +before. It had been handed round with lighted brandy in it with the +mince-pies. No one drank it by itself. Evidently there was something +wrong. + +"I don't understand," she said, beginning to look about her. A confused +gleam of remembrance was dawning in her eyes which terrified Lord +Hemsworth. + +"Drink this," he said quickly, pressing the tumbler against her lip. + +Her teeth chattered against the rim. Miss Crupps was weeping silently. +Di pushed away the glass and stared wildly about her. + +What was this great crowd of eyes kept back by a chain of men? What was +that man in a red uniform with a trumpet, craning forward to see? There +was a sound of women crying. How dark it was! Where was the moon gone +to? + +"What is it?" she whispered hoarsely, stretching out her hands to Lord +Hemsworth, and looking at him with an agony of appeal. "What has +happened?" + +But he only took her hands and held them hard in his. If he could have +died to spare her that next moment he would have done it. + +"When I say three," said a distinct voice near at hand. "Gently, men. +One, two, _three_. That's it." + +Di turned sharply in the direction of the voice. There was a knot of +people on the ice at a little distance. One was kneeling down. Another +knelt too, holding a lantern ringed with mist. As she looked, the +others raised something between them in a fur rug, something heavy, and +began to move slowly to the bank. + +Her face took a rigid look. She remembered. She rose suddenly to her +feet with a voiceless cry, and would have fallen forward on her face had +not Lord Hemsworth caught her in his arms. He held her closely to him, +and put his shaking blood-stained hand over her eyes. Miss Crupps sobbed +aloud. Mr. Lumley sat down by her, telling her not to cry, and assuring +her that it would all be all right; but when he was not comic he was not +up to much. + +There was no need to keep the crowd off any longer. Their whole interest +centred in John, and they broke away in murmuring masses along the bank, +and down the ice, in the wake of the little band with the lantern. + +Now that the lantern had gone, the place was wrapped in a white +darkness. The other lights had apparently gone out, except the red end +of a torch on the bank. The mist was covering the valley. + +"Is he dead? Is he dead?" gasped Di, clinging convulsively to the friend +who had loved her so long and so faithfully. + +"No, Di, no," said Lord Hemsworth, speaking as if to a child; "not dead, +only hurt. And the doctor is there. He was on the ice when it happened. +He was with you both almost as soon as I was. I am going to take off +your skates. Can you walk a little with my help? Yes? It will be better +to be going gently home. Put your hands in your muff. Here it is. You +must put in the other hand as well. The bank is steep here. Lean on me." +And Lord Hemsworth helped her up the bank, and guided her stumbling feet +towards the dwindling constellation of lights at the further end of the +lake. + +A party of men passed them in the drifting mist. One of them turned +back. It was Archie, his face streaming with perspiration. + +"Did you get him?" asked Lord Hemsworth. + +"Get him? Not a chance," said Archie. "He stood on the bank till Dawnay +and I were within ten yards of him, and then laughed and ran quietly +away. He knew we could not follow on our skates, though we made a rush +for him, and by the time we had got them off he was out of sight, of +course. I expect he has doubled back, and is watching among the crowd +now." + +"Would you know him again?" + +"No; he was masked. He would never have let me come so close to him if +he had not been. I say, how is John?" + +Lord Hemsworth glared at Archie, but the latter was of the species that +never takes a hint, like his father before him, who was always deeply +affronted if people resented his want of tact. He called it "touchiness" +on their part. The "touchiness" of the world in general affords tactless +persons a perennial source of offended astonishment. + +"What are you frowning at me about?" said Archie, in an injured voice. +"What has become of John? Hullo! what's that? Why, it's the omnibus. +They have been uncommonly quick about getting it down. My word, the +horses are giving trouble! They can't get them past the bonfires." + +"Go on and say Miss Tempest and Miss Crupps are coming," said Lord +Hemsworth, "and keep places for them." + +He knew the omnibus had not been sent for for them, but he did not want +Di to realize for whom it was required. Archie hurried on. Miss Crupps +and Mr. Lumley passed at a little distance. + +"You are deceiving me," gasped Di. "You mean it kindly, but you are +deceiving me. He is dead. Did not Archie say he was dead? It is no good +keeping it from me." + +Lord Hemsworth tried to soothe her in vain. + +"The man on the bank shot twice," she went on incoherently. "I tried to +get between, but it was no good; and I screamed, but you were all so +long in coming. I never knew people so slow. You were too late, too +late, too late!" + +Lord Hemsworth was experiencing that unbearable wrench at the heart +which goes by the easy name of emotion. He was reading his death-warrant +in every random word Di said. It appeared to him that he had always +known that John loved Di; and yet until this evening he had never +thought of it, and certainly never dreamed for a moment that she cared +for him. He had not imagined that Di could care for any one. The ease +with which any man can marry any woman nowadays, the readiness of women +to give their affection to any one, irrespective of age, character, and +antecedents, has awakened in men's minds a profound and too well +grounded disbelief in women's love. The average woman of the present day +is, as men are well aware, in love with marriage, and in order to attain +to that state a preference for one person rather than another is quickly +seen to be prejudicial; for though love conduces to happy marriages, +love conduces also to the catastrophe of single life, and is but a blind +leader of the blind at best. + +Lord Hemsworth loved Di, but that was different. The fact that she, +being human, might be equally attached to himself or to some other man +had never struck him. It struck him now, and for a few minutes he was +speechless. + +It was only a very great compassion and tenderness that was able to +wrestle with and vanquish the intolerable pain of the moment. + +"See, Di," he said gently, through his white lips. "Look at that great +tear and hole through your muff. I saw it directly I picked it up. A +bullet did that; do you understand?--a bullet that perhaps would have +hit Tempest but for you. But you saved him from it. Perhaps he is better +now, and afraid _you_ are hurt. There is the carriage coming to us; let +us go on to meet it." + +And in truth the great Overleigh omnibus, with men at the horses' heads, +was lurching across the uneven turf to meet them. + +"Where is John?" asked Di of Archie, peering at the empty carriage. + +"The doctor would not have him lifted in, after all," said Archie. +"They went on on foot. We may as well go up in it;" and he helped in +Lady Alice Fane and Miss Crupps, who came up at the moment. Lord +Hemsworth followed Di and sat down by her. He was determined she should +be spared all questioning. Mr. Lumley and Mr. Dawnay got in too, and sat +silently staring straight in front of them. No one spoke. Archie stood +on the step; and the long lumbering vehicle turned and got slowly under +way--the same in which such a merry party had driven to the ball the +night before. + +As they reached the courtyard a confused mass of people became visible +within it--the guests of the evening; the girls standing about in silent +groups, muffled to the eyes, for the cold had become intense; the men +hurrying to and fro, getting out their own horses and helping the +coachmen to harness them. Through the darkness came the uplifted voices +of Lindo and Fritz in hysterics at being debarred from taking part in +the festivities. Carriages were beginning to drive off. There was no +leave-taking. + +"There is our omnibus," said Mr. Lumley to Miss Crupps. "That is Montagu +lighting the lamps. They will be looking for us." And they got out and +rejoined their party, nodding silently to the others, who drove on to +the hall door, Lord Hemsworth with them: he seemed quite oblivious of +the fact that he was not staying at Overleigh. + +The hall was brilliantly lighted. Every carved lion and griffin on the +grand staircase held its lamp. The house-party was standing about in the +hall. They looked at the remainder as they came in, but no one spoke. +Miss Fane was blinking in their midst. The other elder ladies who had +stayed up at the Castle whispered with their daughters. A blaze of light +and silver came through the opened folding doors of the dining-hall, +where supper for a large number had been prepared. + +"Any news?" asked Lord Hemsworth, as he guided Di to an armchair. + +Miss Fane shook her head. + +"They won't let me in," she said. "They have taken him to his room, and +they won't let any one in." + +"Who is with him?" said Di, in a loud hoarse voice that made every one +look at her. + +She did not see what every one else did, namely, that the neck and +breast of her grey coat was drenched with blood--not hers. + +"The doctor and his sister are with him. They were both on the ice at +the time. I think Lord Elver is there too, and his valet." + +Lord Hemsworth went into the dining-hall and came back with a glass of +champagne and a roll. + +"Bring things out to the people," he said to the bewildered servants; +"they won't come in here for them." And they followed with trays of wine +and soup. + +Without making her conspicuous, he was thus able to force Di to drink +and eat. She remembered afterwards his wearying pertinacity till she had +finished what he brought her. + +The men, most of whom were exhausted by the pursuit of the assassin, or +by carrying John up the steep ascent, drank large quantities of spirits. +Archie, quite worn out, fell heavily asleep in an oak chair. The women +were beginning to disappear in two and threes. Every one was dead beat. + +It was Lord Hemsworth who took the onus of giving directions, who told +the servants to put out the lights from all the windows. Miss Fane was +of no more use than a sheep waked at midnight for an opinion on New +Zealand lamb would have been. She stood about and ate sandwiches because +they were handed to her, although she and the other chaperons had just +partaken of roast turkey; went at intervals into the picture-gallery, at +the end of which John's room was, and came back shaking her head. + +It was Lord Hemsworth who helped Di to her room, while Miss Fane +accompanied them upstairs. Di's room was still brilliantly lighted. Lord +Hemsworth lingered on the threshold. + +"You will promise me to take off that damp gown at once," he said. + +Somehow there seemed nothing peculiar in the authoritative attitude +which he had assumed towards Di. She and Miss Fane took it as a matter +of course. + +"Yes, change all her things," said Miss Fane. "Quite right--quite +right." + +"Where is your maid? Can you get her?" asked Lord Hemsworth, uneasily. + +"I have no maid," said Di, trying and failing to unfasten her grey +furred coat. + +He winced as he saw her touch it, and then, an idea seeming to strike +him, closed the door and went downstairs again. + +The servants had put out the lamps in the windows of the +picture-gallery, leaving, with unusual forethought, one or two burning +in the long expanse in case of need. + +In the shadow at the further end, near John's room, a bent figure was +sitting, silently rocking itself to and fro. It had been there whenever +he had ventured into the gallery. It was there still. + +It was Mitty--Mitty in her best violet silk that would stand of itself, +and her black satin apron, and her gold brooch with the mosaic of the +Coliseum that John had brought her from Rome. She raised her wet face +out of her apron as the young man touched her gently on the shoulder. + +"They won't let me in to him, sir," said Mitty, the round tears running +down her cheeks, and hopping on to her violet silk. "Me that nursed him +since he was a baby. He was put into my arms, sir, when he was born. I +took him from the month, and they won't let me in." + +"They will presently," said Lord Hemsworth. "He will be asking for you, +you'll see; and then how vexed he will be if he sees you have been +crying!" + +"And the warming-pan, sir," gasped Mitty, shaken with silent sobs, +pointing to that article laid on the settee. "I got it ready myself. I +was as quick as quick. And a bit of brown sugar in it to keep off the +pain. And they said they did not want it--as if I didn't know what he'd +like! He'll want his old Mitty, and he won't know they are keeping me +away from him." + +"Some one wants you very much," said Lord Hemsworth. "Poor Miss Tempest. +And she has no maid with her. She is not fit to be left to herself. +Won't you go and see to her, Mitty?" + +But Mitty shook her head. + +"He may ask for me," she said. + +"I will stay here and come for you the first minute he asks," said Lord +Hemsworth, moving the rejected warming-pan, and sitting down beside her +on the hot settee. "Poor Miss Tempest! And she tried so hard to save +him. Won't you go to her? She has only Miss Fane with her." + +"Miss Fane!" said Mitty, evidently with the recollection of a +long-standing feud. "Much good she'd do a body; doesn't know chalk from +cheese. She didn't even know when Master John had got the measles, +though the spots was out all over him. 'It's only nettle-rash, nurse,' +she says to me. And the same when he had them little ulsters in his +throat. Miss Fane indeed!" + +And after a little more persuasion Mitty consented to go if he promised +to come for her if John asked for her. + +Lord Hemsworth gave a sigh of relief as Mitty went reluctantly away. He +was in mortal anxiety about Di. He had a nervous misgiving, increased by +his feeling of masculine helplessness to do anything further for her, +lest she should fall ill or faint alone in that gaily lighted room; for, +of course, Miss Fane would not have remained. As, indeed, was the case. +She was yawning herself out of the room when Mitty appeared. + +"That's it--that's it," she said, evidently relieved. "Get to bed, Di. +No use sitting up. We shall hear in the morning;" and she departed to +her own room. + +Di turned her white exhausted face slowly towards the old woman, and +vainly tried to frame a question. Mitty's maternal instinct was aroused +by the sight of her lamb's "Miss Dinah" sitting in her mist-damped +clothes, which steamed where the warmth of the fire reached them. She +had made no effort to take off her walking things, but she was passive +under Mitty's hands, as the latter unfastened them and wrapped her in +her warm dressing-gown. + +"I can't go to bed, Mitty," said Di, hoarsely, holding her gown. "Don't +make me. Let me come and sit in the nursery with you. We shall be nearer +there, and then I shall hear. There is no one to come and tell me +here." + +The girl clung convulsively to the old woman, and the two went together +to the nursery, and Mitty, after putting her guest into the +rocking-chair by the fire, went down once more to ask for news. But +there was no news. John was still unconscious, and the doctor would say +nothing. Presently Mitty came tearfully back, and sat down on the other +side of the fire. Lord Hemsworth, who was sitting up with Archie, had +promised to come to the nursery the moment there was any change. + +The nursery still bore traces of the little party that had broken up so +disastrously, for Mitty had invited the _élite_ of the village ladies to +view the carnival from the nursery windows. The "rock" buns for which +Mitty was celebrated, and one of Mrs. Alcock's best cakes, were still on +the table, and Mitty's fluted silver teapot with a little nest of clean +cups round it. Presently she got up, and, opening the corner cupboard, +began to put them away; but the impulse of tidying was forgotten as she +caught sight of John's robin mug on the top shelf. She took it down, and +stood holding it in her old withered hands. + +"I give it him myself," she said, "on his birthday when he was five +years old; twenty-four years ago come June. I thought some of his +mother's family would have remembered his birthday if his father didn't. +I thought something would have come by post. But there wasn't so much as +a letter. And Mrs. Alcock give him the tin plate with the soldier on it, +but I never let him eat off it. And we had Barker's little nephew to tea +as he was learning to shoemaykle, but nobody took no notice of his +birthday except me and Mrs. Alcock. And when he went to school I kep' +his mug and his toys. He never had a many toys, but what there was I +have 'em. And his clothes, my dear, everything since he was born, from +his little cambric shirts, I have 'em all, put away; with a bit of +camphor to his velvet suit as I took him to York to be measured for, on +purpose to make him look pretty to his papa when he come home from +abroad. But he never took a bit of notice of him--never." Mitty sat down +by the fire, still holding the mug. "And a lace collar he had with +it--real lace, the best as money could buy. I might spend what I liked +on him; but no one ever took no notice of him, not even in his first +sailor's; and he with his pretty ways and his grave talk! Mrs. Alcock +and me has often cried over the things he'd say. There's his crib still +in the night-nursery by my bed. I could not sleep without it was there; +and the little blankets and sheets and piller-slips as belong, all put +away, and not a iron mould upon 'em. Eh, dear miss, many's the time +I've got 'em out and aired 'em, thinking maybe the day 'ud come when he +would have a babby of his own, and I should hold it in my old arms +before I died. And even if I was gone they'd be all ready, and the +bassinet only wanting muslin to it. And now--oh, my lamb, my lamb! And +they won't let his old Mitty go to him." And Mitty's grief broke into a +paroxysm of sobbing. + +Di looked at the old woman rocking herself backwards and forwards, and, +rising unsteadily, she went and knelt down by her, putting her arms +round her in silence. She had no comfort to give in words. It seemed as +if her strong young heart were breaking; but she realized that Mitty's +anguish for a love knit up into so many faithful years was greater than +hers. + +As she knelt, a step came along the creaking garret gallery with its +uneven flooring. + +It was Lord Hemsworth. + +He stood in the doorway with the wan light of the morning behind him. +His face looked pinched and aged. + +"He is better," he said. "He has recovered consciousness, and has +spoken. The other doctor has arrived, and they think all will go well." + +And the two women who loved John clung and sobbed together. + +Lord Hemsworth looked fixedly at Di and went out. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + "Toute passion nuisible attire, comme le gouffre, par le + vertige. La faiblesse de volonté amène la faiblesse de tête, et + l'abîme, malgré son horreur, fascine alors comme un + asile."--AMIEL. + + +People said that John had a charmed life. The divergence of an eighth of +an inch, of a hundredth part of an inch, of a hair's-breadth and the +little bead that passed right through his neck would have pierced the +jugular artery, and John would have added one more to the long list of +names in Overleigh Church. As it was, when once the direction of the +bullet had been ascertained, he was pronounced to be in little danger. +He rallied steadily, and without relapse. + +People said that he bore a charmed life, and they began to say something +more, namely, that it was an object to somebody that it should be wiped +out. Men are not shot at for nothing. John was not an Irish landlord. +Some one evidently bore him a grudge. Society instantly formed several +more or less descreditable reasons to account for John's being the +object of some one's revenge. Half-forgotten rumours of Archie's doings +were revived with John's name affixed to them. Decidedly there had been +some "entanglement," and John had brought his fate upon himself. Colonel +Tempest, just returned from foreign travel, heard the matter discussed +at his club. His opinion was asked as to the truth of the reports, but +he only shrugged his shoulders, and it was supposed that he could not +deny them. Di's, Lady Alice Fane's, and Miss Crupps' names were all +equally associated with John's in the different versions of the +accident. + +Colonel Tempest did not go to see his daughter. She had been telegraphed +for the morning after the ice carnival by Mrs. Courtenay, who had +actually developed with the thaw the bronchitis which she had dreaded +throughout the frost. Di and Archie, whose leave was up, returned to +town together for once. + +Archie had experienced a distinct though shamed pang of disappointment +when John's state was pronounced to be favourable. + +All night long, as he had sat waking and dozing beside the gallery fire +opposite Lord Hemsworth's motionless, wakeful figure, visions of wealth +passed in spite of himself before his mind; visions of four-in-hands, +and screaming champagne suppers, and smashing things he could afford to +pay for, and running his own horses on the turf. He did not want John +to die. He had been dreadfully shocked when he had first caught sight of +the stony upturned face almost beneath his feet, and had strained every +nerve in his body to overtake the murderer. He did not want John to go +where he, Archie, would have been terrified to go himself. But--he +wanted the things John had, which his father had often told him should +by rights have been his, and they could not both have them at one and +the same time. + +He could not understand his father's fervent "Thank God!" when he +assured him that John was out of danger. + +"A miss is as good as a mile," said Archie, with his smallest grin. He +was desperately short of money again by this time, and he had no one to +apply to. He knew enough of John to be aware that nothing was to be +expected from that quarter. Twenty-four hours ago he had thought--how +could he help it?--that perhaps there would be no further trouble on +that irksome, wearisome subject; for lack of money, and the annoyance +entailed by procuring it, was the thorn in Archie's flesh. But now the +annoyance was still there, beginning as it were all over again, owing +to--John. Madeleine would lend him money, he knew, but he would be a cad +to take it. He could not think of such a thing, he said to himself, as +he turned it over in his mind. + +The ice carnival and John's escape were a nine days' wonder. In ten days +it was forgotten for a _cause célèbre_ by every one except Colonel +Tempest. + +Colonel Tempest had had a fairly pleasant time abroad. While his small +stock of ready money lasted, the remainder of the five hundred +subtracted from the sum he had returned to John after his interview +with Larkin, he had really almost enjoyed himself. He had picked up a +few old companions of the hanger-on species at Baden and Homburg, and +had given them dinners--he was always open-handed. He had the natural +predilection for the society of his social inferiors which generally +accompanies a predilection for being deferred to, and regarded as a +person of importance. He was under the impression that he was the most +liberal-minded of men in the choice of his companions, and without the +social prejudices of his class. He had won a little at "baccarat." His +health also had improved. On his return in December to the lodgings +which he had left in such a panic in July, he told himself that he had +been in a morbid state of health, that he had taken things too much to +heart, that he had been over-sensitive; that there was no need to be +afraid. Five months had elapsed. It would be all right. + +And it had been all right for about a month, and then---- + +If the distressing theory that virtue is its own reward has any truth, +surely sin is its own punishment. + +The old monotonous pains took Colonel Tempest. + +It is a popular axiom among persons in robust health that others +labouring long under a painful disease become accustomed to it. It is +perhaps as true as all axioms, however freely laid down by persons in +one state respecting the feelings of others in a state of which they are +ignorant, can be. + +The continual dropping of water wears away the stone. The stone ought, +of course, to put up an umbrella--any one can see that--or shift its +position. But it seldom does so. + +There was a continual dropping of a slowly diluted torture on the +crumbling sandstone of Colonel Tempest's heart. The few months of +intermission only rendered more acute the agony of the inevitable +recommencement. + +As he felt in July after the fire in John's lodgings, so he felt now; +just the same again, all over again, only worse. The porous sandstone +was wearing down. + +He wandered like a ghost in the snowy places in the Park--for snow had +followed the thaw--or paced for hours by the Serpentine, staring at the +water. Once in a path across the Park he suddenly caught sight of John +walking slowly in the direction of Kensington. The young man passed +within a couple of yards of him without seeing him, his head bent, and +his eyes upon the ground. + +"It is his ghost," said Colonel Tempest to himself, clutching the +railing, and looking back at the receding figure with an access of +shuddering horror. + +Another figure passed, a heavy man in an ulster. + +"He is being followed," thought Colonel Tempest. "It is Swayne, and he +is following him." + +He rushed panting after the second figure, and overtook it at a meeting +of the ways. + +"Swayne!" he gasped; "for mercy's sake, Swayne, don't----" + +A benevolent elderly face turned and peered at him in the twilight, and +Colonel Tempest remembered that Swayne was dead. + +"My name is Smith," said the man, and after waiting a moment passed on. + +In a flash of memory Colonel Tempest saw Swayne's huddled figure +crouching in the disordered bed, and the check trousers over a chair, +and the candle on the window-sill bent double by the heat. That had +been the manner of Swayne's departure. How had he come to forget he was +dead, and that John was laid up at Overleigh? + +"I am going mad," he said to himself. "That will be the end. I shall go +mad and tell everything." + +The new idea haunted him. He could not shake it off. There was nothing +in the wide world to turn to for a change of thought. If he fell asleep +at night he was waked by the sound of his own voice, to find himself +sitting up in bed talking loudly of he knew not what. Once he heard +himself call Swayne's and John's names aloud into the listening +darkness, and broke into a cold sweat at the thought that he might have +been heard in the next room. Perhaps the other lodger, the young man +with the red hair, cramming for the army, knew everything by this time. +Perhaps the lodging-house people had been listening at the door, and +would give him in charge in the morning. Did he not at that very moment +hear furtive steps and whispering on the landing? He rushed out to see +the thin tabby cat, the walking funeral of the beetles and mice of the +establishment, slip noiselessly downstairs, and he returned to his room +shivering from head to foot, to toss and shudder until the morning, and +then furtively eye the landlady and her daughter in curl-papers. + +More days passed. Colonel Tempest had had doubts at first, but gradually +he became convinced that the people in the house knew. He was sure of it +by the look in their faces if he passed them on the stairs. It was +merely a question of time. They were waiting to make certain before they +informed against him. Perhaps they had written to John. There was no +news of John, except a rumour in the _World_ that he was to stand at the +coming general election. + +Colonel Tempest became the prey of an _idée fixe_. When John came +forward on the hustings he would be shot at and killed. He became as +certain of it as if it had already happened. At times he believed it +_had_ happened--that he had been present and had seen him fall forward; +and it was he, Colonel Tempest, who had shot him, and had been taken +red-handed with one of his old regimental pistols smoking in his hand. + +Colonel Tempest had those pistols somewhere. One day he got them out and +looked at them, and spent a long time rubbing them up. They used to hang +crosswise under a photograph of himself in uniform in his wife's little +drawing-room. He recollected, with the bitterness that accompanies the +remembrance of the waste of lavished affections, how he had sat with his +wife and child a whole wet afternoon polishing up those pistols, while +another man in his place would have gone off to his club. (Colonel +Tempest always knew what that other man would have done.) And Di had +been gentle and affectionate, and had had a colour for once, and had +played with her creeping child like a cat with its kitten. And they had +had tea together afterwards, sitting on the sofa with the child asleep +between them. Ah! if she had only been always like that, he thought, as +he remembered the cloud that, owing to her uncertain temper, had +gradually settled on his home-life. + +An intense bitterness was springing afresh in Colonel Tempest's mind +against his dead wife, against his dead brother, against Swayne, against +his children who never came near him (Di was nursing Mrs. Courtenay in +bronchitis, but that was of no account), against the world in general +which did not care what became of him. No one cared. + +"They will be sorry some day," he said to himself. + +And still the waking nightmare remained of seeing John fall, and of +finding he had shot him himself. + +More days passed. + +And gradually, among the tottering _débris_ of a life undermined from +its youth, one other thought began, mole-like, to delve and creep in the +darkness. + +Truly the way of transgressors is hard. + +No one cared what he suffered, what he went through. This was the +constant refrain of these latter days. He had paroxysms of angry tears +of self-pity with his head in his hands, his heart rent to think of +himself sitting bowed with anguish by his solitary fireside. Love holds +the casting vote in the destinies of most of us. There is only one love +which wrings the heart beyond human endurance--the love of self. + +And yet more days. The sun gave no light by day, neither the moon by +night. + + * * * * * + +To the severe cold of January a mild February had succeeded. March was +close at hand. The hope and yearning of the spring was in the air +already. Already in Kensington Gardens the silly birds had begun to +sing, and the snowdrops and the little regiments of crocuses had come up +in double file to listen. + +On this particular afternoon a pale London sun was shining like a new +shilling in the sky, striking as many sparks as he could out of the +Round Pond. There was quite a regatta at that Cowes of nursery shipping. +The mild wind was just strong enough to take sailing-vessels across. The +big man-of-war belonging to the big melancholy man who seemed open to an +offer, the yachts and the little fishing-smacks, everything with a +sail, got over sooner or later. The tiny hollow boats with seats were +being towed along the edge in leading-reins. A wooden doll with joints +took advantage of its absence of costume to drop out of the boat in +which it was being conveyed, and take a swim in the open. But it was +recovered. An old gentleman with spectacles hooked it out with the end +of his umbrella in a moment, quite pleased to be of use. The little boys +shouted, the little girls tossed their manes, and careered round the +pool on slender black legs. Solemn babies looked on from perambulators. + +The big man started the big man-of-war again, and the whole fleet came +behind in its wake. + +Colonel Tempest was sitting on a seat near the landing-place, where the +ship-owners had run to clutch their property a moment ago. His hand was +clenched on something he held under his overcoat. + +"When the big ship touches the edge," he said to himself. + +They came slowly across the pool in a flock. Every little boy shrieked +to every other little boy of his acquaintance to observe how his +particular craft was going. The big man alone was perfectly apathetic, +though his priceless possession was the first, of course. He began +walking slowly round. Half the children were at the landing before him, +calling to their boats, and stretching out their hands towards them. + +The big one touched land. + +"Not this time," said Colonel Tempest to himself; "next time." + +How often he had said that already! How often his hand had failed him +when the moment which he and that other self had agreed upon had +arrived! How often he had gone guiltily back to the rooms to which he +had not intended to return, and had lain down once more in the bed +which had become an accomplice to the torture of every hour of darkness! + +Between the horror of returning once again, and the horror of the step +into another darkness, his soul oscillated with the feeble violence of +despair. + +He remembered the going back of yesterday. + +"I will not go back again," he said to himself, with the passion of a +spoilt child. "I will not--I will not." + +"It is time to go home, Master Georgie," said a nursery-maid. + +"Just once more, Bessie," pleaded the boy. "Just one _single_ once +more." + +"Well, then, it must be the last time, mind," said the good-natured +arbiter of fate, turning the perambulator, and pushing it along the +edge, while the occupant of the same added to the hilarity of the +occasion by beating a much-chewed musical rattle against the wheel. + +"_The last time._" The chance words seized upon Colonel Tempest's +shuddering panic-stricken mind, and held it as in a vice. + +"Next time," he said over and over again to himself. "Next time shall +really be the last time--really the last, the very last." + +The boats were coming across again, straggling wide of each other; how +quick, yet what an eternity in coming! The top-heavy boat with the red +sail would be the first. It had been started long before the others. The +wind caught it near the edge. It would turn over. No, it righted itself. +It neared, it bobbed in the ripple at the brink; it touched. + +Colonel Tempest's mind had become quite numb. He only knew that for some +imperative reason which he had forgotten he must pull the trigger. He +half pulled it; then again more decidedly. + +There was a report. It stunned him back to a kind of consciousness of +what he had done, but he felt nothing. + +There was a great silence, and then a shrieking of terrified children, +and a glimpse of agitated people close at hand, and others running +towards him. + +The man with the big boat under his arm said, "By gum!" + +Colonel Tempest looked at him. He felt nothing. Had he failed? + +The smoke came curling out at his collar, and something dropped from his +nerveless hand and lay gleaming on the grass. There was a sound of many +waters in his ears. + +"He might have spared the children," said a man's voice, tremulous with +indignation. + +"That is always the way. No one thinks of _me_," thought Colonel +Tempest. And the Round Pond and the growing crowd, and the child nearest +him with its convulsed face, all turned slowly before his eyes, slid up, +and disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + "Vous avez bien froid, la belle; + Comment vous appelez-vous? + Les amours et les yeux doux + De nos cercueils sont les clous. + Je suis la morte, dit-elle. + Cueillez la branche de houx." + VICTOR HUGO. + + +As John lay impatiently patient upon his bed in the round oak-panelled +room at Overleigh during the weeks that followed his accident, his +thoughts by day, and by night, varied no more than the notes of a +chaffinch in the trees outside. + + "Oh, let the solid earth + Not fail beneath my feet, + Before I too have found + What some have found so sweet!" + +That was the one constant refrain. The solid earth had nearly failed +beneath his feet, nearly--nearly. If the world might but cohere together +and not fly off into space; if body and soul might but hold together +till he had seen Di once more, till he knew for certain from her own +lips that she loved him! Unloved by any woman until now, wistfully +ignorant of woman's tenderness, even of its first alphabet learned at a +mother's knee, unread in all its later language,--in these days of +convalescence a passionate craving was upon him to drink deep of that +untasted cup which "some have found so sweet." + +He had Mitty, and Mitty at least was radiantly happy during these weeks, +with John fast in bed, and in a condition to dispense with other nursing +than hers. She sat with him by the hour together, mending his socks and +shirts, for she would not suffer any one to touch his clothes except +herself, and discoursing to him about Di--a subject which she soon +perceived never failed to interest him. + +"Miss Dinah," Mitty would say for the twentieth time, but without +wearying her audience--"now, there's a fine upstanding lady for my +lamb." + +"Lady Alice Fane is very pretty, too," John would remark, with the happy +knack of self-concealment peculiar to the ostrich and the sterner sex. + +"Hoots!" Mitty replied. "She's nothing beside Miss Dinah. If you have +Lady Fane with her silly ways, and so snappy to her maid, you'll repent +every hair of your head. You take Miss Dinah, my dear, as is only +waiting to be asked. She wants you, my precious," Mitty never failed to +add. "I tell you it's as plain as the nose on your face" (a simile the +force of which could not fail to strike him). "It's not that Lord +Hemstitch, for all his pretty looks. It's _you_." + +And John told himself he was a fool, and then secretly felt under the +pillow for a certain pencilled note which Di had left with the doctor on +her hurried departure to London the morning after the ice carnival. It +had been given to him when he was able to read letters. It was a short +note. There was very little in it, and a great deal left out. It did not +even go over the page. But nevertheless John was so very foolish as to +keep it under his pillow, and when he was promoted to his clothes it +followed into his pocket. Even the envelope had a certain value in his +eyes. Had not her hand touched it, and written his name upon it? + +Lindo and Fritz, who had been consumed with ennui during John's illness, +were almost as excited as their master when he hobbled, on Mitty's arm, +into the morning-room for luncheon. Lindo was aweary of sediments of +beef-tea and sticks of toast. Fritz, who had had a plethora of whites of +poached eggs, sniffed anxiously at the luncheon-tray with its roast +pheasant. + +There were tricks and Albert biscuits after luncheon, succeeded by heavy +snoring on the hearthrug. + +John was almost as delighted as they were to leave his sick-room. It was +the first step towards going to London. When should he wring permission +from his doctor to go up on "urgent business"? Five days, seven days? +Surely in a week at latest he would see Di again. He made a little +journey round the room to show himself how robust he was becoming, and +wound up the old watches lying in the _blue du roi_ Sèvres tray, making +them repeat one after the other, because Di had once done so. Would Di +make this her sitting-room? It was warm and sunny. Perhaps she would +like the outlook across the bowling-green and low ivy-coloured +balustrade away to the moors. It had been his mother's sitting-room. His +poor mother. He looked up at the pretty vacant face that hung over the +fireplace. He had looked at it so often that it had ceased to make any +definite impression on him. + +He wondered vaguely whether the happy or the unhappy hours had +preponderated in this room in which she was wont to sit, the very +furniture of which remained the same as in her quickly finished day. And +then he wondered whether, if she had lived, Di would have liked her; for +it was still early in the afternoon, and he had positively nothing to +do. + +He tried to write a few necessary letters in the absence of Mitty, who +was busy washing his handkerchiefs, but he soon gave up the attempt. The +exertion made his head ache, as he had been warned it would, so he +propelled himself across the room to his low chair by the window. + +What should he do till teatime? If only he had asked Mitty for a bit of +wash-leather he might have polished up the brass slave-collar in the +Satsuma dish. He took it up and turned it in his hands. It was a heavy +collar enough, with the owner's name engraved thereon. "Roger Tempest, +1698." + +"It must have galled him," said John to himself; and he took up the gag +next, and put it into his mouth, and then had considerable difficulty in +getting it out again. What on earth should he do with himself till +teatime? + +One of the bits of Venetian glass standing in the central niche of the +lac cabinet at his elbow had lost its handle. He got up to examine it, +and, thinking the handle might have been put aside within, pushed back +the glass in the centre of the niche, which, as in so many of its +species, shut off a small enclosed space between the tiers of drawers. +The glass door and its little pillars opened inwards, but not without +difficulty. It was clogged with dust. The handle of the Venetian glass +was not inside. There was nothing inside but a little old, old, very +old, glue-bottle, standing on an envelope, and a broken china cup beside +it, with the broken bits in it. The hand that had put them away so +carefully to mend, on a day that never came, was dust. They remained. +John took out the cup. It matched one that stood in the picture-gallery. +The pieces seemed to be all there. He began to fit them together with +the pleased interest of a child. He had really found something to do at +last. At the bottom of the cup was a key. It was a very small key, with +a large head, matching the twisted handles of the drawers. + +This was becoming interesting. John put down the cup, and fitted the key +into the lock of one of the drawers. Yes, it was the right one. He +became quite excited. Half the cabinets in the house were locked, and +would not open; of some he had found the keys by diligent search, but +the keys of others had never turned up. Here was evidently one. + +The key turned with difficulty, but still it did turn, and the drawer +opened. The dust had crept over everything--over all the faded silks and +bobbins and feminine gear, of which it was half full. John disturbed it, +and then sneezed till he thought he should kill himself. But he survived +to find among the tangle of work a tiny white garment half made, with +the rusted needle still in it. He took it out. What was it? Dolls' +clothing? And then he realized that it was a little shirt, and that his +mother had probably been making it for him and had not had time to +finish it. John held the baby's shirt that he ought to have worn in a +very reverent hand, and looked back at the picture. That bit of +unfinished work, begun for him, seemed to bring her nearer to him than +she had ever been before. Yes, it was hers. There was her ivory workbox, +with her initials in silver and turquoise on it, and her small gold +thimble had rolled into a corner of the drawer. John put back the little +remnant of a love that had never reached him into the drawer with a +clumsy gentleness, and locked it up. "I will show it Di some day," he +said. + +The other drawers bore record. There were small relics of girlhood--ball +cards, cotillon ribbons, a mug with "Marion Fane" inscribed in gold on +it, a slim book on confirmation. "One of darling Spot's curls" was +wrapped in tissue-paper. John did not even know who Spot was, except +that from the appearance of the lock he had probably been a black +retriever. Her childish little possessions touched John's heart. He +looked at each one, and put it tenderly back. + +Some of the drawers were empty. In some were smart note-paper with faded +networks of silver and blue initials on them. In another was an +ornamental purse with money in it and a few unpaid bills. John wondered +what his mother would have been like now if she had lived. Her sister, +Miss Fane, had a weakness for gorgeous note-paper and smart work-baskets +which he had often regarded with astonishment. It had never struck him +that his mother might have had the same tastes. + +He opened another drawer. More fancy-work, a ball of silk half wound on +a card, a roll of vari-coloured embroidery, and, thrust in among them, a +half-opened packet of letters. The torn cover which still surrounded +them was addressed to Mrs. Tempest, Overleigh Castle, Yorkshire. + +Inside the cover was a loose sheet which fell apart from the packet, +tied up separately. On it was written, in a large cramped hand that John +knew well-- + +"I dare say you are wise in your generation to prefer to break with me. +'Tout lasse,' and then naturally 'on se range.' I return your letters as +you wish it, and as you have been kind enough to burn mine already, I +will ask you to commit this last effusion to the flames." + +The paper was without date or signature. + +John opened the packet, which contained many letters, all in one +handwriting, which he recognized as his mother's. He read them one by +one, and, as he read, the pity in his face gave place to a white +indignation. Poor foolish, foolish letters, to be read after a lapse of +eight and twenty years. John realized how very silly his poor mother had +been; how worldly wise and selfish some one else had been. + +"We ought to have been married, darling," said one of the later letters, +dated from Overleigh, evidently after her marriage with Mr. Tempest. "I +see now we ought. You said you were too poor, and you could not bear to +see me poor; but I would not have minded that one bit--did not I tell +you so a hundred times? I would have learnt to cook and mend clothes and +everything if only I might have been with you. It is much worse now, +feeling my heart is breaking and yours too, and Fate keeping us apart. +And you must not write to me any more now I am married, or me to you. It +is not right. Mother would be vexed if she knew; I am quite sure she +would. So this is the very last to my dearest darling Freddie, from poor +Marion." + +Alas! there were many, many more from "poor Marion" after the very last; +little vacillating, feeble, gilt-edged notes, with every other word +under-dashed; some short and hurried, some long and reproachful; sad +landmarks of each step of a blindfold wandering on the brink of the +abyss, clinging to the hand that was pushing her over. + +The last letter was a very long one. + +"You have no heart," wrote the pointed, slanting handwriting. "You do +not care what I suffer. I do not believe now you ever cared. You say it +would be an act of folly to tell my husband, but you know I was always +silly. But it is not necessary. I am sure he knows. I feel it. He says +nothing, but I know he knows. Oh, if I were only dead and in my grave, +and if only the baby might die too, as I hope it will, as I pray to God +it will! If I die and it lives, I don't know what will happen to it. +Remember, if he casts it off, it is your child. Oh, Freddie, surely it +can't be all quite a mistake. You were fond of me once, before you made +me wicked, and when I am dead you won't feel so angry and impatient with +me as you do now. And if the child lives and has no friend, you will +remember it is yours, won't you? I am so miserable that I think God will +surely let me die. And the child may come any day now. Last night I felt +so ill that I dared not put off any longer, and this morning I burned +all your letters to me, every one, even the first about the white +violets. Do you remember that letter? It is so long ago now; no, you +have forgotten. It is only I who remember, because it was only I who +cared. And I burned the locket you gave me with your hair in it. It felt +like dying to burn it. Everything is all quite gone. But I can't rest +until you have sent me back my letters. I can't trust you to burn them. +I know what trusting to you means. Send them all back to me, and I will +burn them myself. Only be quick, be quick; there is so little time. If +they come when I am ill, some one else may read them. I hope if I live I +shall never see your face again; and if I die, I hope God will keep you +away from me. Oh! I don't mean it, Freddie, I don't mean it; only I am +so miserable that I don't know what I write. God forgive you. I would +too if I thought you cared whether I did or not. God forgive us +both.--M." + + * * * * * + +John looked back at the cover of the packet. The Overleigh postmark was +blurred but legible. June the 8th, and the year----. _It was his +birthday._ + +Her lover had sent back her letters, then, with those few harsh lines +telling her she was wise in her generation. Even the last he had +returned. And they had reached her on the morning of the day her child +was born. Had it been a sunny day, with no fire on the hearth before +which Lindo and Fritz now lay stretched, into which she could have +dropped that packet? Had she not had time even to burn them? She had +glanced at them, evidently. Had she been interrupted, and had she thrust +them for the moment with her work into that drawer? + +Futile inquiry. He should never know. And she had had her wish. She had +been allowed to die, to hide herself away in the grave. John's heart +swelled with sorrowing pity as at the sight of a child's suffering. She +had been very little more. She should have her other wish, too. + +He gathered up the letters, and, stepping over the dogs, dropped them +into the heart of the fire. They were in the safe keeping of the flames +at last. They reached their destination at last, but, a little +late--twenty-eight years too late. + +And suddenly, as he watched them burn, like a thunderbolt falling and +tearing up the ground on which he stood, came the thought, "Then I am +illegitimate." + + * * * * * + +The minute-hand of the clock on the mantelpiece had made a complete +circuit since John had dropped the letters into the fire, yet he had not +stirred from the armchair into which he had staggered the moment +afterwards. + +His fixed eyes looked straight in front of him. His lips moved at +intervals. + +"I am illegitimate," he said to himself, over and over again. + +But no, it was a nightmare, an hallucination of illness. How many +delusions he had had during the last few weeks! He should wake up +presently and find he had been torturing himself for nothing. If only +Mitty would come back! He should laugh at himself presently. + +In the mean while, and as it were in spite of himself, certain facts +were taking a new significance, were arranging themselves into an +unexpected, horrible sequence. Link joined itself to link, and +lengthened to a chain. + +He remembered his father's evident dislike of him; he remembered how +Colonel Tempest had contested the succession when he died. As he had +lost the case, John had supposed, when he came to an age to suppose +anything, that the slander was without foundation, especially as Mr. +Tempest had recognized him as his son. He had known of its existence, of +course, but, like the rest of the world, had half forgotten it. That +Lord Frederick Fane (evidently the Freddie of the letters) was even his +supposed father, had never crossed his mind. If he was like the Fanes, +why should he not be so? He might as naturally resemble his mother's as +his father's family. He recalled Colonel Tempest's inveterate dislike of +him, Archie's thankless reception of anything and everything he did for +him. + +"I believe," said John, in astonished recollection of divers passages +between himself and them--"I believe they think I know all the time, and +am deliberately keeping them out." + +That, then, was the reason why Mr. Tempest had not discarded him. To +recognize him as his son was his surest means of striking at the hated +brother who came next in the entail. + +"I was made use of," said John, grinding his teeth. + +It was no use fighting against it. This hideous, profane incredibility +was the truth. Even without the letters to read over again he knew it +was true. + +"Remember, if he casts it out, it is your child." The long-dead lips +still spoke. His mother had pronounced his doom herself. + +"I am illegitimate," said John to himself. And he remembered Di and hid +his face in his hands, while his mother simpered at him from the wall. +The solid earth had failed beneath his feet. + +Let us beware how we sin, inasmuch as by God's decree we do not pay. We +could almost conceive a right to do as we will, if we could keep the +penalty to ourselves, and pay to the uttermost farthing. But not from +us is the inevitable payment required. The young, the innocent, the +unborn, smart for us, are made bankrupt for us; from them is exacted the +deficit which we have left behind. The sins of the fathers are visited +on the children heavily--heavily. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + "What name doth Joy most borrow + When life is fair? + 'To-morrow.'" + GEORGE ELIOT. + + +On her hurried return to London the morning after the ice carnival, Di +found Mrs. Courtenay in that condition of illness, not necessarily +dangerous, in which the linseed poultice and the steam-kettle and the +complexion of the beef-tea are the objects of an all-absorbing interest, +to the exclusion of every other subject. + +Di was glad not to be questioned upon the one subject that was never +absent from her thoughts. As Mrs. Courtenay became convalescent she was +able to leave her for an hour or two, and pace in the quieter parts of +Kensington Gardens. Happiness, like sorrow, is easier to bear +out-of-doors, and Di had a lurking feeling that would hardly bear being +put into words, but was none the worse company for that, that the +crocuses and the first bird-note in the trees and the pale sky knew her +secret and rejoiced with her. + +John would come to her. He was getting well, and the first day he could +he would come to her, and tell her once more that he loved her. And she? +Impossible, incredible as it seemed, she should tell him that she loved +him too. Imagination stopped short there. Everything after that was a +complete blank. They would be engaged? They would be married? Other +people who loved did so. Words, mere words, applicable to "other +people," but not to her and John. Could such impossible happiness ever +come about? Never, never. She must be mad to think of such a thing. It +could not be. Yet it was so; it was coming, it was sure, this new, +incomprehensible, dreaded happiness, of which, now that it was almost +within her trembling hand, she hardly dared to think. + +"Di," said Mrs. Courtenay one afternoon, as she came in from her walk, +"there is a paragraph in the paper about John. He is going to contest +---- at the general election, in opposition to the present Radical +member. Did he say anything about it while you were at Overleigh? It +must have been arranged some time ago." + +"No, granny, he did not mention it." + +"I am glad he is taking part in politics at last. It is time. I may not +live to see it, but he will make his mark." + +"I am sure he will," said Di. + +Mrs. Courtenay looked in some perplexity at her granddaughter. It seemed +to her, from Di's account, that she had taken John's accident very +placidly. She had not forgotten the girl's apparent callousness when his +life had been endangered in the mine. It was very provoking to Mrs. +Courtenay that this beautiful creature, whom she had taken out for +nearly four years, seemed to have too much heart to be willing to marry +without love, and too little to fall genuinely in love. + +Mrs. Courtenay had gone to considerable expense in providing her with a +new and becoming morning-gown for that visit, and Di had managed to lose +one of the lace handkerchiefs she had lent her, and had come back +unengaged after all. Mrs. Courtenay, who had taken care to accept the +invitation for her without consulting her, and had ordered the gown in +spite of Di's remonstrances, felt keenly that if Di had refused John, +she had gone to that social gathering under false pretences. + +"Di," she said, "I seldom ask questions, but I have been wondering +during the last few days whether you have anything to tell me or not." + +Considering that this was not a question, it was certainly couched in a +form conducive to eliciting information. + +"I have, and I have not," said Di. "Of course I know what you expected, +but it did not happen." + +"You mean John did not propose to you?" + +"No, granny." + +Mrs. Courtenay was silent. She was prepared to be seriously annoyed with +Di, and it seemed John was in fault after all. There is no relaxation +for a natural irritability in being angry with a person a hundred miles +off. + +"I think he meant to," said Di, turning pink. + +Mrs. Courtenay saw the change of colour with surprise. + +"My dear," she said, "do you care for him?" + +"Yes," said Di, looking straight at her grandmother. + +"I am very thankful," said Mrs. Courtenay. "I have nothing left to wish +for." + +"I believe I have sometimes done you an injustice," she said +tremulously, after wiping her spectacles. "I thought you valued your own +freedom and independence too much to marry. It is difficult to advise +the young to give their love if they don't want to. Yet, as one grows +old, one sees that the very best things we women have lose all their +virtue if we keep them to ourselves. Our love if we withhold it, our +freedom if we retain it,--what are they later on in life but dead seed +in our hands? Our best is ours only to give. Our part is to give it to +some one who is worthy of it. I think John is worthy. I wish he had +managed to speak, and that it were all settled." + +"It is really settled," said Di. "Now and then I feel frightened, and +think I may have made a mistake, but I know all the time that is +foolish. I am certain he cares for me, and I am quite sure he knows I +care for him. Granny"--blushing furiously--"I often wish now that I had +not said quite so many idiotic things about love and marriage before I +knew anything about them. Do you remember how I used to favour you with +my views about them?" + +"I don't think they were exactly idiotic. Only the elect hesitate to +pronounce opinions on subjects of which they are ignorant. I have heard +extremely intelligent men say things quite as silly about housekeeping, +and the rearing of infants. You, like them, spoke according to your +lights, which were small. I don't know about charming men. There are not +any nowadays. But it is always + + '... a pity when charming women + Talk of things that they don't understand.'" + +"We should not have many subjects of conversation if we did not," said +Di. + +And the old woman and the young one embraced each other with tears in +their eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + "Oh, well for him whose will is strong!" + TENNYSON. + + +There come times in our lives when the mind lies broken on the revolving +wheel of our thought. "I am illegitimate." That was the one thought +which made John's bed for him at night, which followed him throughout +the spectral day until it brought him back to the spectral night again. + +It was a quiver in which were many poisoned arrows. Because the first +that struck him was well-nigh unbearable, the others did not fail to +reach their mark. + +If he were nameless and penniless, he could not marry Di. That was the +first arrow. Such marriages are possible only in books and in that +sacred profession which, in spite of numerous instances to the contrary, +believes that "the Lord will provide." Di would not be allowed to marry +him, even if she were willing to do so. And after a time--a long time, +perhaps--she would marry some one else, possibly Lord Hemsworth. + +John writhed. He had set his heart on this woman. He had bent her strong +will to love him as a proud woman only can. She had been hard to win, +but she was his as much as if they were already married; his by right, +as the living Galatea was by right the sculptor's, who gave her marble +heart the throbbing life and love of his own. + +"She is mine--I cannot give her up," he said aloud. + +There was no voice, nor any that answered. + +Strange how the ploughshare turns up little tags and ends of forgotten +rubbish buried by the mould of a few years' dust. + +One utterance of Archie's, absolutely forgotten till now, was +continually recurring to John's mind. Its barbed point rankled. + +"There must be a mint of money in an old barrack stuffed full of +gimcracks like this. If ever I wanted a hundred or two, I would trot out +one of those little silver Johnnies in no time if they were mine." + +And he would. If the thought of what Colonel Tempest and Archie would +achieve after his own death had stung John as Archie said that, how +should he bear to stand by and _see_ them do it? The books, the +pictures, the family manuscripts which he was even then arranging, the +jewels, the renowned diamond necklace that the Spanish government had +offered to buy from his grandfather, which he had hoped one day to +clasp on Di's neck--all the possessions of the past but almost regal +state of a great name, which he had kept with such a reverent hand--he +should live to see them cast right and left, lost, sold, squandered, +stolen. Archie would give the diamonds to the first actress who asked +for them. Colonel Tempest would be equally "open-handed." + +As the days went on, John shut his eyes to the pictures in the gallery +as he passed through it. A mute suspense and reproach seemed to hang +about the whole place. The Velasquez and the Titian peered at him. +Tempest of the Red Hand clutched his sword-hilt uneasily. Mieris' old +Dutch-woman seemed to have lost her interest in selling her marvellous +string of onions to the little boy. Ribalta's Spanish Jesuit fingered +the red cross of Santiago embroidered on his breast, and looked askance +at John. + +John turned back many times from the library door. The new books which +he had had bound in exact reproduction of a beautiful old missal of the +Tempest collection, and for the arrival of which he had been eagerly +waiting, remained untouched in their packing-cases. He could not look at +them. + +Once he went into the dining-hall, unused when he was alone, and opened +one of the ponderous shutters. The rich light pierced the solemn gloom, +catching the silver sconces on the wall and the silver figures standing +in the carved niches above the fireplace. + +"You will not give us up," they seemed to say; and the little cavalier +turned to his lady with a shake of his head. + +As John closed the shutter his eyes fell on the Tempest motto on the +pane, "Je le feray durant ma vie;" and it stabbed him like a knife. + +He went out into the open air like one pursued, and paced in the dead +forest waiting for the spring. All he had held so sacred meant nothing +then--nothing, nothing, nothing. The Tempest motto, round which he had +bound his life, round which his most solemn convictions and aspirations +had grown up, had nothing to do with him. He had been mocked. He, a +nameless bastard, the offspring of a mere common intrigue, had been +fooled into believing that he was John Tempest, the head of one of the +greatest families in England; that Overleigh belonged to him and he to +it as entirely as--nay, more than--his own hands and feet and eyes. + +It was as if he had been acting a serious part to the best of his +ability on a stage with many others, and suddenly they had all dropped +their masks and were grinning at him with satyr faces in grotesque +attitudes, and he found that he alone had mistaken a screaming farce, of +which he was the butt, for a drama of which he had imagined himself one +of the principal figures. + +John laughed a harsh wild laugh under the solemn overarching trees. +Everything, himself included, had undergone a hideous distortion. His +whole life was dislocated. His faith in God and man wavered. The +key-stone of his existence was gone from the arch, and the stones struck +him as they fell round him. The confusion was so great that for the +first few days he was incapable of action, incapable of reflection, +incapable of anything. + +_Mitty!_ That thought came next. That stung. He had nothing in the wide +world which he could call his own; no roof for Mitty, no fire to warm +her by. He was absolutely without means. His mother's small fortune he +had sunk in an annuity for Mr. Goodwin. What would become of Mitty? How +would she survive being uprooted from her little nest in the garret +gallery? How would she bear to see her lamb turned adrift upon the +world? Mitty was growing old, and her faithful love for him would make +the last years sorrowful which were so happy now. Oh, if he could only +wait till Mitty died! + +John had not wept a tear for himself, but he hid his face against the +trunk of one of the trees that were not his, and sobbed aloud at the +thought of Mitty. + +And next day came a letter from Archie, saying that Colonel Tempest was +at death's door in one of the London hospitals, owing to having +accidentally shot himself with a revolver. John sent money, much more +than was actually necessary, and drew breath. Nothing could be done +until Colonel Tempest was either convalescent or dead. He was reprieved +from telling Mitty anything for the moment. + +And as the spring was just beginning to whisper to the sleeping earth, +and the buds of the horse-chestnut to grow white and woolly beneath the +nursery windows, as John had seen them many and many a time--how or why +I know not, but with the waking of the year Mitty began to fail. + +She had never been ill in John's recollection. She had had "a bone in +her leg" occasionally, but excepting that mysterious ailment and a touch +of rheumatism in later years, Mitty had always been quite well. She was +not actually ill now, but---- + +It was useless to tell her not to "do" her nurseries herself, and to +positively forbid her to wash his socks and handkerchiefs. Mitty worked +exactly the same; and John with an ache at his heart came indoors every +day in time for nursery tea, and Mitty made him buttered toast, and was +happy beyond words; but I think her eyesight must have begun to fail +her, or she would have seen how grey and haggard the face of her "lamb" +became as the days went by. + + * * * * * + +Who shall say when a thought begins? Long before we see it, it was +there, but our eyes were holden. "L'amour commence par l'ombre." So do +many things besides love. + +_The letters were destroyed._ When did John think of that first, or +rather, when did he first hear it whispered? Why was his mind always +going back to that? + +He would not have burned them if he had taken time to consider, but the +first impulse to do with them as their writer had herself intended, had +been acted upon before he had even thought of their bearing upon himself +and others. + +At any rate they were gone--quite gone--sprinkled to the four winds of +heaven. + +_There was no other proof._ + +And his--no, not his father--Mr. Tempest, who knew all about him, had +intended him to be his heir. He had left him his name and his place, +with a solemn charge to do his duty by them. + +"I have done it," said John to himself, "as those two would never have +done. Shall I let all go to rack and ruin now? If I was not born a +Tempest I have become one. I _am_ one, and if I marry one my children +will be Tempests, and those two fools will not be suffered to pull +Overleigh stone from stone, and drag a great name into the dust; as they +would, as they assuredly would." + +Had not Mr. Tempest foreseen this when he exacted that solemn promise +from John on his death-bed to uphold the honour of the family? Could he +break that promise? And through the vain sophistries, upsetting them +all, a mad cry rang, "Di loves me! She loves me at last! I cannot give +her up!" + +The challenge was thrown out into the darkness. No one took it up. + +A fierce restlessness laid hold on John. He rushed up to London several +times to hear how Colonel Tempest was going on. Each time he told +himself that he was going to see Di. But although the first time he went +to Colonel Tempest's lodgings the servant informed him that Di was with +her father, he did not ask to see her. Each time he came back without +having dared to go to the little house in Kensington. He could not meet +those grave clear eyes with the new gentleness in them that went to his +head like wine. He knew they would make him forget everything, +everything except that he loved her, and would sell his very soul for +her. + +Time stopped. In all this enormous interval the buds of the +horse-chestnut had not yet burst to green. It was ages since he had seen +the first primrose, and yet to-day, as he walked in the woods on the day +after his return from another futile journey to London, they were all +out in the forest still. + +And something stirred within him that had not deigned to take notice of +all his feverish asseverations and wanderings, that had not rebuked him, +that had not even listened when he had said repeatedly that he could not +give up Di. + +By an invisible hand the challenge was taken up, and John knew the time +of conflict was at hand. + +He walked on and on, not knowing where he went, past the forest and the +meadowland, and away over the rolling moors, with only Lindo for his +companion. + +At last his newly returned strength failing him, he threw himself down +in the dry windswept heather. He had not outstripped his thoughts. This +was the appointed place. He knew it even as he flung himself down. His +hour was come. + +It was an April afternoon, pale and bleak. The late frost had come back, +and had silenced the birds. One only deeply in love, somewhere near at +hand, but invisible, repeated plaintively over and over again a small +bird-name in the silence of the shrinking spring. + +And John's heart said over and over again one little word-- + +"Di, Di, Di!" + +There are some sacrifices which partake of the nature of +self-mutilation. That is why principle often falls before the onslaught +of a deep human passion, which is nothing but the rebellion of human +nature brought to bay, against the execution upon itself of that dread +command of the spiritual nature, "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it +off." + +To give up certain affections is with some natures to give up all +possibility of the quickening into life of that latent maturer self that +craves for existence in each one of us. It is to take, for better for +worse, a more meagre form of life, destitute, not of happiness perhaps, +but of those common joys and sorrows which most of all bind us in +sympathy with our fellow-men. What marriage in itself is to the +majority, the love of one fellow-creature, and one only, is to the few. +To a few, happily a very few, there is only one hand that can minister +among the pressure of the crowd. There was none other woman in the world +for John, save only Di. Sayings common to vulgarity, profaned by every +breach of promise case, can yet be true sometimes. + +"Di, Di, Di!" said John. + +He tried to recall her face, but he could not. When they were together +he had not seen her; he had only felt her presence, only trembled at +each slight movement of her hands. He always watched them when he was +talking to her. He knew every movement of those strong, slender hands by +heart. She had a little way of opening and shutting her left hand as she +talked. He smiled even now as he thought of it. And she had a certain +wave in her hair just above the ear, that was not the same over the +other ear. But her face--no, he could not see her face. + +He tried again. They were sitting once again, he and she, not very near, +nor very far apart, in the low entresol room at Overleigh. He could see +her now. She was arranging the lilies of the valley, and he was saying +to himself, as he watched her with his chin in his hands, "This is only +the beginning. There will be many times like this, only dearer and +sweeter than this." + +Many times! That deep conviction had proved as false as all the rest--as +false as everything else which he had trusted. + +And all in a moment as he looked, as he remembered, was it endurance, +was it principle, that seemed to snap? + +He set his teeth and ground his heel into the earth. Agony had come upon +him. Passion, writhing in torment, rose gigantic without warning and +seized him in a Titan grip. It was a duel to the death. + + * * * * * + +John sat motionless in the solitude of the heather. The bird was silent. +On either hand the level moors met the level sky. Lindo walked in and +out in semi and total eclipse near at hand, now emerging life-size upon +a hillock, now visible only as an erect travelling tail amid the +heather. The sun came faintly out. There was a little speech of bees, a +little quivering among the poised spears of the tall bleached grasses +against the sky. + +Time passed. + +John's was not the easy faith which believes that in another world what +has been given up in this will be restored a thousandfold. The hope of +future reward had no more power to move him than the fear of future +punishment. The heaven of rewards of which those speak who have +authority, would be no heaven at all to many; a place from which the +noblest would turn away. Love worthy of the name, even down here, gives +all, asking nothing back. + +John did not try to define even to himself the faith by which he had +lived so far; but as the veiled sun stooped near and nearer to the west, +he began to see, as clearly as he saw the sword-grass shaking against +the sky, that he was about to remain true to it, or be false to it for +ever. + +Perhaps that faith was more than anything else a stern allegiance to the +Giver of that law within the heart which independent natures ever +recognize as the only true authority; which John had early elected to +obey, which he had obeyed with ease, till now. He had been condemned by +many as a freethinker; for to be obedient to the divine prompting has +ever been stigmatized as lawlessness by those who are obedient to a +written code. John had no code. + +Yet God, who made (if the tourists who cheaply move in flocks on beaten +highways could only believe it) those solitary, isolated natures, knew +what He was about. And to those to whom little human guidance is +vouchsafed He adds courage, and that self-reliance which comes only of a +deep-rooted faith in a God who will not keep silence, who will not +leave the traveller journeying towards Him unpiloted upon a lonely +shore, or ultimately suffer His least holy one to see corruption. + +John looked wildly round him. Even nature seemed to have turned against +him. It spoke of peace when there was no peace. For nature has no power +to mitigate the bitterness of that cup of self-surrender which even +Christ Himself, beneath the kindred stars of still Gethsemane, prayed +might pass from Him. + +John hid his convulsed face in his hands. + +The crises of life have their hour of loneliness and prostration, their +agony and bloody sweat. That cup which may not pass, how ennobling it is +to read of in the lives of others, how interesting to theorize upon in +our own; how appalling in actual experience, when it is in our hands to +drink or to refuse; refusing for ever with it, if we accept it not, the +hand of Him who offers it! + + * * * * * + +The solemn world of grey earth and sky waited. The light in the west +waited. How much longer were they to wait? How much longer would this +bowed figure sway itself to and fro? + +"I will do it!" said John suddenly, and with a harsh inarticulate cry he +flung himself down on his face among the heather, clutching the soft +earth; for the Hand of the God whom he would not deny was heavy on him. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + "The dead abide with us! Though stark and cold + Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still. + They have forged our chains of being for good or ill." + MATHILDE BLIND. + + +John was late. Mitty looked out several times to see if he were coming, +and then put down the tea-cake to the fire. + +At last his step came slowly along the garret gallery, and Lindo, who +approved of nursery tea, walked in first, his dignity somewhat impaired +by a brier hanging from his back flounce. + +John saw the firelight through the open door, and the figure in the low +chair waiting for him. She had heard him coming, and was getting +stiffly up to make the tea. + +"Mitty, you should not wait for me," he said, sitting down in his own +place by the fire. + +Would they let her keep the brass kettle and her silver teapot? Yes, no +doubt they would; but somebody would have to ask. He supposed he should +be that somebody. Everything she possessed had been bought by himself +with other people's money. + +He let the tea last as long as possible. If Lindo had more than his +share of tea-cake, no one was the wiser. At last Mitty cleared away, and +sat down in the rocking-chair. + +"Don't light the candles, Mitty." + +"Why not, my dear? I can't be settin' with my hands before me, and holes +in your socks a shame to be seen." + +John came and sat down on the floor beside her, and leaned his head +against her. + +"Never mind the socks just now. There is something I want to talk to you +about." + +He looked at the fire through the bars of the high nursery fender, and +something in its glimmer, seen from so near the floor through the +remembered pattern of the wires which he had lost sight of for twenty +years, suddenly recalled the times when he had sat on the hearthrug, as +he was sitting now, with his head against Mitty's knee, confiding to her +what he would do when he was a man. + +"Do you remember, Mitty," he said, "how I used to tell you that when I +grew up you should ride in a carriage, and have a gold brooch, and a +clock that played a tune?" + +"I remember, my darling; and how, next time Charles went into York, you +give him all you had, and half a crown it was, to buy me a brooch, and +the silly staring fool went and spent it, and brought back that great +thing with the mock stones in. And you was as pleased as pleased. Eh! I +was angry with Charles for taking your bits of money, and all he said +was, 'Well, Mrs. Emson, I went to a many shops, and I give five +shillin's for it so as to get a big un.'" + +"I remember it," said John. "It was about the size of a small poultice. +And so Charles paid half. Good old Charles! I seem to have been much +deceived in my youth." + +His deep-set eyes watched the fire, watched the semblance of a little +castle in the heart of the glow. Mitty was quite happy with her +darling's head against her knee. + +"When the castle falls in I will tell her," said John to himself. + +But the fire had settled itself. The castle held. At last Mitty put out +her hand, and gave it a poke; not with the brass poker, of course, but +with a little black slave which did that polished aristocrat's work for +it. + +"Mitty," said John, "I am not so rich now as when I was in pinafores; +and even then, you see, the brooch was not bought with my own money. +Charles gave half. I have never given you anything that was paid for +with my own money. I have been spending other people's all my life." + +"Why, bless your dear heart!" said Mitty; "and who gave me my silver +teapot, I should like to know, and the ivory workbox, and that very +kettle a-staring you in the face, and the Wedgwood tea-things, and--and +everything, if it was not you?" + +John did not answer. His face twitched. + +The bars of the fender were blurred. The brass kettle, instead of +staring him in the face, melted quite away. + +Mitty stroked his head and face. + +"Cryin'!" she said--"my lamby cryin'!" + +"Not for myself, Mitty." + +"Who for, then? For that Miss Dinah?" + +"No, Mitty, for you. This is no home for you and me." He took her hard +hand and rubbed his cheek against it. "It belongs to Colonel Tempest. I +am not my father's son, Mitty." + +"Well, my precious," said Mitty, soothingly, in no wise discomposed by +what John feared would have quite overwhelmed her, "and if your poor +mammy did say as much to me when she was light-headed, when her pains +was on her, there's no call to fret about that, seeing it's a long time +ago, and her dead and all. Poor thing! I can see her now, with her +pretty eyes and her little hands, and she'd put her head against me and +say, 'Nursey' (Nursey I was to her), 'I'm not fit neither to live nor to +die.' Many and many's the night I've roared to think of her after she +was gone, when you was asleep in your crib. But there's no need for you +to fret, my deary." + +John's heart contracted. Mitty knew also. Oh, if he might but have +started life knowing what even Mitty knew! + +"They'd no business to marry her to Mr. Tempest," continued Mitty, +shaking her head, "and she, poor thing, idolizing that black Lord Fane, +as was her first cousin. It wasn't likely, after that, she'd settle to +Mr. Tempest, who was as light as tow. It was against nature. She never +took a bit of interest in him, nor him in her neither, that I could see. +A hard man he was, too--a hard man. She sent for him when she was dying. +She would not see him while there was any chance. 'Forgive me,' she +says; she says it over and over, me holding her up. 'I wouldn't ask it +if I was staying, but I'm doing the best I can by dying. It's not much +to make up, but it's the best I can. And,' she says, 'don't think, Jack, +as all women are bad like me. There's a many good ones as 'ull make you +happy yet when I'm gone.' I can see him now, standing by her, looking +past her out of the window with his face like a flint. 'I've known two +false ones,' he says; and he went away without another word. And she +says after a bit to me, 'I've always been frightened at the very thought +of dying, but it's living I'm frightened of now.' Eh! Master John, your +poor mammy! She did repent. And Mr. Tempest sent for me to the library +after the funeral, and he says, 'Promise me, nurse, that you'll never +repeat what your mistress said to me when she was not herself.' And he +looked hard at me, and I promised. And I've never breathed it to any +living soul, not to one I haven't, from that day to this." + +"I found it out three weeks ago," said John. "And as I am not Mr. +Tempest's son, everything I have belongs by right to Colonel Tempest, +the next heir, not to me. Overleigh is not mine. It never was mine." + +But Mitty could not be made to understand what his mother's frailty had +to do with John. When at last she grasped the idea that John would make +known the fact that he was not his father's son, she was simply +incredulous that her lamb could do such a thing--could bring shame upon +his own mother. No, whatever else he might do, he would never do that. +Why, Mrs. Alcock would know; and friends as she was with Mrs. Alcock, +and had been for years, such a word had never passed her lips. And the +people in the village, and the trades-people, and Jones and Evans from +York, who were putting up the new curtains,--everybody would know. Mitty +became quite agitated. Surely, surely, he'd never tell against his poor +mother in her grave. + +"Mitty," said John, forcing himself to repeat what it had been +difficult enough to say once, "don't you see that I can't stay here and +keep what is not mine? Nothing is mine if I am not Mr. Tempest's son. I +ought never to have been called so. We must go away." + +But Mitty was perplexed. + +"Not to that great weary house in London," she said anxiously, "with +every spot of water to carry up from the bottom?" + +"That is not mine either," said John in despair, rising to his feet and +standing before her. "Oh, Mitty, try and understand. Nothing is +mine--nothing, nothing, nothing; not even the clothes I have on. I am a +beggar." + +Mitty looked at him in a dazed way. She could not understand, but she +could believe. Her chin began to tremble. + +It was almost a relief to see at last the tears which he had dreaded +from the first. "My lamb a beggar," she said over and over again; and +she cried a little, but not much. Mitty was getting old, and she was not +able to realize a change--a change so incomprehensible as this. + +"But we need not be unhappy," said John, kneeling down by her, and +putting his arms round her. "We shall be together still. Wherever I go +you will go with me. I don't know yet where it will be, but we shall +have a little home together somewhere, just you and I; and you'll do my +socks and handkerchiefs, won't you, Mitty? and"--John controlled his +voice, but he hid his face in her lap that she might not see it--"we'll +be so happy together." At the moment I think John would have given up +heaven itself to make that hour smooth to Mitty. "And your cakes, +Mitty," he went on hoarsely. "They are better than any one else's. You +shall have a little kitchen, and you will make the cakes yourself, +won't you? and the"--his voice stumbled heavily--"the rock buns." + +"My precious," said Mitty, sobbing, "don't you fret yourself! I can make +a many things besides them; Albert puddings and moulds, and them little +cheese straws, and a sight of things. There's a deal of work in my old +hands yet. It's only the spring as has took the starch out of me. I +always feel a sinking in the spring. Lord, my darling, the times and +times again I've been settin' here just dithering with a mossel of +crotchet, or idling over a bit of reading, and wishing you was having a +set of nightshirts to make!" + +Love had found out the way. John had appealed to the right instinct. +Mitty was already busying herself with a future in which she should +minister to her child's comfort, and John saw, with a relief that was +half a pang, that the calamity of his life held hardly any place in the +heart that loved him so much. + +"I've a sight of things," continued Mitty, wiping her eyes. "Books and +pictures and cushions put away. My precious shall not go short. And +there's two pair of linen sheets as I bought with my own money, and +piller-slips to match, and six silver teaspoons and one dessert. My lamb +shall have things comfortable about him." + +She fell to communing with herself. John did not speak. + +"I'll leave my places tidy," said Mitty. "Tidy I didn't find 'em, but +tidy I'll leave 'em. I can't go till after the spring cleaning, Master +John. I'll never trust that Fanny to do the scrubbing unless I'm behind +her. I caught her washing round the mats instead of under only last +week." + +John felt unable to enter into the question of the spring cleaning. +There was another silence. + +At last Mitty said defiantly, "And I shall take your morroccy shoes, and +your little chair as I give you myself. I don't care what anybody says, +I shall take 'em. And the old horse and the Noey's ark." + +"It will be all right," said John, getting slowly to his feet. "Nobody +will want to have them, or anything of mine;" and he kissed her, and +went out. + +He went to the library and sat down by the fire. + +The resolution and aspiration of a few hours ago--where were they now? +He felt broken in body and soul. + +Lindo came in, nibbled John's elbow, and scrutinized the fire. John +scratched him absently on the top of his back between the tufts. + +"Lindo," he said, "the world is a hard place to live in." + +But Lindo, bulging with an unusual allowance of tea-cake, and winnowing +the air with an appreciative hind leg, did not think so. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + "Et souvent au moment où l'on croyait tenir + Une espérance, on voit que c'est un souvenir." + VICTOR HUGO. + + +When Colonel Tempest lay in a precarious condition owing to the +unexpected explosion of a revolver which he was taking to his gun-maker, +and which he believed to be unloaded--when this fatality occurred, Mrs. +Courtenay somewhat relaxed the stringency of her usual demeanour to him, +and allowed his daughter to be with him constantly in the hospital to +which he was first conveyed, and afterwards in his rooms in Brook Street +when he was sufficiently convalescent to be conveyed thither. + +Colonel Tempest was a trying patient; in one sense he was not a patient +at all; melting into querulous tears when denied a sardine on toast for +which his soul thirsted, the application of which would infallibly have +separated his soul from his body; and bemoaning continually, when +consciousness was vouchsafed to him, the neglect of his children and the +callousness of his friends. Di bore it with equanimity. It is only true +accusations which one feels obliged to contradict. She did not love her +father, and his continual appeals to her pity and filial devotion +touched her but little. Colonel Tempest confided to his nurse in the +night-watches that he was the parent of heartless children, and when Di +took her place in the daytime, reviled the nurse's greed, who, whether +he was suffering or not, could eat a large meal in the middle of the +night. + +"I hate nurses," he would say. "Your poor mother had such a horrid nurse +when Archie was born. I could not bear her, always making difficulties +and restrictions, and locking the door, and then complaining to the +doctor because I rattled the lock. I urged your mother to part with her +whenever she was not in the room. But she only cried, and said she could +not do without her, and that she was kind to her. That was your mother +all over. She always sided against me. I must say she knew the value of +tears, did your poor mother. She cried herself into hysterics when I +rang the front door bell at four in the morning because I had gone out +without a latch-key. I suppose she expected me to sit all night on the +step. And first the nurse and then the doctor spoke to me about +agitating her, and said it was doing her harm; so I just walked +straight out of the house, and never set foot in it again for a month +till they had both cleared out. They overreached themselves that time." + +Archie, who looked in once a day for the space of ten seconds, came in +for the largest share of Colonel Tempest's reproaches. + +"I don't like sick people," that young gentleman was wont to remark. +"Don't understand 'em. No use. Nursing not in my line. Better out of the +way." + +So, with the consideration of his kind, he was so good as to keep out of +it, while Colonel Tempest wept salt tears into his already too salt +beef-tea (it was always too salt or not salt enough), and remarked with +bitterness that he could have fancied a sardine, and that other people's +sons nursed their parents when they were at death's door. Young +Grandcourt had never left _his_ father's bedside for three weeks when +he had pneumonia; but Archie, it seemed, was different. + +"My children are not much comfort to me," he told the doctor as +regularly as he put out his tongue. + +"John might have come," he said one day to Di. "He got out of it by +sending a cheque, but I think he might have taken the trouble just to +come and see whether I was alive or dead." + +"John is ill himself," said Di. + +"John is always ill," said Colonel Tempest, fretfully, with the +half-memory of convalescence--"always ailing and coddling himself; and +yet he has twice my physique. John grows coarse-looking--very coarse. I +fancy he is a large eater. I remember he was ill in the summer. I went +to see him. I was always sitting with him; and there did not seem to be +much the matter with him. I think he gives way." + +"Perhaps it is a family failing," said Di, who was beginning to discover +what a continual bottling up and corking down of effervescent irritation +is comprised under the name of patience. + +How many weeks was it after Di's return to London when a cloud no larger +than a man's hand arose on the clear horizon of that secret happiness +which no amount of querulousness on Colonel Tempest's part could +effectually dim? It was a very small cloud. It took the shape of a card +with John's name on it, who had come to Brook Street to inquire after +his uncle. + +"He is in London. He will call this afternoon," said Di to herself; and +as Colonel Tempest happened to be too sleepy to wish to be read to, she +left him early in the afternoon, and hurried home. And she and Mrs. +Courtenay sat indoors all that afternoon, though they had been lent a +carriage, and they waited to make tea till after the time; and whenever +the door bell rang, Mrs. Courtenay's hands shook quite as much as Di's. +And aimless, foolish persons called, but John did not call. + +"He is ill," said Mrs. Courtenay in the dusk, "or he has been prevented +coming. There is some reason. He will write." + +"Yes," said Di, "he will come when he can." But nevertheless a little +shiver of doubt crept into her heart for the first time. "If I had been +in his place," she said to herself, "I should have come ill or well, and +I should _not_ have been prevented." + +She put the thought aside instantly as unreasonable, but the shy dread +she had previously felt of meeting him changed to a restless longing +just to see him, just to be reassured. + +To be loved by one we love is, after all, so incredible a revelation +that it is not wonderful that human nature seeks after a sign. Only a +great self-esteem finds love easy to believe in. + +The days passed, and linked themselves to weeks. Was it fancy, or did +Mrs. Courtenay become graver day by day? and Di remembered with +misgiving a certain note which she had written to John the morning she +left Overleigh. The little cloud grew. + + * * * * * + +One afternoon Di came in rather later than usual, and after a glance +round the room, which had become habitual to her, sat down by her +grandmother, and poured out tea. + +"Any callers, granny?" + +"One--Archie." + +Di sighed. Coming home had always the possibility in it of finding some +one sitting in the drawing-room, or a note on the hall table. Yet +neither possibility happened. + +"Archie came to say that the doctor thinks your father does not gain +ground, and that he might be moved to the seaside with advantage. He +wanted to know whether you could go with him. He can't get leave himself +for more than a couple of days. I said I would allow you to do so, if he +took your father down himself, and got him settled. He can do that in +two days, and he ought to take his share. He has left everything to you +so far. He mentioned," continued Mrs. Courtenay with an effort, "that he +had met John at the Carlton yesterday, and that he was all right, and +able to go about again as usual. He went back to Overleigh to-day." + +There was a long silence. + +"What do you think, granny?" said Di at last. + +"How long is it since you were at Overleigh?" + +"Two months." + +"When you were there did you allow John to see that you had changed your +mind, or were you friendly with him, as you used to be? Nothing +discourages men so much as that." + +"No; I tried to be, but I could not. I don't know what I was, except +very uncomfortable." + +"Had he any real opportunity of speaking to you without interruption?" + +Di remembered the half-hour in the entresol sitting-room. It had never +occurred to her till that moment that certainly, if he had wished to do +so, he could have spoken to her then. + +"Yes," she said, "he had; and," she added, "I am sure he knew I liked +him. If he did not know it then, I am quite sure he knows it now. I +wrote a note." + +"What kind of note?" + +"Oh, granny, that is just it. I don't know what kind it was. It seemed +natural at the time. I can't remember exactly what I said. I've tried +to, often. It was written in such a hurry, for you telegraphed for me, +and I had been up all night waiting to hear whether he was to live or +die, and it was so dreadful to have to go away without a word." + +Mrs. Courtenay leaned back in her chair. She seemed tired. + +"Tell me what you think," said Di again. + +"I think," said Mrs. Courtenay, "that if John had been seriously +attached to you, he would either have come, or have answered your letter +by this time. I am afraid we have made a mistake." + +Di did not answer. The world was crumbling down around her. + +"I may be making one now," said Mrs. Courtenay; "but it appears to me he +has had every opportunity given him, and he has made no use of them. +Men worth their salt _make_ their opportunities, but if they don't even +take them when they are ready-made to their hand, they cannot be in +earnest. Women don't realize what a hateful position a man is in who is +deeply in love, and who has no knowledge of whether it is returned or +not. He won't remain in it any longer than he can help." + +"John is not in that position," said Di, colouring painfully. "Granny, +why don't you reproach me for writing that letter?" + +"Because, my dear, though I regret it more than I can say, I should have +done the same in your place." + +"And--and what would you do _now_ in my place?" + +"This," said Mrs. Courtenay. "You cannot dismiss the subject from your +mind, but whenever it comes into your thoughts, hold steadily before +you the one fact that he is certainly aware you are attached to him, and +he has not acted on that knowledge." + +"They say men don't care for anything when once they know they can have +it," said Di hoarsely, pride wringing the words out of her. "Perhaps +John is like that. He knows I--am only waiting to be asked." + +"Fools say many things," returned Mrs. Courtenay. "That is about as true +as that women don't care for their children when they get them. A few +unnatural ones don't; the others do. I have seen much trouble caused by +love affairs. After middle life most people decry them, especially those +who have had superficial ones themselves; for there is seldom any love +at all in the mutual attraction of two young people, and the elders know +very well that if it is judiciously checked it can also be judiciously +replaced by something else. But a real love which comes to nothing is +more like the death of an only child than anything else. It _is_ a +death. The great thing is to regard it so. I have known women go on year +after year waiting, as we have been doing during the last two months, +refusing to believe in its death; believing, instead, in some +misunderstanding; building up theories to account for alienation; +clinging to the idea that things might have turned out differently if +only So-and-so had been more tactful, if they had not refused a certain +invitation, if something they had said which might yet be explained had +not been misconstrued. And all the time there is no misunderstanding, no +need of explanation. The position is simple enough. No man is daunted by +such things except in women's imaginations. What men want they will try +to obtain, unless there is some positive bar, such as poverty. And if +they don't try, remember the inference is _sure_, that they don't +really want it." + +Di did not answer. Her face had taken a set look, which for the first +time reminded Mrs. Courtenay of her mother. She had often seen the other +Diana look like that. + +"My child," she said, stretching out her soft old hand, and laying it on +the cold clenched one, "a death even of what is dearest to us, and a +funeral and a headstone to mark the place, hard as it is, is as nothing +compared to the death in life of an existence which is always dragging +about a corpse. I have seen that not once nor twice. I want to save you +from that." + +Di laid her face for a moment on the kind hand. + +"I will bury my dead," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + "And now we believe in evil + Where once we believed in good. + The world, the flesh, and the devil + Are easily understood." + GORDON. + + +It seems a pity that our human destinies are too often so constituted +that with our own hands we may annul in one hour--our hour of +weakness--the long, slow work of our strength; annul the self-conquest +and the renunciation of our best years. We ought to be thankful when the +gate of the irrevocable closes behind us, and the power to defeat +ourselves is at last taken from us. For he who has once solemnly and +with conviction renounced, and then, for no new cause, has taken to +himself again that which he renounced, has broken the mainspring of his +life. + +John went early the following morning to London, for he had business +with three men, and he could not rest till he had seen them, and had +shut that gate upon himself for ever. + +So early had he started that it was barely midday when he reached Lord +Frederick's chambers. The valet told him that his lordship was still in +bed, and could see no one; but John went up to his bedroom, and knocked +at the door. + +"It is I--John Tempest," he said, and went in. + +Lord Frederick was sitting up in bed, sallow and shrunk like a mummy, in +a blue watered-silk dressing-gown. His thin hair was brushed up into a +crest on the top of his head. The bed was littered with newspapers and +letters. There was a tray before him, and he was in the act of chipping +an egg as John came in. + +He raised his eyebrows and looked first with surprised displeasure, and +then with attention, at his visitor. + +"Good morning," he said; and he went on tapping his egg. "Ah," he said, +shaking his head, "hard-boiled again!" + +John looked at him as a plague-stricken man might look at the carcase of +some obscene animal found rotting in his water-spring. + +Lord Frederick's varied experiences had made him familiar with the +premonitory symptoms of those outbursts of anger and distress which he +designated under the all-embracing term of "scenes." He felt idly +curious to know what this man with his fierce white face had to say to +him. + +"Oblige me by sitting down," he said; "you are in my light." + +"I have been reading my mother's letters to you," said John, still +standing in the middle of the room, and stammering in his speech. He had +not reckoned for the blind paroxysm of rage which had sprung up at the +mere sight of Lord Frederick, and was spinning him like a leaf in a +whirlwind. + +"Indeed!" said Lord Frederick, raising his eyebrows, and carefully +taking the shell off his egg. "I don't care about reading old letters +myself, especially the private correspondence of other people; but +tastes differ. You do, it seems. I had imagined the particular letters +you allude to had been burnt." + +"My mother intended to burn them." + +"It would certainly have been wiser to do so, but probably for that +reason they remained undestroyed. From time immemorial womankind has +shown a marked repugnance to the dictates of common sense." + +"I have burnt them." + +"Just so," said Lord Frederick, helping himself to salt. "I commend your +prudence. Had you burnt them unread, I should have been able to commend +your sense of honour also." + +"What do you know about honour?" said John. + +The two men looked hard at each other. + +"That remark," said Lord Frederick, joining the ends of his fingers and +half shutting his eyes, "is a direct insult. To insult a man with whom +you are not in a position to quarrel is, in my opinion, John, an error +of judgment. We will consider it one, and as such I will let it pass. +The letters, I presume, contained nothing of which you were not already +aware?" + +"Only the fact that I am your illegitimate son." + +"I deplore your coarseness of expression. You certainly have not +inherited it from me. But, my dear Galahad, it is impossible that even +your youth and innocence should not have known of my _tendresse_ for +your mother." + +"Is that the last new name for adultery?" said John huskily, advancing a +step nearer the bed. His face was livid. His eyes burned. He held his +hands clenched lest they should rush out and wrench away all semblance +of life and humanity from that figure in the watered-silk dressing-gown. + +Lord Frederick lay back on his pillows, and looked at him steadily. He +was without fear, but it appeared to him that he was about to die. The +laws of his country, of conscience and of principle, all the protection +that envelops life, seemed to have receded from him, to have slipped +away into the next room, or downstairs with the valet. They would come +back, no doubt, in time, but they might be a little late, as far as he +was concerned. + +"He has strong hands, like mine," he said to himself, his pale, +unflinching eyes fixed upon his son's; while a remembrance slid through +his mind of how once, years ago, he had choked the life out of a mastiff +which had turned on him, and how long the heavy brute had taken to die. + +"Do not spill the coffee," he said quietly, after a moment. + +John started violently, and wheeled away from him like a man regaining +consciousness on the brink of an abyss. Lord Frederick put out his lean +hand, and went on with his breakfast. + +There was a long silence. + +"John," said Lord Frederick at last, not without a certain dignity, +"the world is as it is. We did not make it, and we are not responsible +for it. If there is any one who set it going, it is his own look out. +Reproach _him_, if you can find him. All we have to do is to live in it. +And we can't live in it, I tell you we can't exist in it, with any +comfort until we realize that it is rotten to the core." + +John was leaning against the window-sill shaking like a reed. It seemed +to him that for one awful moment he had been in hell. + +"I do not pretend to be better than other men," continued Lord +Frederick. "Men and women are men and women; and if you persist in +thinking them angels, especially the latter, you will pay for your +mistake." + +"I am paying," said John. + +"Possibly. You seem to have sustained a shock. It is incredible to me +that you did not know beforehand what the letters told you. +Wedding-rings don't make a greater resemblance between father and son +than there is between you and me." + +Lord Frederick looked at the stooping figure of the young man, leaning +spent and motionless against the window, his arms hanging by his sides. +He held what he called his prudishness in contempt, but he respected an +element in him which he would have termed "grit." + +"You are stronger built than I am, John," he said, with a touch of +pride, "and wider in the chest. Come, bygones are bygones. Shake hands." + +"I can't," said John. "I don't know that I could on my account, but +anyhow not on _hers_." + +"H'm! And so this was the information which you rushed in without leave +to spring upon me?" + +"It was, together with the fact that of course I withdraw in favour of +Colonel Tempest, the heir at law. I am going on to him from here." + +Lord Frederick reared himself slowly in his bed, his brown hands +clutching the bedclothes like eagles' talons. + +"You are going to own your----" + +"_My_ shame--yes; not yours. You need not be alarmed. Your name shall +not be brought in. If I take the name of Fane, it will only be because +it was my mother's." + +"But you said you had burned the letters." + +"I have. I don't see what difference that makes. The fact that they are +burnt does not alter the fact that I am--nobody, and he is the legal +heir." + +"And you mean to tell him so?" + +"I do." + +"To commit suicide?" + +"Social suicide--yes." + +"Fool!" said Lord Frederick, in a voice which lost none of its force +because it was barely above a whisper. + +John did not answer. + +"Leave the room," said the outraged parent, turning his face to the +wall, the bedclothes and the tray trembling exceedingly. "I will have +nothing more to do with you. You need not come to me when you are +penniless. Do you hear? I disown you. Leave me. I will never speak to +you again." + +"I hope to God you never will," said John; and he took up his hat and +went out. + +He had settled his account with the first of the three people whom he +had come to London to see. From Lord Frederick's chambers he went +straight to Colonel Tempest's lodgings in Brook Street. But Colonel +Tempest had that morning departed with his son to Brighton, and John, +momentarily thrown off his line of action by that simple occurrence, +stared blankly at the landlady, and then went to his club and sat down +to write to him. There was no question of waiting. Like a man walking +across Niagara on a tight rope, it was no time to think, to hesitate, to +look round. John kept his eyes riveted to one point, and shut his ears +to the roar of the torrent below him, in which a moment's giddiness +would engulf him. + +It was afternoon by this time. As he sat writing at a table in one of +the bay windows, a familiar voice spoke to him. It was Lord Hemsworth. +They had not met since the night of the ice carnival. Lord Hemsworth's +face had quite lost its boyish expression. + +"I hope you are better, Tempest," he said, with obvious constraint, +looking narrowly at him. Could Di's accepted lover wear so grey and +stern a look as this? + +John replied that he was well; and then, with sudden recollection of +Mitty's account of Lord Hemsworth's conduct during that memorable night, +began to thank him, and stopped short. + +The room was empty. + +"It was on _her_ account," said Lord Hemsworth. + +John did not answer. It was that conviction which had pulled him up. + +Lord Hemsworth waited some time for John to speak, and then he said-- + +"You know about me, Tempest, and why I was on the ice that night. Well, +I have kept out of the way for three months under the belief that--I +should hear any day that---- I am not such a fool as to pit myself +against you--I don't want to be a nuisance to---- But it's three months. +For God's sake tell me; are you on or are you not?" + +"I am not," said John. + +"Then I will try my luck," said the other. + +He went out, and John knew that he had gone to try it there and then; +and sat motionless, with his hand across his mouth and his unfinished +letter before him, until the servant came to close the shutters. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + "We live together years and years, + And leave unsounded still + Each other's springs of hopes and fears, + Each other's depths of will." + LORD HOUGHTON. + + +But still more bewildering is the way in which we live years and years +with ourselves in an entire ignorance of the powers that lie dormant +beneath the surface of character. The day comes when vital forces of +which we know nothing arise within us, and break like glass the even +tenor of our lives. The quiet hours, the regulated thoughts, the +peaceful aspiration after things but little set above us, where are +they? The angel with the sword drives us out of our Eden to shiver in +the wilderness of an entirely changed existence, unrecognizable by +ourselves, though perhaps lived in the same external groove, the same +divisions of time, among the same faces as before. + +Day succeeded day in Di's life, each day adding one more stone to the +prison in which it seemed as if an inexorable hand were walling her up. + +"I will not give in. I will turn my mind to other things," she said to +herself. And--there were no other things. All lesser lights were blown +out. The heart, when it is swept into the grasp of a great love, is +ruthlessly torn from the hundred minute ties and interests that +heretofore held it to life. The little fibres and tendrils of affections +which have gradually grown round certain objects are snapped off from +the roots. They cease to exist. The pang of love is that there is no +escape from it. It has the same tension as sleeplessness. + +Di struggled and was not defeated; but some victories are as sad as +defeats. During the struggle she lost something--what was it--that had +been to many her greatest charm? Women were unanimous in deploring how +she had "gone off." There was a thinness in her cheek, and a blue line +under her deep eyes. Her beauty remained, but it was not the same +beauty. Mrs. Courtenay noticed with a pang that she was growing like her +mother. + +Easter came, and with it the wedding of Miss Crupps and the Honourable +Augustus Lumley, youngest son of Lord Mortgage. Miss Crupps' young heart +had long inclined towards Mr. Lumley; but on the occasion of seeing him +blacked as a Christy Minstrel, she had finally succumbed into a state +of giggling admiration, which plainly showed the state of her +affections. So he cut the word "yes" out of a newspaper, and told her +that was what she was to say to him, and amid a series of delighted +cackles they were engaged. Di went to the wedding, looking so pale that +it was whispered that Mr. Lumley and his tambourine had won her heart as +well as that of his adoring bride. + +On a sunny afternoon shortly afterwards, Di was sitting alone indoors, +her grandmother having gone out driving with a friend. She told herself +that she ought to go out, but she remained sitting with her hands in her +lap. Every duty, every tiny decision, every small household matter, had +become of late an intolerable burden. Even to put a handful of flowers +into water required an effort of will which it was irksome to make. + +She had stayed in to make an alteration in the gown she was to wear +that night at the Speaker's. As she looked at the card to make sure it +was the right evening, she remembered that it was at the Speaker's she +had first met John, just a year ago. One year. How absurd! Five, ten, +fifteen! She tried to recollect what her life could have been like +before he had come into it; but it seemed to start from that point, and +to have had no significance before. + +"I must go out," she said again; and at that moment the door bell rang, +and although Mrs. Courtenay was out, some one was admitted. The door +opened, and Lord Hemsworth was announced. + +There is, but men are fortunately not in a position to be aware of it, a +lamentable uniformity in their manner of opening up certain subjects. Di +knew in a moment from previous experience what he had come for. He +wondered, as he stumbled through a labyrinth of platitudes about the +weather, how he could broach the subject without alarming her. He did +not know that he had done so by his manner of coming into the room, and +that he had been refused before he had finished shaking hands. + +Di was horribly sorry for him while he talked about--whatever he did +talk about. Neither noticed what it was at the time, or remembered it +afterwards. She was grateful to him for not alluding even in the most +distant manner to their last meeting. She remembered that she had clung +to him, and that he had called her by her Christian name, but she was +too callous to be ashamed at the recollection. It was as nothing +compared to another humiliation which had come upon her a little later. + +"It is no good beating about the bush," said Lord Hemsworth at last, +after he had beaten it till there was, so to speak, nothing left of it. +"I have come up to London for one thing, and I have come here for one +thing, which is--to ask you to marry me. Don't speak--don't say anything +just for a moment," he continued hurriedly, raising his hand as if to +ward off a rebuff. "For God's sake don't stop me. I've kept it in so +long I must say it, and you must hear me." + +She let him say it. And he got it out with stumbling and difficulty and +long gaps between--got out in shaking commonplaces a tithe of the love +he had for her. And all the time Di thought if it might only have been +some one else who was uttering those halting words! (I wonder how many +men have proposed and been accepted while the woman has said to herself, +"If it had only been some one else!") + +Despair at his inability to express himself, and at her silence, seized +him: as if it mattered a pin how he expressed himself if she had been +willing to listen. + +"If you understood," he said over and over again, with the monotonous +reiteration of a piano-tuner, "you would not refuse me. I know you are +going to, but if only you understood you would not. You would not have +the heart. It's--it's just everything to me." And Lord Hemsworth--oh, +bathos of modern life!--looked into his hat. + +"Lord Hemsworth," said Di, "have I ever given you any encouragement?" + +"None," he replied. "People might think you had, but you never did. I +knew better. I never misunderstood you. I know you don't care a straw +about me; but--oh, Di, you have not your equal in the world. There's no +woman to compare with you. I don't see how you could care for any one +like me. Of course you don't. I would not expect it. But if--if you +would only marry me--I would be content with very little. I've looked +at it all round. I would be content with--very little." + +There was a long silence. + +What woman whose love has been slighted can easily reject a great +devotion? + +"I think," said Di, after several false starts to speak, "that if I only +considered myself I would marry you; but there is the happiness of one +other person to think of--_yours_." + +"I can't have any apart from you." + +"You would have none with me. If it is miserable to care for any one who +is indifferent, it would be a thousand times more miserable to be +married to that person." + +"Not if it were you." + +"Yes, if it were I." + +"I would take the risk," said Lord Hemsworth, who held, in common with +most men, the rooted conviction that a woman will become attached to +any husband, however little she cares for her lover. It is precisely +this conviction which makes the average marriages of the present day +such mediocre affairs; which serves to place worldly or facile women, or +those whose affections have never been called out, at the head of so +many homes; as the mothers of the new generation from which we hope so +much. + +"I would take any risk," repeated Lord Hemsworth, doggedly. "I would +rather be unhappy with you than happy with any one else." + +"You think so now," said Di; "but the time would come when you would see +that I had cut you off from the best thing in the world--from the love +of a woman who would care for you as much as you do for me." + +"I don't want her. I want you." + +"I cannot marry you." + +Lord Hemsworth clutched blindly at the arms of the chair. + +"I would wait any time." + +Di shook her head. + +"Any time," he stammered. "Go away for a year, and--come back." + +"It would be no good." + +Then he lost his head. + +"So long as you don't care for any one else," he said incoherently. "I +thought at the carnival--that is why I have kept out of the way--but I +met Tempest to-day at the Carlton, and--I asked him straight out, and he +said there was nothing between you and him. I suppose you have refused +him, like the rest of us. Oh, my God, Di, they say you have no heart! +But it isn't true, is it? Don't refuse me. Don't make me live without +you. I've tried for three months"--and Lord Hemsworth's face +worked--"and if you knew what it was like, you wouldn't send me back to +it." + +Every vestige of colour had faded from Di's face at the mention of John. + +"I don't care enough for you to marry you," she said, pitiless in her +great pity. "I wish I did, but--I don't." + +"Do you care for any one else?" + +Di saw that nothing short of the truth would wrest his persistence from +its object. + +"Yes, I do," she said passionately, trembling from head to foot. "For +some one who does not care for me. You and I are both in the same +position. Do you see now how useless it is to talk of this any longer?" + +Both had risen to their feet. Lord Hemsworth looked at Di's white +convulsed face, and his own became as ashen. He saw at last that he had +no more chance of marrying her than if she were lying at his feet in +her coffin. Constancy, which can compass many things, avails nought +sometimes. + +"I beg your pardon," he said, holding out his hand to go. + +"I think I ought to beg yours," she said brokenly, while their hands +clasped tightly each in each. "I never meant to make you as--unhappy +as--as I am myself, but yet I have." + +They looked at each other with tears in their eyes. + +"It does not matter," said Lord Hemsworth, hoarsely. "I shall be all +right--it's you--I think of. Don't stand--mustn't stand--you're too +tired. Good-bye." + + * * * * * + +Di flung herself down on her face on the sofa as the door closed. She +had forgotten Lord Hemsworth's existence the moment after he had left +the room. _John had told him that there was nothing between her and_ +_himself._ John had told him that. John had said that. A cry escaped +her, and she strangled it in the cushion. + +Hope does not always die when we imagine it does. It is subject to long +trances. The hope which she had thought dead was only giving up the +ghost now. "Chaque espérance est un oeuf d'où peut sortir un serpent au +lieu d'une colombe." Out of that frail shell of a cherished hope lying +broken before her the serpent had crept at last. It moved, it grew +before her eyes. + + "Slighted love is sair to bide." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + "We met, hand to hand, + We clasped hands close and fast, + As close as oak and ivy stand; + But it is past." + CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. + + "Half false, half fair, all feeble." + SWINBURNE. + + +When John roused himself from the long stupor into which he had fallen +after Lord Hemsworth's departure, he put his finished letter to Colonel +Tempest into an envelope, and then remembered with annoyance that he did +not know how to address it. When the landlady in Brook Street had told +him that Colonel and Captain Tempest had gone to Brighton that morning, +he had been too much taken aback at the moment to think of asking for +their address. He was too much exhausted in mind and body to go back to +the lodgings for it immediately. He wrote a second letter, this time to +his lawyer, and then, conscious of the state of his body by the shaking +hand and clumsy, tardy brain which made of a short and explicit +statement so lengthy an affair, he mechanically changed his clothes, +dined, and sat watching the smoke of his cigar. + +Presently, with food and rest, the apathy into which exhaustion had +plunged him lifted, and the restlessness of a tortured mind returned. He +had only as yet seen one of the three men whom he had come to London to +interview, namely, Lord Frederick. Colonel Tempest, the second, was out +of town; but probably the third, Lord ----, the minister, was not. It +was close on ten o'clock. He should probably find him in his private +room in the House. + +John flung away his cigar, and was in a few minutes spinning towards the +Houses of Parliament in a hansom. He had not thought much about it till +now, but as he turned in at the gates the lines of the great buildings +suddenly brought back to him the remembrance of his own ambition, and of +the splendid career that had seemed to be opening before him when last +he had passed those gates; which had fallen at a single touch like a +house of cards--a house built with Fortune's cards. + +There was a _queue_ of carriages at the Speaker's entrance. A party was +evidently going on there. John went to the House and inquired for +Lord ----. He was not there. Perhaps he was at the Speaker's reception. +John remembered, or thought he remembered, that he had a card for it, +and went on there. His mind was set on finding Lord ----. + + * * * * * + +History repeats itself, and so does our little private history. Only +when the same thing happens it finds us changed, and we look back at +what we were last time, and remember our old young self with wonder. Was +that indeed I? + +Possibly to some an evening party may appear a small event, but to Di, +as she stood in the same crowd as last year, in the same pictured rooms, +it seemed to her that her whole life had turned on the pivot of that one +evening a year ago. + +The lights glared too much now. The babel dazed her. Noises had become +sharp swords of late. Every one talked too loud. She chatted and smiled, +and vaguely wondered that her friends recognized her. "I am not the same +person," she said to herself, "but no one seems to see any difference." + +Presently she found herself near the same arched window where she had +stood with John last year. She moved for a moment to it and looked out. +There was a mist across the river. The lights struggled through blurred +and feeble. It had been clear last year. She turned and went on talking, +of she knew not what, to a very young man at her elbow, who was making +laborious efforts to get on with her. + +Her eyes looked back from the recess across the sea of faces and +fringes, and bald and close-cropped heads. The men who were not John, +but yet had a momentary resemblance to him, were the only people she +distinctly saw. Tall fair men were beginning to complain of her +unrecognizing manner. + +Yes, history repeats itself. + +Among the crowd in the distance she suddenly saw him. John's rugged +profile and square head were easy to recognize. _He had said there was +nothing between them._ Their last meeting rushed back upon her with a +scathing recollection of how she had held him in her arms and pressed +her face to his. Shame scorched her inmost soul. + +She turned towards her companion with fuller attention than what she had +previously accorded him. + + * * * * * + +As John walked through the rooms scanning the crowd, the possibility of +meeting Di did not strike him. With a frightful clutch of the heart he +caught sight of her. A man who instantly aroused his animosity was +talking eagerly to her. Something in her appearance startled him. Was it +the colour of her gown that made her look so pale, the intense light +that gave her calm dignified face that peculiar worn expression? She +had a faint fixed smile as she talked that John did not recognize, and +that, why he knew not, cut him to the quick. + +Was this Di? Could this be Di? + +He knew she had seen him. He hesitated a moment and then went towards +her. She received him without any change of countenance. The fixed smile +was still on her lips as he spoke to her, but the lips had whitened. +Their eyes met for a moment. Oh! what had happened to Di's lovely eyes +that used to be so grave and gay? + +He stammered something--said he was looking for some one--and passed on. +She turned to speak to some one else as he did so. He strangled the +nameless emotion which was choking him, and made his way into the next +room. He had a vague consciousness of being spoken to, and of making +herculean efforts to grind out answers, and then of pouncing on the +secretary of the man he was looking for, who told him his chief had +suddenly and unexpectedly started for Paris that afternoon on affairs of +importance. + +John mechanically noted down his address in Paris and left the house. + +The necessity of remembering where his feet were taking him recalled him +somewhat to himself. He pulled himself together, and slackened his pace. + +"I will go to Paris by the night express," he said to himself, the +feverish longing for action increasing upon him as this new obstacle met +him. He dared not remain in London. He knew for a certainty that if he +did he should go and see Di. Neither could he write to Lord ---- all +that he must tell him, or put into black and white the favour he had to +ask of him--the first favour John had ever needed to ask, namely, to be +helped by means of Lord ----'s interest to some post in which he could +for the moment support himself and Mitty. + +As he turned up St. James's Street, he remembered with irritation that +he had not yet procured Colonel Tempest's and Archie's address. While he +hesitated whether to go on, late as it was, to Brook Street for it, he +remembered that he could probably obtain it much nearer at hand, namely, +at Archie's rooms in Piccadilly. Archie, who was a person of much pink +and monogrammed correspondence, would probably have left his address +behind him, stuck in the glass of the mantelpiece, as his manner was. +The latch-key he had lent John in the autumn, when John had made use of +his rooms, was still on his chain. He had forgotten to return it. He let +himself in, went upstairs to the second floor, and opened the door of +the little sitting-room. + +"Here you are at last," said a woman's voice. + +He went in quickly and shut the door behind him. + +A small woman in shimmering evening dress, with diamonds in her hair, +came towards him, and stopped short with a little scream. + +It was Madeleine. + +He looked at her in silence, standing with his back to the door. The +smouldering fire in his eyes seemed to burn her, for she shrank away to +the further end of the room. John observed that there was a fire and +lamps, and knit his brows. + +Some persons are unable to perceive when explanations are useless. +Madeleine began one--something about Archie's difficulties, money, etc.; +but John cut her short. + +"You are not accountable to me for your actions," he said. "Keep your +explanations for your husband." + +He looked again with perplexity at the fire and the lamps. He knew +Archie had gone that morning on three days' leave to Brighton with his +father. + +"Let me go," she said, whimpering. "I won't stay here to be thought ill +of, to have evil imputed to me." + +"You will answer one question first," said John. + +"You impute evil to me--I know you do," said Madeleine, beginning to +cry; "but it is your own coarse mind that sees wickedness in +everything." + +"Possibly," said John. "When do you expect Archie?" + +"Any moment. I wish he was here, that he might tell you----" + +"Thank you, that will do. You can go now." + +He opened the door. She drew a long cloak over her shoulders and passed +him without speaking, looking like what she was--one of that class whose +very existence she professed to ignore, but whose ranks she had +virtually joined when she announced her engagement to Sir Henry in the +_Morning Post_. Perhaps, inasmuch as that, untempted, she had sold +herself for diamonds and position, instead of, under strong temptation, +for the bare necessities of life like her poorer sisters, she was more +degraded than they; but fortunately for her, and many others in our +midst, society upheld her. + +John looked after her and then followed her. There was not a soul on the +common staircase or in the hall. He passed out just behind her, and they +were in the street together. + +"Take my arm," he said, and she took it mechanically. + +He signalled a four-wheeler and helped her into it. + +"Where do you wish to go?" he said. + +"I don't know," she said feebly, apparently too much scared to remember +what her arrangements had been. + +John considered a moment. + +"Where is Sir Henry?" + +"Dining at Woolwich." + +"Can't you go home?" + +"No, no. It is much too early. I'm dressed for--I said I was going +to ----, and I have left there already, and the carriage is waiting there +still." + +"You must go back there," said John. "Get your carriage and go home in +it." + +He gave the cabman the address and paid him. Then he returned to the cab +door. + +"Lady Verelst," he said less sternly, "believe me--Archie is not worth +it." + +"You don't understand," she tried to say, with an assumption of injured +dignity. "It was only that I----" + +"He is not worth it," said John with emphasis; and he shut to the door +of the cab, and watched it drive away. Then he went back to Archie's +room, and sat down to consider. A faint odour of scent hung about the +room. He got up and flung open the window. Years afterwards, if a woman +used that particular scent, the same loathing disgust returned upon him. + +"He took three days' leave to nurse his father at Brighton, with the +intention of coming back here to-night," John said to himself. "He will +be here directly." And he made up his mind what he would do. + +And in truth a few minutes later a hansom rattled to the door, and +Archie came in, breathless with haste. He looked eagerly round the room, +and then, as he caught sight of the unexpected occupant, his face +crimsoned, and he grinned nervously. + +"She is gone," said John, without moving. + +"Gone? Who? I don't know what you mean." + +"No, of course not. What made you so late?" + +"Train broke down outside London." + +"I came here to get your address at Brighton, because I have news for +you. You are there at this moment, aren't you, looking after your +father?" + +Archie did not answer. He only grinned and showed his teeth. John was +aware that though he stood quietly enough by the table, turning over +some loose silver in his pocket, he was in a state of blind fury. He +also knew that if he waited a little it would pass. Something in John's +moral and physical strength had always the power to quell Archie's fits +of passion. + +"I had no intention of prying on you," said John, after an interval. "I +wanted your address at Brighton, and I could not wait till to-morrow for +it. I am going to Paris to-night on business, and--as it is yours as +much as mine--you will go with me." + +Archie never indulged in those flowers of speech with which some adorn +their conversation. But there are exceptions to every rule, and he made +one now. He culled, so to speak, one large bouquet of the choicest +epithets and presented it to John. + +"He knew not what to say, and so he swore." That is why men swear often, +and women seldom. + +"I shall not leave you in London with that woman," said John, calmly. +"You will go to her if I do." + +"I shall do as I think fit," stammered Archie, striking the table with +his slender white hand. + +"There you err," said John. "You will start with me in half an hour for +Paris." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + "There's not a crime + But takes its proper change out still in crime + If once rung on the counter of this world." + E. B. BROWNING. + + +There is in Paris, just out of the Rue du Bac, a certain old-fashioned +hotel, the name of which I forget, with a little _cour_ in the middle of +the rambling old building, and a thin fountain perennially plashing +therein, adorned by a few pigeons and feathers on the brink. It had been +a very fashionable hotel in the days when Madame Mohl held her _salon_ +near at hand. But the old order changes. It was superseded now. Why +John often went there I don't know. He probably did not know himself, +unless it was for the sake of quiet. Anyhow, he and Archie arrived there +together that morning; for it is needless to say that, having determined +to get Archie at any cost out of London, John had carried his point, as +he had done on previous occasions, to the disgust of the sulky young +man, who had proved anything but a pleasant travelling companion, and +who, late in the afternoon, was still invisible behind the white +curtains in one of the two little bedrooms that opened out of the +sitting-room in which John was walking up and down. + +He had put several questions to Archie respecting the state of his +father's health, and that gentleman had assured him he was all right, +quite able to look after himself; no need for him to remain with him. + +"Of course not," said John, "or you would not have left him. But is he +able to attend to business?" + +"Rather," said Archie, with the emphasis of ignorance. + +As long as Archie was in the next room, out of harm's way, John did not +want his company. He knew that when he did appear he had to tell him +that for eight and twenty years he had lived on Colonel Tempest's +substance; and then he must post the letter lying ready written on the +table to Colonel Tempest, only needing the address. + +After that life was a blank. Archie would rush home, of course. John did +not know where he should go, except that it would not be with Archie. +Back to Overleigh? No. And with a sudden choking sensation he realized +that he should not see Overleigh again. He wondered what Mitty was doing +at that moment, and whether the horse-chestnut against the nursery +window would ever burst to leaf. Here in Paris they were out. He had +noticed them as he returned from an interview with Lord ----. That +gentleman had been much pressed for time, but had nevertheless accorded +him a quarter of an hour. He was genuinely perturbed by the disclosure +the young man made to him, deplored the event as it affected John, but +after the first moment was obviously more concerned about the seat, and +the loss of the Tempest support, than the wreck of John's career. After +a decorous interval, Lord ---- had put a few questions to him about +Colonel Tempest, his age, political views, etc. John perceived with what +intentions those questions were put, and they made it the harder for him +to ask the great man to help him to a livelihood. + +As John spoke, and the elder man's eye sought his watch, John +experienced for the first time the truth of the saying that the highest +price that can be paid for anything is to have to ask for it. If it had +not been for Mitty he could not have forced himself to do it. + +"But my dear--er--Tempest," said Lord ----, "surely we need not +anticipate that--er--your uncle--er--that Colonel Tempest will fail to +make a suitable provision for one--who--who----" + +"He may offer to do so," replied John; "but if he did, I should not take +it. He is not the kind of man from whom it is possible to accept money." + +"Still, under the circumstances, the extraordinary combination of +circumstances, I should advise you to--my time is so circumscribed--I +should certainly advise you to--you see, Tempest, with every feeling of +regard for yourself and your father--ahem--Mr. Tempest before you, it is +difficult for a person situated as I am at the present moment, to offer +you, on the eve of the general election, any position at all adequate +to your undeniably great abilities." + +"We shall not hear much more of my great abilities now that I am +penniless," said John, with bitterness. "If I can get any kind of +employment by which I can support myself and an old servant, I shall be +thankful." + +Lord ---- promised to do his best. He felt obliged to add that he could +do but little, but he would do what he could. John might rest assured of +that. In the meantime---- He looked anxiously at the watch on the table. +John understood, and took his leave. Lord ---- pressed him warmly by the +hand, commended his conduct, once more deplored the turn events had +taken, which he should consider as strictly private until they had been +publicly announced, and assured him he would keep him in his mind, and +communicate with him immediately should any vacancy occur that, etc., +etc. + +John retraced his steps wearily to the hotel. The loss of his career had +stung him yesterday. How to keep Mitty in comfort seemed of far greater +importance to-day--how to provide a home for her with a little kitchen +in it. John wondered whether he and Mitty could live on a hundred a +year. He knew a good deal about the ways and means of the working +classes, but of how the poor of his own class lived he knew nothing. + +But even the thought of Mitty could not hold him long. His mind ever +went back to Di with an agony of despair and rapture. During these +three interminable months during which he had not seen her, he had +pictured her to himself as taking life as usual, wondering perhaps +sometimes--yes, certainly wondering--why he did not come; but it had +never struck him that she would be unhappy. When he saw her he had +suddenly realized that the same emotions which had rent his soul had +left their imprint on her face. Could women really love like men? Could +Di actually, after her own fashion, feel towards him one tithe of the +love he felt for her? John recognized with an exaltation, which for the +moment transfigured as by fire the empty desolation of his heart, that +the change which had been wrought in Di was his own work. Her cheek had +grown pale for him, her eyes had wept for him, her very beauty had +become dimmed for his sake. + +"I shall go mad," said John, starting to his feet. "Why is that damned +letter still unposted?" + +Purpose was melting within him. The irrevocable step even now had not +been taken. Lord ---- and his own lawyer would say nothing if at the +eleventh hour he drew back. He must act finally this instant, or he +would never act at all. + +He went into the next room, where Archie was languidly shaving himself +in a pink silk _peignoir_, and obtained from him Colonel Tempest's +address. He addressed the letter, and took his hat and stick. + +"I will post it myself this instant," he said to himself. + +He went quickly downstairs and across the little court, scattering the +pigeons. His face looked worn and ravaged in the vivid sunshine. + +He passed under the archway into the street, and as he did so two +well-dressed men came out of a _café_ on the opposite side. Before he +had gone many steps one of them crossed the road, and raised his hat, +holding out a card. + +"Mr. Tempest of Overleigh, I think," he said respectfully. + +John stopped and looked at the man. He did not know him. The decisive +moment had come even before posting the letter. + +"Now or never," whispered conscience. + +"My name is Fane," he said, and passed on. + +The man fell back at once and rejoined his companion. + +"I told you so," he said. "That man is a deal too old, and he said his +name was Fane. It's the other one in the tow wig, as I said from the +first. That ain't real hair. It's the wig as alters him." + +John posted his letter, saw it slide past recall, and then walked back +to the hotel, found Archie in the sitting-room reading the playbills for +the evening, and told him. + +Perhaps nothing is more characteristic of our fellow-creatures than the +manner in which they bear unexpected reverses of fortune. Archie had +some of the callousness of feeling for others which accompanies lack of +imagination. He had never put himself in the place of others. He was not +likely to begin now. He had no intention of hurting John by setting his +iron heel on his face. He had no idea people minded being trodden on. +And, indeed, as John stood by the window with his hands clasped behind +his back, he was as indifferent as he appeared to be to anything that +Archie, pacing up and down the room with flashing eyes, could say. He +had at last closed the iron gates of the irrevocable behind himself, and +he was at first too much stunned by the clang even to hear what the +excited young man was talking about. Perhaps it was just as well. + +"By Jove!" Archie was saying, as John's attention came slowly back. "To +think of the old governor at Overleigh, poor old chap! He has missed it +all his best years, but I hope he'll live to enjoy it yet. I do indeed." +Archie felt he could afford to be generous. "And Di, John, dear old Di, +shall come and queen it at Overleigh. And she shall have a suitable +fortune. I'll make father do the right thing by Di. He won't want to do +more than he can help, because she has never been much of a daughter to +him; but he shall. And when it's known, she'll marry off quick enough; +and I'll see it gets about. And don't you be down-hearted, John. We'll +do the right thing by you. You know you never cared for the money when +you had it. You were always a bit of a screw, to yourself as well as to +others--I will say that for you; but--let me see--you allowed me three +hundred a year. Don't you wish now it had been four? for you shall have +the same, if the old guv. agrees. And I dare say I shall be a bit freer +with a ten-pound note now and then than ever you were to me." + +"There will be no necessity for this reckless generosity," said John, +wondering why he did not writhe, as a man might who watches a knife cut +into his benumbed limb. It gave him no pain. + +"And you shall have a hunter," continued Archie. "By Jove, what hunting +_I_ shall have! I shall get the governor to add another wing to the +stables; and I will keep Quicksilver for you, John. You mustn't turn +rusty because the luck has come to us at last. You know I knew all along +I ought to have been the heir, and I put up with your being there, and +never raised a dust." + +"I think I can promise I shall not raise a dust," said John, +dispassionately, watching the knife turn in his flesh. + +"And--and," continued Archie--"why, I need not marry money now. I can +take my pick." New vistas seemed to open at every turn. His weak mouth +fell ajar. "My word, John, times are changed. And--my debts; I can pay +them off." + +"And run up more," said John. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody any +good." + +"I don't call it much of an ill wind," said Archie, chuckling; "not much +of an ill wind." + +In spite of himself, John laughed aloud at the _naïveté_ of Archie's +remark. That it was an ill wind to John had not even crossed his mind. + +It would cross Di's, John thought. She would do him justice. But, alas! +from the few who will do us justice we always want so much more, +something infinitely greater than justice--at least, John did. + +The early _table d'hôte_ dinner broke in on Archie's soliloquy, and, +much to John's relief, that favoured young gentleman discovered that a +lady of his acquaintance was dancing at one of the theatres that +evening, and he determined to go and see her. He could not persuade John +to accompany him, even though he offered, with the utmost generosity, +to introduce him to her. + +"Well, if you won't, you won't," said Archie, seeing his persuasions did +nought avail, and much preferring to go by himself. "If you would rather +sit over the fire in the dumps, that's your affair, not mine. Ta-ta. I +expect you will have turned in before I'm back. By-the-by, can you lend +me five thick 'uns?" + +John was on the point of refusing when he remembered that the actual +money he had with him was more Archie's than his. + +"Thank'ee," said Archie. "You part easier than you used to do. I expect +it'll be the last time I shall borrow of you--eh, John? It will be the +other way about in future." + +"Will it?" said John, as he put back his pocket-book. + +Archie laughed and went out. + +Oh! it is good to be young and handsome and admired. The dancers +pirouetted in the intense electric light, and the music played on every +chord of Archie's light pleasure-loving soul. And he clapped and +applauded with the rest, his pulse leaping high and higher. A sense of +triumph possessed him. His one thorn in the flesh was gone for ever. He +rode on the top of the wave. He had had all else before, and now the one +thing that was lacking to him had come. He was rich, rich, rich. There +was much goods laid up for many years of pleasure. + +Archie touched the zenith. + + * * * * * + +It was very late, or rather it was very early, when he walked home +through the deserted streets. A great mental exaltation was still upon +him, but his body was exhausted, and the cool night air and the +silence, after the babel of tongues, and the shrieking choruses, and the +flaring lights of the last few hours, were pleasant to his aching eyes +and head. + +The dawn stretched like a drawn sword behind the city. The Seine lay, a +long line of winding mist under its many bridges. The ruins of the +scorched Tuileries pushed up against the sky. Archie leant a moment on +the parapet, and looked down to the Seine below whispering in its +shroud. He took off his hat and pushed back the light curling hair from +his forehead, laughing softly to himself. + +An invisible boat, with a red blur coming down-stream, was making a low +continuous warning sound. + +A hand came suddenly over his shoulder, and was pressed upon his mouth, +and at the same instant something exceeding sharp and swift, pointed +with death, pierced his back, once and again. Archie saw his hat drop +over the parapet into the mist. + +He tried to struggle, but in vain. He was choking. + +"It is a dream," he said. "I shall wake. I have dreamt it before." + +He looked wildly round him. + +The steadfast dawn was witness from afar. There was the boat still +passing down-stream. There was the city before him, with its spires +piercing the mist. _Was_ it a dream? + +The hot blood rushed up into his mouth. The drenched hand released its +pressure. + +"I shall wake," he said, and he fell forward on his face. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + "The earth buildeth on the earth castles and towers; + The earth sayeth to the earth, 'All shall be ours;' + The earth walketh on the earth, glistering like gold; + The earth goeth to the earth sooner than it wold." + + +John was late next morning. He had not slept for many nights, and the +heavy slumber of entire exhaustion fell on him towards dawn. It was +nearly midday when he re-entered the sitting-room where he had sat up so +late the night before. + +He went to Archie's room to see whether he had come in; but it was +empty. + +He was impatient to be gone, to get away from that marble-topped +side-table, and the horsehair chairs, and the gilt clock on the +mantelpiece. At least, he thought he wished to get away from these +things; but it was from himself that he really wanted to get away--from +this miserable tortured self that was all that was left of him in this +his hour of weakness and prostration; the hour which inevitably succeeds +all great exertions of strength. How could he drag this wretched +creature about with him? He abhorred himself; the thought of being with +himself was intolerable. It seems hard that the nobler side of human +nature, which can cheer and urge its weaker brother up such steep paths +of duty and self-sacrifice, should desert us when the summit is +achieved, leaving the weaker to wail unreproved over its bleeding feet +and rent garments till we madden at the sound. + +An overwhelming sense of loneliness fell on John as he sat waiting for +Archie to come in. He had no strong, earnest, steadfast self to bear +him company. He felt deserted, lost. + +Who has not experienced it, that fierce depression and loathing of all +life, which, though at the time we know it not, is only the writhing and +fainting of the starved human affections! The very ordinary sources from +which the sharpest suffering springs, shows us later on how narrow are +the limits within which our common human nature works, and from which +yet irradiate such diversities of pain. + +Alphonse disturbed him at last to ask whether he and "Monsieur" would +dine at _table d'hôte_. "Monsieur," with a glance at Archie's door, had +not yet come in. + +John said they would both dine; and then, roused somewhat by the +interruption, an idea struck him. Had Archie, in the excitement of the +moment, gone back to England without telling him? + +He went to the room, but there were no evidences of departure. On the +bed the clothes were thrown which Archie had worn on the previous day. +The gold watch John had given him was on the dressing-table. He had +evidently left it there on purpose, not caring, perhaps, to risk taking +it with him. All the paraphernalia of a man who studies his appearance +were strewed on the table. There was his little moustache-brush, and +phial of _brilliantine_ to burnish it. John knew that he would never +have left _that_ behind. Archie had evidently intended to return. + +In the mean while hour succeeded hour, but he did not come. That Archie +should have been out all night was not surprising, but that he should be +still out now in his evening clothes in the daytime, began to be +incomprehensible. After a few premonitory tremors of misgiving, which, +man-like, he laughed at himself for entertaining, John took alarm. + +Evening fell, and still no Archie. And then a hideous night followed, in +which John forgot everything in heaven above or earth beneath except +Archie. The police were informed. The actress at whose house he had +supped after the play was interviewed, but could only vociferate between +her sobs that he had left her house with the remainder of her party in +the early hours of the morning, and she had not seen him since. + +Directly the office opened, John telegraphed to his colonel to know if +he had returned to London. The answer came, "Absent without leave." + +John remembered that he had only three days' leave, and that the third +day was up yesterday. Archie would not have forgotten that. + +A nightmare of a day passed. John had been out during the greater part +of it, rushing back at intervals in the hope, that was no longer +anything but a masked despair, of finding Archie in his rooms on his +return. + +In the dusk of the afternoon he came back once more, and peered for the +twentieth time into the littered bedroom, which the frightened servants +had left exactly as Archie had left it. He was standing in the doorway +looking into the empty room, where a certain horror was beginning to +gather round the familiar objects with which it was strewed, when a +voice spoke to him. + +It was the superintendent of police to whom he had gone long ago--the +night before--when first the horror began. Alphonse, who had shown him +up, was watching through the doorway. + +The man said something in French. John did not hear him, but it did not +matter much. He knew. They went downstairs together. Alphonse brought +him his hat and stick. The other waiters were gathered in a little knot +at the _table d'hôte_ door. A fiacre was waiting under the archway. John +and the superintendent got into it, and it drove off at once without +waiting for directions. They were lighting the lamps in the streets. The +dusk was falling, falling like the shadow of death. They drove deeper +and ever deeper into it. + +Time ceased to be. + +"Nous voiçi, Monsieur," said the man, gravely, as they pulled up before +a building, the long low outline of which was dimly visible. + +John knew it was the Morgue. + +He followed his guide down a white-washed passage into a long room. +There was a cluster of people at the further end, towards which the man +was leading him, and in the dusk there was a subdued whispering, and a +sound of trickling water. + +As they reached the further end, some one turned on the electric light, +and it fell full on a man's figure on one of the slabs. A little crowd +of people were peering through the glass screen at the toy which the +Seine had tired of and cast aside. + +"Ah! qu'il est beau," said a high woman's voice. + +John shaded his eyes and looked. + +The face was turned away, but John knew the hair, fair to whiteness in +that brilliant light, as he had often seen it in London ball-rooms. + +They let him through the glass screen which kept off the crowd, and, +oblivious of the many eyes watching him, John bent over the slab and +touched the clenched marble hand with the signet-ring on it which he had +given him when they were at Oxford together. + +Yes, it was Archie. + +The dead face was set in the nervous grin with which he had been wont in +life to meet the inevitable and the distasteful. + +The blue pencillings of dissolution had touched to inexorable +distinctness the thin lines of dissipation in the cheek and at the +corners of the mouth. The death of the body had overtaken the creeping +death of the soul. Their landmarks met. + +The poor beautiful effeminate face, devoid of all that makes death +bearable, stared up at the electric light. + +An impotent overwhelming compassion, as for some ephemeral irresponsible +being of another creation, who knows not how to guide itself in this +grim world of law, and has wandered blindfold within the sweep of a vast +machinery of which it knew nothing, wrung John's heart. He hid his face +in his hands. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + "For human bliss and woe in the frail thread + Of human life are all so closely twined, + That till the shears of fate the texture shred, + The close succession cannot be disjoined, + Nor dare we, from our hour, judge that which comes behind." + SIR WALTER SCOTT. + + +Di had seen her father and Archie off on their journey to Brighton, and, +having arranged to replace her brother in three days' time, was +surprised when a hasty note, the morning after their departure, informed +her that Archie had been recalled to London _on business_, and that she +must go to her father at once. + +Mrs. Courtenay was incensed. Archie had shirked before, and now he had +shirked again. But Colonel Tempest remained in far too precarious a +condition for her to refuse to allow her granddaughter to go, as she +would certainly otherwise have done. So Di went off the morning after +the Speaker's party. + +She had told Mrs. Courtenay that she had met John there. + +"In one way I am glad to have met him," she said firmly, her proud lip +quivering. "Any uncertainty I may have been weak enough to feel is at an +end, and it was time the end should come. For, in spite of all you said, +I had had a lingering idea that if we met----. And now we _have_ +met--and he had evidently no wish to see me again." + +Mrs. Courtenay looked fixedly at the beautiful pallid face, and wondered +that she had ever wished Di had a heart. + +"This pain will pass," she said gently. "You have always believed me, +Di; believe me now. Take courage and wait. You have had an untroubled +life till now. That has passed. Trouble has come. It is part of life. It +will pass too; not the feeling, perhaps, but the suffering." + +"Good-bye, my child," she said a little later, kissing the girl's cold +cheek with a tenderness which Di was powerless to return. "Take care of +yourself. Go out every day; the sea air will do you good. And tell your +father I cannot spare you more than a fortnight." + +Di would have given anything to show her grandmother that she was +thankful--oh, how thankful in this grey world!--for her sympathy and +love, but she had no words. She kissed Mrs. Courtenay, and went down to +the cab. + +Mrs. Courtenay remained motionless until she heard it drive away. Then +she let two tears run down from below her spectacles, and wiped them +away. No more followed them. The old cannot give way like the young. +Mrs. Courtenay had once said that nothing had power to touch her very +nearly; but she was still vulnerable on one point. Her old heart, worn +with so many troubles, ached for her granddaughter. + +"Thank God," she said to herself, "that in the next world there will be +neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Perhaps God Almighty sees it's +a mistake." + +Di found Colonel Tempest wrapped up in a _duvet_ in an armchair by the +window of his sitting-room, in a state of equal indignation against his +children for deserting him, and against the rain for blurring the +seaview from the window. With his nurse, it is hardly necessary to add, +he was not on speaking terms--a fact which seemed to cause that +patient, apathetic person very little annoyance, she being, as she told +Di, "accustomed to gentlemen." + +Di soothed him as best she could, took his tray from the nurse at the +door, so that he might be spared as much as possible the sight of the +most hideous woman in the world, rang for lights, and drew a curtain +before the untactful rain, while he declaimed alternately on the +enormity of Archie's behaviour, and on the callousness of Mrs. Courtenay +in endeavouring to keep his daughter, his only daughter, away from him. +Colonel Tempest and Archie detested Mrs. Courtenay. However much the +father and son might disagree and bicker on most subjects, they could +always sing a little duet together in perfect harmony about her. + +Colonel Tempest began a feeble solo on that theme to Di when he had +finished with Archie; but Di visibly froze, and somehow the subject, +often as it was started, always dropped. Di, as Colonel Tempest +frequently informed her, did not care to hear the truth about her +grandmother. If she knew all that _he_ did about her, and what her +behaviour had been to _him_, she would not be so fond of her as she +evidently was. + +Earlier in his illness Di had been obliged to exercise patience with her +father, but she needed none now. That is the one small compensation for +deep trouble. It numbs the power of feeling small irritations. It is +when it begins to lift somewhat that the small irritations fit +themselves out with new stings. Di had not reached that stage yet. The +doctor who came daily to see her father looked narrowly at her, and +ordered her to go out-of-doors as much as possible, in wet weather or +fine. + +"I sometimes take a little nap after luncheon," said Colonel Tempest +with dignity. "You might go out then, Di." + +"Miss Tempest will in any case go out morning and afternoon," said the +doctor with decision. + +Colonel Tempest had before had his doubts whether the doctor understood +his case, but now they were confirmed. He wished to change doctors, and +a painful scene ensued between him and Di, in the course of which a hole +was kicked in the _duvet_, and a cup of broth was upset. But it is an +ascertained fact that women are not amenable to reason. Di sewed up the +hole in the _duvet_, rubbed the carpet, and remained, as Colonel Tempest +hysterically informed her, "as obstinate as her mother before her." + +On the second morning after her arrival at Brighton she was sitting with +Colonel Tempest, reading the papers to him, when the waiter brought in +the letters. There were none for her, two for her father. One was a +foreign letter with a blue French stamp. She took them to him where he +lay on the sofa. + +Colonel Tempest looked at them. + +"Nothing from Archie again," he said. "He does not care even to write +and ask whether I am alive or dead." + +"Archie is not a good hand at writing," said Di, echoing, for the sake +of saying something, the time-honoured masculine plea for exemption from +the tedium of domestic correspondence. + +"This is John's hand," said Colonel Tempest. "A Paris postmark. How +these rich men do rush about!" + +Di had actually not known it was John's writing. She had never seen it, +to her knowledge, but nevertheless it appeared to her extraordinary that +she had not at once divined that it was his. She was not anxious to +hear her father's comments on John's letter, or the threadbare remark, +sacred to the poor relation, that when the rich one _was_ sitting down +to draw a cheque he might just as well have written it for double the +amount. He would never have known the difference. The poor relation +always knows exactly how much the rich one can afford to give. So Di +told her father she was going out, and left the room. + +It stung her, as she laced her boots, to think that John had probably +sent another cheque to cover their expenses at the hotel, and that the +fried soles and semolina-pudding which she had ordered for luncheon +would be paid for by him. It exasperated her still more to know that +whatever John sent, Colonel Tempest would pronounce to be mean. + +Before she had finished lacing her boots, however, the sitting-room door +was opened, and Di heard her father calling wildly to her. + +Colonel Tempest was not allowed to move, except with great precaution, +owing to the slow healing of the obstinate internal injury caused by +that unlucky pistol-shot. + +She rushed headlong downstairs. + +"Father!" she cried, horrified to find him standing on the landing. +"Father, come back at once!" And she put her arms round him, and +supported him back to the sofa. + +He was trembling from head to foot. She saw that something had happened, +but he was not in a state to be questioned. She administered what +restoratives she had at hand, and presently the constantly moving lips +got out the words, "Read it;" and Colonel Tempest pointed to a letter on +the floor. + +"Read it," repeated Colonel Tempest, lying back on his cushions, and +recovering from his momentary collapse. "Read it." + +Di picked up the letter and sat down by the window. She was suddenly too +tired to stand. Her father was talking wildly, but she did not hear him; +was calling to her to read it aloud, but she did not hear him. She saw +only John's strong, small handwriting. + +It was a business letter, couched in the most matter-of-fact terms. John +stated his case--expressed a formal regret that the facts he mentioned +had not come to light at Mr. Tempest's death, mentioned that the +accumulation of income during his minority had fortunately remained +untouched, that he had desired his lawyer to communicate with Colonel +Tempest, and signed himself "John Fane." He had written the word +"Tempest," and had then struck it through. + +Di pressed her forehead against the glass on which the rain was beating. + +Was the emotion which was shattering her joy or sorrow, or both? + +She knew it was joy. In a lightning-flash of comprehension she realized +that it was this awful calamity which had kept John silent, which had +held him back from coming to her, from asking her to marry him. He loved +her still! Love, dead and buried, had risen out of his grave. The +impossible had happened. John loved her still. + +"I cannot bear it," she said; and for a moment the long yellow waves, +and her father's impatient voice, and even John's letter, were alike +blotted out, unheard. + +Colonel Tempest considered Di's apathy, after she had read the letter, +unfeeling and unsympathetic in the extreme, and he did not hesitate to +tell her so. But when she presently turned her averted face towards him +he was already off on another tack, his excitement, which seemed to +increase rather than diminish, tossing him as a wave tosses a spar. + +"Twenty years," he said tremulously. "Think of it, Di--not that you seem +to care! Twenty years have I toiled and moiled in poverty, twenty years +have I and my children been ground down while that nameless interloper +has spent our money right and left. Oh, my God! I've got it at last. +I've got my own at last. But who will give me back those twenty years?" +and Colonel Tempest's voice broke into a sob. + +Other consequences of that letter began to dawn on Di's awakening +consciousness. + +"Then John," she said, bewildered. "Oh, father, what will become of +John?" + +"John," said Colonel Tempest, bitterly, "is now just where I was twenty +years ago--disinherited, penniless. He has kept me out all these years, +and now at last Providence gives me my own." + +It is to be hoped that Providence is not really responsible for all the +shady transactions for which we offer up our best thanks. + +"I dare say he has put by," continued Colonel Tempest. "He has had time +enough." + +"You have not read the letter carefully," said Di. "He only discovered +all this less than three months ago, and you have been ill for more than +two." + +Colonel Tempest did not hear her. He had ceased for the last twenty +years to hear anything he did not want to. + +"Fifty thousand a year," he went on; "not a penny less. And the New +River shares have gone up since Jack's day. And there was a large sum +which rolled up during the minority. John is right there. There must be +over a hundred thousand. You shall have that, Di. Archie will kick, but +you shall have it. Eight thousand pounds John settled on you a year ago. +That was the amount of _his_ generosity to my poor girl. You shall not +have a penny less than a hundred thousand. Not during my lifetime, of +course; but when I die----" he added hastily. + +Di could articulate nothing. + +"I shall pay my own debts and Archie's in a moment," he continued, not +noticing whether she answered or not. "If you want a new gown, Di, you +may send the bill to me. I don't believe I owe a thousand, and Archie +not so much, poor lad, though John was always pulling a long face over +his debts. How deuced mean John was from first to last! Well, do as you +would be done by. I'll do for him alone what he thought enough for the +two of you. I'll never give him cause to say I'm close-fisted. He shall +have your eight thousand, and he shall have three hundred a year, the +same that he allowed Archie, as well." + +"He won't take it." + +"Won't take it!" said Colonel Tempest, contemptuously. "That's all you +know about the world, Di. I tell you he'll have to take it. I tell you +he has not a sixpence in the world at this moment, to say nothing of +owing me twenty years' income." + +Colonel Tempest rambled on of how Archie should leave the army and live +at Overleigh, of how Di should live there too, and Mrs. Courtenay might +go to the devil. Presently he fell to wondering what state the shooting +was in, and how many pheasants John was breeding at that moment. Every +instant it became more unbearable, till at last Di sent for the nurse, +made an excuse of posting her letters, and slipped out of the room. + +She went out to her old friends, the yellow waves, and, too exhausted to +walk, sat down under the lee of one of the high wooden rivets between +which the sea licks the pebbly shore into grooves. + +Gradually the tension of her mind relaxed. Di sat and watched the waves +until they washed away the high invalid voice vibrating in some acute +recess of her brain; washed away the hideous thought that they were rich +because John was penniless and dishonoured; washed away everything +except the one fact that his silence was accounted for, and that he +loved her after all. + +Di looked out across the rain-trodden sea. If it was raining, she did +not know it. What did anything in this wide world matter so long as John +loved her? Poverty was nothing. Marriage was nothing either. What did +it matter if they could not marry so long as they loved each other? + +Once in a lifetime it is vouchsafed alike to the worldly and to the +pure, to the earnest and to the frivolous, to discern that vision--which +has been ever life's greatest reality or life's greatest illusion +according to the character of the beholder--that to love and to be loved +is enough. + +A wet glint came across the sea, exquisite and evanescent as the gleam +across Di's heart. + +"It is enough!" said Di; and her soul was flooded with a solemn joy a +thousand times deeper than when she had first discovered her love for +John, and his for her, and a brilliant future was before her. + +Sorrow with his pick mines the heart. But he is a cunning workman. He +deepens the channels whereby happiness may enter, and hollows out new +chambers for joy to abide in, when he is gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding + small." + LONGFELLOW. + + +The doctor was sitting with Colonel Tempest on Di's return to the hotel, +and Di perceived that her father, who was still in a very excited state, +had been telling him about his sudden change of fortune. + +The doctor courteously offered his congratulations, and on leaving made +a pretext of inquiring after Di's health in order to see her alone. + +"Colonel Tempest has been telling me of his unexpected access of +wealth," he said. "In his present condition of nervous prostration, and +tendency to cerebral excitement, the information should most certainly +have been withheld from him. His brain is not in a state to bear the +strain which such an event might have put upon it, has put upon it. Were +such a thing to occur again in his enfeebled condition, I cannot answer +for the consequences." + +"It was absolutely unforeseen," said Di. "None of us had the remotest +suspicion. He has been in the habit of reading his letters for the past +month." + +"They must be kept from him for the present," replied the doctor. "Let +them be brought to you in future, and use your own discretion about +showing them to him after you have read them yourself. Your father must +be guarded from all agitation." + +This was more easily said than done. Nothing could turn Colonel +Tempest's shattered, restless mind from hopping like a grasshopper on +that one subject for the remainder of the day. The bit of cork in his +medicine, which at another time would have elicited a torrent of +indignation, excited only a momentary attention. He talked without +ceasing--hinted darkly at danger to John which that young man's +creditable though tardy action had averted, alluded to passages in his +own life which nothing would induce him to divulge, and then lighting on +a sentimental vein, discoursed of a happy old age (the old age of +fiction), in which he should see Archie's and Di's children playing in +the gallery at Overleigh. And the old name---- + +Di had not realized, until her parent descanted upon the subject in a +way that set her teeth on edge, how hideous, how vulgar, is the seamy +side of pride of birth. When Colonel Tempest began to dwell on "the +goodness and the grace that on his birth had smiled," shall we blame Di +if she put on the clock half an hour, and rang for the nurse? + +Things were not much better next morning. Di gave strict orders that all +letters and telegrams should be brought to her room. Colonel Tempest +fidgeted because he had not heard from the lawyer in whose hands John +had placed the transfer of the property. The letter was in Di's pocket, +but she dared not give it to him, for though it contained nothing to +agitate him, she knew that the fact that she had opened it would raise a +whirlwind. + +"And Archie," said Colonel Tempest, querulously--"I ought to have heard +from him too. If John told him the same day that he wrote to me, we +ought to have heard from Archie this morning. I should have imagined +that though Archie did not give his father a thought when he was poor, +he might have thought him worthy of a little consideration _now_." + +"If that is the motive you would have given him if he had written, it is +just as well he has not," said Di; but she wondered at his silence +nevertheless. + +But she did not wonder long. + +She left her father busily writing to an imaginary lawyer, for he had +neither the name nor address of John's, and on the landing met a servant +bringing a telegram to her room. She took it upstairs, and though it was +addressed to her father, opened it. She had no apprehension of evil. The +old are afraid of telegrams, but the young have made them common, and +have worn out their prestige. + +The telegram was from John, merely stating that Archie had been taken +seriously ill. + +Di's heart gave a leap of thankfulness that her father had been spared +this further shock. But Archie. Seriously ill. She was indignant at +John's vague statement. What did seriously ill mean? Why could not he +say what was the matter? And how could she keep the fact of his illness +from her father? Ought she to go at once to Archie? Seriously ill. How +like a man to send a telegram of that kind! She would telegraph at once +to John for particulars, and go or stay according as the doctor thought +she could or could not safely leave her father. Di put on her walking +things, and ran out to the post-office round the corner, where she +despatched a peremptory telegram to John; and then, seeing there was no +one else to advise her, hurried to the doctor's house close at hand. For +a wonder he was in. For a greater still, his last patient walked out as +she walked in. The doctor, with the quickness of his kind, saw the +difficulty, and caught up his hat to come with her. + +"You shall go to your brother if you can," was the only statement to +which he would commit himself during the two minutes' walk in the rain; +the two minutes which sealed Colonel Tempest's fate. + + * * * * * + +No one knew exactly how it happened. Perhaps the hall porter had gone to +his dinner, and the little boy who took his place for half an hour +brought up the telegram to the person to whom it was addressed. No one +knew afterwards how it had happened. It did happen, that was all. + +Colonel Tempest had the pink paper in his hand as the doctor and Di +entered the room. He was laughing softly to himself. + +"Archie is dead," he said, chuckling. "That is what John would like me +to believe. But I know better. It is John that is dead. It is John who +had to be snuffed out. Swayne said so, and he knew. And John says it's +Archie, and he will write. Ha, ha! We know better, eh, doctor? eh, Di? +John's dead. Eight and twenty years old he was; but he's dead at last. +He won't write any more. He won't spend my money any more. He won't keep +me out any more." + +Colonel Tempest dropped on his knees. The only prayer he knew rose to +his lips. "For what we are going to receive, the Lord make us truly +thankful." + + * * * * * + +For an awful day and night the fierce flame of delirium leaped and fell, +and ever leaped again. With set face Di stood hour after hour in the +blast of the furnace, till doctor and nurse marvelled at her courage and +endurance. + +On the evening of the second day John came. He had written to tell +Colonel Tempest of his coming, but the letter had not been opened. + +The doctor, thinking he was Di's brother, brought him into the +sick-room, too crowded with fearful images for his presence to be +noticed by the sick man. + +"John is dead," the high-pitched terrible voice was saying. "Blundering +fools. First there was the railway, but Goodwin saved him; damn his +officiousness. And then there was the fire. They nearly had him that +time. How grey he looked! Burnt to ashes. Bandaged up to the eyes. But +he got better. And then the carnival. They muffed it again. Oh, Lord, +how slow they were! But"--the voice sank to a frightful whisper--"they +got him in Paris. I don't know how they did it--it's a secret; but they +trapped him at last." + +Suddenly the glassy eyes looked with horrified momentary recognition at +John. + +"Risen from the dead," continued the voice. "I knew he would get up +again. I always said he would; and he has. You can't kill John. There's +no grave deep enough to hold him. Look at him with his head out now, and +the earth upon his hair. We ought to have put a monument over him to +keep him down. He's getting up. I tell you I did not do it. The grave's +not big enough. Swayne dug it for him when he was a little boy--a little +boy at school." + +Di turned her colourless face to John, and smiled at him, as one on the +rack might smile at a friend to show that the anguish is not unbearable. +She felt no surprise at seeing him. She was past surprise. She had +forgotten that she had ever doubted his love. + +In silence he took the hand she held out towards him, and kept it in a +strong gentle clasp that was more comfort than any words. + +Hour after hour they watched and ministered together, and hour by hour +the lamp of life flared grimly low and lower. And after he had told +everything--everything, everything that he had concealed in life--after +John and Di had heard, in awed compassion and forgiveness, every word of +the guilty secret which he had kept under lock and key so many years, at +last the tide of remembrance ebbed away and life with it. + +Did he know them in the quiet hours that followed? Did he recognize +them? They bent over him. They spoke to him gently, tenderly. Did he +understand? They never knew. + +And so, in the grey of an April morning, poor Colonel Tempest, +unconscious of death, which had had so many terrors for him in life, +drifted tranquilly upon its tide from the human compassion that watched +by him here, to the Infinite Pity beyond. + + + + +CONCLUSION. + + "Where there are twa seeking there will be a finding." + + +After John had taken Di back to London he returned to Brighton, and from +thence to Overleigh, to arrange for the double funeral. He had not +remembered to mention that he was coming, and in the dusk of a wet +afternoon he walked up by the way of the wood, and let himself in at the +little postern in the wall. He had not thought he should return to +Overleigh again, yet here he was once more in the dim gallery, with its +faint scent of _pot-pourri_, his hand as he passed stirring it from +long habit. The pictures craned through the twilight to look at him. He +stole quietly upstairs and along the garret gallery. The nursery door +was open. A glow of light fell on Mitty's figure. What was she doing? + +John stopped short and looked at her, and, with a sudden recollection as +of some previous existence, understood. + +Mitty was packing. Two large white grocery boxes were already closed and +corded in one corner. John saw "Best Cubes" printed on them, and it +dawned upon his slow masculine consciousness that those boxes were part +of Mitty's luggage. + +Mitty was standing in the middle of the room, holding at arm's length a +little red flannel dressing-gown, which knocked twenty years off John's +age as he looked. + +"I shall take it," she said, half aloud. "It's wore as thin as thin +behind; that and the open socks as I've mended and better-be-mended;" +and she thrust them both hastily, as if for fear she should repent, into +a tin box, out of which the battered head of John's old horse protruded. + +If there was one thing certain in this world, it was that the Noah's ark +would not go in unless the horse came out. Mitty tried many ways, and +was contemplating them with arms akimbo when John came in. + +She showed no surprise at seeing him, and with astonishment John +realized that it was only six days since he had left Overleigh. It was +actually not yet a week since that far-distant afternoon, separated from +the present by such a chasm, when he had lain on his face in the +heather, and the deep passions of youth had rent him and let him go. +Here at Overleigh time stopped. He came back twenty years older, and the +almanac on his writing-table marked six days. + +John made the necessary arrangements for the funeral to take place at +midnight, according to the Tempest custom, which he knew Colonel Tempest +would have been the last to waive. He wrote to tell Di what he had +settled, together with the hour and the date. He dared not advise her +not to be present, but he remembered the vast concourse of people who +had assembled at his father's funeral to see the torchlight procession, +and he hoped she would not come. + +But Mrs. Courtenay wrote back that her granddaughter was fixed in her +determination to be present, that she had reluctantly consented to it, +and would accompany her herself. She added in a postscript that no doubt +John would arrange for them to stay the night at Overleigh, and they +should return to London the next day. + + * * * * * + +The night of the funeral was exceeding dark and still; so still that +many, watching from a distance on Moat-hill, heard the voice saying, "I +am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in +Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." + +And again-- + +"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry +nothing out." + +The night was so calm that the torches burned upright and unwavering, +casting a steadfast light on church and graveyard and tilted tombstones, +on the crowded darkness outside, and on the worn faces of a man and +woman who stood together between two open graves. + + * * * * * + +John and Di exchanged no word as they drove home. There were lights and +a fire in the music-room, and she went in there, and began absently to +take off her hat and long crêpe veil. Mrs. Courtenay had gone to bed. + +John followed Di with a candle in his hand. He offered it to her, but +she did not take it. + +"It is good-bye as well as good night," he said, holding out his hand. +"I must leave here very early to-morrow." + +Di took no notice of his outstretched hand. She was looking into the +fire. + +"You must rest," he said gently, trying to recall her to herself. + +A swift tremor passed over her face. + +"You are right," she said, in a low voice. "I will rest--when I have had +five minutes' talk with you." + +John shut the door, and came back to the fireside. He believed he knew +what was coming, and his face hardened. It was bitter to him that Di +thought it worth while to speak to him on the subject. She ought to +have known him better. + +She faced him with difficulty, but without hesitation. They looked each +other in the eyes. + +"You are going to London early to see your lawyer," she said, "on the +subject that you wrote to father about." + +"I am." + +"That is why I must speak to you to-night. I dare not wait." Her eyes +fell before the stern intentness of his. Her voice faltered a moment, +and then went on. "John, don't go. It is not necessary. Don't grieve me +by leaving Overleigh, or--changing your name." + +A great bitterness welled up in John's heart against the woman he +loved--the bitterness which sooner or later few men escape, of realizing +how feeble is a woman's perception of what is honourable or +dishonourable in a man. + +"Ah, Di," he said, "you are very generous. But do not let us speak of it +again. Such a thing could not be." + +He took her hand, but she withdrew it instantly. + +"John," she said with dignity, "you misunderstand me. It would be a poor +kind of generosity in me to offer what it is impossible for you to +accept. You wound me by thinking I could do such a thing. I only meant +to ask you to keep your present name and home for a little while, +until--they both will become yours again by right--the day when--you +marry me." + +A beautiful colour had mounted to Di's face. John's became white as +death. + +"Do you love me?" he said hoarsely, shaking from head to foot. + +"Yes," she replied, trembling as much as he. + +He held her in his arms. The steadfast heart that understood and loved +him beat against his own. + +"Di!" he stammered--"Di!" + +And they wept and clung together like two children. + + + + +POSTSCRIPT. + + +Mitty's packing was never finished--why, she did not understand. But +John, who helped her to rearrange her things, understood, and that was +enough for her. For many springs and spring cleanings the horse-chestnut +buds peered in at the nursery windows and found her still within. I +think the wishes of Mitty's heart all came to pass, and that she loved +"Miss Dinah;" but nevertheless I believe that, to the end of life, she +never quite ceased to regret the little kitchen that John had spoken of, +where she would have made "rock buns" for her lamb, and waited on him +"hand and foot." + + +PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED. +LONDON AND BECCLES. + +_D. & Co._ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA TEMPEST, VOLUME III (OF 3)*** + + +******* This file should be named 37975-8.txt or 37975-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/9/7/37975 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Diana Tempest, Volume III (of 3)</p> +<p>Author: Mary Cholmondeley</p> +<p>Release Date: November 11, 2011 [eBook #37975]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA TEMPEST, VOLUME III (OF 3)***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Matthew Wheaton,<br /> + and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> + from page images generously made available by<br /> + Internet Archive/American Libraries<br /> + (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/americana">http://www.archive.org/details/americana</a>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Project Gutenberg also has Volumes I and II of this + work. See<br /> + Volume I: <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37973">http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37973</a><br /> + Volume II: <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37974">http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37974</a><br /> + <br /> + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/dianatempest03chol"> + http://www.archive.org/details/dianatempest03chol</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1 class="booktitle">DIANA TEMPEST.</h1> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<div class="figcenter topbox"> +<img src="images/tp-3.jpg" width="400" height="654" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="h3"><i>Diana Tempest.</i></p> + +<p class="h4"><i>By<br /> +Mary Cholmondeley,<br /> +Author of<br /> +"The Danvers Jewels,"<br /> +"Sir Charles Danvers," etc.</i></p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h3">In Three Volumes.<br /> +Vol. III.</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h3">London:<br /> +Richard Bentley & Son,<br /> +Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.<br /> +1893.<br /> +(All rights reserved.)</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<div class="inset16"> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION.</a><br /> +<a href="#POSTSCRIPT">POSTSCRIPT.</a><br /> +</div> + +<div class="main"> <!-- main text --> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[1]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch01.jpg" width="600" height="195" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2>DIANA TEMPEST.</h2> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Time and chance are but a tide."<br /></span> +<span class="i12"><span class="smcap">Burns.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_b.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="B" /> + <span class="hide">B</span>ETWEEN aspiration and achievement +there is no great gulf fixed. God +does not mock His children by putting a +lying spirit in the mouth of their prophetic +instincts. Only the faith of concentrated +endeavour, only the stern years which must +hold fast the burden of a great hope, only +the patience strong and meek which is content +to bow beneath "the fatigue of a long +and distant purpose;" only these stepping-stones,<span class="pagenum">[2]</span> +and no gulf impassable by human +feet, divide aspiration from achievement.</p> + +<p>To aspire is to listen to the word of command. +To achieve is to obey, and to continue +to obey, that voice. It is given to all +to aspire. Few allow themselves to achieve. +John had begun to see that.</p> + +<p>If he meant to achieve anything, it was +time he put his hand to the plough. He +had listened and learned long enough.</p> + +<p>"My time has come," he said to himself, +as he sat alone in the library at Overleigh +on the first day of the new year. "I am +twenty-eight. I have been 'promising' +long enough. The time of promise is past. +I must perform, or the time of performance +will pass me by."</p> + +<p>He knit his heavy brows.</p> + +<p>"I must act," he said to himself, "and +I cannot act. I must work, and I cannot +work."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[3]</span></p> + +<p>John was conscious of having had—he still +had—high ambitions, deep enthusiasms. Yet +lo! all his life seemed to hinge on the +question whether Di would become his wife. +Who has not experienced, almost with a +sense of traitorship to his own nature, how +the noblest influences at work upon it may be +caught up into the loom of an all-absorbing +personal passion, adding a new beauty and +dignity to the fabric, but nevertheless changing +for the time the pattern of the life?</p> + +<p>John's whole heart was set on one object. +There is a Rubicon in the feelings to pass +which is to cut off retreat. John had long +passed it.</p> + +<p>"I cannot do two things at the same +time," he said. "I will ask Mrs. Courtenay +and Di here for the hunt ball, and settle +matters one way or the other with Di. +After that, whether I succeed or fail, I will +throw myself heart and soul into the career<span class="pagenum">[4]</span> +Lord —— prophesies for me. The general +election comes on in the spring. I will +stand then."</p> + +<p>John wrote a letter to the minister who +had such a high opinion of him—or perhaps +of his position—preserved a copy, pigeon-holed +it, and put it from his mind. His +thoughts reverted to Di as a matter of +course. He had seen her several times since +the fancy ball. Each particular of those +meetings was noted down in the unwritten +diary which contains all that is of interest in +our lives, which no friend need be entreated +to burn at our departure.</p> + +<p>He was aware that a subtle change had +come about between him and Di; that they +had touched new ground. If he had been +in love before—which, of course, he ought +to have been—he would have understood +what that change meant. As it was, he did +not. No doubt he would be wiser next time.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[5]</span></p> + +<p>Yet even John, creeping mole-like through +self-made labyrinths of conjecture one inch +below the surface, asked himself whether it +was credible that Di was actually beginning +to care for him. When he knew for certain +she did not, there seemed no reason that +she should not; now that he was insane +enough to imagine she might, he was aware +of a thousand deficiencies in himself which +made it impossible. And yet——</p> + +<p>So he wrote another letter, this time to +Mrs. Courtenay, inviting her and Di to the +hunt ball in his neighbourhood, at the end +of January.</p> + +<p>And his invitation was accepted. And +one if not two persons, perhaps even a third +old enough to know better, began the unprofitable +task of counting days.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>It was an iron winter. It affected Fritz's +health deleteriously. His short legs raised<span class="pagenum">[6]</span> +him but little above the surface of the earth, +and he was subject to chills and cramps +owing to the constant contact of the under +portion of his long ginger person with the +snow. Not that there was much snow. One +steel and iron frost succeeded another. +Lindo, on the contrary, found the cold slight +compared with the two winters which he +had passed in Russia with John. His wool +had been allowed to grow, to the great relief +of Mitty, who could not "abide" the "bare-backed +state" which the exigencies of fashion +required of him during the summer.</p> + +<p>It was a winter not to be forgotten, a +winter such as the oldest people at Overleigh +could hardly recall. As the days in +the new year lengthened, the frost strengthened, +as the saying goes. The village beck +at Overleigh froze. By-and-by the great +rivers froze. Carts went over the Thames. +Some one, fonder of driving than of horses,<span class="pagenum">[7]</span> +drove a four-in-hand on the ice at Oxford. +The long lake below Overleigh Castle, which +had formerly supplied the moat, was frozen +feet thick. The little islands and the boathouse +were lapped in ice. It became barely +possible, as the days went on, to keep one +end open for the swans and ducks. The +herons came to divide the open space with +them. The great frost of 18— was not one +that would be quickly forgotten.</p> + +<p>John kept open house, for the ice at +Overleigh was the best in the neighbourhood, +and all the neighbours within distance +thronged to it. Mothers drove over with +their daughters; for skating is a healthy +pursuit, and those that can't skate can +learn.</p> + +<p>The most inaccessible hunting men, rendered +desperate like the herons by the frost, +turned up regularly at Overleigh to play +hockey, or emulate John's figure-skating,<span class="pagenum">[8]</span> +which by reason of long practice in Russia +was "bad to beat."</p> + +<p>John was a conspicuous figure on the ice, +in his furred Russian coat lined with sable +paws, in which he had skated at the ice +carnivals at St. Petersburg.</p> + +<p>Mitty, with bright winter-apple cheeks and +a splendid new beaver muff, would come +down to watch her darling wheel and sweep.</p> + +<p>"If the frost holds I will have an ice carnival +when Di is here," John said to himself; +and after that he watched the glass carefully.</p> + +<p>The day of Di's arrival drew near, came, +and actually Di with it. She was positively +in the house. Archie came the same day, +but not with her. Archie had invariably +shown such a marked propensity for travelling +by any train except that previously +agreed upon, when he was depended on to +escort his sister, that after a long course of +irritation Mrs. Courtenay had ceased to allow<span class="pagenum">[9]</span> +him to chaperon Di, to the disgust of that +gentleman, who was very proud of his ornamental +sister when she was not in the way, +and who complained bitterly at not being +considered good enough to take her out. +So Mrs. Courtenay, who had accepted for +the sake of appearances, but who had never +had the faintest intention of leaving her own +fireside in such inhuman weather, discovered +a tendency to bronchitis, and failed at the +last moment, confiding Di to the charge of +Miss Fane, who good-naturedly came down +from London to assist John in entertaining +his guests.</p> + +<p>And still the following day the frost held. +The hunt ball had dwindled to nothing in +comparison with the ice carnival at Overleigh +the night following the ball. The +whole neighbourhood was ringing with it. +Such a thing had never taken place within +the memory of man at Overleigh. The<span class="pagenum">[10]</span> +neighbours, the tenantry, cottagers and all, +were invited. The hockey-players rejoiced +in the rumour that there would be hockey by +torchlight, with goals lit up by flambeaux and +a phosphorescent bung. Would the frost +hold? That was the burning topic of the +day.</p> + +<p>There was a large house-party at Overleigh, +a throng of people who in Di's imagination +existed only during certain hours of +the day, and melted into the walls at other +times. They came and went, and skated +and laughed, and wore beautiful furs, especially +Lady Alice Fane, but they had no +independent existence of their own. The +only real people among the crowd of dancing +skating shadows were herself and John, with +whom all that first day she had hardly +exchanged a word—to her relief, was it, or +her disappointment?</p> + +<p>After tea she went up with Miss Fane to<span class="pagenum">[11]</span> +the low entresol room which had been set +apart for that lady's use, to help her to +rearrange the men's button-holes, which +John had pronounced to be too large. As +soon as Di took them in hand, Miss Fane of +course discovered, as was the case, that she +was doing them far better than she could +herself, and presently trotted off on the +pretext of seeing to some older lady who did +not want seeing to, and did not return.</p> + +<p>Di was not sorry. She rearranged the +bunches of lilies of the valley at leisure, +glad of the quiet interval after a long and +unprofitable day.</p> + +<p>Presently the person of whom she happened +to be thinking happened to come in. +He would have been an idiot if he had not, +though I regret to be obliged to chronicle +that he had had doubts on the subject.</p> + +<p>"I thought I should find Aunt Loo here," +he said, rather guiltily, for falsehood sat<span class="pagenum">[12]</span> +ungracefully upon him. And he looked +round the apartment as if she might be concealed +in a corner.</p> + +<p>"She was here a moment ago," said Di, +and she began to sort the flowers all over +again.</p> + +<p>"The frost shows no signs of giving."</p> + +<p>"I am glad."</p> + +<p>After the frost John found nothing further +of equal originality to say, and presently he sat +down, neither near to her nor very far away, +with his chin in his hands, watching her wire +her flowers. The shaded light dealt gently +with the folds of Di's amber tea-gown, and +touched the lowest ripple of her yellow hair. +She dropped a single lily, and he picked it +up for her, and laid it on her knee. It was +a day of little things; the little things Love +glorifies. He did not know that his attitude +was that of a lover—did not realize the +inference he would assuredly have drawn<span class="pagenum">[13]</span> +if he had seen another man sit as he was +sitting then. He had forgotten all about +that. He thought of nothing; neither +thought of anything in the blind unspeakable +happiness and comfort of being near +each other, and at peace with each other.</p> + +<p>Afterwards, long afterwards, John remembered +that hour with the feeling as of a +Paradise lost, that had been only half +realized at the time. He wondered how +he had borne such happiness so easily; +why no voice from heaven had warned him +to speak then, or hereafter for ever hold his +peace. And yet at the time it had seemed +only the dawning of a coming day, the +herald of a more sure and perfect joy to be. +The prophetic conviction had been at the +moment too deep for doubt that there would +be many times like that.</p> + +<p>"Many times," each thought, lying awake +through the short winter night after the ball.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[14]</span></p> + +<p>John had discovered that to be alternately +absolutely certain of two opposite conclusions, +without being able to remain in either, +is to be in a state of doubt. He found he +could bear that blister as ill as most men.</p> + +<p>"I will speak to her the morning after +the carnival," he said, "when all this tribe +of people have gone. What is the day +going to be like?"</p> + +<p>He got up and unbarred his shutter, and +looked out. The late grey morning was +shivering up the sky. The stars were white +with cold. The frost had wrought an ice +fairyland on the lattice. While that fragile +web held against the pane, the frost that +wrapped the whole country would hold also.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[15]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch02.jpg" width="600" height="192" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A funeral morn is lit in heaven's hollow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pale the star-lights follow."<br /></span> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Christina Rossetti.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_t.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="T" /> + <span class="hide">T</span>OWARDS nine o'clock in the evening +carriage after carriage began to drive +up to Overleigh in the moonlight. When +Di came down, the white stone hall and the +music-room were already crowded with +guests, among whom she recognized Lord +Hemsworth, Mr. Lumley, and Miss Crupps, +who had been staying at houses in the +neighbourhood for the hunt ball the night +before, and had come on with their respective +parties, to the not unmixed gratification +of John.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[16]</span></p> + +<p>"Here we are again," said Mr. Lumley, +flying up to her. "No favouritism, I beg, +Miss Tempest. Tempest shall carry one +skate, and I will take the other. Hemsworth +must make himself happy with the +button-hook. Great heavens! Tempest, +whose funeral have you been ordering?"</p> + +<p>For at that moment the alarm-bell of the +Castle began to toll.</p> + +<p>"It is unnecessary to hide in the curtains," +said John. "That bell is only rung in case +of fire. It is the signal for lighting up."</p> + +<p>And, headed by a band of torches, the +whole party went streaming out of the +wide archway, a gay crowd of laughing expectant +people, into the gardens, where vari-coloured +lines of lights gleamed terrace +below terrace along the stone balustrades, +and Neptune reined in his dolphins in the +midst of his fountain, in a shower of golden +spray.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[17]</span></p> + +<p>The path down to the lake through the +wood was lit by strings of Chinese lanterns +in the branches. The little bridge over the +frozen brook was outlined with miniature +rose-coloured lights, in which the miracles +wrought by the hoar-frost on each transfigured +reed and twig glowed flame-colour +to their inmost tracery against the darkness +of the overhanging trees.</p> + +<p>Di walked with John in fairyland.</p> + +<p>"Beauty and the beast," said some one, +probably Mr. Lumley. But only the "beast" +heard, and he did not care.</p> + +<p>There was a chorus of exclamations as +they all emerged from the wood into the +open.</p> + +<p>The moon was shining in a clear sky, but +its light was lost in the glare of the bonfires, +leaping red and blue and intensest green +on the further bank of the lake, round which +a vast crowd was already assembled. The<span class="pagenum">[18]</span> +islands shone, complete circles of coloured +light like jewels in a silver shield. The +whole lake of glass blazed. The bonfires +flung great staggering shadows across the +hanging woods.</p> + +<p>John and Di looked back.</p> + +<p>High overhead Overleigh hung in mid +air in a thin veil of mist, a castle built in +light. Every window and archer's loophole, +from battlement to basement, the long lines +of mullioned lattice of the picture-gallery +and the garret gallery above, throbbed with +light. The dining-hall gleamed through +its double glass. The rose window of the +chapel was a rose of fire.</p> + +<p>"They have forgotten my window," said +John; and Di saw that the lowest portion +of the western tower was dark. Her own +oriel window, and Archie's next it, shone +bravely.</p> + +<p>Mitty was watching from the nursery<span class="pagenum">[19]</span> +window. In the fierce wavering light she +could see John, conspicuous in his Russian +coat and peaked Russian cap, advance +across the ice, escorted by torches, to the +ever-increasing multitude upon the further +bank. The enthusiastic cheering of the +crowd when it caught sight of him came +up to her, as she sat with a cheek pressed +against the lattice, and she wept for joy.</p> + +<p>Di's heart quickened as she heard it. +Her pride, which had at first steeled her +against John, had deserted to his side. It +centred in him now. She was proud of +him. Lord Hemsworth, on his knees +before her, fastening her skates, asked her +some question relating to a strap, and, looking +up as she did not answer, marvelled +at the splendid colour in her cheek, and +the flash in the eyes looking beyond him +over his head. At a signal from John the +band began to play, and some few among<span class="pagenum">[20]</span> +the crowd to dance on the sanded portion +of the ice set apart for them; but far the +greater number gathered in dense masses to +watch the "musical ride" on skates which +the house-party at Overleigh had been +practising the previous day, which John led +with Lady Alice, circling in and out round +groups of torches, and ending with a grand +chain, in which Mr. Lumley and Miss +Crupps collapsed together, to the delight of +the spectators and of Mr. Lumley himself, +who said he should tell his mamma.</p> + +<p>And still the crowd increased.</p> + +<p>As John was watching the hockey-players +contorted like prawns, wheeling fast and +furious between their flaming goals, which +dripped liquid fire on to the ice, the local +policeman came up to him.</p> + +<p>"There's over two thousand people here +to-night, sir," he said.</p> + +<p>"The more the better," said John.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[21]</span></p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, and I've been about among +'em, me and Jones, and there's a sight of +people here, sir, as are no tenants of yours, +and roughish characters some of 'em."</p> + +<p>"Sure to be," said John. "If there is +any horseplay, treat it short and sharp. I'll +back you up. I've a dozen men down here +from the house to help to keep order. But +there will be no need. Trust Yorkshiremen +to keep amused and in a good temper."</p> + +<p>And, in truth, the great concourse of +John's guests was enjoying itself to the +utmost, dancing, sliding, clutching, falling +one on the top of the other, with perfect +good humour, shouting with laughter, men, +women, and children all together.</p> + +<p>As the night advanced an ox was roasted +whole on the ice, and a cauldron of beer +was boiled. There was a tent on the bank +in which a colossal supper had been prepared +for all. Behind it great brick fire-places<span class="pagenum">[22]</span> +had been built, round which the +people sat in hundreds, drinking, singing, +heating beer and soup. They were tactful, +these rough Yorkshiremen; not one came +across to the further bank set apart for "t' +quality," where another supper, not half so +decorously conducted, was in full swing +by the boathouse. John skated down there +after presiding at the tent.</p> + +<p>Perhaps negus and mutton-broth were +never handed about under such dangerous +circumstances. The best <i>Consommé à la +Royale</i> watered the earth. The men +tottered on their skates over the frozen +ground, bearing soup to the coveys of girls +sitting on the bank in nests of fur rugs.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lumley and Miss Crupps had supper +together in one of the boats, Mr. Lumley +continually vociferating, "Not at home," when +called upon, and retaliating with Genoese +pastry, until he was dislodged with oars,<span class="pagenum">[23]</span> +when he emerged wielding the drumstick +of a chicken, and a free fight ensued +between him and little Mr. Dawnay, armed +with a soup-ladle, which ended in Mr. +Lumley's being forced on to his knees +among the mince-pies, and disarmed.</p> + +<p>John looked round for Di, but she was +the centre of a group of girls, and he felt +aggrieved that she had not kept a vacant +seat for him beside her, which of course +she could easily have done. Presently, +when the fireworks began, every one made +a move towards the lower part of the lake +in twos and threes, and then his opportunity +came.</p> + +<p>He held out his hand to help her to her +feet, and they skated down the ice together. +Every one was skating hand in hand, but +surely no two hands trembled one in the +other as theirs did.</p> + +<p>The evening was growing late. A low<span class="pagenum">[24]</span> +mist was creeping vague and billowy across +the land, making the tops of the trees look +like islands in a ghostly sea. The bonfires, +burning down red and redder into throbbing +hearts of fire, gleamed blurred and weird. +The rockets rushed into the air and dropped +in coloured flame, flushing the haze. The +moon peered in and out.</p> + +<p>And to John and Di it seemed as if they +two were sweeping on winged feet among +a thousand phantasmagoria, in the midst of +which they were the only realities. In other +words, they were in love.</p> + +<p>"Come down to the other end of the +lake, and let us look at the fireworks from +there," said John; and they wheeled away +from the crowd and the music and the noise, +past all the people and the lighted islands +and the boathouse, and the swinging lamps +along the banks, away to the deserted end +of the lake. A great stillness seemed to<span class="pagenum">[25]</span> +have retreated there under shadow of the +overhanging trees. The little island left in +darkness for the waterfowl, with its laurels +bending frozen into the ice, had no part or +lot in the distant jargon of sound, and the +medley of rising, falling, skimming lights. +There was no sound save the ringing of +their skates, and a little crackling of the ice +among the grass at the edge.</p> + +<p>They skated round the island, and then +slackened and stood still to look at the scene +in the distance.</p> + +<p>One of the bonfires just replenished leapt +one instant lurid high, only to fall the next +in a whirlwind of sparks, and cover the +lake with a rush of smoke. Figures dashed +in and out, one moment in the full glare of +light, the next flying like shadows through +the smoke.</p> + +<p>"It is like a dream," said Di. "If it is +one, I hope I shan't wake up just yet."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[26]</span></p> + +<p>To John it was not so wild and incredible +a dream as that her hand was still in his. +She had not withdrawn it. No, his senses +did not deceive him. He looked at it, gloved +in his bare one. He held it still. He +could not wait another moment. He must +have it to keep always. Surely, surely fate +had not thrown them together for nothing, +beneath this veiled moon, among the silver +trees!</p> + +<p>"Di," he said below his breath.</p> + +<p>"There is some one on the bank watching +us," said Di, suddenly.</p> + +<p>John turned, and in the uncertain light +saw a man's figure come deliberately out of +the shadow of the trees to the bank above +the ice.</p> + +<p>John gave a sharp exclamation.</p> + +<p>"What has he got in his hand?" said Di.</p> + +<p>He did not answer. He dropped her +hand and moved suddenly away from her.<span class="pagenum">[27]</span> +The figure slowly raised one arm. There +was a click and a snap.</p> + +<p>"Missed fire," said John, making a rush +for the edge. But he turned immediately. +He remembered his skates. Di screamed +piercingly. In the distance came the crackling +of fireworks, and the murmur of the +delighted crowd. Would no one hear?</p> + +<p>The figure on the bank did not stir; only +a little steel edge of light rose slowly again.</p> + +<p>There was a sharp report, a momentary +puff of light in smoke, and John staggered, +and began scratching and scraping the ice +with his skates. Di raised shrieks that +shook the stars, and rushed towards him.</p> + +<p>And the cruel moon came creeping out, +making all things visible.</p> + +<p>"Go back," he gasped hoarsely. "Keep +away from me. He will fire again."</p> + +<p>And he did so; for as she rushed up to +John, and in spite of the strength with which<span class="pagenum">[28]</span> +he pushed her from him, caught him in her +arms and held him tightly to her, there was +a second report, and the muff hopped and +ripped in her hand.</p> + +<p>She screamed again. Surely some one +would come! She could hear the ringing +of skates and voices. Torches were wheeling +towards her. Lanterns were running +along the edge. Good God! how slow they +were!</p> + +<p>"Go back—go back!" gasped John, and +his head fell forward on her breast. He +seemed slipping out of her arms, but she +upheld him clasped convulsively to her with +the strength of despair.</p> + +<p>"Where?" shouted voices, half-way up +the lake.</p> + +<p>She tried to shriek again, but only a harsh +guttural sound escaped her lips.</p> + +<p>The man had not gone away. She had +her back to him, but she heard him run a<span class="pagenum">[29]</span> +few steps along the frost-bitten bank, and +she knew it was to make his work sure.</p> + +<p>John became a dead weight upon her. +She struggled fiercely with him, but he +dragged her heavily to her knees, and fell +from her grasp, exposing himself to full view. +There was a click.</p> + +<p>With a wild cry she flung herself down +upon his body, covering him with her own, +her face pressed against his.</p> + +<p>"We will die together! We will die +together!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>She heard a low curse from the bank. +And suddenly there was a turmoil of voices, +and a rushing and flaring of lights all round +her, and then a sharp cry like the fire-engines +clearing the London streets.</p> + +<p>"I must get him to the side," she said to +herself, and she beat her hands feebly on +the ice.</p> + +<p>Away in the distance, in some other world,<span class="pagenum">[30]</span> +the band struck up, "He's a fine old +English gentleman."</p> + +<p>Her hands touched something wet and +warm.</p> + +<p>"The thaw has come at last," she thought, +and consciousness and feeling ebbed away +together.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ep02.jpg" width="500" height="276" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[31]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch03.jpg" width="600" height="195" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And dawn, sore trembling still and grey with fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Looked hardly forth, a face of heavier cheer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than one which grief or dread yet half enshrouds."<br /></span> +<span class="i14"><span class="smcap">Swinburne.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_w.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="W" /> + <span class="hide">W</span>HEN Di came to herself, it was to find +that she was sitting on the bank +supported by Miss Crupps' trembling arm, +with her head on Miss Crupps' shoulder. +Some one, bending over her—could it be +Lord Hemsworth with that blanched face +and bare head?—was wiping her face with +the gentleness of a woman.</p> + +<p>"Have I had a fall?" she asked dizzily. +"I don't remember. I thought it was—Miss +Crupps who fell."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[32]</span></p> + +<p>"Yes, you have had a fall," said Lord +Hemsworth, hurriedly; "but you will be all +right directly. Don't be all night with that +brandy, Lumley."</p> + +<p>Di suddenly perceived Mr. Lumley close +at hand, trying to jerk something out of a +little silver lamp into a tumbler. She had +seen that lamp before. It had been handed +round with lighted brandy in it with the +mince-pies. No one drank it by itself. +Evidently there was something wrong.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand," she said, beginning +to look about her. A confused gleam of +remembrance was dawning in her eyes which +terrified Lord Hemsworth.</p> + +<p>"Drink this," he said quickly, pressing +the tumbler against her lip.</p> + +<p>Her teeth chattered against the rim. Miss +Crupps was weeping silently. Di pushed +away the glass and stared wildly about her.</p> + +<p>What was this great crowd of eyes kept<span class="pagenum">[33]</span> +back by a chain of men? What was that +man in a red uniform with a trumpet, craning +forward to see? There was a sound of +women crying. How dark it was! Where +was the moon gone to?</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she whispered hoarsely, +stretching out her hands to Lord Hemsworth, +and looking at him with an agony of appeal. +"What has happened?"</p> + +<p>But he only took her hands and held +them hard in his. If he could have died to +spare her that next moment he would have +done it.</p> + +<p>"When I say three," said a distinct voice +near at hand. "Gently, men. One, two, +<i>three</i>. That's it."</p> + +<p>Di turned sharply in the direction of the +voice. There was a knot of people on the +ice at a little distance. One was kneeling +down. Another knelt too, holding a lantern +ringed with mist. As she looked, the others<span class="pagenum">[34]</span> +raised something between them in a fur rug, +something heavy, and began to move slowly +to the bank.</p> + +<p>Her face took a rigid look. She remembered. +She rose suddenly to her feet +with a voiceless cry, and would have fallen +forward on her face had not Lord Hemsworth +caught her in his arms. He held her +closely to him, and put his shaking blood-stained +hand over her eyes. Miss Crupps +sobbed aloud. Mr. Lumley sat down by +her, telling her not to cry, and assuring her +that it would all be all right; but when he +was not comic he was not up to much.</p> + +<p>There was no need to keep the crowd off +any longer. Their whole interest centred in +John, and they broke away in murmuring +masses along the bank, and down the ice, in +the wake of the little band with the lantern.</p> + +<p>Now that the lantern had gone, the place +was wrapped in a white darkness. The<span class="pagenum">[35]</span> +other lights had apparently gone out, except +the red end of a torch on the bank. The +mist was covering the valley.</p> + +<p>"Is he dead? Is he dead?" gasped Di, +clinging convulsively to the friend who had +loved her so long and so faithfully.</p> + +<p>"No, Di, no," said Lord Hemsworth, +speaking as if to a child; "not dead, only +hurt. And the doctor is there. He was on +the ice when it happened. He was with +you both almost as soon as I was. I am +going to take off your skates. Can you +walk a little with my help? Yes? It will +be better to be going gently home. Put +your hands in your muff. Here it is. You +must put in the other hand as well. The +bank is steep here. Lean on me." And +Lord Hemsworth helped her up the bank, +and guided her stumbling feet towards the +dwindling constellation of lights at the +further end of the lake.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[36]</span></p> + +<p>A party of men passed them in the drifting +mist. One of them turned back. It was +Archie, his face streaming with perspiration.</p> + +<p>"Did you get him?" asked Lord Hemsworth.</p> + +<p>"Get him? Not a chance," said Archie. +"He stood on the bank till Dawnay and I +were within ten yards of him, and then +laughed and ran quietly away. He knew +we could not follow on our skates, though +we made a rush for him, and by the time +we had got them off he was out of sight, of +course. I expect he has doubled back, and +is watching among the crowd now."</p> + +<p>"Would you know him again?"</p> + +<p>"No; he was masked. He would never +have let me come so close to him if he had +not been. I say, how is John?"</p> + +<p>Lord Hemsworth glared at Archie, but +the latter was of the species that never +takes a hint, like his father before him,<span class="pagenum">[37]</span> +who was always deeply affronted if people +resented his want of tact. He called it +"touchiness" on their part. The "touchiness" +of the world in general affords tactless +persons a perennial source of offended +astonishment.</p> + +<p>"What are you frowning at me about?" +said Archie, in an injured voice. "What +has become of John? Hullo! what's that? +Why, it's the omnibus. They have been +uncommonly quick about getting it down. +My word, the horses are giving trouble! +They can't get them past the bonfires."</p> + +<p>"Go on and say Miss Tempest and Miss +Crupps are coming," said Lord Hemsworth, +"and keep places for them."</p> + +<p>He knew the omnibus had not been sent +for for them, but he did not want Di to +realize for whom it was required. Archie +hurried on. Miss Crupps and Mr. Lumley +passed at a little distance.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[38]</span></p> + +<p>"You are deceiving me," gasped Di. +"You mean it kindly, but you are deceiving +me. He is dead. Did not Archie say he +was dead? It is no good keeping it from +me."</p> + +<p>Lord Hemsworth tried to soothe her in +vain.</p> + +<p>"The man on the bank shot twice," she +went on incoherently. "I tried to get between, +but it was no good; and I screamed, +but you were all so long in coming. I never +knew people so slow. You were too late, +too late, too late!"</p> + +<p>Lord Hemsworth was experiencing that +unbearable wrench at the heart which goes +by the easy name of emotion. He was +reading his death-warrant in every random +word Di said. It appeared to him that he +had always known that John loved Di; and +yet until this evening he had never thought +of it, and certainly never dreamed for a<span class="pagenum">[39]</span> +moment that she cared for him. He had +not imagined that Di could care for any one. +The ease with which any man can marry +any woman nowadays, the readiness of +women to give their affection to any one, +irrespective of age, character, and antecedents, +has awakened in men's minds a profound +and too well grounded disbelief in +women's love. The average woman of the +present day is, as men are well aware, in +love with marriage, and in order to attain +to that state a preference for one person +rather than another is quickly seen to be +prejudicial; for though love conduces to +happy marriages, love conduces also to the +catastrophe of single life, and is but a blind +leader of the blind at best.</p> + +<p>Lord Hemsworth loved Di, but that was +different. The fact that she, being human, +might be equally attached to himself or to +some other man had never struck him. It<span class="pagenum">[40]</span> +struck him now, and for a few minutes he +was speechless.</p> + +<p>It was only a very great compassion and +tenderness that was able to wrestle with and +vanquish the intolerable pain of the moment.</p> + +<p>"See, Di," he said gently, through his +white lips. "Look at that great tear and +hole through your muff. I saw it directly +I picked it up. A bullet did that; do you +understand?—a bullet that perhaps would +have hit Tempest but for you. But you +saved him from it. Perhaps he is better +now, and afraid <i>you</i> are hurt. There is the +carriage coming to us; let us go on to +meet it."</p> + +<p>And in truth the great Overleigh omnibus, +with men at the horses' heads, was lurching +across the uneven turf to meet them.</p> + +<p>"Where is John?" asked Di of Archie, +peering at the empty carriage.</p> + +<p>"The doctor would not have him lifted in,<span class="pagenum">[41]</span> +after all," said Archie. "They went on on +foot. We may as well go up in it;" and he +helped in Lady Alice Fane and Miss Crupps, +who came up at the moment. Lord Hemsworth +followed Di and sat down by her. +He was determined she should be spared +all questioning. Mr. Lumley and Mr. Dawnay +got in too, and sat silently staring +straight in front of them. No one spoke. +Archie stood on the step; and the long +lumbering vehicle turned and got slowly +under way—the same in which such a merry +party had driven to the ball the night +before.</p> + +<p>As they reached the courtyard a confused +mass of people became visible within it—the +guests of the evening; the girls standing +about in silent groups, muffled to the eyes, +for the cold had become intense; the men +hurrying to and fro, getting out their own +horses and helping the coachmen to harness<span class="pagenum">[42]</span> +them. Through the darkness came the uplifted +voices of Lindo and Fritz in hysterics +at being debarred from taking part in the +festivities. Carriages were beginning to +drive off. There was no leave-taking.</p> + +<p>"There is our omnibus," said Mr. Lumley +to Miss Crupps. "That is Montagu lighting +the lamps. They will be looking for +us." And they got out and rejoined their +party, nodding silently to the others, who +drove on to the hall door, Lord Hemsworth +with them: he seemed quite oblivious of +the fact that he was not staying at Overleigh.</p> + +<p>The hall was brilliantly lighted. Every +carved lion and griffin on the grand staircase +held its lamp. The house-party was standing +about in the hall. They looked at the +remainder as they came in, but no one +spoke. Miss Fane was blinking in their +midst. The other elder ladies who had<span class="pagenum">[43]</span> +stayed up at the Castle whispered with their +daughters. A blaze of light and silver came +through the opened folding doors of the +dining-hall, where supper for a large number +had been prepared.</p> + +<p>"Any news?" asked Lord Hemsworth, as +he guided Di to an armchair.</p> + +<p>Miss Fane shook her head.</p> + +<p>"They won't let me in," she said. "They +have taken him to his room, and they won't +let any one in."</p> + +<p>"Who is with him?" said Di, in a loud +hoarse voice that made every one look at +her.</p> + +<p>She did not see what every one else did, +namely, that the neck and breast of her grey +coat was drenched with blood—not hers.</p> + +<p>"The doctor and his sister are with him. +They were both on the ice at the time. +I think Lord Elver is there too, and his +valet."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[44]</span></p> + +<p>Lord Hemsworth went into the dining-hall +and came back with a glass of champagne +and a roll.</p> + +<p>"Bring things out to the people," he said +to the bewildered servants; "they won't +come in here for them." And they followed +with trays of wine and soup.</p> + +<p>Without making her conspicuous, he was +thus able to force Di to drink and eat. She +remembered afterwards his wearying pertinacity +till she had finished what he brought +her.</p> + +<p>The men, most of whom were exhausted +by the pursuit of the assassin, or by carrying +John up the steep ascent, drank large +quantities of spirits. Archie, quite worn +out, fell heavily asleep in an oak chair. +The women were beginning to disappear +in two and threes. Every one was dead +beat.</p> + +<p>It was Lord Hemsworth who took the<span class="pagenum">[45]</span> +onus of giving directions, who told the servants +to put out the lights from all the +windows. Miss Fane was of no more use +than a sheep waked at midnight for an +opinion on New Zealand lamb would have +been. She stood about and ate sandwiches +because they were handed to her, although +she and the other chaperons had just partaken +of roast turkey; went at intervals +into the picture-gallery, at the end of which +John's room was, and came back shaking +her head.</p> + +<p>It was Lord Hemsworth who helped Di +to her room, while Miss Fane accompanied +them upstairs. Di's room was still brilliantly +lighted. Lord Hemsworth lingered on the +threshold.</p> + +<p>"You will promise me to take off that +damp gown at once," he said.</p> + +<p>Somehow there seemed nothing peculiar +in the authoritative attitude which he had<span class="pagenum">[46]</span> +assumed towards Di. She and Miss Fane +took it as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>"Yes, change all her things," said Miss +Fane. "Quite right—quite right."</p> + +<p>"Where is your maid? Can you get +her?" asked Lord Hemsworth, uneasily.</p> + +<p>"I have no maid," said Di, trying and +failing to unfasten her grey furred coat.</p> + +<p>He winced as he saw her touch it, and then, +an idea seeming to strike him, closed the +door and went downstairs again.</p> + +<p>The servants had put out the lamps in the +windows of the picture-gallery, leaving, with +unusual forethought, one or two burning in +the long expanse in case of need.</p> + +<p>In the shadow at the further end, near +John's room, a bent figure was sitting, silently +rocking itself to and fro. It had been there +whenever he had ventured into the gallery. +It was there still.</p> + +<p>It was Mitty—Mitty in her best violet silk<span class="pagenum">[47]</span> +that would stand of itself, and her black satin +apron, and her gold brooch with the mosaic +of the Coliseum that John had brought her +from Rome. She raised her wet face out of +her apron as the young man touched her +gently on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"They won't let me in to him, sir," said +Mitty, the round tears running down her +cheeks, and hopping on to her violet silk. +"Me that nursed him since he was a baby. +He was put into my arms, sir, when he was +born. I took him from the month, and they +won't let me in."</p> + +<p>"They will presently," said Lord Hemsworth. +"He will be asking for you, you'll +see; and then how vexed he will be if he +sees you have been crying!"</p> + +<p>"And the warming-pan, sir," gasped +Mitty, shaken with silent sobs, pointing to +that article laid on the settee. "I got it +ready myself. I was as quick as quick. And<span class="pagenum">[48]</span> +a bit of brown sugar in it to keep off the +pain. And they said they did not want +it—as if I didn't know what he'd like! He'll +want his old Mitty, and he won't know they +are keeping me away from him."</p> + +<p>"Some one wants you very much," said +Lord Hemsworth. "Poor Miss Tempest. +And she has no maid with her. She is not fit +to be left to herself. Won't you go and see +to her, Mitty?"</p> + +<p>But Mitty shook her head.</p> + +<p>"He may ask for me," she said.</p> + +<p>"I will stay here and come for you the +first minute he asks," said Lord Hemsworth, +moving the rejected warming-pan, and sitting +down beside her on the hot settee. "Poor +Miss Tempest! And she tried so hard to +save him. Won't you go to her? She has +only Miss Fane with her."</p> + +<p>"Miss Fane!" said Mitty, evidently with +the recollection of a long-standing feud.<span class="pagenum">[49]</span> +"Much good she'd do a body; doesn't know +chalk from cheese. She didn't even know +when Master John had got the measles, +though the spots was out all over him. +'It's only nettle-rash, nurse,' she says to +me. And the same when he had them +little ulsters in his throat. Miss Fane +indeed!"</p> + +<p>And after a little more persuasion Mitty +consented to go if he promised to come for +her if John asked for her.</p> + +<p>Lord Hemsworth gave a sigh of relief as +Mitty went reluctantly away. He was in +mortal anxiety about Di. He had a nervous +misgiving, increased by his feeling of masculine +helplessness to do anything further for +her, lest she should fall ill or faint alone in +that gaily lighted room; for, of course, Miss +Fane would not have remained. As, indeed, +was the case. She was yawning herself out +of the room when Mitty appeared.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[50]</span></p> + +<p>"That's it—that's it," she said, evidently +relieved. "Get to bed, Di. No use sitting +up. We shall hear in the morning;" and she +departed to her own room.</p> + +<p>Di turned her white exhausted face slowly +towards the old woman, and vainly tried to +frame a question. Mitty's maternal instinct +was aroused by the sight of her lamb's +"Miss Dinah" sitting in her mist-damped +clothes, which steamed where the warmth of +the fire reached them. She had made no +effort to take off her walking things, but she +was passive under Mitty's hands, as the latter +unfastened them and wrapped her in her +warm dressing-gown.</p> + +<p>"I can't go to bed, Mitty," said Di, +hoarsely, holding her gown. "Don't make +me. Let me come and sit in the nursery +with you. We shall be nearer there, and +then I shall hear. There is no one to come +and tell me here."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[51]</span></p> + +<p>The girl clung convulsively to the old +woman, and the two went together to the +nursery, and Mitty, after putting her guest +into the rocking-chair by the fire, went +down once more to ask for news. But +there was no news. John was still unconscious, +and the doctor would say nothing. +Presently Mitty came tearfully back, and sat +down on the other side of the fire. Lord +Hemsworth, who was sitting up with Archie, +had promised to come to the nursery the +moment there was any change.</p> + +<p>The nursery still bore traces of the little +party that had broken up so disastrously, for +Mitty had invited the <i>élite</i> of the village +ladies to view the carnival from the nursery +windows. The "rock" buns for which +Mitty was celebrated, and one of Mrs. +Alcock's best cakes, were still on the table, +and Mitty's fluted silver teapot with a little +nest of clean cups round it. Presently she<span class="pagenum">[52]</span> +got up, and, opening the corner cupboard, +began to put them away; but the impulse of +tidying was forgotten as she caught sight of +John's robin mug on the top shelf. She +took it down, and stood holding it in her old +withered hands.</p> + +<p>"I give it him myself," she said, "on his +birthday when he was five years old; twenty-four +years ago come June. I thought some +of his mother's family would have remembered +his birthday if his father didn't. I +thought something would have come by +post. But there wasn't so much as a letter. +And Mrs. Alcock give him the tin plate with +the soldier on it, but I never let him eat off +it. And we had Barker's little nephew to +tea as he was learning to shoemaykle, but +nobody took no notice of his birthday except +me and Mrs. Alcock. And when he went to +school I kep' his mug and his toys. He never +had a many toys, but what there was I have<span class="pagenum">[53]</span> +'em. And his clothes, my dear, everything +since he was born, from his little cambric +shirts, I have 'em all, put away; with a bit of +camphor to his velvet suit as I took him to +York to be measured for, on purpose to make +him look pretty to his papa when he come +home from abroad. But he never took a bit +of notice of him—never." Mitty sat down +by the fire, still holding the mug. "And a +lace collar he had with it—real lace, the best +as money could buy. I might spend what I +liked on him; but no one ever took no +notice of him, not even in his first sailor's; +and he with his pretty ways and his grave +talk! Mrs. Alcock and me has often cried +over the things he'd say. There's his crib +still in the night-nursery by my bed. I +could not sleep without it was there; and +the little blankets and sheets and piller-slips +as belong, all put away, and not a iron +mould upon 'em. Eh, dear miss, many's the<span class="pagenum">[54]</span> +time I've got 'em out and aired 'em, thinking +maybe the day 'ud come when he would +have a babby of his own, and I should hold +it in my old arms before I died. And even +if I was gone they'd be all ready, and the +bassinet only wanting muslin to it. And +now—oh, my lamb, my lamb! And they +won't let his old Mitty go to him." And +Mitty's grief broke into a paroxysm of +sobbing.</p> + +<p>Di looked at the old woman rocking +herself backwards and forwards, and, rising +unsteadily, she went and knelt down by her, +putting her arms round her in silence. She +had no comfort to give in words. It seemed +as if her strong young heart were breaking; +but she realized that Mitty's anguish for a +love knit up into so many faithful years was +greater than hers.</p> + +<p>As she knelt, a step came along the creaking +garret gallery with its uneven flooring.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[55]</span></p> + +<p>It was Lord Hemsworth.</p> + +<p>He stood in the doorway with the wan +light of the morning behind him. His face +looked pinched and aged.</p> + +<p>"He is better," he said. "He has +recovered consciousness, and has spoken. +The other doctor has arrived, and they think +all will go well."</p> + +<p>And the two women who loved John +clung and sobbed together.</p> + +<p>Lord Hemsworth looked fixedly at Di and +went out.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ep03.jpg" width="500" height="243" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[56]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch04.jpg" width="600" height="195" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<blockquote><p>"Toute passion nuisible attire, comme le gouffre, par +le vertige. La faiblesse de volonté amène la faiblesse +de tête, et l'abîme, malgré son horreur, fascine alors +comme un asile."—<span class="smcap">Amiel.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_p.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="P" /> + <span class="hide">P</span>EOPLE said that John had a charmed +life. The divergence of an eighth of +an inch, of a hundredth part of an inch, of +a hair's-breadth and the little bead that +passed right through his neck would have +pierced the jugular artery, and John would +have added one more to the long list of +names in Overleigh Church. As it was, +when once the direction of the bullet had +been ascertained, he was pronounced to be<span class="pagenum">[57]</span> +in little danger. He rallied steadily, and +without relapse.</p> + +<p>People said that he bore a charmed life, +and they began to say something more, +namely, that it was an object to somebody +that it should be wiped out. Men are not +shot at for nothing. John was not an Irish +landlord. Some one evidently bore him a +grudge. Society instantly formed several +more or less descreditable reasons to account +for John's being the object of some one's +revenge. Half-forgotten rumours of Archie's +doings were revived with John's name affixed +to them. Decidedly there had been some +"entanglement," and John had brought his +fate upon himself. Colonel Tempest, just +returned from foreign travel, heard the +matter discussed at his club. His opinion +was asked as to the truth of the reports, but +he only shrugged his shoulders, and it was +supposed that he could not deny them.<span class="pagenum">[58]</span> +Di's, Lady Alice Fane's, and Miss Crupps' +names were all equally associated with John's +in the different versions of the accident.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest did not go to see his +daughter. She had been telegraphed for +the morning after the ice carnival by Mrs. +Courtenay, who had actually developed with +the thaw the bronchitis which she had +dreaded throughout the frost. Di and +Archie, whose leave was up, returned to +town together for once.</p> + +<p>Archie had experienced a distinct though +shamed pang of disappointment when John's +state was pronounced to be favourable.</p> + +<p>All night long, as he had sat waking and +dozing beside the gallery fire opposite Lord +Hemsworth's motionless, wakeful figure, +visions of wealth passed in spite of himself +before his mind; visions of four-in-hands, +and screaming champagne suppers, and +smashing things he could afford to pay for,<span class="pagenum">[59]</span> +and running his own horses on the turf. +He did not want John to die. He had been +dreadfully shocked when he had first caught +sight of the stony upturned face almost +beneath his feet, and had strained every +nerve in his body to overtake the murderer. +He did not want John to go where he, +Archie, would have been terrified to go himself. +But—he wanted the things John had, +which his father had often told him should +by rights have been his, and they could +not both have them at one and the same +time.</p> + +<p>He could not understand his father's +fervent "Thank God!" when he assured him +that John was out of danger.</p> + +<p>"A miss is as good as a mile," said Archie, +with his smallest grin. He was desperately +short of money again by this time, and he +had no one to apply to. He knew enough +of John to be aware that nothing was to be<span class="pagenum">[60]</span> +expected from that quarter. Twenty-four +hours ago he had thought—how could he +help it?—that perhaps there would be no +further trouble on that irksome, wearisome +subject; for lack of money, and the annoyance +entailed by procuring it, was the thorn +in Archie's flesh. But now the annoyance +was still there, beginning as it were all over +again, owing to—John. Madeleine would +lend him money, he knew, but he would be +a cad to take it. He could not think of +such a thing, he said to himself, as he turned +it over in his mind.</p> + +<p>The ice carnival and John's escape were +a nine days' wonder. In ten days it was +forgotten for a <i>cause célèbre</i> by every one +except Colonel Tempest.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest had had a fairly pleasant +time abroad. While his small stock of +ready money lasted, the remainder of the +five hundred subtracted from the sum he<span class="pagenum">[61]</span> +had returned to John after his interview with +Larkin, he had really almost enjoyed himself. +He had picked up a few old companions +of the hanger-on species at Baden +and Homburg, and had given them dinners—he +was always open-handed. He had the +natural predilection for the society of his social +inferiors which generally accompanies a predilection +for being deferred to, and regarded +as a person of importance. He was under +the impression that he was the most liberal-minded +of men in the choice of his companions, +and without the social prejudices of +his class. He had won a little at "baccarat." +His health also had improved. On his +return in December to the lodgings which +he had left in such a panic in July, he told +himself that he had been in a morbid state +of health, that he had taken things too +much to heart, that he had been over-sensitive; +that there was no need to be<span class="pagenum">[62]</span> +afraid. Five months had elapsed. It would +be all right.</p> + +<p>And it had been all right for about a +month, and then——</p> + +<p>If the distressing theory that virtue is its +own reward has any truth, surely sin is its +own punishment.</p> + +<p>The old monotonous pains took Colonel +Tempest.</p> + +<p>It is a popular axiom among persons in +robust health that others labouring long +under a painful disease become accustomed +to it. It is perhaps as true as all axioms, +however freely laid down by persons in one +state respecting the feelings of others in a +state of which they are ignorant, can be.</p> + +<p>The continual dropping of water wears +away the stone. The stone ought, of course, +to put up an umbrella—any one can see +that—or shift its position. But it seldom +does so.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[63]</span></p> + +<p>There was a continual dropping of a slowly +diluted torture on the crumbling sandstone +of Colonel Tempest's heart. The few +months of intermission only rendered more +acute the agony of the inevitable recommencement.</p> + +<p>As he felt in July after the fire in John's +lodgings, so he felt now; just the same +again, all over again, only worse. The +porous sandstone was wearing down.</p> + +<p>He wandered like a ghost in the snowy +places in the Park—for snow had followed +the thaw—or paced for hours by the Serpentine, +staring at the water. Once in a path +across the Park he suddenly caught sight of +John walking slowly in the direction of +Kensington. The young man passed within +a couple of yards of him without seeing him, +his head bent, and his eyes upon the ground.</p> + +<p>"It is his ghost," said Colonel Tempest +to himself, clutching the railing, and looking<span class="pagenum">[64]</span> +back at the receding figure with an access +of shuddering horror.</p> + +<p>Another figure passed, a heavy man in an +ulster.</p> + +<p>"He is being followed," thought Colonel +Tempest. "It is Swayne, and he is following +him."</p> + +<p>He rushed panting after the second figure, +and overtook it at a meeting of the ways.</p> + +<p>"Swayne!" he gasped; "for mercy's sake, +Swayne, don't——"</p> + +<p>A benevolent elderly face turned and +peered at him in the twilight, and Colonel +Tempest remembered that Swayne was dead.</p> + +<p>"My name is Smith," said the man, and +after waiting a moment passed on.</p> + +<p>In a flash of memory Colonel Tempest +saw Swayne's huddled figure crouching in +the disordered bed, and the check trousers +over a chair, and the candle on the window-sill +bent double by the heat. That had been<span class="pagenum">[65]</span> +the manner of Swayne's departure. How +had he come to forget he was dead, and that +John was laid up at Overleigh?</p> + +<p>"I am going mad," he said to himself. +"That will be the end. I shall go mad and +tell everything."</p> + +<p>The new idea haunted him. He could +not shake it off. There was nothing in the +wide world to turn to for a change of thought. +If he fell asleep at night he was waked by +the sound of his own voice, to find himself +sitting up in bed talking loudly of he knew +not what. Once he heard himself call +Swayne's and John's names aloud into the +listening darkness, and broke into a cold +sweat at the thought that he might have +been heard in the next room. Perhaps the +other lodger, the young man with the red +hair, cramming for the army, knew everything +by this time. Perhaps the lodging-house +people had been listening at the door,<span class="pagenum">[66]</span> +and would give him in charge in the morning. +Did he not at that very moment hear furtive +steps and whispering on the landing? He +rushed out to see the thin tabby cat, the +walking funeral of the beetles and mice of +the establishment, slip noiselessly downstairs, +and he returned to his room shivering from +head to foot, to toss and shudder until the +morning, and then furtively eye the landlady +and her daughter in curl-papers.</p> + +<p>More days passed. Colonel Tempest had +had doubts at first, but gradually he became +convinced that the people in the house +knew. He was sure of it by the look in +their faces if he passed them on the stairs. +It was merely a question of time. They +were waiting to make certain before they +informed against him. Perhaps they had +written to John. There was no news of +John, except a rumour in the <i>World</i> that he +was to stand at the coming general election.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[67]</span></p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest became the prey of an +<i>idée fixe</i>. When John came forward on the +hustings he would be shot at and killed. +He became as certain of it as if it had +already happened. At times he believed it +<i>had</i> happened—that he had been present +and had seen him fall forward; and it was he, +Colonel Tempest, who had shot him, and +had been taken red-handed with one of his +old regimental pistols smoking in his hand.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest had those pistols somewhere. +One day he got them out and looked +at them, and spent a long time rubbing them +up. They used to hang crosswise under a +photograph of himself in uniform in his wife's +little drawing-room. He recollected, with +the bitterness that accompanies the remembrance +of the waste of lavished affections, how +he had sat with his wife and child a whole +wet afternoon polishing up those pistols, +while another man in his place would have<span class="pagenum">[68]</span> +gone off to his club. (Colonel Tempest +always knew what that other man would +have done.) And Di had been gentle and +affectionate, and had had a colour for once, +and had played with her creeping child like +a cat with its kitten. And they had had tea +together afterwards, sitting on the sofa with +the child asleep between them. Ah! if she +had only been always like that, he thought, +as he remembered the cloud that, owing to +her uncertain temper, had gradually settled +on his home-life.</p> + +<p>An intense bitterness was springing afresh +in Colonel Tempest's mind against his dead +wife, against his dead brother, against Swayne, +against his children who never came near +him (Di was nursing Mrs. Courtenay in +bronchitis, but that was of no account), +against the world in general which did +not care what became of him. No one +cared.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[69]</span></p> + +<p>"They will be sorry some day," he said +to himself.</p> + +<p>And still the waking nightmare remained +of seeing John fall, and of finding he had +shot him himself.</p> + +<p>More days passed.</p> + +<p>And gradually, among the tottering <i>débris</i> +of a life undermined from its youth, one +other thought began, mole-like, to delve and +creep in the darkness.</p> + +<p>Truly the way of transgressors is hard.</p> + +<p>No one cared what he suffered, what he +went through. This was the constant refrain +of these latter days. He had paroxysms +of angry tears of self-pity with his head in +his hands, his heart rent to think of himself +sitting bowed with anguish by his solitary +fireside. Love holds the casting vote in the +destinies of most of us. There is only one +love which wrings the heart beyond human +endurance—the love of self.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[70]</span></p> + +<p>And yet more days. The sun gave no +light by day, neither the moon by night.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>To the severe cold of January a mild +February had succeeded. March was close +at hand. The hope and yearning of the +spring was in the air already. Already in +Kensington Gardens the silly birds had begun +to sing, and the snowdrops and the little +regiments of crocuses had come up in double +file to listen.</p> + +<p>On this particular afternoon a pale London +sun was shining like a new shilling in the +sky, striking as many sparks as he could out +of the Round Pond. There was quite a +regatta at that Cowes of nursery shipping. +The mild wind was just strong enough to +take sailing-vessels across. The big man-of-war +belonging to the big melancholy man +who seemed open to an offer, the yachts and +the little fishing-smacks, everything with a<span class="pagenum">[71]</span> +sail, got over sooner or later. The tiny +hollow boats with seats were being towed +along the edge in leading-reins. A wooden +doll with joints took advantage of its absence +of costume to drop out of the boat in which it +was being conveyed, and take a swim in the +open. But it was recovered. An old gentleman +with spectacles hooked it out with the +end of his umbrella in a moment, quite pleased +to be of use. The little boys shouted, the +little girls tossed their manes, and careered +round the pool on slender black legs. Solemn +babies looked on from perambulators.</p> + +<p>The big man started the big man-of-war +again, and the whole fleet came behind in +its wake.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest was sitting on a seat +near the landing-place, where the ship-owners +had run to clutch their property a +moment ago. His hand was clenched on +something he held under his overcoat.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[72]</span></p> + +<p>"When the big ship touches the edge," +he said to himself.</p> + +<p>They came slowly across the pool in a +flock. Every little boy shrieked to every +other little boy of his acquaintance to observe +how his particular craft was going. The big +man alone was perfectly apathetic, though +his priceless possession was the first, of +course. He began walking slowly round. +Half the children were at the landing before +him, calling to their boats, and stretching out +their hands towards them.</p> + +<p>The big one touched land.</p> + +<p>"Not this time," said Colonel Tempest +to himself; "next time."</p> + +<p>How often he had said that already! How +often his hand had failed him when the +moment which he and that other self had +agreed upon had arrived! How often he +had gone guiltily back to the rooms to which +he had not intended to return, and had lain<span class="pagenum">[73]</span> +down once more in the bed which had +become an accomplice to the torture of every +hour of darkness!</p> + +<p>Between the horror of returning once +again, and the horror of the step into another +darkness, his soul oscillated with the feeble +violence of despair.</p> + +<p>He remembered the going back of +yesterday.</p> + +<p>"I will not go back again," he said to +himself, with the passion of a spoilt child. +"I will not—I will not."</p> + +<p>"It is time to go home, Master Georgie," +said a nursery-maid.</p> + +<p>"Just once more, Bessie," pleaded the +boy. "Just one <i>single</i> once more."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, it must be the last time, +mind," said the good-natured arbiter of fate, +turning the perambulator, and pushing it +along the edge, while the occupant of the +same added to the hilarity of the occasion<span class="pagenum">[74]</span> +by beating a much-chewed musical rattle +against the wheel.</p> + +<p>"<i>The last time.</i>" The chance words seized +upon Colonel Tempest's shuddering panic-stricken +mind, and held it as in a vice.</p> + +<p>"Next time," he said over and over +again to himself. "Next time shall really +be the last time—really the last, the very +last."</p> + +<p>The boats were coming across again, +straggling wide of each other; how quick, +yet what an eternity in coming! The top-heavy +boat with the red sail would be the +first. It had been started long before the +others. The wind caught it near the edge. +It would turn over. No, it righted itself. +It neared, it bobbed in the ripple at the +brink; it touched.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest's mind had become quite +numb. He only knew that for some imperative +reason which he had forgotten he<span class="pagenum">[75]</span> +must pull the trigger. He half pulled it; +then again more decidedly.</p> + +<p>There was a report. It stunned him +back to a kind of consciousness of what he +had done, but he felt nothing.</p> + +<p>There was a great silence, and then a +shrieking of terrified children, and a glimpse +of agitated people close at hand, and others +running towards him.</p> + +<p>The man with the big boat under his arm +said, "By gum!"</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest looked at him. He felt +nothing. Had he failed?</p> + +<p>The smoke came curling out at his collar, +and something dropped from his nerveless +hand and lay gleaming on the grass. There +was a sound of many waters in his ears.</p> + +<p>"He might have spared the children," +said a man's voice, tremulous with indignation.</p> + +<p>"That is always the way. No one thinks<span class="pagenum">[76]</span> +of <i>me</i>," thought Colonel Tempest. And the +Round Pond and the growing crowd, and +the child nearest him with its convulsed face, +all turned slowly before his eyes, slid up, +and disappeared.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ep04.jpg" width="500" height="266" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[77]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch05.jpg" width="600" height="193" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Vous avez bien froid, la belle;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comment vous appelez-vous?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Les amours et les yeux doux<br /></span> +<span class="i0">De nos cercueils sont les clous.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Je suis la morte, dit-elle.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cueillez la branche de houx."<br /></span> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Victor Hugo.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_a.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="A" /> + <span class="hide">A</span>S John lay impatiently patient upon his +bed in the round oak-panelled room at +Overleigh during the weeks that followed his +accident, his thoughts by day, and by night, +varied no more than the notes of a chaffinch +in the trees outside.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, let the solid earth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not fail beneath my feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before I too have found<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What some have found so sweet!"<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[78]</span></div></div> + +<p>That was the one constant refrain. The +solid earth had nearly failed beneath his +feet, nearly—nearly. If the world might +but cohere together and not fly off into +space; if body and soul might but hold +together till he had seen Di once more, +till he knew for certain from her own lips +that she loved him! Unloved by any +woman until now, wistfully ignorant of +woman's tenderness, even of its first alphabet +learned at a mother's knee, unread in +all its later language,—in these days of convalescence +a passionate craving was upon +him to drink deep of that untasted cup +which "some have found so sweet."</p> + +<p>He had Mitty, and Mitty at least was +radiantly happy during these weeks, with +John fast in bed, and in a condition to dispense +with other nursing than hers. She +sat with him by the hour together, mending +his socks and shirts, for she would not suffer<span class="pagenum">[79]</span> +any one to touch his clothes except herself, +and discoursing to him about Di—a subject +which she soon perceived never failed to +interest him.</p> + +<p>"Miss Dinah," Mitty would say for the +twentieth time, but without wearying her +audience—"now, there's a fine upstanding +lady for my lamb."</p> + +<p>"Lady Alice Fane is very pretty, too," +John would remark, with the happy knack +of self-concealment peculiar to the ostrich +and the sterner sex.</p> + +<p>"Hoots!" Mitty replied. "She's nothing +beside Miss Dinah. If you have Lady +Fane with her silly ways, and so snappy +to her maid, you'll repent every hair of your +head. You take Miss Dinah, my dear, as +is only waiting to be asked. She wants +you, my precious," Mitty never failed to +add. "I tell you it's as plain as the nose on +your face" (a simile the force of which could<span class="pagenum">[80]</span> +not fail to strike him). "It's not that Lord +Hemstitch, for all his pretty looks. It's +<i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>And John told himself he was a fool, and +then secretly felt under the pillow for a +certain pencilled note which Di had left +with the doctor on her hurried departure +to London the morning after the ice carnival. +It had been given to him when he +was able to read letters. It was a short +note. There was very little in it, and a +great deal left out. It did not even go +over the page. But nevertheless John was +so very foolish as to keep it under his pillow, +and when he was promoted to his +clothes it followed into his pocket. Even +the envelope had a certain value in his eyes. +Had not her hand touched it, and written +his name upon it?</p> + +<p>Lindo and Fritz, who had been consumed +with ennui during John's illness, were almost<span class="pagenum">[81]</span> +as excited as their master when he hobbled, +on Mitty's arm, into the morning-room for +luncheon. Lindo was aweary of sediments +of beef-tea and sticks of toast. Fritz, who +had had a plethora of whites of poached +eggs, sniffed anxiously at the luncheon-tray +with its roast pheasant.</p> + +<p>There were tricks and Albert biscuits +after luncheon, succeeded by heavy snoring +on the hearthrug.</p> + +<p>John was almost as delighted as they were +to leave his sick-room. It was the first +step towards going to London. When +should he wring permission from his doctor +to go up on "urgent business"? Five +days, seven days? Surely in a week at +latest he would see Di again. He made +a little journey round the room to show +himself how robust he was becoming, and +wound up the old watches lying in the <i>blue +du roi</i> Sèvres tray, making them repeat one<span class="pagenum">[82]</span> +after the other, because Di had once done +so. Would Di make this her sitting-room? +It was warm and sunny. Perhaps she +would like the outlook across the bowling-green +and low ivy-coloured balustrade away +to the moors. It had been his mother's +sitting-room. His poor mother. He looked +up at the pretty vacant face that hung over +the fireplace. He had looked at it so +often that it had ceased to make any definite +impression on him.</p> + +<p>He wondered vaguely whether the happy +or the unhappy hours had preponderated in +this room in which she was wont to sit, the +very furniture of which remained the same +as in her quickly finished day. And then +he wondered whether, if she had lived, Di +would have liked her; for it was still early +in the afternoon, and he had positively +nothing to do.</p> + +<p>He tried to write a few necessary letters<span class="pagenum">[83]</span> +in the absence of Mitty, who was busy +washing his handkerchiefs, but he soon gave +up the attempt. The exertion made his +head ache, as he had been warned it would, +so he propelled himself across the room to +his low chair by the window.</p> + +<p>What should he do till teatime? If only +he had asked Mitty for a bit of wash-leather +he might have polished up the brass slave-collar +in the Satsuma dish. He took it up +and turned it in his hands. It was a heavy +collar enough, with the owner's name engraved +thereon. "Roger Tempest, 1698."</p> + +<p>"It must have galled him," said John to +himself; and he took up the gag next, and +put it into his mouth, and then had considerable +difficulty in getting it out again. +What on earth should he do with himself +till teatime?</p> + +<p>One of the bits of Venetian glass +standing in the central niche of the lac<span class="pagenum">[84]</span> +cabinet at his elbow had lost its handle. +He got up to examine it, and, thinking the +handle might have been put aside within, +pushed back the glass in the centre of the +niche, which, as in so many of its species, +shut off a small enclosed space between the +tiers of drawers. The glass door and its +little pillars opened inwards, but not without +difficulty. It was clogged with dust. The +handle of the Venetian glass was not inside. +There was nothing inside but a little old, old, +very old, glue-bottle, standing on an envelope, +and a broken china cup beside it, with +the broken bits in it. The hand that had +put them away so carefully to mend, on a +day that never came, was dust. They +remained. John took out the cup. It +matched one that stood in the picture-gallery. +The pieces seemed to be all there. He +began to fit them together with the pleased +interest of a child. He had really found<span class="pagenum">[85]</span> +something to do at last. At the bottom +of the cup was a key. It was a very small +key, with a large head, matching the twisted +handles of the drawers.</p> + +<p>This was becoming interesting. John put +down the cup, and fitted the key into the +lock of one of the drawers. Yes, it was +the right one. He became quite excited. +Half the cabinets in the house were locked, +and would not open; of some he had found +the keys by diligent search, but the keys +of others had never turned up. Here was +evidently one.</p> + +<p>The key turned with difficulty, but still +it did turn, and the drawer opened. The +dust had crept over everything—over all the +faded silks and bobbins and feminine gear, +of which it was half full. John disturbed it, +and then sneezed till he thought he should +kill himself. But he survived to find among +the tangle of work a tiny white garment<span class="pagenum">[86]</span> +half made, with the rusted needle still in it. +He took it out. What was it? Dolls' +clothing? And then he realized that it was +a little shirt, and that his mother had probably +been making it for him and had not +had time to finish it. John held the baby's +shirt that he ought to have worn in a very +reverent hand, and looked back at the picture. +That bit of unfinished work, begun for him, +seemed to bring her nearer to him than +she had ever been before. Yes, it was +hers. There was her ivory workbox, with +her initials in silver and turquoise on it, and +her small gold thimble had rolled into a +corner of the drawer. John put back the +little remnant of a love that had never +reached him into the drawer with a clumsy +gentleness, and locked it up. "I will show +it Di some day," he said.</p> + +<p>The other drawers bore record. There +were small relics of girlhood—ball cards,<span class="pagenum">[87]</span> +cotillon ribbons, a mug with "Marion Fane" +inscribed in gold on it, a slim book on confirmation. +"One of darling Spot's curls" +was wrapped in tissue-paper. John did not +even know who Spot was, except that from +the appearance of the lock he had probably +been a black retriever. Her childish little +possessions touched John's heart. He +looked at each one, and put it tenderly back.</p> + +<p>Some of the drawers were empty. In +some were smart note-paper with faded +networks of silver and blue initials on them. +In another was an ornamental purse with +money in it and a few unpaid bills. John +wondered what his mother would have been +like now if she had lived. Her sister, Miss +Fane, had a weakness for gorgeous note-paper +and smart work-baskets which he had +often regarded with astonishment. It had +never struck him that his mother might have +had the same tastes.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[88]</span></p> + +<p>He opened another drawer. More fancy-work, +a ball of silk half wound on a card, a +roll of vari-coloured embroidery, and, thrust +in among them, a half-opened packet of +letters. The torn cover which still surrounded +them was addressed to Mrs. Tempest, +Overleigh Castle, Yorkshire.</p> + +<p>Inside the cover was a loose sheet which +fell apart from the packet, tied up separately. +On it was written, in a large cramped hand +that John knew well—</p> + +<p>"I dare say you are wise in your generation +to prefer to break with me. 'Tout +lasse,' and then naturally 'on se range.' I +return your letters as you wish it, and as you +have been kind enough to burn mine already, +I will ask you to commit this last effusion to +the flames."</p> + +<p>The paper was without date or signature.</p> + +<p>John opened the packet, which contained<span class="pagenum">[89]</span> +many letters, all in one handwriting, which +he recognized as his mother's. He read +them one by one, and, as he read, the pity in +his face gave place to a white indignation. +Poor foolish, foolish letters, to be read after +a lapse of eight and twenty years. John +realized how very silly his poor mother had +been; how worldly wise and selfish some +one else had been.</p> + +<p>"We ought to have been married, darling," +said one of the later letters, dated +from Overleigh, evidently after her marriage +with Mr. Tempest. "I see now we ought. +You said you were too poor, and you could +not bear to see me poor; but I would not +have minded that one bit—did not I tell you +so a hundred times? I would have learnt to +cook and mend clothes and everything if +only I might have been with you. It is +much worse now, feeling my heart is breaking +and yours too, and Fate keeping us<span class="pagenum">[90]</span> +apart. And you must not write to me any +more now I am married, or me to you. It is +not right. Mother would be vexed if she +knew; I am quite sure she would. So this +is the very last to my dearest darling +Freddie, from poor Marion."</p> + +<p>Alas! there were many, many more from +"poor Marion" after the very last; little +vacillating, feeble, gilt-edged notes, with every +other word under-dashed; some short and +hurried, some long and reproachful; sad +landmarks of each step of a blindfold wandering +on the brink of the abyss, clinging to +the hand that was pushing her over.</p> + +<p>The last letter was a very long one.</p> + +<p>"You have no heart," wrote the pointed, +slanting handwriting. "You do not care +what I suffer. I do not believe now you +ever cared. You say it would be an act of +folly to tell my husband, but you know I was +always silly. But it is not necessary. I am<span class="pagenum">[91]</span> +sure he knows. I feel it. He says nothing, +but I know he knows. Oh, if I were only +dead and in my grave, and if only the baby +might die too, as I hope it will, as I pray to +God it will! If I die and it lives, I don't +know what will happen to it. Remember, if +he casts it off, it is your child. Oh, Freddie, +surely it can't be all quite a mistake. You +were fond of me once, before you made me +wicked, and when I am dead you won't feel +so angry and impatient with me as you do +now. And if the child lives and has no +friend, you will remember it is yours, won't +you? I am so miserable that I think God +will surely let me die. And the child may +come any day now. Last night I felt so ill +that I dared not put off any longer, and this +morning I burned all your letters to me, +every one, even the first about the white +violets. Do you remember that letter? It +is so long ago now; no, you have forgotten.<span class="pagenum">[92]</span> +It is only I who remember, because it was +only I who cared. And I burned the locket +you gave me with your hair in it. It felt +like dying to burn it. Everything is all +quite gone. But I can't rest until you have +sent me back my letters. I can't trust you +to burn them. I know what trusting to you +means. Send them all back to me, and I +will burn them myself. Only be quick, be +quick; there is so little time. If they come +when I am ill, some one else may read them. +I hope if I live I shall never see your face +again; and if I die, I hope God will keep you +away from me. Oh! I don't mean it, +Freddie, I don't mean it; only I am so +miserable that I don't know what I write. +God forgive you. I would too if I thought +you cared whether I did or not. God forgive +us both.—M."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>John looked back at the cover of the<span class="pagenum">[93]</span> +packet. The Overleigh postmark was +blurred but legible. June the 8th, and the +year——. <i>It was his birthday.</i></p> + +<p>Her lover had sent back her letters, then, +with those few harsh lines telling her she +was wise in her generation. Even the last +he had returned. And they had reached her +on the morning of the day her child was +born. Had it been a sunny day, with no fire +on the hearth before which Lindo and Fritz +now lay stretched, into which she could have +dropped that packet? Had she not had +time even to burn them? She had glanced +at them, evidently. Had she been interrupted, +and had she thrust them for the +moment with her work into that drawer?</p> + +<p>Futile inquiry. He should never know. +And she had had her wish. She had been +allowed to die, to hide herself away in the +grave. John's heart swelled with sorrowing +pity as at the sight of a child's suffering.<span class="pagenum">[94]</span> +She had been very little more. She should +have her other wish, too.</p> + +<p>He gathered up the letters, and, stepping +over the dogs, dropped them into the heart +of the fire. They were in the safe keeping +of the flames at last. They reached their +destination at last, but, a little late—twenty-eight +years too late.</p> + +<p>And suddenly, as he watched them burn, +like a thunderbolt falling and tearing up the +ground on which he stood, came the thought, +"Then I am illegitimate."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The minute-hand of the clock on the +mantelpiece had made a complete circuit +since John had dropped the letters into the +fire, yet he had not stirred from the armchair +into which he had staggered the +moment afterwards.</p> + +<p>His fixed eyes looked straight in front of +him. His lips moved at intervals.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[95]</span></p> + +<p>"I am illegitimate," he said to himself, +over and over again.</p> + +<p>But no, it was a nightmare, an hallucination +of illness. How many delusions he had +had during the last few weeks! He should +wake up presently and find he had been +torturing himself for nothing. If only Mitty +would come back! He should laugh at +himself presently.</p> + +<p>In the mean while, and as it were in spite +of himself, certain facts were taking a new +significance, were arranging themselves into +an unexpected, horrible sequence. Link +joined itself to link, and lengthened to a +chain.</p> + +<p>He remembered his father's evident dislike +of him; he remembered how Colonel +Tempest had contested the succession when +he died. As he had lost the case, John had +supposed, when he came to an age to suppose +anything, that the slander was without<span class="pagenum">[96]</span> +foundation, especially as Mr. Tempest had +recognized him as his son. He had known +of its existence, of course, but, like the rest +of the world, had half forgotten it. That +Lord Frederick Fane (evidently the Freddie +of the letters) was even his supposed father, +had never crossed his mind. If he was like +the Fanes, why should he not be so? He +might as naturally resemble his mother's as +his father's family. He recalled Colonel +Tempest's inveterate dislike of him, Archie's +thankless reception of anything and everything +he did for him.</p> + +<p>"I believe," said John, in astonished +recollection of divers passages between himself +and them—"I believe they think I know +all the time, and am deliberately keeping +them out."</p> + +<p>That, then, was the reason why Mr. Tempest +had not discarded him. To recognize +him as his son was his surest means of<span class="pagenum">[97]</span> +striking at the hated brother who came next +in the entail.</p> + +<p>"I was made use of," said John, grinding +his teeth.</p> + +<p>It was no use fighting against it. This +hideous, profane incredibility was the truth. +Even without the letters to read over again +he knew it was true.</p> + +<p>"Remember, if he casts it out, it is your +child." The long-dead lips still spoke. +His mother had pronounced his doom +herself.</p> + +<p>"I am illegitimate," said John to himself. +And he remembered Di and hid his face in +his hands, while his mother simpered at him +from the wall. The solid earth had failed +beneath his feet.</p> + +<p>Let us beware how we sin, inasmuch as by +God's decree we do not pay. We could +almost conceive a right to do as we will, if +we could keep the penalty to ourselves,<span class="pagenum">[98]</span> +and pay to the uttermost farthing. But +not from us is the inevitable payment required. +The young, the innocent, the +unborn, smart for us, are made bankrupt +for us; from them is exacted the deficit +which we have left behind. The sins of the +fathers are visited on the children heavily—heavily.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ep05.jpg" width="500" height="258" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[99]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch06.jpg" width="600" height="185" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"What name doth Joy most borrow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When life is fair?<br /></span> +<span class="i10">'To-morrow.'"<br /></span> +<span class="i12"><span class="smcap">George Eliot.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_o.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="O" /> + <span class="hide">O</span>N her hurried return to London the +morning after the ice carnival, Di +found Mrs. Courtenay in that condition of +illness, not necessarily dangerous, in which +the linseed poultice and the steam-kettle +and the complexion of the beef-tea are the +objects of an all-absorbing interest, to the +exclusion of every other subject.</p> + +<p>Di was glad not to be questioned upon +the one subject that was never absent from +her thoughts. As Mrs. Courtenay became<span class="pagenum">[100]</span> +convalescent she was able to leave her for +an hour or two, and pace in the quieter +parts of Kensington Gardens. Happiness, +like sorrow, is easier to bear out-of-doors, +and Di had a lurking feeling that would +hardly bear being put into words, but was +none the worse company for that, that the +crocuses and the first bird-note in the trees +and the pale sky knew her secret and rejoiced +with her.</p> + +<p>John would come to her. He was getting +well, and the first day he could he would +come to her, and tell her once more that +he loved her. And she? Impossible, incredible +as it seemed, she should tell him +that she loved him too. Imagination stopped +short there. Everything after that was a +complete blank. They would be engaged? +They would be married? Other people +who loved did so. Words, mere words, applicable +to "other people," but not to her<span class="pagenum">[101]</span> +and John. Could such impossible happiness +ever come about? Never, never. She must +be mad to think of such a thing. It could +not be. Yet it was so; it was coming, it +was sure, this new, incomprehensible, dreaded +happiness, of which, now that it was almost +within her trembling hand, she hardly dared +to think.</p> + +<p>"Di," said Mrs. Courtenay one afternoon, +as she came in from her walk, "there is a +paragraph in the paper about John. He is +going to contest —— at the general election, +in opposition to the present Radical member. +Did he say anything about it while you were +at Overleigh? It must have been arranged +some time ago."</p> + +<p>"No, granny, he did not mention it."</p> + +<p>"I am glad he is taking part in politics at +last. It is time. I may not live to see it, +but he will make his mark."</p> + +<p>"I am sure he will," said Di.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[102]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Courtenay looked in some perplexity +at her granddaughter. It seemed to her, +from Di's account, that she had taken John's +accident very placidly. She had not forgotten +the girl's apparent callousness when +his life had been endangered in the mine. +It was very provoking to Mrs. Courtenay +that this beautiful creature, whom she had +taken out for nearly four years, seemed to +have too much heart to be willing to marry +without love, and too little to fall genuinely +in love.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courtenay had gone to considerable +expense in providing her with a new and +becoming morning-gown for that visit, and +Di had managed to lose one of the lace +handkerchiefs she had lent her, and had +come back unengaged after all. Mrs. +Courtenay, who had taken care to accept +the invitation for her without consulting her, +and had ordered the gown in spite of Di's<span class="pagenum">[103]</span> +remonstrances, felt keenly that if Di had +refused John, she had gone to that social +gathering under false pretences.</p> + +<p>"Di," she said, "I seldom ask questions, +but I have been wondering during the last +few days whether you have anything to tell +me or not."</p> + +<p>Considering that this was not a question, +it was certainly couched in a form conducive +to eliciting information.</p> + +<p>"I have, and I have not," said Di. "Of +course I know what you expected, but it did +not happen."</p> + +<p>"You mean John did not propose to you?"</p> + +<p>"No, granny."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courtenay was silent. She was prepared +to be seriously annoyed with Di, and +it seemed John was in fault after all. There +is no relaxation for a natural irritability in +being angry with a person a hundred miles +off.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[104]</span></p> + +<p>"I think he meant to," said Di, turning +pink.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courtenay saw the change of colour +with surprise.</p> + +<p>"My dear," she said, "do you care for +him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Di, looking straight at her +grandmother.</p> + +<p>"I am very thankful," said Mrs. Courtenay. +"I have nothing left to wish for."</p> + +<p>"I believe I have sometimes done you an +injustice," she said tremulously, after wiping +her spectacles. "I thought you valued your +own freedom and independence too much to +marry. It is difficult to advise the young +to give their love if they don't want to. +Yet, as one grows old, one sees that the very +best things we women have lose all their +virtue if we keep them to ourselves. Our +love if we withhold it, our freedom if we +retain it,—what are they later on in life but<span class="pagenum">[105]</span> +dead seed in our hands? Our best is ours +only to give. Our part is to give it to some +one who is worthy of it. I think John is +worthy. I wish he had managed to speak, +and that it were all settled."</p> + +<p>"It is really settled," said Di. "Now and +then I feel frightened, and think I may have +made a mistake, but I know all the time that +is foolish. I am certain he cares for me, +and I am quite sure he knows I care for +him. Granny"—blushing furiously—"I often +wish now that I had not said quite so many +idiotic things about love and marriage before +I knew anything about them. Do you remember +how I used to favour you with my +views about them?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think they were exactly idiotic. +Only the elect hesitate to pronounce opinions +on subjects of which they are ignorant. I +have heard extremely intelligent men say +things quite as silly about housekeeping, and<span class="pagenum">[106]</span> +the rearing of infants. You, like them, +spoke according to your lights, which were +small. I don't know about charming men. +There are not any nowadays. But it is +always</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">'... a pity when charming women<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Talk of things that they don't understand.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"We should not have many subjects of +conversation if we did not," said Di.</p> + +<p>And the old woman and the young one +embraced each other with tears in their eyes.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ep06.jpg" width="500" height="280" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[107]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch07.jpg" width="600" height="190" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, well for him whose will is strong!"<br /></span> +<span class="i14"><span class="smcap">Tennyson.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_t.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="T" /> + <span class="hide">T</span>HERE come times in our lives when +the mind lies broken on the revolving +wheel of our thought. "I am illegitimate." +That was the one thought which made John's +bed for him at night, which followed him +throughout the spectral day until it brought +him back to the spectral night again.</p> + +<p>It was a quiver in which were many +poisoned arrows. Because the first that +struck him was well-nigh unbearable, the +others did not fail to reach their mark.</p> + +<p>If he were nameless and penniless, he<span class="pagenum">[108]</span> +could not marry Di. That was the first +arrow. Such marriages are possible only in +books and in that sacred profession which, +in spite of numerous instances to the contrary, +believes that "the Lord will provide." +Di would not be allowed to marry him, even +if she were willing to do so. And after a +time—a long time, perhaps—she would marry +some one else, possibly Lord Hemsworth.</p> + +<p>John writhed. He had set his heart on +this woman. He had bent her strong will +to love him as a proud woman only can. +She had been hard to win, but she was his +as much as if they were already married; +his by right, as the living Galatea was by +right the sculptor's, who gave her marble +heart the throbbing life and love of his own.</p> + +<p>"She is mine—I cannot give her up," he +said aloud.</p> + +<p>There was no voice, nor any that answered.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[109]</span></p> + +<p>Strange how the ploughshare turns up +little tags and ends of forgotten rubbish +buried by the mould of a few years' dust.</p> + +<p>One utterance of Archie's, absolutely forgotten +till now, was continually recurring to +John's mind. Its barbed point rankled.</p> + +<p>"There must be a mint of money in an +old barrack stuffed full of gimcracks like +this. If ever I wanted a hundred or two, +I would trot out one of those little silver +Johnnies in no time if they were mine."</p> + +<p>And he would. If the thought of what +Colonel Tempest and Archie would achieve +after his own death had stung John as +Archie said that, how should he bear to +stand by and <i>see</i> them do it? The books, +the pictures, the family manuscripts which +he was even then arranging, the jewels, the +renowned diamond necklace that the Spanish +government had offered to buy from his +grandfather, which he had hoped one day<span class="pagenum">[110]</span> +to clasp on Di's neck—all the possessions of +the past but almost regal state of a great +name, which he had kept with such a reverent +hand—he should live to see them cast +right and left, lost, sold, squandered, stolen. +Archie would give the diamonds to the first +actress who asked for them. Colonel Tempest +would be equally "open-handed."</p> + +<p>As the days went on, John shut his eyes +to the pictures in the gallery as he passed +through it. A mute suspense and reproach +seemed to hang about the whole place. The +Velasquez and the Titian peered at him. +Tempest of the Red Hand clutched his +sword-hilt uneasily. Mieris' old Dutch-woman +seemed to have lost her interest in +selling her marvellous string of onions to +the little boy. Ribalta's Spanish Jesuit fingered +the red cross of Santiago embroidered +on his breast, and looked askance at John.</p> + +<p>John turned back many times from the<span class="pagenum">[111]</span> +library door. The new books which he had +had bound in exact reproduction of a beautiful +old missal of the Tempest collection, and +for the arrival of which he had been eagerly +waiting, remained untouched in their packing-cases. +He could not look at them.</p> + +<p>Once he went into the dining-hall, unused +when he was alone, and opened one of the +ponderous shutters. The rich light pierced +the solemn gloom, catching the silver sconces +on the wall and the silver figures standing in +the carved niches above the fireplace.</p> + +<p>"You will not give us up," they seemed +to say; and the little cavalier turned to his +lady with a shake of his head.</p> + +<p>As John closed the shutter his eyes fell +on the Tempest motto on the pane, "Je le +feray durant ma vie;" and it stabbed him +like a knife.</p> + +<p>He went out into the open air like one +pursued, and paced in the dead forest waiting<span class="pagenum">[112]</span> +for the spring. All he had held so +sacred meant nothing then—nothing, nothing, +nothing. The Tempest motto, round which +he had bound his life, round which his +most solemn convictions and aspirations +had grown up, had nothing to do with +him. He had been mocked. He, a nameless +bastard, the offspring of a mere common +intrigue, had been fooled into believing +that he was John Tempest, the head of one +of the greatest families in England; that +Overleigh belonged to him and he to it as +entirely as—nay, more than—his own hands +and feet and eyes.</p> + +<p>It was as if he had been acting a serious +part to the best of his ability on a stage with +many others, and suddenly they had all +dropped their masks and were grinning at +him with satyr faces in grotesque attitudes, +and he found that he alone had mistaken +a screaming farce, of which he was the butt,<span class="pagenum">[113]</span> +for a drama of which he had imagined himself +one of the principal figures.</p> + +<p>John laughed a harsh wild laugh under +the solemn overarching trees. Everything, +himself included, had undergone a hideous +distortion. His whole life was dislocated. +His faith in God and man wavered. The +key-stone of his existence was gone from +the arch, and the stones struck him as they +fell round him. The confusion was so great +that for the first few days he was incapable +of action, incapable of reflection, incapable of +anything.</p> + +<p><i>Mitty!</i> That thought came next. That +stung. He had nothing in the wide world +which he could call his own; no roof for +Mitty, no fire to warm her by. He was +absolutely without means. His mother's +small fortune he had sunk in an annuity for +Mr. Goodwin. What would become of +Mitty? How would she survive being uprooted<span class="pagenum">[114]</span> +from her little nest in the garret +gallery? How would she bear to see her +lamb turned adrift upon the world? Mitty +was growing old, and her faithful love for +him would make the last years sorrowful +which were so happy now. Oh, if he could +only wait till Mitty died!</p> + +<p>John had not wept a tear for himself, but +he hid his face against the trunk of one of +the trees that were not his, and sobbed +aloud at the thought of Mitty.</p> + +<p>And next day came a letter from Archie, +saying that Colonel Tempest was at death's +door in one of the London hospitals, owing +to having accidentally shot himself with a +revolver. John sent money, much more than +was actually necessary, and drew breath. +Nothing could be done until Colonel Tempest +was either convalescent or dead. He +was reprieved from telling Mitty anything +for the moment.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[115]</span></p> + +<p>And as the spring was just beginning to +whisper to the sleeping earth, and the buds +of the horse-chestnut to grow white and +woolly beneath the nursery windows, as +John had seen them many and many a time—how +or why I know not, but with the +waking of the year Mitty began to fail.</p> + +<p>She had never been ill in John's recollection. +She had had "a bone in her leg" +occasionally, but excepting that mysterious +ailment and a touch of rheumatism in later +years, Mitty had always been quite well. +She was not actually ill now, but——</p> + +<p>It was useless to tell her not to "do" her +nurseries herself, and to positively forbid her +to wash his socks and handkerchiefs. Mitty +worked exactly the same; and John with an +ache at his heart came indoors every day +in time for nursery tea, and Mitty made him +buttered toast, and was happy beyond words; +but I think her eyesight must have begun<span class="pagenum">[116]</span> +to fail her, or she would have seen how +grey and haggard the face of her "lamb" +became as the days went by.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Who shall say when a thought begins? +Long before we see it, it was there, but our +eyes were holden. "L'amour commence +par l'ombre." So do many things besides +love.</p> + +<p><i>The letters were destroyed.</i> When did +John think of that first, or rather, when did +he first hear it whispered? Why was his +mind always going back to that?</p> + +<p>He would not have burned them if he +had taken time to consider, but the first +impulse to do with them as their writer had +herself intended, had been acted upon before +he had even thought of their bearing upon +himself and others.</p> + +<p>At any rate they were gone—quite gone—sprinkled +to the four winds of heaven.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[117]</span></p> + +<p><i>There was no other proof.</i></p> + +<p>And his—no, not his father—Mr. Tempest, +who knew all about him, had intended +him to be his heir. He had left him his +name and his place, with a solemn charge +to do his duty by them.</p> + +<p>"I have done it," said John to himself, +"as those two would never have done. +Shall I let all go to rack and ruin now? +If I was not born a Tempest I have become +one. I <i>am</i> one, and if I marry one my +children will be Tempests, and those two +fools will not be suffered to pull Overleigh +stone from stone, and drag a great name +into the dust; as they would, as they +assuredly would."</p> + +<p>Had not Mr. Tempest foreseen this when +he exacted that solemn promise from John +on his death-bed to uphold the honour of +the family? Could he break that promise? +And through the vain sophistries, upsetting<span class="pagenum">[118]</span> +them all, a mad cry rang, "Di loves me! +She loves me at last! I cannot give her up!"</p> + +<p>The challenge was thrown out into the +darkness. No one took it up.</p> + +<p>A fierce restlessness laid hold on John. +He rushed up to London several times to +hear how Colonel Tempest was going on. +Each time he told himself that he was going +to see Di. But although the first time he +went to Colonel Tempest's lodgings the +servant informed him that Di was with her +father, he did not ask to see her. Each +time he came back without having dared to +go to the little house in Kensington. He +could not meet those grave clear eyes with +the new gentleness in them that went to his +head like wine. He knew they would make +him forget everything, everything except +that he loved her, and would sell his very +soul for her.</p> + +<p>Time stopped. In all this enormous interval<span class="pagenum">[119]</span> +the buds of the horse-chestnut had +not yet burst to green. It was ages since +he had seen the first primrose, and yet to-day, +as he walked in the woods on the day +after his return from another futile journey +to London, they were all out in the forest +still.</p> + +<p>And something stirred within him that +had not deigned to take notice of all his +feverish asseverations and wanderings, that +had not rebuked him, that had not even +listened when he had said repeatedly that +he could not give up Di.</p> + +<p>By an invisible hand the challenge was +taken up, and John knew the time of conflict +was at hand.</p> + +<p>He walked on and on, not knowing where +he went, past the forest and the meadowland, +and away over the rolling moors, with +only Lindo for his companion.</p> + +<p>At last his newly returned strength failing<span class="pagenum">[120]</span> +him, he threw himself down in the dry windswept +heather. He had not outstripped his +thoughts. This was the appointed place. +He knew it even as he flung himself down. +His hour was come.</p> + +<p>It was an April afternoon, pale and bleak. +The late frost had come back, and had +silenced the birds. One only deeply in +love, somewhere near at hand, but invisible, +repeated plaintively over and over again a +small bird-name in the silence of the shrinking +spring.</p> + +<p>And John's heart said over and over again +one little word—</p> + +<p>"Di, Di, Di!"</p> + +<p>There are some sacrifices which partake +of the nature of self-mutilation. That is why +principle often falls before the onslaught of +a deep human passion, which is nothing but +the rebellion of human nature brought to +bay, against the execution upon itself of that<span class="pagenum">[121]</span> +dread command of the spiritual nature, "If +thy right hand offend thee, cut it off."</p> + +<p>To give up certain affections is with some +natures to give up all possibility of the +quickening into life of that latent maturer +self that craves for existence in each one +of us. It is to take, for better for worse, a +more meagre form of life, destitute, not of +happiness perhaps, but of those common +joys and sorrows which most of all bind us +in sympathy with our fellow-men. What +marriage in itself is to the majority, the love +of one fellow-creature, and one only, is to +the few. To a few, happily a very few, +there is only one hand that can minister +among the pressure of the crowd. There +was none other woman in the world for +John, save only Di. Sayings common to +vulgarity, profaned by every breach of +promise case, can yet be true sometimes.</p> + +<p>"Di, Di, Di!" said John.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[122]</span></p> + +<p>He tried to recall her face, but he could +not. When they were together he had not +seen her; he had only felt her presence, only +trembled at each slight movement of her +hands. He always watched them when he +was talking to her. He knew every movement +of those strong, slender hands by +heart. She had a little way of opening and +shutting her left hand as she talked. He +smiled even now as he thought of it. And +she had a certain wave in her hair just above +the ear, that was not the same over the +other ear. But her face—no, he could not +see her face.</p> + +<p>He tried again. They were sitting once +again, he and she, not very near, nor very +far apart, in the low entresol room at Overleigh. +He could see her now. She was +arranging the lilies of the valley, and he was +saying to himself, as he watched her with +his chin in his hands, "This is only the<span class="pagenum">[123]</span> +beginning. There will be many times like +this, only dearer and sweeter than this."</p> + +<p>Many times! That deep conviction had +proved as false as all the rest—as false as +everything else which he had trusted.</p> + +<p>And all in a moment as he looked, as +he remembered, was it endurance, was it +principle, that seemed to snap?</p> + +<p>He set his teeth and ground his heel into +the earth. Agony had come upon him. +Passion, writhing in torment, rose gigantic +without warning and seized him in a Titan +grip. It was a duel to the death.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>John sat motionless in the solitude of the +heather. The bird was silent. On either +hand the level moors met the level sky. +Lindo walked in and out in semi and total +eclipse near at hand, now emerging life-size +upon a hillock, now visible only as an erect +travelling tail amid the heather. The sun<span class="pagenum">[124]</span> +came faintly out. There was a little speech +of bees, a little quivering among the poised +spears of the tall bleached grasses against +the sky.</p> + +<p>Time passed.</p> + +<p>John's was not the easy faith which believes +that in another world what has been given +up in this will be restored a thousandfold. +The hope of future reward had no more +power to move him than the fear of future +punishment. The heaven of rewards of +which those speak who have authority, would +be no heaven at all to many; a place from +which the noblest would turn away. Love +worthy of the name, even down here, gives +all, asking nothing back.</p> + +<p>John did not try to define even to himself +the faith by which he had lived so far; but +as the veiled sun stooped near and nearer to +the west, he began to see, as clearly as he +saw the sword-grass shaking against the sky,<span class="pagenum">[125]</span> +that he was about to remain true to it, or be +false to it for ever.</p> + +<p>Perhaps that faith was more than anything +else a stern allegiance to the Giver of that +law within the heart which independent +natures ever recognize as the only true +authority; which John had early elected to +obey, which he had obeyed with ease, till +now. He had been condemned by many as +a freethinker; for to be obedient to the +divine prompting has ever been stigmatized +as lawlessness by those who are obedient to +a written code. John had no code.</p> + +<p>Yet God, who made (if the tourists who +cheaply move in flocks on beaten highways +could only believe it) those solitary, +isolated natures, knew what He was about. +And to those to whom little human guidance +is vouchsafed He adds courage, and that +self-reliance which comes only of a deep-rooted +faith in a God who will not keep<span class="pagenum">[126]</span> +silence, who will not leave the traveller +journeying towards Him unpiloted upon a +lonely shore, or ultimately suffer His least +holy one to see corruption.</p> + +<p>John looked wildly round him. Even +nature seemed to have turned against him. +It spoke of peace when there was no peace. +For nature has no power to mitigate the +bitterness of that cup of self-surrender which +even Christ Himself, beneath the kindred +stars of still Gethsemane, prayed might pass +from Him.</p> + +<p>John hid his convulsed face in his +hands.</p> + +<p>The crises of life have their hour of loneliness +and prostration, their agony and bloody +sweat. That cup which may not pass, how +ennobling it is to read of in the lives of +others, how interesting to theorize upon in +our own; how appalling in actual experience, +when it is in our hands to drink or to refuse;<span class="pagenum">[127]</span> +refusing for ever with it, if we accept it not, +the hand of Him who offers it!</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The solemn world of grey earth and sky +waited. The light in the west waited. How +much longer were they to wait? How much +longer would this bowed figure sway itself to +and fro?</p> + +<p>"I will do it!" said John suddenly, and +with a harsh inarticulate cry he flung himself +down on his face among the heather, +clutching the soft earth; for the Hand of the +God whom he would not deny was heavy +on him.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ep07.jpg" width="500" height="264" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[128]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch08.jpg" width="600" height="184" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The dead abide with us! Though stark and cold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They have forged our chains of being for good or ill."<br /></span> +<span class="i14"><span class="smcap">Mathilde Blind.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_j.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="J" /> + <span class="hide">J</span>OHN was late. Mitty looked out +several times to see if he were coming, +and then put down the tea-cake to the fire.</p> + +<p>At last his step came slowly along the +garret gallery, and Lindo, who approved of +nursery tea, walked in first, his dignity +somewhat impaired by a brier hanging from +his back flounce.</p> + +<p>John saw the firelight through the open +door, and the figure in the low chair waiting<span class="pagenum">[129]</span> +for him. She had heard him coming, and +was getting stiffly up to make the tea.</p> + +<p>"Mitty, you should not wait for me," he +said, sitting down in his own place by the fire.</p> + +<p>Would they let her keep the brass kettle +and her silver teapot? Yes, no doubt they +would; but somebody would have to ask. +He supposed he should be that somebody. +Everything she possessed had been bought +by himself with other people's money.</p> + +<p>He let the tea last as long as possible. If +Lindo had more than his share of tea-cake, +no one was the wiser. At last Mitty cleared +away, and sat down in the rocking-chair.</p> + +<p>"Don't light the candles, Mitty."</p> + +<p>"Why not, my dear? I can't be settin' +with my hands before me, and holes in your +socks a shame to be seen."</p> + +<p>John came and sat down on the floor +beside her, and leaned his head against +her.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[130]</span></p> + +<p>"Never mind the socks just now. There +is something I want to talk to you about."</p> + +<p>He looked at the fire through the bars +of the high nursery fender, and something +in its glimmer, seen from so near the floor +through the remembered pattern of the wires +which he had lost sight of for twenty years, +suddenly recalled the times when he had sat +on the hearthrug, as he was sitting now, +with his head against Mitty's knee, confiding +to her what he would do when he was a man.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember, Mitty," he said, "how +I used to tell you that when I grew up you +should ride in a carriage, and have a gold +brooch, and a clock that played a tune?"</p> + +<p>"I remember, my darling; and how, next +time Charles went into York, you give him +all you had, and half a crown it was, to buy +me a brooch, and the silly staring fool went +and spent it, and brought back that great +thing with the mock stones in. And you<span class="pagenum">[131]</span> +was as pleased as pleased. Eh! I was +angry with Charles for taking your bits of +money, and all he said was, 'Well, Mrs. +Emson, I went to a many shops, and I give +five shillin's for it so as to get a big un.'"</p> + +<p>"I remember it," said John. "It was +about the size of a small poultice. And so +Charles paid half. Good old Charles! I +seem to have been much deceived in my +youth."</p> + +<p>His deep-set eyes watched the fire, watched +the semblance of a little castle in the heart +of the glow. Mitty was quite happy with +her darling's head against her knee.</p> + +<p>"When the castle falls in I will tell her," +said John to himself.</p> + +<p>But the fire had settled itself. The castle +held. At last Mitty put out her hand, and +gave it a poke; not with the brass poker, of +course, but with a little black slave which +did that polished aristocrat's work for it.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[132]</span></p> + +<p>"Mitty," said John, "I am not so rich +now as when I was in pinafores; and even +then, you see, the brooch was not bought +with my own money. Charles gave half. +I have never given you anything that was +paid for with my own money. I have been +spending other people's all my life."</p> + +<p>"Why, bless your dear heart!" said Mitty; +"and who gave me my silver teapot, I should +like to know, and the ivory workbox, and +that very kettle a-staring you in the face, +and the Wedgwood tea-things, and—and +everything, if it was not you?"</p> + +<p>John did not answer. His face twitched.</p> + +<p>The bars of the fender were blurred. The +brass kettle, instead of staring him in the +face, melted quite away.</p> + +<p>Mitty stroked his head and face.</p> + +<p>"Cryin'!" she said—"my lamby cryin'!"</p> + +<p>"Not for myself, Mitty."</p> + +<p>"Who for, then? For that Miss Dinah?"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[133]</span></p> + +<p>"No, Mitty, for you. This is no home for +you and me." He took her hard hand and +rubbed his cheek against it. "It belongs to +Colonel Tempest. I am not my father's +son, Mitty."</p> + +<p>"Well, my precious," said Mitty, soothingly, +in no wise discomposed by what John +feared would have quite overwhelmed her, +"and if your poor mammy did say as much +to me when she was light-headed, when her +pains was on her, there's no call to fret about +that, seeing it's a long time ago, and her +dead and all. Poor thing! I can see her +now, with her pretty eyes and her little +hands, and she'd put her head against me +and say, 'Nursey' (Nursey I was to her), +'I'm not fit neither to live nor to die.' +Many and many's the night I've roared to +think of her after she was gone, when you +was asleep in your crib. But there's no +need for you to fret, my deary."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[134]</span></p> + +<p>John's heart contracted. Mitty knew also. +Oh, if he might but have started life +knowing what even Mitty knew!</p> + +<p>"They'd no business to marry her to Mr. +Tempest," continued Mitty, shaking her +head, "and she, poor thing, idolizing that +black Lord Fane, as was her first cousin. +It wasn't likely, after that, she'd settle to +Mr. Tempest, who was as light as tow. It +was against nature. She never took a bit +of interest in him, nor him in her neither, +that I could see. A hard man he was, too—a +hard man. She sent for him when she +was dying. She would not see him while +there was any chance. 'Forgive me,' she +says; she says it over and over, me holding +her up. 'I wouldn't ask it if I was staying, +but I'm doing the best I can by dying. It's +not much to make up, but it's the best I can. +And,' she says, 'don't think, Jack, as all +women are bad like me. There's a many<span class="pagenum">[135]</span> +good ones as 'ull make you happy yet when +I'm gone.' I can see him now, standing by +her, looking past her out of the window with +his face like a flint. 'I've known two false +ones,' he says; and he went away without +another word. And she says after a bit +to me, 'I've always been frightened at the +very thought of dying, but it's living I'm +frightened of now.' Eh! Master John, your +poor mammy! She did repent. And Mr. +Tempest sent for me to the library after the +funeral, and he says, 'Promise me, nurse, +that you'll never repeat what your mistress +said to me when she was not herself.' And +he looked hard at me, and I promised. And +I've never breathed it to any living soul, not +to one I haven't, from that day to this."</p> + +<p>"I found it out three weeks ago," said +John. "And as I am not Mr. Tempest's +son, everything I have belongs by right to +Colonel Tempest, the next heir, not to<span class="pagenum">[136]</span> +me. Overleigh is not mine. It never was +mine."</p> + +<p>But Mitty could not be made to understand +what his mother's frailty had to do +with John. When at last she grasped the +idea that John would make known the fact +that he was not his father's son, she was +simply incredulous that her lamb could do +such a thing—could bring shame upon his +own mother. No, whatever else he might +do, he would never do that. Why, Mrs. +Alcock would know; and friends as she was +with Mrs. Alcock, and had been for years, +such a word had never passed her lips. +And the people in the village, and the trades-people, +and Jones and Evans from York, +who were putting up the new curtains,—everybody +would know. Mitty became quite +agitated. Surely, surely, he'd never tell +against his poor mother in her grave.</p> + +<p>"Mitty," said John, forcing himself to<span class="pagenum">[137]</span> +repeat what it had been difficult enough +to say once, "don't you see that I can't stay +here and keep what is not mine? Nothing +is mine if I am not Mr. Tempest's son. I +ought never to have been called so. We +must go away."</p> + +<p>But Mitty was perplexed.</p> + +<p>"Not to that great weary house in London," +she said anxiously, "with every spot of +water to carry up from the bottom?"</p> + +<p>"That is not mine either," said John in +despair, rising to his feet and standing before +her. "Oh, Mitty, try and understand. +Nothing is mine—nothing, nothing, nothing; +not even the clothes I have on. I am a +beggar."</p> + +<p>Mitty looked at him in a dazed way. +She could not understand, but she could +believe. Her chin began to tremble.</p> + +<p>It was almost a relief to see at last the +tears which he had dreaded from the first.<span class="pagenum">[138]</span> +"My lamb a beggar," she said over and +over again; and she cried a little, but not +much. Mitty was getting old, and she was +not able to realize a change—a change so +incomprehensible as this.</p> + +<p>"But we need not be unhappy," said John, +kneeling down by her, and putting his arms +round her. "We shall be together still. +Wherever I go you will go with me. I don't +know yet where it will be, but we shall have +a little home together somewhere, just you and +I; and you'll do my socks and handkerchiefs, +won't you, Mitty? and"—John controlled +his voice, but he hid his face in her lap that +she might not see it—"we'll be so happy +together." At the moment I think John +would have given up heaven itself to make +that hour smooth to Mitty. "And your +cakes, Mitty," he went on hoarsely. "They +are better than any one else's. You shall +have a little kitchen, and you will make<span class="pagenum">[139]</span> +the cakes yourself, won't you? and the"—his +voice stumbled heavily—"the rock +buns."</p> + +<p>"My precious," said Mitty, sobbing, +"don't you fret yourself! I can make a +many things besides them; Albert puddings +and moulds, and them little cheese straws, +and a sight of things. There's a deal of +work in my old hands yet. It's only the +spring as has took the starch out of me. +I always feel a sinking in the spring. Lord, +my darling, the times and times again I've +been settin' here just dithering with a mossel +of crotchet, or idling over a bit of reading, +and wishing you was having a set of nightshirts +to make!"</p> + +<p>Love had found out the way. John had +appealed to the right instinct. Mitty was +already busying herself with a future in +which she should minister to her child's +comfort, and John saw, with a relief that was<span class="pagenum">[140]</span> +half a pang, that the calamity of his life held +hardly any place in the heart that loved him +so much.</p> + +<p>"I've a sight of things," continued Mitty, +wiping her eyes. "Books and pictures and +cushions put away. My precious shall not +go short. And there's two pair of linen +sheets as I bought with my own money, +and piller-slips to match, and six silver teaspoons +and one dessert. My lamb shall +have things comfortable about him."</p> + +<p>She fell to communing with herself. John +did not speak.</p> + +<p>"I'll leave my places tidy," said Mitty. +"Tidy I didn't find 'em, but tidy I'll leave +'em. I can't go till after the spring cleaning, +Master John. I'll never trust that Fanny +to do the scrubbing unless I'm behind her. +I caught her washing round the mats instead +of under only last week."</p> + +<p>John felt unable to enter into the question<span class="pagenum">[141]</span> +of the spring cleaning. There was another +silence.</p> + +<p>At last Mitty said defiantly, "And I +shall take your morroccy shoes, and your +little chair as I give you myself. I don't +care what anybody says, I shall take +'em. And the old horse and the Noey's +ark."</p> + +<p>"It will be all right," said John, getting +slowly to his feet. "Nobody will want to +have them, or anything of mine;" and he +kissed her, and went out.</p> + +<p>He went to the library and sat down by +the fire.</p> + +<p>The resolution and aspiration of a few +hours ago—where were they now? He felt +broken in body and soul.</p> + +<p>Lindo came in, nibbled John's elbow, and +scrutinized the fire. John scratched him +absently on the top of his back between the +tufts.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[142]</span></p> + +<p>"Lindo," he said, "the world is a hard +place to live in."</p> + +<p>But Lindo, bulging with an unusual allowance +of tea-cake, and winnowing the air +with an appreciative hind leg, did not +think so.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ep08.jpg" width="500" height="279" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[143]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch09.jpg" width="600" height="189" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Et souvent au moment où l'on croyait tenir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Une espérance, on voit que c'est un souvenir."<br /></span> +<span class="i14"><span class="smcap">Victor Hugo.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_w.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="W" /> + <span class="hide">W</span>HEN Colonel Tempest lay in a precarious +condition owing to the unexpected +explosion of a revolver which he +was taking to his gun-maker, and which +he believed to be unloaded—when this +fatality occurred, Mrs. Courtenay somewhat +relaxed the stringency of her usual demeanour +to him, and allowed his daughter +to be with him constantly in the hospital to +which he was first conveyed, and afterwards +in his rooms in Brook Street when he was<span class="pagenum">[144]</span> +sufficiently convalescent to be conveyed +thither.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest was a trying patient; +in one sense he was not a patient at all; +melting into querulous tears when denied +a sardine on toast for which his soul +thirsted, the application of which would +infallibly have separated his soul from his +body; and bemoaning continually, when +consciousness was vouchsafed to him, the +neglect of his children and the callousness +of his friends. Di bore it with equanimity. +It is only true accusations which one feels +obliged to contradict. She did not love +her father, and his continual appeals to her +pity and filial devotion touched her but +little. Colonel Tempest confided to his +nurse in the night-watches that he was the +parent of heartless children, and when Di +took her place in the daytime, reviled the +nurse's greed, who, whether he was suffering<span class="pagenum">[145]</span> +or not, could eat a large meal in the middle +of the night.</p> + +<p>"I hate nurses," he would say. "Your +poor mother had such a horrid nurse when +Archie was born. I could not bear her, +always making difficulties and restrictions, +and locking the door, and then complaining +to the doctor because I rattled the lock. +I urged your mother to part with her whenever +she was not in the room. But she +only cried, and said she could not do without +her, and that she was kind to her. That +was your mother all over. She always +sided against me. I must say she knew the +value of tears, did your poor mother. She +cried herself into hysterics when I rang the +front door bell at four in the morning because +I had gone out without a latch-key. I +suppose she expected me to sit all night on +the step. And first the nurse and then the +doctor spoke to me about agitating her, and<span class="pagenum">[146]</span> +said it was doing her harm; so I just walked +straight out of the house, and never set foot +in it again for a month till they had both +cleared out. They overreached themselves +that time."</p> + +<p>Archie, who looked in once a day for the +space of ten seconds, came in for the largest +share of Colonel Tempest's reproaches.</p> + +<p>"I don't like sick people," that young +gentleman was wont to remark. "Don't +understand 'em. No use. Nursing not in +my line. Better out of the way."</p> + +<p>So, with the consideration of his kind, he +was so good as to keep out of it, while +Colonel Tempest wept salt tears into his +already too salt beef-tea (it was always too +salt or not salt enough), and remarked with +bitterness that he could have fancied a +sardine, and that other people's sons nursed +their parents when they were at death's door. +Young Grandcourt had never left <i>his</i> father's<span class="pagenum">[147]</span> +bedside for three weeks when he had pneumonia; +but Archie, it seemed, was different.</p> + +<p>"My children are not much comfort to +me," he told the doctor as regularly as he +put out his tongue.</p> + +<p>"John might have come," he said one day +to Di. "He got out of it by sending a +cheque, but I think he might have taken the +trouble just to come and see whether I was +alive or dead."</p> + +<p>"John is ill himself," said Di.</p> + +<p>"John is always ill," said Colonel Tempest, +fretfully, with the half-memory of convalescence—"always +ailing and coddling himself; +and yet he has twice my physique. +John grows coarse-looking—very coarse. +I fancy he is a large eater. I remember +he was ill in the summer. I went to see +him. I was always sitting with him; and +there did not seem to be much the matter +with him. I think he gives way."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[148]</span></p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is a family failing," said Di, +who was beginning to discover what a continual +bottling up and corking down of +effervescent irritation is comprised under the +name of patience.</p> + +<p>How many weeks was it after Di's return +to London when a cloud no larger than a +man's hand arose on the clear horizon of +that secret happiness which no amount of +querulousness on Colonel Tempest's part +could effectually dim? It was a very small +cloud. It took the shape of a card with +John's name on it, who had come to Brook +Street to inquire after his uncle.</p> + +<p>"He is in London. He will call this +afternoon," said Di to herself; and as +Colonel Tempest happened to be too sleepy +to wish to be read to, she left him early in +the afternoon, and hurried home. And she +and Mrs. Courtenay sat indoors all that +afternoon, though they had been lent a<span class="pagenum">[149]</span> +carriage, and they waited to make tea till +after the time; and whenever the door bell +rang, Mrs. Courtenay's hands shook quite as +much as Di's. And aimless, foolish persons +called, but John did not call.</p> + +<p>"He is ill," said Mrs. Courtenay in the +dusk, "or he has been prevented coming. +There is some reason. He will write."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Di, "he will come when +he can." But nevertheless a little shiver of +doubt crept into her heart for the first time. +"If I had been in his place," she said to +herself, "I should have come ill or well, and +I should <i>not</i> have been prevented."</p> + +<p>She put the thought aside instantly as +unreasonable, but the shy dread she had +previously felt of meeting him changed to +a restless longing just to see him, just to be +reassured.</p> + +<p>To be loved by one we love is, after all, so +incredible a revelation that it is not wonderful<span class="pagenum">[150]</span> +that human nature seeks after a sign. +Only a great self-esteem finds love easy to +believe in.</p> + +<p>The days passed, and linked themselves +to weeks. Was it fancy, or did Mrs. Courtenay +become graver day by day? and Di +remembered with misgiving a certain note +which she had written to John the morning +she left Overleigh. The little cloud grew.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>One afternoon Di came in rather later +than usual, and after a glance round the +room, which had become habitual to her, sat +down by her grandmother, and poured out +tea.</p> + +<p>"Any callers, granny?"</p> + +<p>"One—Archie."</p> + +<p>Di sighed. Coming home had always the +possibility in it of finding some one sitting +in the drawing-room, or a note on the hall +table. Yet neither possibility happened.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[151]</span></p> + +<p>"Archie came to say that the doctor +thinks your father does not gain ground, +and that he might be moved to the seaside +with advantage. He wanted to know +whether you could go with him. He can't +get leave himself for more than a couple of +days. I said I would allow you to do so, if +he took your father down himself, and got +him settled. He can do that in two days, +and he ought to take his share. He has +left everything to you so far. He mentioned," +continued Mrs. Courtenay with an +effort, "that he had met John at the Carlton +yesterday, and that he was all right, and +able to go about again as usual. He went +back to Overleigh to-day."</p> + +<p>There was a long silence.</p> + +<p>"What do you think, granny?" said Di +at last.</p> + +<p>"How long is it since you were at Overleigh?"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[152]</span></p> + +<p>"Two months."</p> + +<p>"When you were there did you allow +John to see that you had changed your mind, +or were you friendly with him, as you used +to be? Nothing discourages men so much +as that."</p> + +<p>"No; I tried to be, but I could not. I +don't know what I was, except very +uncomfortable."</p> + +<p>"Had he any real opportunity of speaking +to you without interruption?"</p> + +<p>Di remembered the half-hour in the +entresol sitting-room. It had never occurred +to her till that moment that certainly, if he +had wished to do so, he could have spoken +to her then.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "he had; and," she +added, "I am sure he knew I liked him. If +he did not know it then, I am quite sure he +knows it now. I wrote a note."</p> + +<p>"What kind of note?"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[153]</span></p> + +<p>"Oh, granny, that is just it. I don't +know what kind it was. It seemed natural +at the time. I can't remember exactly what +I said. I've tried to, often. It was written +in such a hurry, for you telegraphed for me, +and I had been up all night waiting to hear +whether he was to live or die, and it was +so dreadful to have to go away without a +word."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courtenay leaned back in her chair. +She seemed tired.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what you think," said Di again.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Mrs. Courtenay, "that if +John had been seriously attached to you, he +would either have come, or have answered +your letter by this time. I am afraid we +have made a mistake."</p> + +<p>Di did not answer. The world was +crumbling down around her.</p> + +<p>"I may be making one now," said Mrs. +Courtenay; "but it appears to me he has<span class="pagenum">[154]</span> +had every opportunity given him, and he +has made no use of them. Men worth +their salt <i>make</i> their opportunities, but if +they don't even take them when they are +ready-made to their hand, they cannot be +in earnest. Women don't realize what a +hateful position a man is in who is deeply +in love, and who has no knowledge of +whether it is returned or not. He won't +remain in it any longer than he can help."</p> + +<p>"John is not in that position," said Di, +colouring painfully. "Granny, why don't +you reproach me for writing that letter?"</p> + +<p>"Because, my dear, though I regret it +more than I can say, I should have done +the same in your place."</p> + +<p>"And—and what would you do <i>now</i> in +my place?"</p> + +<p>"This," said Mrs. Courtenay. "You cannot +dismiss the subject from your mind, but +whenever it comes into your thoughts, hold<span class="pagenum">[155]</span> +steadily before you the one fact that he is +certainly aware you are attached to him, +and he has not acted on that knowledge."</p> + +<p>"They say men don't care for anything +when once they know they can have it," +said Di hoarsely, pride wringing the words +out of her. "Perhaps John is like that. +He knows I—am only waiting to be asked."</p> + +<p>"Fools say many things," returned Mrs. +Courtenay. "That is about as true as that +women don't care for their children when +they get them. A few unnatural ones don't; +the others do. I have seen much trouble +caused by love affairs. After middle life +most people decry them, especially those +who have had superficial ones themselves; +for there is seldom any love at all in the +mutual attraction of two young people, and +the elders know very well that if it is judiciously +checked it can also be judiciously +replaced by something else. But a real love<span class="pagenum">[156]</span> +which comes to nothing is more like the +death of an only child than anything else. +It <i>is</i> a death. The great thing is to regard +it so. I have known women go on year +after year waiting, as we have been doing +during the last two months, refusing to +believe in its death; believing, instead, in +some misunderstanding; building up theories +to account for alienation; clinging to the +idea that things might have turned out +differently if only So-and-so had been more +tactful, if they had not refused a certain invitation, +if something they had said which +might yet be explained had not been misconstrued. +And all the time there is no +misunderstanding, no need of explanation. +The position is simple enough. No man +is daunted by such things except in women's +imaginations. What men want they will +try to obtain, unless there is some positive +bar, such as poverty. And if they don't<span class="pagenum">[157]</span> +try, remember the inference is <i>sure</i>, that +they don't really want it."</p> + +<p>Di did not answer. Her face had taken +a set look, which for the first time reminded +Mrs. Courtenay of her mother. She had +often seen the other Diana look like that.</p> + +<p>"My child," she said, stretching out her +soft old hand, and laying it on the cold +clenched one, "a death even of what is +dearest to us, and a funeral and a headstone +to mark the place, hard as it is, is as +nothing compared to the death in life of an +existence which is always dragging about a +corpse. I have seen that not once nor twice. +I want to save you from that."</p> + +<p>Di laid her face for a moment on the +kind hand.</p> + +<p>"I will bury my dead," she said.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[158]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch10.jpg" width="600" height="182" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And now we believe in evil<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where once we believed in good.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world, the flesh, and the devil<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are easily understood."<br /></span> +<span class="i12"><span class="smcap">Gordon.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_i.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="I" /> + <span class="hide">I</span>T seems a pity that our human destinies +are too often so constituted that with +our own hands we may annul in one hour—our +hour of weakness—the long, slow +work of our strength; annul the self-conquest +and the renunciation of our best years. +We ought to be thankful when the gate of +the irrevocable closes behind us, and the +power to defeat ourselves is at last taken +from us. For he who has once solemnly<span class="pagenum">[159]</span> +and with conviction renounced, and then, +for no new cause, has taken to himself again +that which he renounced, has broken the +mainspring of his life.</p> + +<p>John went early the following morning +to London, for he had business with three +men, and he could not rest till he had seen +them, and had shut that gate upon himself +for ever.</p> + +<p>So early had he started that it was barely +midday when he reached Lord Frederick's +chambers. The valet told him that his lordship +was still in bed, and could see no one; +but John went up to his bedroom, and +knocked at the door.</p> + +<p>"It is I—John Tempest," he said, and +went in.</p> + +<p>Lord Frederick was sitting up in bed, +sallow and shrunk like a mummy, in a blue +watered-silk dressing-gown. His thin hair +was brushed up into a crest on the top<span class="pagenum">[160]</span> +of his head. The bed was littered with +newspapers and letters. There was a tray +before him, and he was in the act of chipping +an egg as John came in.</p> + +<p>He raised his eyebrows and looked first +with surprised displeasure, and then with +attention, at his visitor.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," he said; and he went +on tapping his egg. "Ah," he said, shaking +his head, "hard-boiled again!"</p> + +<p>John looked at him as a plague-stricken +man might look at the carcase of some +obscene animal found rotting in his water-spring.</p> + +<p>Lord Frederick's varied experiences had +made him familiar with the premonitory +symptoms of those outbursts of anger and +distress which he designated under the all-embracing +term of "scenes." He felt idly +curious to know what this man with his +fierce white face had to say to him.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[161]</span></p> + +<p>"Oblige me by sitting down," he said; +"you are in my light."</p> + +<p>"I have been reading my mother's letters +to you," said John, still standing in the +middle of the room, and stammering in his +speech. He had not reckoned for the blind +paroxysm of rage which had sprung up at +the mere sight of Lord Frederick, and was +spinning him like a leaf in a whirlwind.</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" said Lord Frederick, raising +his eyebrows, and carefully taking the shell +off his egg. "I don't care about reading +old letters myself, especially the private +correspondence of other people; but tastes +differ. You do, it seems. I had imagined +the particular letters you allude to had been +burnt."</p> + +<p>"My mother intended to burn them."</p> + +<p>"It would certainly have been wiser to +do so, but probably for that reason they +remained undestroyed. From time immemorial<span class="pagenum">[162]</span> +womankind has shown a marked +repugnance to the dictates of common +sense."</p> + +<p>"I have burnt them."</p> + +<p>"Just so," said Lord Frederick, helping +himself to salt. "I commend your prudence. +Had you burnt them unread, I should have +been able to commend your sense of honour +also."</p> + +<p>"What do you know about honour?" said +John.</p> + +<p>The two men looked hard at each other.</p> + +<p>"That remark," said Lord Frederick, +joining the ends of his fingers and half +shutting his eyes, "is a direct insult. To +insult a man with whom you are not in a +position to quarrel is, in my opinion, John, +an error of judgment. We will consider it +one, and as such I will let it pass. The +letters, I presume, contained nothing of +which you were not already aware?"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[163]</span></p> + +<p>"Only the fact that I am your illegitimate +son."</p> + +<p>"I deplore your coarseness of expression. +You certainly have not inherited it from me. +But, my dear Galahad, it is impossible that +even your youth and innocence should not +have known of my <i>tendresse</i> for your +mother."</p> + +<p>"Is that the last new name for adultery?" +said John huskily, advancing a step nearer +the bed. His face was livid. His eyes +burned. He held his hands clenched lest +they should rush out and wrench away all +semblance of life and humanity from that +figure in the watered-silk dressing-gown.</p> + +<p>Lord Frederick lay back on his pillows, +and looked at him steadily. He was without +fear, but it appeared to him that he was +about to die. The laws of his country, of +conscience and of principle, all the protection +that envelops life, seemed to have receded<span class="pagenum">[164]</span> +from him, to have slipped away into the +next room, or downstairs with the valet. +They would come back, no doubt, in time, +but they might be a little late, as far as he +was concerned.</p> + +<p>"He has strong hands, like mine," he +said to himself, his pale, unflinching eyes +fixed upon his son's; while a remembrance +slid through his mind of how once, years ago, +he had choked the life out of a mastiff which +had turned on him, and how long the heavy +brute had taken to die.</p> + +<p>"Do not spill the coffee," he said quietly, +after a moment.</p> + +<p>John started violently, and wheeled away +from him like a man regaining consciousness +on the brink of an abyss. Lord +Frederick put out his lean hand, and went +on with his breakfast.</p> + +<p>There was a long silence.</p> + +<p>"John," said Lord Frederick at last, not<span class="pagenum">[165]</span> +without a certain dignity, "the world is as it +is. We did not make it, and we are not +responsible for it. If there is any one who +set it going, it is his own look out. Reproach +<i>him</i>, if you can find him. All we +have to do is to live in it. And we can't +live in it, I tell you we can't exist in it, with +any comfort until we realize that it is rotten +to the core."</p> + +<p>John was leaning against the window-sill +shaking like a reed. It seemed to him that +for one awful moment he had been in hell.</p> + +<p>"I do not pretend to be better than other +men," continued Lord Frederick. "Men +and women are men and women; and if you +persist in thinking them angels, especially +the latter, you will pay for your mistake."</p> + +<p>"I am paying," said John.</p> + +<p>"Possibly. You seem to have sustained +a shock. It is incredible to me that you did +not know beforehand what the letters told<span class="pagenum">[166]</span> +you. Wedding-rings don't make a greater +resemblance between father and son than +there is between you and me."</p> + +<p>Lord Frederick looked at the stooping +figure of the young man, leaning spent and +motionless against the window, his arms +hanging by his sides. He held what he +called his prudishness in contempt, but he +respected an element in him which he would +have termed "grit."</p> + +<p>"You are stronger built than I am, John," +he said, with a touch of pride, "and wider in +the chest. Come, bygones are bygones. +Shake hands."</p> + +<p>"I can't," said John. "I don't know that +I could on my account, but anyhow not on +<i>hers</i>."</p> + +<p>"H'm! And so this was the information +which you rushed in without leave to spring +upon me?"</p> + +<p>"It was, together with the fact that of<span class="pagenum">[167]</span> +course I withdraw in favour of Colonel +Tempest, the heir at law. I am going on +to him from here."</p> + +<p>Lord Frederick reared himself slowly in +his bed, his brown hands clutching the bedclothes +like eagles' talons.</p> + +<p>"You are going to own your——"</p> + +<p>"<i>My</i> shame—yes; not yours. You need +not be alarmed. Your name shall not be +brought in. If I take the name of Fane, it +will only be because it was my mother's."</p> + +<p>"But you said you had burned the +letters."</p> + +<p>"I have. I don't see what difference that +makes. The fact that they are burnt does +not alter the fact that I am—nobody, and he +is the legal heir."</p> + +<p>"And you mean to tell him so?"</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"To commit suicide?"</p> + +<p>"Social suicide—yes."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[168]</span></p> + +<p>"Fool!" said Lord Frederick, in a voice +which lost none of its force because it was +barely above a whisper.</p> + +<p>John did not answer.</p> + +<p>"Leave the room," said the outraged +parent, turning his face to the wall, the bedclothes +and the tray trembling exceedingly. +"I will have nothing more to do with you. +You need not come to me when you are +penniless. Do you hear? I disown you. +Leave me. I will never speak to you +again."</p> + +<p>"I hope to God you never will," said +John; and he took up his hat and went out.</p> + +<p>He had settled his account with the first +of the three people whom he had come to +London to see. From Lord Frederick's +chambers he went straight to Colonel +Tempest's lodgings in Brook Street. But +Colonel Tempest had that morning departed +with his son to Brighton, and John,<span class="pagenum">[169]</span> +momentarily thrown off his line of action +by that simple occurrence, stared blankly at +the landlady, and then went to his club and +sat down to write to him. There was no +question of waiting. Like a man walking +across Niagara on a tight rope, it was no +time to think, to hesitate, to look round. +John kept his eyes riveted to one point, and +shut his ears to the roar of the torrent +below him, in which a moment's giddiness +would engulf him.</p> + +<p>It was afternoon by this time. As he sat +writing at a table in one of the bay windows, +a familiar voice spoke to him. It was Lord +Hemsworth. They had not met since the +night of the ice carnival. Lord Hemsworth's +face had quite lost its boyish expression.</p> + +<p>"I hope you are better, Tempest," he said, +with obvious constraint, looking narrowly at +him. Could Di's accepted lover wear so +grey and stern a look as this?</p><p><span class="pagenum">[170]</span></p> + +<p>John replied that he was well; and then, +with sudden recollection of Mitty's account +of Lord Hemsworth's conduct during that +memorable night, began to thank him, and +stopped short.</p> + +<p>The room was empty.</p> + +<p>"It was on <i>her</i> account," said Lord +Hemsworth.</p> + +<p>John did not answer. It was that conviction +which had pulled him up.</p> + +<p>Lord Hemsworth waited some time for +John to speak, and then he said—</p> + +<p>"You know about me, Tempest, and why +I was on the ice that night. Well, I have +kept out of the way for three months under +the belief that—I should hear any day +that—— I am not such a fool as to pit +myself against you—I don't want to be a +nuisance to—— But it's three months. +For God's sake tell me; are you on or are +you not?"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[171]</span></p> + +<p>"I am not," said John.</p> + +<p>"Then I will try my luck," said the other.</p> + +<p>He went out, and John knew that he had +gone to try it there and then; and sat +motionless, with his hand across his mouth +and his unfinished letter before him, until the +servant came to close the shutters.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ep07.jpg" width="500" height="264" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[172]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch11.jpg" width="600" height="187" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"We live together years and years,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And leave unsounded still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each other's springs of hopes and fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each other's depths of will."<br /></span> +<span class="i12"><span class="smcap">Lord Houghton.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_b.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="B" /> + <span class="hide">B</span>UT still more bewildering is the way in +which we live years and years with +ourselves in an entire ignorance of the +powers that lie dormant beneath the surface +of character. The day comes when vital +forces of which we know nothing arise +within us, and break like glass the even +tenor of our lives. The quiet hours, the +regulated thoughts, the peaceful aspiration +after things but little set above us, where<span class="pagenum">[173]</span> +are they? The angel with the sword drives +us out of our Eden to shiver in the wilderness +of an entirely changed existence, unrecognizable +by ourselves, though perhaps +lived in the same external groove, the same +divisions of time, among the same faces as +before.</p> + +<p>Day succeeded day in Di's life, each day +adding one more stone to the prison in +which it seemed as if an inexorable hand +were walling her up.</p> + +<p>"I will not give in. I will turn my mind +to other things," she said to herself. And—there +were no other things. All lesser +lights were blown out. The heart, when it +is swept into the grasp of a great love, is +ruthlessly torn from the hundred minute ties +and interests that heretofore held it to life. +The little fibres and tendrils of affections +which have gradually grown round certain +objects are snapped off from the roots.<span class="pagenum">[174]</span> +They cease to exist. The pang of love is +that there is no escape from it. It has the +same tension as sleeplessness.</p> + +<p>Di struggled and was not defeated; but +some victories are as sad as defeats. During +the struggle she lost something—what was it—that +had been to many her greatest charm? +Women were unanimous in deploring how +she had "gone off." There was a thinness +in her cheek, and a blue line under her deep +eyes. Her beauty remained, but it was not +the same beauty. Mrs. Courtenay noticed +with a pang that she was growing like her +mother.</p> + +<p>Easter came, and with it the wedding of +Miss Crupps and the Honourable Augustus +Lumley, youngest son of Lord Mortgage. +Miss Crupps' young heart had long inclined +towards Mr. Lumley; but on the occasion of +seeing him blacked as a Christy Minstrel, +she had finally succumbed into a state of<span class="pagenum">[175]</span> +giggling admiration, which plainly showed +the state of her affections. So he cut the +word "yes" out of a newspaper, and told +her that was what she was to say to him, +and amid a series of delighted cackles they +were engaged. Di went to the wedding, +looking so pale that it was whispered that +Mr. Lumley and his tambourine had won her +heart as well as that of his adoring bride.</p> + +<p>On a sunny afternoon shortly afterwards, +Di was sitting alone indoors, her grandmother +having gone out driving with a +friend. She told herself that she ought to +go out, but she remained sitting with her +hands in her lap. Every duty, every tiny +decision, every small household matter, had +become of late an intolerable burden. Even +to put a handful of flowers into water required +an effort of will which it was irksome +to make.</p> + +<p>She had stayed in to make an alteration<span class="pagenum">[176]</span> +in the gown she was to wear that night at +the Speaker's. As she looked at the card to +make sure it was the right evening, she +remembered that it was at the Speaker's she +had first met John, just a year ago. One +year. How absurd! Five, ten, fifteen! She +tried to recollect what her life could have +been like before he had come into it; but it +seemed to start from that point, and to have +had no significance before.</p> + +<p>"I must go out," she said again; and at +that moment the door bell rang, and although +Mrs. Courtenay was out, some one was +admitted. The door opened, and Lord +Hemsworth was announced.</p> + +<p>There is, but men are fortunately not in +a position to be aware of it, a lamentable +uniformity in their manner of opening up +certain subjects. Di knew in a moment +from previous experience what he had come +for. He wondered, as he stumbled through<span class="pagenum">[177]</span> +a labyrinth of platitudes about the weather, +how he could broach the subject without +alarming her. He did not know that he had +done so by his manner of coming into the +room, and that he had been refused before +he had finished shaking hands.</p> + +<p>Di was horribly sorry for him while he +talked about—whatever he did talk about. +Neither noticed what it was at the time, or +remembered it afterwards. She was grateful +to him for not alluding even in the most +distant manner to their last meeting. She +remembered that she had clung to him, and +that he had called her by her Christian +name, but she was too callous to be ashamed +at the recollection. It was as nothing compared +to another humiliation which had +come upon her a little later.</p> + +<p>"It is no good beating about the bush," +said Lord Hemsworth at last, after he had +beaten it till there was, so to speak, nothing<span class="pagenum">[178]</span> +left of it. "I have come up to London for +one thing, and I have come here for one +thing, which is—to ask you to marry me. +Don't speak—don't say anything just for +a moment," he continued hurriedly, raising +his hand as if to ward off a rebuff. "For +God's sake don't stop me. I've kept it in +so long I must say it, and you must hear +me."</p> + +<p>She let him say it. And he got it out +with stumbling and difficulty and long gaps +between—got out in shaking commonplaces a +tithe of the love he had for her. And all +the time Di thought if it might only have +been some one else who was uttering those +halting words! (I wonder how many men +have proposed and been accepted while the +woman has said to herself, "If it had only +been some one else!")</p> + +<p>Despair at his inability to express himself, +and at her silence, seized him: as if it<span class="pagenum">[179]</span> +mattered a pin how he expressed himself if +she had been willing to listen.</p> + +<p>"If you understood," he said over and +over again, with the monotonous reiteration +of a piano-tuner, "you would not refuse me. +I know you are going to, but if only you +understood you would not. You would not +have the heart. It's—it's just everything to +me." And Lord Hemsworth—oh, bathos of +modern life!—looked into his hat.</p> + +<p>"Lord Hemsworth," said Di, "have I +ever given you any encouragement?"</p> + +<p>"None," he replied. "People might think +you had, but you never did. I knew better. +I never misunderstood you. I know you +don't care a straw about me; but—oh, Di, +you have not your equal in the world. +There's no woman to compare with you. I +don't see how you could care for any one like +me. Of course you don't. I would not +expect it. But if—if you would only marry<span class="pagenum">[180]</span> +me—I would be content with very little. +I've looked at it all round. I would be content +with—very little."</p> + +<p>There was a long silence.</p> + +<p>What woman whose love has been slighted +can easily reject a great devotion?</p> + +<p>"I think," said Di, after several false +starts to speak, "that if I only considered +myself I would marry you; but there is the +happiness of one other person to think of—<i>yours</i>."</p> + +<p>"I can't have any apart from you."</p> + +<p>"You would have none with me. If it is +miserable to care for any one who is indifferent, +it would be a thousand times more +miserable to be married to that person."</p> + +<p>"Not if it were you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, if it were I."</p> + +<p>"I would take the risk," said Lord Hemsworth, +who held, in common with most men, +the rooted conviction that a woman will<span class="pagenum">[181]</span> +become attached to any husband, however +little she cares for her lover. It is precisely +this conviction which makes the average +marriages of the present day such mediocre +affairs; which serves to place worldly or +facile women, or those whose affections +have never been called out, at the head +of so many homes; as the mothers of the +new generation from which we hope so +much.</p> + +<p>"I would take any risk," repeated Lord +Hemsworth, doggedly. "I would rather be +unhappy with you than happy with any +one else."</p> + +<p>"You think so now," said Di; "but the +time would come when you would see that +I had cut you off from the best thing in +the world—from the love of a woman who +would care for you as much as you do for +me."</p> + +<p>"I don't want her. I want you."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[182]</span></p> + +<p>"I cannot marry you."</p> + +<p>Lord Hemsworth clutched blindly at the +arms of the chair.</p> + +<p>"I would wait any time."</p> + +<p>Di shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Any time," he stammered. "Go away for +a year, and—come back."</p> + +<p>"It would be no good."</p> + +<p>Then he lost his head.</p> + +<p>"So long as you don't care for any one +else," he said incoherently. "I thought at +the carnival—that is why I have kept out of +the way—but I met Tempest to-day at the +Carlton, and—I asked him straight out, and +he said there was nothing between you and +him. I suppose you have refused him, like +the rest of us. Oh, my God, Di, they say +you have no heart! But it isn't true, is it? +Don't refuse me. Don't make me live without +you. I've tried for three months"—and +Lord Hemsworth's face worked—"and if you<span class="pagenum">[183]</span> +knew what it was like, you wouldn't send me +back to it."</p> + +<p>Every vestige of colour had faded from +Di's face at the mention of John.</p> + +<p>"I don't care enough for you to marry +you," she said, pitiless in her great pity. "I +wish I did, but—I don't."</p> + +<p>"Do you care for any one else?"</p> + +<p>Di saw that nothing short of the truth +would wrest his persistence from its object.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," she said passionately, trembling +from head to foot. "For some one +who does not care for me. You and I are +both in the same position. Do you see +now how useless it is to talk of this any +longer?"</p> + +<p>Both had risen to their feet. Lord Hemsworth +looked at Di's white convulsed face, +and his own became as ashen. He saw at +last that he had no more chance of marrying +her than if she were lying at his feet in her<span class="pagenum">[184]</span> +coffin. Constancy, which can compass many +things, avails nought sometimes.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," he said, holding out +his hand to go.</p> + +<p>"I think I ought to beg yours," she said +brokenly, while their hands clasped tightly +each in each. "I never meant to make you +as—unhappy as—as I am myself, but yet I +have."</p> + +<p>They looked at each other with tears in +their eyes.</p> + +<p>"It does not matter," said Lord Hemsworth, +hoarsely. "I shall be all right—it's +you—I think of. Don't stand—mustn't +stand—you're too tired. Good-bye."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Di flung herself down on her face on the +sofa as the door closed. She had forgotten +Lord Hemsworth's existence the moment +after he had left the room. <i>John had told +him that there was nothing between her and</i><span class="pagenum">[185]</span> +<i>himself.</i> John had told him that. John had +said that. A cry escaped her, and she +strangled it in the cushion.</p> + +<p>Hope does not always die when we +imagine it does. It is subject to long +trances. The hope which she had thought +dead was only giving up the ghost now. +"Chaque espérance est un œuf d'où peut +sortir un serpent au lieu d'une colombe." +Out of that frail shell of a cherished hope +lying broken before her the serpent had +crept at last. It moved, it grew before her +eyes.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Slighted love is sair to bide."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ep02.jpg" width="500" height="276" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[186]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch01.jpg" width="600" height="195" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"We met, hand to hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We clasped hands close and fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As close as oak and ivy stand;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But it is past."<br /></span> +<span class="i8"><span class="smcap">Christina Rossetti.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Half false, half fair, all feeble."<br /></span> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Swinburne.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_w.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="W" /> + <span class="hide">W</span>HEN John roused himself from the +long stupor into which he had fallen +after Lord Hemsworth's departure, he put +his finished letter to Colonel Tempest into +an envelope, and then remembered with +annoyance that he did not know how to +address it. When the landlady in Brook +Street had told him that Colonel and Captain<span class="pagenum">[187]</span> +Tempest had gone to Brighton that morning, +he had been too much taken aback at the +moment to think of asking for their address. +He was too much exhausted in mind and +body to go back to the lodgings for it immediately. +He wrote a second letter, this +time to his lawyer, and then, conscious of the +state of his body by the shaking hand and +clumsy, tardy brain which made of a short +and explicit statement so lengthy an affair, +he mechanically changed his clothes, dined, +and sat watching the smoke of his cigar.</p> + +<p>Presently, with food and rest, the apathy +into which exhaustion had plunged him +lifted, and the restlessness of a tortured +mind returned. He had only as yet seen +one of the three men whom he had come +to London to interview, namely, Lord Frederick. +Colonel Tempest, the second, was +out of town; but probably the third, Lord +<span class="pagenum">[188]</span>----, the minister, was not. It was close on +ten o'clock. He should probably find him in +his private room in the House.</p> + +<p>John flung away his cigar, and was in +a few minutes spinning towards the Houses +of Parliament in a hansom. He had not +thought much about it till now, but as he +turned in at the gates the lines of the great +buildings suddenly brought back to him the +remembrance of his own ambition, and of +the splendid career that had seemed to be +opening before him when last he had passed +those gates; which had fallen at a single +touch like a house of cards—a house built +with Fortune's cards.</p> + +<p>There was a <i>queue</i> of carriages at the +Speaker's entrance. A party was evidently +going on there. John went to the House +and inquired for Lord ——. He was not +there. Perhaps he was at the Speaker's +reception. John remembered, or thought he +remembered, that he had a card for it, and<span class="pagenum">[189]</span> +went on there. His mind was set on finding +Lord ——.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>History repeats itself, and so does our +little private history. Only when the same +thing happens it finds us changed, and we +look back at what we were last time, and +remember our old young self with wonder. +Was that indeed I?</p> + +<p>Possibly to some an evening party may +appear a small event, but to Di, as she +stood in the same crowd as last year, in the +same pictured rooms, it seemed to her that +her whole life had turned on the pivot of +that one evening a year ago.</p> + +<p>The lights glared too much now. The +babel dazed her. Noises had become sharp +swords of late. Every one talked too loud. +She chatted and smiled, and vaguely wondered +that her friends recognized her. "I +am not the same person," she said to<span class="pagenum">[190]</span> +herself, "but no one seems to see any +difference."</p> + +<p>Presently she found herself near the same +arched window where she had stood with +John last year. She moved for a moment to +it and looked out. There was a mist across +the river. The lights struggled through +blurred and feeble. It had been clear last +year. She turned and went on talking, of +she knew not what, to a very young man at +her elbow, who was making laborious efforts +to get on with her.</p> + +<p>Her eyes looked back from the recess +across the sea of faces and fringes, and bald +and close-cropped heads. The men who +were not John, but yet had a momentary +resemblance to him, were the only people +she distinctly saw. Tall fair men were +beginning to complain of her unrecognizing +manner.</p> + +<p>Yes, history repeats itself.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[191]</span></p> + +<p>Among the crowd in the distance she +suddenly saw him. John's rugged profile +and square head were easy to recognize. +<i>He had said there was nothing between them.</i> +Their last meeting rushed back upon her +with a scathing recollection of how she had +held him in her arms and pressed her face to +his. Shame scorched her inmost soul.</p> + +<p>She turned towards her companion with +fuller attention than what she had previously +accorded him.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>As John walked through the rooms scanning +the crowd, the possibility of meeting Di +did not strike him. With a frightful clutch +of the heart he caught sight of her. A man +who instantly aroused his animosity was +talking eagerly to her. Something in her +appearance startled him. Was it the colour +of her gown that made her look so pale, the +intense light that gave her calm dignified<span class="pagenum">[192]</span> +face that peculiar worn expression? She had +a faint fixed smile as she talked that John did +not recognize, and that, why he knew not, +cut him to the quick.</p> + +<p>Was this Di? Could this be Di?</p> + +<p>He knew she had seen him. He hesitated +a moment and then went towards her. She +received him without any change of countenance. +The fixed smile was still on her lips +as he spoke to her, but the lips had whitened. +Their eyes met for a moment. Oh! what +had happened to Di's lovely eyes that used +to be so grave and gay?</p> + +<p>He stammered something—said he was +looking for some one—and passed on. She +turned to speak to some one else as he did +so. He strangled the nameless emotion +which was choking him, and made his way +into the next room. He had a vague consciousness +of being spoken to, and of making +herculean efforts to grind out answers, and<span class="pagenum">[193]</span> +then of pouncing on the secretary of the man +he was looking for, who told him his chief +had suddenly and unexpectedly started for +Paris that afternoon on affairs of importance.</p> + +<p>John mechanically noted down his address +in Paris and left the house.</p> + +<p>The necessity of remembering where his +feet were taking him recalled him somewhat +to himself. He pulled himself together, and +slackened his pace.</p> + +<p>"I will go to Paris by the night express," +he said to himself, the feverish longing for +action increasing upon him as this new +obstacle met him. He dared not remain in +London. He knew for a certainty that if +he did he should go and see Di. Neither +could he write to Lord —— all that he +must tell him, or put into black and white +the favour he had to ask of him—the first +favour John had ever needed to ask, namely, +<span class="pagenum">[194]</span>to be helped by means +of Lord ——'s interest +to some post in which he could for the +moment support himself and Mitty.</p> + +<p>As he turned up St. James's Street, he +remembered with irritation that he had not +yet procured Colonel Tempest's and Archie's +address. While he hesitated whether to go +on, late as it was, to Brook Street for it, he +remembered that he could probably obtain it +much nearer at hand, namely, at Archie's +rooms in Piccadilly. Archie, who was a +person of much pink and monogrammed correspondence, +would probably have left his +address behind him, stuck in the glass of the +mantelpiece, as his manner was. The latch-key +he had lent John in the autumn, when John +had made use of his rooms, was still on his +chain. He had forgotten to return it. He let +himself in, went upstairs to the second floor, +and opened the door of the little sitting-room.</p> + +<p>"Here you are at last," said a woman's +voice.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[195]</span></p> + +<p>He went in quickly and shut the door +behind him.</p> + +<p>A small woman in shimmering evening +dress, with diamonds in her hair, came towards +him, and stopped short with a little scream.</p> + +<p>It was Madeleine.</p> + +<p>He looked at her in silence, standing with +his back to the door. The smouldering fire +in his eyes seemed to burn her, for she +shrank away to the further end of the room. +John observed that there was a fire and +lamps, and knit his brows.</p> + +<p>Some persons are unable to perceive when +explanations are useless. Madeleine began +one—something about Archie's difficulties, +money, etc.; but John cut her short.</p> + +<p>"You are not accountable to me for your +actions," he said. "Keep your explanations +for your husband."</p> + +<p>He looked again with perplexity at the +fire and the lamps. He knew Archie had<span class="pagenum">[196]</span> +gone that morning on three days' leave to +Brighton with his father.</p> + +<p>"Let me go," she said, whimpering. "I +won't stay here to be thought ill of, to have +evil imputed to me."</p> + +<p>"You will answer one question first," said +John.</p> + +<p>"You impute evil to me—I know you do," +said Madeleine, beginning to cry; "but it is +your own coarse mind that sees wickedness +in everything."</p> + +<p>"Possibly," said John. "When do you +expect Archie?"</p> + +<p>"Any moment. I wish he was here, that +he might tell you——"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, that will do. You can go +now."</p> + +<p>He opened the door. She drew a long +cloak over her shoulders and passed him +without speaking, looking like what she was—one +of that class whose very existence she<span class="pagenum">[197]</span> +professed to ignore, but whose ranks she had +virtually joined when she announced her +engagement to Sir Henry in the <i>Morning +Post</i>. Perhaps, inasmuch as that, untempted, +she had sold herself for diamonds and +position, instead of, under strong temptation, +for the bare necessities of life like her +poorer sisters, she was more degraded than +they; but fortunately for her, and many +others in our midst, society upheld her.</p> + +<p>John looked after her and then followed +her. There was not a soul on the common +staircase or in the hall. He passed out just +behind her, and they were in the street +together.</p> + +<p>"Take my arm," he said, and she took it +mechanically.</p> + +<p>He signalled a four-wheeler and helped +her into it.</p> + +<p>"Where do you wish to go?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said feebly, apparently<span class="pagenum">[198]</span> +too much scared to remember what her +arrangements had been.</p> + +<p>John considered a moment.</p> + +<p>"Where is Sir Henry?"</p> + +<p>"Dining at Woolwich."</p> + +<p>"Can't you go home?"</p> + +<p>"No, no. It is much too early. I'm +dressed for—I said I was going to ——, +and I have left there already, and the carriage +is waiting there still."</p> + +<p>"You must go back there," said John. +"Get your carriage and go home in it."</p> + +<p>He gave the cabman the address and paid +him. Then he returned to the cab door.</p> + +<p>"Lady Verelst," he said less sternly, +"believe me—Archie is not worth it."</p> + +<p>"You don't understand," she tried to say, +with an assumption of injured dignity. "It +was only that I——"</p> + +<p>"He is not worth it," said John with +emphasis; and he shut to the door of the<span class="pagenum">[199]</span> +cab, and watched it drive away. Then he +went back to Archie's room, and sat down +to consider. A faint odour of scent hung +about the room. He got up and flung open +the window. Years afterwards, if a woman +used that particular scent, the same loathing +disgust returned upon him.</p> + +<p>"He took three days' leave to nurse his +father at Brighton, with the intention of +coming back here to-night," John said to +himself. "He will be here directly." And +he made up his mind what he would do.</p> + +<p>And in truth a few minutes later a hansom +rattled to the door, and Archie came in, +breathless with haste. He looked eagerly +round the room, and then, as he caught sight +of the unexpected occupant, his face crimsoned, +and he grinned nervously.</p> + +<p>"She is gone," said John, without moving.</p> + +<p>"Gone? Who? I don't know what you +mean."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[200]</span></p> + +<p>"No, of course not. What made you so +late?"</p> + +<p>"Train broke down outside London."</p> + +<p>"I came here to get your address at +Brighton, because I have news for you. +You are there at this moment, aren't you, +looking after your father?"</p> + +<p>Archie did not answer. He only grinned +and showed his teeth. John was aware that +though he stood quietly enough by the table, +turning over some loose silver in his pocket, +he was in a state of blind fury. He also +knew that if he waited a little it would pass. +Something in John's moral and physical +strength had always the power to quell +Archie's fits of passion.</p> + +<p>"I had no intention of prying on you," +said John, after an interval. "I wanted +your address at Brighton, and I could not +wait till to-morrow for it. I am going to +Paris to-night on business, and—as it is<span class="pagenum">[201]</span> +yours as much as mine—you will go with +me."</p> + +<p>Archie never indulged in those flowers of +speech with which some adorn their conversation. +But there are exceptions to every +rule, and he made one now. He culled, so +to speak, one large bouquet of the choicest +epithets and presented it to John.</p> + +<p>"He knew not what to say, and so he +swore." That is why men swear often, and +women seldom.</p> + +<p>"I shall not leave you in London with +that woman," said John, calmly. "You will +go to her if I do."</p> + +<p>"I shall do as I think fit," stammered +Archie, striking the table with his slender +white hand.</p> + +<p>"There you err," said John. "You will +start with me in half an hour for Paris."</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[202]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch03.jpg" width="600" height="195" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"There's not a crime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But takes its proper change out still in crime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If once rung on the counter of this world."<br /></span> +<span class="i12"><span class="smcap">E. B. Browning.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_t.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="T" /> + <span class="hide">T</span>HERE is in Paris, just out of the Rue +du Bac, a certain old-fashioned hotel, +the name of which I forget, with a little <i>cour</i> +in the middle of the rambling old building, +and a thin fountain perennially plashing +therein, adorned by a few pigeons and +feathers on the brink. It had been a very +fashionable hotel in the days when Madame +Mohl held her <i>salon</i> near at hand. But the +old order changes. It was superseded now.<span class="pagenum">[203]</span> +Why John often went there I don't know. +He probably did not know himself, unless it +was for the sake of quiet. Anyhow, he and +Archie arrived there together that morning; +for it is needless to say that, having determined +to get Archie at any cost out of +London, John had carried his point, as he +had done on previous occasions, to the disgust +of the sulky young man, who had +proved anything but a pleasant travelling +companion, and who, late in the afternoon, +was still invisible behind the white curtains +in one of the two little bedrooms that +opened out of the sitting-room in which +John was walking up and down.</p> + +<p>He had put several questions to Archie +respecting the state of his father's health, and +that gentleman had assured him he was all +right, quite able to look after himself; no +need for him to remain with him.</p> + +<p>"Of course not," said John, "or you would<span class="pagenum">[204]</span> +not have left him. But is he able to attend +to business?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Archie, with the emphasis +of ignorance.</p> + +<p>As long as Archie was in the next room, +out of harm's way, John did not want his +company. He knew that when he did appear +he had to tell him that for eight and +twenty years he had lived on Colonel Tempest's +substance; and then he must post the +letter lying ready written on the table to +Colonel Tempest, only needing the address.</p> + +<p>After that life was a blank. Archie would +rush home, of course. John did not know +where he should go, except that it would not +be with Archie. Back to Overleigh? No. +And with a sudden choking sensation he +realized that he should not see Overleigh +again. He wondered what Mitty was doing +at that moment, and whether the horse-chestnut +against the nursery window would<span class="pagenum">[205]</span> +ever burst to leaf. Here in Paris they were +out. He had noticed them as he returned +from an interview with Lord ——. That +gentleman had been much pressed for time, +but had nevertheless accorded him a quarter +of an hour. He was genuinely perturbed +by the disclosure the young man made to +him, deplored the event as it affected John, +but after the first moment was obviously +more concerned about the seat, and the loss +of the Tempest support, than the wreck of +John's career. After a decorous interval, +Lord —— had put a few questions to him +about Colonel Tempest, his age, political +views, etc. John perceived with what intentions +those questions were put, and they +made it the harder for him to ask the great +man to help him to a livelihood.</p> + +<p>As John spoke, and the elder man's eye +sought his watch, John experienced for the +first time the truth of the saying that the<span class="pagenum">[206]</span> +highest price that can be paid for anything +is to have to ask for it. If it had not been for +Mitty he could not have forced himself to do it.</p> + +<p>"But my dear—er—Tempest," said Lord +----, "surely we need not anticipate that—er—your +uncle—er—that Colonel Tempest +will fail to make a suitable provision for one—who—who——"</p> + +<p>"He may offer to do so," replied John; +"but if he did, I should not take it. He is +not the kind of man from whom it is possible +to accept money."</p> + +<p>"Still, under the circumstances, the extraordinary +combination of circumstances, I +should advise you to—my time is so circumscribed—I +should certainly advise you to—you +see, Tempest, with every feeling of +regard for yourself and your father—ahem—Mr. +Tempest before you, it is difficult for a +person situated as I am at the present moment, +to offer you, on the eve of the general<span class="pagenum">[207]</span> +election, any position at all adequate to your +undeniably great abilities."</p> + +<p>"We shall not hear much more of my +great abilities now that I am penniless," said +John, with bitterness. "If I can get any kind +of employment by which I can support myself +and an old servant, I shall be thankful."</p> + +<p>Lord —— promised to do his best. He +felt obliged to add that he could do but +little, but he would do what he could. John +might rest assured of that. In the meantime—— He +looked anxiously at the watch +on the table. John understood, and took his +leave. Lord —— pressed him warmly by +the hand, commended his conduct, once more +deplored the turn events had taken, which +he should consider as strictly private until +they had been publicly announced, and assured +him he would keep him in his mind, +and communicate with him immediately +should any vacancy occur that, etc., etc.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[208]</span></p> + +<p>John retraced his steps wearily to the +hotel. The loss of his career had stung him +yesterday. How to keep Mitty in comfort +seemed of far greater importance to-day—how +to provide a home for her with a little +kitchen in it. John wondered whether he +and Mitty could live on a hundred a year. +He knew a good deal about the ways and +means of the working classes, but of how the +poor of his own class lived he knew nothing.</p> + +<p>But even the thought of Mitty could +not hold him long. His mind ever went +back to Di with an agony of despair and +rapture. During these three interminable +months during which he had not seen her, +he had pictured her to himself as taking life +as usual, wondering perhaps sometimes—yes, +certainly wondering—why he did not +come; but it had never struck him that she +would be unhappy. When he saw her he +had suddenly realized that the same emotions<span class="pagenum">[209]</span> +which had rent his soul had left their imprint +on her face. Could women really love like +men? Could Di actually, after her own +fashion, feel towards him one tithe of the +love he felt for her? John recognized with +an exaltation, which for the moment transfigured +as by fire the empty desolation of +his heart, that the change which had been +wrought in Di was his own work. Her +cheek had grown pale for him, her eyes had +wept for him, her very beauty had become +dimmed for his sake.</p> + +<p>"I shall go mad," said John, starting to +his feet. "Why is that damned letter still +unposted?"</p> + +<p>Purpose was melting within him. The +irrevocable step even now had not been +taken. Lord —— and his own lawyer would +say nothing if at the eleventh hour he drew +back. He must act finally this instant, or +he would never act at all.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[210]</span></p> + +<p>He went into the next room, where Archie +was languidly shaving himself in a pink silk +<i>peignoir</i>, and obtained from him Colonel +Tempest's address. He addressed the letter, +and took his hat and stick.</p> + +<p>"I will post it myself this instant," he said +to himself.</p> + +<p>He went quickly downstairs and across +the little court, scattering the pigeons. His +face looked worn and ravaged in the vivid +sunshine.</p> + +<p>He passed under the archway into the +street, and as he did so two well-dressed +men came out of a <i>café</i> on the opposite side. +Before he had gone many steps one of them +crossed the road, and raised his hat, holding +out a card.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Tempest of Overleigh, I think," he +said respectfully.</p> + +<p>John stopped and looked at the man. He +did not know him. The decisive moment +had come even before posting the letter.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[211]</span></p> + +<p>"Now or never," whispered conscience.</p> + +<p>"My name is Fane," he said, and passed +on.</p> + +<p>The man fell back at once and rejoined +his companion.</p> + +<p>"I told you so," he said. "That man is +a deal too old, and he said his name was +Fane. It's the other one in the tow wig, as +I said from the first. That ain't real hair. +It's the wig as alters him."</p> + +<p>John posted his letter, saw it slide past +recall, and then walked back to the hotel, +found Archie in the sitting-room reading the +playbills for the evening, and told him.</p> + +<p>Perhaps nothing is more characteristic of +our fellow-creatures than the manner in which +they bear unexpected reverses of fortune. +Archie had some of the callousness of +feeling for others which accompanies lack +of imagination. He had never put himself +in the place of others. He was not likely<span class="pagenum">[212]</span> +to begin now. He had no intention of +hurting John by setting his iron heel on his +face. He had no idea people minded being +trodden on. And, indeed, as John stood by +the window with his hands clasped behind +his back, he was as indifferent as he appeared +to be to anything that Archie, pacing up +and down the room with flashing eyes, could +say. He had at last closed the iron gates +of the irrevocable behind himself, and he +was at first too much stunned by the clang +even to hear what the excited young man +was talking about. Perhaps it was just as +well.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" Archie was saying, as John's +attention came slowly back. "To think of +the old governor at Overleigh, poor old chap! +He has missed it all his best years, but I +hope he'll live to enjoy it yet. I do indeed." +Archie felt he could afford to be generous. +"And Di, John, dear old Di, shall come and<span class="pagenum">[213]</span> +queen it at Overleigh. And she shall have +a suitable fortune. I'll make father do the +right thing by Di. He won't want to do +more than he can help, because she has never +been much of a daughter to him; but he +shall. And when it's known, she'll marry off +quick enough; and I'll see it gets about. +And don't you be down-hearted, John. +We'll do the right thing by you. You know +you never cared for the money when you +had it. You were always a bit of a screw, +to yourself as well as to others—I will say +that for you; but—let me see—you allowed +me three hundred a year. Don't you wish +now it had been four? for you shall have +the same, if the old guv. agrees. And I +dare say I shall be a bit freer with a ten-pound +note now and then than ever you +were to me."</p> + +<p>"There will be no necessity for this +reckless generosity," said John, wondering<span class="pagenum">[214]</span> +why he did not writhe, as a man might who +watches a knife cut into his benumbed limb. +It gave him no pain.</p> + +<p>"And you shall have a hunter," continued +Archie. "By Jove, what hunting <i>I</i> shall +have! I shall get the governor to add +another wing to the stables; and I will keep +Quicksilver for you, John. You mustn't +turn rusty because the luck has come to us +at last. You know I knew all along I ought +to have been the heir, and I put up with +your being there, and never raised a dust."</p> + +<p>"I think I can promise I shall not raise +a dust," said John, dispassionately, watching +the knife turn in his flesh.</p> + +<p>"And—and," continued Archie—"why, +I need not marry money now. I can take +my pick." New vistas seemed to open at +every turn. His weak mouth fell ajar. +"My word, John, times are changed. And—my +debts; I can pay them off."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[215]</span></p> + +<p>"And run up more," said John. "It is an +ill wind that blows nobody any good."</p> + +<p>"I don't call it much of an ill wind," said +Archie, chuckling; "not much of an ill +wind."</p> + +<p>In spite of himself, John laughed aloud +at the <i>naïveté</i> of Archie's remark. That it +was an ill wind to John had not even crossed +his mind.</p> + +<p>It would cross Di's, John thought. She +would do him justice. But, alas! from the +few who will do us justice we always want +so much more, something infinitely greater +than justice—at least, John did.</p> + +<p>The early <i>table d'hôte</i> dinner broke in on +Archie's soliloquy, and, much to John's relief, +that favoured young gentleman discovered +that a lady of his acquaintance was dancing +at one of the theatres that evening, and he +determined to go and see her. He could +not persuade John to accompany him, even<span class="pagenum">[216]</span> +though he offered, with the utmost generosity, +to introduce him to her.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you won't, you won't," said +Archie, seeing his persuasions did nought +avail, and much preferring to go by himself. +"If you would rather sit over the fire in the +dumps, that's your affair, not mine. Ta-ta. +I expect you will have turned in before +I'm back. By-the-by, can you lend me five +thick 'uns?"</p> + +<p>John was on the point of refusing when +he remembered that the actual money he +had with him was more Archie's than his.</p> + +<p>"Thank'ee," said Archie. "You part +easier than you used to do. I expect it'll +be the last time I shall borrow of you—eh, +John? It will be the other way about in +future."</p> + +<p>"Will it?" said John, as he put back his +pocket-book.</p> + +<p>Archie laughed and went out.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[217]</span></p> + +<p>Oh! it is good to be young and handsome +and admired. The dancers pirouetted in the +intense electric light, and the music played +on every chord of Archie's light pleasure-loving +soul. And he clapped and applauded +with the rest, his pulse leaping high and +higher. A sense of triumph possessed him. +His one thorn in the flesh was gone for +ever. He rode on the top of the wave. +He had had all else before, and now the +one thing that was lacking to him had +come. He was rich, rich, rich. There +was much goods laid up for many years of +pleasure.</p> + +<p>Archie touched the zenith.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>It was very late, or rather it was very +early, when he walked home through the +deserted streets. A great mental exaltation +was still upon him, but his body was exhausted, +and the cool night air and the<span class="pagenum">[218]</span> +silence, after the babel of tongues, and the +shrieking choruses, and the flaring lights of +the last few hours, were pleasant to his +aching eyes and head.</p> + +<p>The dawn stretched like a drawn sword +behind the city. The Seine lay, a long line +of winding mist under its many bridges. +The ruins of the scorched Tuileries pushed +up against the sky. Archie leant a moment +on the parapet, and looked down to the +Seine below whispering in its shroud. He +took off his hat and pushed back the light +curling hair from his forehead, laughing +softly to himself.</p> + +<p>An invisible boat, with a red blur coming +down-stream, was making a low continuous +warning sound.</p> + +<p>A hand came suddenly over his shoulder, +and was pressed upon his mouth, and at the +same instant something exceeding sharp and +swift, pointed with death, pierced his back,<span class="pagenum">[219]</span> +once and again. Archie saw his hat drop +over the parapet into the mist.</p> + +<p>He tried to struggle, but in vain. He +was choking.</p> + +<p>"It is a dream," he said. "I shall wake. +I have dreamt it before."</p> + +<p>He looked wildly round him.</p> + +<p>The steadfast dawn was witness from +afar. There was the boat still passing +down-stream. There was the city before +him, with its spires piercing the mist. <i>Was</i> +it a dream?</p> + +<p>The hot blood rushed up into his mouth. +The drenched hand released its pressure.</p> + +<p>"I shall wake," he said, and he fell forward +on his face.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ep03.jpg" width="500" height="243" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[220]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch04.jpg" width="600" height="195" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The earth buildeth on the earth castles and towers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The earth sayeth to the earth, 'All shall be ours;'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The earth walketh on the earth, glistering like gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The earth goeth to the earth sooner than it wold."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_j.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="J" /> + <span class="hide">J</span>OHN was late next morning. He had +not slept for many nights, and the +heavy slumber of entire exhaustion fell on +him towards dawn. It was nearly midday +when he re-entered the sitting-room where +he had sat up so late the night before.</p> + +<p>He went to Archie's room to see whether +he had come in; but it was empty.</p> + +<p>He was impatient to be gone, to get away +from that marble-topped side-table, and the +horsehair chairs, and the gilt clock on the<span class="pagenum">[221]</span> +mantelpiece. At least, he thought he wished +to get away from these things; but it was +from himself that he really wanted to get +away—from this miserable tortured self that +was all that was left of him in this his hour +of weakness and prostration; the hour which +inevitably succeeds all great exertions of +strength. How could he drag this wretched +creature about with him? He abhorred +himself; the thought of being with himself +was intolerable. It seems hard that the +nobler side of human nature, which can cheer +and urge its weaker brother up such steep +paths of duty and self-sacrifice, should desert +us when the summit is achieved, leaving the +weaker to wail unreproved over its bleeding +feet and rent garments till we madden at +the sound.</p> + +<p>An overwhelming sense of loneliness fell +on John as he sat waiting for Archie to come +in. He had no strong, earnest, steadfast<span class="pagenum">[222]</span> +self to bear him company. He felt deserted, +lost.</p> + +<p>Who has not experienced it, that fierce +depression and loathing of all life, which, +though at the time we know it not, is only +the writhing and fainting of the starved +human affections! The very ordinary sources +from which the sharpest suffering springs, +shows us later on how narrow are the limits +within which our common human nature +works, and from which yet irradiate such +diversities of pain.</p> + +<p>Alphonse disturbed him at last to ask +whether he and "Monsieur" would dine at +<i>table d'hôte</i>. "Monsieur," with a glance +at Archie's door, had not yet come in.</p> + +<p>John said they would both dine; and +then, roused somewhat by the interruption, +an idea struck him. Had Archie, in the +excitement of the moment, gone back to +England without telling him?</p><p><span class="pagenum">[223]</span></p> + +<p>He went to the room, but there were no +evidences of departure. On the bed the +clothes were thrown which Archie had worn +on the previous day. The gold watch John +had given him was on the dressing-table. +He had evidently left it there on purpose, +not caring, perhaps, to risk taking it with +him. All the paraphernalia of a man who +studies his appearance were strewed on the +table. There was his little moustache-brush, +and phial of <i>brilliantine</i> to burnish it. John +knew that he would never have left <i>that</i> +behind. Archie had evidently intended to +return.</p> + +<p>In the mean while hour succeeded hour, +but he did not come. That Archie should +have been out all night was not surprising, +but that he should be still out now in his +evening clothes in the daytime, began to be +incomprehensible. After a few premonitory +tremors of misgiving, which, man-like, he<span class="pagenum">[224]</span> +laughed at himself for entertaining, John +took alarm.</p> + +<p>Evening fell, and still no Archie. And +then a hideous night followed, in which John +forgot everything in heaven above or earth +beneath except Archie. The police were +informed. The actress at whose house he +had supped after the play was interviewed, +but could only vociferate between her sobs +that he had left her house with the remainder +of her party in the early hours of the morning, +and she had not seen him since.</p> + +<p>Directly the office opened, John telegraphed +to his colonel to know if he had returned to +London. The answer came, "Absent without +leave."</p> + +<p>John remembered that he had only three +days' leave, and that the third day was up +yesterday. Archie would not have forgotten +that.</p> + +<p>A nightmare of a day passed. John had<span class="pagenum">[225]</span> +been out during the greater part of it, rushing +back at intervals in the hope, that was +no longer anything but a masked despair, +of finding Archie in his rooms on his +return.</p> + +<p>In the dusk of the afternoon he came +back once more, and peered for the twentieth +time into the littered bedroom, which the +frightened servants had left exactly as Archie +had left it. He was standing in the doorway +looking into the empty room, where a certain +horror was beginning to gather round the +familiar objects with which it was strewed, +when a voice spoke to him.</p> + +<p>It was the superintendent of police to +whom he had gone long ago—the night +before—when first the horror began. Alphonse, +who had shown him up, was watching +through the doorway.</p> + +<p>The man said something in French. John +did not hear him, but it did not matter much.<span class="pagenum">[226]</span> +He knew. They went downstairs together. +Alphonse brought him his hat and stick. +The other waiters were gathered in a little +knot at the <i>table d'hôte</i> door. A fiacre +was waiting under the archway. John and +the superintendent got into it, and it drove +off at once without waiting for directions. +They were lighting the lamps in the streets. +The dusk was falling, falling like the shadow +of death. They drove deeper and ever +deeper into it.</p> + +<p>Time ceased to be.</p> + +<p>"Nous voiçi, Monsieur," said the man, +gravely, as they pulled up before a building, +the long low outline of which was dimly +visible.</p> + +<p>John knew it was the Morgue.</p> + +<p>He followed his guide down a white-washed +passage into a long room. There +was a cluster of people at the further end, +towards which the man was leading him,<span class="pagenum">[227]</span> +and in the dusk there was a subdued whispering, +and a sound of trickling water.</p> + +<p>As they reached the further end, some +one turned on the electric light, and it fell +full on a man's figure on one of the slabs. +A little crowd of people were peering through +the glass screen at the toy which the Seine +had tired of and cast aside.</p> + +<p>"Ah! qu'il est beau," said a high woman's +voice.</p> + +<p>John shaded his eyes and looked.</p> + +<p>The face was turned away, but John +knew the hair, fair to whiteness in that +brilliant light, as he had often seen it in +London ball-rooms.</p> + +<p>They let him through the glass screen +which kept off the crowd, and, oblivious of +the many eyes watching him, John bent over +the slab and touched the clenched marble +hand with the signet-ring on it which he had +given him when they were at Oxford together.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[228]</span></p> + +<p>Yes, it was Archie.</p> + +<p>The dead face was set in the nervous +grin with which he had been wont in life to +meet the inevitable and the distasteful.</p> + +<p>The blue pencillings of dissolution had +touched to inexorable distinctness the thin +lines of dissipation in the cheek and at the +corners of the mouth. The death of the +body had overtaken the creeping death of +the soul. Their landmarks met.</p> + +<p>The poor beautiful effeminate face, devoid +of all that makes death bearable, stared up +at the electric light.</p> + +<p>An impotent overwhelming compassion, +as for some ephemeral irresponsible being +of another creation, who knows not how to +guide itself in this grim world of law, and +has wandered blindfold within the sweep of +a vast machinery of which it knew nothing, +wrung John's heart. He hid his face in his +hands.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[229]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch06.jpg" width="600" height="185" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For human bliss and woe in the frail thread<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of human life are all so closely twined,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That till the shears of fate the texture shred,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The close succession cannot be disjoined,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor dare we, from our hour, judge that which comes behind."<br /></span> +<span class="i12"><span class="smcap">Sir Walter Scott.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_d.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="D" /> + <span class="hide">D</span>I had seen her father and Archie off +on their journey to Brighton, and, +having arranged to replace her brother in +three days' time, was surprised when a hasty +note, the morning after their departure, informed +her that Archie had been recalled +to London <i>on business</i>, and that she must +go to her father at once.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[230]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Courtenay was incensed. Archie +had shirked before, and now he had shirked +again. But Colonel Tempest remained in +far too precarious a condition for her to +refuse to allow her granddaughter to go, +as she would certainly otherwise have +done. So Di went off the morning after +the Speaker's party.</p> + +<p>She had told Mrs. Courtenay that she +had met John there.</p> + +<p>"In one way I am glad to have met him," +she said firmly, her proud lip quivering. +"Any uncertainty I may have been weak +enough to feel is at an end, and it was time +the end should come. For, in spite of all +you said, I had had a lingering idea that if +we met——. And now we <i>have</i> met—and +he had evidently no wish to see me again."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courtenay looked fixedly at the +beautiful pallid face, and wondered that she +had ever wished Di had a heart.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[231]</span></p> + +<p>"This pain will pass," she said gently. +"You have always believed me, Di; believe +me now. Take courage and wait. You +have had an untroubled life till now. That +has passed. Trouble has come. It is part +of life. It will pass too; not the feeling, +perhaps, but the suffering."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, my child," she said a little +later, kissing the girl's cold cheek with a +tenderness which Di was powerless to return. +"Take care of yourself. Go out +every day; the sea air will do you good. +And tell your father I cannot spare you +more than a fortnight."</p> + +<p>Di would have given anything to show +her grandmother that she was thankful—oh, +how thankful in this grey world!—for +her sympathy and love, but she had no +words. She kissed Mrs. Courtenay, and +went down to the cab.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Courtenay remained motionless until<span class="pagenum">[232]</span> +she heard it drive away. Then she let two +tears run down from below her spectacles, +and wiped them away. No more followed +them. The old cannot give way like the +young. Mrs. Courtenay had once said that +nothing had power to touch her very nearly; +but she was still vulnerable on one point. +Her old heart, worn with so many troubles, +ached for her granddaughter.</p> + +<p>"Thank God," she said to herself, "that +in the next world there will be neither +marrying nor giving in marriage. Perhaps +God Almighty sees it's a mistake."</p> + +<p>Di found Colonel Tempest wrapped up +in a <i>duvet</i> in an armchair by the window of +his sitting-room, in a state of equal indignation +against his children for deserting him, +and against the rain for blurring the seaview +from the window. With his nurse, it +is hardly necessary to add, he was not on +speaking terms—a fact which seemed to<span class="pagenum">[233]</span> +cause that patient, apathetic person very +little annoyance, she being, as she told Di, +"accustomed to gentlemen."</p> + +<p>Di soothed him as best she could, took +his tray from the nurse at the door, so that +he might be spared as much as possible the +sight of the most hideous woman in the +world, rang for lights, and drew a curtain +before the untactful rain, while he declaimed +alternately on the enormity of Archie's behaviour, +and on the callousness of Mrs. +Courtenay in endeavouring to keep his +daughter, his only daughter, away from +him. Colonel Tempest and Archie detested +Mrs. Courtenay. However much +the father and son might disagree and +bicker on most subjects, they could always +sing a little duet together in perfect harmony +about her.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest began a feeble solo on +that theme to Di when he had finished with<span class="pagenum">[234]</span> +Archie; but Di visibly froze, and somehow +the subject, often as it was started, always +dropped. Di, as Colonel Tempest frequently +informed her, did not care to hear +the truth about her grandmother. If she +knew all that <i>he</i> did about her, and what +her behaviour had been to <i>him</i>, she would +not be so fond of her as she evidently was.</p> + +<p>Earlier in his illness Di had been obliged +to exercise patience with her father, but she +needed none now. That is the one small +compensation for deep trouble. It numbs +the power of feeling small irritations. It is +when it begins to lift somewhat that the +small irritations fit themselves out with new +stings. Di had not reached that stage yet. +The doctor who came daily to see her father +looked narrowly at her, and ordered her to +go out-of-doors as much as possible, in wet +weather or fine.</p> + +<p>"I sometimes take a little nap after<span class="pagenum">[235]</span> +luncheon," said Colonel Tempest with +dignity. "You might go out then, Di."</p> + +<p>"Miss Tempest will in any case go out +morning and afternoon," said the doctor +with decision.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest had before had his +doubts whether the doctor understood his +case, but now they were confirmed. He +wished to change doctors, and a painful +scene ensued between him and Di, in the +course of which a hole was kicked in the +<i>duvet</i>, and a cup of broth was upset. But +it is an ascertained fact that women are not +amenable to reason. Di sewed up the hole +in the <i>duvet</i>, rubbed the carpet, and remained, +as Colonel Tempest hysterically informed +her, "as obstinate as her mother before her."</p> + +<p>On the second morning after her arrival +at Brighton she was sitting with Colonel +Tempest, reading the papers to him, when +the waiter brought in the letters. There<span class="pagenum">[236]</span> +were none for her, two for her father. One +was a foreign letter with a blue French +stamp. She took them to him where he +lay on the sofa.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest looked at them.</p> + +<p>"Nothing from Archie again," he said. +"He does not care even to write and ask +whether I am alive or dead."</p> + +<p>"Archie is not a good hand at writing," +said Di, echoing, for the sake of saying +something, the time-honoured masculine plea +for exemption from the tedium of domestic +correspondence.</p> + +<p>"This is John's hand," said Colonel Tempest. +"A Paris postmark. How these +rich men do rush about!"</p> + +<p>Di had actually not known it was John's +writing. She had never seen it, to her +knowledge, but nevertheless it appeared +to her extraordinary that she had not at +once divined that it was his. She was not<span class="pagenum">[237]</span> +anxious to hear her father's comments on +John's letter, or the threadbare remark, +sacred to the poor relation, that when the +rich one <i>was</i> sitting down to draw a cheque +he might just as well have written it for +double the amount. He would never have +known the difference. The poor relation +always knows exactly how much the rich +one can afford to give. So Di told her +father she was going out, and left the room.</p> + +<p>It stung her, as she laced her boots, to +think that John had probably sent another +cheque to cover their expenses at the hotel, +and that the fried soles and semolina-pudding +which she had ordered for luncheon +would be paid for by him. It exasperated +her still more to know that whatever John +sent, Colonel Tempest would pronounce to +be mean.</p> + +<p>Before she had finished lacing her boots, +however, the sitting-room door was opened,<span class="pagenum">[238]</span> +and Di heard her father calling wildly to +her.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest was not allowed to +move, except with great precaution, owing +to the slow healing of the obstinate internal +injury caused by that unlucky pistol-shot.</p> + +<p>She rushed headlong downstairs.</p> + +<p>"Father!" she cried, horrified to find him +standing on the landing. "Father, come +back at once!" And she put her arms +round him, and supported him back to the +sofa.</p> + +<p>He was trembling from head to foot. She +saw that something had happened, but he +was not in a state to be questioned. She +administered what restoratives she had at +hand, and presently the constantly moving +lips got out the words, "Read it;" and +Colonel Tempest pointed to a letter on the +floor.</p> + +<p>"Read it," repeated Colonel Tempest,<span class="pagenum">[239]</span> +lying back on his cushions, and recovering +from his momentary collapse. "Read it."</p> + +<p>Di picked up the letter and sat down by +the window. She was suddenly too tired +to stand. Her father was talking wildly, +but she did not hear him; was calling to her +to read it aloud, but she did not hear him. +She saw only John's strong, small handwriting.</p> + +<p>It was a business letter, couched in the +most matter-of-fact terms. John stated his +case—expressed a formal regret that the +facts he mentioned had not come to light +at Mr. Tempest's death, mentioned that the +accumulation of income during his minority +had fortunately remained untouched, that +he had desired his lawyer to communicate +with Colonel Tempest, and signed himself +"John Fane." He had written the +word "Tempest," and had then struck it +through.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[240]</span></p> + +<p>Di pressed her forehead against the glass +on which the rain was beating.</p> + +<p>Was the emotion which was shattering +her joy or sorrow, or both?</p> + +<p>She knew it was joy. In a lightning-flash +of comprehension she realized that it was +this awful calamity which had kept John +silent, which had held him back from coming +to her, from asking her to marry him. He +loved her still! Love, dead and buried, had +risen out of his grave. The impossible had +happened. John loved her still.</p> + +<p>"I cannot bear it," she said; and for a +moment the long yellow waves, and her +father's impatient voice, and even John's +letter, were alike blotted out, unheard.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest considered Di's apathy, +after she had read the letter, unfeeling and +unsympathetic in the extreme, and he did +not hesitate to tell her so. But when she +presently turned her averted face towards<span class="pagenum">[241]</span> +him he was already off on another tack, his +excitement, which seemed to increase rather +than diminish, tossing him as a wave tosses +a spar.</p> + +<p>"Twenty years," he said tremulously. +"Think of it, Di—not that you seem to care! +Twenty years have I toiled and moiled in +poverty, twenty years have I and my children +been ground down while that nameless +interloper has spent our money right and left. +Oh, my God! I've got it at last. I've got +my own at last. But who will give me back +those twenty years?" and Colonel Tempest's +voice broke into a sob.</p> + +<p>Other consequences of that letter began +to dawn on Di's awakening consciousness.</p> + +<p>"Then John," she said, bewildered. "Oh, +father, what will become of John?"</p> + +<p>"John," said Colonel Tempest, bitterly, +"is now just where I was twenty years ago—disinherited, +penniless. He has kept me out<span class="pagenum">[242]</span> +all these years, and now at last Providence +gives me my own."</p> + +<p>It is to be hoped that Providence is not +really responsible for all the shady transactions +for which we offer up our best +thanks.</p> + +<p>"I dare say he has put by," continued +Colonel Tempest. "He has had time +enough."</p> + +<p>"You have not read the letter carefully," +said Di. "He only discovered all this less +than three months ago, and you have been +ill for more than two."</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest did not hear her. He +had ceased for the last twenty years to hear +anything he did not want to.</p> + +<p>"Fifty thousand a year," he went on; "not +a penny less. And the New River shares +have gone up since Jack's day. And there +was a large sum which rolled up during the +minority. John is right there. There must<span class="pagenum">[243]</span> +be over a hundred thousand. You shall +have that, Di. Archie will kick, but you +shall have it. Eight thousand pounds John +settled on you a year ago. That was the +amount of <i>his</i> generosity to my poor girl. +You shall not have a penny less than a +hundred thousand. Not during my lifetime, +of course; but when I die——" he +added hastily.</p> + +<p>Di could articulate nothing.</p> + +<p>"I shall pay my own debts and Archie's +in a moment," he continued, not noticing +whether she answered or not. "If you +want a new gown, Di, you may send the bill +to me. I don't believe I owe a thousand, +and Archie not so much, poor lad, though +John was always pulling a long face over his +debts. How deuced mean John was from +first to last! Well, do as you would be done +by. I'll do for him alone what he thought +enough for the two of you. I'll never give<span class="pagenum">[244]</span> +him cause to say I'm close-fisted. He shall +have your eight thousand, and he shall have +three hundred a year, the same that he +allowed Archie, as well."</p> + +<p>"He won't take it."</p> + +<p>"Won't take it!" said Colonel Tempest, +contemptuously. "That's all you know +about the world, Di. I tell you he'll +have to take it. I tell you he has not a +sixpence in the world at this moment, to +say nothing of owing me twenty years' +income."</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest rambled on of how +Archie should leave the army and live at +Overleigh, of how Di should live there too, +and Mrs. Courtenay might go to the devil. +Presently he fell to wondering what state +the shooting was in, and how many pheasants +John was breeding at that moment. Every +instant it became more unbearable, till at +last Di sent for the nurse, made an excuse<span class="pagenum">[245]</span> +of posting her letters, and slipped out of the +room.</p> + +<p>She went out to her old friends, the yellow +waves, and, too exhausted to walk, sat down +under the lee of one of the high wooden +rivets between which the sea licks the +pebbly shore into grooves.</p> + +<p>Gradually the tension of her mind relaxed. +Di sat and watched the waves until they +washed away the high invalid voice vibrating +in some acute recess of her brain; washed +away the hideous thought that they were +rich because John was penniless and dishonoured; +washed away everything except +the one fact that his silence was accounted +for, and that he loved her after all.</p> + +<p>Di looked out across the rain-trodden sea. +If it was raining, she did not know it. What +did anything in this wide world matter so +long as John loved her? Poverty was +nothing. Marriage was nothing either.<span class="pagenum">[246]</span> +What did it matter if they could not marry +so long as they loved each other?</p> + +<p>Once in a lifetime it is vouchsafed alike +to the worldly and to the pure, to the earnest +and to the frivolous, to discern that vision—which +has been ever life's greatest reality +or life's greatest illusion according to the +character of the beholder—that to love and +to be loved is enough.</p> + +<p>A wet glint came across the sea, exquisite +and evanescent as the gleam across Di's heart.</p> + +<p>"It is enough!" said Di; and her soul was +flooded with a solemn joy a thousand times +deeper than when she had first discovered +her love for John, and his for her, and a +brilliant future was before her.</p> + +<p>Sorrow with his pick mines the heart. +But he is a cunning workman. He deepens +the channels whereby happiness may enter, +and hollows out new chambers for joy to +abide in, when he is gone.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[247]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch07.jpg" width="600" height="190" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small."<br /></span> +<span class="i14"><span class="smcap">Longfellow.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_t.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="T" /> + <span class="hide">T</span>HE doctor was sitting with Colonel +Tempest on Di's return to the hotel, +and Di perceived that her father, who was +still in a very excited state, had been telling +him about his sudden change of fortune.</p> + +<p>The doctor courteously offered his congratulations, +and on leaving made a pretext +of inquiring after Di's health in order to see +her alone.</p> + +<p>"Colonel Tempest has been telling me +of his unexpected access of wealth," he said. +"In his present condition of nervous prostration,<span class="pagenum">[248]</span> +and tendency to cerebral excitement, +the information should most certainly have +been withheld from him. His brain is not +in a state to bear the strain which such an +event might have put upon it, has put upon +it. Were such a thing to occur again in his +enfeebled condition, I cannot answer for the +consequences."</p> + +<p>"It was absolutely unforeseen," said Di. +"None of us had the remotest suspicion. +He has been in the habit of reading his +letters for the past month."</p> + +<p>"They must be kept from him for the +present," replied the doctor. "Let them be +brought to you in future, and use your own +discretion about showing them to him after +you have read them yourself. Your father +must be guarded from all agitation."</p> + +<p>This was more easily said than done. +Nothing could turn Colonel Tempest's +shattered, restless mind from hopping like a<span class="pagenum">[249]</span> +grasshopper on that one subject for the +remainder of the day. The bit of cork in +his medicine, which at another time would +have elicited a torrent of indignation, excited +only a momentary attention. He talked +without ceasing—hinted darkly at danger +to John which that young man's creditable +though tardy action had averted, alluded to +passages in his own life which nothing would +induce him to divulge, and then lighting on +a sentimental vein, discoursed of a happy old +age (the old age of fiction), in which he +should see Archie's and Di's children playing +in the gallery at Overleigh. And the old +name——</p> + +<p>Di had not realized, until her parent descanted +upon the subject in a way that set +her teeth on edge, how hideous, how vulgar, +is the seamy side of pride of birth. When +Colonel Tempest began to dwell on "the +goodness and the grace that on his birth<span class="pagenum">[250]</span> +had smiled," shall we blame Di if she put +on the clock half an hour, and rang for the +nurse?</p> + +<p>Things were not much better next morning. +Di gave strict orders that all letters +and telegrams should be brought to her +room. Colonel Tempest fidgeted because +he had not heard from the lawyer in whose +hands John had placed the transfer of the +property. The letter was in Di's pocket, +but she dared not give it to him, for though +it contained nothing to agitate him, she +knew that the fact that she had opened it +would raise a whirlwind.</p> + +<p>"And Archie," said Colonel Tempest, +querulously—"I ought to have heard from +him too. If John told him the same day +that he wrote to me, we ought to have heard +from Archie this morning. I should have +imagined that though Archie did not give +his father a thought when he was poor, he<span class="pagenum">[251]</span> +might have thought him worthy of a little +consideration <i>now</i>."</p> + +<p>"If that is the motive you would have +given him if he had written, it is just as well +he has not," said Di; but she wondered at +his silence nevertheless.</p> + +<p>But she did not wonder long.</p> + +<p>She left her father busily writing to an +imaginary lawyer, for he had neither the +name nor address of John's, and on the landing +met a servant bringing a telegram to her +room. She took it upstairs, and though it +was addressed to her father, opened it. She +had no apprehension of evil. The old are +afraid of telegrams, but the young have +made them common, and have worn out +their prestige.</p> + +<p>The telegram was from John, merely +stating that Archie had been taken seriously +ill.</p> + +<p>Di's heart gave a leap of thankfulness<span class="pagenum">[252]</span> +that her father had been spared this further +shock. But Archie. Seriously ill. She +was indignant at John's vague statement. +What did seriously ill mean? Why could +not he say what was the matter? And how +could she keep the fact of his illness from +her father? Ought she to go at once to +Archie? Seriously ill. How like a man +to send a telegram of that kind! She would +telegraph at once to John for particulars, and +go or stay according as the doctor thought +she could or could not safely leave her +father. Di put on her walking things, and +ran out to the post-office round the corner, +where she despatched a peremptory telegram +to John; and then, seeing there was no one +else to advise her, hurried to the doctor's +house close at hand. For a wonder he +was in. For a greater still, his last patient +walked out as she walked in. The doctor, +with the quickness of his kind, saw the<span class="pagenum">[253]</span> +difficulty, and caught up his hat to come +with her.</p> + +<p>"You shall go to your brother if you can," +was the only statement to which he would +commit himself during the two minutes' walk +in the rain; the two minutes which sealed +Colonel Tempest's fate.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>No one knew exactly how it happened. +Perhaps the hall porter had gone to his +dinner, and the little boy who took his place +for half an hour brought up the telegram to +the person to whom it was addressed. No +one knew afterwards how it had happened. +It did happen, that was all.</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest had the pink paper in +his hand as the doctor and Di entered the +room. He was laughing softly to himself.</p> + +<p>"Archie is dead," he said, chuckling. +"That is what John would like me to +believe. But I know better. It is John<span class="pagenum">[254]</span> +that is dead. It is John who had to be +snuffed out. Swayne said so, and he knew. +And John says it's Archie, and he will write. +Ha, ha! We know better, eh, doctor? eh, +Di? John's dead. Eight and twenty years +old he was; but he's dead at last. He won't +write any more. He won't spend my money +any more. He won't keep me out any more."</p> + +<p>Colonel Tempest dropped on his knees. +The only prayer he knew rose to his lips. +"For what we are going to receive, the Lord +make us truly thankful."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>For an awful day and night the fierce +flame of delirium leaped and fell, and ever +leaped again. With set face Di stood hour +after hour in the blast of the furnace, till +doctor and nurse marvelled at her courage +and endurance.</p> + +<p>On the evening of the second day John +came. He had written to tell Colonel Tempest<span class="pagenum">[255]</span> +of his coming, but the letter had not +been opened.</p> + +<p>The doctor, thinking he was Di's brother, +brought him into the sick-room, too crowded +with fearful images for his presence to be +noticed by the sick man.</p> + +<p>"John is dead," the high-pitched terrible +voice was saying. "Blundering fools. First +there was the railway, but Goodwin saved +him; damn his officiousness. And then +there was the fire. They nearly had him +that time. How grey he looked! Burnt to +ashes. Bandaged up to the eyes. But he +got better. And then the carnival. They +muffed it again. Oh, Lord, how slow they +were! But"—the voice sank to a frightful +whisper—"they got him in Paris. I don't +know how they did it—it's a secret; but +they trapped him at last."</p> + +<p>Suddenly the glassy eyes looked with +horrified momentary recognition at John.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[256]</span></p> + +<p>"Risen from the dead," continued the +voice. "I knew he would get up again. +I always said he would; and he has. You +can't kill John. There's no grave deep +enough to hold him. Look at him with his +head out now, and the earth upon his hair. +We ought to have put a monument over him +to keep him down. He's getting up. I tell +you I did not do it. The grave's not big +enough. Swayne dug it for him when he +was a little boy—a little boy at school."</p> + +<p>Di turned her colourless face to John, and +smiled at him, as one on the rack might +smile at a friend to show that the anguish +is not unbearable. She felt no surprise at +seeing him. She was past surprise. She +had forgotten that she had ever doubted his +love.</p> + +<p>In silence he took the hand she held out +towards him, and kept it in a strong gentle +clasp that was more comfort than any words.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[257]</span></p> + +<p>Hour after hour they watched and ministered +together, and hour by hour the lamp +of life flared grimly low and lower. And +after he had told everything—everything, +everything that he had concealed in life—after +John and Di had heard, in awed compassion +and forgiveness, every word of the +guilty secret which he had kept under lock +and key so many years, at last the tide of +remembrance ebbed away and life with it.</p> + +<p>Did he know them in the quiet hours that +followed? Did he recognize them? They +bent over him. They spoke to him gently, +tenderly. Did he understand? They never +knew.</p> + +<p>And so, in the grey of an April morning, +poor Colonel Tempest, unconscious of death, +which had had so many terrors for him in +life, drifted tranquilly upon its tide from the +human compassion that watched by him +here, to the Infinite Pity beyond.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[258]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch09.jpg" width="600" height="189" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Where there are twa seeking there will be a finding."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_a.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="A" /> + <span class="hide">A</span>FTER John had taken Di back to +London he returned to Brighton, +and from thence to Overleigh, to arrange for +the double funeral. He had not remembered +to mention that he was coming, and in the +dusk of a wet afternoon he walked up by +the way of the wood, and let himself in at +the little postern in the wall. He had +not thought he should return to Overleigh +again, yet here he was once more in the +dim gallery, with its faint scent of <i>pot-pourri</i>, +his hand as he passed stirring it from long<span class="pagenum">[259]</span> +habit. The pictures craned through the +twilight to look at him. He stole quietly +upstairs and along the garret gallery. The +nursery door was open. A glow of light fell +on Mitty's figure. What was she doing?</p> + +<p>John stopped short and looked at her, +and, with a sudden recollection as of some +previous existence, understood.</p> + +<p>Mitty was packing. Two large white +grocery boxes were already closed and corded +in one corner. John saw "Best Cubes" +printed on them, and it dawned upon his +slow masculine consciousness that those +boxes were part of Mitty's luggage.</p> + +<p>Mitty was standing in the middle of the +room, holding at arm's length a little red +flannel dressing-gown, which knocked twenty +years off John's age as he looked.</p> + +<p>"I shall take it," she said, half aloud. +"It's wore as thin as thin behind; that and +the open socks as I've mended and better-be-mended;"<span class="pagenum">[260]</span> +and she thrust them both +hastily, as if for fear she should repent, +into a tin box, out of which the battered +head of John's old horse protruded.</p> + +<p>If there was one thing certain in this world, +it was that the Noah's ark would not go in +unless the horse came out. Mitty tried +many ways, and was contemplating them +with arms akimbo when John came in.</p> + +<p>She showed no surprise at seeing him, and +with astonishment John realized that it was +only six days since he had left Overleigh. +It was actually not yet a week since that far-distant +afternoon, separated from the present +by such a chasm, when he had lain on his +face in the heather, and the deep passions of +youth had rent him and let him go. Here +at Overleigh time stopped. He came back +twenty years older, and the almanac on his +writing-table marked six days.</p> + +<p>John made the necessary arrangements<span class="pagenum">[261]</span> +for the funeral to take place at midnight, +according to the Tempest custom, which he +knew Colonel Tempest would have been the +last to waive. He wrote to tell Di what +he had settled, together with the hour and +the date. He dared not advise her not to +be present, but he remembered the vast +concourse of people who had assembled at +his father's funeral to see the torchlight +procession, and he hoped she would not +come.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Courtenay wrote back that her +granddaughter was fixed in her determination +to be present, that she had reluctantly +consented to it, and would accompany her +herself. She added in a postscript that no +doubt John would arrange for them to stay +the night at Overleigh, and they should +return to London the next day.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>The night of the funeral was exceeding<span class="pagenum">[262]</span> +dark and still; so still that many, watching +from a distance on Moat-hill, heard the +voice saying, "I am the resurrection and +the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth +in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he +live."</p> + +<p>And again—</p> + +<p>"We brought nothing into this world, +and it is certain we can carry nothing +out."</p> + +<p>The night was so calm that the torches +burned upright and unwavering, casting a +steadfast light on church and graveyard and +tilted tombstones, on the crowded darkness +outside, and on the worn faces of a man +and woman who stood together between two +open graves.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>John and Di exchanged no word as they +drove home. There were lights and a fire +in the music-room, and she went in there,<span class="pagenum">[263]</span> +and began absently to take off her hat and +long crêpe veil. Mrs. Courtenay had gone +to bed.</p> + +<p>John followed Di with a candle in his +hand. He offered it to her, but she did not +take it.</p> + +<p>"It is good-bye as well as good night," he +said, holding out his hand. "I must leave +here very early to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Di took no notice of his outstretched hand. +She was looking into the fire.</p> + +<p>"You must rest," he said gently, trying to +recall her to herself.</p> + +<p>A swift tremor passed over her face.</p> + +<p>"You are right," she said, in a low voice. +"I will rest—when I have had five minutes' +talk with you."</p> + +<p>John shut the door, and came back to the +fireside. He believed he knew what was +coming, and his face hardened. It was bitter +to him that Di thought it worth while to<span class="pagenum">[264]</span> +speak to him on the subject. She ought to +have known him better.</p> + +<p>She faced him with difficulty, but without +hesitation. They looked each other in the +eyes.</p> + +<p>"You are going to London early to see +your lawyer," she said, "on the subject that +you wrote to father about."</p> + +<p>"I am."</p> + +<p>"That is why I must speak to you to-night. +I dare not wait." Her eyes fell before the +stern intentness of his. Her voice faltered +a moment, and then went on. "John, don't +go. It is not necessary. Don't grieve me by +leaving Overleigh, or—changing your name."</p> + +<p>A great bitterness welled up in John's +heart against the woman he loved—the +bitterness which sooner or later few men +escape, of realizing how feeble is a woman's +perception of what is honourable or dishonourable +in a man.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[265]</span></p> + +<p>"Ah, Di," he said, "you are very generous. +But do not let us speak of it again. Such +a thing could not be."</p> + +<p>He took her hand, but she withdrew it +instantly.</p> + +<p>"John," she said with dignity, "you +misunderstand me. It would be a poor +kind of generosity in me to offer what it is +impossible for you to accept. You wound +me by thinking I could do such a thing. +I only meant to ask you to keep your +present name and home for a little +while, until—they both will become yours +again by right—the day when—you marry +me."</p> + +<p>A beautiful colour had mounted to Di's +face. John's became white as death.</p> + +<p>"Do you love me?" he said hoarsely, +shaking from head to foot.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied, trembling as much +as he.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[266]</span></p> + +<p>He held her in his arms. The steadfast +heart that understood and loved him beat +against his own.</p> + +<p>"Di!" he stammered—"Di!"</p> + +<p>And they wept and clung together like +two children.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/epcn.jpg" width="500" height="261" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[267]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ch02.jpg" width="600" height="192" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="POSTSCRIPT">POSTSCRIPT.</h2> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/drop_m.jpg" width="80" height="80" alt="M" /> + <span class="hide">M</span>ITTY'S packing was never finished—why, +she did not understand. But +John, who helped her to rearrange her things, +understood, and that was enough for her. +For many springs and spring cleanings the +horse-chestnut buds peered in at the nursery +windows and found her still within. I think +the wishes of Mitty's heart all came to +pass, and that she loved "Miss Dinah;" +but nevertheless I believe that, to the end +of life, she never quite ceased to regret the +little kitchen that John had spoken of, where +she would have made "rock buns" for her +lamb, and waited on him "hand and foot."</p> +</div> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h4"> +PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.<br /> +LONDON AND BECCLES.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="h4"> +<i>D. & Co.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA TEMPEST, VOLUME III (OF 3)***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 37975-h.txt or 37975-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/9/7/37975">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/9/7/37975</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Diana Tempest, Volume III (of 3) + + +Author: Mary Cholmondeley + + + +Release Date: November 11, 2011 [eBook #37975] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA TEMPEST, VOLUME III (OF 3)*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images +generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illuminations. + See 37975-h.htm or 37975-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37975/37975-h/37975-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37975/37975-h.zip) + + + Project Gutenberg also has Volumes I and II of this + work. See + Volume I: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37973 + Volume II: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37974 + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/dianatempest03chol + + + + + +DIANA TEMPEST. + +by + +MARY CHOLMONDELEY, + +Author of +"The Danvers Jewels," +"Sir Charles Danvers," etc. + +In Three Volumes. + +VOL. III. + + + + + + + +London: +Richard Bentley & Son, +Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. +1893. +(All rights reserved.) + + + + +DIANA TEMPEST. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + "Time and chance are but a tide." + + BURNS. + + +Between aspiration and achievement there is no great gulf fixed. God +does not mock His children by putting a lying spirit in the mouth of +their prophetic instincts. Only the faith of concentrated endeavour, +only the stern years which must hold fast the burden of a great hope, +only the patience strong and meek which is content to bow beneath "the +fatigue of a long and distant purpose;" only these stepping-stones, and +no gulf impassable by human feet, divide aspiration from achievement. + +To aspire is to listen to the word of command. To achieve is to obey, +and to continue to obey, that voice. It is given to all to aspire. Few +allow themselves to achieve. John had begun to see that. + +If he meant to achieve anything, it was time he put his hand to the +plough. He had listened and learned long enough. + +"My time has come," he said to himself, as he sat alone in the library +at Overleigh on the first day of the new year. "I am twenty-eight. I +have been 'promising' long enough. The time of promise is past. I must +perform, or the time of performance will pass me by." + +He knit his heavy brows. + +"I must act," he said to himself, "and I cannot act. I must work, and I +cannot work." + +John was conscious of having had--he still had--high ambitions, deep +enthusiasms. Yet lo! all his life seemed to hinge on the question +whether Di would become his wife. Who has not experienced, almost with a +sense of traitorship to his own nature, how the noblest influences at +work upon it may be caught up into the loom of an all-absorbing personal +passion, adding a new beauty and dignity to the fabric, but nevertheless +changing for the time the pattern of the life? + +John's whole heart was set on one object. There is a Rubicon in the +feelings to pass which is to cut off retreat. John had long passed it. + +"I cannot do two things at the same time," he said. "I will ask Mrs. +Courtenay and Di here for the hunt ball, and settle matters one way or +the other with Di. After that, whether I succeed or fail, I will throw +myself heart and soul into the career Lord ---- prophesies for me. The +general election comes on in the spring. I will stand then." + +John wrote a letter to the minister who had such a high opinion of +him--or perhaps of his position--preserved a copy, pigeon-holed it, and +put it from his mind. His thoughts reverted to Di as a matter of course. +He had seen her several times since the fancy ball. Each particular of +those meetings was noted down in the unwritten diary which contains all +that is of interest in our lives, which no friend need be entreated to +burn at our departure. + +He was aware that a subtle change had come about between him and Di; +that they had touched new ground. If he had been in love before--which, +of course, he ought to have been--he would have understood what that +change meant. As it was, he did not. No doubt he would be wiser next +time. + +Yet even John, creeping mole-like through self-made labyrinths of +conjecture one inch below the surface, asked himself whether it was +credible that Di was actually beginning to care for him. When he knew +for certain she did not, there seemed no reason that she should not; now +that he was insane enough to imagine she might, he was aware of a +thousand deficiencies in himself which made it impossible. And yet---- + +So he wrote another letter, this time to Mrs. Courtenay, inviting her +and Di to the hunt ball in his neighbourhood, at the end of January. + +And his invitation was accepted. And one if not two persons, perhaps +even a third old enough to know better, began the unprofitable task of +counting days. + + * * * * * + +It was an iron winter. It affected Fritz's health deleteriously. His +short legs raised him but little above the surface of the earth, and he +was subject to chills and cramps owing to the constant contact of the +under portion of his long ginger person with the snow. Not that there +was much snow. One steel and iron frost succeeded another. Lindo, on the +contrary, found the cold slight compared with the two winters which he +had passed in Russia with John. His wool had been allowed to grow, to +the great relief of Mitty, who could not "abide" the "bare-backed state" +which the exigencies of fashion required of him during the summer. + +It was a winter not to be forgotten, a winter such as the oldest people +at Overleigh could hardly recall. As the days in the new year +lengthened, the frost strengthened, as the saying goes. The village beck +at Overleigh froze. By-and-by the great rivers froze. Carts went over +the Thames. Some one, fonder of driving than of horses, drove a +four-in-hand on the ice at Oxford. The long lake below Overleigh Castle, +which had formerly supplied the moat, was frozen feet thick. The little +islands and the boathouse were lapped in ice. It became barely possible, +as the days went on, to keep one end open for the swans and ducks. The +herons came to divide the open space with them. The great frost of +18-- was not one that would be quickly forgotten. + +John kept open house, for the ice at Overleigh was the best in the +neighbourhood, and all the neighbours within distance thronged to it. +Mothers drove over with their daughters; for skating is a healthy +pursuit, and those that can't skate can learn. + +The most inaccessible hunting men, rendered desperate like the herons by +the frost, turned up regularly at Overleigh to play hockey, or emulate +John's figure-skating, which by reason of long practice in Russia was +"bad to beat." + +John was a conspicuous figure on the ice, in his furred Russian coat +lined with sable paws, in which he had skated at the ice carnivals at +St. Petersburg. + +Mitty, with bright winter-apple cheeks and a splendid new beaver muff, +would come down to watch her darling wheel and sweep. + +"If the frost holds I will have an ice carnival when Di is here," John +said to himself; and after that he watched the glass carefully. + +The day of Di's arrival drew near, came, and actually Di with it. She +was positively in the house. Archie came the same day, but not with her. +Archie had invariably shown such a marked propensity for travelling by +any train except that previously agreed upon, when he was depended on to +escort his sister, that after a long course of irritation Mrs. Courtenay +had ceased to allow him to chaperon Di, to the disgust of that +gentleman, who was very proud of his ornamental sister when she was not +in the way, and who complained bitterly at not being considered good +enough to take her out. So Mrs. Courtenay, who had accepted for the sake +of appearances, but who had never had the faintest intention of leaving +her own fireside in such inhuman weather, discovered a tendency to +bronchitis, and failed at the last moment, confiding Di to the charge of +Miss Fane, who good-naturedly came down from London to assist John in +entertaining his guests. + +And still the following day the frost held. The hunt ball had dwindled +to nothing in comparison with the ice carnival at Overleigh the night +following the ball. The whole neighbourhood was ringing with it. Such a +thing had never taken place within the memory of man at Overleigh. The +neighbours, the tenantry, cottagers and all, were invited. The +hockey-players rejoiced in the rumour that there would be hockey by +torchlight, with goals lit up by flambeaux and a phosphorescent bung. +Would the frost hold? That was the burning topic of the day. + +There was a large house-party at Overleigh, a throng of people who in +Di's imagination existed only during certain hours of the day, and +melted into the walls at other times. They came and went, and skated and +laughed, and wore beautiful furs, especially Lady Alice Fane, but they +had no independent existence of their own. The only real people among +the crowd of dancing skating shadows were herself and John, with whom +all that first day she had hardly exchanged a word--to her relief, was +it, or her disappointment? + +After tea she went up with Miss Fane to the low entresol room which had +been set apart for that lady's use, to help her to rearrange the men's +button-holes, which John had pronounced to be too large. As soon as Di +took them in hand, Miss Fane of course discovered, as was the case, that +she was doing them far better than she could herself, and presently +trotted off on the pretext of seeing to some older lady who did not want +seeing to, and did not return. + +Di was not sorry. She rearranged the bunches of lilies of the valley at +leisure, glad of the quiet interval after a long and unprofitable day. + +Presently the person of whom she happened to be thinking happened to +come in. He would have been an idiot if he had not, though I regret to +be obliged to chronicle that he had had doubts on the subject. + +"I thought I should find Aunt Loo here," he said, rather guiltily, for +falsehood sat ungracefully upon him. And he looked round the apartment +as if she might be concealed in a corner. + +"She was here a moment ago," said Di, and she began to sort the flowers +all over again. + +"The frost shows no signs of giving." + +"I am glad." + +After the frost John found nothing further of equal originality to say, +and presently he sat down, neither near to her nor very far away, with +his chin in his hands, watching her wire her flowers. The shaded light +dealt gently with the folds of Di's amber tea-gown, and touched the +lowest ripple of her yellow hair. She dropped a single lily, and he +picked it up for her, and laid it on her knee. It was a day of little +things; the little things Love glorifies. He did not know that his +attitude was that of a lover--did not realize the inference he would +assuredly have drawn if he had seen another man sit as he was sitting +then. He had forgotten all about that. He thought of nothing; neither +thought of anything in the blind unspeakable happiness and comfort of +being near each other, and at peace with each other. + +Afterwards, long afterwards, John remembered that hour with the feeling +as of a Paradise lost, that had been only half realized at the time. He +wondered how he had borne such happiness so easily; why no voice from +heaven had warned him to speak then, or hereafter for ever hold his +peace. And yet at the time it had seemed only the dawning of a coming +day, the herald of a more sure and perfect joy to be. The prophetic +conviction had been at the moment too deep for doubt that there would be +many times like that. + +"Many times," each thought, lying awake through the short winter night +after the ball. + +John had discovered that to be alternately absolutely certain of two +opposite conclusions, without being able to remain in either, is to be +in a state of doubt. He found he could bear that blister as ill as most +men. + +"I will speak to her the morning after the carnival," he said, "when all +this tribe of people have gone. What is the day going to be like?" + +He got up and unbarred his shutter, and looked out. The late grey +morning was shivering up the sky. The stars were white with cold. The +frost had wrought an ice fairyland on the lattice. While that fragile +web held against the pane, the frost that wrapped the whole country +would hold also. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + "A funeral morn is lit in heaven's hollow, + And pale the star-lights follow." + + CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. + + +Towards nine o'clock in the evening carriage after carriage began to +drive up to Overleigh in the moonlight. When Di came down, the white +stone hall and the music-room were already crowded with guests, among +whom she recognized Lord Hemsworth, Mr. Lumley, and Miss Crupps, who had +been staying at houses in the neighbourhood for the hunt ball the night +before, and had come on with their respective parties, to the not +unmixed gratification of John. + +"Here we are again," said Mr. Lumley, flying up to her. "No favouritism, +I beg, Miss Tempest. Tempest shall carry one skate, and I will take the +other. Hemsworth must make himself happy with the button-hook. Great +heavens! Tempest, whose funeral have you been ordering?" + +For at that moment the alarm-bell of the Castle began to toll. + +"It is unnecessary to hide in the curtains," said John. "That bell is +only rung in case of fire. It is the signal for lighting up." + +And, headed by a band of torches, the whole party went streaming out of +the wide archway, a gay crowd of laughing expectant people, into the +gardens, where vari-coloured lines of lights gleamed terrace below +terrace along the stone balustrades, and Neptune reined in his dolphins +in the midst of his fountain, in a shower of golden spray. + +The path down to the lake through the wood was lit by strings of Chinese +lanterns in the branches. The little bridge over the frozen brook was +outlined with miniature rose-coloured lights, in which the miracles +wrought by the hoar-frost on each transfigured reed and twig glowed +flame-colour to their inmost tracery against the darkness of the +overhanging trees. + +Di walked with John in fairyland. + +"Beauty and the beast," said some one, probably Mr. Lumley. But only the +"beast" heard, and he did not care. + +There was a chorus of exclamations as they all emerged from the wood +into the open. + +The moon was shining in a clear sky, but its light was lost in the glare +of the bonfires, leaping red and blue and intensest green on the further +bank of the lake, round which a vast crowd was already assembled. The +islands shone, complete circles of coloured light like jewels in a +silver shield. The whole lake of glass blazed. The bonfires flung great +staggering shadows across the hanging woods. + +John and Di looked back. + +High overhead Overleigh hung in mid air in a thin veil of mist, a castle +built in light. Every window and archer's loophole, from battlement to +basement, the long lines of mullioned lattice of the picture-gallery and +the garret gallery above, throbbed with light. The dining-hall gleamed +through its double glass. The rose window of the chapel was a rose of +fire. + +"They have forgotten my window," said John; and Di saw that the lowest +portion of the western tower was dark. Her own oriel window, and +Archie's next it, shone bravely. + +Mitty was watching from the nursery window. In the fierce wavering +light she could see John, conspicuous in his Russian coat and peaked +Russian cap, advance across the ice, escorted by torches, to the +ever-increasing multitude upon the further bank. The enthusiastic +cheering of the crowd when it caught sight of him came up to her, as she +sat with a cheek pressed against the lattice, and she wept for joy. + +Di's heart quickened as she heard it. Her pride, which had at first +steeled her against John, had deserted to his side. It centred in him +now. She was proud of him. Lord Hemsworth, on his knees before her, +fastening her skates, asked her some question relating to a strap, and, +looking up as she did not answer, marvelled at the splendid colour in +her cheek, and the flash in the eyes looking beyond him over his head. +At a signal from John the band began to play, and some few among the +crowd to dance on the sanded portion of the ice set apart for them; but +far the greater number gathered in dense masses to watch the "musical +ride" on skates which the house-party at Overleigh had been practising +the previous day, which John led with Lady Alice, circling in and out +round groups of torches, and ending with a grand chain, in which Mr. +Lumley and Miss Crupps collapsed together, to the delight of the +spectators and of Mr. Lumley himself, who said he should tell his mamma. + +And still the crowd increased. + +As John was watching the hockey-players contorted like prawns, wheeling +fast and furious between their flaming goals, which dripped liquid fire +on to the ice, the local policeman came up to him. + +"There's over two thousand people here to-night, sir," he said. + +"The more the better," said John. + +"Yes, sir, and I've been about among 'em, me and Jones, and there's a +sight of people here, sir, as are no tenants of yours, and roughish +characters some of 'em." + +"Sure to be," said John. "If there is any horseplay, treat it short and +sharp. I'll back you up. I've a dozen men down here from the house to +help to keep order. But there will be no need. Trust Yorkshiremen to +keep amused and in a good temper." + +And, in truth, the great concourse of John's guests was enjoying itself +to the utmost, dancing, sliding, clutching, falling one on the top of +the other, with perfect good humour, shouting with laughter, men, women, +and children all together. + +As the night advanced an ox was roasted whole on the ice, and a cauldron +of beer was boiled. There was a tent on the bank in which a colossal +supper had been prepared for all. Behind it great brick fire-places had +been built, round which the people sat in hundreds, drinking, singing, +heating beer and soup. They were tactful, these rough Yorkshiremen; not +one came across to the further bank set apart for "t' quality," where +another supper, not half so decorously conducted, was in full swing by +the boathouse. John skated down there after presiding at the tent. + +Perhaps negus and mutton-broth were never handed about under such +dangerous circumstances. The best _Consomme a la Royale_ watered the +earth. The men tottered on their skates over the frozen ground, bearing +soup to the coveys of girls sitting on the bank in nests of fur rugs. + +Mr. Lumley and Miss Crupps had supper together in one of the boats, Mr. +Lumley continually vociferating, "Not at home," when called upon, and +retaliating with Genoese pastry, until he was dislodged with oars, when +he emerged wielding the drumstick of a chicken, and a free fight ensued +between him and little Mr. Dawnay, armed with a soup-ladle, which ended +in Mr. Lumley's being forced on to his knees among the mince-pies, and +disarmed. + +John looked round for Di, but she was the centre of a group of girls, +and he felt aggrieved that she had not kept a vacant seat for him beside +her, which of course she could easily have done. Presently, when the +fireworks began, every one made a move towards the lower part of the +lake in twos and threes, and then his opportunity came. + +He held out his hand to help her to her feet, and they skated down the +ice together. Every one was skating hand in hand, but surely no two +hands trembled one in the other as theirs did. + +The evening was growing late. A low mist was creeping vague and billowy +across the land, making the tops of the trees look like islands in a +ghostly sea. The bonfires, burning down red and redder into throbbing +hearts of fire, gleamed blurred and weird. The rockets rushed into the +air and dropped in coloured flame, flushing the haze. The moon peered in +and out. + +And to John and Di it seemed as if they two were sweeping on winged feet +among a thousand phantasmagoria, in the midst of which they were the +only realities. In other words, they were in love. + +"Come down to the other end of the lake, and let us look at the +fireworks from there," said John; and they wheeled away from the crowd +and the music and the noise, past all the people and the lighted islands +and the boathouse, and the swinging lamps along the banks, away to the +deserted end of the lake. A great stillness seemed to have retreated +there under shadow of the overhanging trees. The little island left in +darkness for the waterfowl, with its laurels bending frozen into the +ice, had no part or lot in the distant jargon of sound, and the medley +of rising, falling, skimming lights. There was no sound save the ringing +of their skates, and a little crackling of the ice among the grass at +the edge. + +They skated round the island, and then slackened and stood still to look +at the scene in the distance. + +One of the bonfires just replenished leapt one instant lurid high, only +to fall the next in a whirlwind of sparks, and cover the lake with a +rush of smoke. Figures dashed in and out, one moment in the full glare +of light, the next flying like shadows through the smoke. + +"It is like a dream," said Di. "If it is one, I hope I shan't wake up +just yet." + +To John it was not so wild and incredible a dream as that her hand was +still in his. She had not withdrawn it. No, his senses did not deceive +him. He looked at it, gloved in his bare one. He held it still. He could +not wait another moment. He must have it to keep always. Surely, surely +fate had not thrown them together for nothing, beneath this veiled moon, +among the silver trees! + +"Di," he said below his breath. + +"There is some one on the bank watching us," said Di, suddenly. + +John turned, and in the uncertain light saw a man's figure come +deliberately out of the shadow of the trees to the bank above the ice. + +John gave a sharp exclamation. + +"What has he got in his hand?" said Di. + +He did not answer. He dropped her hand and moved suddenly away from +her. The figure slowly raised one arm. There was a click and a snap. + +"Missed fire," said John, making a rush for the edge. But he turned +immediately. He remembered his skates. Di screamed piercingly. In the +distance came the crackling of fireworks, and the murmur of the +delighted crowd. Would no one hear? + +The figure on the bank did not stir; only a little steel edge of light +rose slowly again. + +There was a sharp report, a momentary puff of light in smoke, and John +staggered, and began scratching and scraping the ice with his skates. Di +raised shrieks that shook the stars, and rushed towards him. + +And the cruel moon came creeping out, making all things visible. + +"Go back," he gasped hoarsely. "Keep away from me. He will fire again." + +And he did so; for as she rushed up to John, and in spite of the +strength with which he pushed her from him, caught him in her arms and +held him tightly to her, there was a second report, and the muff hopped +and ripped in her hand. + +She screamed again. Surely some one would come! She could hear the +ringing of skates and voices. Torches were wheeling towards her. +Lanterns were running along the edge. Good God! how slow they were! + +"Go back--go back!" gasped John, and his head fell forward on her +breast. He seemed slipping out of her arms, but she upheld him clasped +convulsively to her with the strength of despair. + +"Where?" shouted voices, half-way up the lake. + +She tried to shriek again, but only a harsh guttural sound escaped her +lips. + +The man had not gone away. She had her back to him, but she heard him +run a few steps along the frost-bitten bank, and she knew it was to +make his work sure. + +John became a dead weight upon her. She struggled fiercely with him, but +he dragged her heavily to her knees, and fell from her grasp, exposing +himself to full view. There was a click. + +With a wild cry she flung herself down upon his body, covering him with +her own, her face pressed against his. + +"We will die together! We will die together!" she gasped. + +She heard a low curse from the bank. And suddenly there was a turmoil of +voices, and a rushing and flaring of lights all round her, and then a +sharp cry like the fire-engines clearing the London streets. + +"I must get him to the side," she said to herself, and she beat her +hands feebly on the ice. + +Away in the distance, in some other world, the band struck up, "He's a +fine old English gentleman." + +Her hands touched something wet and warm. + +"The thaw has come at last," she thought, and consciousness and feeling +ebbed away together. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + "And dawn, sore trembling still and grey with fear, + Looked hardly forth, a face of heavier cheer + Than one which grief or dread yet half enshrouds." + + SWINBURNE. + + +When Di came to herself, it was to find that she was sitting on the bank +supported by Miss Crupps' trembling arm, with her head on Miss Crupps' +shoulder. Some one, bending over her--could it be Lord Hemsworth with +that blanched face and bare head?--was wiping her face with the +gentleness of a woman. + +"Have I had a fall?" she asked dizzily. "I don't remember. I thought it +was--Miss Crupps who fell." + +"Yes, you have had a fall," said Lord Hemsworth, hurriedly; "but you +will be all right directly. Don't be all night with that brandy, +Lumley." + +Di suddenly perceived Mr. Lumley close at hand, trying to jerk something +out of a little silver lamp into a tumbler. She had seen that lamp +before. It had been handed round with lighted brandy in it with the +mince-pies. No one drank it by itself. Evidently there was something +wrong. + +"I don't understand," she said, beginning to look about her. A confused +gleam of remembrance was dawning in her eyes which terrified Lord +Hemsworth. + +"Drink this," he said quickly, pressing the tumbler against her lip. + +Her teeth chattered against the rim. Miss Crupps was weeping silently. +Di pushed away the glass and stared wildly about her. + +What was this great crowd of eyes kept back by a chain of men? What was +that man in a red uniform with a trumpet, craning forward to see? There +was a sound of women crying. How dark it was! Where was the moon gone +to? + +"What is it?" she whispered hoarsely, stretching out her hands to Lord +Hemsworth, and looking at him with an agony of appeal. "What has +happened?" + +But he only took her hands and held them hard in his. If he could have +died to spare her that next moment he would have done it. + +"When I say three," said a distinct voice near at hand. "Gently, men. +One, two, _three_. That's it." + +Di turned sharply in the direction of the voice. There was a knot of +people on the ice at a little distance. One was kneeling down. Another +knelt too, holding a lantern ringed with mist. As she looked, the +others raised something between them in a fur rug, something heavy, and +began to move slowly to the bank. + +Her face took a rigid look. She remembered. She rose suddenly to her +feet with a voiceless cry, and would have fallen forward on her face had +not Lord Hemsworth caught her in his arms. He held her closely to him, +and put his shaking blood-stained hand over her eyes. Miss Crupps sobbed +aloud. Mr. Lumley sat down by her, telling her not to cry, and assuring +her that it would all be all right; but when he was not comic he was not +up to much. + +There was no need to keep the crowd off any longer. Their whole interest +centred in John, and they broke away in murmuring masses along the bank, +and down the ice, in the wake of the little band with the lantern. + +Now that the lantern had gone, the place was wrapped in a white +darkness. The other lights had apparently gone out, except the red end +of a torch on the bank. The mist was covering the valley. + +"Is he dead? Is he dead?" gasped Di, clinging convulsively to the friend +who had loved her so long and so faithfully. + +"No, Di, no," said Lord Hemsworth, speaking as if to a child; "not dead, +only hurt. And the doctor is there. He was on the ice when it happened. +He was with you both almost as soon as I was. I am going to take off +your skates. Can you walk a little with my help? Yes? It will be better +to be going gently home. Put your hands in your muff. Here it is. You +must put in the other hand as well. The bank is steep here. Lean on me." +And Lord Hemsworth helped her up the bank, and guided her stumbling feet +towards the dwindling constellation of lights at the further end of the +lake. + +A party of men passed them in the drifting mist. One of them turned +back. It was Archie, his face streaming with perspiration. + +"Did you get him?" asked Lord Hemsworth. + +"Get him? Not a chance," said Archie. "He stood on the bank till Dawnay +and I were within ten yards of him, and then laughed and ran quietly +away. He knew we could not follow on our skates, though we made a rush +for him, and by the time we had got them off he was out of sight, of +course. I expect he has doubled back, and is watching among the crowd +now." + +"Would you know him again?" + +"No; he was masked. He would never have let me come so close to him if +he had not been. I say, how is John?" + +Lord Hemsworth glared at Archie, but the latter was of the species that +never takes a hint, like his father before him, who was always deeply +affronted if people resented his want of tact. He called it "touchiness" +on their part. The "touchiness" of the world in general affords tactless +persons a perennial source of offended astonishment. + +"What are you frowning at me about?" said Archie, in an injured voice. +"What has become of John? Hullo! what's that? Why, it's the omnibus. +They have been uncommonly quick about getting it down. My word, the +horses are giving trouble! They can't get them past the bonfires." + +"Go on and say Miss Tempest and Miss Crupps are coming," said Lord +Hemsworth, "and keep places for them." + +He knew the omnibus had not been sent for for them, but he did not want +Di to realize for whom it was required. Archie hurried on. Miss Crupps +and Mr. Lumley passed at a little distance. + +"You are deceiving me," gasped Di. "You mean it kindly, but you are +deceiving me. He is dead. Did not Archie say he was dead? It is no good +keeping it from me." + +Lord Hemsworth tried to soothe her in vain. + +"The man on the bank shot twice," she went on incoherently. "I tried to +get between, but it was no good; and I screamed, but you were all so +long in coming. I never knew people so slow. You were too late, too +late, too late!" + +Lord Hemsworth was experiencing that unbearable wrench at the heart +which goes by the easy name of emotion. He was reading his death-warrant +in every random word Di said. It appeared to him that he had always +known that John loved Di; and yet until this evening he had never +thought of it, and certainly never dreamed for a moment that she cared +for him. He had not imagined that Di could care for any one. The ease +with which any man can marry any woman nowadays, the readiness of women +to give their affection to any one, irrespective of age, character, and +antecedents, has awakened in men's minds a profound and too well +grounded disbelief in women's love. The average woman of the present day +is, as men are well aware, in love with marriage, and in order to attain +to that state a preference for one person rather than another is quickly +seen to be prejudicial; for though love conduces to happy marriages, +love conduces also to the catastrophe of single life, and is but a blind +leader of the blind at best. + +Lord Hemsworth loved Di, but that was different. The fact that she, +being human, might be equally attached to himself or to some other man +had never struck him. It struck him now, and for a few minutes he was +speechless. + +It was only a very great compassion and tenderness that was able to +wrestle with and vanquish the intolerable pain of the moment. + +"See, Di," he said gently, through his white lips. "Look at that great +tear and hole through your muff. I saw it directly I picked it up. A +bullet did that; do you understand?--a bullet that perhaps would have +hit Tempest but for you. But you saved him from it. Perhaps he is better +now, and afraid _you_ are hurt. There is the carriage coming to us; let +us go on to meet it." + +And in truth the great Overleigh omnibus, with men at the horses' heads, +was lurching across the uneven turf to meet them. + +"Where is John?" asked Di of Archie, peering at the empty carriage. + +"The doctor would not have him lifted in, after all," said Archie. +"They went on on foot. We may as well go up in it;" and he helped in +Lady Alice Fane and Miss Crupps, who came up at the moment. Lord +Hemsworth followed Di and sat down by her. He was determined she should +be spared all questioning. Mr. Lumley and Mr. Dawnay got in too, and sat +silently staring straight in front of them. No one spoke. Archie stood +on the step; and the long lumbering vehicle turned and got slowly under +way--the same in which such a merry party had driven to the ball the +night before. + +As they reached the courtyard a confused mass of people became visible +within it--the guests of the evening; the girls standing about in silent +groups, muffled to the eyes, for the cold had become intense; the men +hurrying to and fro, getting out their own horses and helping the +coachmen to harness them. Through the darkness came the uplifted voices +of Lindo and Fritz in hysterics at being debarred from taking part in +the festivities. Carriages were beginning to drive off. There was no +leave-taking. + +"There is our omnibus," said Mr. Lumley to Miss Crupps. "That is Montagu +lighting the lamps. They will be looking for us." And they got out and +rejoined their party, nodding silently to the others, who drove on to +the hall door, Lord Hemsworth with them: he seemed quite oblivious of +the fact that he was not staying at Overleigh. + +The hall was brilliantly lighted. Every carved lion and griffin on the +grand staircase held its lamp. The house-party was standing about in the +hall. They looked at the remainder as they came in, but no one spoke. +Miss Fane was blinking in their midst. The other elder ladies who had +stayed up at the Castle whispered with their daughters. A blaze of light +and silver came through the opened folding doors of the dining-hall, +where supper for a large number had been prepared. + +"Any news?" asked Lord Hemsworth, as he guided Di to an armchair. + +Miss Fane shook her head. + +"They won't let me in," she said. "They have taken him to his room, and +they won't let any one in." + +"Who is with him?" said Di, in a loud hoarse voice that made every one +look at her. + +She did not see what every one else did, namely, that the neck and +breast of her grey coat was drenched with blood--not hers. + +"The doctor and his sister are with him. They were both on the ice at +the time. I think Lord Elver is there too, and his valet." + +Lord Hemsworth went into the dining-hall and came back with a glass of +champagne and a roll. + +"Bring things out to the people," he said to the bewildered servants; +"they won't come in here for them." And they followed with trays of wine +and soup. + +Without making her conspicuous, he was thus able to force Di to drink +and eat. She remembered afterwards his wearying pertinacity till she had +finished what he brought her. + +The men, most of whom were exhausted by the pursuit of the assassin, or +by carrying John up the steep ascent, drank large quantities of spirits. +Archie, quite worn out, fell heavily asleep in an oak chair. The women +were beginning to disappear in two and threes. Every one was dead beat. + +It was Lord Hemsworth who took the onus of giving directions, who told +the servants to put out the lights from all the windows. Miss Fane was +of no more use than a sheep waked at midnight for an opinion on New +Zealand lamb would have been. She stood about and ate sandwiches because +they were handed to her, although she and the other chaperons had just +partaken of roast turkey; went at intervals into the picture-gallery, at +the end of which John's room was, and came back shaking her head. + +It was Lord Hemsworth who helped Di to her room, while Miss Fane +accompanied them upstairs. Di's room was still brilliantly lighted. Lord +Hemsworth lingered on the threshold. + +"You will promise me to take off that damp gown at once," he said. + +Somehow there seemed nothing peculiar in the authoritative attitude +which he had assumed towards Di. She and Miss Fane took it as a matter +of course. + +"Yes, change all her things," said Miss Fane. "Quite right--quite +right." + +"Where is your maid? Can you get her?" asked Lord Hemsworth, uneasily. + +"I have no maid," said Di, trying and failing to unfasten her grey +furred coat. + +He winced as he saw her touch it, and then, an idea seeming to strike +him, closed the door and went downstairs again. + +The servants had put out the lamps in the windows of the +picture-gallery, leaving, with unusual forethought, one or two burning +in the long expanse in case of need. + +In the shadow at the further end, near John's room, a bent figure was +sitting, silently rocking itself to and fro. It had been there whenever +he had ventured into the gallery. It was there still. + +It was Mitty--Mitty in her best violet silk that would stand of itself, +and her black satin apron, and her gold brooch with the mosaic of the +Coliseum that John had brought her from Rome. She raised her wet face +out of her apron as the young man touched her gently on the shoulder. + +"They won't let me in to him, sir," said Mitty, the round tears running +down her cheeks, and hopping on to her violet silk. "Me that nursed him +since he was a baby. He was put into my arms, sir, when he was born. I +took him from the month, and they won't let me in." + +"They will presently," said Lord Hemsworth. "He will be asking for you, +you'll see; and then how vexed he will be if he sees you have been +crying!" + +"And the warming-pan, sir," gasped Mitty, shaken with silent sobs, +pointing to that article laid on the settee. "I got it ready myself. I +was as quick as quick. And a bit of brown sugar in it to keep off the +pain. And they said they did not want it--as if I didn't know what he'd +like! He'll want his old Mitty, and he won't know they are keeping me +away from him." + +"Some one wants you very much," said Lord Hemsworth. "Poor Miss Tempest. +And she has no maid with her. She is not fit to be left to herself. +Won't you go and see to her, Mitty?" + +But Mitty shook her head. + +"He may ask for me," she said. + +"I will stay here and come for you the first minute he asks," said Lord +Hemsworth, moving the rejected warming-pan, and sitting down beside her +on the hot settee. "Poor Miss Tempest! And she tried so hard to save +him. Won't you go to her? She has only Miss Fane with her." + +"Miss Fane!" said Mitty, evidently with the recollection of a +long-standing feud. "Much good she'd do a body; doesn't know chalk from +cheese. She didn't even know when Master John had got the measles, +though the spots was out all over him. 'It's only nettle-rash, nurse,' +she says to me. And the same when he had them little ulsters in his +throat. Miss Fane indeed!" + +And after a little more persuasion Mitty consented to go if he promised +to come for her if John asked for her. + +Lord Hemsworth gave a sigh of relief as Mitty went reluctantly away. He +was in mortal anxiety about Di. He had a nervous misgiving, increased by +his feeling of masculine helplessness to do anything further for her, +lest she should fall ill or faint alone in that gaily lighted room; for, +of course, Miss Fane would not have remained. As, indeed, was the case. +She was yawning herself out of the room when Mitty appeared. + +"That's it--that's it," she said, evidently relieved. "Get to bed, Di. +No use sitting up. We shall hear in the morning;" and she departed to +her own room. + +Di turned her white exhausted face slowly towards the old woman, and +vainly tried to frame a question. Mitty's maternal instinct was aroused +by the sight of her lamb's "Miss Dinah" sitting in her mist-damped +clothes, which steamed where the warmth of the fire reached them. She +had made no effort to take off her walking things, but she was passive +under Mitty's hands, as the latter unfastened them and wrapped her in +her warm dressing-gown. + +"I can't go to bed, Mitty," said Di, hoarsely, holding her gown. "Don't +make me. Let me come and sit in the nursery with you. We shall be nearer +there, and then I shall hear. There is no one to come and tell me +here." + +The girl clung convulsively to the old woman, and the two went together +to the nursery, and Mitty, after putting her guest into the +rocking-chair by the fire, went down once more to ask for news. But +there was no news. John was still unconscious, and the doctor would say +nothing. Presently Mitty came tearfully back, and sat down on the other +side of the fire. Lord Hemsworth, who was sitting up with Archie, had +promised to come to the nursery the moment there was any change. + +The nursery still bore traces of the little party that had broken up so +disastrously, for Mitty had invited the _elite_ of the village ladies to +view the carnival from the nursery windows. The "rock" buns for which +Mitty was celebrated, and one of Mrs. Alcock's best cakes, were still on +the table, and Mitty's fluted silver teapot with a little nest of clean +cups round it. Presently she got up, and, opening the corner cupboard, +began to put them away; but the impulse of tidying was forgotten as she +caught sight of John's robin mug on the top shelf. She took it down, and +stood holding it in her old withered hands. + +"I give it him myself," she said, "on his birthday when he was five +years old; twenty-four years ago come June. I thought some of his +mother's family would have remembered his birthday if his father didn't. +I thought something would have come by post. But there wasn't so much as +a letter. And Mrs. Alcock give him the tin plate with the soldier on it, +but I never let him eat off it. And we had Barker's little nephew to tea +as he was learning to shoemaykle, but nobody took no notice of his +birthday except me and Mrs. Alcock. And when he went to school I kep' +his mug and his toys. He never had a many toys, but what there was I +have 'em. And his clothes, my dear, everything since he was born, from +his little cambric shirts, I have 'em all, put away; with a bit of +camphor to his velvet suit as I took him to York to be measured for, on +purpose to make him look pretty to his papa when he come home from +abroad. But he never took a bit of notice of him--never." Mitty sat down +by the fire, still holding the mug. "And a lace collar he had with +it--real lace, the best as money could buy. I might spend what I liked +on him; but no one ever took no notice of him, not even in his first +sailor's; and he with his pretty ways and his grave talk! Mrs. Alcock +and me has often cried over the things he'd say. There's his crib still +in the night-nursery by my bed. I could not sleep without it was there; +and the little blankets and sheets and piller-slips as belong, all put +away, and not a iron mould upon 'em. Eh, dear miss, many's the time +I've got 'em out and aired 'em, thinking maybe the day 'ud come when he +would have a babby of his own, and I should hold it in my old arms +before I died. And even if I was gone they'd be all ready, and the +bassinet only wanting muslin to it. And now--oh, my lamb, my lamb! And +they won't let his old Mitty go to him." And Mitty's grief broke into a +paroxysm of sobbing. + +Di looked at the old woman rocking herself backwards and forwards, and, +rising unsteadily, she went and knelt down by her, putting her arms +round her in silence. She had no comfort to give in words. It seemed as +if her strong young heart were breaking; but she realized that Mitty's +anguish for a love knit up into so many faithful years was greater than +hers. + +As she knelt, a step came along the creaking garret gallery with its +uneven flooring. + +It was Lord Hemsworth. + +He stood in the doorway with the wan light of the morning behind him. +His face looked pinched and aged. + +"He is better," he said. "He has recovered consciousness, and has +spoken. The other doctor has arrived, and they think all will go well." + +And the two women who loved John clung and sobbed together. + +Lord Hemsworth looked fixedly at Di and went out. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + "Toute passion nuisible attire, comme le gouffre, par le + vertige. La faiblesse de volonte amene la faiblesse de tete, et + l'abime, malgre son horreur, fascine alors comme un + asile."--AMIEL. + + +People said that John had a charmed life. The divergence of an eighth of +an inch, of a hundredth part of an inch, of a hair's-breadth and the +little bead that passed right through his neck would have pierced the +jugular artery, and John would have added one more to the long list of +names in Overleigh Church. As it was, when once the direction of the +bullet had been ascertained, he was pronounced to be in little danger. +He rallied steadily, and without relapse. + +People said that he bore a charmed life, and they began to say something +more, namely, that it was an object to somebody that it should be wiped +out. Men are not shot at for nothing. John was not an Irish landlord. +Some one evidently bore him a grudge. Society instantly formed several +more or less descreditable reasons to account for John's being the +object of some one's revenge. Half-forgotten rumours of Archie's doings +were revived with John's name affixed to them. Decidedly there had been +some "entanglement," and John had brought his fate upon himself. Colonel +Tempest, just returned from foreign travel, heard the matter discussed +at his club. His opinion was asked as to the truth of the reports, but +he only shrugged his shoulders, and it was supposed that he could not +deny them. Di's, Lady Alice Fane's, and Miss Crupps' names were all +equally associated with John's in the different versions of the +accident. + +Colonel Tempest did not go to see his daughter. She had been telegraphed +for the morning after the ice carnival by Mrs. Courtenay, who had +actually developed with the thaw the bronchitis which she had dreaded +throughout the frost. Di and Archie, whose leave was up, returned to +town together for once. + +Archie had experienced a distinct though shamed pang of disappointment +when John's state was pronounced to be favourable. + +All night long, as he had sat waking and dozing beside the gallery fire +opposite Lord Hemsworth's motionless, wakeful figure, visions of wealth +passed in spite of himself before his mind; visions of four-in-hands, +and screaming champagne suppers, and smashing things he could afford to +pay for, and running his own horses on the turf. He did not want John +to die. He had been dreadfully shocked when he had first caught sight of +the stony upturned face almost beneath his feet, and had strained every +nerve in his body to overtake the murderer. He did not want John to go +where he, Archie, would have been terrified to go himself. But--he +wanted the things John had, which his father had often told him should +by rights have been his, and they could not both have them at one and +the same time. + +He could not understand his father's fervent "Thank God!" when he +assured him that John was out of danger. + +"A miss is as good as a mile," said Archie, with his smallest grin. He +was desperately short of money again by this time, and he had no one to +apply to. He knew enough of John to be aware that nothing was to be +expected from that quarter. Twenty-four hours ago he had thought--how +could he help it?--that perhaps there would be no further trouble on +that irksome, wearisome subject; for lack of money, and the annoyance +entailed by procuring it, was the thorn in Archie's flesh. But now the +annoyance was still there, beginning as it were all over again, owing +to--John. Madeleine would lend him money, he knew, but he would be a cad +to take it. He could not think of such a thing, he said to himself, as +he turned it over in his mind. + +The ice carnival and John's escape were a nine days' wonder. In ten days +it was forgotten for a _cause celebre_ by every one except Colonel +Tempest. + +Colonel Tempest had had a fairly pleasant time abroad. While his small +stock of ready money lasted, the remainder of the five hundred +subtracted from the sum he had returned to John after his interview +with Larkin, he had really almost enjoyed himself. He had picked up a +few old companions of the hanger-on species at Baden and Homburg, and +had given them dinners--he was always open-handed. He had the natural +predilection for the society of his social inferiors which generally +accompanies a predilection for being deferred to, and regarded as a +person of importance. He was under the impression that he was the most +liberal-minded of men in the choice of his companions, and without the +social prejudices of his class. He had won a little at "baccarat." His +health also had improved. On his return in December to the lodgings +which he had left in such a panic in July, he told himself that he had +been in a morbid state of health, that he had taken things too much to +heart, that he had been over-sensitive; that there was no need to be +afraid. Five months had elapsed. It would be all right. + +And it had been all right for about a month, and then---- + +If the distressing theory that virtue is its own reward has any truth, +surely sin is its own punishment. + +The old monotonous pains took Colonel Tempest. + +It is a popular axiom among persons in robust health that others +labouring long under a painful disease become accustomed to it. It is +perhaps as true as all axioms, however freely laid down by persons in +one state respecting the feelings of others in a state of which they are +ignorant, can be. + +The continual dropping of water wears away the stone. The stone ought, +of course, to put up an umbrella--any one can see that--or shift its +position. But it seldom does so. + +There was a continual dropping of a slowly diluted torture on the +crumbling sandstone of Colonel Tempest's heart. The few months of +intermission only rendered more acute the agony of the inevitable +recommencement. + +As he felt in July after the fire in John's lodgings, so he felt now; +just the same again, all over again, only worse. The porous sandstone +was wearing down. + +He wandered like a ghost in the snowy places in the Park--for snow had +followed the thaw--or paced for hours by the Serpentine, staring at the +water. Once in a path across the Park he suddenly caught sight of John +walking slowly in the direction of Kensington. The young man passed +within a couple of yards of him without seeing him, his head bent, and +his eyes upon the ground. + +"It is his ghost," said Colonel Tempest to himself, clutching the +railing, and looking back at the receding figure with an access of +shuddering horror. + +Another figure passed, a heavy man in an ulster. + +"He is being followed," thought Colonel Tempest. "It is Swayne, and he +is following him." + +He rushed panting after the second figure, and overtook it at a meeting +of the ways. + +"Swayne!" he gasped; "for mercy's sake, Swayne, don't----" + +A benevolent elderly face turned and peered at him in the twilight, and +Colonel Tempest remembered that Swayne was dead. + +"My name is Smith," said the man, and after waiting a moment passed on. + +In a flash of memory Colonel Tempest saw Swayne's huddled figure +crouching in the disordered bed, and the check trousers over a chair, +and the candle on the window-sill bent double by the heat. That had +been the manner of Swayne's departure. How had he come to forget he was +dead, and that John was laid up at Overleigh? + +"I am going mad," he said to himself. "That will be the end. I shall go +mad and tell everything." + +The new idea haunted him. He could not shake it off. There was nothing +in the wide world to turn to for a change of thought. If he fell asleep +at night he was waked by the sound of his own voice, to find himself +sitting up in bed talking loudly of he knew not what. Once he heard +himself call Swayne's and John's names aloud into the listening +darkness, and broke into a cold sweat at the thought that he might have +been heard in the next room. Perhaps the other lodger, the young man +with the red hair, cramming for the army, knew everything by this time. +Perhaps the lodging-house people had been listening at the door, and +would give him in charge in the morning. Did he not at that very moment +hear furtive steps and whispering on the landing? He rushed out to see +the thin tabby cat, the walking funeral of the beetles and mice of the +establishment, slip noiselessly downstairs, and he returned to his room +shivering from head to foot, to toss and shudder until the morning, and +then furtively eye the landlady and her daughter in curl-papers. + +More days passed. Colonel Tempest had had doubts at first, but gradually +he became convinced that the people in the house knew. He was sure of it +by the look in their faces if he passed them on the stairs. It was +merely a question of time. They were waiting to make certain before they +informed against him. Perhaps they had written to John. There was no +news of John, except a rumour in the _World_ that he was to stand at the +coming general election. + +Colonel Tempest became the prey of an _idee fixe_. When John came +forward on the hustings he would be shot at and killed. He became as +certain of it as if it had already happened. At times he believed it +_had_ happened--that he had been present and had seen him fall forward; +and it was he, Colonel Tempest, who had shot him, and had been taken +red-handed with one of his old regimental pistols smoking in his hand. + +Colonel Tempest had those pistols somewhere. One day he got them out and +looked at them, and spent a long time rubbing them up. They used to hang +crosswise under a photograph of himself in uniform in his wife's little +drawing-room. He recollected, with the bitterness that accompanies the +remembrance of the waste of lavished affections, how he had sat with his +wife and child a whole wet afternoon polishing up those pistols, while +another man in his place would have gone off to his club. (Colonel +Tempest always knew what that other man would have done.) And Di had +been gentle and affectionate, and had had a colour for once, and had +played with her creeping child like a cat with its kitten. And they had +had tea together afterwards, sitting on the sofa with the child asleep +between them. Ah! if she had only been always like that, he thought, as +he remembered the cloud that, owing to her uncertain temper, had +gradually settled on his home-life. + +An intense bitterness was springing afresh in Colonel Tempest's mind +against his dead wife, against his dead brother, against Swayne, against +his children who never came near him (Di was nursing Mrs. Courtenay in +bronchitis, but that was of no account), against the world in general +which did not care what became of him. No one cared. + +"They will be sorry some day," he said to himself. + +And still the waking nightmare remained of seeing John fall, and of +finding he had shot him himself. + +More days passed. + +And gradually, among the tottering _debris_ of a life undermined from +its youth, one other thought began, mole-like, to delve and creep in the +darkness. + +Truly the way of transgressors is hard. + +No one cared what he suffered, what he went through. This was the +constant refrain of these latter days. He had paroxysms of angry tears +of self-pity with his head in his hands, his heart rent to think of +himself sitting bowed with anguish by his solitary fireside. Love holds +the casting vote in the destinies of most of us. There is only one love +which wrings the heart beyond human endurance--the love of self. + +And yet more days. The sun gave no light by day, neither the moon by +night. + + * * * * * + +To the severe cold of January a mild February had succeeded. March was +close at hand. The hope and yearning of the spring was in the air +already. Already in Kensington Gardens the silly birds had begun to +sing, and the snowdrops and the little regiments of crocuses had come up +in double file to listen. + +On this particular afternoon a pale London sun was shining like a new +shilling in the sky, striking as many sparks as he could out of the +Round Pond. There was quite a regatta at that Cowes of nursery shipping. +The mild wind was just strong enough to take sailing-vessels across. The +big man-of-war belonging to the big melancholy man who seemed open to an +offer, the yachts and the little fishing-smacks, everything with a +sail, got over sooner or later. The tiny hollow boats with seats were +being towed along the edge in leading-reins. A wooden doll with joints +took advantage of its absence of costume to drop out of the boat in +which it was being conveyed, and take a swim in the open. But it was +recovered. An old gentleman with spectacles hooked it out with the end +of his umbrella in a moment, quite pleased to be of use. The little boys +shouted, the little girls tossed their manes, and careered round the +pool on slender black legs. Solemn babies looked on from perambulators. + +The big man started the big man-of-war again, and the whole fleet came +behind in its wake. + +Colonel Tempest was sitting on a seat near the landing-place, where the +ship-owners had run to clutch their property a moment ago. His hand was +clenched on something he held under his overcoat. + +"When the big ship touches the edge," he said to himself. + +They came slowly across the pool in a flock. Every little boy shrieked +to every other little boy of his acquaintance to observe how his +particular craft was going. The big man alone was perfectly apathetic, +though his priceless possession was the first, of course. He began +walking slowly round. Half the children were at the landing before him, +calling to their boats, and stretching out their hands towards them. + +The big one touched land. + +"Not this time," said Colonel Tempest to himself; "next time." + +How often he had said that already! How often his hand had failed him +when the moment which he and that other self had agreed upon had +arrived! How often he had gone guiltily back to the rooms to which he +had not intended to return, and had lain down once more in the bed +which had become an accomplice to the torture of every hour of darkness! + +Between the horror of returning once again, and the horror of the step +into another darkness, his soul oscillated with the feeble violence of +despair. + +He remembered the going back of yesterday. + +"I will not go back again," he said to himself, with the passion of a +spoilt child. "I will not--I will not." + +"It is time to go home, Master Georgie," said a nursery-maid. + +"Just once more, Bessie," pleaded the boy. "Just one _single_ once +more." + +"Well, then, it must be the last time, mind," said the good-natured +arbiter of fate, turning the perambulator, and pushing it along the +edge, while the occupant of the same added to the hilarity of the +occasion by beating a much-chewed musical rattle against the wheel. + +"_The last time._" The chance words seized upon Colonel Tempest's +shuddering panic-stricken mind, and held it as in a vice. + +"Next time," he said over and over again to himself. "Next time shall +really be the last time--really the last, the very last." + +The boats were coming across again, straggling wide of each other; how +quick, yet what an eternity in coming! The top-heavy boat with the red +sail would be the first. It had been started long before the others. The +wind caught it near the edge. It would turn over. No, it righted itself. +It neared, it bobbed in the ripple at the brink; it touched. + +Colonel Tempest's mind had become quite numb. He only knew that for some +imperative reason which he had forgotten he must pull the trigger. He +half pulled it; then again more decidedly. + +There was a report. It stunned him back to a kind of consciousness of +what he had done, but he felt nothing. + +There was a great silence, and then a shrieking of terrified children, +and a glimpse of agitated people close at hand, and others running +towards him. + +The man with the big boat under his arm said, "By gum!" + +Colonel Tempest looked at him. He felt nothing. Had he failed? + +The smoke came curling out at his collar, and something dropped from his +nerveless hand and lay gleaming on the grass. There was a sound of many +waters in his ears. + +"He might have spared the children," said a man's voice, tremulous with +indignation. + +"That is always the way. No one thinks of _me_," thought Colonel +Tempest. And the Round Pond and the growing crowd, and the child nearest +him with its convulsed face, all turned slowly before his eyes, slid up, +and disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + "Vous avez bien froid, la belle; + Comment vous appelez-vous? + Les amours et les yeux doux + De nos cercueils sont les clous. + Je suis la morte, dit-elle. + Cueillez la branche de houx." + VICTOR HUGO. + + +As John lay impatiently patient upon his bed in the round oak-panelled +room at Overleigh during the weeks that followed his accident, his +thoughts by day, and by night, varied no more than the notes of a +chaffinch in the trees outside. + + "Oh, let the solid earth + Not fail beneath my feet, + Before I too have found + What some have found so sweet!" + +That was the one constant refrain. The solid earth had nearly failed +beneath his feet, nearly--nearly. If the world might but cohere together +and not fly off into space; if body and soul might but hold together +till he had seen Di once more, till he knew for certain from her own +lips that she loved him! Unloved by any woman until now, wistfully +ignorant of woman's tenderness, even of its first alphabet learned at a +mother's knee, unread in all its later language,--in these days of +convalescence a passionate craving was upon him to drink deep of that +untasted cup which "some have found so sweet." + +He had Mitty, and Mitty at least was radiantly happy during these weeks, +with John fast in bed, and in a condition to dispense with other nursing +than hers. She sat with him by the hour together, mending his socks and +shirts, for she would not suffer any one to touch his clothes except +herself, and discoursing to him about Di--a subject which she soon +perceived never failed to interest him. + +"Miss Dinah," Mitty would say for the twentieth time, but without +wearying her audience--"now, there's a fine upstanding lady for my +lamb." + +"Lady Alice Fane is very pretty, too," John would remark, with the happy +knack of self-concealment peculiar to the ostrich and the sterner sex. + +"Hoots!" Mitty replied. "She's nothing beside Miss Dinah. If you have +Lady Fane with her silly ways, and so snappy to her maid, you'll repent +every hair of your head. You take Miss Dinah, my dear, as is only +waiting to be asked. She wants you, my precious," Mitty never failed to +add. "I tell you it's as plain as the nose on your face" (a simile the +force of which could not fail to strike him). "It's not that Lord +Hemstitch, for all his pretty looks. It's _you_." + +And John told himself he was a fool, and then secretly felt under the +pillow for a certain pencilled note which Di had left with the doctor on +her hurried departure to London the morning after the ice carnival. It +had been given to him when he was able to read letters. It was a short +note. There was very little in it, and a great deal left out. It did not +even go over the page. But nevertheless John was so very foolish as to +keep it under his pillow, and when he was promoted to his clothes it +followed into his pocket. Even the envelope had a certain value in his +eyes. Had not her hand touched it, and written his name upon it? + +Lindo and Fritz, who had been consumed with ennui during John's illness, +were almost as excited as their master when he hobbled, on Mitty's arm, +into the morning-room for luncheon. Lindo was aweary of sediments of +beef-tea and sticks of toast. Fritz, who had had a plethora of whites of +poached eggs, sniffed anxiously at the luncheon-tray with its roast +pheasant. + +There were tricks and Albert biscuits after luncheon, succeeded by heavy +snoring on the hearthrug. + +John was almost as delighted as they were to leave his sick-room. It was +the first step towards going to London. When should he wring permission +from his doctor to go up on "urgent business"? Five days, seven days? +Surely in a week at latest he would see Di again. He made a little +journey round the room to show himself how robust he was becoming, and +wound up the old watches lying in the _blue du roi_ Sevres tray, making +them repeat one after the other, because Di had once done so. Would Di +make this her sitting-room? It was warm and sunny. Perhaps she would +like the outlook across the bowling-green and low ivy-coloured +balustrade away to the moors. It had been his mother's sitting-room. His +poor mother. He looked up at the pretty vacant face that hung over the +fireplace. He had looked at it so often that it had ceased to make any +definite impression on him. + +He wondered vaguely whether the happy or the unhappy hours had +preponderated in this room in which she was wont to sit, the very +furniture of which remained the same as in her quickly finished day. And +then he wondered whether, if she had lived, Di would have liked her; for +it was still early in the afternoon, and he had positively nothing to +do. + +He tried to write a few necessary letters in the absence of Mitty, who +was busy washing his handkerchiefs, but he soon gave up the attempt. The +exertion made his head ache, as he had been warned it would, so he +propelled himself across the room to his low chair by the window. + +What should he do till teatime? If only he had asked Mitty for a bit of +wash-leather he might have polished up the brass slave-collar in the +Satsuma dish. He took it up and turned it in his hands. It was a heavy +collar enough, with the owner's name engraved thereon. "Roger Tempest, +1698." + +"It must have galled him," said John to himself; and he took up the gag +next, and put it into his mouth, and then had considerable difficulty in +getting it out again. What on earth should he do with himself till +teatime? + +One of the bits of Venetian glass standing in the central niche of the +lac cabinet at his elbow had lost its handle. He got up to examine it, +and, thinking the handle might have been put aside within, pushed back +the glass in the centre of the niche, which, as in so many of its +species, shut off a small enclosed space between the tiers of drawers. +The glass door and its little pillars opened inwards, but not without +difficulty. It was clogged with dust. The handle of the Venetian glass +was not inside. There was nothing inside but a little old, old, very +old, glue-bottle, standing on an envelope, and a broken china cup beside +it, with the broken bits in it. The hand that had put them away so +carefully to mend, on a day that never came, was dust. They remained. +John took out the cup. It matched one that stood in the picture-gallery. +The pieces seemed to be all there. He began to fit them together with +the pleased interest of a child. He had really found something to do at +last. At the bottom of the cup was a key. It was a very small key, with +a large head, matching the twisted handles of the drawers. + +This was becoming interesting. John put down the cup, and fitted the key +into the lock of one of the drawers. Yes, it was the right one. He +became quite excited. Half the cabinets in the house were locked, and +would not open; of some he had found the keys by diligent search, but +the keys of others had never turned up. Here was evidently one. + +The key turned with difficulty, but still it did turn, and the drawer +opened. The dust had crept over everything--over all the faded silks and +bobbins and feminine gear, of which it was half full. John disturbed it, +and then sneezed till he thought he should kill himself. But he survived +to find among the tangle of work a tiny white garment half made, with +the rusted needle still in it. He took it out. What was it? Dolls' +clothing? And then he realized that it was a little shirt, and that his +mother had probably been making it for him and had not had time to +finish it. John held the baby's shirt that he ought to have worn in a +very reverent hand, and looked back at the picture. That bit of +unfinished work, begun for him, seemed to bring her nearer to him than +she had ever been before. Yes, it was hers. There was her ivory workbox, +with her initials in silver and turquoise on it, and her small gold +thimble had rolled into a corner of the drawer. John put back the little +remnant of a love that had never reached him into the drawer with a +clumsy gentleness, and locked it up. "I will show it Di some day," he +said. + +The other drawers bore record. There were small relics of girlhood--ball +cards, cotillon ribbons, a mug with "Marion Fane" inscribed in gold on +it, a slim book on confirmation. "One of darling Spot's curls" was +wrapped in tissue-paper. John did not even know who Spot was, except +that from the appearance of the lock he had probably been a black +retriever. Her childish little possessions touched John's heart. He +looked at each one, and put it tenderly back. + +Some of the drawers were empty. In some were smart note-paper with faded +networks of silver and blue initials on them. In another was an +ornamental purse with money in it and a few unpaid bills. John wondered +what his mother would have been like now if she had lived. Her sister, +Miss Fane, had a weakness for gorgeous note-paper and smart work-baskets +which he had often regarded with astonishment. It had never struck him +that his mother might have had the same tastes. + +He opened another drawer. More fancy-work, a ball of silk half wound on +a card, a roll of vari-coloured embroidery, and, thrust in among them, a +half-opened packet of letters. The torn cover which still surrounded +them was addressed to Mrs. Tempest, Overleigh Castle, Yorkshire. + +Inside the cover was a loose sheet which fell apart from the packet, +tied up separately. On it was written, in a large cramped hand that John +knew well-- + +"I dare say you are wise in your generation to prefer to break with me. +'Tout lasse,' and then naturally 'on se range.' I return your letters as +you wish it, and as you have been kind enough to burn mine already, I +will ask you to commit this last effusion to the flames." + +The paper was without date or signature. + +John opened the packet, which contained many letters, all in one +handwriting, which he recognized as his mother's. He read them one by +one, and, as he read, the pity in his face gave place to a white +indignation. Poor foolish, foolish letters, to be read after a lapse of +eight and twenty years. John realized how very silly his poor mother had +been; how worldly wise and selfish some one else had been. + +"We ought to have been married, darling," said one of the later letters, +dated from Overleigh, evidently after her marriage with Mr. Tempest. "I +see now we ought. You said you were too poor, and you could not bear to +see me poor; but I would not have minded that one bit--did not I tell +you so a hundred times? I would have learnt to cook and mend clothes and +everything if only I might have been with you. It is much worse now, +feeling my heart is breaking and yours too, and Fate keeping us apart. +And you must not write to me any more now I am married, or me to you. It +is not right. Mother would be vexed if she knew; I am quite sure she +would. So this is the very last to my dearest darling Freddie, from poor +Marion." + +Alas! there were many, many more from "poor Marion" after the very last; +little vacillating, feeble, gilt-edged notes, with every other word +under-dashed; some short and hurried, some long and reproachful; sad +landmarks of each step of a blindfold wandering on the brink of the +abyss, clinging to the hand that was pushing her over. + +The last letter was a very long one. + +"You have no heart," wrote the pointed, slanting handwriting. "You do +not care what I suffer. I do not believe now you ever cared. You say it +would be an act of folly to tell my husband, but you know I was always +silly. But it is not necessary. I am sure he knows. I feel it. He says +nothing, but I know he knows. Oh, if I were only dead and in my grave, +and if only the baby might die too, as I hope it will, as I pray to God +it will! If I die and it lives, I don't know what will happen to it. +Remember, if he casts it off, it is your child. Oh, Freddie, surely it +can't be all quite a mistake. You were fond of me once, before you made +me wicked, and when I am dead you won't feel so angry and impatient with +me as you do now. And if the child lives and has no friend, you will +remember it is yours, won't you? I am so miserable that I think God will +surely let me die. And the child may come any day now. Last night I felt +so ill that I dared not put off any longer, and this morning I burned +all your letters to me, every one, even the first about the white +violets. Do you remember that letter? It is so long ago now; no, you +have forgotten. It is only I who remember, because it was only I who +cared. And I burned the locket you gave me with your hair in it. It felt +like dying to burn it. Everything is all quite gone. But I can't rest +until you have sent me back my letters. I can't trust you to burn them. +I know what trusting to you means. Send them all back to me, and I will +burn them myself. Only be quick, be quick; there is so little time. If +they come when I am ill, some one else may read them. I hope if I live I +shall never see your face again; and if I die, I hope God will keep you +away from me. Oh! I don't mean it, Freddie, I don't mean it; only I am +so miserable that I don't know what I write. God forgive you. I would +too if I thought you cared whether I did or not. God forgive us +both.--M." + + * * * * * + +John looked back at the cover of the packet. The Overleigh postmark was +blurred but legible. June the 8th, and the year----. _It was his +birthday._ + +Her lover had sent back her letters, then, with those few harsh lines +telling her she was wise in her generation. Even the last he had +returned. And they had reached her on the morning of the day her child +was born. Had it been a sunny day, with no fire on the hearth before +which Lindo and Fritz now lay stretched, into which she could have +dropped that packet? Had she not had time even to burn them? She had +glanced at them, evidently. Had she been interrupted, and had she thrust +them for the moment with her work into that drawer? + +Futile inquiry. He should never know. And she had had her wish. She had +been allowed to die, to hide herself away in the grave. John's heart +swelled with sorrowing pity as at the sight of a child's suffering. She +had been very little more. She should have her other wish, too. + +He gathered up the letters, and, stepping over the dogs, dropped them +into the heart of the fire. They were in the safe keeping of the flames +at last. They reached their destination at last, but, a little +late--twenty-eight years too late. + +And suddenly, as he watched them burn, like a thunderbolt falling and +tearing up the ground on which he stood, came the thought, "Then I am +illegitimate." + + * * * * * + +The minute-hand of the clock on the mantelpiece had made a complete +circuit since John had dropped the letters into the fire, yet he had not +stirred from the armchair into which he had staggered the moment +afterwards. + +His fixed eyes looked straight in front of him. His lips moved at +intervals. + +"I am illegitimate," he said to himself, over and over again. + +But no, it was a nightmare, an hallucination of illness. How many +delusions he had had during the last few weeks! He should wake up +presently and find he had been torturing himself for nothing. If only +Mitty would come back! He should laugh at himself presently. + +In the mean while, and as it were in spite of himself, certain facts +were taking a new significance, were arranging themselves into an +unexpected, horrible sequence. Link joined itself to link, and +lengthened to a chain. + +He remembered his father's evident dislike of him; he remembered how +Colonel Tempest had contested the succession when he died. As he had +lost the case, John had supposed, when he came to an age to suppose +anything, that the slander was without foundation, especially as Mr. +Tempest had recognized him as his son. He had known of its existence, of +course, but, like the rest of the world, had half forgotten it. That +Lord Frederick Fane (evidently the Freddie of the letters) was even his +supposed father, had never crossed his mind. If he was like the Fanes, +why should he not be so? He might as naturally resemble his mother's as +his father's family. He recalled Colonel Tempest's inveterate dislike of +him, Archie's thankless reception of anything and everything he did for +him. + +"I believe," said John, in astonished recollection of divers passages +between himself and them--"I believe they think I know all the time, and +am deliberately keeping them out." + +That, then, was the reason why Mr. Tempest had not discarded him. To +recognize him as his son was his surest means of striking at the hated +brother who came next in the entail. + +"I was made use of," said John, grinding his teeth. + +It was no use fighting against it. This hideous, profane incredibility +was the truth. Even without the letters to read over again he knew it +was true. + +"Remember, if he casts it out, it is your child." The long-dead lips +still spoke. His mother had pronounced his doom herself. + +"I am illegitimate," said John to himself. And he remembered Di and hid +his face in his hands, while his mother simpered at him from the wall. +The solid earth had failed beneath his feet. + +Let us beware how we sin, inasmuch as by God's decree we do not pay. We +could almost conceive a right to do as we will, if we could keep the +penalty to ourselves, and pay to the uttermost farthing. But not from +us is the inevitable payment required. The young, the innocent, the +unborn, smart for us, are made bankrupt for us; from them is exacted the +deficit which we have left behind. The sins of the fathers are visited +on the children heavily--heavily. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + "What name doth Joy most borrow + When life is fair? + 'To-morrow.'" + GEORGE ELIOT. + + +On her hurried return to London the morning after the ice carnival, Di +found Mrs. Courtenay in that condition of illness, not necessarily +dangerous, in which the linseed poultice and the steam-kettle and the +complexion of the beef-tea are the objects of an all-absorbing interest, +to the exclusion of every other subject. + +Di was glad not to be questioned upon the one subject that was never +absent from her thoughts. As Mrs. Courtenay became convalescent she was +able to leave her for an hour or two, and pace in the quieter parts of +Kensington Gardens. Happiness, like sorrow, is easier to bear +out-of-doors, and Di had a lurking feeling that would hardly bear being +put into words, but was none the worse company for that, that the +crocuses and the first bird-note in the trees and the pale sky knew her +secret and rejoiced with her. + +John would come to her. He was getting well, and the first day he could +he would come to her, and tell her once more that he loved her. And she? +Impossible, incredible as it seemed, she should tell him that she loved +him too. Imagination stopped short there. Everything after that was a +complete blank. They would be engaged? They would be married? Other +people who loved did so. Words, mere words, applicable to "other +people," but not to her and John. Could such impossible happiness ever +come about? Never, never. She must be mad to think of such a thing. It +could not be. Yet it was so; it was coming, it was sure, this new, +incomprehensible, dreaded happiness, of which, now that it was almost +within her trembling hand, she hardly dared to think. + +"Di," said Mrs. Courtenay one afternoon, as she came in from her walk, +"there is a paragraph in the paper about John. He is going to contest +---- at the general election, in opposition to the present Radical +member. Did he say anything about it while you were at Overleigh? It +must have been arranged some time ago." + +"No, granny, he did not mention it." + +"I am glad he is taking part in politics at last. It is time. I may not +live to see it, but he will make his mark." + +"I am sure he will," said Di. + +Mrs. Courtenay looked in some perplexity at her granddaughter. It seemed +to her, from Di's account, that she had taken John's accident very +placidly. She had not forgotten the girl's apparent callousness when his +life had been endangered in the mine. It was very provoking to Mrs. +Courtenay that this beautiful creature, whom she had taken out for +nearly four years, seemed to have too much heart to be willing to marry +without love, and too little to fall genuinely in love. + +Mrs. Courtenay had gone to considerable expense in providing her with a +new and becoming morning-gown for that visit, and Di had managed to lose +one of the lace handkerchiefs she had lent her, and had come back +unengaged after all. Mrs. Courtenay, who had taken care to accept the +invitation for her without consulting her, and had ordered the gown in +spite of Di's remonstrances, felt keenly that if Di had refused John, +she had gone to that social gathering under false pretences. + +"Di," she said, "I seldom ask questions, but I have been wondering +during the last few days whether you have anything to tell me or not." + +Considering that this was not a question, it was certainly couched in a +form conducive to eliciting information. + +"I have, and I have not," said Di. "Of course I know what you expected, +but it did not happen." + +"You mean John did not propose to you?" + +"No, granny." + +Mrs. Courtenay was silent. She was prepared to be seriously annoyed with +Di, and it seemed John was in fault after all. There is no relaxation +for a natural irritability in being angry with a person a hundred miles +off. + +"I think he meant to," said Di, turning pink. + +Mrs. Courtenay saw the change of colour with surprise. + +"My dear," she said, "do you care for him?" + +"Yes," said Di, looking straight at her grandmother. + +"I am very thankful," said Mrs. Courtenay. "I have nothing left to wish +for." + +"I believe I have sometimes done you an injustice," she said +tremulously, after wiping her spectacles. "I thought you valued your own +freedom and independence too much to marry. It is difficult to advise +the young to give their love if they don't want to. Yet, as one grows +old, one sees that the very best things we women have lose all their +virtue if we keep them to ourselves. Our love if we withhold it, our +freedom if we retain it,--what are they later on in life but dead seed +in our hands? Our best is ours only to give. Our part is to give it to +some one who is worthy of it. I think John is worthy. I wish he had +managed to speak, and that it were all settled." + +"It is really settled," said Di. "Now and then I feel frightened, and +think I may have made a mistake, but I know all the time that is +foolish. I am certain he cares for me, and I am quite sure he knows I +care for him. Granny"--blushing furiously--"I often wish now that I had +not said quite so many idiotic things about love and marriage before I +knew anything about them. Do you remember how I used to favour you with +my views about them?" + +"I don't think they were exactly idiotic. Only the elect hesitate to +pronounce opinions on subjects of which they are ignorant. I have heard +extremely intelligent men say things quite as silly about housekeeping, +and the rearing of infants. You, like them, spoke according to your +lights, which were small. I don't know about charming men. There are not +any nowadays. But it is always + + '... a pity when charming women + Talk of things that they don't understand.'" + +"We should not have many subjects of conversation if we did not," said +Di. + +And the old woman and the young one embraced each other with tears in +their eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + "Oh, well for him whose will is strong!" + TENNYSON. + + +There come times in our lives when the mind lies broken on the revolving +wheel of our thought. "I am illegitimate." That was the one thought +which made John's bed for him at night, which followed him throughout +the spectral day until it brought him back to the spectral night again. + +It was a quiver in which were many poisoned arrows. Because the first +that struck him was well-nigh unbearable, the others did not fail to +reach their mark. + +If he were nameless and penniless, he could not marry Di. That was the +first arrow. Such marriages are possible only in books and in that +sacred profession which, in spite of numerous instances to the contrary, +believes that "the Lord will provide." Di would not be allowed to marry +him, even if she were willing to do so. And after a time--a long time, +perhaps--she would marry some one else, possibly Lord Hemsworth. + +John writhed. He had set his heart on this woman. He had bent her strong +will to love him as a proud woman only can. She had been hard to win, +but she was his as much as if they were already married; his by right, +as the living Galatea was by right the sculptor's, who gave her marble +heart the throbbing life and love of his own. + +"She is mine--I cannot give her up," he said aloud. + +There was no voice, nor any that answered. + +Strange how the ploughshare turns up little tags and ends of forgotten +rubbish buried by the mould of a few years' dust. + +One utterance of Archie's, absolutely forgotten till now, was +continually recurring to John's mind. Its barbed point rankled. + +"There must be a mint of money in an old barrack stuffed full of +gimcracks like this. If ever I wanted a hundred or two, I would trot out +one of those little silver Johnnies in no time if they were mine." + +And he would. If the thought of what Colonel Tempest and Archie would +achieve after his own death had stung John as Archie said that, how +should he bear to stand by and _see_ them do it? The books, the +pictures, the family manuscripts which he was even then arranging, the +jewels, the renowned diamond necklace that the Spanish government had +offered to buy from his grandfather, which he had hoped one day to +clasp on Di's neck--all the possessions of the past but almost regal +state of a great name, which he had kept with such a reverent hand--he +should live to see them cast right and left, lost, sold, squandered, +stolen. Archie would give the diamonds to the first actress who asked +for them. Colonel Tempest would be equally "open-handed." + +As the days went on, John shut his eyes to the pictures in the gallery +as he passed through it. A mute suspense and reproach seemed to hang +about the whole place. The Velasquez and the Titian peered at him. +Tempest of the Red Hand clutched his sword-hilt uneasily. Mieris' old +Dutch-woman seemed to have lost her interest in selling her marvellous +string of onions to the little boy. Ribalta's Spanish Jesuit fingered +the red cross of Santiago embroidered on his breast, and looked askance +at John. + +John turned back many times from the library door. The new books which +he had had bound in exact reproduction of a beautiful old missal of the +Tempest collection, and for the arrival of which he had been eagerly +waiting, remained untouched in their packing-cases. He could not look at +them. + +Once he went into the dining-hall, unused when he was alone, and opened +one of the ponderous shutters. The rich light pierced the solemn gloom, +catching the silver sconces on the wall and the silver figures standing +in the carved niches above the fireplace. + +"You will not give us up," they seemed to say; and the little cavalier +turned to his lady with a shake of his head. + +As John closed the shutter his eyes fell on the Tempest motto on the +pane, "Je le feray durant ma vie;" and it stabbed him like a knife. + +He went out into the open air like one pursued, and paced in the dead +forest waiting for the spring. All he had held so sacred meant nothing +then--nothing, nothing, nothing. The Tempest motto, round which he had +bound his life, round which his most solemn convictions and aspirations +had grown up, had nothing to do with him. He had been mocked. He, a +nameless bastard, the offspring of a mere common intrigue, had been +fooled into believing that he was John Tempest, the head of one of the +greatest families in England; that Overleigh belonged to him and he to +it as entirely as--nay, more than--his own hands and feet and eyes. + +It was as if he had been acting a serious part to the best of his +ability on a stage with many others, and suddenly they had all dropped +their masks and were grinning at him with satyr faces in grotesque +attitudes, and he found that he alone had mistaken a screaming farce, of +which he was the butt, for a drama of which he had imagined himself one +of the principal figures. + +John laughed a harsh wild laugh under the solemn overarching trees. +Everything, himself included, had undergone a hideous distortion. His +whole life was dislocated. His faith in God and man wavered. The +key-stone of his existence was gone from the arch, and the stones struck +him as they fell round him. The confusion was so great that for the +first few days he was incapable of action, incapable of reflection, +incapable of anything. + +_Mitty!_ That thought came next. That stung. He had nothing in the wide +world which he could call his own; no roof for Mitty, no fire to warm +her by. He was absolutely without means. His mother's small fortune he +had sunk in an annuity for Mr. Goodwin. What would become of Mitty? How +would she survive being uprooted from her little nest in the garret +gallery? How would she bear to see her lamb turned adrift upon the +world? Mitty was growing old, and her faithful love for him would make +the last years sorrowful which were so happy now. Oh, if he could only +wait till Mitty died! + +John had not wept a tear for himself, but he hid his face against the +trunk of one of the trees that were not his, and sobbed aloud at the +thought of Mitty. + +And next day came a letter from Archie, saying that Colonel Tempest was +at death's door in one of the London hospitals, owing to having +accidentally shot himself with a revolver. John sent money, much more +than was actually necessary, and drew breath. Nothing could be done +until Colonel Tempest was either convalescent or dead. He was reprieved +from telling Mitty anything for the moment. + +And as the spring was just beginning to whisper to the sleeping earth, +and the buds of the horse-chestnut to grow white and woolly beneath the +nursery windows, as John had seen them many and many a time--how or why +I know not, but with the waking of the year Mitty began to fail. + +She had never been ill in John's recollection. She had had "a bone in +her leg" occasionally, but excepting that mysterious ailment and a touch +of rheumatism in later years, Mitty had always been quite well. She was +not actually ill now, but---- + +It was useless to tell her not to "do" her nurseries herself, and to +positively forbid her to wash his socks and handkerchiefs. Mitty worked +exactly the same; and John with an ache at his heart came indoors every +day in time for nursery tea, and Mitty made him buttered toast, and was +happy beyond words; but I think her eyesight must have begun to fail +her, or she would have seen how grey and haggard the face of her "lamb" +became as the days went by. + + * * * * * + +Who shall say when a thought begins? Long before we see it, it was +there, but our eyes were holden. "L'amour commence par l'ombre." So do +many things besides love. + +_The letters were destroyed._ When did John think of that first, or +rather, when did he first hear it whispered? Why was his mind always +going back to that? + +He would not have burned them if he had taken time to consider, but the +first impulse to do with them as their writer had herself intended, had +been acted upon before he had even thought of their bearing upon himself +and others. + +At any rate they were gone--quite gone--sprinkled to the four winds of +heaven. + +_There was no other proof._ + +And his--no, not his father--Mr. Tempest, who knew all about him, had +intended him to be his heir. He had left him his name and his place, +with a solemn charge to do his duty by them. + +"I have done it," said John to himself, "as those two would never have +done. Shall I let all go to rack and ruin now? If I was not born a +Tempest I have become one. I _am_ one, and if I marry one my children +will be Tempests, and those two fools will not be suffered to pull +Overleigh stone from stone, and drag a great name into the dust; as they +would, as they assuredly would." + +Had not Mr. Tempest foreseen this when he exacted that solemn promise +from John on his death-bed to uphold the honour of the family? Could he +break that promise? And through the vain sophistries, upsetting them +all, a mad cry rang, "Di loves me! She loves me at last! I cannot give +her up!" + +The challenge was thrown out into the darkness. No one took it up. + +A fierce restlessness laid hold on John. He rushed up to London several +times to hear how Colonel Tempest was going on. Each time he told +himself that he was going to see Di. But although the first time he went +to Colonel Tempest's lodgings the servant informed him that Di was with +her father, he did not ask to see her. Each time he came back without +having dared to go to the little house in Kensington. He could not meet +those grave clear eyes with the new gentleness in them that went to his +head like wine. He knew they would make him forget everything, +everything except that he loved her, and would sell his very soul for +her. + +Time stopped. In all this enormous interval the buds of the +horse-chestnut had not yet burst to green. It was ages since he had seen +the first primrose, and yet to-day, as he walked in the woods on the day +after his return from another futile journey to London, they were all +out in the forest still. + +And something stirred within him that had not deigned to take notice of +all his feverish asseverations and wanderings, that had not rebuked him, +that had not even listened when he had said repeatedly that he could not +give up Di. + +By an invisible hand the challenge was taken up, and John knew the time +of conflict was at hand. + +He walked on and on, not knowing where he went, past the forest and the +meadowland, and away over the rolling moors, with only Lindo for his +companion. + +At last his newly returned strength failing him, he threw himself down +in the dry windswept heather. He had not outstripped his thoughts. This +was the appointed place. He knew it even as he flung himself down. His +hour was come. + +It was an April afternoon, pale and bleak. The late frost had come back, +and had silenced the birds. One only deeply in love, somewhere near at +hand, but invisible, repeated plaintively over and over again a small +bird-name in the silence of the shrinking spring. + +And John's heart said over and over again one little word-- + +"Di, Di, Di!" + +There are some sacrifices which partake of the nature of +self-mutilation. That is why principle often falls before the onslaught +of a deep human passion, which is nothing but the rebellion of human +nature brought to bay, against the execution upon itself of that dread +command of the spiritual nature, "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it +off." + +To give up certain affections is with some natures to give up all +possibility of the quickening into life of that latent maturer self that +craves for existence in each one of us. It is to take, for better for +worse, a more meagre form of life, destitute, not of happiness perhaps, +but of those common joys and sorrows which most of all bind us in +sympathy with our fellow-men. What marriage in itself is to the +majority, the love of one fellow-creature, and one only, is to the few. +To a few, happily a very few, there is only one hand that can minister +among the pressure of the crowd. There was none other woman in the world +for John, save only Di. Sayings common to vulgarity, profaned by every +breach of promise case, can yet be true sometimes. + +"Di, Di, Di!" said John. + +He tried to recall her face, but he could not. When they were together +he had not seen her; he had only felt her presence, only trembled at +each slight movement of her hands. He always watched them when he was +talking to her. He knew every movement of those strong, slender hands by +heart. She had a little way of opening and shutting her left hand as she +talked. He smiled even now as he thought of it. And she had a certain +wave in her hair just above the ear, that was not the same over the +other ear. But her face--no, he could not see her face. + +He tried again. They were sitting once again, he and she, not very near, +nor very far apart, in the low entresol room at Overleigh. He could see +her now. She was arranging the lilies of the valley, and he was saying +to himself, as he watched her with his chin in his hands, "This is only +the beginning. There will be many times like this, only dearer and +sweeter than this." + +Many times! That deep conviction had proved as false as all the rest--as +false as everything else which he had trusted. + +And all in a moment as he looked, as he remembered, was it endurance, +was it principle, that seemed to snap? + +He set his teeth and ground his heel into the earth. Agony had come upon +him. Passion, writhing in torment, rose gigantic without warning and +seized him in a Titan grip. It was a duel to the death. + + * * * * * + +John sat motionless in the solitude of the heather. The bird was silent. +On either hand the level moors met the level sky. Lindo walked in and +out in semi and total eclipse near at hand, now emerging life-size upon +a hillock, now visible only as an erect travelling tail amid the +heather. The sun came faintly out. There was a little speech of bees, a +little quivering among the poised spears of the tall bleached grasses +against the sky. + +Time passed. + +John's was not the easy faith which believes that in another world what +has been given up in this will be restored a thousandfold. The hope of +future reward had no more power to move him than the fear of future +punishment. The heaven of rewards of which those speak who have +authority, would be no heaven at all to many; a place from which the +noblest would turn away. Love worthy of the name, even down here, gives +all, asking nothing back. + +John did not try to define even to himself the faith by which he had +lived so far; but as the veiled sun stooped near and nearer to the west, +he began to see, as clearly as he saw the sword-grass shaking against +the sky, that he was about to remain true to it, or be false to it for +ever. + +Perhaps that faith was more than anything else a stern allegiance to the +Giver of that law within the heart which independent natures ever +recognize as the only true authority; which John had early elected to +obey, which he had obeyed with ease, till now. He had been condemned by +many as a freethinker; for to be obedient to the divine prompting has +ever been stigmatized as lawlessness by those who are obedient to a +written code. John had no code. + +Yet God, who made (if the tourists who cheaply move in flocks on beaten +highways could only believe it) those solitary, isolated natures, knew +what He was about. And to those to whom little human guidance is +vouchsafed He adds courage, and that self-reliance which comes only of a +deep-rooted faith in a God who will not keep silence, who will not +leave the traveller journeying towards Him unpiloted upon a lonely +shore, or ultimately suffer His least holy one to see corruption. + +John looked wildly round him. Even nature seemed to have turned against +him. It spoke of peace when there was no peace. For nature has no power +to mitigate the bitterness of that cup of self-surrender which even +Christ Himself, beneath the kindred stars of still Gethsemane, prayed +might pass from Him. + +John hid his convulsed face in his hands. + +The crises of life have their hour of loneliness and prostration, their +agony and bloody sweat. That cup which may not pass, how ennobling it is +to read of in the lives of others, how interesting to theorize upon in +our own; how appalling in actual experience, when it is in our hands to +drink or to refuse; refusing for ever with it, if we accept it not, the +hand of Him who offers it! + + * * * * * + +The solemn world of grey earth and sky waited. The light in the west +waited. How much longer were they to wait? How much longer would this +bowed figure sway itself to and fro? + +"I will do it!" said John suddenly, and with a harsh inarticulate cry he +flung himself down on his face among the heather, clutching the soft +earth; for the Hand of the God whom he would not deny was heavy on him. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + "The dead abide with us! Though stark and cold + Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still. + They have forged our chains of being for good or ill." + MATHILDE BLIND. + + +John was late. Mitty looked out several times to see if he were coming, +and then put down the tea-cake to the fire. + +At last his step came slowly along the garret gallery, and Lindo, who +approved of nursery tea, walked in first, his dignity somewhat impaired +by a brier hanging from his back flounce. + +John saw the firelight through the open door, and the figure in the low +chair waiting for him. She had heard him coming, and was getting +stiffly up to make the tea. + +"Mitty, you should not wait for me," he said, sitting down in his own +place by the fire. + +Would they let her keep the brass kettle and her silver teapot? Yes, no +doubt they would; but somebody would have to ask. He supposed he should +be that somebody. Everything she possessed had been bought by himself +with other people's money. + +He let the tea last as long as possible. If Lindo had more than his +share of tea-cake, no one was the wiser. At last Mitty cleared away, and +sat down in the rocking-chair. + +"Don't light the candles, Mitty." + +"Why not, my dear? I can't be settin' with my hands before me, and holes +in your socks a shame to be seen." + +John came and sat down on the floor beside her, and leaned his head +against her. + +"Never mind the socks just now. There is something I want to talk to you +about." + +He looked at the fire through the bars of the high nursery fender, and +something in its glimmer, seen from so near the floor through the +remembered pattern of the wires which he had lost sight of for twenty +years, suddenly recalled the times when he had sat on the hearthrug, as +he was sitting now, with his head against Mitty's knee, confiding to her +what he would do when he was a man. + +"Do you remember, Mitty," he said, "how I used to tell you that when I +grew up you should ride in a carriage, and have a gold brooch, and a +clock that played a tune?" + +"I remember, my darling; and how, next time Charles went into York, you +give him all you had, and half a crown it was, to buy me a brooch, and +the silly staring fool went and spent it, and brought back that great +thing with the mock stones in. And you was as pleased as pleased. Eh! I +was angry with Charles for taking your bits of money, and all he said +was, 'Well, Mrs. Emson, I went to a many shops, and I give five +shillin's for it so as to get a big un.'" + +"I remember it," said John. "It was about the size of a small poultice. +And so Charles paid half. Good old Charles! I seem to have been much +deceived in my youth." + +His deep-set eyes watched the fire, watched the semblance of a little +castle in the heart of the glow. Mitty was quite happy with her +darling's head against her knee. + +"When the castle falls in I will tell her," said John to himself. + +But the fire had settled itself. The castle held. At last Mitty put out +her hand, and gave it a poke; not with the brass poker, of course, but +with a little black slave which did that polished aristocrat's work for +it. + +"Mitty," said John, "I am not so rich now as when I was in pinafores; +and even then, you see, the brooch was not bought with my own money. +Charles gave half. I have never given you anything that was paid for +with my own money. I have been spending other people's all my life." + +"Why, bless your dear heart!" said Mitty; "and who gave me my silver +teapot, I should like to know, and the ivory workbox, and that very +kettle a-staring you in the face, and the Wedgwood tea-things, and--and +everything, if it was not you?" + +John did not answer. His face twitched. + +The bars of the fender were blurred. The brass kettle, instead of +staring him in the face, melted quite away. + +Mitty stroked his head and face. + +"Cryin'!" she said--"my lamby cryin'!" + +"Not for myself, Mitty." + +"Who for, then? For that Miss Dinah?" + +"No, Mitty, for you. This is no home for you and me." He took her hard +hand and rubbed his cheek against it. "It belongs to Colonel Tempest. I +am not my father's son, Mitty." + +"Well, my precious," said Mitty, soothingly, in no wise discomposed by +what John feared would have quite overwhelmed her, "and if your poor +mammy did say as much to me when she was light-headed, when her pains +was on her, there's no call to fret about that, seeing it's a long time +ago, and her dead and all. Poor thing! I can see her now, with her +pretty eyes and her little hands, and she'd put her head against me and +say, 'Nursey' (Nursey I was to her), 'I'm not fit neither to live nor to +die.' Many and many's the night I've roared to think of her after she +was gone, when you was asleep in your crib. But there's no need for you +to fret, my deary." + +John's heart contracted. Mitty knew also. Oh, if he might but have +started life knowing what even Mitty knew! + +"They'd no business to marry her to Mr. Tempest," continued Mitty, +shaking her head, "and she, poor thing, idolizing that black Lord Fane, +as was her first cousin. It wasn't likely, after that, she'd settle to +Mr. Tempest, who was as light as tow. It was against nature. She never +took a bit of interest in him, nor him in her neither, that I could see. +A hard man he was, too--a hard man. She sent for him when she was dying. +She would not see him while there was any chance. 'Forgive me,' she +says; she says it over and over, me holding her up. 'I wouldn't ask it +if I was staying, but I'm doing the best I can by dying. It's not much +to make up, but it's the best I can. And,' she says, 'don't think, Jack, +as all women are bad like me. There's a many good ones as 'ull make you +happy yet when I'm gone.' I can see him now, standing by her, looking +past her out of the window with his face like a flint. 'I've known two +false ones,' he says; and he went away without another word. And she +says after a bit to me, 'I've always been frightened at the very thought +of dying, but it's living I'm frightened of now.' Eh! Master John, your +poor mammy! She did repent. And Mr. Tempest sent for me to the library +after the funeral, and he says, 'Promise me, nurse, that you'll never +repeat what your mistress said to me when she was not herself.' And he +looked hard at me, and I promised. And I've never breathed it to any +living soul, not to one I haven't, from that day to this." + +"I found it out three weeks ago," said John. "And as I am not Mr. +Tempest's son, everything I have belongs by right to Colonel Tempest, +the next heir, not to me. Overleigh is not mine. It never was mine." + +But Mitty could not be made to understand what his mother's frailty had +to do with John. When at last she grasped the idea that John would make +known the fact that he was not his father's son, she was simply +incredulous that her lamb could do such a thing--could bring shame upon +his own mother. No, whatever else he might do, he would never do that. +Why, Mrs. Alcock would know; and friends as she was with Mrs. Alcock, +and had been for years, such a word had never passed her lips. And the +people in the village, and the trades-people, and Jones and Evans from +York, who were putting up the new curtains,--everybody would know. Mitty +became quite agitated. Surely, surely, he'd never tell against his poor +mother in her grave. + +"Mitty," said John, forcing himself to repeat what it had been +difficult enough to say once, "don't you see that I can't stay here and +keep what is not mine? Nothing is mine if I am not Mr. Tempest's son. I +ought never to have been called so. We must go away." + +But Mitty was perplexed. + +"Not to that great weary house in London," she said anxiously, "with +every spot of water to carry up from the bottom?" + +"That is not mine either," said John in despair, rising to his feet and +standing before her. "Oh, Mitty, try and understand. Nothing is +mine--nothing, nothing, nothing; not even the clothes I have on. I am a +beggar." + +Mitty looked at him in a dazed way. She could not understand, but she +could believe. Her chin began to tremble. + +It was almost a relief to see at last the tears which he had dreaded +from the first. "My lamb a beggar," she said over and over again; and +she cried a little, but not much. Mitty was getting old, and she was not +able to realize a change--a change so incomprehensible as this. + +"But we need not be unhappy," said John, kneeling down by her, and +putting his arms round her. "We shall be together still. Wherever I go +you will go with me. I don't know yet where it will be, but we shall +have a little home together somewhere, just you and I; and you'll do my +socks and handkerchiefs, won't you, Mitty? and"--John controlled his +voice, but he hid his face in her lap that she might not see it--"we'll +be so happy together." At the moment I think John would have given up +heaven itself to make that hour smooth to Mitty. "And your cakes, +Mitty," he went on hoarsely. "They are better than any one else's. You +shall have a little kitchen, and you will make the cakes yourself, +won't you? and the"--his voice stumbled heavily--"the rock buns." + +"My precious," said Mitty, sobbing, "don't you fret yourself! I can make +a many things besides them; Albert puddings and moulds, and them little +cheese straws, and a sight of things. There's a deal of work in my old +hands yet. It's only the spring as has took the starch out of me. I +always feel a sinking in the spring. Lord, my darling, the times and +times again I've been settin' here just dithering with a mossel of +crotchet, or idling over a bit of reading, and wishing you was having a +set of nightshirts to make!" + +Love had found out the way. John had appealed to the right instinct. +Mitty was already busying herself with a future in which she should +minister to her child's comfort, and John saw, with a relief that was +half a pang, that the calamity of his life held hardly any place in the +heart that loved him so much. + +"I've a sight of things," continued Mitty, wiping her eyes. "Books and +pictures and cushions put away. My precious shall not go short. And +there's two pair of linen sheets as I bought with my own money, and +piller-slips to match, and six silver teaspoons and one dessert. My lamb +shall have things comfortable about him." + +She fell to communing with herself. John did not speak. + +"I'll leave my places tidy," said Mitty. "Tidy I didn't find 'em, but +tidy I'll leave 'em. I can't go till after the spring cleaning, Master +John. I'll never trust that Fanny to do the scrubbing unless I'm behind +her. I caught her washing round the mats instead of under only last +week." + +John felt unable to enter into the question of the spring cleaning. +There was another silence. + +At last Mitty said defiantly, "And I shall take your morroccy shoes, and +your little chair as I give you myself. I don't care what anybody says, +I shall take 'em. And the old horse and the Noey's ark." + +"It will be all right," said John, getting slowly to his feet. "Nobody +will want to have them, or anything of mine;" and he kissed her, and +went out. + +He went to the library and sat down by the fire. + +The resolution and aspiration of a few hours ago--where were they now? +He felt broken in body and soul. + +Lindo came in, nibbled John's elbow, and scrutinized the fire. John +scratched him absently on the top of his back between the tufts. + +"Lindo," he said, "the world is a hard place to live in." + +But Lindo, bulging with an unusual allowance of tea-cake, and winnowing +the air with an appreciative hind leg, did not think so. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + "Et souvent au moment ou l'on croyait tenir + Une esperance, on voit que c'est un souvenir." + VICTOR HUGO. + + +When Colonel Tempest lay in a precarious condition owing to the +unexpected explosion of a revolver which he was taking to his gun-maker, +and which he believed to be unloaded--when this fatality occurred, Mrs. +Courtenay somewhat relaxed the stringency of her usual demeanour to him, +and allowed his daughter to be with him constantly in the hospital to +which he was first conveyed, and afterwards in his rooms in Brook Street +when he was sufficiently convalescent to be conveyed thither. + +Colonel Tempest was a trying patient; in one sense he was not a patient +at all; melting into querulous tears when denied a sardine on toast for +which his soul thirsted, the application of which would infallibly have +separated his soul from his body; and bemoaning continually, when +consciousness was vouchsafed to him, the neglect of his children and the +callousness of his friends. Di bore it with equanimity. It is only true +accusations which one feels obliged to contradict. She did not love her +father, and his continual appeals to her pity and filial devotion +touched her but little. Colonel Tempest confided to his nurse in the +night-watches that he was the parent of heartless children, and when Di +took her place in the daytime, reviled the nurse's greed, who, whether +he was suffering or not, could eat a large meal in the middle of the +night. + +"I hate nurses," he would say. "Your poor mother had such a horrid nurse +when Archie was born. I could not bear her, always making difficulties +and restrictions, and locking the door, and then complaining to the +doctor because I rattled the lock. I urged your mother to part with her +whenever she was not in the room. But she only cried, and said she could +not do without her, and that she was kind to her. That was your mother +all over. She always sided against me. I must say she knew the value of +tears, did your poor mother. She cried herself into hysterics when I +rang the front door bell at four in the morning because I had gone out +without a latch-key. I suppose she expected me to sit all night on the +step. And first the nurse and then the doctor spoke to me about +agitating her, and said it was doing her harm; so I just walked +straight out of the house, and never set foot in it again for a month +till they had both cleared out. They overreached themselves that time." + +Archie, who looked in once a day for the space of ten seconds, came in +for the largest share of Colonel Tempest's reproaches. + +"I don't like sick people," that young gentleman was wont to remark. +"Don't understand 'em. No use. Nursing not in my line. Better out of the +way." + +So, with the consideration of his kind, he was so good as to keep out of +it, while Colonel Tempest wept salt tears into his already too salt +beef-tea (it was always too salt or not salt enough), and remarked with +bitterness that he could have fancied a sardine, and that other people's +sons nursed their parents when they were at death's door. Young +Grandcourt had never left _his_ father's bedside for three weeks when +he had pneumonia; but Archie, it seemed, was different. + +"My children are not much comfort to me," he told the doctor as +regularly as he put out his tongue. + +"John might have come," he said one day to Di. "He got out of it by +sending a cheque, but I think he might have taken the trouble just to +come and see whether I was alive or dead." + +"John is ill himself," said Di. + +"John is always ill," said Colonel Tempest, fretfully, with the +half-memory of convalescence--"always ailing and coddling himself; and +yet he has twice my physique. John grows coarse-looking--very coarse. I +fancy he is a large eater. I remember he was ill in the summer. I went +to see him. I was always sitting with him; and there did not seem to be +much the matter with him. I think he gives way." + +"Perhaps it is a family failing," said Di, who was beginning to discover +what a continual bottling up and corking down of effervescent irritation +is comprised under the name of patience. + +How many weeks was it after Di's return to London when a cloud no larger +than a man's hand arose on the clear horizon of that secret happiness +which no amount of querulousness on Colonel Tempest's part could +effectually dim? It was a very small cloud. It took the shape of a card +with John's name on it, who had come to Brook Street to inquire after +his uncle. + +"He is in London. He will call this afternoon," said Di to herself; and +as Colonel Tempest happened to be too sleepy to wish to be read to, she +left him early in the afternoon, and hurried home. And she and Mrs. +Courtenay sat indoors all that afternoon, though they had been lent a +carriage, and they waited to make tea till after the time; and whenever +the door bell rang, Mrs. Courtenay's hands shook quite as much as Di's. +And aimless, foolish persons called, but John did not call. + +"He is ill," said Mrs. Courtenay in the dusk, "or he has been prevented +coming. There is some reason. He will write." + +"Yes," said Di, "he will come when he can." But nevertheless a little +shiver of doubt crept into her heart for the first time. "If I had been +in his place," she said to herself, "I should have come ill or well, and +I should _not_ have been prevented." + +She put the thought aside instantly as unreasonable, but the shy dread +she had previously felt of meeting him changed to a restless longing +just to see him, just to be reassured. + +To be loved by one we love is, after all, so incredible a revelation +that it is not wonderful that human nature seeks after a sign. Only a +great self-esteem finds love easy to believe in. + +The days passed, and linked themselves to weeks. Was it fancy, or did +Mrs. Courtenay become graver day by day? and Di remembered with +misgiving a certain note which she had written to John the morning she +left Overleigh. The little cloud grew. + + * * * * * + +One afternoon Di came in rather later than usual, and after a glance +round the room, which had become habitual to her, sat down by her +grandmother, and poured out tea. + +"Any callers, granny?" + +"One--Archie." + +Di sighed. Coming home had always the possibility in it of finding some +one sitting in the drawing-room, or a note on the hall table. Yet +neither possibility happened. + +"Archie came to say that the doctor thinks your father does not gain +ground, and that he might be moved to the seaside with advantage. He +wanted to know whether you could go with him. He can't get leave himself +for more than a couple of days. I said I would allow you to do so, if he +took your father down himself, and got him settled. He can do that in +two days, and he ought to take his share. He has left everything to you +so far. He mentioned," continued Mrs. Courtenay with an effort, "that he +had met John at the Carlton yesterday, and that he was all right, and +able to go about again as usual. He went back to Overleigh to-day." + +There was a long silence. + +"What do you think, granny?" said Di at last. + +"How long is it since you were at Overleigh?" + +"Two months." + +"When you were there did you allow John to see that you had changed your +mind, or were you friendly with him, as you used to be? Nothing +discourages men so much as that." + +"No; I tried to be, but I could not. I don't know what I was, except +very uncomfortable." + +"Had he any real opportunity of speaking to you without interruption?" + +Di remembered the half-hour in the entresol sitting-room. It had never +occurred to her till that moment that certainly, if he had wished to do +so, he could have spoken to her then. + +"Yes," she said, "he had; and," she added, "I am sure he knew I liked +him. If he did not know it then, I am quite sure he knows it now. I +wrote a note." + +"What kind of note?" + +"Oh, granny, that is just it. I don't know what kind it was. It seemed +natural at the time. I can't remember exactly what I said. I've tried +to, often. It was written in such a hurry, for you telegraphed for me, +and I had been up all night waiting to hear whether he was to live or +die, and it was so dreadful to have to go away without a word." + +Mrs. Courtenay leaned back in her chair. She seemed tired. + +"Tell me what you think," said Di again. + +"I think," said Mrs. Courtenay, "that if John had been seriously +attached to you, he would either have come, or have answered your letter +by this time. I am afraid we have made a mistake." + +Di did not answer. The world was crumbling down around her. + +"I may be making one now," said Mrs. Courtenay; "but it appears to me he +has had every opportunity given him, and he has made no use of them. +Men worth their salt _make_ their opportunities, but if they don't even +take them when they are ready-made to their hand, they cannot be in +earnest. Women don't realize what a hateful position a man is in who is +deeply in love, and who has no knowledge of whether it is returned or +not. He won't remain in it any longer than he can help." + +"John is not in that position," said Di, colouring painfully. "Granny, +why don't you reproach me for writing that letter?" + +"Because, my dear, though I regret it more than I can say, I should have +done the same in your place." + +"And--and what would you do _now_ in my place?" + +"This," said Mrs. Courtenay. "You cannot dismiss the subject from your +mind, but whenever it comes into your thoughts, hold steadily before +you the one fact that he is certainly aware you are attached to him, and +he has not acted on that knowledge." + +"They say men don't care for anything when once they know they can have +it," said Di hoarsely, pride wringing the words out of her. "Perhaps +John is like that. He knows I--am only waiting to be asked." + +"Fools say many things," returned Mrs. Courtenay. "That is about as true +as that women don't care for their children when they get them. A few +unnatural ones don't; the others do. I have seen much trouble caused by +love affairs. After middle life most people decry them, especially those +who have had superficial ones themselves; for there is seldom any love +at all in the mutual attraction of two young people, and the elders know +very well that if it is judiciously checked it can also be judiciously +replaced by something else. But a real love which comes to nothing is +more like the death of an only child than anything else. It _is_ a +death. The great thing is to regard it so. I have known women go on year +after year waiting, as we have been doing during the last two months, +refusing to believe in its death; believing, instead, in some +misunderstanding; building up theories to account for alienation; +clinging to the idea that things might have turned out differently if +only So-and-so had been more tactful, if they had not refused a certain +invitation, if something they had said which might yet be explained had +not been misconstrued. And all the time there is no misunderstanding, no +need of explanation. The position is simple enough. No man is daunted by +such things except in women's imaginations. What men want they will try +to obtain, unless there is some positive bar, such as poverty. And if +they don't try, remember the inference is _sure_, that they don't +really want it." + +Di did not answer. Her face had taken a set look, which for the first +time reminded Mrs. Courtenay of her mother. She had often seen the other +Diana look like that. + +"My child," she said, stretching out her soft old hand, and laying it on +the cold clenched one, "a death even of what is dearest to us, and a +funeral and a headstone to mark the place, hard as it is, is as nothing +compared to the death in life of an existence which is always dragging +about a corpse. I have seen that not once nor twice. I want to save you +from that." + +Di laid her face for a moment on the kind hand. + +"I will bury my dead," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + "And now we believe in evil + Where once we believed in good. + The world, the flesh, and the devil + Are easily understood." + GORDON. + + +It seems a pity that our human destinies are too often so constituted +that with our own hands we may annul in one hour--our hour of +weakness--the long, slow work of our strength; annul the self-conquest +and the renunciation of our best years. We ought to be thankful when the +gate of the irrevocable closes behind us, and the power to defeat +ourselves is at last taken from us. For he who has once solemnly and +with conviction renounced, and then, for no new cause, has taken to +himself again that which he renounced, has broken the mainspring of his +life. + +John went early the following morning to London, for he had business +with three men, and he could not rest till he had seen them, and had +shut that gate upon himself for ever. + +So early had he started that it was barely midday when he reached Lord +Frederick's chambers. The valet told him that his lordship was still in +bed, and could see no one; but John went up to his bedroom, and knocked +at the door. + +"It is I--John Tempest," he said, and went in. + +Lord Frederick was sitting up in bed, sallow and shrunk like a mummy, in +a blue watered-silk dressing-gown. His thin hair was brushed up into a +crest on the top of his head. The bed was littered with newspapers and +letters. There was a tray before him, and he was in the act of chipping +an egg as John came in. + +He raised his eyebrows and looked first with surprised displeasure, and +then with attention, at his visitor. + +"Good morning," he said; and he went on tapping his egg. "Ah," he said, +shaking his head, "hard-boiled again!" + +John looked at him as a plague-stricken man might look at the carcase of +some obscene animal found rotting in his water-spring. + +Lord Frederick's varied experiences had made him familiar with the +premonitory symptoms of those outbursts of anger and distress which he +designated under the all-embracing term of "scenes." He felt idly +curious to know what this man with his fierce white face had to say to +him. + +"Oblige me by sitting down," he said; "you are in my light." + +"I have been reading my mother's letters to you," said John, still +standing in the middle of the room, and stammering in his speech. He had +not reckoned for the blind paroxysm of rage which had sprung up at the +mere sight of Lord Frederick, and was spinning him like a leaf in a +whirlwind. + +"Indeed!" said Lord Frederick, raising his eyebrows, and carefully +taking the shell off his egg. "I don't care about reading old letters +myself, especially the private correspondence of other people; but +tastes differ. You do, it seems. I had imagined the particular letters +you allude to had been burnt." + +"My mother intended to burn them." + +"It would certainly have been wiser to do so, but probably for that +reason they remained undestroyed. From time immemorial womankind has +shown a marked repugnance to the dictates of common sense." + +"I have burnt them." + +"Just so," said Lord Frederick, helping himself to salt. "I commend your +prudence. Had you burnt them unread, I should have been able to commend +your sense of honour also." + +"What do you know about honour?" said John. + +The two men looked hard at each other. + +"That remark," said Lord Frederick, joining the ends of his fingers and +half shutting his eyes, "is a direct insult. To insult a man with whom +you are not in a position to quarrel is, in my opinion, John, an error +of judgment. We will consider it one, and as such I will let it pass. +The letters, I presume, contained nothing of which you were not already +aware?" + +"Only the fact that I am your illegitimate son." + +"I deplore your coarseness of expression. You certainly have not +inherited it from me. But, my dear Galahad, it is impossible that even +your youth and innocence should not have known of my _tendresse_ for +your mother." + +"Is that the last new name for adultery?" said John huskily, advancing a +step nearer the bed. His face was livid. His eyes burned. He held his +hands clenched lest they should rush out and wrench away all semblance +of life and humanity from that figure in the watered-silk dressing-gown. + +Lord Frederick lay back on his pillows, and looked at him steadily. He +was without fear, but it appeared to him that he was about to die. The +laws of his country, of conscience and of principle, all the protection +that envelops life, seemed to have receded from him, to have slipped +away into the next room, or downstairs with the valet. They would come +back, no doubt, in time, but they might be a little late, as far as he +was concerned. + +"He has strong hands, like mine," he said to himself, his pale, +unflinching eyes fixed upon his son's; while a remembrance slid through +his mind of how once, years ago, he had choked the life out of a mastiff +which had turned on him, and how long the heavy brute had taken to die. + +"Do not spill the coffee," he said quietly, after a moment. + +John started violently, and wheeled away from him like a man regaining +consciousness on the brink of an abyss. Lord Frederick put out his lean +hand, and went on with his breakfast. + +There was a long silence. + +"John," said Lord Frederick at last, not without a certain dignity, +"the world is as it is. We did not make it, and we are not responsible +for it. If there is any one who set it going, it is his own look out. +Reproach _him_, if you can find him. All we have to do is to live in it. +And we can't live in it, I tell you we can't exist in it, with any +comfort until we realize that it is rotten to the core." + +John was leaning against the window-sill shaking like a reed. It seemed +to him that for one awful moment he had been in hell. + +"I do not pretend to be better than other men," continued Lord +Frederick. "Men and women are men and women; and if you persist in +thinking them angels, especially the latter, you will pay for your +mistake." + +"I am paying," said John. + +"Possibly. You seem to have sustained a shock. It is incredible to me +that you did not know beforehand what the letters told you. +Wedding-rings don't make a greater resemblance between father and son +than there is between you and me." + +Lord Frederick looked at the stooping figure of the young man, leaning +spent and motionless against the window, his arms hanging by his sides. +He held what he called his prudishness in contempt, but he respected an +element in him which he would have termed "grit." + +"You are stronger built than I am, John," he said, with a touch of +pride, "and wider in the chest. Come, bygones are bygones. Shake hands." + +"I can't," said John. "I don't know that I could on my account, but +anyhow not on _hers_." + +"H'm! And so this was the information which you rushed in without leave +to spring upon me?" + +"It was, together with the fact that of course I withdraw in favour of +Colonel Tempest, the heir at law. I am going on to him from here." + +Lord Frederick reared himself slowly in his bed, his brown hands +clutching the bedclothes like eagles' talons. + +"You are going to own your----" + +"_My_ shame--yes; not yours. You need not be alarmed. Your name shall +not be brought in. If I take the name of Fane, it will only be because +it was my mother's." + +"But you said you had burned the letters." + +"I have. I don't see what difference that makes. The fact that they are +burnt does not alter the fact that I am--nobody, and he is the legal +heir." + +"And you mean to tell him so?" + +"I do." + +"To commit suicide?" + +"Social suicide--yes." + +"Fool!" said Lord Frederick, in a voice which lost none of its force +because it was barely above a whisper. + +John did not answer. + +"Leave the room," said the outraged parent, turning his face to the +wall, the bedclothes and the tray trembling exceedingly. "I will have +nothing more to do with you. You need not come to me when you are +penniless. Do you hear? I disown you. Leave me. I will never speak to +you again." + +"I hope to God you never will," said John; and he took up his hat and +went out. + +He had settled his account with the first of the three people whom he +had come to London to see. From Lord Frederick's chambers he went +straight to Colonel Tempest's lodgings in Brook Street. But Colonel +Tempest had that morning departed with his son to Brighton, and John, +momentarily thrown off his line of action by that simple occurrence, +stared blankly at the landlady, and then went to his club and sat down +to write to him. There was no question of waiting. Like a man walking +across Niagara on a tight rope, it was no time to think, to hesitate, to +look round. John kept his eyes riveted to one point, and shut his ears +to the roar of the torrent below him, in which a moment's giddiness +would engulf him. + +It was afternoon by this time. As he sat writing at a table in one of +the bay windows, a familiar voice spoke to him. It was Lord Hemsworth. +They had not met since the night of the ice carnival. Lord Hemsworth's +face had quite lost its boyish expression. + +"I hope you are better, Tempest," he said, with obvious constraint, +looking narrowly at him. Could Di's accepted lover wear so grey and +stern a look as this? + +John replied that he was well; and then, with sudden recollection of +Mitty's account of Lord Hemsworth's conduct during that memorable night, +began to thank him, and stopped short. + +The room was empty. + +"It was on _her_ account," said Lord Hemsworth. + +John did not answer. It was that conviction which had pulled him up. + +Lord Hemsworth waited some time for John to speak, and then he said-- + +"You know about me, Tempest, and why I was on the ice that night. Well, +I have kept out of the way for three months under the belief that--I +should hear any day that---- I am not such a fool as to pit myself +against you--I don't want to be a nuisance to---- But it's three months. +For God's sake tell me; are you on or are you not?" + +"I am not," said John. + +"Then I will try my luck," said the other. + +He went out, and John knew that he had gone to try it there and then; +and sat motionless, with his hand across his mouth and his unfinished +letter before him, until the servant came to close the shutters. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + "We live together years and years, + And leave unsounded still + Each other's springs of hopes and fears, + Each other's depths of will." + LORD HOUGHTON. + + +But still more bewildering is the way in which we live years and years +with ourselves in an entire ignorance of the powers that lie dormant +beneath the surface of character. The day comes when vital forces of +which we know nothing arise within us, and break like glass the even +tenor of our lives. The quiet hours, the regulated thoughts, the +peaceful aspiration after things but little set above us, where are +they? The angel with the sword drives us out of our Eden to shiver in +the wilderness of an entirely changed existence, unrecognizable by +ourselves, though perhaps lived in the same external groove, the same +divisions of time, among the same faces as before. + +Day succeeded day in Di's life, each day adding one more stone to the +prison in which it seemed as if an inexorable hand were walling her up. + +"I will not give in. I will turn my mind to other things," she said to +herself. And--there were no other things. All lesser lights were blown +out. The heart, when it is swept into the grasp of a great love, is +ruthlessly torn from the hundred minute ties and interests that +heretofore held it to life. The little fibres and tendrils of affections +which have gradually grown round certain objects are snapped off from +the roots. They cease to exist. The pang of love is that there is no +escape from it. It has the same tension as sleeplessness. + +Di struggled and was not defeated; but some victories are as sad as +defeats. During the struggle she lost something--what was it--that had +been to many her greatest charm? Women were unanimous in deploring how +she had "gone off." There was a thinness in her cheek, and a blue line +under her deep eyes. Her beauty remained, but it was not the same +beauty. Mrs. Courtenay noticed with a pang that she was growing like her +mother. + +Easter came, and with it the wedding of Miss Crupps and the Honourable +Augustus Lumley, youngest son of Lord Mortgage. Miss Crupps' young heart +had long inclined towards Mr. Lumley; but on the occasion of seeing him +blacked as a Christy Minstrel, she had finally succumbed into a state +of giggling admiration, which plainly showed the state of her +affections. So he cut the word "yes" out of a newspaper, and told her +that was what she was to say to him, and amid a series of delighted +cackles they were engaged. Di went to the wedding, looking so pale that +it was whispered that Mr. Lumley and his tambourine had won her heart as +well as that of his adoring bride. + +On a sunny afternoon shortly afterwards, Di was sitting alone indoors, +her grandmother having gone out driving with a friend. She told herself +that she ought to go out, but she remained sitting with her hands in her +lap. Every duty, every tiny decision, every small household matter, had +become of late an intolerable burden. Even to put a handful of flowers +into water required an effort of will which it was irksome to make. + +She had stayed in to make an alteration in the gown she was to wear +that night at the Speaker's. As she looked at the card to make sure it +was the right evening, she remembered that it was at the Speaker's she +had first met John, just a year ago. One year. How absurd! Five, ten, +fifteen! She tried to recollect what her life could have been like +before he had come into it; but it seemed to start from that point, and +to have had no significance before. + +"I must go out," she said again; and at that moment the door bell rang, +and although Mrs. Courtenay was out, some one was admitted. The door +opened, and Lord Hemsworth was announced. + +There is, but men are fortunately not in a position to be aware of it, a +lamentable uniformity in their manner of opening up certain subjects. Di +knew in a moment from previous experience what he had come for. He +wondered, as he stumbled through a labyrinth of platitudes about the +weather, how he could broach the subject without alarming her. He did +not know that he had done so by his manner of coming into the room, and +that he had been refused before he had finished shaking hands. + +Di was horribly sorry for him while he talked about--whatever he did +talk about. Neither noticed what it was at the time, or remembered it +afterwards. She was grateful to him for not alluding even in the most +distant manner to their last meeting. She remembered that she had clung +to him, and that he had called her by her Christian name, but she was +too callous to be ashamed at the recollection. It was as nothing +compared to another humiliation which had come upon her a little later. + +"It is no good beating about the bush," said Lord Hemsworth at last, +after he had beaten it till there was, so to speak, nothing left of it. +"I have come up to London for one thing, and I have come here for one +thing, which is--to ask you to marry me. Don't speak--don't say anything +just for a moment," he continued hurriedly, raising his hand as if to +ward off a rebuff. "For God's sake don't stop me. I've kept it in so +long I must say it, and you must hear me." + +She let him say it. And he got it out with stumbling and difficulty and +long gaps between--got out in shaking commonplaces a tithe of the love +he had for her. And all the time Di thought if it might only have been +some one else who was uttering those halting words! (I wonder how many +men have proposed and been accepted while the woman has said to herself, +"If it had only been some one else!") + +Despair at his inability to express himself, and at her silence, seized +him: as if it mattered a pin how he expressed himself if she had been +willing to listen. + +"If you understood," he said over and over again, with the monotonous +reiteration of a piano-tuner, "you would not refuse me. I know you are +going to, but if only you understood you would not. You would not have +the heart. It's--it's just everything to me." And Lord Hemsworth--oh, +bathos of modern life!--looked into his hat. + +"Lord Hemsworth," said Di, "have I ever given you any encouragement?" + +"None," he replied. "People might think you had, but you never did. I +knew better. I never misunderstood you. I know you don't care a straw +about me; but--oh, Di, you have not your equal in the world. There's no +woman to compare with you. I don't see how you could care for any one +like me. Of course you don't. I would not expect it. But if--if you +would only marry me--I would be content with very little. I've looked +at it all round. I would be content with--very little." + +There was a long silence. + +What woman whose love has been slighted can easily reject a great +devotion? + +"I think," said Di, after several false starts to speak, "that if I only +considered myself I would marry you; but there is the happiness of one +other person to think of--_yours_." + +"I can't have any apart from you." + +"You would have none with me. If it is miserable to care for any one who +is indifferent, it would be a thousand times more miserable to be +married to that person." + +"Not if it were you." + +"Yes, if it were I." + +"I would take the risk," said Lord Hemsworth, who held, in common with +most men, the rooted conviction that a woman will become attached to +any husband, however little she cares for her lover. It is precisely +this conviction which makes the average marriages of the present day +such mediocre affairs; which serves to place worldly or facile women, or +those whose affections have never been called out, at the head of so +many homes; as the mothers of the new generation from which we hope so +much. + +"I would take any risk," repeated Lord Hemsworth, doggedly. "I would +rather be unhappy with you than happy with any one else." + +"You think so now," said Di; "but the time would come when you would see +that I had cut you off from the best thing in the world--from the love +of a woman who would care for you as much as you do for me." + +"I don't want her. I want you." + +"I cannot marry you." + +Lord Hemsworth clutched blindly at the arms of the chair. + +"I would wait any time." + +Di shook her head. + +"Any time," he stammered. "Go away for a year, and--come back." + +"It would be no good." + +Then he lost his head. + +"So long as you don't care for any one else," he said incoherently. "I +thought at the carnival--that is why I have kept out of the way--but I +met Tempest to-day at the Carlton, and--I asked him straight out, and he +said there was nothing between you and him. I suppose you have refused +him, like the rest of us. Oh, my God, Di, they say you have no heart! +But it isn't true, is it? Don't refuse me. Don't make me live without +you. I've tried for three months"--and Lord Hemsworth's face +worked--"and if you knew what it was like, you wouldn't send me back to +it." + +Every vestige of colour had faded from Di's face at the mention of John. + +"I don't care enough for you to marry you," she said, pitiless in her +great pity. "I wish I did, but--I don't." + +"Do you care for any one else?" + +Di saw that nothing short of the truth would wrest his persistence from +its object. + +"Yes, I do," she said passionately, trembling from head to foot. "For +some one who does not care for me. You and I are both in the same +position. Do you see now how useless it is to talk of this any longer?" + +Both had risen to their feet. Lord Hemsworth looked at Di's white +convulsed face, and his own became as ashen. He saw at last that he had +no more chance of marrying her than if she were lying at his feet in +her coffin. Constancy, which can compass many things, avails nought +sometimes. + +"I beg your pardon," he said, holding out his hand to go. + +"I think I ought to beg yours," she said brokenly, while their hands +clasped tightly each in each. "I never meant to make you as--unhappy +as--as I am myself, but yet I have." + +They looked at each other with tears in their eyes. + +"It does not matter," said Lord Hemsworth, hoarsely. "I shall be all +right--it's you--I think of. Don't stand--mustn't stand--you're too +tired. Good-bye." + + * * * * * + +Di flung herself down on her face on the sofa as the door closed. She +had forgotten Lord Hemsworth's existence the moment after he had left +the room. _John had told him that there was nothing between her and_ +_himself._ John had told him that. John had said that. A cry escaped +her, and she strangled it in the cushion. + +Hope does not always die when we imagine it does. It is subject to long +trances. The hope which she had thought dead was only giving up the +ghost now. "Chaque esperance est un oeuf d'ou peut sortir un serpent au +lieu d'une colombe." Out of that frail shell of a cherished hope lying +broken before her the serpent had crept at last. It moved, it grew +before her eyes. + + "Slighted love is sair to bide." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + "We met, hand to hand, + We clasped hands close and fast, + As close as oak and ivy stand; + But it is past." + CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. + + "Half false, half fair, all feeble." + SWINBURNE. + + +When John roused himself from the long stupor into which he had fallen +after Lord Hemsworth's departure, he put his finished letter to Colonel +Tempest into an envelope, and then remembered with annoyance that he did +not know how to address it. When the landlady in Brook Street had told +him that Colonel and Captain Tempest had gone to Brighton that morning, +he had been too much taken aback at the moment to think of asking for +their address. He was too much exhausted in mind and body to go back to +the lodgings for it immediately. He wrote a second letter, this time to +his lawyer, and then, conscious of the state of his body by the shaking +hand and clumsy, tardy brain which made of a short and explicit +statement so lengthy an affair, he mechanically changed his clothes, +dined, and sat watching the smoke of his cigar. + +Presently, with food and rest, the apathy into which exhaustion had +plunged him lifted, and the restlessness of a tortured mind returned. He +had only as yet seen one of the three men whom he had come to London to +interview, namely, Lord Frederick. Colonel Tempest, the second, was out +of town; but probably the third, Lord ----, the minister, was not. It +was close on ten o'clock. He should probably find him in his private +room in the House. + +John flung away his cigar, and was in a few minutes spinning towards the +Houses of Parliament in a hansom. He had not thought much about it till +now, but as he turned in at the gates the lines of the great buildings +suddenly brought back to him the remembrance of his own ambition, and of +the splendid career that had seemed to be opening before him when last +he had passed those gates; which had fallen at a single touch like a +house of cards--a house built with Fortune's cards. + +There was a _queue_ of carriages at the Speaker's entrance. A party was +evidently going on there. John went to the House and inquired for +Lord ----. He was not there. Perhaps he was at the Speaker's reception. +John remembered, or thought he remembered, that he had a card for it, +and went on there. His mind was set on finding Lord ----. + + * * * * * + +History repeats itself, and so does our little private history. Only +when the same thing happens it finds us changed, and we look back at +what we were last time, and remember our old young self with wonder. Was +that indeed I? + +Possibly to some an evening party may appear a small event, but to Di, +as she stood in the same crowd as last year, in the same pictured rooms, +it seemed to her that her whole life had turned on the pivot of that one +evening a year ago. + +The lights glared too much now. The babel dazed her. Noises had become +sharp swords of late. Every one talked too loud. She chatted and smiled, +and vaguely wondered that her friends recognized her. "I am not the same +person," she said to herself, "but no one seems to see any difference." + +Presently she found herself near the same arched window where she had +stood with John last year. She moved for a moment to it and looked out. +There was a mist across the river. The lights struggled through blurred +and feeble. It had been clear last year. She turned and went on talking, +of she knew not what, to a very young man at her elbow, who was making +laborious efforts to get on with her. + +Her eyes looked back from the recess across the sea of faces and +fringes, and bald and close-cropped heads. The men who were not John, +but yet had a momentary resemblance to him, were the only people she +distinctly saw. Tall fair men were beginning to complain of her +unrecognizing manner. + +Yes, history repeats itself. + +Among the crowd in the distance she suddenly saw him. John's rugged +profile and square head were easy to recognize. _He had said there was +nothing between them._ Their last meeting rushed back upon her with a +scathing recollection of how she had held him in her arms and pressed +her face to his. Shame scorched her inmost soul. + +She turned towards her companion with fuller attention than what she had +previously accorded him. + + * * * * * + +As John walked through the rooms scanning the crowd, the possibility of +meeting Di did not strike him. With a frightful clutch of the heart he +caught sight of her. A man who instantly aroused his animosity was +talking eagerly to her. Something in her appearance startled him. Was it +the colour of her gown that made her look so pale, the intense light +that gave her calm dignified face that peculiar worn expression? She +had a faint fixed smile as she talked that John did not recognize, and +that, why he knew not, cut him to the quick. + +Was this Di? Could this be Di? + +He knew she had seen him. He hesitated a moment and then went towards +her. She received him without any change of countenance. The fixed smile +was still on her lips as he spoke to her, but the lips had whitened. +Their eyes met for a moment. Oh! what had happened to Di's lovely eyes +that used to be so grave and gay? + +He stammered something--said he was looking for some one--and passed on. +She turned to speak to some one else as he did so. He strangled the +nameless emotion which was choking him, and made his way into the next +room. He had a vague consciousness of being spoken to, and of making +herculean efforts to grind out answers, and then of pouncing on the +secretary of the man he was looking for, who told him his chief had +suddenly and unexpectedly started for Paris that afternoon on affairs of +importance. + +John mechanically noted down his address in Paris and left the house. + +The necessity of remembering where his feet were taking him recalled him +somewhat to himself. He pulled himself together, and slackened his pace. + +"I will go to Paris by the night express," he said to himself, the +feverish longing for action increasing upon him as this new obstacle met +him. He dared not remain in London. He knew for a certainty that if he +did he should go and see Di. Neither could he write to Lord ---- all +that he must tell him, or put into black and white the favour he had to +ask of him--the first favour John had ever needed to ask, namely, to be +helped by means of Lord ----'s interest to some post in which he could +for the moment support himself and Mitty. + +As he turned up St. James's Street, he remembered with irritation that +he had not yet procured Colonel Tempest's and Archie's address. While he +hesitated whether to go on, late as it was, to Brook Street for it, he +remembered that he could probably obtain it much nearer at hand, namely, +at Archie's rooms in Piccadilly. Archie, who was a person of much pink +and monogrammed correspondence, would probably have left his address +behind him, stuck in the glass of the mantelpiece, as his manner was. +The latch-key he had lent John in the autumn, when John had made use of +his rooms, was still on his chain. He had forgotten to return it. He let +himself in, went upstairs to the second floor, and opened the door of +the little sitting-room. + +"Here you are at last," said a woman's voice. + +He went in quickly and shut the door behind him. + +A small woman in shimmering evening dress, with diamonds in her hair, +came towards him, and stopped short with a little scream. + +It was Madeleine. + +He looked at her in silence, standing with his back to the door. The +smouldering fire in his eyes seemed to burn her, for she shrank away to +the further end of the room. John observed that there was a fire and +lamps, and knit his brows. + +Some persons are unable to perceive when explanations are useless. +Madeleine began one--something about Archie's difficulties, money, etc.; +but John cut her short. + +"You are not accountable to me for your actions," he said. "Keep your +explanations for your husband." + +He looked again with perplexity at the fire and the lamps. He knew +Archie had gone that morning on three days' leave to Brighton with his +father. + +"Let me go," she said, whimpering. "I won't stay here to be thought ill +of, to have evil imputed to me." + +"You will answer one question first," said John. + +"You impute evil to me--I know you do," said Madeleine, beginning to +cry; "but it is your own coarse mind that sees wickedness in +everything." + +"Possibly," said John. "When do you expect Archie?" + +"Any moment. I wish he was here, that he might tell you----" + +"Thank you, that will do. You can go now." + +He opened the door. She drew a long cloak over her shoulders and passed +him without speaking, looking like what she was--one of that class whose +very existence she professed to ignore, but whose ranks she had +virtually joined when she announced her engagement to Sir Henry in the +_Morning Post_. Perhaps, inasmuch as that, untempted, she had sold +herself for diamonds and position, instead of, under strong temptation, +for the bare necessities of life like her poorer sisters, she was more +degraded than they; but fortunately for her, and many others in our +midst, society upheld her. + +John looked after her and then followed her. There was not a soul on the +common staircase or in the hall. He passed out just behind her, and they +were in the street together. + +"Take my arm," he said, and she took it mechanically. + +He signalled a four-wheeler and helped her into it. + +"Where do you wish to go?" he said. + +"I don't know," she said feebly, apparently too much scared to remember +what her arrangements had been. + +John considered a moment. + +"Where is Sir Henry?" + +"Dining at Woolwich." + +"Can't you go home?" + +"No, no. It is much too early. I'm dressed for--I said I was going +to ----, and I have left there already, and the carriage is waiting there +still." + +"You must go back there," said John. "Get your carriage and go home in +it." + +He gave the cabman the address and paid him. Then he returned to the cab +door. + +"Lady Verelst," he said less sternly, "believe me--Archie is not worth +it." + +"You don't understand," she tried to say, with an assumption of injured +dignity. "It was only that I----" + +"He is not worth it," said John with emphasis; and he shut to the door +of the cab, and watched it drive away. Then he went back to Archie's +room, and sat down to consider. A faint odour of scent hung about the +room. He got up and flung open the window. Years afterwards, if a woman +used that particular scent, the same loathing disgust returned upon him. + +"He took three days' leave to nurse his father at Brighton, with the +intention of coming back here to-night," John said to himself. "He will +be here directly." And he made up his mind what he would do. + +And in truth a few minutes later a hansom rattled to the door, and +Archie came in, breathless with haste. He looked eagerly round the room, +and then, as he caught sight of the unexpected occupant, his face +crimsoned, and he grinned nervously. + +"She is gone," said John, without moving. + +"Gone? Who? I don't know what you mean." + +"No, of course not. What made you so late?" + +"Train broke down outside London." + +"I came here to get your address at Brighton, because I have news for +you. You are there at this moment, aren't you, looking after your +father?" + +Archie did not answer. He only grinned and showed his teeth. John was +aware that though he stood quietly enough by the table, turning over +some loose silver in his pocket, he was in a state of blind fury. He +also knew that if he waited a little it would pass. Something in John's +moral and physical strength had always the power to quell Archie's fits +of passion. + +"I had no intention of prying on you," said John, after an interval. "I +wanted your address at Brighton, and I could not wait till to-morrow for +it. I am going to Paris to-night on business, and--as it is yours as +much as mine--you will go with me." + +Archie never indulged in those flowers of speech with which some adorn +their conversation. But there are exceptions to every rule, and he made +one now. He culled, so to speak, one large bouquet of the choicest +epithets and presented it to John. + +"He knew not what to say, and so he swore." That is why men swear often, +and women seldom. + +"I shall not leave you in London with that woman," said John, calmly. +"You will go to her if I do." + +"I shall do as I think fit," stammered Archie, striking the table with +his slender white hand. + +"There you err," said John. "You will start with me in half an hour for +Paris." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + "There's not a crime + But takes its proper change out still in crime + If once rung on the counter of this world." + E. B. BROWNING. + + +There is in Paris, just out of the Rue du Bac, a certain old-fashioned +hotel, the name of which I forget, with a little _cour_ in the middle of +the rambling old building, and a thin fountain perennially plashing +therein, adorned by a few pigeons and feathers on the brink. It had been +a very fashionable hotel in the days when Madame Mohl held her _salon_ +near at hand. But the old order changes. It was superseded now. Why +John often went there I don't know. He probably did not know himself, +unless it was for the sake of quiet. Anyhow, he and Archie arrived there +together that morning; for it is needless to say that, having determined +to get Archie at any cost out of London, John had carried his point, as +he had done on previous occasions, to the disgust of the sulky young +man, who had proved anything but a pleasant travelling companion, and +who, late in the afternoon, was still invisible behind the white +curtains in one of the two little bedrooms that opened out of the +sitting-room in which John was walking up and down. + +He had put several questions to Archie respecting the state of his +father's health, and that gentleman had assured him he was all right, +quite able to look after himself; no need for him to remain with him. + +"Of course not," said John, "or you would not have left him. But is he +able to attend to business?" + +"Rather," said Archie, with the emphasis of ignorance. + +As long as Archie was in the next room, out of harm's way, John did not +want his company. He knew that when he did appear he had to tell him +that for eight and twenty years he had lived on Colonel Tempest's +substance; and then he must post the letter lying ready written on the +table to Colonel Tempest, only needing the address. + +After that life was a blank. Archie would rush home, of course. John did +not know where he should go, except that it would not be with Archie. +Back to Overleigh? No. And with a sudden choking sensation he realized +that he should not see Overleigh again. He wondered what Mitty was doing +at that moment, and whether the horse-chestnut against the nursery +window would ever burst to leaf. Here in Paris they were out. He had +noticed them as he returned from an interview with Lord ----. That +gentleman had been much pressed for time, but had nevertheless accorded +him a quarter of an hour. He was genuinely perturbed by the disclosure +the young man made to him, deplored the event as it affected John, but +after the first moment was obviously more concerned about the seat, and +the loss of the Tempest support, than the wreck of John's career. After +a decorous interval, Lord ---- had put a few questions to him about +Colonel Tempest, his age, political views, etc. John perceived with what +intentions those questions were put, and they made it the harder for him +to ask the great man to help him to a livelihood. + +As John spoke, and the elder man's eye sought his watch, John +experienced for the first time the truth of the saying that the highest +price that can be paid for anything is to have to ask for it. If it had +not been for Mitty he could not have forced himself to do it. + +"But my dear--er--Tempest," said Lord ----, "surely we need not +anticipate that--er--your uncle--er--that Colonel Tempest will fail to +make a suitable provision for one--who--who----" + +"He may offer to do so," replied John; "but if he did, I should not take +it. He is not the kind of man from whom it is possible to accept money." + +"Still, under the circumstances, the extraordinary combination of +circumstances, I should advise you to--my time is so circumscribed--I +should certainly advise you to--you see, Tempest, with every feeling of +regard for yourself and your father--ahem--Mr. Tempest before you, it is +difficult for a person situated as I am at the present moment, to offer +you, on the eve of the general election, any position at all adequate +to your undeniably great abilities." + +"We shall not hear much more of my great abilities now that I am +penniless," said John, with bitterness. "If I can get any kind of +employment by which I can support myself and an old servant, I shall be +thankful." + +Lord ---- promised to do his best. He felt obliged to add that he could +do but little, but he would do what he could. John might rest assured of +that. In the meantime---- He looked anxiously at the watch on the table. +John understood, and took his leave. Lord ---- pressed him warmly by the +hand, commended his conduct, once more deplored the turn events had +taken, which he should consider as strictly private until they had been +publicly announced, and assured him he would keep him in his mind, and +communicate with him immediately should any vacancy occur that, etc., +etc. + +John retraced his steps wearily to the hotel. The loss of his career had +stung him yesterday. How to keep Mitty in comfort seemed of far greater +importance to-day--how to provide a home for her with a little kitchen +in it. John wondered whether he and Mitty could live on a hundred a +year. He knew a good deal about the ways and means of the working +classes, but of how the poor of his own class lived he knew nothing. + +But even the thought of Mitty could not hold him long. His mind ever +went back to Di with an agony of despair and rapture. During these +three interminable months during which he had not seen her, he had +pictured her to himself as taking life as usual, wondering perhaps +sometimes--yes, certainly wondering--why he did not come; but it had +never struck him that she would be unhappy. When he saw her he had +suddenly realized that the same emotions which had rent his soul had +left their imprint on her face. Could women really love like men? Could +Di actually, after her own fashion, feel towards him one tithe of the +love he felt for her? John recognized with an exaltation, which for the +moment transfigured as by fire the empty desolation of his heart, that +the change which had been wrought in Di was his own work. Her cheek had +grown pale for him, her eyes had wept for him, her very beauty had +become dimmed for his sake. + +"I shall go mad," said John, starting to his feet. "Why is that damned +letter still unposted?" + +Purpose was melting within him. The irrevocable step even now had not +been taken. Lord ---- and his own lawyer would say nothing if at the +eleventh hour he drew back. He must act finally this instant, or he +would never act at all. + +He went into the next room, where Archie was languidly shaving himself +in a pink silk _peignoir_, and obtained from him Colonel Tempest's +address. He addressed the letter, and took his hat and stick. + +"I will post it myself this instant," he said to himself. + +He went quickly downstairs and across the little court, scattering the +pigeons. His face looked worn and ravaged in the vivid sunshine. + +He passed under the archway into the street, and as he did so two +well-dressed men came out of a _cafe_ on the opposite side. Before he +had gone many steps one of them crossed the road, and raised his hat, +holding out a card. + +"Mr. Tempest of Overleigh, I think," he said respectfully. + +John stopped and looked at the man. He did not know him. The decisive +moment had come even before posting the letter. + +"Now or never," whispered conscience. + +"My name is Fane," he said, and passed on. + +The man fell back at once and rejoined his companion. + +"I told you so," he said. "That man is a deal too old, and he said his +name was Fane. It's the other one in the tow wig, as I said from the +first. That ain't real hair. It's the wig as alters him." + +John posted his letter, saw it slide past recall, and then walked back +to the hotel, found Archie in the sitting-room reading the playbills for +the evening, and told him. + +Perhaps nothing is more characteristic of our fellow-creatures than the +manner in which they bear unexpected reverses of fortune. Archie had +some of the callousness of feeling for others which accompanies lack of +imagination. He had never put himself in the place of others. He was not +likely to begin now. He had no intention of hurting John by setting his +iron heel on his face. He had no idea people minded being trodden on. +And, indeed, as John stood by the window with his hands clasped behind +his back, he was as indifferent as he appeared to be to anything that +Archie, pacing up and down the room with flashing eyes, could say. He +had at last closed the iron gates of the irrevocable behind himself, and +he was at first too much stunned by the clang even to hear what the +excited young man was talking about. Perhaps it was just as well. + +"By Jove!" Archie was saying, as John's attention came slowly back. "To +think of the old governor at Overleigh, poor old chap! He has missed it +all his best years, but I hope he'll live to enjoy it yet. I do indeed." +Archie felt he could afford to be generous. "And Di, John, dear old Di, +shall come and queen it at Overleigh. And she shall have a suitable +fortune. I'll make father do the right thing by Di. He won't want to do +more than he can help, because she has never been much of a daughter to +him; but he shall. And when it's known, she'll marry off quick enough; +and I'll see it gets about. And don't you be down-hearted, John. We'll +do the right thing by you. You know you never cared for the money when +you had it. You were always a bit of a screw, to yourself as well as to +others--I will say that for you; but--let me see--you allowed me three +hundred a year. Don't you wish now it had been four? for you shall have +the same, if the old guv. agrees. And I dare say I shall be a bit freer +with a ten-pound note now and then than ever you were to me." + +"There will be no necessity for this reckless generosity," said John, +wondering why he did not writhe, as a man might who watches a knife cut +into his benumbed limb. It gave him no pain. + +"And you shall have a hunter," continued Archie. "By Jove, what hunting +_I_ shall have! I shall get the governor to add another wing to the +stables; and I will keep Quicksilver for you, John. You mustn't turn +rusty because the luck has come to us at last. You know I knew all along +I ought to have been the heir, and I put up with your being there, and +never raised a dust." + +"I think I can promise I shall not raise a dust," said John, +dispassionately, watching the knife turn in his flesh. + +"And--and," continued Archie--"why, I need not marry money now. I can +take my pick." New vistas seemed to open at every turn. His weak mouth +fell ajar. "My word, John, times are changed. And--my debts; I can pay +them off." + +"And run up more," said John. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody any +good." + +"I don't call it much of an ill wind," said Archie, chuckling; "not much +of an ill wind." + +In spite of himself, John laughed aloud at the _naivete_ of Archie's +remark. That it was an ill wind to John had not even crossed his mind. + +It would cross Di's, John thought. She would do him justice. But, alas! +from the few who will do us justice we always want so much more, +something infinitely greater than justice--at least, John did. + +The early _table d'hote_ dinner broke in on Archie's soliloquy, and, +much to John's relief, that favoured young gentleman discovered that a +lady of his acquaintance was dancing at one of the theatres that +evening, and he determined to go and see her. He could not persuade John +to accompany him, even though he offered, with the utmost generosity, +to introduce him to her. + +"Well, if you won't, you won't," said Archie, seeing his persuasions did +nought avail, and much preferring to go by himself. "If you would rather +sit over the fire in the dumps, that's your affair, not mine. Ta-ta. I +expect you will have turned in before I'm back. By-the-by, can you lend +me five thick 'uns?" + +John was on the point of refusing when he remembered that the actual +money he had with him was more Archie's than his. + +"Thank'ee," said Archie. "You part easier than you used to do. I expect +it'll be the last time I shall borrow of you--eh, John? It will be the +other way about in future." + +"Will it?" said John, as he put back his pocket-book. + +Archie laughed and went out. + +Oh! it is good to be young and handsome and admired. The dancers +pirouetted in the intense electric light, and the music played on every +chord of Archie's light pleasure-loving soul. And he clapped and +applauded with the rest, his pulse leaping high and higher. A sense of +triumph possessed him. His one thorn in the flesh was gone for ever. He +rode on the top of the wave. He had had all else before, and now the one +thing that was lacking to him had come. He was rich, rich, rich. There +was much goods laid up for many years of pleasure. + +Archie touched the zenith. + + * * * * * + +It was very late, or rather it was very early, when he walked home +through the deserted streets. A great mental exaltation was still upon +him, but his body was exhausted, and the cool night air and the +silence, after the babel of tongues, and the shrieking choruses, and the +flaring lights of the last few hours, were pleasant to his aching eyes +and head. + +The dawn stretched like a drawn sword behind the city. The Seine lay, a +long line of winding mist under its many bridges. The ruins of the +scorched Tuileries pushed up against the sky. Archie leant a moment on +the parapet, and looked down to the Seine below whispering in its +shroud. He took off his hat and pushed back the light curling hair from +his forehead, laughing softly to himself. + +An invisible boat, with a red blur coming down-stream, was making a low +continuous warning sound. + +A hand came suddenly over his shoulder, and was pressed upon his mouth, +and at the same instant something exceeding sharp and swift, pointed +with death, pierced his back, once and again. Archie saw his hat drop +over the parapet into the mist. + +He tried to struggle, but in vain. He was choking. + +"It is a dream," he said. "I shall wake. I have dreamt it before." + +He looked wildly round him. + +The steadfast dawn was witness from afar. There was the boat still +passing down-stream. There was the city before him, with its spires +piercing the mist. _Was_ it a dream? + +The hot blood rushed up into his mouth. The drenched hand released its +pressure. + +"I shall wake," he said, and he fell forward on his face. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + "The earth buildeth on the earth castles and towers; + The earth sayeth to the earth, 'All shall be ours;' + The earth walketh on the earth, glistering like gold; + The earth goeth to the earth sooner than it wold." + + +John was late next morning. He had not slept for many nights, and the +heavy slumber of entire exhaustion fell on him towards dawn. It was +nearly midday when he re-entered the sitting-room where he had sat up so +late the night before. + +He went to Archie's room to see whether he had come in; but it was +empty. + +He was impatient to be gone, to get away from that marble-topped +side-table, and the horsehair chairs, and the gilt clock on the +mantelpiece. At least, he thought he wished to get away from these +things; but it was from himself that he really wanted to get away--from +this miserable tortured self that was all that was left of him in this +his hour of weakness and prostration; the hour which inevitably succeeds +all great exertions of strength. How could he drag this wretched +creature about with him? He abhorred himself; the thought of being with +himself was intolerable. It seems hard that the nobler side of human +nature, which can cheer and urge its weaker brother up such steep paths +of duty and self-sacrifice, should desert us when the summit is +achieved, leaving the weaker to wail unreproved over its bleeding feet +and rent garments till we madden at the sound. + +An overwhelming sense of loneliness fell on John as he sat waiting for +Archie to come in. He had no strong, earnest, steadfast self to bear +him company. He felt deserted, lost. + +Who has not experienced it, that fierce depression and loathing of all +life, which, though at the time we know it not, is only the writhing and +fainting of the starved human affections! The very ordinary sources from +which the sharpest suffering springs, shows us later on how narrow are +the limits within which our common human nature works, and from which +yet irradiate such diversities of pain. + +Alphonse disturbed him at last to ask whether he and "Monsieur" would +dine at _table d'hote_. "Monsieur," with a glance at Archie's door, had +not yet come in. + +John said they would both dine; and then, roused somewhat by the +interruption, an idea struck him. Had Archie, in the excitement of the +moment, gone back to England without telling him? + +He went to the room, but there were no evidences of departure. On the +bed the clothes were thrown which Archie had worn on the previous day. +The gold watch John had given him was on the dressing-table. He had +evidently left it there on purpose, not caring, perhaps, to risk taking +it with him. All the paraphernalia of a man who studies his appearance +were strewed on the table. There was his little moustache-brush, and +phial of _brilliantine_ to burnish it. John knew that he would never +have left _that_ behind. Archie had evidently intended to return. + +In the mean while hour succeeded hour, but he did not come. That Archie +should have been out all night was not surprising, but that he should be +still out now in his evening clothes in the daytime, began to be +incomprehensible. After a few premonitory tremors of misgiving, which, +man-like, he laughed at himself for entertaining, John took alarm. + +Evening fell, and still no Archie. And then a hideous night followed, in +which John forgot everything in heaven above or earth beneath except +Archie. The police were informed. The actress at whose house he had +supped after the play was interviewed, but could only vociferate between +her sobs that he had left her house with the remainder of her party in +the early hours of the morning, and she had not seen him since. + +Directly the office opened, John telegraphed to his colonel to know if +he had returned to London. The answer came, "Absent without leave." + +John remembered that he had only three days' leave, and that the third +day was up yesterday. Archie would not have forgotten that. + +A nightmare of a day passed. John had been out during the greater part +of it, rushing back at intervals in the hope, that was no longer +anything but a masked despair, of finding Archie in his rooms on his +return. + +In the dusk of the afternoon he came back once more, and peered for the +twentieth time into the littered bedroom, which the frightened servants +had left exactly as Archie had left it. He was standing in the doorway +looking into the empty room, where a certain horror was beginning to +gather round the familiar objects with which it was strewed, when a +voice spoke to him. + +It was the superintendent of police to whom he had gone long ago--the +night before--when first the horror began. Alphonse, who had shown him +up, was watching through the doorway. + +The man said something in French. John did not hear him, but it did not +matter much. He knew. They went downstairs together. Alphonse brought +him his hat and stick. The other waiters were gathered in a little knot +at the _table d'hote_ door. A fiacre was waiting under the archway. John +and the superintendent got into it, and it drove off at once without +waiting for directions. They were lighting the lamps in the streets. The +dusk was falling, falling like the shadow of death. They drove deeper +and ever deeper into it. + +Time ceased to be. + +"Nous voici, Monsieur," said the man, gravely, as they pulled up before +a building, the long low outline of which was dimly visible. + +John knew it was the Morgue. + +He followed his guide down a white-washed passage into a long room. +There was a cluster of people at the further end, towards which the man +was leading him, and in the dusk there was a subdued whispering, and a +sound of trickling water. + +As they reached the further end, some one turned on the electric light, +and it fell full on a man's figure on one of the slabs. A little crowd +of people were peering through the glass screen at the toy which the +Seine had tired of and cast aside. + +"Ah! qu'il est beau," said a high woman's voice. + +John shaded his eyes and looked. + +The face was turned away, but John knew the hair, fair to whiteness in +that brilliant light, as he had often seen it in London ball-rooms. + +They let him through the glass screen which kept off the crowd, and, +oblivious of the many eyes watching him, John bent over the slab and +touched the clenched marble hand with the signet-ring on it which he had +given him when they were at Oxford together. + +Yes, it was Archie. + +The dead face was set in the nervous grin with which he had been wont in +life to meet the inevitable and the distasteful. + +The blue pencillings of dissolution had touched to inexorable +distinctness the thin lines of dissipation in the cheek and at the +corners of the mouth. The death of the body had overtaken the creeping +death of the soul. Their landmarks met. + +The poor beautiful effeminate face, devoid of all that makes death +bearable, stared up at the electric light. + +An impotent overwhelming compassion, as for some ephemeral irresponsible +being of another creation, who knows not how to guide itself in this +grim world of law, and has wandered blindfold within the sweep of a vast +machinery of which it knew nothing, wrung John's heart. He hid his face +in his hands. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + "For human bliss and woe in the frail thread + Of human life are all so closely twined, + That till the shears of fate the texture shred, + The close succession cannot be disjoined, + Nor dare we, from our hour, judge that which comes behind." + SIR WALTER SCOTT. + + +Di had seen her father and Archie off on their journey to Brighton, and, +having arranged to replace her brother in three days' time, was +surprised when a hasty note, the morning after their departure, informed +her that Archie had been recalled to London _on business_, and that she +must go to her father at once. + +Mrs. Courtenay was incensed. Archie had shirked before, and now he had +shirked again. But Colonel Tempest remained in far too precarious a +condition for her to refuse to allow her granddaughter to go, as she +would certainly otherwise have done. So Di went off the morning after +the Speaker's party. + +She had told Mrs. Courtenay that she had met John there. + +"In one way I am glad to have met him," she said firmly, her proud lip +quivering. "Any uncertainty I may have been weak enough to feel is at an +end, and it was time the end should come. For, in spite of all you said, +I had had a lingering idea that if we met----. And now we _have_ +met--and he had evidently no wish to see me again." + +Mrs. Courtenay looked fixedly at the beautiful pallid face, and wondered +that she had ever wished Di had a heart. + +"This pain will pass," she said gently. "You have always believed me, +Di; believe me now. Take courage and wait. You have had an untroubled +life till now. That has passed. Trouble has come. It is part of life. It +will pass too; not the feeling, perhaps, but the suffering." + +"Good-bye, my child," she said a little later, kissing the girl's cold +cheek with a tenderness which Di was powerless to return. "Take care of +yourself. Go out every day; the sea air will do you good. And tell your +father I cannot spare you more than a fortnight." + +Di would have given anything to show her grandmother that she was +thankful--oh, how thankful in this grey world!--for her sympathy and +love, but she had no words. She kissed Mrs. Courtenay, and went down to +the cab. + +Mrs. Courtenay remained motionless until she heard it drive away. Then +she let two tears run down from below her spectacles, and wiped them +away. No more followed them. The old cannot give way like the young. +Mrs. Courtenay had once said that nothing had power to touch her very +nearly; but she was still vulnerable on one point. Her old heart, worn +with so many troubles, ached for her granddaughter. + +"Thank God," she said to herself, "that in the next world there will be +neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Perhaps God Almighty sees it's +a mistake." + +Di found Colonel Tempest wrapped up in a _duvet_ in an armchair by the +window of his sitting-room, in a state of equal indignation against his +children for deserting him, and against the rain for blurring the +seaview from the window. With his nurse, it is hardly necessary to add, +he was not on speaking terms--a fact which seemed to cause that +patient, apathetic person very little annoyance, she being, as she told +Di, "accustomed to gentlemen." + +Di soothed him as best she could, took his tray from the nurse at the +door, so that he might be spared as much as possible the sight of the +most hideous woman in the world, rang for lights, and drew a curtain +before the untactful rain, while he declaimed alternately on the +enormity of Archie's behaviour, and on the callousness of Mrs. Courtenay +in endeavouring to keep his daughter, his only daughter, away from him. +Colonel Tempest and Archie detested Mrs. Courtenay. However much the +father and son might disagree and bicker on most subjects, they could +always sing a little duet together in perfect harmony about her. + +Colonel Tempest began a feeble solo on that theme to Di when he had +finished with Archie; but Di visibly froze, and somehow the subject, +often as it was started, always dropped. Di, as Colonel Tempest +frequently informed her, did not care to hear the truth about her +grandmother. If she knew all that _he_ did about her, and what her +behaviour had been to _him_, she would not be so fond of her as she +evidently was. + +Earlier in his illness Di had been obliged to exercise patience with her +father, but she needed none now. That is the one small compensation for +deep trouble. It numbs the power of feeling small irritations. It is +when it begins to lift somewhat that the small irritations fit +themselves out with new stings. Di had not reached that stage yet. The +doctor who came daily to see her father looked narrowly at her, and +ordered her to go out-of-doors as much as possible, in wet weather or +fine. + +"I sometimes take a little nap after luncheon," said Colonel Tempest +with dignity. "You might go out then, Di." + +"Miss Tempest will in any case go out morning and afternoon," said the +doctor with decision. + +Colonel Tempest had before had his doubts whether the doctor understood +his case, but now they were confirmed. He wished to change doctors, and +a painful scene ensued between him and Di, in the course of which a hole +was kicked in the _duvet_, and a cup of broth was upset. But it is an +ascertained fact that women are not amenable to reason. Di sewed up the +hole in the _duvet_, rubbed the carpet, and remained, as Colonel Tempest +hysterically informed her, "as obstinate as her mother before her." + +On the second morning after her arrival at Brighton she was sitting with +Colonel Tempest, reading the papers to him, when the waiter brought in +the letters. There were none for her, two for her father. One was a +foreign letter with a blue French stamp. She took them to him where he +lay on the sofa. + +Colonel Tempest looked at them. + +"Nothing from Archie again," he said. "He does not care even to write +and ask whether I am alive or dead." + +"Archie is not a good hand at writing," said Di, echoing, for the sake +of saying something, the time-honoured masculine plea for exemption from +the tedium of domestic correspondence. + +"This is John's hand," said Colonel Tempest. "A Paris postmark. How +these rich men do rush about!" + +Di had actually not known it was John's writing. She had never seen it, +to her knowledge, but nevertheless it appeared to her extraordinary that +she had not at once divined that it was his. She was not anxious to +hear her father's comments on John's letter, or the threadbare remark, +sacred to the poor relation, that when the rich one _was_ sitting down +to draw a cheque he might just as well have written it for double the +amount. He would never have known the difference. The poor relation +always knows exactly how much the rich one can afford to give. So Di +told her father she was going out, and left the room. + +It stung her, as she laced her boots, to think that John had probably +sent another cheque to cover their expenses at the hotel, and that the +fried soles and semolina-pudding which she had ordered for luncheon +would be paid for by him. It exasperated her still more to know that +whatever John sent, Colonel Tempest would pronounce to be mean. + +Before she had finished lacing her boots, however, the sitting-room door +was opened, and Di heard her father calling wildly to her. + +Colonel Tempest was not allowed to move, except with great precaution, +owing to the slow healing of the obstinate internal injury caused by +that unlucky pistol-shot. + +She rushed headlong downstairs. + +"Father!" she cried, horrified to find him standing on the landing. +"Father, come back at once!" And she put her arms round him, and +supported him back to the sofa. + +He was trembling from head to foot. She saw that something had happened, +but he was not in a state to be questioned. She administered what +restoratives she had at hand, and presently the constantly moving lips +got out the words, "Read it;" and Colonel Tempest pointed to a letter on +the floor. + +"Read it," repeated Colonel Tempest, lying back on his cushions, and +recovering from his momentary collapse. "Read it." + +Di picked up the letter and sat down by the window. She was suddenly too +tired to stand. Her father was talking wildly, but she did not hear him; +was calling to her to read it aloud, but she did not hear him. She saw +only John's strong, small handwriting. + +It was a business letter, couched in the most matter-of-fact terms. John +stated his case--expressed a formal regret that the facts he mentioned +had not come to light at Mr. Tempest's death, mentioned that the +accumulation of income during his minority had fortunately remained +untouched, that he had desired his lawyer to communicate with Colonel +Tempest, and signed himself "John Fane." He had written the word +"Tempest," and had then struck it through. + +Di pressed her forehead against the glass on which the rain was beating. + +Was the emotion which was shattering her joy or sorrow, or both? + +She knew it was joy. In a lightning-flash of comprehension she realized +that it was this awful calamity which had kept John silent, which had +held him back from coming to her, from asking her to marry him. He loved +her still! Love, dead and buried, had risen out of his grave. The +impossible had happened. John loved her still. + +"I cannot bear it," she said; and for a moment the long yellow waves, +and her father's impatient voice, and even John's letter, were alike +blotted out, unheard. + +Colonel Tempest considered Di's apathy, after she had read the letter, +unfeeling and unsympathetic in the extreme, and he did not hesitate to +tell her so. But when she presently turned her averted face towards him +he was already off on another tack, his excitement, which seemed to +increase rather than diminish, tossing him as a wave tosses a spar. + +"Twenty years," he said tremulously. "Think of it, Di--not that you seem +to care! Twenty years have I toiled and moiled in poverty, twenty years +have I and my children been ground down while that nameless interloper +has spent our money right and left. Oh, my God! I've got it at last. +I've got my own at last. But who will give me back those twenty years?" +and Colonel Tempest's voice broke into a sob. + +Other consequences of that letter began to dawn on Di's awakening +consciousness. + +"Then John," she said, bewildered. "Oh, father, what will become of +John?" + +"John," said Colonel Tempest, bitterly, "is now just where I was twenty +years ago--disinherited, penniless. He has kept me out all these years, +and now at last Providence gives me my own." + +It is to be hoped that Providence is not really responsible for all the +shady transactions for which we offer up our best thanks. + +"I dare say he has put by," continued Colonel Tempest. "He has had time +enough." + +"You have not read the letter carefully," said Di. "He only discovered +all this less than three months ago, and you have been ill for more than +two." + +Colonel Tempest did not hear her. He had ceased for the last twenty +years to hear anything he did not want to. + +"Fifty thousand a year," he went on; "not a penny less. And the New +River shares have gone up since Jack's day. And there was a large sum +which rolled up during the minority. John is right there. There must be +over a hundred thousand. You shall have that, Di. Archie will kick, but +you shall have it. Eight thousand pounds John settled on you a year ago. +That was the amount of _his_ generosity to my poor girl. You shall not +have a penny less than a hundred thousand. Not during my lifetime, of +course; but when I die----" he added hastily. + +Di could articulate nothing. + +"I shall pay my own debts and Archie's in a moment," he continued, not +noticing whether she answered or not. "If you want a new gown, Di, you +may send the bill to me. I don't believe I owe a thousand, and Archie +not so much, poor lad, though John was always pulling a long face over +his debts. How deuced mean John was from first to last! Well, do as you +would be done by. I'll do for him alone what he thought enough for the +two of you. I'll never give him cause to say I'm close-fisted. He shall +have your eight thousand, and he shall have three hundred a year, the +same that he allowed Archie, as well." + +"He won't take it." + +"Won't take it!" said Colonel Tempest, contemptuously. "That's all you +know about the world, Di. I tell you he'll have to take it. I tell you +he has not a sixpence in the world at this moment, to say nothing of +owing me twenty years' income." + +Colonel Tempest rambled on of how Archie should leave the army and live +at Overleigh, of how Di should live there too, and Mrs. Courtenay might +go to the devil. Presently he fell to wondering what state the shooting +was in, and how many pheasants John was breeding at that moment. Every +instant it became more unbearable, till at last Di sent for the nurse, +made an excuse of posting her letters, and slipped out of the room. + +She went out to her old friends, the yellow waves, and, too exhausted to +walk, sat down under the lee of one of the high wooden rivets between +which the sea licks the pebbly shore into grooves. + +Gradually the tension of her mind relaxed. Di sat and watched the waves +until they washed away the high invalid voice vibrating in some acute +recess of her brain; washed away the hideous thought that they were rich +because John was penniless and dishonoured; washed away everything +except the one fact that his silence was accounted for, and that he +loved her after all. + +Di looked out across the rain-trodden sea. If it was raining, she did +not know it. What did anything in this wide world matter so long as John +loved her? Poverty was nothing. Marriage was nothing either. What did +it matter if they could not marry so long as they loved each other? + +Once in a lifetime it is vouchsafed alike to the worldly and to the +pure, to the earnest and to the frivolous, to discern that vision--which +has been ever life's greatest reality or life's greatest illusion +according to the character of the beholder--that to love and to be loved +is enough. + +A wet glint came across the sea, exquisite and evanescent as the gleam +across Di's heart. + +"It is enough!" said Di; and her soul was flooded with a solemn joy a +thousand times deeper than when she had first discovered her love for +John, and his for her, and a brilliant future was before her. + +Sorrow with his pick mines the heart. But he is a cunning workman. He +deepens the channels whereby happiness may enter, and hollows out new +chambers for joy to abide in, when he is gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding + small." + LONGFELLOW. + + +The doctor was sitting with Colonel Tempest on Di's return to the hotel, +and Di perceived that her father, who was still in a very excited state, +had been telling him about his sudden change of fortune. + +The doctor courteously offered his congratulations, and on leaving made +a pretext of inquiring after Di's health in order to see her alone. + +"Colonel Tempest has been telling me of his unexpected access of +wealth," he said. "In his present condition of nervous prostration, and +tendency to cerebral excitement, the information should most certainly +have been withheld from him. His brain is not in a state to bear the +strain which such an event might have put upon it, has put upon it. Were +such a thing to occur again in his enfeebled condition, I cannot answer +for the consequences." + +"It was absolutely unforeseen," said Di. "None of us had the remotest +suspicion. He has been in the habit of reading his letters for the past +month." + +"They must be kept from him for the present," replied the doctor. "Let +them be brought to you in future, and use your own discretion about +showing them to him after you have read them yourself. Your father must +be guarded from all agitation." + +This was more easily said than done. Nothing could turn Colonel +Tempest's shattered, restless mind from hopping like a grasshopper on +that one subject for the remainder of the day. The bit of cork in his +medicine, which at another time would have elicited a torrent of +indignation, excited only a momentary attention. He talked without +ceasing--hinted darkly at danger to John which that young man's +creditable though tardy action had averted, alluded to passages in his +own life which nothing would induce him to divulge, and then lighting on +a sentimental vein, discoursed of a happy old age (the old age of +fiction), in which he should see Archie's and Di's children playing in +the gallery at Overleigh. And the old name---- + +Di had not realized, until her parent descanted upon the subject in a +way that set her teeth on edge, how hideous, how vulgar, is the seamy +side of pride of birth. When Colonel Tempest began to dwell on "the +goodness and the grace that on his birth had smiled," shall we blame Di +if she put on the clock half an hour, and rang for the nurse? + +Things were not much better next morning. Di gave strict orders that all +letters and telegrams should be brought to her room. Colonel Tempest +fidgeted because he had not heard from the lawyer in whose hands John +had placed the transfer of the property. The letter was in Di's pocket, +but she dared not give it to him, for though it contained nothing to +agitate him, she knew that the fact that she had opened it would raise a +whirlwind. + +"And Archie," said Colonel Tempest, querulously--"I ought to have heard +from him too. If John told him the same day that he wrote to me, we +ought to have heard from Archie this morning. I should have imagined +that though Archie did not give his father a thought when he was poor, +he might have thought him worthy of a little consideration _now_." + +"If that is the motive you would have given him if he had written, it is +just as well he has not," said Di; but she wondered at his silence +nevertheless. + +But she did not wonder long. + +She left her father busily writing to an imaginary lawyer, for he had +neither the name nor address of John's, and on the landing met a servant +bringing a telegram to her room. She took it upstairs, and though it was +addressed to her father, opened it. She had no apprehension of evil. The +old are afraid of telegrams, but the young have made them common, and +have worn out their prestige. + +The telegram was from John, merely stating that Archie had been taken +seriously ill. + +Di's heart gave a leap of thankfulness that her father had been spared +this further shock. But Archie. Seriously ill. She was indignant at +John's vague statement. What did seriously ill mean? Why could not he +say what was the matter? And how could she keep the fact of his illness +from her father? Ought she to go at once to Archie? Seriously ill. How +like a man to send a telegram of that kind! She would telegraph at once +to John for particulars, and go or stay according as the doctor thought +she could or could not safely leave her father. Di put on her walking +things, and ran out to the post-office round the corner, where she +despatched a peremptory telegram to John; and then, seeing there was no +one else to advise her, hurried to the doctor's house close at hand. For +a wonder he was in. For a greater still, his last patient walked out as +she walked in. The doctor, with the quickness of his kind, saw the +difficulty, and caught up his hat to come with her. + +"You shall go to your brother if you can," was the only statement to +which he would commit himself during the two minutes' walk in the rain; +the two minutes which sealed Colonel Tempest's fate. + + * * * * * + +No one knew exactly how it happened. Perhaps the hall porter had gone to +his dinner, and the little boy who took his place for half an hour +brought up the telegram to the person to whom it was addressed. No one +knew afterwards how it had happened. It did happen, that was all. + +Colonel Tempest had the pink paper in his hand as the doctor and Di +entered the room. He was laughing softly to himself. + +"Archie is dead," he said, chuckling. "That is what John would like me +to believe. But I know better. It is John that is dead. It is John who +had to be snuffed out. Swayne said so, and he knew. And John says it's +Archie, and he will write. Ha, ha! We know better, eh, doctor? eh, Di? +John's dead. Eight and twenty years old he was; but he's dead at last. +He won't write any more. He won't spend my money any more. He won't keep +me out any more." + +Colonel Tempest dropped on his knees. The only prayer he knew rose to +his lips. "For what we are going to receive, the Lord make us truly +thankful." + + * * * * * + +For an awful day and night the fierce flame of delirium leaped and fell, +and ever leaped again. With set face Di stood hour after hour in the +blast of the furnace, till doctor and nurse marvelled at her courage and +endurance. + +On the evening of the second day John came. He had written to tell +Colonel Tempest of his coming, but the letter had not been opened. + +The doctor, thinking he was Di's brother, brought him into the +sick-room, too crowded with fearful images for his presence to be +noticed by the sick man. + +"John is dead," the high-pitched terrible voice was saying. "Blundering +fools. First there was the railway, but Goodwin saved him; damn his +officiousness. And then there was the fire. They nearly had him that +time. How grey he looked! Burnt to ashes. Bandaged up to the eyes. But +he got better. And then the carnival. They muffed it again. Oh, Lord, +how slow they were! But"--the voice sank to a frightful whisper--"they +got him in Paris. I don't know how they did it--it's a secret; but they +trapped him at last." + +Suddenly the glassy eyes looked with horrified momentary recognition at +John. + +"Risen from the dead," continued the voice. "I knew he would get up +again. I always said he would; and he has. You can't kill John. There's +no grave deep enough to hold him. Look at him with his head out now, and +the earth upon his hair. We ought to have put a monument over him to +keep him down. He's getting up. I tell you I did not do it. The grave's +not big enough. Swayne dug it for him when he was a little boy--a little +boy at school." + +Di turned her colourless face to John, and smiled at him, as one on the +rack might smile at a friend to show that the anguish is not unbearable. +She felt no surprise at seeing him. She was past surprise. She had +forgotten that she had ever doubted his love. + +In silence he took the hand she held out towards him, and kept it in a +strong gentle clasp that was more comfort than any words. + +Hour after hour they watched and ministered together, and hour by hour +the lamp of life flared grimly low and lower. And after he had told +everything--everything, everything that he had concealed in life--after +John and Di had heard, in awed compassion and forgiveness, every word of +the guilty secret which he had kept under lock and key so many years, at +last the tide of remembrance ebbed away and life with it. + +Did he know them in the quiet hours that followed? Did he recognize +them? They bent over him. They spoke to him gently, tenderly. Did he +understand? They never knew. + +And so, in the grey of an April morning, poor Colonel Tempest, +unconscious of death, which had had so many terrors for him in life, +drifted tranquilly upon its tide from the human compassion that watched +by him here, to the Infinite Pity beyond. + + + + +CONCLUSION. + + "Where there are twa seeking there will be a finding." + + +After John had taken Di back to London he returned to Brighton, and from +thence to Overleigh, to arrange for the double funeral. He had not +remembered to mention that he was coming, and in the dusk of a wet +afternoon he walked up by the way of the wood, and let himself in at the +little postern in the wall. He had not thought he should return to +Overleigh again, yet here he was once more in the dim gallery, with its +faint scent of _pot-pourri_, his hand as he passed stirring it from +long habit. The pictures craned through the twilight to look at him. He +stole quietly upstairs and along the garret gallery. The nursery door +was open. A glow of light fell on Mitty's figure. What was she doing? + +John stopped short and looked at her, and, with a sudden recollection as +of some previous existence, understood. + +Mitty was packing. Two large white grocery boxes were already closed and +corded in one corner. John saw "Best Cubes" printed on them, and it +dawned upon his slow masculine consciousness that those boxes were part +of Mitty's luggage. + +Mitty was standing in the middle of the room, holding at arm's length a +little red flannel dressing-gown, which knocked twenty years off John's +age as he looked. + +"I shall take it," she said, half aloud. "It's wore as thin as thin +behind; that and the open socks as I've mended and better-be-mended;" +and she thrust them both hastily, as if for fear she should repent, into +a tin box, out of which the battered head of John's old horse protruded. + +If there was one thing certain in this world, it was that the Noah's ark +would not go in unless the horse came out. Mitty tried many ways, and +was contemplating them with arms akimbo when John came in. + +She showed no surprise at seeing him, and with astonishment John +realized that it was only six days since he had left Overleigh. It was +actually not yet a week since that far-distant afternoon, separated from +the present by such a chasm, when he had lain on his face in the +heather, and the deep passions of youth had rent him and let him go. +Here at Overleigh time stopped. He came back twenty years older, and the +almanac on his writing-table marked six days. + +John made the necessary arrangements for the funeral to take place at +midnight, according to the Tempest custom, which he knew Colonel Tempest +would have been the last to waive. He wrote to tell Di what he had +settled, together with the hour and the date. He dared not advise her +not to be present, but he remembered the vast concourse of people who +had assembled at his father's funeral to see the torchlight procession, +and he hoped she would not come. + +But Mrs. Courtenay wrote back that her granddaughter was fixed in her +determination to be present, that she had reluctantly consented to it, +and would accompany her herself. She added in a postscript that no doubt +John would arrange for them to stay the night at Overleigh, and they +should return to London the next day. + + * * * * * + +The night of the funeral was exceeding dark and still; so still that +many, watching from a distance on Moat-hill, heard the voice saying, "I +am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in +Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." + +And again-- + +"We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry +nothing out." + +The night was so calm that the torches burned upright and unwavering, +casting a steadfast light on church and graveyard and tilted tombstones, +on the crowded darkness outside, and on the worn faces of a man and +woman who stood together between two open graves. + + * * * * * + +John and Di exchanged no word as they drove home. There were lights and +a fire in the music-room, and she went in there, and began absently to +take off her hat and long crepe veil. Mrs. Courtenay had gone to bed. + +John followed Di with a candle in his hand. He offered it to her, but +she did not take it. + +"It is good-bye as well as good night," he said, holding out his hand. +"I must leave here very early to-morrow." + +Di took no notice of his outstretched hand. She was looking into the +fire. + +"You must rest," he said gently, trying to recall her to herself. + +A swift tremor passed over her face. + +"You are right," she said, in a low voice. "I will rest--when I have had +five minutes' talk with you." + +John shut the door, and came back to the fireside. He believed he knew +what was coming, and his face hardened. It was bitter to him that Di +thought it worth while to speak to him on the subject. She ought to +have known him better. + +She faced him with difficulty, but without hesitation. They looked each +other in the eyes. + +"You are going to London early to see your lawyer," she said, "on the +subject that you wrote to father about." + +"I am." + +"That is why I must speak to you to-night. I dare not wait." Her eyes +fell before the stern intentness of his. Her voice faltered a moment, +and then went on. "John, don't go. It is not necessary. Don't grieve me +by leaving Overleigh, or--changing your name." + +A great bitterness welled up in John's heart against the woman he +loved--the bitterness which sooner or later few men escape, of realizing +how feeble is a woman's perception of what is honourable or +dishonourable in a man. + +"Ah, Di," he said, "you are very generous. But do not let us speak of it +again. Such a thing could not be." + +He took her hand, but she withdrew it instantly. + +"John," she said with dignity, "you misunderstand me. It would be a poor +kind of generosity in me to offer what it is impossible for you to +accept. You wound me by thinking I could do such a thing. I only meant +to ask you to keep your present name and home for a little while, +until--they both will become yours again by right--the day when--you +marry me." + +A beautiful colour had mounted to Di's face. John's became white as +death. + +"Do you love me?" he said hoarsely, shaking from head to foot. + +"Yes," she replied, trembling as much as he. + +He held her in his arms. The steadfast heart that understood and loved +him beat against his own. + +"Di!" he stammered--"Di!" + +And they wept and clung together like two children. + + + + +POSTSCRIPT. + + +Mitty's packing was never finished--why, she did not understand. But +John, who helped her to rearrange her things, understood, and that was +enough for her. For many springs and spring cleanings the horse-chestnut +buds peered in at the nursery windows and found her still within. I +think the wishes of Mitty's heart all came to pass, and that she loved +"Miss Dinah;" but nevertheless I believe that, to the end of life, she +never quite ceased to regret the little kitchen that John had spoken of, +where she would have made "rock buns" for her lamb, and waited on him +"hand and foot." + + +PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED. +LONDON AND BECCLES. + +_D. & Co._ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA TEMPEST, VOLUME III (OF 3)*** + + +******* This file should be named 37975.txt or 37975.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/9/7/37975 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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