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diff --git a/37975-h/37975-h.htm b/37975-h/37975-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8dee695 --- /dev/null +++ b/37975-h/37975-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7240 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Diana Tempest, Volume III (of 3), by Mary Cholmondeley</title> + <style type="text/css"> + + blockquote { + text-align:justify; + } + + body { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + } + + .booktitle { + letter-spacing:3px; + } + + div.inset16 { + margin-top:1em; + margin-bottom:1em; + margin-left:auto; + margin-right:auto; + width:16em; + text-indent:0; + } + + div.main { + font-size:100%; + } + + .dropimg { + float:left; + margin-right:.5em; + margin-bottom:0; + } + + .figcenter { + padding:1em; + text-align:center; + font-size:0.8em; + border:none; + margin:auto; + text-indent:1em; + } + + .h1 { + font-size:2em; + margin:.67em 0; + } + + .h1, .h2, .h3, .h4 { + font-weight:bolder; + text-align:center; + text-indent:0; + } + + h1, h2, h3, h4 { + text-align:center; + } + + .h2 { + font-size:1.5em; + margin:.75em 0; + } + + .h3 { + font-size:1.17em; + margin:.83em 0; + } + + .h4 { + margin:1.12em 0 ; + } + + hr.chapter { + margin-top:6em; + margin-bottom:4em; + } + + hr.tb { + margin:2em 25%; + width:50%; + } + + p { + text-align:justify; + margin-top:.75em; + margin-bottom:.75em; + text-indent:0; + } + + p.spacer { + margin-top:2em; + margin-bottom:3em; + } + + .pagenum { +/* visibility:hidden; remove comment out to hide page numbers */ + position:absolute; + right:2%; + font-size:75%; + color:gray; + background-color:inherit; + text-align:right; + text-indent:0; + font-style:normal; + font-weight:normal; + font-variant:normal; + } + + .poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + margin-bottom:1em; + text-align:left; + } + + .poem .stanza { + margin:1em 0em 1em 0em; + } + + .poem p { + margin:0; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i0 { + display:block; + margin-left:0em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i2 { + display:block; + margin-left:2em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i6 { + display:block; + margin-left:6em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i8 { + display:block; + margin-left:8em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i10 { + display:block; + margin-left:10em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i12 { + display:block; + margin-left:12em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i14 { + display:block; + margin-left:14em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .smcap { + font-variant:small-caps; + } + + span.hide { + display:none + } + + .topbox { + width:400px; + margin-top:5%; + margin-bottom:5%; + padding:1em; + color:black; + border:2px solid black; + } + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Diana Tempest, Volume III (of 3), by Mary +Cholmondeley</h1> +<pre> +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 <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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