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@@ -1,42 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grim Tales, by Edith Nesbit - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Grim Tales - -Author: Edith Nesbit - -Release Date: July 24, 2012 [EBook #40321] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM TALES *** - - - - -Produced by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This book was created from -images of public domain material made available by the -University of Toronto Libraries -(http://link.library.utoronto.ca/booksonline/).) - - - - - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40321 *** GRIM TALES. @@ -164,7 +126,7 @@ Directly after breakfast next morning I paid a visit to the lumber-room. It was crammed with old furniture enough to stock a curiosity shop. All the house was furnished solidly in the early Victorian style, and in this room everything not in keeping with the "drawing-room suite" ideal -was stowed away. Tables of papier-mache and mother-of-pearl, +was stowed away. Tables of papier-maché and mother-of-pearl, straight-backed chairs with twisted feet and faded needlework cushions, firescreens of old-world design, oak bureaux with brass handles, a little work-table with its faded moth-eaten silk flutings hanging in @@ -2021,7 +1983,7 @@ night and of our happy love; and came away at last with a sense that even scrubbing and blackleading were but small troubles at their worst. Mrs. Dorman had come back from the village, and I at once invited her to -a _tete-a-tete_. +a _tête-à -tête_. "Now, Mrs. Dorman," I said, when I had got her into my painting room, "what's all this about your not staying with us?" @@ -2891,7 +2853,7 @@ AMETHYST. BY C. R. COLERIDGE. NEW NOVELS IN PREPARATION. WAYNFLETE. By C. R. COLERIDGE, author of "Amethyst." 2 vols. Crown 8vo, -L1 1s. +£1 1s. THE VOICE OF A FLOWER. BY EMILY GERARD. 1 vol. Crown 8vo, 6s. @@ -2901,368 +2863,4 @@ THE VOICE OF A FLOWER. BY EMILY GERARD. 1 vol. Crown 8vo, 6s. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Grim Tales - -Author: Edith Nesbit - -Release Date: July 24, 2012 [EBook #40321] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM TALES *** - - - - -Produced by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This book was created from -images of public domain material made available by the -University of Toronto Libraries -(http://link.library.utoronto.ca/booksonline/).) - - - - - - - - - - - - GRIM TALES. - - BY E. NESBIT. - - - London: - A. D. INNES & CO., - 31 & 32, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. - 1893. - - - My thanks are due to the Editors of _Longman's Magazine_, _Temple - Bar_, the _Argosy_, _Home Chimes_, and the _Illustrated London - News_, in which periodicals these stories first appeared. - - E. NESBIT. - - [Handwritten note from author: - - 10/4/97. - - Will you just send me - a card to say if you - have any of these, & - if so which? In - great haste E. Nesbit - P.T.O. - - Songs of the Maid Skrine - The Rosetree of Hildesheim Weston - Songs without answer Putnam - Songs of love & death Armour - A Trip to Fairyland Morgan - Arrows of Song - The Pilgrim Jewitt - Flamma Vestalis Mason - Scintilloe Carminis Almy] - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - THE EBONY FRAME 9 - - JOHN CHARRINGTON'S WEDDING 37 - - UNCLE ABRAHAM'S ROMANCE 57 - - THE MYSTERY OF THE SEMI-DETACHED 67 - - FROM THE DEAD 77 - - MAN-SIZE IN MARBLE 111 - - THE MASS FOR THE DEAD 145 - - - - -GRIM TALES. - - - - -_THE EBONY FRAME._ - - -To be rich is a luxurious sensation--the more so when you have plumbed -the depths of hard-up-ness as a Fleet Street hack, a picker-up of -unconsidered pars, a reporter, an unappreciated journalist--all callings -utterly inconsistent with one's family feeling and one's direct descent -from the Dukes of Picardy. - -When my Aunt Dorcas died and left me seven hundred a year and a -furnished house in Chelsea, I felt that life had nothing left to offer -except immediate possession of the legacy. Even Mildred Mayhew, whom I -had hitherto regarded as my life's light, became less luminous. I was -not engaged to Mildred, but I lodged with her mother, and I sang duets -with Mildred, and gave her gloves when it would run to it, which was -seldom. She was a dear good girl, and I meant to marry her some day. It -is very nice to feel that a good little woman is thinking of you--it -helps you in your work--and it is pleasant to know she will say "Yes" -when you say "Will you?" - -But, as I say, my legacy almost put Mildred out of my head, especially -as she was staying with friends in the country just then. - -Before the first gloss was off my new mourning I was seated in my aunt's -own armchair in front of the fire in the dining-room of my own house. My -own house! It was grand, but rather lonely. I _did_ think of Mildred -just then. - -The room was comfortably furnished with oak and leather. On the walls -hung a few fairly good oil-paintings, but the space above the -mantelpiece was disfigured by an exceedingly bad print, "The Trial of -Lord William Russell," framed in a dark frame. I got up to look at it. -I had visited my aunt with dutiful regularity, but I never remembered -seeing this frame before. It was not intended for a print, but for an -oil-painting. It was of fine ebony, beautifully and curiously carved. - -I looked at it with growing interest, and when my aunt's housemaid--I -had retained her modest staff of servants--came in with the lamp, I -asked her how long the print had been there. - -"Mistress only bought it two days afore she was took ill," she said; -"but the frame--she didn't want to buy a new one--so she got this out of -the attic. There's lots of curious old things there, sir." - -"Had my aunt had this frame long?" - -"Oh yes, sir. It come long afore I did, and I've been here seven years -come Christmas. There was a picture in it--that's upstairs too--but it's -that black and ugly it might as well be a chimley-back." - -I felt a desire to see this picture. What if it were some priceless old -master in which my aunt's eyes had only seen rubbish? - -Directly after breakfast next morning I paid a visit to the lumber-room. - -It was crammed with old furniture enough to stock a curiosity shop. All -the house was furnished solidly in the early Victorian style, and in -this room everything not in keeping with the "drawing-room suite" ideal -was stowed away. Tables of papier-maché and mother-of-pearl, -straight-backed chairs with twisted feet and faded needlework cushions, -firescreens of old-world design, oak bureaux with brass handles, a -little work-table with its faded moth-eaten silk flutings hanging in -disconsolate shreds: on these and the dust that covered them blazed the -full daylight as I drew up the blinds. I promised myself a good time in -re-enshrining these household gods in my parlour, and promoting the -Victorian suite to the attic. But at present my business was to find the -picture as "black as the chimley-back;" and presently, behind a heap of -hideous still-life studies, I found it. - -Jane the housemaid identified it at once. I took it downstairs carefully -and examined it. No subject, no colour were distinguishable. There was a -splodge of a darker tint in the middle, but whether it was figure or -tree or house no man could have told. It seemed to be painted on a very -thick panel bound with leather. I decided to send it to one of those -persons who pour on rotting family portraits the water of eternal -youth--mere soap and water Mr. Besant tells us it is; but even as I did -so the thought occurred to me to try my own restorative hand at a corner -of it. - -My bath-sponge, soap, and nailbrush vigorously applied for a few seconds -showed me that there was no picture to clean! Bare oak presented itself -to my persevering brush. I tried the other side, Jane watching me with -indulgent interest. The same result. Then the truth dawned on me. Why -was the panel so thick? I tore off the leather binding, and the panel -divided and fell to the ground in a cloud of dust. There were two -pictures--they had been nailed face to face. I leaned them against the -wall, and the next moment I was leaning against it myself. - -For one of the pictures was myself--a perfect portrait--no shade of -expression or turn of feature wanting. Myself--in a cavalier dress, -"love-locks and all!" When had this been done? And how, without my -knowledge? Was this some whim of my aunt's? - -"Lor', sir!" the shrill surprise of Jane at my elbow; "what a lovely -photo it is! Was it a fancy ball, sir?" - -"Yes," I stammered. "I--I don't think I want anything more now. You can -go." - -She went; and I turned, still with my heart beating violently, to the -other picture. This was a woman of the type of beauty beloved of Burne -Jones and Rossetti--straight nose, low brows, full lips, thin hands, -large deep luminous eyes. She wore a black velvet gown. It was a -full-length portrait. Her arms rested on a table beside her, and her -head on her hands; but her face was turned full forward, and her eyes -met those of the spectator bewilderingly. On the table by her were -compasses and instruments whose uses I did not know, books, a goblet, -and a miscellaneous heap of papers and pens. I saw all this afterwards. -I believe it was a quarter of an hour before I could turn my eyes away -from hers. I have never seen any other eyes like hers. They appealed, as -a child's or a dog's do; they commanded, as might those of an empress. - -"Shall I sweep up the dust, sir?" Curiosity had brought Jane back. I -acceded. I turned from her my portrait. I kept between her and the woman -in the black velvet. When I was alone again I tore down "The Trial of -Lord William Russell," and I put the picture of the woman in its strong -ebony frame. - -Then I wrote to a frame-maker for a frame for my portrait. It had so -long lived face to face with this beautiful witch that I had not the -heart to banish it from her presence; from which, it will be perceived -that I am by nature a somewhat sentimental person. - -The new frame came home, and I hung it opposite the fireplace. An -exhaustive search among my aunt's papers showed no explanation of the -portrait of myself, no history of the portrait of the woman with the -wonderful eyes. I only learned that all the old furniture together had -come to my aunt at the death of my great-uncle, the head of the family; -and I should have concluded that the resemblance was only a family one, -if every one who came in had not exclaimed at the "speaking likeness." I -adopted Jane's "fancy ball" explanation. - -And there, one might suppose, the matter of the portraits ended. One -might suppose it, that is, if there were not evidently a good deal more -written here about it. However, to me, then, the matter seemed ended. - -I went to see Mildred; I invited her and her mother to come and stay -with me. I rather avoided glancing at the picture in the ebony frame. I -could not forget, nor remember without singular emotion, the look in -the eyes of that woman when mine first met them. I shrank from meeting -that look again. - -I reorganized the house somewhat, preparing for Mildred's visit. I -turned the dining-room into a drawing-room. I brought down much of the -old-fashioned furniture, and, after a long day of arranging and -re-arranging, I sat down before the fire, and, lying back in a pleasant -languor, I idly raised my eyes to the picture. I met her dark, deep -hazel eyes, and once more my gaze was held fixed as by a strong -magic--the kind of fascination that keeps one sometimes staring for -whole minutes into one's own eyes in the glass. I gazed into her eyes, -and felt my own dilate, pricked with a smart like the smart of tears. - -"I wish," I said, "oh, how I wish you were a woman, and not a picture! -Come down! Ah, come down!" - -I laughed at myself as I spoke; but even as I laughed I held out my -arms. - -I was not sleepy; I was not drunk. I was as wide awake and as sober as -ever was a man in this world. And yet, as I held out my arms, I saw the -eyes of the picture dilate, her lips tremble--if I were to be hanged for -saying it, it is true. Her hands moved slightly, and a sort of flicker -of a smile passed over her face. - -I sprang to my feet. "This won't do," I said, still aloud. "Firelight -does play strange tricks. I'll have the lamp." - -I pulled myself together and made for the bell. My hand was on it, when -I heard a sound behind me, and turned--the bell still unrung. The fire -had burned low, and the corners of the room were deeply shadowed; but, -surely, there--behind the tall worked chair--was something darker than a -shadow. - -"I must face this out," I said, "or I shall never be able to face myself -again." I left the bell, I seized the poker, and battered the dull coals -to a blaze. Then I stepped back resolutely, and looked up at the -picture. The ebony frame was empty! From the shadow of the worked chair -came a silken rustle, and out of the shadow the woman of the picture -was coming--coming towards me. - -I hope I shall never again know a moment of terror so blank and -absolute. I could not have moved or spoken to save my life. Either all -the known laws of nature were nothing, or I was mad. I stood trembling, -but, I am thankful to remember, I stood still, while the black velvet -gown swept across the hearthrug towards me. - -Next moment a hand touched me--a hand soft, warm, and human--and a low -voice said, "You called me. I am here." - -At that touch and that voice the world seemed to give a sort of -bewildering half-turn. I hardly know how to express it, but at once it -seemed not awful--not even unusual--for portraits to become flesh--only -most natural, most right, most unspeakably fortunate. - -I laid my hand on hers. I looked from her to my portrait. I could not -see it in the firelight. - -"We are not strangers," I said. - -"Oh no, not strangers." Those luminous eyes were looking up into -mine--those red lips were near me. With a passionate cry--a sense of -having suddenly recovered life's one great good, that had seemed wholly -lost--I clasped her in my arms. She was no ghost--she was a woman--the -only woman in the world. - -"How long," I said, "O love--how long since I lost you?" - -She leaned back, hanging her full weight on the hands that were clasped -behind my head. - -"How can I tell how long? There is no time in hell," she answered. - -It was not a dream. Ah, no--there are no such dreams. I wish to God -there could be. When in dreams do I see her eyes, hear her voice, feel -her lips against my cheek, hold her hands to my lips, as I did that -night--the supreme night of my life? At first we hardly spoke. It seemed -enough-- - - "... after long grief and pain, - To feel the arms of my true love - Round me once again." - - * * * * * - -It is very difficult to tell this story. There are no words to express -the sense of glad reunion, the complete realization of every hope and -dream of a life, that came upon me as I sat with my hand in hers and -looked into her eyes. - -How could it have been a dream, when I left her sitting in the -straight-backed chair, and went down to the kitchen to tell the maids I -should want nothing more--that I was busy, and did not wish to be -disturbed; when I fetched wood for the fire with my own hands, and, -bringing it in, found her still sitting there--saw the little brown head -turn as I entered, saw the love in her dear eyes; when I threw myself at -her feet and blessed the day I was born, since life had given me this? - -Not a thought of Mildred: all the other things in my life were a -dream--this, its one splendid reality. - -"I am wondering," she said after a while, when we had made such cheer -each of the other as true lovers may after long parting--"I am -wondering how much you remember of our past." - -"I remember nothing," I said. "Oh, my dear lady, my dear sweetheart--I -remember nothing but that I love you--that I have loved you all my -life." - -"You remember nothing--really nothing?" - -"Only that I am yours; that we have both suffered; that----Tell me, my -mistress dear, all that you remember. Explain it all to me. Make me -understand. And yet----No, I don't want to understand. It is enough that -we are together." - -If it was a dream, why have I never dreamed it again? - -She leaned down towards me, her arm lay on my neck, and drew my head -till it rested on her shoulder. "I am a ghost, I suppose," she said, -laughing softly; and her laughter stirred memories which I just grasped -at, and just missed. "But you and I know better, don't we? I will tell -you everything you have forgotten. We loved each other--ah! no, you have -not forgotten that--and when you came back from the war we were to be -married. Our pictures were painted before you went away. You know I was -more learned than women of that day. Dear one, when you were gone they -said I was a witch. They tried me. They said I should be burned. Just -because I had looked at the stars and had gained more knowledge than -they, they must needs bind me to a stake and let me be eaten by the -fire. And you far away!" - -Her whole body trembled and shrank. O love, what dream would have told -me that my kisses would soothe even that memory? - -"The night before," she went on, "the devil did come to me. I was -innocent before--you know it, don't you? And even then my sin was for -you--for you--because of the exceeding love I bore you. The devil came, -and I sold my soul to eternal flame. But I got a good price. I got the -right to come back, through my picture (if any one looking at it wished -for me), as long as my picture stayed in its ebony frame. That frame -was not carved by man's hand. I got the right to come back to you. Oh, -my heart's heart, and another thing I won, which you shall hear anon. -They burned me for a witch, they made me suffer hell on earth. Those -faces, all crowding round, the crackling wood and the smell of the -smoke----" - -"O love! no more--no more." - -"When my mother sat that night before my picture she wept, and cried, -'Come back, my poor lost child!' And I went to her, with glad leaps of -heart. Dear, she shrank from me, she fled, she shrieked and moaned of -ghosts. She had our pictures covered from sight and put again in the -ebony frame. She had promised me my picture should stay always there. -Ah, through all these years your face was against mine." - -She paused. - -"But the man you loved?" - -"You came home. My picture was gone. They lied to you, and you married -another woman; but some day I knew you would walk the world again and -that I should find you." - -"The other gain?" I asked. - -"The other gain," she said slowly, "I gave my soul for. It is this. If -you also will give up your hopes of heaven I can remain a woman, I can -move in your world--I can be your wife. Oh, my dear, after all these -years, at last--at last." - -"If I sacrifice my soul," I said slowly, with no thought of the -imbecility of such talk in our "so-called nineteenth century"--"if I -sacrifice my soul, I win you? Why, love, it's a contradiction in terms. -You _are_ my soul." - -Her eyes looked straight into mine. Whatever might happen, whatever did -happen, whatever may happen, our two souls in that moment met, and -became one. - -"Then you choose--you deliberately choose--to give up your hopes of -heaven for me, as I gave up mine for you?" - -"I decline," I said, "to give up my hope of heaven on any terms. Tell me -what I must do, that you and I may make our heaven here--as now, my dear -love." - -"I will tell you to-morrow," she said. "Be alone here to-morrow -night--twelve is ghost's time, isn't it?--and then I will come out of -the picture and never go back to it. I shall live with you, and die, and -be buried, and there will be an end of me. But we shall live first, my -heart's heart." - -I laid my head on her knee. A strange drowsiness overcame me. Holding -her hand against my cheek, I lost consciousness. When I awoke the grey -November dawn was glimmering, ghost-like, through the uncurtained -window. My head was pillowed on my arm, which rested--I raised my head -quickly--ah! not on my lady's knee, but on the needle-worked cushion of -the straight-backed chair. I sprang to my feet. I was stiff with cold, -and dazed with dreams, but I turned my eyes on the picture. There she -sat, my lady, my dear love. I held out my arms, but the passionate cry I -would have uttered died on my lips. She had said twelve o'clock. Her -lightest word was my law. So I only stood in front of the picture and -gazed into those grey-green eyes till tears of passionate happiness -filled my own. - -"Oh, my dear, my dear, how shall I pass the hours till I hold you -again?" - -No thought, then, of my whole life's completion and consummation being a -dream. - -I staggered up to my room, fell across my bed, and slept heavily and -dreamlessly. When I awoke it was high noon. Mildred and her mother were -coming to lunch. - -I remembered, at one shock, Mildred's coming and her existence. - -Now, indeed, the dream began. - -With a penetrating sense of the futility of any action apart from _her_, -I gave the necessary orders for the reception of my guests. When Mildred -and her mother came I received them with cordiality; but my genial -phrases all seemed to be some one else's. My voice sounded like an echo; -my heart was other where. - -Still, the situation was not intolerable until the hour when afternoon -tea was served in the drawing-room. Mildred and her mother kept the -conversational pot boiling with a profusion of genteel commonplaces, and -I bore it, as one can bear mild purgatories when one is in sight of -heaven. I looked up at my sweetheart in the ebony frame, and I felt that -anything that might happen, any irresponsible imbecility, any bathos of -boredom, was nothing, if, after it all, _she_ came to me again. - -And yet, when Mildred, too, looked at the portrait, and said, "What a -fine lady! One of your flames, Mr. Devigne?" I had a sickening sense of -impotent irritation, which became absolute torture when Mildred--how -could I ever have admired that chocolate-box barmaid style of -prettiness?--threw herself into the high-backed chair, covering the -needlework with her ridiculous flounces, and added, "Silence gives -consent! Who is it, Mr. Devigne? Tell us all about her: I am sure she -has a story." - -Poor little Mildred, sitting there smiling, serene in her confidence -that her every word charmed me--sitting there with her rather pinched -waist, her rather tight boots, her rather vulgar voice--sitting in the -chair where my dear lady had sat when she told me her story! I could not -bear it. - -"Don't sit there," I said; "it's not comfortable!" - -But the girl would not be warned. With a laugh that set every nerve in -my body vibrating with annoyance, she said, "Oh, dear! mustn't I even -sit in the same chair as your black-velvet woman?" - -I looked at the chair in the picture. It _was_ the same; and in her -chair Mildred was sitting. Then a horrible sense of the reality of -Mildred came upon me. Was all this a reality after all? But for -fortunate chance might Mildred have occupied, not only her chair, but -her place in my life? I rose. - -"I hope you won't think me very rude," I said; "but I am obliged to go -out." - -I forget what appointment I alleged. The lie came readily enough. - -I faced Mildred's pouts with the hope that she and her mother would not -wait dinner for me. I fled. In another minute I was safe, alone, under -the chill, cloudy autumn sky--free to think, think, think of my dear -lady. - -I walked for hours along streets and squares; I lived over again and -again every look, word, and hand-touch--every kiss; I was completely, -unspeakably happy. - -Mildred was utterly forgotten: my lady of the ebony frame filled my -heart and soul and spirit. - -As I heard eleven boom through the fog, I turned, and went home. - -When I got to my street, I found a crowd surging through it, a strong -red light filling the air. - -A house was on fire. Mine. - -I elbowed my way through the crowd. - -The picture of my lady--that, at least, I could save! - -As I sprang up the steps, I saw, as in a dream--yes, all this was -_really_ dream-like--I saw Mildred leaning out of the first-floor -window, wringing her hands. - -"Come back, sir," cried a fireman; "we'll get the young lady out right -enough." - -But _my_ lady? I went on up the stairs, cracking, smoking, and as hot -as hell, to the room where her picture was. Strange to say, I only felt -that the picture was a thing we should like to look on through the long -glad wedded life that was to be ours. I never thought of it as being one -with her. - -As I reached the first floor I felt arms round my neck. The smoke was -too thick for me to distinguish features. - -"Save me!" a voice whispered. I clasped a figure in my arms, and, with a -strange dis-ease, bore it down the shaking stairs and out into safety. -It was Mildred. I knew _that_ directly I clasped her. - -"Stand back," cried the crowd. - -"Every one's safe," cried a fireman. - -The flames leaped from every window. The sky grew redder and redder. I -sprang from the hands that would have held me. I leaped up the steps. I -crawled up the stairs. Suddenly the whole horror of the situation came -on me. "_As long as my picture remains in the ebony frame._" What if -picture and frame perished together? - -I fought with the fire, and with my own choking inability to fight with -it. I pushed on. I must save my picture. I reached the drawing-room. - -As I sprang in I saw my lady--I swear it--through the smoke and the -flames, hold out her arms to me--to me--who came too late to save her, -and to save my own life's joy. I never saw her again. - -Before I could reach her, or cry out to her, I felt the floor yield -beneath my feet, and I fell into the fiery hell below. - - * * * * * - -How did they save me? What does that matter? They saved me -somehow--curse them. Every stick of my aunt's furniture was destroyed. -My friends pointed out that, as the furniture was heavily insured, the -carelessness of a nightly-studious housemaid had done me no harm. - -No harm! - -That was how I won and lost my only love. - -I deny, with all my soul in the denial, that it was a dream. There are -no such dreams. Dreams of longing and pain there are in plenty, but -dreams of complete, of unspeakable happiness--ah, no--it is the rest of -life that is the dream. - -But if I think that, why have I married Mildred, and grown stout and -dull and prosperous? - -I tell you it is all _this_ that is the dream; my dear lady only is the -reality. And what does it matter what one does in a dream? - - - - -JOHN CHARRINGTON'S WEDDING. - - -No one ever thought that May Forster would marry John Charrington; but -he thought differently, and things which John Charrington intended had a -queer way of coming to pass. He asked her to marry him before he went up -to Oxford. She laughed and refused him. He asked her again next time he -came home. Again she laughed, tossed her dainty blonde head, and again -refused. A third time he asked her; she said it was becoming a confirmed -bad habit, and laughed at him more than ever. - -John was not the only man who wanted to marry her: she was the belle of -our village _coterie,_ and we were all in love with her more or less; -it was a sort of fashion, like heliotrope ties or Inverness capes. -Therefore we were as much annoyed as surprised when John Charrington -walked into our little local Club--we held it in a loft over the -saddler's, I remember--and invited us all to his wedding. - -"Your wedding?" - -"You don't mean it?" - -"Who's the happy fair? When's it to be?" - -John Charrington filled his pipe and lighted it before he replied. Then -he said-- - -"I'm sorry to deprive you fellows of your only joke--but Miss Forster -and I are to be married in September." - -"You don't mean it?" - -"He's got the mitten again, and it's turned his head." - -"No," I said, rising, "I see it's true. Lend me a pistol some one--or a -first-class fare to the other end of Nowhere. Charrington has bewitched -the only pretty girl in our twenty-mile radius. Was it mesmerism, or a -love-potion, Jack?" - -"Neither, sir, but a gift you'll never have--perseverance--and the best -luck a man ever had in this world." - -There was something in his voice that silenced me, and all chaff of the -other fellows failed to draw him further. - -The queer thing about it was that when we congratulated Miss Forster, -she blushed and smiled and dimpled, for all the world as though she were -in love with him, and had been in love with him all the time. Upon my -word, I think she had. Women are strange creatures. - -We were all asked to the wedding. In Brixham every one who was anybody -knew everybody else who was any one. My sisters were, I truly believe, -more interested in the _trousseau_ than the bride herself, and I was to -be best man. The coming marriage was much canvassed at afternoon -tea-tables, and at our little Club over the saddler's, and the question -was always asked: "Does she care for him?" - -I used to ask that question myself in the early days of their -engagement, but after a certain evening in August I never asked it -again. I was coming home from the Club through the churchyard. Our -church is on a thyme-grown hill, and the turf about it is so thick and -soft that one's footsteps are noiseless. - -I made no sound as I vaulted the low lichened wall, and threaded my way -between the tombstones. It was at the same instant that I heard John -Charrington's voice, and saw Her. May was sitting on a low flat -gravestone, her face turned towards the full splendour of the western -sun. Its expression ended, at once and for ever, any question of love -for him; it was transfigured to a beauty I should not have believed -possible, even to that beautiful little face. - -John lay at her feet, and it was his voice that broke the stillness of -the golden August evening. - -"My dear, my dear, I believe I should come back from the dead if you -wanted me!" - -I coughed at once to indicate my presence, and passed on into the shadow -fully enlightened. - -The wedding was to be early in September. Two days before I had to run -up to town on business. The train was late, of course, for we are on the -South-Eastern, and as I stood grumbling with my watch in my hand, whom -should I see but John Charrington and May Forster. They were walking up -and down the unfrequented end of the platform, arm in arm, looking into -each other's eyes, careless of the sympathetic interest of the porters. - -Of course I knew better than to hesitate a moment before burying myself -in the booking-office, and it was not till the train drew up at the -platform, that I obtrusively passed the pair with my Gladstone, and took -the corner in a first-class smoking-carriage. I did this with as good an -air of not seeing them as I could assume. I pride myself on my -discretion, but if John were travelling alone I wanted his company. I -had it. - -"Hullo, old man," came his cheery voice as he swung his bag into my -carriage; "here's luck; I was expecting a dull journey!" - -"Where are you off to?" I asked, discretion still bidding me turn my -eyes away, though I saw, without looking, that hers were red-rimmed. - -"To old Branbridge's," he answered, shutting the door and leaning out -for a last word with his sweetheart. - -"Oh, I wish you wouldn't go, John," she was saying in a low, earnest -voice. "I feel certain something will happen." - -"Do you think I should let anything happen to keep me, and the day after -to-morrow our wedding-day?" - -"Don't go," she answered, with a pleading intensity which would have -sent my Gladstone on to the platform and me after it. But she wasn't -speaking to me. John Charrington was made differently; he rarely changed -his opinions, never his resolutions. - -He only stroked the little ungloved hands that lay on the carriage -door. - -"I must, May. The old boy's been awfully good to me, and now he's dying -I must go and see him, but I shall come home in time for----" the rest -of the parting was lost in a whisper and in the rattling lurch of the -starting train. - -"You're sure to come?" she spoke as the train moved. - -"Nothing shall keep me," he answered; and we steamed out. After he had -seen the last of the little figure on the platform he leaned back in his -corner and kept silence for a minute. - -When he spoke it was to explain to me that his godfather, whose heir he -was, lay dying at Peasmarsh Place, some fifty miles away, and had sent -for John, and John had felt bound to go. - -"I shall be surely back to-morrow," he said, "or, if not, the day after, -in heaps of time. Thank Heaven, one hasn't to get up in the middle of -the night to get married nowadays!" - -"And suppose Mr. Branbridge dies?" - -"Alive or dead I mean to be married on Thursday!" John answered, -lighting a cigar and unfolding the _Times_. - -At Peasmarsh station we said "good-bye," and he got out, and I saw him -ride off; I went on to London, where I stayed the night. - -When I got home the next afternoon, a very wet one, by the way, my -sister greeted me with-- - -"Where's Mr. Charrington?" - -"Goodness knows," I answered testily. Every man, since Cain, has -resented that kind of question. - -"I thought you might have heard from him," she went on, "as you're to -give him away to-morrow." - -"Isn't he back?" I asked, for I had confidently expected to find him at -home. - -"No, Geoffrey,"--my sister Fanny always had a way of jumping to -conclusions, especially such conclusions as were least favourable to her -fellow-creatures--"he has not returned, and, what is more, you may -depend upon it he won't. You mark my words, there'll be no wedding -to-morrow." - -My sister Fanny has a power of annoying me which no other human being -possesses. - -"You mark my words," I retorted with asperity, "you had better give up -making such a thundering idiot of yourself. There'll be more wedding -to-morrow than ever you'll take the first part in." A prophecy which, by -the way, came true. - -But though I could snarl confidently to my sister, I did not feel so -comfortable when, late that night, I, standing on the doorstep of John's -house, heard that he had not returned. I went home gloomily through the -rain. Next morning brought a brilliant blue sky, gold sun, and all such -softness of air and beauty of cloud as go to make up a perfect day. I -woke with a vague feeling of having gone to bed anxious, and of being -rather averse to facing that anxiety in the light of full wakefulness. - -But with my shaving-water came a note from John which relieved my mind -and sent me up to the Forsters' with a light heart. - -May was in the garden. I saw her blue gown through the hollyhocks as the -lodge gates swung to behind me. So I did not go up to the house, but -turned aside down the turfed path. - -"He's written to you too," she said, without preliminary greeting, when -I reached her side. - -"Yes, I'm to meet him at the station at three, and come straight on to -the church." - -Her face looked pale, but there was a brightness in her eyes, and a -tender quiver about the mouth that spoke of renewed happiness. - -"Mr. Branbridge begged him so to stay another night that he had not the -heart to refuse," she went on. "He is so kind, but I wish he hadn't -stayed." - -I was at the station at half-past two. I felt rather annoyed with John. -It seemed a sort of slight to the beautiful girl who loved him, that he -should come as it were out of breath, and with the dust of travel upon -him, to take her hand, which some of us would have given the best years -of our lives to take. - -But when the three o'clock train glided in, and glided out again having -brought no passengers to our little station, I was more than annoyed. -There was no other train for thirty-five minutes; I calculated that, -with much hurry, we might just get to the church in time for the -ceremony; but, oh, what a fool to miss that first train! What other man -could have done it? - -That thirty-five minutes seemed a year, as I wandered round the station -reading the advertisements and the time-tables, and the company's -bye-laws, and getting more and more angry with John Charrington. This -confidence in his own power of getting everything he wanted the minute -he wanted it was leading him too far. I hate waiting. Every one does, -but I believe I hate it more than any one else. The three thirty-five -was late, of course. - -I ground my pipe between my teeth and stamped with impatience as I -watched the signals. Click. The signal went down. Five minutes later I -flung myself into the carriage that I had brought for John. - -"Drive to the church!" I said, as some one shut the door. "Mr. -Charrington hasn't come by this train." - -Anxiety now replaced anger. What had become of the man? Could he have -been taken suddenly ill? I had never known him have a day's illness in -his life. And even so he might have telegraphed. Some awful accident -must have happened to him. The thought that he had played her false -never--no, not for a moment--entered my head. Yes, something terrible -had happened to him, and on me lay the task of telling his bride. I -almost wished the carriage would upset and break my head so that some -one else might tell her, not I, who--but that's nothing to do with his -story. - -It was five minutes to four as we drew up at the churchyard gate. A -double row of eager on-lookers lined the path from lychgate to porch. I -sprang from the carriage and passed up between them. Our gardener had a -good front place near the door. I stopped. - -"Are they waiting still, Byles?" I asked, simply to gain time, for of -course I knew they were by the waiting crowd's attentive attitude. - -"Waiting, sir? No, no, sir; why, it must be over by now." - -"Over! Then Mr. Charrington's come?" - -"To the minute, sir; must have missed you somehow, and, I say, sir," -lowering his voice, "I never see Mr. John the least bit so afore, but my -opinion is he's been drinking pretty free. His clothes was all dusty and -his face like a sheet. I tell you I didn't like the looks of him at all, -and the folks inside are saying all sorts of things. You'll see, -something's gone very wrong with Mr. John, and he's tried liquor. He -looked like a ghost, and in he went with his eyes straight before him, -with never a look or a word for none of us; him that was always such a -gentleman!" - -I had never heard Byles make so long a speech. The crowd in the -churchyard were talking in whispers and getting ready rice and slippers -to throw at the bride and bridegroom. The ringers were ready with their -hands on the ropes to ring out the merry peal as the bride and -bridegroom should come out. - -A murmur from the church announced them; out they came. Byles was right. -John Charrington did not look himself. There was dust on his coat, his -hair was disarranged. He seemed to have been in some row, for there was -a black mark above his eyebrow. He was deathly pale. But his pallor was -not greater than that of the bride, who might have been carved in -ivory--dress, veil, orange blossoms, face and all. - -As they passed out the ringers stooped--there were six of them--and -then, on the ears expecting the gay wedding peal, came the slow tolling -of the passing bell. - -A thrill of horror at so foolish a jest from the ringers passed through -us all. But the ringers themselves dropped the ropes and fled like -rabbits out into the sunlight. The bride shuddered, and grey shadows -came about her mouth, but the bridegroom led her on down the path where -the people stood with the handfuls of rice; but the handfuls were never -thrown, and the wedding-bells never rang. In vain the ringers were urged -to remedy their mistake: they protested with many whispered expletives -that they would see themselves further first. - -In a hush like the hush in the chamber of death the bridal pair passed -into their carriage and its door slammed behind them. - -Then the tongues were loosed. A babel of anger, wonder, conjecture from -the guests and the spectators. - -"If I'd seen his condition, sir," said old Forster to me as we drove -off, "I would have stretched him on the floor of the church, sir, by -Heaven I would, before I'd have let him marry my daughter!" - -Then he put his head out of the window. - -"Drive like hell," he cried to the coachman; "don't spare the horses." - -He was obeyed. We passed the bride's carriage. I forebore to look at it, -and old Forster turned his head away and swore. We reached home before -it. - -We stood in the hall doorway, in the blazing afternoon sun, and in about -half a minute we heard wheels crunching the gravel. When the carriage -stopped in front of the steps old Forster and I ran down. - -"Great Heaven, the carriage is empty! And yet----" - -I had the door open in a minute, and this is what I saw-- - -No sign of John Charrington; and of May, his wife, only a huddled heap -of white satin lying half on the floor of the carriage and half on the -seat. - -"I drove straight here, sir," said the coachman, as the bride's father -lifted her out; "and I'll swear no one got out of the carriage." - -We carried her into the house in her bridal dress and drew back her -veil. I saw her face. Shall I ever forget it? White, white and drawn -with agony and horror, bearing such a look of terror as I have never -seen since except in dreams. And her hair, her radiant blonde hair, I -tell you it was white like snow. - -As we stood, her father and I, half mad with the horror and mystery of -it, a boy came up the avenue--a telegraph boy. They brought the orange -envelope to me. I tore it open. - -"_Mr. Charrington was thrown from the dogcart on his way to the station -at half-past one. Killed on the spot!_" - -And he was married to May Forster in our parish church at _half-past -three_, in presence of half the parish. - -"_I shall be married, dead or alive!_" - -What had passed in that carriage on the homeward drive? No one knows--no -one will ever know. Oh, May! oh, my dear! - -Before a week was over they laid her beside her husband in our little -churchyard on the thyme-covered hill--the churchyard where they had kept -their love-trysts. - -Thus was accomplished John Charrington's wedding. - - - - -_UNCLE ABRAHAM'S ROMANCE._ - - -"No, my dear," my Uncle Abraham answered me, "no--nothing romantic ever -happened to me--unless--but no: that wasn't romantic either----" - -I was. To me, I being eighteen, romance was the world. My Uncle Abraham -was old and lame. I followed the gaze of his faded eyes, and my own -rested on a miniature that hung at his elbow-chair's right hand, a -portrait of a woman, whose loveliness even the miniature-painter's art -had been powerless to disguise--a woman with large lustrous eyes and -perfect oval face. - -I rose to look at it. I had looked at it a hundred times. Often enough -in my baby days I had asked, "Who's that, uncle?" always receiving the -same answer: "A lady who died long ago, my dear." - -As I looked again at the picture, I asked, "Was she like this?" - -"Who?" - -"Your--your romance!" - -Uncle Abraham looked hard at me. "Yes," he said at last. "Very--very -like." - -I sat down on the floor by him. "Won't you tell me about her?" - -"There's nothing to tell," he said. "I think it was fancy, mostly, and -folly; but it's the realest thing in my long life, my dear." - -A long pause. I kept silence. "Hurry no man's cattle" is a good motto, -especially with old people. - -"I remember," he said in the dreamy tone always promising so well to the -ear that a story delighteth--"I remember, when I was a young man, I was -very lonely indeed. I never had a sweetheart. I was always lame, my -dear, from quite a boy; and the girls used to laugh at me." - -He sighed. Presently he went on-- - -"And so I got into the way of mooning off by myself in lonely places, -and one of my favourite walks was up through our churchyard, which was -set high on a hill in the middle of the marsh country. I liked that -because I never met any one there. It's all over, years ago. I was a -silly lad; but I couldn't bear of a summer evening to hear a rustle and -a whisper from the other side of the hedge, or maybe a kiss as I went -by. - -"Well, I used to go and sit all by myself in the churchyard, which was -always sweet with thyme, and quite light (on account of its being so -high) long after the marshes were dark. I used to watch the bats -flitting about in the red light, and wonder why God didn't make every -one's legs straight and strong, and wicked follies like that. But by the -time the light was gone I had always worked it off, so to speak, and -could go home quietly and say my prayers without any bitterness. - -"Well, one hot night in August, when I had watched the sunset fade and -the crescent moon grow golden, I was just stepping over the low stone -wall of the churchyard when I heard a rustle behind me. I turned round, -expecting it to be a rabbit or a bird. It was a woman." - -He looked at the portrait. So did I. - -"Yes," he said, "that was her very face. I was a bit scared and said -something--I don't know what--and she laughed and said, 'Did I think she -was a ghost?' and I answered back, and I stayed talking to her over the -churchyard wall till 'twas quite dark, and the glowworms were out in the -wet grass all along the way home. - -"Next night I saw her again; and the next night and the next. Always at -twilight time; and if I passed any lovers leaning on the stiles in the -marshes it was nothing to me now." - -Again my uncle paused. "It's very long ago," he said slowly, "and I'm an -old man; but I know what youth means, and happiness, though I was -always lame, and the girls used to laugh at me. I don't know how long it -went on--you don't measure time in dreams--but at last your grandfather -said I looked as if I had one foot in the grave, and he would be sending -me to stay with our kin at Bath and take the waters. I had to go. I -could not tell my father why I would rather had died than go." - -"What was her name, uncle?" I asked. - -"She never would tell me her name, and why should she? I had names -enough in my heart to call her by. Marriage? My dear, even then I knew -marriage was not for me. But I met her night after night, always in our -churchyard where the yew-trees were and the lichened gravestones. It was -there we always met and always parted. The last time was the night -before I went away. She was very sad, and dearer than life itself. And -she said-- - -"'If you come back before the new moon I shall meet you here just as -usual. But if the new moon shines on this grave and you are not -here--you will never see me again any more.' - -"She laid her hand on the yellow lichened tomb against which we had been -leaning. It was an old weather-worn stone, and bore on it the -inscription-- - - 'SUSANNAH KINGSNORTH, - _Ob._ 1713.' - -"'I shall be here.' I said. - -"'I mean it,' she said, with deep and sudden seriousness, 'it is no -fancy. You will be here when the new moon shines?'" - -"I promised, and after a while we parted. - -"I had been with my kinsfolk at Bath nearly a month. I was to go home on -the next day, when, turning over a case in the parlour, I came upon that -miniature. I could not speak for a minute. At last I said, with dry -tongue, and heart beating to the tune of heaven and hell-- - -"'Who is this?' - -"'That?' said my aunt. 'Oh! she was betrothed to one of our family many -years ago, but she died before the wedding. They say she was a bit of a -witch. A handsome one, wasn't she?' - -"I looked again at the face, the lips, the eyes of my dear and lovely -love, whom I was to meet to-morrow night when the new moon shone on that -tomb in our churchyard. - -"'Did you say she was dead?' I asked, and I hardly knew my own voice. - -"'Years and years ago! Her name's on the back and her date----' - -"I took the portrait from its faded red-velvet bed, and read on the -back--'SUSANNAH KINGSNORTH, _Ob._ 1713.' - -"That was in 1813." My uncle stopped short. - -"What happened?" I asked breathlessly. - -"I believe I had a fit," my uncle answered slowly; "at any rate, I was -very ill." - -"And you missed the new moon on the grave?" - -"I missed the new moon on the grave." - -"And you never saw her again?" - -"I never saw her again----" - -"But, uncle, do you really believe?--Can the dead?--was she--did -you----" - -My uncle took out his pipe and filled it. - -"It's a long time ago," he said, "a many, many years. Old man's tales, -my dear! Old man's tales! Don't you take any notice of them." - -He lighted the pipe, puffed silently a moment or two, and then added: -"But I know what youth means, and happiness, though I was lame, and the -girls used to laugh at me." - - - - -_THE MYSTERY OF THE SEMI-DETACHED._ - - -He was waiting for her; he had been waiting an hour and a half in a -dusty suburban lane, with a row of big elms on one side and some -eligible building sites on the other--and far away to the south-west the -twinkling yellow lights of the Crystal Palace. It was not quite like a -country lane, for it had a pavement and lamp-posts, but it was not a bad -place for a meeting all the same; and farther up, towards the cemetery, -it was really quite rural, and almost pretty, especially in twilight. -But twilight had long deepened into night, and still he waited. He loved -her, and he was engaged to be married to her, with the complete -disapproval of every reasonable person who had been consulted. And this -half-clandestine meeting was to-night to take the place of the -grudgingly sanctioned weekly interview--because a certain rich uncle was -visiting at her house, and her mother was not the woman to acknowledge -to a moneyed uncle, who might "go off" any day, a match so deeply -ineligible as hers with him. - -So he waited for her, and the chill of an unusually severe May evening -entered into his bones. - -The policeman passed him with but a surly response to his "Good night." -The bicyclists went by him like grey ghosts with fog-horns; and it was -nearly ten o'clock, and she had not come. - -He shrugged his shoulders and turned towards his lodgings. His road led -him by her house--desirable, commodious, semi-detached--and he walked -slowly as he neared it. She might, even now, be coming out. But she was -not. There was no sign of movement about the house, no sign of life, no -lights even in the windows. And her people were not early people. - -He paused by the gate, wondering. - -Then he noticed that the front door was open--wide open--and the street -lamp shone a little way into the dark hall. There was something about -all this that did not please him--that scared him a little, indeed. The -house had a gloomy and deserted air. It was obviously impossible that it -harboured a rich uncle. The old man must have left early. In which -case---- - -He walked up the path of patent-glazed tiles, and listened. No sign of -life. He passed into the hall. There was no light anywhere. Where was -everybody, and why was the front door open? There was no one in the -drawing-room, the dining-room and the study (nine feet by seven) were -equally blank. Every one was out, evidently. But the unpleasant sense -that he was, perhaps, not the first casual visitor to walk through that -open door impelled him to look through the house before he went away -and closed it after him. So he went upstairs, and at the door of the -first bedroom he came to he struck a wax match, as he had done in the -sitting-rooms. Even as he did so he felt that he was not alone. And he -was prepared to see _something_; but for what he saw he was not -prepared. For what he saw lay on the bed, in a white loose gown--and it -was his sweetheart, and its throat was cut from ear to ear. He doesn't -know what happened then, nor how he got downstairs and into the street; -but he got out somehow, and the policeman found him in a fit, under the -lamp-post at the corner of the street. He couldn't speak when they -picked him up, and he passed the night in the police-cells, because the -policeman had seen plenty of drunken men before, but never one in a fit. - -The next morning he was better, though still very white and shaky. But -the tale he told the magistrate was convincing, and they sent a couple -of constables with him to her house. - -There was no crowd about it as he had fancied there would be, and the -blinds were not down. - -As he stood, dazed, in front of the door, it opened, and she came out. - -He held on to the door-post for support. - -"_She's_ all right, you see," said the constable, who had found him -under the lamp. "I told you you was drunk, but you _would_ know -best----" - -When he was alone with her he told her--not all--for that would not bear -telling--but how he had come into the commodious semi-detached, and how -he had found the door open and the lights out, and that he had been into -that long back room facing the stairs, and had seen something--in even -trying to hint at which he turned sick and broke down and had to have -brandy given him. - -"But, my dearest," she said, "I dare say the house was dark, for we were -all at the Crystal Palace with my uncle, and no doubt the door was open, -for the maids _will_ run out if they're left. But you could not have -been in that room, because I locked it when I came away, and the key was -in my pocket. I dressed in a hurry and I left all my odds and ends lying -about." - -"I know," he said; "I saw a green scarf on a chair, and some long brown -gloves, and a lot of hairpins and ribbons, and a prayer-book, and a lace -handkerchief on the dressing-table. Why, I even noticed the almanack on -the mantelpiece--October 21. At least it couldn't be that, because this -is May. And yet it was. Your almanac is at October 21, isn't it?" - -"No, of course it isn't," she said, smiling rather anxiously; "but all -the other things were just as you say. You must have had a dream, or a -vision, or something." - -He was a very ordinary, commonplace, City young man, and he didn't -believe in visions, but he never rested day or night till he got his -sweetheart and her mother away from that commodious semi-detached, and -settled them in a quite distant suburb. In the course of the removal he -incidentally married her, and the mother went on living with them. - -His nerves must have been a good bit shaken, because he was very queer -for a long time, and was always inquiring if any one had taken the -desirable semi-detached; and when an old stockbroker with a family took -it, he went the length of calling on the old gentleman and imploring him -by all that he held dear, not to live in that fatal house. - -"Why?" said the stockbroker, not unnaturally. - -And then he got so vague and confused, between trying to tell why and -trying not to tell why, that the stockbroker showed him out, and thanked -his God he was not such a fool as to allow a lunatic to stand in the way -of his taking that really remarkably cheap and desirable semi-detached -residence. - -Now the curious and quite inexplicable part of this story is that when -she came down to breakfast on the morning of the 22nd of October she -found him looking like death, with the morning paper in his hand. He -caught hers--he couldn't speak, and pointed to the paper. And there she -read that on the night of the 21st a young lady, the stockbroker's -daughter, had been found, with her throat cut from ear to ear, on the -bed in the long back bedroom facing the stairs of that desirable -semi-detached. - - - - -_FROM THE DEAD._ - - -I. - -"But true or not true, your brother is a scoundrel. No man--no decent -man--tells such things." - -"He did not tell me. How dare you suppose it? I found the letter in his -desk; and she being my friend and you being her lover, I never thought -there could be any harm in my reading her letter to my brother. Give me -back the letter. I was a fool to tell you." - -Ida Helmont held out her hand for the letter. - -"Not yet," I said, and I went to the window. The dull red of a London -sunset burned on the paper, as I read in the quaint, dainty handwriting -I knew so well and had kissed so often-- - - "Dear, I do--I do love you; but it's impossible. I must marry - Arthur. My honour is engaged. If he would only set me free--but he - never will. He loves me so foolishly. But as for me, it is you I - love--body, soul, and spirit. There is no one in my heart but you. I - think of you all day, and dream of you all night. And we must part. - And that is the way of the world. Good-bye!--Yours, yours, yours, - - ELVIRE." - -I had seen the handwriting, indeed, often enough. But the passion -written there was new to me. That I had not seen. - -I turned from the window wearily. My sitting-room looked strange to me. -There were my books, my reading-lamp, my untasted dinner still on the -table, as I had left it when I rose to dissemble my surprise at Ida -Helmont's visit--Ida Helmont, who now sat in my easy-chair looking at me -quietly. - -"Well--do you give me no thanks?" - -"You put a knife in my heart, and then ask for thanks?" - -"Pardon me," she said, throwing up her chin. "I have done nothing but -show you the truth. For that one should expect no gratitude--may I ask, -out of mere curiosity, what you intend to do?" - -"Your brother will tell you----" - -She rose suddenly, pale to the lips. - -"You will not tell my brother?" she began. - -"That you have read his private letters? Certainly not!" - -She came towards me--her gold hair flaming in the sunset light. - -"Why are you so angry with me?" she said. "Be reasonable. What else -could I do?" - -"I don't know." - -"Would it have been right not to tell you?" - -"I don't know. I only know that you've put the sun out, and I haven't -got used to the dark yet." - -"Believe me," she said, coming still nearer to me, and laying her hands -in the lightest light touch on my shoulders, "believe me, she never -loved you." - -There was a softness in her tone that irritated and stimulated me. I -moved gently back, and her hands fell by her sides. - -"I beg your pardon," I said. "I have behaved very badly. You were quite -right to come, and I am not ungrateful. Will you post a letter for me?" - -I sat down and wrote-- - - "I give you back your freedom. The only gift of mine that can - please you now. - - "ARTHUR." - -I held the sheet out to Miss Helmont, and, when she had glanced at it, I -sealed, stamped, and addressed it. - -"Good-bye," I said then, and gave her the letter. As the door closed -behind her I sank into my chair, and I am not ashamed to say that I -cried like a child or a fool over my lost plaything--the little -dark-haired woman who loved some one else with "body, soul, and -spirit." - -I did not hear the door open or any foot on the floor, and therefore I -started when a voice behind me said-- - -"Are you so very unhappy? Oh, Arthur, don't think I am not sorry for -you!" - -"I don't want any one to be sorry for me, Miss Helmont," I said. - -She was silent a moment. Then, with a quick, sudden, gentle movement she -leaned down and kissed my forehead--and I heard the door softly close. -Then I knew that the beautiful Miss Helmont loved me. - -At first that thought only fleeted by--a light cloud against a grey -sky--but the next day reason woke, and said-- - -"Was Miss Helmont speaking the truth? Was it possible that----?" - -I determined to see Elvire, to know from her own lips whether by happy -fortune this blow came, not from her, but from a woman in whom love -might have killed honesty. - -I walked from Hampstead to Gower Street. As I trod its long length, I -saw a figure in pink come out of one of the houses. It was Elvire. She -walked in front of me to the corner of Store Street. There she met Oscar -Helmont. They turned and met me face to face, and I saw all I needed to -see. They loved each other. Ida Helmont had spoken the truth. I bowed -and passed on. Before six months were gone they were married, and before -a year was over I had married Ida Helmont. - -What did it I don't know. Whether it was remorse for having, even for -half a day, dreamed that she could be so base as to forge a lie to gain -a lover, or whether it was her beauty, or the sweet flattery of the -preference of a woman who had half her acquaintances at her feet, I -don't know; anyhow, my thoughts turned to her as to their natural home. -My heart, too, took that road, and before very long I loved her as I had -never loved Elvire. Let no one doubt that I loved her--as I shall never -love again, please God! - -There never was any one like her. She was brave and beautiful, witty and -wise, and beyond all measure adorable. She was the only woman in the -world. There was a frankness--a largeness of heart--about her that made -all other women seem small and contemptible. She loved me and I -worshipped her. I married her, I stayed with her for three golden weeks, -and then I left her. Why? - -Because she told me the truth. It was one night--late--we had sat all -the evening in the verandah of our seaside lodging watching the -moonlight on the water and listening to the soft sound of the sea on the -sand. I have never been so happy; I never shall be happy any more, I -hope. - -"Heart's heart," she said, leaning her gold head against my shoulder, -"how much do you love me?" - -"How much?" - -"Yes--how much? I want to know what place it is I hold in your heart. Am -I more to you than any one else?" - -"My love!" - -"More than yourself?" - -"More than my life!" - -"I believe you," she said. Then she drew a long breath, and took my -hands in hers. "It can make no difference. Nothing in heaven or earth -can come between us now." - -"Nothing," I said. "But, sweet, my wife, what is it?" - -For she was deathly pale. - -"I must tell you," she said; "I cannot hide anything now from you, -because I am yours--body, soul, and spirit." - -The phrase was an echo that stung me. - -The moonlight shone on her gold hair, her warm, soft, gold hair, and on -her pale face. - -"Arthur," she said, "you remember my coming to you at Hampstead with -that letter?" - -"Yes, my sweet, and I remember how you----" - -"Arthur!"--she spoke fast and low--"Arthur, that letter was a forgery. -She never wrote it. I----" - -She stopped, for I had risen and flung her hands from me, and stood -looking at her. God help me! I thought it was anger at the lie I felt. I -know now it was only wounded vanity that smarted in me. That _I_ should -have been tricked, that _I_ should have been deceived, that _I_ should -have been led on to make a fool of myself! That _I_ should have married -the woman who had befooled me! At that moment she was no longer the wife -I adored--she was only a woman who had forged a letter and tricked me -into marrying her. - -I spoke; I denounced her; I said I would never speak to her again. I -felt it was rather creditable in me to be so angry. I said I would have -no more to do with a liar and forger. - -I don't know whether I expected her to creep to my knees and implore -forgiveness. I think I had some vague idea that I could by-and-by -consent with dignity to forgive and forget. I did not mean what I said. -No, no; I did not mean a word of it. While I was saying it I was longing -for her to weep and fall at my feet, that I might raise her and hold her -in my arms again. - -But she did not fall at my feet; she stood quietly looking at me. - -"Arthur," she said, as I paused for breath, "let me explain--she--I----" - -"There is nothing to explain," I said hotly, still with that foolish -sense of there being something rather noble in my indignation, as one -feels when one calls one's self a miserable sinner. "You are a liar and -forger, and that is enough for me. I will never speak to you again. You -have wrecked my life----" - -"Do you mean that?" she said, interrupting me, and leaning forward to -look at me. Tears lay on her cheeks, but she was not crying now. - -I hesitated. I longed to take her in my arms and say--"Lay your head -here, my darling, and cry here, and know how I love you." - -But instead I kept silence. - -"_Do_ you mean it?" she persisted. - -Then she put her hand on my arm. I longed to clasp it and draw her to -me. - -Instead, I shook it off, and said-- - -"Mean it? Yes--of course I mean it. Don't touch me, please! You have -ruined my life." - -She turned away without a word, went into our room, and shut the door. - -I longed to follow her, to tell her that if there was anything to -forgive I forgave it. - -Instead, I went out on the beach, and walked away under the cliffs. - -The moonlight and the solitude, however, presently brought me to a -better mind. Whatever she had done had been done for love of me--I knew -that. I would go home and tell her so--tell her that whatever she had -done she was my dearest life, my heart's one treasure. True, my ideal of -her was shattered, but, even as she was, what was the whole world of -women compared to her? I hurried back, but in my resentment and evil -temper I had walked far, and the way back was very long. I had been -parted from her for three hours by the time I opened the door of the -little house where we lodged. The house was dark and very still. I -slipped off my shoes and crept up the narrow stairs, and opened the door -of our room quite softly. Perhaps she would have cried herself to sleep, -and I would lean over her and waken her with my kisses and beg her to -forgive me. Yes, it had come to that now. - -I went into the room--I went towards the bed. She was not there. She was -not in the room, as one glance showed me. She was not in the house, as I -knew in two minutes. When I had wasted a priceless hour in searching the -town for her, I found a note on the dressing-table-- - -"Good-bye! Make the best of what is left of your life. I will spoil it -no more." - -She was gone, utterly gone. I rushed to town by the earliest morning -train, only to find that her people knew nothing of her. Advertisement -failed. Only a tramp said he had met a white lady on the cliff, and a -fisherman brought me a handkerchief marked with her name that he had -found on the beach. - -I searched the country far and wide, but I had to go back to London at -last, and the months went by. I won't say much about those months, -because even the memory of that suffering turns me faint and sick at -heart. The police and detectives and the Press failed me utterly. Her -friends could not help me, and were, moreover, wildly indignant with me, -especially her brother, now living very happily with my first love. - -I don't know how I got through those long weeks and months. I tried to -write; I tried to read; I tried to live the life of a reasonable human -being. But it was impossible. I could not endure the companionship of my -kind. Day and night I almost saw her face--almost heard her voice. I -took long walks in the country, and her figure was always just round -the next turn of the road--in the next glade of the wood. But I never -quite saw her--never quite heard her. I believe I was not altogether -sane at that time. At last, one morning as I was setting out for one of -those long walks that had no goal but weariness, I met a telegraph boy, -and took the red envelope from his hand. - -On the pink paper inside was written-- - - "Come to me at once. I am dying. You must come.--IDA.--Apinshaw - Farm, Mellor, Derbyshire." - -There was a train at twelve to Marple, the nearest station. I took it. I -tell you there are some things that cannot be written about. My life for -those long months was one of them, that journey was another. What had -her life been for those months? That question troubled me, as one is -troubled in every nerve at the sight of a surgical operation or a wound -inflicted on a being dear to one. But the overmastering sensation was -joy--intense, unspeakable joy. She was alive! I should see her again. I -took out the telegram and looked at it: "I am dying." I simply did not -believe it. She could not die till she had seen me. And if she had lived -all those months without me, she could live now, when I was with her -again, when she knew of the hell I had endured apart from her, and the -heaven of our meeting. She must live. I would not let her die. - -There was a long drive over bleak hills. Dark, jolting, infinitely -wearisome. At last we stopped before a long, low building, where one or -two lights gleamed faintly. I sprang out. - -The door opened. A blaze of light made me blink and draw back. A woman -was standing in the doorway. - -"Art thee Arthur Marsh?" she said. - -"Yes." - -"Then, th'art ower late. She's dead." - - -II. - -I went into the house, walked to the fire, and held out my hands to it -mechanically, for, though the night was May, I was cold to the bone. -There were some folks standing round the fire and lights flickering. -Then an old woman came forward with the northern instinct of -hospitality. - -"Thou'rt tired," she said, "and mazed-like. Have a sup o' tea." - -I burst out laughing. It was too funny. I had travelled two hundred -miles to see _her_; and she was dead, and they offered me tea. They drew -back from me as if I had been a wild beast, but I could not stop -laughing. Then a hand was laid on my shoulder, and some one led me into -a dark room, lighted a lamp, set me in a chair, and sat down opposite -me. It was a bare parlour, coldly furnished with rush chairs and -much-polished tables and presses. I caught my breath, and grew suddenly -grave, and looked at the woman who sat opposite me. - -"I was Miss Ida's nurse," said she; "and she told me to send for you. -Who are you?" - -"Her husband----" - -The woman looked at me with hard eyes, where intense surprise struggled -with resentment. "Then, may God forgive you!" she said. "What you've -done I don't know; but it'll be 'ard work forgivin' _you_--even for -_Him_!" - -"Tell me," I said, "my wife----" - -"Tell you?" The bitter contempt in the woman's tone did not hurt me; -what was it to the self-contempt that had gnawed my heart all these -months? "Tell you? Yes, I'll tell you. Your wife was that ashamed of -you, she never so much as told me she was married. She let me think -anything I pleased sooner than that. She just come 'ere an' she said, -'Nurse, take care of me, for I am in mortal trouble. And don't let them -know where I am,' says she. An' me bein' well married to an honest man, -and well-to-do here, I was able to do it, by the blessing." - -"Why didn't you send for me before?" It was a cry of anguish wrung from -me. - -"I'd _never_ 'a sent for you--it was _her_ doin'. Oh, to think as God -A'mighty's made men able to measure out such-like pecks o' trouble for -us womenfolk! Young man, I dunno what you did to 'er to make 'er leave -you; but it muster bin something cruel, for she loved the ground you -walked on. She useter sit day after day, a-lookin' at your picture an' -talkin' to it an' kissin' of it, when she thought I wasn't takin' no -notice, and cryin' till she made me cry too. She useter cry all night -'most. An' one day, when I tells 'er to pray to God to 'elp 'er through -'er trouble, she outs with _your_ putty face on a card, she doez, an', -says she, with her poor little smile, 'That's my god, Nursey,' she -says." - -"Don't!" I said feebly, putting out my hands to keep off the torture; -"not any more, not now." - -"_Don't?_" she repeated. She had risen and was walking up and down the -room with clasped hands--"don't, indeed! No, I won't; but I shan't -forget you! I tell you I've had you in my prayers time and again, when I -thought you'd made a light-o'-love o' my darling. I shan't drop you -outer them now I know she was your own wedded wife as you chucked away -when you'd tired of her, and left 'er to eat 'er 'art out with longin' -for you. Oh! I pray to God above us to pay you scot and lot for all you -done to 'er! You killed my pretty. The price will be required of you, -young man, even to the uttermost farthing! O God in heaven, make him -suffer! Make him feel it!" - -She stamped her foot as she passed me. I stood quite still; I bit my lip -till I tasted the blood hot and salt on my tongue. - -"She was nothing to you!" cried the woman, walking faster up and down -between the rush chairs and the table; "any fool can see that with half -an eye. You didn't love her, so you don't feel nothin' now; but some day -you'll care for some one, and then you shall know what she felt--if -there's any justice in heaven!" - -I, too, rose, walked across the room, and leaned against the wall. I -heard her words without understanding them. - -"Can't you feel _nothin'_? Are you mader stone? Come an' look at 'er -lyin' there so quiet. She don't fret arter the likes o' you no more now. -She won't sit no more a-lookin' outer winder an' sayin' nothin'--only -droppin' 'er tears one by one, slow, slow on her lap. Come an' see 'er; -come an' see what you done to my pretty--an' then ye can go. Nobody -wants you 'ere. _She_ don't want you now. But p'r'aps you'd like to see -'er safe underground fust? I'll be bound you'll put a big slab on -'er--to make sure _she_ don't rise again." - -I turned on her. Her thin face was white with grief and impotent rage. -Her claw-like hands were clenched. - -"Woman," I said, "have mercy!" - -She paused, and looked at me. - -"Eh?" she said. - -"Have mercy!" I said again. - -"Mercy? You should 'a thought o' that before. You 'adn't no mercy on -'er. She loved you--she died lovin' you. An' if I wasn't a Christian -woman, I'd kill you for it--like the rat you are! That I would, though I -'ad to swing for it arterwards." - -I caught the woman's hands and held them fast, in spite of her -resistance. - -"Don't you understand?" I said savagely. "We loved each other. She died -loving me. I have to live loving her. And it's _her_ you pity. I tell -you it was all a mistake--a stupid, stupid mistake. Take me to her, and -for pity's sake let me be left alone with her." - -She hesitated; then said in a voice only a shade less hard-- - -"Well, come along, then." - -We moved towards the door. As she opened it a faint, weak cry fell on my -ear. My heart stood still. - -"What's that?" I asked, stopping on the threshold. - -"Your child," she said shortly. - -That, too! Oh, my love! oh, my poor love! All these long months! - -"She allus said she'd send for you when she'd got over her trouble," the -woman said as we climbed the stairs. "'I'd like him to see his little -baby, nurse,' she says; 'our little baby. It'll be all right when the -baby's born,' she says. 'I know he'll come to me then. You'll see.' And -I never said nothin'--not thinkin' you'd come if she was your leavins, -and not dreamin' as you could be 'er husband an' could stay away from -'er a hour--her bein' as she was. Hush!" - -She drew a key from her pocket and fitted it to the lock. She opened the -door and I followed her in. It was a large, dark room, full of -old-fashioned furniture. There were wax candles in brass candlesticks -and a smell of lavender. - -The big four-post bed was covered with white. - -"My lamb--my poor pretty lamb!" said the woman, beginning to cry for the -first time as she drew back the sheet. "Don't she look beautiful?" - -I stood by the bedside. I looked down on my wife's face. Just so I had -seen it lie on the pillow beside me in the early morning when the wind -and the dawn came up from beyond the sea. She did not look like one -dead. Her lips were still red, and it seemed to me that a tinge of -colour lay on her cheek. It seemed to me, too, that if I kissed her she -would wake, and put her slight hand on my neck, and lay her cheek -against mine--and that we should tell each other everything, and weep -together, and understand and be comforted. - -So I stooped and laid my lips to hers as the old nurse stole from the -room. - -But the red lips were like marble, and she did not wake. She will not -wake now ever any more. - -I tell you again there are some things that cannot be written. - - -III. - -I lay that night in a big room filled with heavy, dark furniture, in a -great four-poster hung with heavy, dark curtains--a bed the counterpart -of that other bed from whose side they had dragged me at last. - -They fed me, I believe, and the old nurse was kind to me. I think she -saw now that it is not the dead who are to be pitied most. - -I lay at last in the big, roomy bed, and heard the household noises grow -fewer and die out, the little wail of my child sounding latest. They had -brought the child to me, and I had held it in my arms, and bowed my head -over its tiny face and frail fingers. I did not love it then. I told -myself it had cost me her life. But my heart told me that it was I who -had done that. The tall clock at the stairhead sounded the -hours--eleven, twelve, one, and still I could not sleep. The room was -dark and very still. - -I had not been able to look at my life quietly. I had been full of the -intoxication of grief--a real drunkenness, more merciful than the calm -that comes after. - -Now I lay still as the dead woman in the next room, and looked at what -was left of my life. I lay still, and thought, and thought, and thought. -And in those hours I tasted the bitterness of death. It must have been -about two that I first became aware of a slight sound that was not the -ticking of the clock. I say I first became aware, and yet I knew -perfectly that I had heard that sound more than once before, and had yet -determined not to hear it, _because it came from the next room_--the -room where the corpse lay. - -And I did not wish to hear that sound, because I knew it meant that I -was nervous--miserably nervous--a coward and a brute. It meant that I, -having killed my wife as surely as though I had put a knife in her -breast, had now sunk so low as to be afraid of her dead body--the dead -body that lay in the room next to mine. The heads of the beds were -placed against the same wall; and from that wall I had fancied I heard -slight, slight, almost inaudible sounds. So when I say that I became -aware of them I mean that I at last heard a sound so distinct as to -leave no room for doubt or question. It brought me to a sitting position -in the bed, and the drops of sweat gathered heavily on my forehead and -fell on my cold hands as I held my breath and listened. - -I don't know how long I sat there--there was no further sound--and at -last my tense muscles relaxed, and I fell back on the pillow. - -"You fool!" I said to myself; "dead or alive, is she not your darling, -your heart's heart? Would you not go near to die of joy if she came to -you? Pray God to let her spirit come back and tell you she forgives -you!" - -"I wish she would come," myself answered in words, while every fibre of -my body and mind shrank and quivered in denial. - -I struck a match, lighted a candle, and breathed more freely as I looked -at the polished furniture--the commonplace details of an ordinary room. -Then I thought of her, lying alone, so near me, so quiet under the white -sheet. She was dead; she would not wake or move. But suppose she did -move? Suppose she turned back the sheet and got up, and walked across -the floor and turned the door-handle? - -As I thought it, I heard--plainly, unmistakably heard--the door of the -chamber of death open slowly--I heard slow steps in the passage, slow, -heavy steps--I heard the touch of hands on my door outside, uncertain -hands, that felt for the latch. - -Sick with terror, I lay clenching the sheet in my hands. - -I knew well enough what would come in when that door opened--that door -on which my eyes were fixed. I dreaded to look, yet I dared not turn -away my eyes. The door opened slowly, slowly, slowly, and the figure of -my dead wife came in. It came straight towards the bed, and stood at the -bed-foot in its white grave-clothes, with the white bandage under its -chin. There was a scent of lavender. Its eyes were wide open and looked -at me with love unspeakable. - -I could have shrieked aloud. - -My wife spoke. It was the same dear voice that I had loved so to hear, -but it was very weak and faint now; and now I trembled as I listened. - -"You aren't afraid of me, darling, are you, though I am dead? I heard -all you said to me when you came, but I couldn't answer. But now I've -come back from the dead to tell you. I wasn't really so bad as you -thought me. Elvire had told me she loved Oscar. I only wrote the letter -to make it easier for you. I was too proud to tell you when you were so -angry, but I am not proud any more now. You'll love me again now, won't -you, now I'm dead? One always forgives dead people." - -The poor ghost's voice was hollow and faint. Abject terror paralyzed me. -I could answer nothing. - -"Say you forgive me," the thin, monotonous voice went on; "say you love -me again." - -I had to speak. Coward as I was, I did manage to stammer-- - -"Yes; I love you. I have always loved you, God help me!" - -The sound of my own voice reassured me, and I ended more firmly than I -began. The figure by the bed swayed a little unsteadily. - -"I suppose," she said wearily, "you would be afraid, now I am dead, if I -came round to you and kissed you?" - -She made a movement as though she would have come to me. - -Then I did shriek aloud, again and again, and covered my face with the -sheet, and wound it round my head and body, and held it with all my -force. - -There was a moment's silence. Then I heard my door close, and then a -sound of feet and of voices, and I heard something heavy fall. I -disentangled my head from the sheet. My room was empty. Then reason came -back to me. I leaped from the bed. - -"Ida, my darling, come back! I am not afraid! I love you! Come back! -Come back!" - -I sprang to my door and flung it open. Some one was bringing a light -along the passage. On the floor, outside the door of the death-chamber, -was a huddled heap--the corpse, in its grave-clothes. Dead, dead, dead. - - * * * * * - -She is buried in Mellor churchyard, and there is no stone over her. - -Now, whether it was catalepsy--as the doctors said--or whether my love -came back even from the dead to me who loved her, I shall never know; -but this I know--that, if I had held out my arms to her as she stood at -my bed-foot--if I had said, "Yes, even from the grave, my darling--from -hell itself, come back, come back to me!"--if I had had room in my -coward's heart for anything but the unreasoning terror that killed love -in that hour, I should not now be here alone. I shrank from her--I -feared her--I would not take her to my heart. And now she will not come -to me any more. - -Why do I go on living? - -You see, there is the child. It is four years old now, and it has never -spoken and never smiled. - - - - -_MAN-SIZE IN MARBLE._ - - -Although every word of this story is as true as despair, I do not expect -people to believe it. Nowadays a "rational explanation" is required -before belief is possible. Let me then, at once, offer the "rational -explanation" which finds most favour among those who have heard the tale -of my life's tragedy. It is held that we were "under a delusion," Laura -and I, on that 31st of October; and that this supposition places the -whole matter on a satisfactory and believable basis. The reader can -judge, when he, too, has heard my story, how far this is an -"explanation," and in what sense it is "rational." There were three who -took part in this: Laura and I and another man. The other man still -lives, and can speak to the truth of the least credible part of my -story. - - * * * * * - -I never in my life knew what it was to have as much money as I required -to supply the most ordinary needs--good colours, books, and -cab-fares--and when we were married we knew quite well that we should -only be able to live at all by "strict punctuality and attention to -business." I used to paint in those days, and Laura used to write, and -we felt sure we could keep the pot at least simmering. Living in town -was out of the question, so we went to look for a cottage in the -country, which should be at once sanitary and picturesque. So rarely do -these two qualities meet in one cottage that our search was for some -time quite fruitless. We tried advertisements, but most of the desirable -rural residences which we did look at proved to be lacking in both -essentials, and when a cottage chanced to have drains it always had -stucco as well and was shaped like a tea-caddy. And if we found a vine -or rose-covered porch, corruption invariably lurked within. Our minds -got so befogged by the eloquence of house-agents and the rival -disadvantages of the fever-traps and outrages to beauty which we had -seen and scorned, that I very much doubt whether either of us, on our -wedding morning, knew the difference between a house and a haystack. But -when we got away from friends and house-agents, on our honeymoon, our -wits grew clear again, and we knew a pretty cottage when at last we saw -one. It was at Brenzett--a little village set on a hill over against the -southern marshes. We had gone there, from the seaside village where we -were staying, to see the church, and two fields from the church we found -this cottage. It stood quite by itself, about two miles from the -village. It was a long, low building, with rooms sticking out in -unexpected places. There was a bit of stone-work--ivy-covered and -moss-grown, just two old rooms, all that was left of a big house that -had once stood there--and round this stone-work the house had grown up. -Stripped of its roses and jasmine it would have been hideous. As it -stood it was charming, and after a brief examination we took it. It was -absurdly cheap. The rest of our honeymoon we spent in grubbing about in -second-hand shops in the county town, picking up bits of old oak and -Chippendale chairs for our furnishing. We wound up with a run up to town -and a visit to Liberty's, and soon the low oak-beamed lattice-windowed -rooms began to be home. There was a jolly old-fashioned garden, with -grass paths, and no end of hollyhocks and sunflowers, and big lilies. -From the window you could see the marsh-pastures, and beyond them the -blue, thin line of the sea. We were as happy as the summer was glorious, -and settled down into work sooner than we ourselves expected. I was -never tired of sketching the view and the wonderful cloud effects from -the open lattice, and Laura would sit at the table and write verses -about them, in which I mostly played the part of foreground. - -We got a tall old peasant woman to do for us. Her face and figure were -good, though her cooking was of the homeliest; but she understood all -about gardening, and told us all the old names of the coppices and -cornfields, and the stories of the smugglers and highwaymen, and, better -still, of the "things that walked," and of the "sights" which met one in -lonely glens of a starlight night. She was a great comfort to us, -because Laura hated housekeeping as much as I loved folklore, and we -soon came to leave all the domestic business to Mrs. Dorman, and to use -her legends in little magazine stories which brought in the jingling -guinea. - -We had three months of married happiness, and did not have a single -quarrel. One October evening I had been down to smoke a pipe with the -doctor--our only neighbour--a pleasant young Irishman. Laura had stayed -at home to finish a comic sketch of a village episode for the _Monthly -Marplot_. I left her laughing over her own jokes, and came in to find -her a crumpled heap of pale muslin weeping on the window seat. - -"Good heavens, my darling, what's the matter?" I cried, taking her in my -arms. She leaned her little dark head against my shoulder and went on -crying. I had never seen her cry before--we had always been so happy, -you see--and I felt sure some frightful misfortune had happened. - -"What _is_ the matter? Do speak." - -"It's Mrs. Dorman," she sobbed. - -"What has she done?" I inquired, immensely relieved. - -"She says she must go before the end of the month, and she says her -niece is ill; she's gone down to see her now, but I don't believe that's -the reason, because her niece is always ill. I believe some one has been -setting her against us. Her manner was so queer----" - -"Never mind, Pussy," I said; "whatever you do, don't cry, or I shall -have to cry too, to keep you in countenance, and then you'll never -respect your man again!" - -She dried her eyes obediently on my handkerchief, and even smiled -faintly. - -"But you see," she went on, "it is really serious, because these village -people are so sheepy, and if one won't do a thing you may be quite sure -none of the others will. And I shall have to cook the dinners, and wash -up the hateful greasy plates; and you'll have to carry cans of water -about, and clean the boots and knives--and we shall never have any time -for work, or earn any money, or anything. We shall have to work all day, -and only be able to rest when we are waiting for the kettle to boil!" - -I represented to her that even if we had to perform these duties, the -day would still present some margin for other toils and recreations. But -she refused to see the matter in any but the greyest light. She was very -unreasonable, my Laura, but I could not have loved her any more if she -had been as reasonable as Whately. - -"I'll speak to Mrs. Dorman when she comes back, and see if I can't come -to terms with her," I said. "Perhaps she wants a rise in her screw. It -will be all right. Let's walk up to the church." - -The church was a large and lonely one, and we loved to go there, -especially upon bright nights. The path skirted a wood, cut through it -once, and ran along the crest of the hill through two meadows, and round -the churchyard wall, over which the old yews loomed in black masses of -shadow. This path, which was partly paved, was called "the bier-balk," -for it had long been the way by which the corpses had been carried to -burial. The churchyard was richly treed, and was shaded by great elms -which stood just outside and stretched their majestic arms in -benediction over the happy dead. A large, low porch let one into the -building by a Norman doorway and a heavy oak door studded with iron. -Inside, the arches rose into darkness, and between them the reticulated -windows, which stood out white in the moonlight. In the chancel, the -windows were of rich glass, which showed in faint light their noble -colouring, and made the black oak of the choir pews hardly more solid -than the shadows. But on each side of the altar lay a grey marble figure -of a knight in full plate armour lying upon a low slab, with hands held -up in everlasting prayer, and these figures, oddly enough, were always -to be seen if there was any glimmer of light in the church. Their names -were lost, but the peasants told of them that they had been fierce and -wicked men, marauders by land and sea, who had been the scourge of their -time, and had been guilty of deeds so foul that the house they had lived -in--the big house, by the way, that had stood on the site of our -cottage--had been stricken by lightning and the vengeance of Heaven. But -for all that, the gold of their heirs had bought them a place in the -church. Looking at the bad hard faces reproduced in the marble, this -story was easily believed. - -The church looked at its best and weirdest on that night, for the -shadows of the yew trees fell through the windows upon the floor of the -nave and touched the pillars with tattered shade. We sat down together -without speaking, and watched the solemn beauty of the old church, with -some of that awe which inspired its early builders. We walked to the -chancel and looked at the sleeping warriors. Then we rested some time on -the stone seat in the porch, looking out over the stretch of quiet -moonlit meadows, feeling in every fibre of our being the peace of the -night and of our happy love; and came away at last with a sense that -even scrubbing and blackleading were but small troubles at their worst. - -Mrs. Dorman had come back from the village, and I at once invited her to -a _tête-à-tête_. - -"Now, Mrs. Dorman," I said, when I had got her into my painting room, -"what's all this about your not staying with us?" - -"I should be glad to get away, sir, before the end of the month," she -answered, with her usual placid dignity. - -"Have you any fault to find, Mrs. Dorman?" - -"None at all, sir; you and your lady have always been most kind, I'm -sure----" - -"Well, what is it? Are your wages not high enough?" - -"No, sir, I gets quite enough." - -"Then why not stay?" - -"I'd rather not"--with some hesitation--"my niece is ill." - -"But your niece has been ill ever since we came." - -No answer. There was a long and awkward silence. I broke it. - -"Can't you stay for another month?" I asked. - -"No, sir. I'm bound to go by Thursday." - -And this was Monday! - -"Well, I must say, I think you might have let us know before. There's no -time now to get any one else, and your mistress is not fit to do heavy -housework. Can't you stay till next week?" - -"I might be able to come back next week." - -I was now convinced that all she wanted was a brief holiday, which we -should have been willing enough to let her have, as soon as we could -get a substitute. - -"But why must you go this week?" I persisted. "Come, out with it." - -Mrs. Dorman drew the little shawl, which she always wore, tightly across -her bosom, as though she were cold. Then she said, with a sort of -effort-- - -"They say, sir, as this was a big house in Catholic times, and there was -a many deeds done here." - -The nature of the "deeds" might be vaguely inferred from the inflection -of Mrs. Dorman's voice--which was enough to make one's blood run cold. I -was glad that Laura was not in the room. She was always nervous, as -highly-strung natures are, and I felt that these tales about our house, -told by this old peasant woman, with her impressive manner and -contagious credulity, might have made our home less dear to my wife. - -"Tell me all about it, Mrs. Dorman," I said; "you needn't mind about -telling me. I'm not like the young people who make fun of such things." - -Which was partly true. - -"Well, sir"--she sank her voice--"you may have seen in the church, -beside the altar, two shapes." - -"You mean the effigies of the knights in armour," I said cheerfully. - -"I mean them two bodies, drawed out man-size in marble," she returned, -and I had to admit that her description was a thousand times more -graphic than mine, to say nothing of a certain weird force and -uncanniness about the phrase "drawed out man-size in marble." - -"They do say, as on All Saints' Eve them two bodies sits up on their -slabs, and gets off of them, and then walks down the aisle, _in their -marble"_--(another good phrase, Mrs. Dorman)--"and as the church clock -strikes eleven they walks out of the church door, and over the graves, -and along the bier-balk, and if it's a wet night there's the marks of -their feet in the morning." - -"And where do they go?" I asked, rather fascinated. - -"They comes back here to their home, sir, and if any one meets them----" - -"Well, what then?" I asked. - -But no--not another word could I get from her, save that her niece was -ill and she must go. After what I had heard I scorned to discuss the -niece, and tried to get from Mrs. Dorman more details of the legend. I -could get nothing but warnings. - -"Whatever you do, sir, lock the door early on All Saints' Eve, and make -the cross-sign over the doorstep and on the windows." - -"But has any one ever seen these things?" I persisted. - -"That's not for me to say. I know what I know, sir." - -"Well, who was here last year?" - -"No one, sir; the lady as owned the house only stayed here in summer, -and she always went to London a full month afore _the_ night. And I'm -sorry to inconvenience you and your lady, but my niece is ill and I -must go on Thursday." - -I could have shaken her for her absurd reiteration of that obvious -fiction, after she had told me her real reasons. - -She was determined to go, nor could our united entreaties move her in -the least. - -I did not tell Laura the legend of the shapes that "walked in their -marble," partly because a legend concerning our house might perhaps -trouble my wife, and partly, I think, from some more occult reason. This -was not quite the same to me as any other story, and I did not want to -talk about it till the day was over. I had very soon ceased to think of -the legend, however. I was painting a portrait of Laura, against the -lattice window, and I could not think of much else. I had got a splendid -background of yellow and grey sunset, and was working away with -enthusiasm at her face. On Thursday Mrs. Dorman went. She relented, at -parting, so far as to say-- - -"Don't you put yourself about too much, ma'am, and if there's any -little thing I can do next week, I'm sure I shan't mind." - -From which I inferred that she wished to come back to us after -Halloween. Up to the last she adhered to the fiction of the niece with -touching fidelity. - -Thursday passed off pretty well. Laura showed marked ability in the -matter of steak and potatoes, and I confess that my knives, and the -plates, which I insisted upon washing, were better done than I had dared -to expect. - -Friday came. It is about what happened on that Friday that this is -written. I wonder if I should have believed it, if any one had told it -to me. I will write the story of it as quickly and plainly as I can. -Everything that happened on that day is burnt into my brain. I shall not -forget anything, nor leave anything out. - -I got up early, I remember, and lighted the kitchen fire, and had just -achieved a smoky success, when my little wife came running down, as -sunny and sweet as the clear October morning itself. We prepared -breakfast together, and found it very good fun. The housework was soon -done, and when brushes and brooms and pails were quiet again, the house -was still indeed. It is wonderful what a difference one makes in a -house. We really missed Mrs. Dorman, quite apart from considerations -concerning pots and pans. We spent the day in dusting our books and -putting them straight, and dined gaily on cold steak and coffee. Laura -was, if possible, brighter and gayer and sweeter than usual, and I began -to think that a little domestic toil was really good for her. We had -never been so merry since we were married, and the walk we had that -afternoon was, I think, the happiest time of all my life. When we had -watched the deep scarlet clouds slowly pale into leaden grey against a -pale-green sky, and saw the white mists curl up along the hedgerows in -the distant marsh, we came back to the house, silently, hand in hand. - -"You are sad, my darling," I said, half-jestingly, as we sat down -together in our little parlour. I expected a disclaimer, for my own -silence had been the silence of complete happiness. To my surprise she -said-- - -"Yes. I think I am sad, or rather I am uneasy. I don't think I'm very -well. I have shivered three or four times since we came in, and it is -not cold, is it?" - -"No," I said, and hoped it was not a chill caught from the treacherous -mists that roll up from the marshes in the dying light. No--she said, -she did not think so. Then, after a silence, she spoke suddenly-- - -"Do you ever have presentiments of evil?" - -"No," I said, smiling, "and I shouldn't believe in them if I had." - -"I do," she went on; "the night my father died I knew it, though he was -right away in the north of Scotland." I did not answer in words. - -She sat looking at the fire for some time in silence, gently stroking my -hand. At last she sprang up, came behind me, and, drawing my head back, -kissed me. - -"There, it's over now," she said. "What a baby I am! Come, light the -candles, and we'll have some of these new Rubinstein duets." - -And we spent a happy hour or two at the piano. - -At about half-past ten I began to long for the good-night pipe, but -Laura looked so white that I felt it would be brutal of me to fill our -sitting-room with the fumes of strong cavendish. - -"I'll take my pipe outside," I said. - -"Let me come, too." - -"No, sweetheart, not to-night; you're much too tired. I shan't be long. -Get to bed, or I shall have an invalid to nurse to-morrow as well as the -boots to clean." - -I kissed her and was turning to go, when she flung her arms round my -neck, and held me as if she would never let me go again. I stroked her -hair. - -"Come, Pussy, you're over-tired. The housework has been too much for -you." - -She loosened her clasp a little and drew a deep breath. - -"No. We've been very happy to-day, Jack, haven't we? Don't stay out too -long." - -"I won't, my dearie." - -I strolled out of the front door, leaving it unlatched. What a night it -was! The jagged masses of heavy dark cloud were rolling at intervals -from horizon to horizon, and thin white wreaths covered the stars. -Through all the rush of the cloud river, the moon swam, breasting the -waves and disappearing again in the darkness. When now and again her -light reached the woodlands they seemed to be slowly and noiselessly -waving in time to the swing of the clouds above them. There was a -strange grey light over all the earth; the fields had that shadowy bloom -over them which only comes from the marriage of dew and moonshine, or -frost and starlight. - -I walked up and down, drinking in the beauty of the quiet earth and the -changing sky. The night was absolutely silent. Nothing seemed to be -abroad. There was no skurrying of rabbits, or twitter of the half-asleep -birds. And though the clouds went sailing across the sky, the wind that -drove them never came low enough to rustle the dead leaves in the -woodland paths. Across the meadows I could see the church tower standing -out black and grey against the sky. I walked there thinking over our -three months of happiness--and of my wife, her dear eyes, her loving -ways. Oh, my little girl! my own little girl; what a vision came then of -a long, glad life for you and me together! - -I heard a bell-beat from the church. Eleven already! I turned to go in, -but the night held me. I could not go back into our little warm rooms -yet. I would go up to the church. I felt vaguely that it would be good -to carry my love and thankfulness to the sanctuary whither so many loads -of sorrow and gladness had been borne by the men and women of the dead -years. - -I looked in at the low window as I went by. Laura was half lying on her -chair in front of the fire. I could not see her face, only her little -head showed dark against the pale blue wall. She was quite still. -Asleep, no doubt. My heart reached out to her, as I went on. There must -be a God, I thought, and a God who was good. How otherwise could -anything so sweet and dear as she have ever been imagined? - -I walked slowly along the edge of the wood. A sound broke the stillness -of the night, it was a rustling in the wood. I stopped and listened. The -sound stopped too. I went on, and now distinctly heard another step than -mine answer mine like an echo. It was a poacher or a wood-stealer, most -likely, for these were not unknown in our Arcadian neighbourhood. But -whoever it was, he was a fool not to step more lightly. I turned into -the wood, and now the footstep seemed to come from the path I had just -left. It must be an echo, I thought. The wood looked perfect in the -moonlight. The large dying ferns and the brushwood showed where through -thinning foliage the pale light came down. The tree trunks stood up -like Gothic columns all around me. They reminded me of the church, and I -turned into the bier-balk, and passed through the corpse-gate between -the graves to the low porch. I paused for a moment on the stone seat -where Laura and I had watched the fading landscape. Then I noticed that -the door of the church was open, and I blamed myself for having left it -unlatched the other night. We were the only people who ever cared to -come to the church except on Sundays, and I was vexed to think that -through our carelessness the damp autumn airs had had a chance of -getting in and injuring the old fabric. I went in. It will seem strange, -perhaps, that I should have gone half-way up the aisle before I -remembered--with a sudden chill, followed by as sudden a rush of -self-contempt--that this was the very day and hour when, according to -tradition, the "shapes drawed out man-size in marble" began to walk. - -Having thus remembered the legend, and remembered it with a shiver, of -which I was ashamed, I could not do otherwise than walk up towards the -altar, just to look at the figures--as I said to myself; really what I -wanted was to assure myself, first, that I did not believe the legend, -and, secondly, that it was not true. I was rather glad that I had come. -I thought now I could tell Mrs. Dorman how vain her fancies were, and -how peacefully the marble figures slept on through the ghastly hour. -With my hands in my pockets I passed up the aisle. In the grey dim light -the eastern end of the church looked larger than usual, and the arches -above the two tombs looked larger too. The moon came out and showed me -the reason. I stopped short, my heart gave a leap that nearly choked me, -and then sank sickeningly. - -The "bodies drawed out man-size" _were gone_, and their marble slabs lay -wide and bare in the vague moonlight that slanted through the east -window. - -Were they really gone? or was I mad? Clenching my nerves, I stooped and -passed my hand over the smooth slabs, and felt their flat unbroken -surface. Had some one taken the things away? Was it some vile practical -joke? I would make sure, anyway. In an instant I had made a torch of a -newspaper, which happened to be in my pocket, and lighting it held it -high above my head. Its yellow glare illumined the dark arches and those -slabs. The figures _were_ gone. And I was alone in the church; or was I -alone? - -And then a horror seized me, a horror indefinable and indescribable--an -overwhelming certainty of supreme and accomplished calamity. I flung -down the torch and tore along the aisle and out through the porch, -biting my lips as I ran to keep myself from shrieking aloud. Oh, was I -mad--or what was this that possessed me? I leaped the churchyard wall -and took the straight cut across the fields, led by the light from our -windows. Just as I got over the first stile, a dark figure seemed to -spring out of the ground. Mad still with that certainty of misfortune, I -made for the thing that stood in my path, shouting, "Get out of the -way, can't you!" - -But my push met with a more vigorous resistance than I had expected. My -arms were caught just above the elbow and held as in a vice, and the -raw-boned Irish doctor actually shook me. - -"Would ye?" he cried, in his own unmistakable accents--"would ye, then?" - -"Let me go, you fool," I gasped. "The marble figures have gone from the -church; I tell you they've gone." - -He broke into a ringing laugh. "I'll have to give ye a draught -to-morrow, I see. Ye've bin smoking too much and listening to old wives' -tales." - -"I tell you, I've seen the bare slabs." - -"Well, come back with me. I'm going up to old Palmer's--his daughter's -ill; we'll look in at the church and let me see the bare slabs." - -"You go, if you like," I said, a little less frantic for his laughter; -"I'm going home to my wife." - -"Rubbish, man," said he; "d'ye think I'll permit of that? Are ye to go -saying all yer life that ye've seen solid marble endowed with vitality, -and me to go all me life saying ye were a coward? No, sir--ye shan't do -ut." - -The night air--a human voice--and I think also the physical contact with -this six feet of solid common sense, brought me back a little to my -ordinary self, and the word "coward" was a mental shower-bath. - -"Come on, then," I said sullenly; "perhaps you're right." - -He still held my arm tightly. We got over the stile and back to the -church. All was still as death. The place smelt very damp and earthy. We -walked up the aisle. I am not ashamed to confess that I shut my eyes: I -knew the figures would not be there. I heard Kelly strike a match. - -"Here they are, ye see, right enough; ye've been dreaming or drinking, -asking yer pardon for the imputation." - -I opened my eyes. By Kelly's expiring vesta I saw two shapes lying "in -their marble" on their slabs. I drew a deep breath, and caught his -hand. - -"I'm awfully indebted to you," I said. "It must have been some trick of -light, or I have been working rather hard, perhaps that's it. Do you -know, I was quite convinced they were gone." - -"I'm aware of that," he answered rather grimly; "ye'll have to be -careful of that brain of yours, my friend, I assure ye." - -He was leaning over and looking at the right-hand figure, whose stony -face was the most villainous and deadly in expression. - -"By Jove," he said, "something has been afoot here--this hand is -broken." - -And so it was. I was certain that it had been perfect the last time -Laura and I had been there. - -"Perhaps some one has _tried_ to remove them," said the young doctor. - -"That won't account for my impression," I objected. - -"Too much painting and tobacco will account for that, well enough." - -"Come along," I said, "or my wife will be getting anxious. You'll come -in and have a drop of whisky and drink confusion to ghosts and better -sense to me." - -"I ought to go up to Palmer's, but it's so late now I'd best leave it -till the morning," he replied. "I was kept late at the Union, and I've -had to see a lot of people since. All right, I'll come back with ye." - -I think he fancied I needed him more than did Palmer's girl, so, -discussing how such an illusion could have been possible, and deducing -from this experience large generalities concerning ghostly apparitions, -we walked up to our cottage. We saw, as we walked up the garden-path, -that bright light streamed out of the front door, and presently saw that -the parlour door was open too. Had she gone out? - -"Come in," I said, and Dr. Kelly followed me into the parlour. It was -all ablaze with candles, not only the wax ones, but at least a dozen -guttering, glaring tallow dips, stuck in vases and ornaments in unlikely -places. Light, I knew, was Laura's remedy for nervousness. Poor child! -Why had I left her? Brute that I was. - -We glanced round the room, and at first we did not see her. The window -was open, and the draught set all the candles flaring one way. Her chair -was empty and her handkerchief and book lay on the floor. I turned to -the window. There, in the recess of the window, I saw her. Oh, my child, -my love, had she gone to that window to watch for me? And what had come -into the room behind her? To what had she turned with that look of -frantic fear and horror? Oh, my little one, had she thought that it was -I whose step she heard, and turned to meet--what? - -She had fallen back across a table in the window, and her body lay half -on it and half on the window-seat, and her head hung down over the -table, the brown hair loosened and fallen to the carpet. Her lips were -drawn back, and her eyes wide, wide open. They saw nothing now. What had -they seen last? - -The doctor moved towards her, but I pushed him aside and sprang to her; -caught her in my arms and cried-- - -"It's all right, Laura! I've got you safe, wifie." - -She fell into my arms in a heap. I clasped her and kissed her, and -called her by all her pet names, but I think I knew all the time that -she was dead. Her hands were tightly clenched. In one of them she held -something fast. When I was quite sure that she was dead, and that -nothing mattered at all any more, I let him open her hand to see what -she held. - -It was a grey marble finger. - - - - -_THE MASS FOR THE DEAD_. - - -I was awake--widely, cruelly awake. I had been awake all night; what -sleep could there be for me when the woman I loved was to be married -next morning--married, and not to me? - -I went to my room early; the family party in the drawing-room maddened -me. Grouped about the round table with the stamped plush cover, each was -busy with work, or book, or newspaper, but not too busy to stab my heart -through and through with their talk of the wedding. - -Her people were near neighbours of mine, so why should her marriage not -be canvassed in my home circle? - -They did not mean to be cruel; they did not know that I loved her; but -she knew it. I told her, but she knew it before that. She knew it from -the moment when I came back from three years of musical study in -Germany--came back and met her in the wood where we used to go nutting -when we were children. - -I looked into her eyes, and my whole soul trembled with thankfulness -that I was living in a world that held her also. I turned and walked by -her side, through the tangled green wood, and we talked of the long-ago -days, and it was, "Have you forgotten?" and "Do you remember?" till we -reached her garden gate. Then I said-- - -"Good-bye; no, _auf wiedersehn_, and in a very little time, I hope." - -And she answered-- - -"Good-bye. By the way, you haven't congratulated me yet." - -"Congratulated you?" - -"Yes, did I not tell you I am to marry Mr. Benoliel next month?" - -And she turned away, and went up the garden slowly. - -I asked my people, and they said it was true. Kate, my dear playfellow, -was to marry this Spaniard, rich, wilful, accustomed to win, polished in -manners and base in life. Why was she to marry him? - -"No one knows," said my father, "but her father is talked about in the -city, and Benoliel, the Spaniard, is rich. Perhaps that's it." - -That was it. She told me so when, after two weeks spent with her and -near her, I implored her to break so vile a chain and to come to me, who -loved her--whom she loved. - -"You are quite right," she said calmly. We were sitting in the -window-seat of the oak parlour in her father's desolate old house. "I do -love you, and I shall marry Mr. Benoliel." - -"Why?" - -"Look around you and ask me why, if you can." - -I looked around--on the shabby, bare room, with its faded hangings of -sage-green moreen, its threadbare carpet, its patched, washed-out chintz -chair-covers. I looked out through the square, latticed window at the -ragged, unkempt lawn, at her own gown--of poor material, though she wore -it as queens might desire to wear ermine--and I understood. - -Kate is obstinate; it is her one fault; I knew how vain would be my -entreaties, yet I offered them; how unavailing my arguments, yet they -were set forth; how useless my love and my sorrow, yet I showed them to -her. - -"No," she answered, but she flung her arms round my neck as she spoke, -and held me as one may hold one's best treasure. "No, no; you are poor, -and he is rich. You wouldn't have me break my father's heart: he's so -proud, and if he doesn't get some money next month, he will be ruined. -I'm not deceiving any one. Mr. Benoliel knows I don't care for him; and -if I marry him, he is going to advance my father a large sum of money. -Oh, I assure you that everything has been talked over and settled. There -is no going from it." - -"Child! child!" I cried, "how calmly you speak of it! Don't you see that -you are selling your soul and throwing mine away?" - -"Father Fabian says I am doing right," she answered, unclasping her -hands, but holding mine in them, and looking at me with those clear, -grey eyes of hers. "Are we to be unselfish in everything else, and in -love to think only of our own happiness? I love you, and I shall marry -him. Would you rather the positions were reversed?" - -"Yes," I said, "for then I would make you love me." - -"Perhaps _he_ will," she said bitterly. Even in that moment her mouth -trembled with the ghost of a smile. She always loved to tease. She goes -through more moods in a day than most other women in a year. Drowning -the smile came tears, but she controlled them, and she said-- - -"Good-bye; you see I am right, don't you? Oh, Jasper, I wish I hadn't -told you I loved you. It will only make you more unhappy." - -"It makes my one happiness," I answered; "nothing can take that from me. -And that happiness _he_ will never have. Say again that you love me!" - -"I love you! I love you! I love you!" - -With further folly of tears and mad loving words we parted, and I bore -my heartache away, leaving her to bear hers into her new life. - -And now she was to be married to-morrow, and I could not sleep. - -When the darkness became unbearable I lighted a candle, and then lay -staring vacantly at the roses on the wall-paper, or following with my -eyes the lines and curves of the heavy mahogany furniture. - -The solidity of my surroundings oppressed me. In the dull light the -wardrobe loomed like a hearse, and my violin case looked like a child's -coffin. - -I reached a book and read till my eyes ached and the letters danced a -_pas fantastique_ up and down the page. - -I got up and had ten minutes with the dumbbells. I sponged my face and -hands with cold water and tried again to sleep--vainly. I lay there, -miserably wide awake. - -I tried to say poetry, the half-forgotten tasks of my school days even, -but through everything ran the refrain-- - -"Kate is to be married to-morrow, and not to me, not to me!" - -I tried counting up to a thousand. I tried to imagine sheep in a lane, -and to count them as they jumped through a gap in an imaginary -hedge--all the time-honoured spells with which sleep is wooed--vainly. - -Then the Waits came, and a torture to the nerves was superadded to the -torture of the heart. After fifteen minutes of carols every fibre of me -seemed vibrating in an agony of physical misery. - -To banish the echo of "The Mistletoe Bough," I hummed softly to myself -a melody of Palestrina's, and felt more awake than ever. - -Then the thing happened which nothing will ever explain. As I lay there -I heard, breaking through and gradually overpowering the air I was -suggesting, a harmony which I had never heard before, beautiful beyond -description, and as distinct and definite as any song man's ears have -ever listened to. - -My first half-formed thought was, "more Waits," but the music was choral -music, true and sweet; with it mingled an organ's notes, and with every -note the music grew in volume. It is absurd to suggest that I dreamed -it, for, still hearing the music, I leaped out of bed and opened the -window. The music grew fainter. There was no one to be seen in the snowy -garden below. Shivering, I shut the window. The music grew more -distinct, and I became aware that I was listening to a mass--a funeral -mass, and one which I had never heard before. I lay in my bed and -followed the whole course of the office. - -The music ceased. - -I was sitting up in bed, my candle alight, and myself as wide awake as -ever, and more than ever possessed by the thought of _her_. - -But with a difference. Before, I had only mourned the loss of her: now, -my thoughts of her were mingled with an indescribable dread. The sense -of death and decay that had come to me with that strange, beautiful -music, coloured all my thoughts. I was filled with fancies of hushed -houses, black garments, rooms where white flowers and white linen lay in -a deathly stillness. I heard echoes of tears, and of dim-voiced bells -tolling monotonously. I shivered, as it were on the brink of irreparable -woe, and in its contemplation I watched the dull dawn slowly overcome -the pale flame of my candle, now burnt down into its socket. - -I felt that I must see Kate once again before she gave herself away. -Before ten o'clock I was in the oak parlour. She came to me. As she -entered the room, her pallor, her swollen eyelids and the misery in her -eyes wrung my heart as even that night of agony had not done. I -literally could not speak. I held out my hands. - -Would she reproach me for coming to her again, for forcing upon her a -second time the anguish of parting? - -She did not. She laid her hands in mine, and said-- - -"I am thankful you have come; do you know, I think I am going mad? Don't -let me go mad, Jasper." - -The look in her eyes underlined her words. - -I stammered something and kissed her hands. I was with her again, and -joy fought again with grief. - -"I must tell some one. If I am mad, don't lock me up. Take care of me, -won't you?" - -Would I not? - -"Understand," she went on, "it was not a dream. I was wide awake, -thinking of you. The Waits had not long gone, and I--I was looking at -your likeness. I was not asleep." - -I shivered as I held her fast. - -"As Heaven sees us, I did not dream it. I heard a mass sung, and, -Jasper, it was a mass for the dead. I followed the office. You are not a -Catholic, but I thought--I feared--oh, I don't know what I thought. I am -thankful there is nothing wrong with you." - -I felt a sudden certainty, and complete sense of power possess me. Now, -in this her moment of weakness, while she was so completely under the -influence of a strong emotion, I could and would save her from Benoliel, -and myself from life-long pain. - -"Kate," I said, "I believe it is a warning. You shall not marry this -man. You shall marry me, and none other." - -She leaned her head against my shoulder; she seemed to have forgotten -her father and all the reasons for her marriage with Benoliel. - -"You don't think I'm mad? No? Then take care of me; take me away; I -feel safe with you." - -Thus all obstacles vanished in less time than the length of a lover's -kiss. I dared not stop to consider the coincidence of supernatural -warning--nor what it might mean. Face to face with crowned hope, I am -proud to remember that common sense held her own. The room in which we -were had a French window. I fetched her garden hat and a shawl from the -hall, and we went out through the still, white garden. We did not meet a -soul. When we reached my father's garden I took her in by the back way, -to the summer-house, and left her, though I was half afraid to leave -her, while I went into the house. I snatched my violin and cheque book, -took all my spare money, scrawled a line to my father and rejoined her. - -Still no one had seen us. - -We walked to a station five miles away; and by the time Benoliel would -reach the church, I was leaving Doctors' Commons with a special licence -in my pocket. Two hours later Kate was my wife, and we were quietly and -prosaically eating our wedding-breakfast in the dining-room of the Grand -Hotel. - -"And where shall we go?" I said. - -"I don't know," she answered, smiling; "you have not much money, have -you?" - -"Oh dear me, yes. I'm not rich, but I'm not absolutely a church mouse." - -"Could we go to Devonshire?" she asked, twisting her new ring round and -round. - -"Devonshire! Why, that is where----" - -"Yes, I know: Benoliel arranged to go there. Jasper, I am afraid of -Benoliel." - -"Then why----" - -"Foolish person," she answered. "Do you think that Benoliel will be -likely to go to Devonshire _now_?" - -We went to Devonshire--I had had a small legacy a few months earlier, -and I did not permit money cares to trouble my new and beautiful -happiness. My only fear was that she would be saddened by thoughts of -her father; but I am thankful to remember that in those first days she, -too, was happy--so happy that there seemed to be hardly room in her -mind for any thought but of me. And every hour of every day I said to my -soul-- - -"But for that portent, whatever it boded, she might have been not my -wife but his." - -The first four or five days of our marriage are flowers that memory -keeps always fresh. Kate's face had recovered its wild-rose bloom, and -she laughed and sang and jested and enjoyed all our little daily -adventures with the fullest, freest-hearted gaiety. Then I committed the -supreme imbecility of my life--one of those acts of folly on which one -looks back all one's life with a half stamp of the foot, and the -unanswerable question, "How on earth could I have been such a fool?" - -We were sitting in a little sitting-room, hideous in intention, but -redeemed by blazing fire and the fact that two were there, sitting -hand-in-hand, gazing into the fire and talking of their future and of -their love. There was nothing to trouble us; no one had discovered our -whereabouts, and my wife's fear of Benoliel's revenge seemed to have -dissolved before the flame of our happiness. - -And as we sat there, peaceful and untroubled, the Imp of the Perverse -jogged my elbow, as, alas! he does so often, and I was moved to tell my -wife that I, too, had heard that unearthly midnight music--that her -hearing of it was not, as she had grown to think, a mere nightmare--a -strange dream--but something more strange, more significant. I told her -how I had heard the mass for the dead, and all the tale of that night. -She listened silently, and I thought her strangely indifferent. When I -had finished, she took her hand from mine and covered her face. - -"I believe it was a warning to us to flee temptation. We ought never to -have married. Oh, my poor father!" - -Her tone was one that I had never heard before. Its hopeless misery -appalled me. And justly. For no arguments, no entreaties, no caresses, -could win my wife back to the mood of an hour before. - -She tried to be cheerful, but her gaiety was forced, and her laughter -stung my heart. - -She spoke no more about the music, and when I tried to reason with her -about it she smiled a gloomy little smile, and said-- - -"I cannot be happy. I will not be happy. It is wrong. I have been very -selfish and wicked. You think me very idiotic, I know, but I believe -there is a curse on us. We shall never be happy again." - -"Don't you love me any more?" I asked like a fool. - -"Love you?" She only repeated my words, but I was satisfied on that -score. But those were miserable days. We loved each other passionately, -yet our hours were spent like those of lovers on the eve of parting. -Long, long silences took the place of foolish little jokes and childish -talk which happy lovers know. And more than once, waking in the night, I -heard my wife sobbing, and feigned sleep, with the bitter knowledge that -I had no power to comfort her. I knew that the thought of her father -was with her always, and that her anxiety about him grew, day by day. I -wore myself out in trying to think of some way to divert her thoughts -from him. I could not, indeed, pay his debts, but I could have him to -live with us, a much greater sacrifice; and having a good connection, -both as a musician and composer, I did not doubt that I could support -her and him in comfort. - -But Kate had made up her mind that the disgrace of bankruptcy would -break her father's heart; and my Kate is not easy to convince or -persuade. - -At Torquay it occurred to me that perhaps it would be well for her to -see a priest. True, Father Fabian had counselled her to marry Benoliel, -but I could hardly believe that most priests would advise a girl to -marry a bad man, whom she did not love, for the sake of any worldly gain -whatsoever. - -She received the suggestion with favour, but without enthusiasm, and we -sought out a Catholic church to make inquiries. As we opened the outer -door of the church we heard music, and as we stood in the entrance and -I laid my hand on the heavy inner door, my other hand was caught by -Kate. - -"Jasper," she whispered, "it is the same!" - -Some person opening the door behind us compelled us to move forward. In -another moment we stood in the dusky church--stood hand-in-hand in dim -daylight, listening to the same music that each had heard in the lonely -night on the eve of our wedding. - -I put my arm round my wife and drew her back. - -"Come away, my darling," I whispered; "it is a funeral service." - -She turned her eyes on me. "I _must_ understand, I must see who it is. I -shall go mad if you take me away now. I cannot bear any more." - -We walked up the aisle, and placed ourselves as near as possible to the -spot where the coffin lay, covered with flowers and with tapers burning -about it. And we heard that music again, every note of it the same that -each had heard before. And when the service was over I whispered to the -sacristan-- - -"Whose music was that?" - -"Our organist's," he answered; "it is the first time they've had it. -Fine, wasn't it?" - -"Who is the--who was--who is being buried?" - -"A foreign gentleman, sir; they do say as his lady as was to be gave him -the slip on his wedding day, and he'd given her father thousands they -say, if the truth was known." - -"But what was he doing here?" - -"Well, that's the curious part, sir. To show his independence, what does -he do but go the same tour he'd planned for his wedding trip. And there -was a railway accident, and him and every one in his carriage killed in -a twinkling, so to speak. Lucky for the young lady she was off with -somebody else." - -The sacristan laughed softly to himself. - -Kate's fingers gripped my arm. - -"What was his name?" she asked. - -I would not have asked: I did not wish to hear it. - -"Benoliel," said the sacristan. "Curious name and curious tale. Every -one's talking of it." - -Every one had something else to talk of when it was found that -Benoliel's pride, which had permitted him to buy a wife, had shrunk from -reclaiming the purchase money when the purchase was lost to him. And to -the man who had been willing to sell his daughter, the retention of her -price seemed perfectly natural. - -From the moment when she heard Benoliel's name on the sacristan's lips, -all Kate's gaiety and happiness returned. She loved me, and she hated -Benoliel. She was married to me, and he was dead; and his death was far -more of a shock to me than to her. Women are curiously kind and -curiously cruel. And she never could see why her father should not have -kept the money. It is noteworthy that women, even the cleverest and the -best of them, have no perception of what men mean by honour. - -How do I account for the music? My good critic, my business is to tell -my story--not to account for it. - -And do I not pity Benoliel? Yes. I can afford, now, to pity most men, -alive or dead. - -THE END. - - * * * * * - -LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND -CHARING CROSS. - - * * * * * - -UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. - -SPORT ROYAL. - -BY ANTHONY HOPE, - -AUTHOR OF "MR. WITT'S WIDOW." - -1s. - - * * * * * - -TWO POPULAR 3s. 6d. NOVELS. - -MR. WITT'S WIDOW. BY ANTHONY HOPE. - -AMETHYST. BY C. R. COLERIDGE. - - * * * * * - -NEW NOVELS IN PREPARATION. - -WAYNFLETE. By C. R. COLERIDGE, author of "Amethyst." 2 vols. Crown 8vo, -£1 1s. - -THE VOICE OF A FLOWER. BY EMILY GERARD. 1 vol. Crown 8vo, 6s. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Grim Tales, by Edith Nesbit - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM TALES *** - -***** This file should be named 40321-8.txt or 40321-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/3/2/40321/ - -Produced by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This book was created from -images of public domain material made available by the -University of Toronto Libraries -(http://link.library.utoronto.ca/booksonline/).) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Nesbit. @@ -174,47 +174,7 @@ table { </style> </head> <body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grim Tales, by Edith Nesbit - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Grim Tales - -Author: Edith Nesbit - -Release Date: July 24, 2012 [EBook #40321] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIM TALES *** - - - - -Produced by Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at -http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This book was created from -images of public domain material made available by the -University of Toronto Libraries -(http://link.library.utoronto.ca/booksonline/).) - - - - - - -</pre> - +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40321 ***</div> <div class="figcenter"> <img src="images/tp.jpg" alt=""/> @@ -3087,389 +3047,6 @@ AUTHOR OF "MR. WITT'S WIDOW."<br /> <p class="center">THE VOICE OF A FLOWER. <span class="smcap">By Emily Gerard.</span> 1 vol. 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