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diff --git a/40566-8.txt b/40566-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1dc73ee..0000000 --- a/40566-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6820 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Moth and Rust, by Mary Cholmondeley - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Moth and Rust - Together with Geoffrey's Wife and The Pitfall - -Author: Mary Cholmondeley - -Release Date: August 23, 2012 [EBook #40566] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOTH AND RUST *** - - - - -Produced by M. Jeanne Peterson, Suzanne Shell and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - -MOTH AND RUST - - - - - BY THE SAME AUTHOR. - - RED POTTAGE. - DIANA TEMPEST. - SIR CHARLES DANVERS. - A DEVOTEE. - THE DANVERS' JEWELS. - - - - - MOTH AND RUST - - TOGETHER WITH GEOFFREY'S - WIFE AND THE PITFALL - - - BY MARY CHOLMONDELEY, - AUTHOR OF "RED POTTAGE." - - - "Rust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array." - --CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. - - - LONDON - JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET - 1902 - - - - - TO - - ESSEX. - - Not chance of birth or place has made us friends. - - - - - PREFACE - - - My best thanks are due to the Editor of - _The Graphic_ for his kind permission to - republish "Geoffrey's Wife," which appeared - originally in _The Graphic_. - - MARY CHOLMONDELEY. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - MOTH AND RUST 1 - GEOFFREY'S WIFE 241 - THE PITFALL 267 - - - * * * * * - - - - -MOTH AND RUST - - - - -CHAPTER I - - "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and - rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal." - - -The Vicar gave out the text, and proceeded to expound it. The little -congregation settled down peacefully to listen. Except four of their -number, the "quality" in the carved Easthope pew, none of them had much -treasure on earth. Their treasure for the greater part consisted of a -pig, that was certainly being "laid up" to meet the rent at Christmas. -But there would hardly be time for moth and rust to get into it before -its secluded life should migrate into flitches and pork pies. Not that -the poorest of Mr Long's parishioners had any fear of such an event, for -they never associated his sermons with anything to do with themselves, -except on one occasion when the good man had preached earnestly against -drunkenness, and a respectable widow had ceased to attend divine service -in consequence, because, as she observed, she was not going to be spoken -against like that by any one, be they who they may, after all the years -she had been "on the teetotal." - -Perhaps the two farmers who had driven over resplendent wives in -dog-carts had treasure on earth. They certainly had money in the bank at -Mudbury, for they were to be seen striding in in gaiters on market-day -to draw it out. But then it was well known that thieves did not break -through into banks and steal. Banks sometimes broke of themselves, but -not often. - -On the whole, the congregation was at its ease. It felt that the text -was well chosen, and that it applied exclusively to the four occupants -of "the Squire's" pew. - -The hard-worked Vicar certainly had no treasure on earth, if you -excepted his principal possessions, namely, his pale wife and little -flock of rosy children, and these, of course, were only encumbrances. -Had they not proved to be so? For his cousin had promised him the family -living, and would certainly have kept that promise when it became -vacant, if the wife he had married in the interval had not held such -strong views as to a celibate clergy. - -The Vicar was a conscientious man, and the conscientious are seldom -concise. - - "He held with all his tedious might, - The mirror to the mind of God." - -There was no doubt he was tedious, and it was to be hoped that the -portion of the Divine mind not reflected in the clerical mirror would -compensate somewhat for His more gloomy attributes as shown therein. - -Mrs Trefusis, "Squire's" mother, an old woman with a thin, knotted face -like worn-out elastic, sat erect throughout the service. She had the -tight-lipped, bitter look of one who has coldly appropriated as her due -all the good things of life, who has fiercely rebelled against every -untoward event, and who now in old age offers a passive, impotent -resistance to anything that suggests a change. She had had an easy, -comfortable existence, but her life had gone hard with her, and her face -showed it. - -Near her were the two guests who were staying at Easthope. The villagers -looked at the two girls with deep interest. They had made up their minds -that "the old lady had got 'em in to see if Squire could fancy one of -'em." - -Lady Anne Varney, who sat next to Mrs Trefusis, was a graceful, -small-headed woman of seven-and-twenty, delicately featured, pale, -exquisitely dressed, with the indefinable air of a finished woman of the -world, and with the reserved, disciplined manner of a woman accustomed -to conceal her feelings from a world in which she has lived too much, in -which she has been knocked about too much, and which has not gone too -well with her. If Anne attended to the sermon--and she appeared to do -so--she was the only person in the Easthope pew who did. - -No; the other girl, Janet Black, was listening too now and then, -catching disjointed sentences with no sense in them, as one hears a few -shouted words in a high wind. - -Ah me! Janet was beautiful. Even Mrs Trefusis was obliged to own it, -though she did so grudgingly, and added bitterly that the girl had no -breeding. It was true. Janet had none. But beauty rested upon her as it -rests on a dove's neck, varying with every movement, every turn of the -head. She was quite motionless now, her rather large, ill-gloved hands -in her lap. Janet was a still woman. She had no nervous movements. She -did not twine her muff-chain round her fingers as Anne did. Anne looked -at her now and then, and wondered whether she--Anne--would have been -more successful in life if she had entered the arena armed with such -beauty as Janet's. - -There was a portrait of Janet in the Academy several years later, which -has made her beauty known to the world. We have all seen that celebrated -picture of the calm Madonna face, with the mark of suffering so plainly -stamped upon the white brow and in the unfathomable eyes. But the young -girl sitting in the Easthope pew hardly resembled, except in feature, -the portrait that, later on, took the artistic world by storm. Janet was -perhaps even more beautiful in this her first youth than her picture -proved her afterwards to be; but the beauty was expressionless, opaque. -The soul had not yet illumined the fair face. She looked what she was--a -little dull, without a grain of imagination. Was it the dulness of want -of ability, or only the dulness of an uneducated mind, of powers unused, -still dormant? - -Without her transcendent beauty she would have appeared uninteresting -and commonplace. - - "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth." - -The Vicar had a habit of repeating his text several times in the course -of his sermon. Janet heard it the third time, and it forced the entrance -of her mind. - -Her treasure was certainly on earth. It consisted of the heavy, -sleek-haired young man with the sunburnt complexion and the reddish -moustache at the end of the pew--in short, "the Squire." - -After a short and ardent courtship she had accepted him, and then she -herself had been accepted, not without groans, by his family. The groans -had not been audible, but she was vaguely aware that she was not -received with enthusiasm by the family of her hero, her wonderful fairy -prince who had ridden into her life on a golden chestnut. George -Trefusis was heavily built, but in Janet's eyes he was slender. His -taciturn dulness was in her eyes a most dignified and becoming reserve. -His inveterate unsociability proved to her--not that it needed -proving--his mental superiority. She could not be surprised at the -coldness of her reception as his betrothed, for she acutely felt her own -great unworthiness of being the consort of this resplendent personage, -who could have married any one. Why had he honoured her among all -women? - -The answer was sufficiently obvious to every one except herself. The -fairy prince had fallen heavily in love with her beauty; so heavily -that, after a secret but stubborn resistance, he had been vanquished by -it. Marry her he must and would, whatever his mother might say. And she -had said a good deal. She had not kept silence. - -And now Janet was staying for the first time at Easthope, which was one -day to be her home--the old Tudor house standing among its terraced -gardens, which had belonged to a Trefusis since a Trefusis built it in -Henry the Seventh's time. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - "On peut choisir ses amitiés, mais on subit l'amour." - - --PRINCESS KARADJA. - - -After luncheon George offered to take Janet round the gardens. Janet -looked timidly at Mrs Trefusis. She did not know whether she ought to -accept or not. There might be etiquettes connected with afternoon walks -of which she was not aware. For even since her arrival at Easthope -yesterday it had been borne in upon her that there were many things of -which she was not aware. - -"Pray let my son show you the gardens," said Mrs Trefusis, with -impatient formality. "The roses are in great beauty just now." - -Janet went to put on her hat, and Mrs Trefusis lay down on the sofa in -the drawing-room with a little groan. Anne sat down by her. The eyes of -both women followed Janet's tall, magnificent figure as she joined -George on the terrace. - -"She dresses like a shop-girl," said Mrs Trefusis. "And what a hat! -Exactly what one sees on the top of omnibuses." - -Anne did not defend the hat. It was beyond defence. She supposed, with a -tinge of compassion, what was indeed the case, that Janet had made a -special pilgrimage to Mudbury to acquire it, in order the better to meet -the eyes of her future mother-in-law. - -All Anne said was, "Very respectable people go on the top of omnibuses -nowadays." - -"I am not saying anything against her respectability," said poor Mrs -Trefusis. "Heaven knows if there had been anything against it I should -have said so before now. It would have been my duty." - -Anne smiled faintly. "A painful duty." - -"I'm not so sure," said Mrs Trefusis grimly. She never posed before -Anne, nor, for that matter, did any one else. "But from all I can make -out this girl is a model of middle-class respectability. Yet she comes -of a bad stock. One can't tell how she will turn out. What is bred in -the bone will come out in the flesh." - -"There are worse things than middle-class respectability. George might -have presented you with an actress with a past. Lord Lossiemouth married -his daughter's maid last week." - -"I don't know what I've done," said Mrs Trefusis, "that my only son -should marry a pretty horse-breaker." - -"I thought it was her brother who was a horse-breaker." - -"So he is, and so is she. It was riding to hounds that my poor boy first -met her." - -"She rides magnificently. I saw her out cub-hunting last autumn, and -asked who she was." - -"Her brother is disreputable. He was mixed up with that case of drugging -some horse or other. I forget about it, but I know it was disgraceful. -He is quite an impossible person, but I suppose we shall have to know -him now. The place will be overrun with her relations, whom I have -avoided for years. Things like that always happen to me." - -This was a favourite expression of Mrs Trefusis'. She invariably spoke -as if a curse had hung over her since her birth. - -"What does it matter who one knows?" said Anne. - -Mrs Trefusis did not answer. The knots in her face moved a little. She -knew what country life and country society were better than Anne. She -had all her life lived in the upper of the two sets which may be found -in every country neighbourhood. She did what she considered to be her -duty by the secondary set, but she belonged by birth and by inclination -to the upper class. It was at first with bewildered surprise, and later -on with cold anger, that she observed that her only son, bone of her -bone, very son of herself and her kind dead husband, showed a natural -tendency to gravitate towards the second-rate among their neighbours. - -Why did he do it? Why did he bring strange, loud-voiced, vulgar men to -Easthope, the kind of men whom Mr Trefusis would not have tolerated? She -might have known that her husband would die of pneumonia just when her -son needed him most. She had not expected it, but she ought to have -expected it. Did not everything in her lot go crooked, while the lives -of all those around her went straight? What was the matter with her son, -that he was more at ease with these undesirable companions than with the -sons of his father's old friends? Why would he never accompany her on -her annual pilgrimage to London? - -George was one of those lethargic, vain men who say they hate London. -Catch them going to London! Perhaps if efforts were made to catch them -there, they might repair thither. But in London they are nobodies; -consequently to London they do not go. And the same man who eschews -London will generally be found to gravitate in the country to a society -in which he is the chief personage. It had been so with George. Fred -Black, the disreputable horse-breaker, and his companions, had -sedulously paid court to him. George, who had a deep-rooted love of -horse-flesh, was often at Fred's training stables. There he met Janet, -and fell in love with her, as did most of Fred's associates. But unlike -them, George had withdrawn. He knew he should "do" for himself with "the -county" if he married Janet. And he could not face his mother. So he -sulked like a fish under the bank, half suspicious that he is being -angled for. So ignorant of his fellow-creatures was George that there -actually had been a moment when he suspected Janet of trying to "land -him," and he did not think any the worse of her. - -Then, after months of sullen indecision, he suddenly rushed upon his -fate. That was a week ago. - -Anne left her chair as Mrs Trefusis did not answer, and knelt down by -the old woman. - -"Dear Mrs Trefusis," she said, "the girl is a nice girl, innocent and -good, and without a vestige of conceit." - -"She has nothing to be conceited about that I can see." - -"Oh! yes. She might be conceited about marrying George. It is an amazing -match for her. And she might be conceited about her beauty. I should be -if I had that face." - -"My dear, you are twenty times as good-looking, because you look what -you are--a lady. She looks what she is--a----" Something in Anne's -steady eyes disconcerted Mrs Trefusis, and she did not finish the -sentence. She twitched her hands restlessly, and then went on: "And she -can't come into a room. She sticks in the door. And she always calls you -'Lady Varney.' She hasn't called a girl a 'gurl' yet, but I know she -will. I had thought my son's wife might make up to me a little for all -I've gone through--might be a comfort to me--and then I am asked to put -up with a vulgarian." - -Anne went on in a level voice: "Janet is not in the least vulgar, -because she is unpretentious. Middle-class she may be, and is: so was my -grandmother; but vulgar she is not. And she is absolutely devoted to -George. He is in love with her, but she really loves him." - -"So she ought. He is making a great sacrifice for her, and, as I -constantly tell him, one he will regret to his dying day." - -"On the contrary, he is only sacrificing his own pride and yours -to--himself. He is considering only himself. He is marrying only to -please himself, not----" Anne hesitated--"not to please Janet." - -"Now you are talking nonsense." - -"Yes, I think I am. It felt like sense, but by the time I had put it -into words, it turned into nonsense. The little things you notice in -Janet's dress and manner can be mitigated, if she is willing to learn." - -"She won't be," said Mrs Trefusis, with decision. "Because she is -stupid. She will be offended directly she is spoken to. All stupid -people are. Now come, Anne! Don't try and make black white. It doesn't -help matters. You must admit the girl is stupid." - -Anne's gentle, limpid eyes looked deprecatingly into the elder woman's -hard, miserable ones. - -"I am afraid she is," she said at last, and she coloured painfully. - -"And obstinate." - -"Are not stupid people always obstinate?" - -"No," said Mrs Trefusis. "I am obstinate, but no one could call me -stupid." - -"It does not prevent stupid people being always obstinate, because -obstinate people are not always stupid." - -"You think me very obstinate, Anne?" There were tears in the stern old -eyes. - -"I think, dear, you have got to give way, and as you must, I want you to -do it with a good grace, before you estrange George from you, and before -that unsuspecting girl has found out that you loathe the marriage." - -"If she were not as dense as a rhinoceros, she would see that now." - -"How fortunate, in that case, that she is dense. It gives you a better -chance with her. Make her like you. You can, you know. She is worth -liking." - -"All my life," said Mrs Trefusis, "be they who they may, I have hated -stupid people." - -"Oh! no. That is an hallucination. You don't hate George." - -Mrs Trefusis shot a lightning glance at her companion, and then smiled -grimly. "You are the only person who would dare to say such a thing to -me." - -"Besides," continued Anne meditatively, "is it so certain that Janet is -stupid? She appears so because she is unformed, ignorant, and because -she has never reflected, or been thrown with educated people. She has -not come to herself. She will never learn anything by imagination or -perception, for she seems quite devoid of them. But I think she might -learn by trouble or happiness, or both. She can feel. Strong feeling -would be the turning-point with her, if she has sufficient ability to -take advantage of it. Perhaps she has not, and happiness or trouble may -leave her as they found her. But she gives me the impression that she -_might_ alter considerably if she were once thoroughly aroused." - -"I can't rouse her. I was not sent into the world to rouse pretty -horse-breakers." - -If Anne was doubtful as to what Mrs Trefusis had been sent into this -imperfect world for, she did not show it. - -"I don't want you to rouse her. All I want is that you should be kind to -her." Anne took Mrs Trefusis' ringed, claw-like hand between both hers. -"I do want that very much." - -"Well," said Mrs Trefusis, blinking her eyes, "I won't say I won't try. -You can always get round me, Anne. Oh! my dear, dear child, if it might -only have been you. But of course, just because I had set my heart upon -it, I was not to have it. That has been my life from first to last. If I -might only have had you. You think me a cross, bitter old woman, and so -I am: God knows I have had enough to make me so. But I should not have -been so to you." - -"You never are so to me. But you see my affections are--is not that the -correct expression?--engaged." - -"But you are not." - -"No. I am as free as air. That is where the difficulty comes in." - -"Where is the creature now?" - -"In Paris. The _World_ chronicles his movements. That is why I take in -the _World_. If he had been in London this week, I should not--be here -at this moment." - -"I suppose he is enormously run after?" - -"Oh yes! By others as well as by me; by tons of others younger and -better looking than I am." - -"Now, Anne, I am absolutely certain that you have never run a yard after -him." - -"I have never appeared to do so," said Anne, with her faint, enigmatical -smile. "The proprieties have been observed. At least by me they have. -But I have covered a good deal of ground, nevertheless." - -"I don't know what he is made of." - -"Well, he is made of money for one thing, and I have not a shilling. He -knows that." - -"He ought to be only too honoured by your being willing to think of him. -In my young days a man of his class would not have had a chance." - -"Millionaires get their chance nowadays." - -"Then why doesn't he take it?" - -"Because," said Anne, her lip quivering, "he thinks I like him for his -money. He has got that firmly screwed into his head." - -"As if a woman like you would do such a thing." - -"Women extremely like me are doing such things all the time. How is he -to know I am different?" - -"He must be a fool." - -"He does not look like one." - -"No," said Mrs Trefusis meditatively, "I must own he does not. He has a -bullet head. I saw him once at the Duchess of Dundee's last summer. He -was pointed out to me as the biggest thing in millionaires since -Barnato. But I must confess he was the very last person in the world -whom I should have thought you would have looked at--for himself, I -mean." - -"That is what he thinks." - -"He is so very unattractive." - -"He is an ugly, forbidding-looking man of forty," said Anne, who had -become very pale. - -"I should not go as far as that," said Mrs Trefusis, somewhat -disconcerted. - -"Oh! I can for you!" said Anne, her quiet eyes flashing. "He is all -these things. He is exactly what I would rather not have married. And I -think he knows that instinctively, poor man! But in spite of all that, -in spite of everything that repels me, I know that we belong to each -other. He did not choose to like me, or I to like him. I never had any -choice in the matter. When I first saw him I recognised him. I had known -him all my life. I had been waiting for him always without knowing it. I -never really understood anything till he came. I did not fall in love -with him; at least, not in the way I see others do, and as I once did -myself years ago. I am not attracted towards him. I am him. And he is -me. One can't fall in love with oneself. He is my other self. We are -one. We may live painfully apart as we are doing now--he may marry some -one else: but the fact remains the same." - -Mrs Trefusis did not answer. Love is so rare that when we meet it we -realise that we are on holy ground. - -"You and he will marry some day," she said at last. - -Her thoughts went back to her own youth, and its romantic love and -marriage. There was no romance here as she understood it, nothing but a -grim reality. But it almost seemed as if love could go deeper without -romance. - -"I do not see how a misunderstanding can hold together between you." - -"You forget mother," said Anne. - -Mrs Trefusis had momentarily forgotten her closest friend, the Duchess -of Quorn, that notorious match-making mother of a quartette of pretty, -well-drilled daughters, all of whom were now advantageously married -except Anne--the eldest. And if Anne was not at this moment wedded to -George Trefusis it was not owing to want of zeal on the part of both -mothers. Mrs Trefusis was irrevocably behind the scenes in Anne's -family. - -"Mother ought by nature to have been a man and a cricketer," said Anne, -"instead of the mother of many daughters. She is 'game' to the last, -she is a hard hitter, and she will run till she drops on the chance of -any catch. But her bowling is her strong point. Young men have not a -chance with her. Her style may not be dignified, but her eye is -extraordinary. Harry Lestrange did his silly, panic-stricken best, -but--he is married to Cecily now." - -"Did he really try to get out of it?" - -"He did. He liked Cecily a little; he had certainly flirted with her -when she came in his way, but he never made the least effort to meet -her, and he did not want to marry her." - -"And Cecily?" - -"Cecily did not dislike him. She was only nineteen, and she had--so she -told me--always hoped for curly hair; and of course Harry's is quite -straight, what little there is of it. She shed a few tears about that, -but she did as she was told. They are a nice-looking young couple. They -write quite happily. I daresay it will do very well. But, you see, -unfortunately, Harry was a friend of Mr Vanbrunt's, and I know Harry -consulted him as to how to get out of it. Well, directly mother's -attention was off Harry, she found out about Mr Vanbrunt; how I don't -know, but she did. Poor mother! she has a heart somewhere. It is her -sporting instincts which are too strong for her. When she found out, she -came into my room and kissed me, and cried, and said love was -everything, and what did looks matter, and, for her part, if a man was a -good man, she thought it was of no importance if he had not had a -father. Think of mother's saying that, after marrying poor father? But -she was quite sincere. Mother never minds contradicting herself. There -is nothing petty about her. She cried, and I cried too. We seemed to be -nearer to each other than we had been for years. I was the last daughter -left at home, and she actually said she did not want to part with me. I -think she felt it just for the moment, for she had had a good deal of -worry with some of the sons-in-law, especially Harry. But after a -little bit she came to herself, and she gave me such advice. Oh, such -advice! Some of it was excellent--that was the worst of it--but it was -all from the standpoint of the woman stalking the man. And she asked me -several gimlet questions about Mr Vanbrunt. She said I had not made any -mistake so far, but that I must be very careful. She was like a tiger -that has tasted blood. She said it was almost like marrying -royalty--marrying such wealth as that. I believe he has a property in -Africa rather larger than England. But she said that I was her dear -child, and she thought it might be done. I implored her not to do -anything--to leave him alone. But the truth is, mother had been so -successful that she had got rather beyond herself, and she fancied she -could do anything. Father had often prophesied that some day she would -overreach herself. However, nothing would stop her. So she settled down -to it. You know what mother's bowling is. It did for Harry--but this -time it did for me." - -"Mr Vanbrunt saw through it?" - -"From the first moment. He saw he was being hunted down. He bore it at -first, and then he withdrew. I can't prove it, but I am morally certain -that mother cornered him and had a talk with him one day, and told him I -cared for him, and thought him very handsome. Mother sticks at nothing. -After that he went away." - -"Poor man!" - -"She asked him in May to stay with us in Scotland in September, but he -has refused. I found she had given a little message from me which I -never sent. Poor, poor mother, and poor me!" - -"And poor millionaire! Surely if he has any sense he must see that it is -your mother and not you who is hunting him." - -"He is aware that Cecily did as she was told. He probably thinks I could -be coerced into marrying him. He may know a great deal about finance, -and stocks, and all those weary things, but he knows very little about -women. He has not taken much account of them so far." - -"His day will come," said Mrs Trefusis. "What a nuisance men are! I wish -they were all at the bottom of the sea." - -"If they were," said Anne, with her rueful little smile, "mother would -order a diving-bell at once." - - - - -CHAPTER III - - "O mighty love, O passion and desire, - That bound the cord." - - --_The Heptameron._ - - -Janet's mother had died when Janet was a toddling child. It is -observable in the natural history of heroines that their mothers almost -invariably do die when the heroines to whom they have given birth are -toddling children. Had Di Vernon a mother, or Evelina, or Jane Eyre, or -Diana of the Crossways, or Aurora Leigh? Dear Elizabeth Bennett -certainly had one whom we shall not quickly forget--but Elizabeth is an -exception. She only proves the rule for the majority of heroines. -Fathers they have sometimes, generally of a feeble or callous -temperament, never of any use in extricating their daughters from the -entanglements that early beset them. And occasionally they have -chivalrous or disreputable brothers. - -So it is with a modest confidence in the equipment of my heroine that I -now present her to the reader denuded of both parents, and domiciled -under the roof of a brother who was not only disreputable in the -imagination of Mrs Trefusis, but, as I hate half measures, was so in -reality. - -If Janet had been an introspective person, if she had ever asked herself -whence she came and whither she was going, if the cruelty of life and -nature had ever forced themselves upon her notice, if the apparent -incompleteness of this pretty world had ever daunted her, I think she -must have been a very unhappy woman. Her surroundings were vulgar, -coarse, without a redeeming gleam of culture, even in its crudest -forms, without a spark of refined affection. Nevertheless her life grew -up white and clean in it, as a hyacinth will build its fragrant bell -tower in the window of a tavern, in a stale atmosphere of smoke and beer -and alcohol. Janet was self-contained as a hyacinth. She unfolded from -within. She asked no questions of life. That she had had a happy, -contented existence was obvious; an existence spent much in the open -air, in which tranquil, practical duties well within her reach had been -all that had been required of her. Her brother Fred, several years older -than herself, had one redeeming point. He was fond of her and proud of -her. He did not understand her, but she was what he called "a good -sort." - -Janet was one of those blessed women--whose number seems to diminish, -while that of her highly-strung sisters painfully increases--who make no -large demand on life, or on their fellow-creatures. She took both as -they came. Her uprightness and integrity were her own, as was the -simple religion which she followed blindfold. She expected little of -others, and exacted nothing. She had, of course, had lovers in plenty. -She wished to be married and to have children--many children. In her -quiet ruminating mind she had names ready for a family of ten. But until -George came she had always said "No." When pressed by her brother as to -why some particularly eligible _parti_--such as Mr Gorst, the successful -trainer--had been refused, she could never put forward any adequate -reason, and would say at last that she was very happy as she was. - -Then George came, a different kind of man from any she had -known, at least different from any in his class who had offered -marriage. He represented to her all that was absent from her own -surroundings--refinement, culture. I don't know what Janet can have -meant by culture, but years later, when she had picked up words like -"culture" and "development," and scattered them across her conversation, -she told me he had represented all these glories to her. And he was a -little straighter than the business men she associated with, a good deal -straighter than her brother. Perhaps, after all, that was the first -attraction he had for her. Janet was straight herself. She fell in love -with George. - -"L'amour est une source naïve." It was a very naïve spring in Janet's -heart, though it welled up from a considerable depth; a spring not even -to be poisoned by her brother's outrageous delight at the engagement, or -his congratulations on the wisdom of her previous steadfast refusal of -the eligible Mr Gorst. - -"This beats all," he said; "I never thought you would pull it off, -Janet. I thought he was too big a fish to land. And to think you will -queen it at Easthope Park." - -Janet was not in the least perturbed by her brother's remarks. She was -accustomed to them. He always talked like that. She vaguely supposed she -should some day "queen it" at Easthope. The expression did not offend -her. The reflection in her mind was: "George must love me very much to -have chosen me, when all the most splendid ladies in the land would be -glad to have him." - -And now, as she walked on this Sunday afternoon in the long, quiet -gardens of Easthope, she felt her cup was full. She looked at her -affianced George with shy adoration from under the brim of her violent -new hat, and made soft answers to him when he spoke. - -George was not a great talker. He trusted mainly to an occasional -ejaculation, his meaning aided by pointing with a stick. - -A covey of partridges ran with one consent across the smooth lawn at a -little distance. - -"Jolly little beggars," said George, with explanatory stick. - -She liked the flowers best, but he did not, so he took her down to the -pool below the rose garden, where the eager brook ran through a grating, -making a little water prison in which solemn, portly personages might be -seen moving. - -"See 'em?" said George, pointing as usual. - -"Yes," said Janet. - -"That's a three-pounder." - -"Yes." - -That was all the stream said to them. - -She lingered once more in the rose-garden when he would have drawn her -onwards towards the ferrets, and George, willing to humour her, got out -his knife and chose a rose for her. Has any woman really lived who has -not stood once in silence in the June sunshine with her lover, and -watched him pick for her a red rose which is not as other roses, a rose -which understands? Amid all the world of roses, did the raiment of God -touch just that one, as He walked in His garden in the cool of the -evening? And did the Divine love imprisoned in it reach forth towards -the human love of the two lovers, and blend them for a moment with -itself? - -"You are my rose," said George, and he put his arm round her, and drew -her to him with a rough tenderness. - -"Yes," said Janet, not knowing to what she said "yes," but vaguely -assenting to him in everything. And they leaned together by the -sun-dial, soft cheek against tanned cheek, soft hand in hard hand. - -Could anything in life be more commonplace than two lovers and a rose? -Have we not seen such groups portrayed on lozenge-boxes, and on the -wrappers of French plums? - -And yet, what remains commonplace if Love but touch it as he passes? - -Let Memory open her worn picture-book, where it opens of itself, and -make answer. - - * * * * * - -Anne saw the lovers, but they did not see her, as she ran down the steps -cut in the turf to the little bridge across the trout stream. She had -left Mrs Trefusis composed into a resigned nap, and she felt at liberty -to carry her aching spirit to seek comfort and patience by the brook. - -Anne, the restrained, disciplined, dignified woman of the world, threw -herself down on her face in the short, sun-warm grass. - -Is the heart ever really tamed? As the years pass we learn to keep it -behind bolts and bars. We marshal it forth on set occasions, to work -manacled under our eyes, and then goad it back to its cell again. But is -it ever anything but a caged Arab of the desert, a wild fierce prisoner -in chains, a captive Samson with shorn locks which grow again, who may -one day snap his fetters, and pull down the house over our heads. - -Anne set her teeth. Her passionate heart beat hard against the kind -bosom of the earth. How we return to her, our Mother Earth, when life is -too difficult or too beautiful for us! How we fling ourselves upon her -breast, upon her solitude, finding courage to encounter joy, insight to -bear sorrow. First faint foreshadowing of the time when we, "short-lived -as fire, and fading as the dew," shall go back to her entirely. - -Anne lay very still. She did not cry. She knew better than that. Tears -are for the young. She hid her convulsed face in her hands, and -shuddered violently from time to time. - -How long was she to bear it? How long was she to drag herself by sheer -force through the days, endless hour by hour? How long was she to hate -the dawn? How long was she to endure this intermittent agony, which -released her only to return? Was there to be no reprieve from the -invasion of this one thought? Was there no escape from this man? Was not -her old friend the robin on his side? The meadowsweet feathered the -hedgerow. The white clover was in the grass, together with the little -purple orchid. Were they not all his confederates? Had he bribed the -robin to sing of him, and the scent in the white clover against her -cheek to goad her back to acute remembrance of him, and the pine-trees -to speak continually of him? - -"He is rich enough," said poor Anne to herself, with something between a -laugh and a sob. - -But he had not bribed the brook. Tormented spirits ere now have walked -in dry places, seeking rest and finding none. But has any outcast from -happiness sought rest by running water, and found it not? - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - "I have not sinned against the God of Love." - - --EDMUND GOSSE. - - -When Anne returned to the house an hour or two later she heard an alien -voice and strident laugh through the open door of the drawing-room as -she crossed the hall, and she crept noiselessly upstairs towards her own -room. She felt as if she were quite unable to bear so soon again the -strain of that small family party. But halfway up the stairs her -conscience pricked her. Was all well in the drawing-room? She sighed, -and went slowly downstairs again. - -All was not well there. - -Mrs Trefusis was sitting frozen upright in her high-backed chair, -listening with congealed civility to the would-be-easy conversation, -streaked with nervous laughter, of a young man. Anne saw at a glance -that he must be Janet's brother, and she instinctively divined that, on -the strength of his sister's engagement, he was now making, unasked, his -first call on Mrs Trefusis. - -Fred Black was a tall, sufficiently handsome man seen apart from Janet. -He could look quite distinguished striding about in well-made breeches -among a group of farmers and dealers on market-day. But taken away from -his appropriate setting, and inserted suddenly into the Easthope -drawing-room, in Janet's proximity, he changed like a chameleon, and -appeared dilapidated, in spite of being over-dressed, irretrievably -second-rate, and unwholesome-looking. He was so like his sister that a -certain indefinable commonness, not of breeding but of character, and a -suggestion of cunning and insolence observable in him, were thrown into -high relief by the strong superficial resemblance of feature between -them. - -Janet was sitting motionless and embarrassed before the tea-table, -waiting for the tea to become of brandied strength. Mrs Trefusis, -possibly mindful of Anne's appeal, had evidently asked her future -daughter-in-law to pour out tea for her. And Janet, to the instant -annoyance of the elder woman, had carefully poured cream into each empty -cup as a preliminary measure. - -George was standing in sullen silence by the tea-table, vaguely aware -that something was wrong, and wishing that Fred had not called. - -The strain relaxed as Anne entered. - -Anne came in quickly, with a gentle expectancy of pleasure in her grave -face. She gave the impression of one who has hastened back to congenial -society. - -If this be hypocrisy, Anne was certainly a hypocrite. There are some -natures, simple and patient, who quickly perceive and gladly meet the -small occasions of life. Anne had come into the world willing to serve, -and she did not mind whom she served. She did gracefully, even gaily, -the things that others did not think worth while. This was, of course, -no credit to her. She was made so. Just as some of us are so -fastidiously, so artistically constituted as to make the poor souls who -have to live with us old before their time. - -Mrs Trefusis' face became less knotted. Janet gave a sigh of relief. -George said: "Hi, Ponto! How are ye?" and affably stirred up his -sleeping retriever with his foot. - -Anne sat down by Janet, advised her that Mrs Trefusis did not like -cream, and then, while she swallowed a cup of tea sweetened to nausea, -devoted herself to Fred. - -His nervous laugh became less strident, his conversation less pendulous -between a paralysed constraint and a galvanized familiarity. Anne loved -horses, but she did not talk of them to Fred, though, from his -appearance, it seemed as if no other subject had ever occupied his -attention. - -Why is it that a passion for horses writes itself as plainly as a -craving for alcohol on the faces of the men and women who live for them? - -Anne spoke of the Boer war in its most obvious aspects, mentioned a few -of its best-known incidents, of which even he could not be ignorant. -Janet glanced with fond pride at her brother, as he declaimed against -the Government for its refusal to buy thousands of hypothetical Kaffir -ponies, and as he posted Anne in the private workings of the mind of her -cousin, the Prime Minister. Fred had even heard of certain scandals -respecting the hospitals for the wounded, and opined with decision that -war could not be conducted on rose-water principles, with a bottle of -eau-de-Cologne at each man's pillow. - -"Fine woman that!" said Fred to Janet afterwards, as she walked a few -steps with him on his homeward way. "Woman of the world. Knows her way -about. And how she holds herself! A little thin perhaps, and not much -colour, but shows her breeding. Who is she?" - -"Lady Varney." - -"Married?" - -"N--no." - -"H'm! Look here, Janet. You suck up to her. And you look how she does -things, and notice the way she talks. She reads the papers, takes an -interest in politics. That's what a man likes. You do the same. And -don't you knock under to that old bag of bones too much. Hold your own. -We are as good as she is." - -"Oh, no, Fred; we're not." - -"Oh! it's all rot about family. It's not worth a rush. We are just the -same as them. A gentleman's a gentleman whether he lives in a large -house or a small one, and the real snobs are the people who think -different. Does it make you less of a lady because you live in an -unpretentious way? Not a bit of it. Don't talk to me." - -Janet remained silent. She felt there was some hitch in her brother's -reasoning, which, until to-day, had appeared to her irrefutable, but she -could not see where the hitch lay. - -"You must stand up to the old woman, I tell you. I don't want you to be -rude, but you let her know that she is the dowager. Don't give way. -Didn't you see how I tackled her?" - -"I'm not clever like you." - -"Well, you are a long sight prettier," said her brother proudly. "And -I've brought some dollars with me for the trousseau. You go to the -Brands to-morrow, don't you?" - -"Yes." - -"Well, don't pay for anything you can help. Tell them to put it down. -Get this Lady Varney or Mrs Brand to recommend the shops and -dressmakers, and then they will not dun us for money." - -"Oh, Fred! Are you so hard up?" - -"Hard up!" said Fred, his face becoming suddenly pinched and old. "Hard -up!" He drew in his breath. "Oh! I'm all right. At least, yes, just for -the moment I'm a bit pressed. Look here, Janet. You and Mrs Brand are -old pals. Get Brand," his voice became hoarse, "get Brand to wait a bit. -He has my I O U, and he has waited once, but he warned me he would not -again. He said it was against his rules; as if rules matter between -gentlemen. He's as hard as nails. The I O U falls due next week, and I -can't meet it. I don't want any bother till after you are spliced. You -and Mrs Brand lay your heads together, and persuade him to wait till you -are married, at any rate. He hates me, but he won't want to stand in -your light." - -"I'll ask him," said Janet, looking earnestly at her brother, but only -half understanding why his face was so white and set. "But why don't you -take my two thousand and pay him back? I said you could borrow it. I -think that would be better than speaking again to Mr Brand, who will -never listen." - -"No, it wouldn't," said Fred, his hand shaking so violently that he gave -up attempting to light a cigarette. He knew that that two thousand, -Janet's little fortune, existed only in her imagination. It had existed -once; he had had charge of it, but it was gone. - -"Ask Brand," he said again. "A man with any gentlemanly feeling cannot -refuse a pretty woman anything. I can't. You ask Brand--as if it was to -please you. You're pretty enough to wheedle anything out of men. He'll -do it." - -"I'll ask him," said Janet again, and she sighed as she went back alone -to the great house which was one day to be hers. She did not think of -that as she looked up at the long lines of stone-mullioned windows. She -thought only of her George, and wondered, with a blush of shame, whether -Fred had yet borrowed money from him. - -Then, as she saw a white figure move past the gallery windows, she -remembered Anne, and her brother's advice to her to make a friend of -"Lady Varney." Janet had been greatly drawn towards Anne, after she had -got over a certain stolid preliminary impression that Anne was "fine." -And Janet had immediately mistaken Anne's tactful kindness to herself -for an overture of friendship. Perhaps that is a mistake which many -gentle, commonplace souls make, who go through life disillusioned as to -the sincerity of certain other attractive, brilliant creatures with whom -they have come in momentary contact, to whom they can give nothing, but -from whom they have received a generous measure of delicate sympathy and -kindness, which they mistook for the prelude of friendship; a friendship -which never arrived. It is well for us when we learn the difference -between the donations and the subscriptions of those richer than -ourselves, when we realize how broad is the way towards a person's -kindness, and how many surprisingly inferior individuals are to be met -therein; and how strait is the gate, how hard to find, and how doubly -hard, when found, to force it, of that same person's friendship. - -Janet supposed that Anne liked her as much as she herself liked Anne, -and, being a simple soul, she said to herself, "I think I will go and -sit with her a little." - -A more experienced person than my poor heroine would have felt that -there was not marked encouragement in the civil "Come in" which answered -her knock at Anne's door. - -But Janet came in smiling, sure of her welcome. Every one was sure of -their welcome with Anne. - -She was sitting in a low chair by the open window. She had taken off -what Janet would have called her "Sunday gown," and had wrapped round -her a long, diaphanous white garment, the like of which Janet had never -seen. It was held at the neck by a pale green ribbon, cunningly drawn -through lace insertion, and at the waist by another wider green ribbon, -which fell to the feet. The spreading lace-edged hem showed the point of -a green morocco slipper. - -Janet looked with respectful wonder at Anne's dressing-gown, and a -momentary doubt as to whether her presence was urgently needed vanished. -Anne must have been expecting her. She would not have put on that -exquisite garment to sit by herself in. - -Janet's eyes travelled to Anne's face. - -Even the faint, reassuring smile, which did not come the first moment it -was summoned, could not disguise the fatigue of that pale face, though -it effaced a momentary impatience. - -"You are very tired," said Janet. "I wish you were as strong as me." - -Janet's beautiful eyes had an admiring devotion in them, and also a -certain wistfulness, which appealed to Anne. - -"Sit down," she said cordially. "That is a comfortable chair." - -"You were reading. Shan't I interrupt you?" said Janet, sitting down -nevertheless, and feeling that tact could no further go. - -"It does not matter," said Anne, closing the book, but keeping one -slender finger in the place. - -"What is your book called?" - -"'Inasmuch.'" - -"Who wrote it?" - -"Hester Gresley." - -"I think I've heard of her," said Janet cautiously. "Mrs Smith, our -Rector's wife, says that Mr Smith does not approve of her books; they -have such a low tone. I think Fred read one of them on a visit once. I -haven't time myself for much reading." - -Silence. - -"I should like," said Janet, turning her clear, wide gaze upon Anne, "I -should like to read the books you read, and know the things you know. I -should like to--to be like you." - -A delicate colour came into Anne's face, and she looked down embarrassed -at the volume in her hand. - -"Would you read me a little bit?" said Janet. "Not beginning at the -beginning, but just going on where you left off." - -"I am afraid you might not care for it any more than Mr Smith does." - -"Oh! I'm not deeply read like Mr Smith. Is it poetry?" - -"No." - -"I'm glad it isn't poetry. Is it about love?" - -"Yes." - -"I used not to care to read about love, but now I think I should like it -very much." - -A swift emotion passed over Anne's face. She took up the book, and -slowly opened it. Janet looked with admiration at her slender hands. - -"I wish mine were white like hers," she thought, as she looked at her -own far more beautiful but slightly tanned hands, folded together in her -lap in an attitude of attention. - -Anne hesitated a moment, and then began to read: - - * * * * * - -"I had journeyed some way in life, I was travel-stained and weary, when -I met Love. In the empty, glaring highway I met him, and we walked in -it together. I had not thought he fared in such steep places, having -heard he was a dweller in the sheltered gardens, which were not for me. -Nevertheless he went with me. I never stopped for him, or turned aside -out of my path to seek him, for I had met his counterfeit when I was -young, and I distrusted strangers afterwards. And I prayed to God to -turn my heart wholly to Himself, and to send Love away, lest he should -come between me and Him. But when did God hearken to any prayer of mine? - -"And Love was grave and stern. And as we walked he showed me the dew -upon the grass, and the fire in the dew, the things I had seen all my -life and had never understood. And he drew the rainbow through his hand. -I was one with the snowdrop and with the thunderstorm. And we went -together upon the sea, swiftly up its hurrying mountains, swiftly down -into its rushing valleys. And I was one with the sea. And all fear -ceased out of my life, and a great awe dwelt with me instead. And Love -wore a human face. But I knew that was for a moment only. Did not Christ -the same? - -"And Love showed me the hearts of my brothers in the crowd. And, last of -all, he showed me myself, with whom I had lived in ignorance. And I was -humbled. - -"And then Love, who had given me all, asked for all. And I gave -reverence, and patience, and faith, and hope, and intuition, and -service. I even gave him truth. I put my hands under his feet. But he -said it was not enough. So I gave him my heart. That was the last I had -to give. - -"And Love took it in a great tenderness and smote it. And in the anguish -the human face of Love vanished away. - -"And afterwards, long years afterwards, when I was first able to move -and look up, I saw Love, who, as I thought, was gone, keeping watch -beside me. And I saw his face clear, without the human veil between me -and it. And it was the Face of God. And I saw that Love and God are -one, and that, because of His exceeding glory, He had been constrained -to take flesh even as Christ took it, so that my dim eyes might be able -to apprehend Him. And I saw that it was He and He only who had walked -with me from the first." - - * * * * * - -Anne laid down the book. She looked fixedly out across the quiet -gardens, with their long shadows, to the still, sun-lit woods beyond. -Her face changed, as the face of one who, in patient endurance, has long -rowed against the stream, and who at last lets the benign, constraining -current take her whither it will. The look of awed surrender seldom seen -on a living face, seldom absent from the faces of the newly dead, rested -for a moment on Anne's. - - * * * * * - -"I don't think," said Janet, "I quite understand what it means, because -I was not sure whether it was a lady or a gentleman that was speaking." - -Anne started violently, and turned her colourless face towards the -voice. It seemed to recall her from a great distance. She had forgotten -Janet. She had been too far off to hear what she had said. - -"I like the bit about giving Love our hearts," said Janet tentatively. -"It means something the same as the sermon did this morning, doesn't it, -about not laying up our treasure upon earth?" - -There was a silence. - -"Yes," said Anne gently, her voice and face quivering a little, "perhaps -it does. I had not thought of it in that way till you mentioned it, but -I see what you mean." - -"That we ought to put religion first." - -"Y-yes." - -"I am so glad you read that to me," continued Janet comfortably, -"because I had an idea that you and I should feel the same about"--she -hesitated--"about love. I mean," she corrected herself, "you would, if -you were engaged." - -"I have never been engaged," said Anne, in the tone of one who gently -but firmly closes a subject. - -"When you are," said Janet, peacefully pursuing the topic, and looking -at her with tender confidence, "you will feel like me, that it's--just -everything." - -"Shall I?" - -"I don't know any poetry, except two lines that George copied out for -me-- - - 'Don't love me at all, - Or love me all in all.'" - -Anne winced, but recovered herself instantly. - -"It's like that with me," continued Janet. "It's all in all. And then I -am afraid that _is_ laying up treasures on earth, isn't it?" - -"Not if you love God more because you love George." - -Janet ruminated. You could almost hear her mind at work upon the -suggestion, as you hear a coffee-mill respond to a handful of coffee -berries. - -"I think I do," she said at last, and she added below her breath, "I -thank God all the time for sending George, and I pray I may be worthy -of him." - -Anne's eyes filled with sudden tears--not for herself. - -"I hope you will be very happy," she said, laying her hand on Janet's. -It seemed to Anne a somewhat forlorn hope. - -Janet's hand closed slowly over Anne's. - -"I think we shall," she said. "And yet I sometimes doubt, when I -remember that I am not his equal. I knew that in a way from the first, -but I see it more and more since I came here. I don't wonder Mrs -Trefusis doesn't think me good enough." - -"Mrs Trefusis does not take fancies quickly." - -"It is not that," said Janet. "There's two ways of not being good -enough. Till now I have only thought of one way, of not being good -enough _in myself_, like such things as temper. I'm not often angry, but -if I am I stay angry. I don't alter. I was once angry with Fred for a -year. I've thought a great deal about that since I've cared for George. -And sometimes I fancy I'm rather slow. I daresay you haven't noticed -it, but Mrs Smith often remarks upon it. She always has something to say -on any subject, just like you have; but somehow I haven't." - -"I don't know Mrs Smith." - -"I wish you did. She's wonderful. She says she learnt it when she went -out so much in the West End before her marriage." - -"Indeed!" - -"But since I've been here I see there's another way I'm not good enough, -which sets Mrs Trefusis against me. I don't think she would mind if I -told lies and had a bad temper, and couldn't talk like Mrs Smith, if I -was good enough in _her_ way--I mean if I was high-born like you." - -The conversation seemed to contain as many pins as a well-stocked -pincushion. The expression "high-born" certainly had a sharp point, but -Anne made no sign as it was driven in. She considered a moment, and then -said, as if she had decided to risk something: "You are right. Mrs -Trefusis would have been pleased if you had been my sister. You perhaps -think that very worldly. I think it is very natural." - -"I wish I were your sister," said Janet, who might be reckoned on for -remaining half a field behind. - -Anne sighed, and leaned back in her chair. - -"If I were your sister," continued Janet, wholly engrossed in getting -her slow barge heavily under way, "you would have told me a number of -little things which--I don't seem to know." - -"You could easily learn some of them," said Anne, "and that would -greatly please Mrs Trefusis." - -"Could you tell me of anything in especial?" - -"Well! For instance--I don't mind myself in the least--but it would be -better not to call me 'Lady Varney.'" - -"I did not know you would like me to call you 'Anne.'" - -"You are quite right. We do not know each other well enough." - -"Then what ought I to call you?" - -"My friends call me 'Lady Anne.'" - -"Dear me!" said Janet, astonished. "There's Lady Alice Thornton. She -married Mr Thornton, our member. Fred sold him a hunter. And she is -sometimes called 'Lady Alice Thornton' and sometimes 'Lady Thornton.' -Mrs Smith says----" - -"Then," continued Anne, who seemed indisposed to linger on the subject, -"it would please Mrs Trefusis if you came into a room with more -courage." - -Janet stared at her adviser round-eyed. - -"It is shy work, isn't it?" said Anne. "I always had a great difficulty -in getting into a room myself when I was your age. (O Anne! Anne!) I -mean, in getting well into the middle. But I saw I ought to try, and not -to hesitate near the door, because, you see, it obliges old ladies, and -people like Mrs Trefusis, who is rather lame, to come nearly to the door -to meet us. And we young ones ought to go up to them, even if it makes -us feel shy." - -"I never thought of that," said Janet. "I will remember those two things -always. Mrs Smith always comes in very slow, but then she's a married -woman, and she says she likes to give people time to realise her. I will -watch how you come in. I will try and copy you in everything. And if I -am in doubt, may I ask you?" - -Anne laughed, and rose lightly. - -"Do," she said, "if you think I could be of any use on these trivial -matters. I live among trivialities. But remember always that they _are_ -trivial. The only thing that is of any real importance in this uphill -world is to love and be loved. You will know that when you are my age." - -And Anne put her arm round the tall young figure for a moment, and -kissed her. And then suddenly, why she knew not, Janet discovered, even -while Anne stood smiling at her, that the interview was over. - -It seemed a pity, for, when Janet had reached her own room, she -remembered that she had intended to consult Anne as to the advisability -of cutting her glorious hair into a fringe, like Mrs Smith's. - - * * * * * - -Anne and Janet travelled together to London next day, and on the journey -Janet laid before Anne, in all its bearings, the momentous question of -her hair. Fred had said she would never look up to date till she cut a -fringe. George had opined that her hair looked very nice as it was, -while Mrs Smith had asseverated that it was impossible to mix in good -society, or find a hat to suit the face, without one. - -Anne settled once and for all that Janet's hair, parted and waving -naturally, like the Venus of Milo's, was not to be touched. She became -solemnly severe on the subject, as she saw Janet was still wavering. And -she even offered to help Janet with her trousseau, to take her to -Vernon, her own tailor, and to her own hatter and dressmaker. Janet -had no conception what a sacrifice of time that offer meant to a person -of endless social engagements like Anne, who was considered one of the -best-dressed women in London. - -But to Anne's secret amusement and thankfulness, this offer was -gratefully declined in an embarrassed manner. - -Janet's great friend, Mrs Macalpine Brand, to whose flat in Lowndes -Mansions she was now on her way, had offered to help her with her -trousseau. Did Lady Var--Anne know Mrs Macalpine Brand? She went out a -great deal in London, so perhaps she might have met her. And she was -always beautifully dressed. - -Anne remembered vaguely a certain over-dressed, would-be-smart, -insufferable Mrs Brand, who had made bare-faced but fruitless attempts -to scrape acquaintance with herself when she and Anne had been on the -same committee. - -"I have met a very pretty Mrs Brand," she said, "when I was working with -Mrs Forrester. She had an excellent head for business--and had she not -rather a peculiar Christian name?" - -"Cuckoo." - -"Yes, that was it. She helped Mrs Forrester's charity most generously -when it was in debt." - -"She is my greatest friend," said Janet, beaming. "I shall be staying -with her all this next fortnight. May I bring her with me when I come to -tea with you?" - -Anne hesitated half a second before she said, "Do." - -She was glad afterwards that she had said it, for it pleased Janet, and -poor little Mrs Macalpine Brand never took advantage of it. Even at that -moment as they spoke of her, she was absorbed, to the shutting out even -of plans for social advancement, in more pressing subjects. - -The two girls parted at Victoria, and the last time Anne saw Janet's -face, in its halo of happiness, was as Janet nodded to her through the -window of the four-wheeler, which bore her away to her friend Mrs -Brand. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - "Tous les hommes sont menteurs, inconstants, faux, bavards, - hypocrites, orgueilleux, ou lâches, méprisables et sensuels: - toutes les femmes sont perfides, artificieuses, vaniteuses, - curieuses et dépravées: ... mais il y a au monde une chose - sainte et sublime, c'est l'union de deux de ces êtres si - imparfaits et si affreux." - - --ALFRED DE MUSSET. - - -As the four-wheeler neared Lowndes Square the traffic became blocked, -not by carriages, but by large numbers of people on foot. At last the -cabman drew to the side, uncorked himself from the box, and came to the -window. - -"Is it Lowndes Mansions as you're a-asking for?" he said. - -"Yes," said Janet. - -"Why, it's there as the fire was yesterday." - -"The fire!" - -"Yes! The top floors is mostly burnt out. You can't get a wehicle near -it." - -"Were any lives lost?" said Janet. The Brands lived on one of the upper -floors. - -"No, miss," said a policeman, approaching, urbane, helpful, not averse -to imparting information. - -Janet explained that she was on her way to stay in the Mansions, and the -policeman, who said that other "parties" had already arrived with the -same object but could not be taken in, advised her to turn back and go -with her luggage to one of the private hotels in Sloane Street, until -she could, as he expressed it, "turn round." - -Janet did as she was bid, and half an hour later made her way on foot -through the crowd to the entrance of Lowndes Mansions. - -The hall porter recognised her, for she had frequently stayed with the -Brands, and Janet's face was not quickly forgotten. He bade the -policeman who barred the entrance let her pass. - -The central hall, with its Oriental hangings and sham palms, was crowded -with people. Idle, demoralized housemaids belonging to the upper -floors, whose sphere of work was gone, stood together in whispering -groups watching the spectacle. Grave men in high hats and over-long -buttoned-up frock-coats greeted each other silently, and then produced -passes which admitted them to the jealously guarded iron staircase. The -other staircase was burnt out at the top, though from the hall it showed -no trace of anything but of the water which yesterday had flowed down it -in waves, and which still oozed from the heavy pile stair-carpet, which -the salvage men were beginning to take up. - -The hall porter and the unemployed lift man stood together, silent, -stupefied, broken with fatigue, worn out with answering questions. - -"Are Mr and Mrs Brand all right?" gasped Janet, thrilled by the -magnitude of the unseen disaster above, which seemed to strike roots of -horror down to the basement. - -"Every one is all right," said the lift man automatically. -"No lives lost. Two residents shook. One leg broke hamong the -hemployees--compound fracture." - -"Mrs Brand was shook," said the hall porter callously. "She had a fall." - -"Where is she now?" enquired Janet. - -The hall porter looked at her apathetically, and continued: "Mr Brand -was taking 'orse exercise in the Park. Mrs Brand was still in her -bedroom. The fire broke out, cause unbeknownst, at ten o'clock yesterday -morning precisely. Ten by the barracks clock it was. The hemployees -worked the hose until the first hingine arrived at quarter past." - -"Twenty past," corrected the lift man. - -"And Mrs Brand?" said Janet again. - -"Mrs Brand must 'ave been dressing, for she was in her dressing-gown, -and she must ha' run down the main staircase afore it got well alight; -at least, she was found unconscious-like three flights down. Some say as -she was mazed by the smoke, and some say as she fell over the -banisters." - -"The banisters is gone," said the lift man. - -"Where is she now? Where is Mr Brand? I must see him at once," said -Janet, at last realizing that the history of the fire would go on for -ever. - -"Mrs Brand was took into the billiard-room," said the lift man. "Mr -Brand is with her, and the doctor. There! The doctor is coming out now." - -A grey-haired man shot out through the crowd, ran down the steps, and -disappeared into a brougham privileged to remain at the entrance. - -"Take me to Mr Brand this instant," said Janet, shaking the hall porter -by the arm. - -The man looked as if he would have been surprised at her vehemence if -there were any spring of surprise left in him, but it had obviously run -down from overwinding. He slowly led the way through a swing door, and -down a dark passage lit by electric light. At a large ground-glass door -with "Billiard-Room" on it he stopped, and tapped. - -There was no answer. - -Janet opened the door, went in, and closed it behind her. - -She almost stumbled against Mr Brand, who was standing with his back -towards her, his face to the wall, in the tiny antechamber, bristling -with empty pegs, which led into the billiard-room. - -It was dark save for the electric light in the passage, which shone -feebly through the ground-glass door. - -Mr Brand turned slowly as Janet almost touched him. His death-white face -was the only thing visible. He did not speak. Janet gazed at him -horror-struck. - -Gradually, as her eyes became accustomed to the dim light, she saw the -little dapper, familiar figure, with its immaculate frock-coat, and -corseted waist, and the lean, sallow, wrinkled face, with its retreating -forehead and dyed hair, and waxed, turned-up moustaches. One of the -waxed ends had been bent, and drooped forlornly, grotesquely. It was -perhaps inevitable that the money-lender should be nicknamed "Monkey -Brand," a name pronounced by many with a sneer not devoid of fear. - -"How is she?" said Janet at last. - -"She is dying," said Monkey Brand, his chin shaking. "Her back is -broken." - -A nurse in cap and apron silently opened the inner door into the -billiard-room. - -"Mrs Brand is asking for you, sir," she said gently. - -"I will come," he said, and he went back into the billiard-room. - -The nurse looked enquiringly at Janet. - -"I am Mrs Brand's friend," said Janet. "She is expecting me." - -"She takes it very hard now, poor thing," said the nurse; "and she was -so brave at first." - -And they both went into the billiard-room, and remained standing at the -further end of it. - -It was a large, gaudily-decorated room, adorned with sporting prints, -and lit by a skylight, on to which opaque bodies, evidently fallen from -a height, lay in blots, starring the glass. - -The billiard-table was littered with doctors' appliances, and at the end -near the door the nurse had methodically arranged a line of towels and -basins, with a tin can of hot water and a bucket swathed in flannel with -ice in it. - -The large room, with its glaring upper light, was hot and still, and -smelt of stale smoke and chloroform. - -At the further end, on an improvised bed of mattresses and striped sofa -cushions, a white, rigid figure was lying, the eyes fixed on the -skylight. - -Monkey Brand knelt down by his wife, and bending over her, kissed, -without raising it, one of the pale clenched hands. - -"Cuckoo," he said, and until she heard him speak it seemed to Janet that -she had never known to what heights tenderness can reach. - -His wife turned her eyes slowly upon him, and looked at him. In her -eyes, dark with coming death, there was a great yearning towards her -husband, and behind the yearning an anguish unspeakable. Janet shrank -before it. The fear of death never cut so deep as that. - -A cry, uncouth, terrible, as of one pushed past the last outpost of -endurance to the extremity of agony, rent the quiet room. - -"I cannot bear it," she wailed. And she, who could not raise her hands, -to which death had come already, raised them once above her head. - -They fell heavily, lifelessly, striking her husband's face. - -"I would die for you if I might," said Monkey Brand, and he hid his face -against the hand that had struck him. - -Cuckoo looked at the bowed, blue-black head, and her wide eyes wandered -away past it, set in the vacancy of despair. They fell on Janet. - -"Who is that?" she said suddenly. - -The nurse brought Janet forward. - -"You remember me, Cuckoo?" said Janet gently, her calm smile a little -tremulous, her face white and beautiful as that of an angel. - -"It is Janet. Thank God!" said Cuckoo, and she suddenly burst into -tears. - -They passed quickly. - -"I have no time for tears," said Cuckoo, smiling faintly at her husband, -as he wiped them away with a shaking brown hand. "Janet is come. I must -speak to her a little quite alone." - -"You would not send me from you?" said Monkey Brand, his face twitching. -"You would not be so hard on me, Cuckoo?" - -"Yes," she said, "I would." - -The pretty, vulgar, dying face, under its crooked fringe, was -illuminated. A sort of shadow of Cuckoo's hard little domineering manner -had come back to her. - -"I must be alone with Janet for a little bit, quite alone. You and the -nurse will go outside, and wait till Janet comes to you. And then," she -looked at her husband with tender love, "you will come back to me, and -stay with me to the last." - -He still hesitated. - -"Go now, Arthur," she said, "and take nurse with you." - -The habit of obedience to her whim, her fancy, her slightest wish, was -ingrained years deep in him. He got upon his feet, signed to the nurse, -and left the room with her. - -"Is the door shut?" said Cuckoo. - -"Yes." - -"Go and make sure." - -Janet went to the door, and came back. - -"It is shut." - -"Kneel down by me. I can't speak loud." - -Janet knelt down. - -"Now listen to me. I'm dying. I'm not going to die this minute, because -I won't; but all the same it's coming. I can't hold on. There is no time -for being surprised, or for explanations. There's no time for anything, -except for you to listen to me, and do something for me quickly. Will -you do it?" - -"Yes," said Janet. - -Cuckoo looked for a moment at the innocent, fair face above her, and a -faint colour stained her cheek. But she remembered her husband, and -summoned her old courage. She spoke quickly, with the clearness and -precision which had made her such an excellent woman of business, so -invaluable on the committees of fashionable charities. - -"I am a bad woman, Janet. I have concealed it from you, and from every -one. Arthur--has never guessed it. Don't shudder. Don't turn away. -There's not time. Keep all that for later--when I'm gone. And don't -drive me to distraction by thinking this is a dying hallucination. I -know what I am saying, and I, who have lied so often, am driven to speak -the truth at last." - -"Don't," said Janet. "If it's true, don't say it, but let it die with -you. Don't break Mr Brand's heart now at the last moment." - -Cuckoo's astute eyes dwelt on Janet's face. How slow she was! What a -blunt instrument had Fate vouchsafed to her. - -"I speak to save him," she said. "Don't interrupt again, but listen. It -all goes back a long way. I was forced into marrying Arthur. I disliked -him, for I was in love with some one else--some one, as I see now, not -fit to black his boots. I was straight when I married Arthur, but--I did -not stay straight afterwards. Arthur is a hard man, but he was good and -tender to me always, and he trusted me absolutely. I deceived him--for -years. The child is not Arthur's. Arty is not Arthur's. I never was -really sorry until a year ago, when he--the other--left me for some one -else. He said he had fallen in love with a good woman--a snowflake." -Even now Cuckoo set her teeth at the remembrance of that speech. But she -hurried on. "That was the time I fell ill. And Arthur nursed me. You -don't know what Arthur is. I never seemed to have noticed before. Other -people fail, but Arthur never fails. And I seemed to come to myself. I -could not bear him out of my sight. And ever since I have loved him, as -I thought people only loved in poetry books. I saw he was the only one. -And I thought he would never know. If he did, it would break his heart -and mine, wherever I was." - -Cuckoo waited a moment, and then went on with methodical swiftness: - -"But I never burnt the--the other one's letters. I always meant to, and -I always didn't. It has been in my mind ever since I was ill to burn -them. I never thought I should die like this. I put it off. The truth -is, I could not bear to look at them, and remember how I'd--but I meant -to do it. I knew when I came to myself at the foot of the stairs that I -was dying, but I did not really mind--except for leaving Arthur, for he -told me all our flat was burnt and everything in it, and I only grieved -at leaving him. But this morning, when the place was cold enough for -people to go up, Arthur told me--he thought it would please me--that my -sitting-room, and part of the other rooms, were still standing with -everything in them, and he heard that my picture was not even touched. -It hangs over the Italian cabinet. But when I heard it I thought my -heart would break, for the letters are in the Italian cabinet, and I -knew that some day when I am gone--perhaps not for a long time, but some -day--Arthur would open that cabinet--my business papers are in it, -too--and would find the letters." - -Cuckoo's weak, metallic voice weakened yet more. - -"And he would see I had deceived him for years, and that Arty is not his -child. Arthur was so pleased when Arty was born." - -There was an awful silence; the ice dripped in the pail. - -"I don't mind what happens to me," said Cuckoo, "or what hell I go to, -if only Arthur might stay loving me when I'm gone, as he always -has--from the very first." - -"What do you want me to do?" said Janet. - -"I want you to go up to the flat without being seen, and burn those -letters. Try and go up by the main staircase. They may let you if you -bluff them; I could do it;--and it may not be burnt out at the top as -they say. If it really is burnt out, you must go up by the iron -staircase. If they won't let you pass, bribe the policeman: you must go -up all the same. The letters are in the lowest left-hand drawer of the -Italian cabinet. The key--O my God! The key! Where is the key?" - -Cuckoo's mind, brought to bay, rose unflinching. - -"The key is on the pearl chain that I wear every day. But where is the -chain? Let me think. I had it on. I know I had it on. I wear the pearls -against my neck, under my gown. I was in my dressing-gown. Then I had it -on. Look on the billiard-table." - -Janet looked. - -"Look on the mantelpiece. I saw the nurse put something down there which -she took off me." - -Janet looked. "There is a miniature of Arty on a ribbon." - -"I had it in my hand when the alarm reached me. Look on me. Perhaps I -have got it on still." - -Janet unfastened the neck of the dressing-gown, which, though lacerated -by the nurse's scissors, still retained the semblance of a garment. -After an interminable moment she drew out a pearl chain. - -"Thank God!" said Cuckoo. "Don't raise my head; I might die if you did, -and I can't die yet. Break the chain. There! Now the key slips off. Take -it, go up, and burn the letters. There are a good many, but you will -know them because they are tied with my hair. The lowest left-hand -drawer, remember. You will burn them--there are some matches on the -mantelpiece behind Arthur's photograph--and wait till they are really -burnt. Will you do this, Janet?" - -"I will." - -"And will you promise me that, whatever happens, you will never tell any -one that you have burnt anything?" - -"I promise." - -"You swear it?" - -"I swear it." - -"Let me see; you must have some reason for going, in case you are seen. -If you are asked, say I sent you to see if my picture was uninjured. I -am a vain woman. Anyone will believe that. Stick to that if you are -questioned. And now go. Go at once. And throw away the key when you have -locked up the cabinet. I shall not be able to be alone with you again, -Janet. Arthur won't leave me a second time. When you come back, stand -where I can see you; and if you have destroyed everything put your hand -against your forehead. I shall understand. I shall not be able to thank -you, but I shall thank you in my heart, and I shall die in peace. Now -go, and tell Arthur to come back to me." - -Janet found Monkey Brand in the antechamber, his ashen, ravaged face -turned with dog-like expectancy towards the billiard-room door, waiting -for it to open. Without a word, he went back to his wife. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - "... a strong man from the North, - Light-locked, with eyes of dangerous grey." - - -It was a little after twelve as Janet entered the central hall, and the -salvage men were coming down for their dinner. A cord had been stretched -across the foot of the grand staircase, and a policeman guarded it. As -Janet hesitated, a young man and woman came boldly up to him, and -demanded leave to pass. - -"I can't let you up, sir," said the policeman. "It ain't safe." - -"I have the right to go up to my own flat on the fourth floor," said the -man. "Here is my card. You will observe my address of these Mansions is -printed on it." - -"Yes, my lord; certainly, my lord," said the policeman, looking at the -card with respect. "The fire ain't touched anything lower than the fifth -floor; but we have to keep a sharp look-out, as a many strange -characters are about trying to get up, to see what they can lay hands -on." - -Janet had drawn up close behind the young couple, and when the cord was -withdrawn went upstairs as if with them. They did not even see her. They -were talking eagerly to each other. When they reached the first landing -she slackened her pace, and let them go on in front. - -The fire had broken out on the seventh floor of the great block of -buildings, and had raged slowly downwards to the sixth and fifth. But at -first, as Janet mounted the sodden staircase, there was hardly any trace -of the devastation save in the wet, streaked walls, and the constant -dropping of water from above. - -But the fourth floor bore witness. The ceilings were scored with great -cracks. The plaster had fallen in places, and everything--walls, -ceilings, doors, and passages--was blackened as if licked by great -tongues of smoke. - -The young couple were standing at the further end of a long empty -passage, trying to open a door. As Janet looked, she saw the man put his -shoulder to it. Then she turned once more to the next flight of the -staircase. It was strewn with wreckage. The bent iron banisters, from -which the lead hung in congealed drops, supported awkwardly the -contorted remains of the banisters from above, which had crashed down -upon them. The staircase had ceased to be a staircase. It was a steep, -sliding mass of fallen _débris_, down which the demon of fire had -hurled, as into a well, the ghastly entrails of the havoc of his torture -chambers above. - -Janet looked carefully at the remnants of the staircase. The heat had -reached it, but not the fire. She climbed half way up it, securing a -foothold where she could among the _débris_. But, halfway, the banisters -from above blocked her passage, tilted crazily towards her, -insurmountable. She dared not touch them for fear of bringing them, and -an avalanche of piled rubbish behind them, down upon her. She turned -back a few steps, deliberately climbed, in her short country skirt, over -the still standing banisters, and, holding firmly by them, went up the -remainder of the flight, cautious step by step, as she and Fred had done -as children, finding a foothold where she could, and not allowing her -eyes to look down into the well below her. At the next landing she -climbed over the banisters again, felt them for a sickening moment give -under her weight, and stopped to take breath and look round her. - -She was on the fifth floor. - -Even here the fire had not actually been, but the heaps of sodden ashes, -the gaping, burst panels, the seared doors, the blackness of the -disfigured passages, the long, distraught wires of the electric -lighting, showed that heat had been here; blinding, scorching, -blistering heat. - -The Brands' flat was on the sixth floor. - -Janet looked up once more, and even her steady eyes were momentarily -daunted. - -The staircase was gone. A raging fire had swept up its two last flights -as up a chimney, and had carried all before it. What the fire had -refused it had flung down, choking up the landing below. Nothing -remained of the staircase save the iron supports, sticking out of the -wall like irregular, jagged teeth, and marking where each step of the -stairs had been. - -Higher still a zinc bath remained sticking against the charred, naked -wall. The bathroom had fallen from it. The bath and its twisted pipes -remained. And above all the blue sky peered down as into a pit's mouth. - -Janet looked fixedly at the iron supports, and measured them with her -eye. Her colour did not change, nor her breath quicken. She felt her -strength in her. Then, hugging the black wall till it crumbled against -her, and shading her eyes till they could see only where to tread, she -went swiftly up those awful stairs, and reached the sixth floor. - -Then her strength gave way, and she sank down upon something soft, and -shuddered. A faint sound made her look back. - -One of the supports, loosened by her footstep, stirred, and then fell. -It fell a long way. - -Even her marvellous inapprehensiveness was shaken. But her still courage -returned to her, the quiet confidence that enabled her to break in -nervous horses with which her recklessly foolhardy brother could do -nothing. - -Janet rose slowly to her feet, catching them as she did so in something -soft. Stamped into the charred grime of the concrete floor by the feet -of the firemen were the remains of a sable cloak, which, as her foot -touched it, showed a shred of rose-coloured lining. A step further her -foot sank into a heap of black rags, evidently hastily flung down by one -in headlong flight, through the folds of which gold embroidery and a -pair of jewelled clasps gleamed faintly. - -Janet stood still a moment in what had been the heart of the fire. The -blast of the furnace had roared down that once familiar passage, leaving -a charred, rent hole, half filled up and silted out of all shape by -ashes. Nevertheless her way lay down it. - -She crept stumbling along it with bent head. Surely the Brands' flat was -exactly here, on the left, near the head of the staircase. But she could -recognise nothing. - -She stopped short at a gaping cavity that had once been a doorway, and -looked through it into what had once been a bedroom. The fire had swept -all before it. If there had once been a floor and walls, and ceiling and -furniture, all was gone, leaving a seared, egg-shaped hole. From its -shelving sides three pieces of contorted iron had rolled into the -central puddle--all that was left of the bed. - -Could _this_ be the Brands' flat? - -Janet passed on, and peered through the next doorway. Here the flames -had not raged so fiercely. The blackened semblance of a room was still -there, but shrunk like a mummy, and ready to crumble at a touch. It must -have been a servant's bedroom. The chest of drawers, the bed, were still -there in outline, but all ashes. On pegs on the wall hung ghosts of -gowns and hats, as if drawn in soot. On the chest of drawers stood the -effigy of a bedroom candlestick, with the extinguisher over it. - -Yes, it was the Brands' flat. The outer door and little entrance hall -had been wiped out, and she was inside it. This evidently had been the -drawing-room. Here were signs as of some frightful conflict, as if the -room had resisted its fate to the death, and had only been overpowered -after a hideous struggle. - -The wall-paper hung in tatters on the wall. Remnants of furniture were -flung about in all directions. The door was gone. The windows were gone. -The bookcase was gone, leaving no trace, but the books it had contained -had been thrown all over the room in its downfall, and lay for the most -part unscorched, pell-mell, one over the other. Among the books crouched -an agonised tangle of wires--all that was left of Cuckoo's grand piano. -The pictures had leapt wildly from the walls to join in the conflict. A -few pieces of strewed gilding, as if torn asunder with pincers, showed -their fate. Horror brooded over the place as over the dead body of one -who had fought for his life, and died by torture, whom the destroyer had -not had time to mutilate past recognition. - -Had the wind changed, and had the fiend of fire been forced to obey it, -and leave his havoc unfinished? Yes, the wind must have changed, for at -the next step down the passage, Janet reached Cuckoo's boudoir. - -The door had fallen inward, and by some miracle the whole strength of -the flames had rushed down the passage, leaving even the door unburnt. -Janet walked over the door into the little room and stood amazed. - -The fire had passed by on the other side. Everything here was untouched, -unchanged. The yellow china cat with an immensely long neck was still -seated on its plush footstool on the hearthrug. On the sofa lay an open -fashion paper, where Cuckoo had laid it down. On every table photographs -of Cuckoo smiled in different attitudes. The gaudy room, with its damask -panels, bore no trace of smoke, nor even of heat, save that the two -palms in tubs, and the hydrangeas in the fireplace, were shrivelled up, -and in the gilt bird-cage in the window was a tiny, motionless form, -with outstretched wings, that would fain have flown away. - -For a moment Janet forgot everything except the bullfinch--the piping -bullfinch that Monkey Brand had given to his wife. She ran to the cage, -brushing against the palms, which made a dry rustling as she passed, and -bent over the little bird. - -"Bully," she said. "Bully!" For that was the name which, after much -thought, Monkey Brand had bestowed upon it. - -But "Bully" did not move. He was pressed against the bars of his Chinese -pagoda, with his head thrown back and his beak open. "Bully" had known -fear before he died. - -Janet suddenly remembered the great fear which some one else was -enduring, to whom death was coming, and she turned quickly from the -window. - -De Rivaz's extraordinary portrait of Cuckoo smiled at Janet from the -wall, in all its shrewd, vulgar prettiness. The hard, calculating blue -eyes, which could stare down the social ladder so mercilessly, were -mercilessly portrayed. The careful touch of rouge on the cheek and -carmine on the lip were faithfully rendered. The manicured, plebeian -hands were Cuckoo's, and none but Cuckoo's. The picture was a studied -insult, save in the eyes of Monkey Brand, who saw in it the reflection, -imperfect and inadequate, but still the reflection of the one creature -whom, in his money-getting life, he had found time to love. - -Janet never could bear to look at it, and she turned her eyes away. - -Directly underneath the picture stood the Italian cabinet, with its -ivory figures let into ebony. It was untouched, as Cuckoo had feared. -The mermaid was still tranquilly riding a whale on the snaffle, in the -midst of a sea with a crop of dolphins' tails sticking up through it. - -Janet fitted the key into the lock, and then instinctively turned to -shut the door. But the door lay prone upon the floor. She stole into the -passage and listened. - -There were voices somewhere out of sight. Human voices seemed strangely -out of place in this cindered grave. They came nearer. A tall, -heavily-built man came stooping round the corner, with another shorter, -slighter one behind him. - -"The floors are concrete; it's all right," said the first man. - -Janet retreated into the room again, to wait till they had passed. But -they were in no hurry. They both glanced into the room, and, seeing her, -went on. - -"Here you have one of the most extraordinary effects of fire," said the -big man, stopping at the next doorway. "This was once a drawing-room. If -you want to paint a realistic picture, here is your subject." - -"I would rather paint an angel in the pit's mouth," said the younger man -significantly, leaning his delicate, artist hand against the charred -doorpost. "Do you think, Vanbrunt, this is a safe place for angels -without wings to be going about alone? You say the floors are safe, but -are they?" - -Stephen Vanbrunt considered a moment. - -Then he turned back to the room where Janet was. He did not enter it, -but stood in the doorway, nearly filling it up--a tall, -powerfully-built, unyouthful-looking man with shaggy eyebrows and a -grim, clean-shaved face and heavy jaw. You may see such a face and -figure any day in the Yorkshire mines or in a stone-mason's yard. - -The millionaire took off his hat with a large blackened hand, and said -to Janet: "I trust the salvage men have warned you that the passages on -your right are unsafe?" He pointed towards the way by which she had -come. It was evidently an effort to him to speak to her. He was a shy -man. - -His voice was deep and gentle. It gave the same impression of strength -behind it that a quiet wave does of the sea. He stood with his head -thrown slightly back, an austere, massive figure, not without a certain -dignity. And as he looked at Janet, there was just room in his narrow, -near-sighted slits of eyes for a stern kindliness to shine through. -Children and dogs always made a bee-line for Stephen. - -As Janet did not answer, he said again. - -"I trust you will not attempt to go down the passage to your right. It -is not safe." - -"No," said Janet, and she remembered her instructions. "I am only here -to see if De Rivaz' picture of Mrs Brand is safe." - -"Here is De Rivaz himself," said Stephen. "May we come in a moment and -look at it? I am afraid I came in without asking last night, with the -police inspector." - -"Do come in," said Janet. - -The painter came in, and glanced at the picture. - -"It's all right," he said indifferently. "Not even a lick of smoke. -But," he added, looking narrowly at Janet, "if Mr Brand wishes it I will -send a man I can trust to revarnish it." - -"Thank you," said Janet. - -"Here is my card," he continued, still looking at her. - -"Thank you," said Janet again, wondering when they would go. - -"You are, no doubt, a relation of the Brands?" he continued desperately. - -"I am a friend." - -"I will come and see Mr Brand about the picture," continued the young -man, stammering. "May I ask you to be so kind as to tell him so?" - -"I will tell him," said Janet; and she became very pale. While this man -was manufacturing conversation Cuckoo was dying--was dying, waiting with -her eyes on the door. She turned instinctively to Stephen for help. - -But he had forgotten her. He was looking intently at the dead bird in -the cage, was touching its sleek head with a large gentle finger. - -"You are well out of it, my friend," he said below his breath. "It is -not good to be afraid, but it was a short agony. And it is over. You -will not be afraid again. You are well out of it. No more prison bars. -No more stretching of wings to fly with that may never fly. No more -years of servitude for a cruel woman's whim. You are well out of it." - -He looked up and met Janet's eyes. - -"We are trespassers," he said instantly. "We have taken a mean advantage -of your kindness in letting us come in. De Rivaz, I will show you a -background for your next picture a few yards further on. Mr Brand knows -me," he continued, producing a card in his turn. "We do business -together. He is my tenant here. Will you kindly tell him I ventured to -bring Mr De Rivaz into the remains of his flat to make a sketch of the -effects of fire?" - -"I will tell him," said Janet, only half attending, and laying the card -beside De Rivaz'. Would they never go? - -They did go immediately, Stephen peremptorily aiding the departure of -the painter. - -When they were in the next room De Rivaz leaned up against the blackened -wall, and said hoarsely: "Vanbrunt, did you see her?" - -"Of course I saw her." - -"But I must paint her. I must know her. I shall go back and ask her to -sit to me." - -"You will do no such thing. You will immediately apply yourself to this -scene of desolation, or I shall take you away. Look at this -charnel-house. What unchained devils have raged in it! It is jealousy -made visible. What is the use of a realistic painter like yourself, who -can squeeze all romance out of life till the whole of existence is as -prosaic as a string of onions; what is the use of a wretched worm like -you making one of your horrible portraits of that beautiful, innocent -face?" - -"I shall paint her if I live," said De Rivaz, glaring at his friend. "I -know beauty when I see it." - -"No, you don't. You see everything ugly, even beauty of a high order. -Look at your picture of me." - -Both men laughed. - -"I will paint her," said De Rivaz. "Half the beauty of so-called -beautiful women is loathsome to me because of the sordid or frivolous -soul behind it. But I will paint a picture of that woman which will show -to the world, and even to rhinoceros-hided sceptics like you, Vanbrunt, -that I can make the beauty of the soul shine through even a beautiful -face, as I have made mean souls shine through lovely faces. I shall fall -damnably in love with her while I do it, but that can't be helped. And -the picture will make her and me famous." - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - "Doch wenn du sagst, 'Ich liebe dich,' - Dann muss Ich weinen bitterlich." - - -Janet listened to the retreating footsteps, and then flew to the -cabinet. - -The key would not turn, and for one sickening moment, while she wrenched -clumsily at it, she feared she was not going to succeed in opening the -cabinet. Janet had through life a great difficulty in all that involved -delicate manipulation, except a horse's mouth. If a lock resisted, she -used force, generally shooting it; if the hinge of a door gave, she -jammed it. But in this instance, contrary to her usual experience, the -lock did turn at last, and the whole front of the cabinet, dolphins and -mermaid and all, came suddenly forwards towards her, disclosing within a -double tier of ebony drawers, all exquisitely inlaid with ivory, and -each having its tiny, silver-scrolled lock. - -Some water had dripped on to the cabinet from a damp place in the -ceiling, and a few drops had penetrated down to the inner drawers, -rusting the silver of the lowest drawer--the left-hand one. - -Janet fitted the key into it. It turned easily, but the drawer resisted. -It came out a little way, and then stuck. It was quite full. Janet gave -another pull, and the narrow, shallow drawer came out, with -difficulty--but still, it did come out. - -On the top, methodically folded, were some hand-written directions for -fancy work. Cuckoo never did any needlework. Janet raised them, and -looked underneath. Where was the packet tied with hair? It was nowhere -to be seen. There were a quantity of letters loosely laid together. -Could these be they? Evidently they had not been touched for a long -time, for the grime of London air and fog had settled on them. Janet -wiped the topmost with her handkerchief, and a few words came clearly -out: "My darling. My treasure." Her handkerchief had touched something -loose in the corner of the drawer. Could this dim, moth-fretten lock -have once been Cuckoo's yellow hair? Even as she looked, out of it came -a moth, dragging itself slowly over the face of the letter, opening its -unused wings. It crawled up over the rusted silver scroll-work, and flew -away into the room. - -Yes. These must be the letters. They had been tied once, and the moth -had eaten away the tie. She took them carefully up. There were a great -many. She gathered them all together, as she thought; looked again at -the back of the drawer to make sure, and found a few more, with a little -gilt heart rusted into them. Then she replaced the needlework -directions, pushed to the drawer--which resisted again, and then went -back into its place--locked it, extracted the key, locked the cabinet, -and threw the key out of a broken pane of the window. She saw it light -on the roof lower down, and slide into the safe keeping of the gutter. - -Then she moved away the shrivelled hydrangeas which stood in the -fire-place, and put the letters into the empty grate. Once more she went -to the door and listened. All was quite still. She came back. On the -chimney-piece stood a photograph of Monkey Brand grinning smugly through -its cracked glass. Behind it was a silver match-box with a pig on it, -and "Scratch me" written on it. Cuckoo affected everything she called -"quaint." - -Janet struck a match, knelt down, and held it to the pile of letters. - -But love-letters never yet burned easily. Perhaps they have passed -through the flame of life, and after that no feebler fire can reach them -quickly. The fire shrank from them, and match after match went out, -flame after flame wavered, and refused to meddle with them. - -After wasting time in several exactly similar attempts when one failure -would have been sufficient, Janet opened and crumpled some of them to -let the air get to them. The handwriting was strangely familiar. She -observed the fact without reasoning on it. Then she sprinkled the -remainder of the letters on the top of the crumpled ones, and again set -the pile alight. - -The fire got hold now. It burned up fiercely, bringing down upon itself -the upper letters, which toppled into the heart of the miniature -conflagration much as the staircase must have toppled on to the stairs -below, in the bigger conflagration of yesterday. How familiar the -handwriting was! How some of the sentences shone out as if written in -fire on black sheets: "Love like ours can never fade." The words faded -out at once, as the dying letters gave up the ghost--the ghost of dead -love. Janet gazed fascinated. Another letter fell in, opening as it -fell, disclosing a photograph. Fred's face looked full at Janet for a -moment out of the little greedy flames that licked it up. Janet drew -back trembling, suddenly sick unto death. - -Fred's face! Fred's writing! - -She trembled so violently that she did not notice that the smoke was no -longer going up the chimney, but was filling the room. The chimney was -evidently blocked higher up. - -She was so paralysed that she did not notice a light footfall in the -passage, and a figure in the doorway. Janet was not of those who see -behind their backs. The painter, alarmed by the smoke, stood for a -moment, brush in hand, looking fixedly at her. Then his eye fell on the -smoking papers in the grate, and he withdrew noiselessly. - -It was out now. The second fire was out. What violent passions had been -consumed in it! That tiny fire in the grate seemed to Janet more black -with horror than the appalling scene of havoc in the next room. She -knelt down and parted the hot films of the little bonfire. There was no -scrap of paper left. The thing was done. - -Then she noticed the smoke, and her heart stood still. - -She pushed the cinders into the back of the grate with her hands, -replaced the hydrangeas in the fire-place, and ran to the window. But -the wood-work was warped by the heat. It would not open. She wasted -time trying to force it, and then broke the glass and let in the air. -But the air only blew the smoke out into the passage. It was like a bad -dream. She seized the prostrate door, and tried to raise it. But it was -too heavy for her. - -She stood up panting, watching the telltale smoke curl lightly through -the doorway. - -More steps in the passage. - -She went swiftly into the next room, and stood in the doorway. The lift -man came cautiously down the passage, accompanied by an alert, -spectacled young man, notebook in hand. The lift man bore the -embarrassed expression of one whose sense of duty has succumbed before -too large a tip. The young man had the decided manner of one who intends -to have his money's worth. - -"Where are we now?" he said, scribbling for dear life, his spectacles -turning all ways at once. "I don't like this smoke. Can the beastly -place be on fire still?" - -But the lift man had caught sight of Janet, and the sight of her was -obviously unwelcome. - -"The floors ain't safe here," he said confusedly. "There's a deal more -damage to be seen in the left wing." - -"Is there?" said the young man drily. "We'll go there next"; and he went -on peering and scribbling. - -A voice in the distance shouted imperiously, "Number Two, where does -this smoke come from?" - -There was a plodding of heavy, hastening feet above. - -In an instant the young man and the lift man had disappeared round the -corner. - -Janet ran swiftly down the black passage along which they had come, -almost brushing against the painter in her haste, without perceiving -him. She flew on, recognising by instinct the once familiar way to the -central hall on each landing. Here it was at last. She paused a moment -by the gaping lift, and then walked slowly to the head of the iron outer -staircase. - -A policeman was speaking austerely to a short, stout, shabbily-dressed -woman of determined aspect, who bore the unmistakable stamp of those -whose unquenchable desire it is to be where their presence is not -desired, where it is even deprecated. - -"Only ladies and gents with passes is admitted," the policeman was -saying. - -"But how can I get a pass?" - -"I don't precisely know," said the policeman cautiously, "but I know it -must be signed by Mr Vanbrunt or Mr Brown." - -"I am the Duchess of Quorn, and I am an intimate friend of Mr Vanbrunt." - -Janet passed the couple with a beating heart. But apparently there were -no restrictions about persons going out, only about those trying to get -in. The policeman made way for her at once, and she went down -unchallenged. - - * * * * * - -In the billiard-room time was waxing short; was obviously running out. - -The child had arrived from the country with his nurse. Monkey Brand -took him in his arms at the door, and knelt down with him beside Cuckoo. - -"Arty has come to say 'good-morning' to Mammy," he said, in a strangled, -would-be cheerful voice. - -Cuckoo looked at the child wildly for a moment, as the little laughing -face came within the radius of her fading sight. She suffered the cool, -flower-like cheek to touch hers, but then she whispered to her husband, -"Take him away. I want only you." - -He took Arty back to his nurse, holding him closely to him, and returned -to her. - -Death seemed to have advanced a step nearer with the advent of the -child. - -They both waited for it in silence. - -"Don't kneel, Arthur," said Cuckoo at last. "You will be so tired." - -He obediently drew up a little stool, and crouched hunched up upon it, -her cold hand between his cold hands. - -"Is there any one at the door?" she asked, after an age of silence. - -"No one, dearest; we are quite alone." - -"I should like to see Janet to say 'good-bye.'" - -"Must I go and look for her?" - -"No. I sent her to see if my picture was really safe. It is all you will -have to remember me by. She will come and tell me directly." - -"I do not want any picture of you, Cuckoo." - -Another silence. - -"I can't wait much longer," said Cuckoo below her breath; but he heard -it. "Are you sure there is no one at the door, Arthur?" - -"No one." - -Silence again. - -"Ask God to have pity on me," said Cuckoo faintly. "Isn't there some one -coming in now?" - -"No one." - -"Ask God to have pity on us both," said Cuckoo again. "Pray so that I -can hear." - -But apparently Monkey Brand could not pray aloud. - -"Say something to make the time pass," she whispered. - -"The Lord is my Shepherd," said Monkey Brand brokenly, his mind throwing -back thirty years; "I shall not want. He leadeth me beside the still -waters. He----" - -"I seem to hear steps," interrupted Cuckoo. - -"He leadeth me beside the still waters. Yea, though I walk"--the voice -broke down--"though I walk in the valley of the shadow of----" - -"Some one is coming in now," said Cuckoo, in a faint, acute voice. - -"It is Janet." - -"I can't see her plainly. Tell her to come nearer." - -He beckoned to Janet. - -"I can see her now," said Cuckoo, the blindness of death in her wide -eyes, which stared vacantly where Janet was not; "at least, I see some -one. Isn't she holding her hand to her forehead?" - -"Yes." - -The last tears Cuckoo was destined to shed stood in her blind eyes. - -"Good-bye, dear Janet," she gasped. - -"Good-bye, Cuckoo." - -"Send her away. Is she quite gone, Arthur?" - -"Yes, dearest." - -"I must go too. I don't know how to leave you, but I must. I cannot see -you, but you are with me in the darkness. Take me in your arms and let -me die in them. Is that your cheek against mine? How cold it is! Hold -your dear hands to my face that I may kiss them too. They have been -kind, kind hands to me. How my poor Arthur trembles! You were too good -for me, Arthur. You have been the only real friend I've ever had in the -world. More than father and mother to me. More than any one." - -"You did love me, little one?" - -"Yes." - -"Only me?" - -"Only you." - -He burst into a passion of tears. - -"Forgive me for having doubted you," he said hoarsely. - -"Did you ever doubt me?" - -"Yes, once. I ought to have known better. I can't forgive myself. -Forgive me, my wife." - -Cuckoo was silent. Death was hard upon her, heavy on voice and breath. - -"Say, 'Arthur, I forgive you,'" whispered her husband through the -darkness. - -"Arthur, I forgive you," said Cuckoo with a sob. And her head fell -forward on his breast. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - "But it was even thou, my companion, my guide, - and mine own familiar friend." - - -It was not until Janet was sitting alone in the room she had taken at an -hotel that her dazed mind began to recover itself. It did not recoil in -horror from the remembrance of that grim ascent to the flat. It did not -dwell on Cuckoo's death. - -Janet said over and over again to herself, in tearless anguish, "Cuckoo -and Fred! Cuckoo and Fred!" - -The shock had succeeded to a great strain, and she succumbed to it. - -She sat on her box in the middle of the room hour after hour in the -stifling heat. The afternoon sun beat in on her, but she did not pull -down the blind. There was an armchair in the corner, but Janet -unconsciously clung to the box, as the only familiar object in an -unfamiliar world. Late in the afternoon, when Anne found her, Janet was -still sitting on it, gazing in front of her, with an untasted cup of tea -beside her, which the chambermaid had brought her. - -Anne sat down on the box and put her arms round her. - -"My dear," she said; "my dear." - -And Janet said no word, but hid her convulsed face on Anne's shoulder. - -Janet had a somewhat confused remembrance of what happened after that. -Anne ordered, and she obeyed, and there was another journey in a cab, -and presently she was sitting in a cool, white bedroom leading out of -Anne's room; at least Anne said it did. Anne came in and out now and -then, and forced her to drink a cup of milk, and smoothed her hair with -a very tender hand. But Janet made no response. - -Anne was of those who do not despise the little things of life. She saw -that Janet was suffering from a great shock, and she sent for the only -child there was in the great, dreary London house--the vulgar kitchen -kitten belonging to the cook. - -Anne silently held the warm, sleepy kitten against Janet's cheek. It -purred when it was touched, and then fell asleep, a little ball of -comfort against Janet's neck. The white, over-strained face relaxed. -Anne's gentle touch and presence had not achieved that, but the kitten -did. Two large tears rolled down into its fur. - -The peace and comfort and physical well-being of feeling a little life -warm--asleep, pressed close against you, is perhaps not new. Perhaps it -goes back as far as the wilderness, which ceased to be a wilderness when -Eve brought forth her firstborn in it. I think she must have forgotten -all about her lost Garden of Eden when she first heard the breathing of -her sleeping child against her bosom. The brambles and the thorns would -prick very little after that. - -Later on, when Anne came in softly, Janet was asleep, with the kitten on -her shoulder. - -An hour later Anne came in once more in a wonderful white gown, and -stood a moment watching Janet. Anne was not excited, but a little tumult -was shaking her, as a summer wind stirs and ripples all the surface of a -deep-set pool. She knew that she would meet Stephen to-night at the -dinner-party for which she was already late, and that knowledge, though -long experience had taught her that it was useless to meet him, that he -would certainly not speak to her if he could help it, still the -knowledge that she should see him caused a faint colour to burn in her -pale cheek, a wavering light in her grave eyes, a slight tremor of her -whole delicate being. She looked, as she stood in the half-light, a -woman to whose exquisite hands even a poet might have entrusted his -difficult, double-edged love, much more a hard man of business such as -Stephen. - -Janet's face, which had been so wan, was flushed a deep red. She stirred -uneasily, and began speaking hoarsely and incoherently. - -"All burnt," she said, over and over again. "All burnt. Nothing left." - -Anne laid down the fan she held in her hand, and drew a step nearer. - -Janet suddenly sat up, opened her eyes to a horrible width, and stared -at her. - -"I have burnt them all, Fred," she said, looking full at Anne. -"Everything. There is nothing left. I promised I would, and I have. But -oh! Fred, how could you do it? How could you, could you, do it?" And she -burst into a low cry of anguish. - -Anne took her by the arm. - -"You are dreaming, Janet," she said. "Wake up. Look! You are here with -me, Anne--your friend." - -Janet winced, and her eyelids quivered. Then she looked round her -bewildered, and said in a more natural voice: "I don't know where I am. -I thought I was at home with Fred." - -"I have sent for your brother, and he will come and take you home -to-morrow." - -"Something dreadful has happened," said Janet. "It is like a stone on my -head. It crushes me, but I don't know what it is." - -Anne looked gravely at Janet, and half unconsciously unclasped the thin -chain, with its heavy diamond pendant, from her neck. Her hand trembled -as she did it. She was not thinking of Janet at that moment. "I shall -not see him to-night," she was saying to herself. And the delicate -colour faded, the hidden tumult died down. She was calm and practical -once more. She wrote a note, sent it down to the waiting carriage to -deliver, got quickly out of the flowing white gown into a -dressing-gown, and returned to Janet. - - * * * * * - -Fred came to London the following day. Even his mercurial nature was -distressed at Cuckoo's sudden death, and at Janet's wan, fixed face. But -he felt that if his sister must be ill, she could not be better placed -than in that ducal household. A good many persons among Fred's -acquaintances heard of Janet's illness during the next few days, and of -the kindness of the Duke and Duchess of Quorn. - -The Duke and Duchess really were kind. The benevolence of so -down-trodden and helpless a creature as the Duke--who was of no -importance except in affairs of the realm, where he was a power--his -kindness, of course, was of no account. But the Duchess rose to the -occasion. She was one of those small, square, kind-hearted, determined -women, with a long upper lip, whose faces are set on looking upwards, -who can make life vulgarly happy for struggling, middle-class men, if -they are poor enough to give their wives scope for an unceasing energy -on their behalf. She was a _femme incomprise_, misplaced. By birth she -was the equal of her gentle-mannered husband, but she was one of -Nature's vulgarians all the same, and directly the thin gilt of a -certain youthful prettiness wore off--she had been a plump, bustling -little partridge at twenty--her innate commonness came obviously to the -surface; in fact, it became the surface. - - "Age could not wither her, nor custom stale - Her infinite vulgarity." - -There was no need for her to push, but she pushed. She made embarrassing -jokes at the expense of her children. In society she was familiar where -she should have been courteous, openly curious where she should have -ignored, gratuitously confidential where she should have been reticent. -She never realized the impression she made on others. She pursued her -discomfortable objects of pursuit, namely, eligible young men and -endless charities, with the same total disregard of appearances, the -same ungainly agility, which an elderly hen will sometimes suddenly -evince in chase of a butterfly. - -Some one had nicknamed her "the steam roller," and the name stuck to -her. - -She was--perhaps not unnaturally--annoyed when Anne brought a stranger -back to the house with her in the height of the season, and installed -her in one of the spare rooms, while she herself was absent, talking -loudly at a little musical tea-party. But when she saw Janet next day -sitting in one of Anne's dressing-gowns in Anne's sitting-room, she -instantly took a fancy to her; one of those heavy, prodding fancies -which immediately investigate by questions--the Duchess never hesitated -to ask questions--all the past life of the victim, as regards illnesses, -illnesses of relations, especially if obscure and internal, cause of -death of parents, present financial circumstances, etc. Janet, whose -strong constitution rapidly rallied from the shock that had momentarily -prostrated her, thought these subjects of conversation natural and even -exhilarating. She was accustomed to them in her own society. The first -time the Smiths had called on her at Ivy Cottage, had they not enquired -the exact area of her little drawing-room? She found the society of the -Duchess vaguely delightful and sympathetic, a welcome relief from her -own miserable thoughts. And the Duchess told Janet in return about a -very painful ailment from which the Duke suffered, and which it -distressed him "to hear alluded to," and all about Anne's millionaire. -When, a few days later, Janet was able to travel, the Duchess parted -from her with real regret, and begged her to come and stay with them -again after her marriage. - -Anne seemed to have receded from Janet during these last days. Perhaps -the Duchess had elbowed her out. Perhaps Anne divined that Janet had -been told all about her unfortunate love affair. Anne's patient dignity -had a certain remoteness in it. Her mother, whose hitherto thinly-draped -designs on Stephen were now clothed only in the recklessness of -despair, made Anne's life well-nigh unendurable to her at this time, a -constant mortification of her refinement and her pride. She withdrew -into herself. And perhaps also Anne was embarrassed by the knowledge -that she had inadvertently become aware, when Janet's mind had wandered, -of something connected with the burning of papers which Janet was -concealing, and which, as Anne could see, was distressing her more even -than the sudden death of Mrs Brand. - -Fred took charge of his sister in an effusive manner when she was well -enough to travel. She was very silent all the way home. She had become -shy with her brother, depressed in his society. She had always known -that evil existed in the world, but she had somehow managed to combine -that knowledge with the comfortable conviction that the few people she -cared for were "different." She observed nothing except what happened -under her actual eyes, and then only if her eyes were forcibly turned in -that direction. - -She knew Fred drank only because she had seen him drunk. The shaking -hand, and broken nerve, and weakly-violent temper, the signs of -intemperance when he was sober, were lost upon her. She dismissed them -with the reflection that Fred was like that. Cause and effect did not -exist for Janet. And those for whom they do not exist sustain heavy -shocks. - -Cuckoo her friend, and Fred her brother! - -The horror of that remembrance never left her during these days. She -could not think about it. She could only silently endure it. - -Poor Janet did not realize even now that the sole reason why Cuckoo had -made friends with her was in order to veil the intimacy with her -brother. The hard, would-be smart woman would not, without some strong -reason, have made much of so unfashionable an individual as Janet in the -first instance, though there was no doubt that in the end Cuckoo had -grown fond of Janet for her own sake. And her genuine liking for the -sister had survived the rupture with the brother. - -The dog-cart was waiting for Fred and Janet at Mudbury, and, as they -drove in the dusk through the tranquil country lanes, Janet drew a long -breath. - -"You must not take on about Mrs Brand's death too much," said Fred at -last, who had also been restlessly silent for the greater part of the -journey. - -Janet did not answer. - -"We must all die some day," continued Fred. "It's the common lot. I did -not like Mrs Brand as much as you did, Janet. She was not my sort--but -still--when I heard the news----" - -"I loved her," said Janet hoarsely. "I would have done anything for -her." - -"You must cheer up," said Fred, "and try and look at the bright side. -That was what the Duke was saying only yesterday when I called to thank -him. He was in such a hurry that he hardly had a moment to spare, but I -took a great fancy to him. No airs and soft sawder, and a perfect -gentleman. I shall call again when next I am in London. I shan't forget -their kindness to you." - -Again no answer. - -"It is your duty to cheer up," continued Fred. "George is coming over to -see you to-morrow morning." - -"I think, don't you think, Fred," said Janet suddenly, "that George is -good--really good, I mean?" - -"He is all right," said Fred. "Not exactly open-handed. You must lay -your account for that, Janet. You'll find him a bit of a screw, or I'm -much mistaken." - -Janet was too dazed to realize what Fred's discovery of George's -meanness betokened. - -Silence again. - -They were nearing home. The lights of Ivy Cottage twinkled through the -violet dusk. Janet looked at them without seeing them. - -Cuckoo her friend, and Fred her brother! - -"I suppose, Janet," said Fred suddenly, "you were not able to ask Mrs -Brand--no--of course not----But perhaps you were able to put in a word -for me to Brand about that--about waiting for his money?" - -"I never said anything to either of them," said Janet. "I never thought -of it again. I forgot all about it." - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - "Yea, each with the other will lose and win, - Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in." - - --W. E. HENLEY. - - -It was a summer night, hot and still, six weeks later, towards the end -of July. Through the open windows of a house in Hamilton Gardens a -divine voice came out into the listening night:-- - - "She comes not when Noon is on the roses-- - Too bright is day. - She comes not to the Soul till it reposes - From work and play. - But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices - Roll in from Sea, - By starlight and by candlelight and dreamlight - She comes to me." - -Stephen sat alone in Hamilton Gardens, a massive figure under a Chinese -lantern, which threw an unbecoming light on his grim face and heavy -brows, and laid on the grass a grotesque boulder of shadow of the great -capitalist. - -I do not know what he was thinking about, as he sat listening to the -song, biting what could only by courtesy be entitled his little finger. -Was he undergoing a passing twinge of poetry? Did money occupy his -thoughts? - -His impassive face betrayed nothing. When did it ever betray anything? - -He was not left long alone. Figures were pacing in the half-lit gardens, -two and two. - -Prose rushed in upon him in the shape of a small square body, -upholstered in grey satin, which trundled its way resolutely towards -him. - -The Duchess feared neither God nor man, but if fear had been possible to -her, it would have been for that dignified, yet elusive, personage, whom -she panted to call her son-in-law. - -She sat down by him with anxiety and determination in her eyes. - -"By starlight, and by candlelight, and dreamlight she comes to me," said -Stephen to himself, with a sardonic smile. "Also by daylight, and when -noon is on the roses, and when I am at work and at play. In short, she -always comes." - -"What a perfect night!" said the Duchess. - -"Perfect." - -"And that song--how beautiful!" - -"Beautiful." - -"I did not know you cared for poetry?" - -"I don't." - -Stephen added to other remarkable qualities that of an able and -self-possessed liar. In business he was considered straight even by -gentlemen, foolishly strait-laced by men of business. But to certain -persons, and the Duchess was one of them, he never spoke the truth. He -was wont to say that any lies he told he did not intend to account for, -in this world or the next; and that the bill, if there was one, would -never be sent in to him. He certainly had the courage of his -convictions. - -"I want you to think twice of the disappointment you have given us all -by not coming to us in Scotland this autumn. The Duke was really quite -put out. He had so reckoned on your coming." - -Stephen did not answer. He had a colossal power of silence when it -suited him. He had liked the Duke for several years before he had made -the acquaintance of his family. The two men had met frequently on -business, understood each other, and had almost reached friendship when -the Duchess intervened, to ply her "savage trade." Since then a shade of -distant politeness had tinged the Duke's manner towards Stephen, and the -self-made man, sensitive to anything that resembled a sense of -difference of class, instinctively drew away from him. Yet, if Stephen -had but known it, the change in the Duke's manner was only owing to the -unformulated suspicion that the father sometimes feels for the man, -however eligible, whom he suspects of filching from him his favourite -daughter. - -"We are _all_ disappointed," continued the Duchess, and her power of -hitting on the raw did not fail her, for her victim winced--not -perceptibly. She went on: "Do think of it again, Mr Vanbrunt. If you -could see Larinnen in autumn--the autumn tints, you know--and no party. -Just ourselves. And I am sure from your face you are a lover of Nature." - -"I hate Nature," said Stephen. "It bores me. I am very easily bored." - -He was longing to get away from London, to steep his soul in the -sympathy of certain solitary woodland places he knew of, shy as himself; -where perhaps the strain on his aching spirit might relax somewhat, -where he could lie in the shade for hours, and listen to running water, -and forget that he was a plain, middle-aged millionaire, whom a -brilliant, exquisite creature could not love for himself. - -"When I said no party I did not mean quite alone," said the Duchess, -breathing heavily, for a frontal attack is generally also an uphill one. -"A few cheerful friends. How right you are! One does not see enough of -one's real friends. Anne often says that. She said to me only yesterday, -when we were talking of you----" - -The two liars were interrupted by the advance towards them of Anne and -De Rivaz. They came silently across the shadowy grass, into the little -ring of light thrown by the Chinese lantern. - -De Rivaz was evidently excited. His worn, cynical face looked boyish in -the garish light. - -"Duchess," he said, "I have only just heard by chance from Lady Anne, -that the unknown divinity whom I am turning heaven and earth to find, in -order that I may paint her, has actually been staying under your roof, -and that you intend to ask her again." - -"Mr De Rivaz means Janet Black," said Anne to her mother. - -"I implore you to ask me to meet her," said the painter. - -"But she is just going to be married," said the Duchess, with genuine -regret. Here was an opportunity lost. - -"I know it; it breaks my heart to know it," said De Rivaz. "But married -or not, maid, wife, or widow, I must paint her. Give me the chance of -making her acquaintance." - -"I will do what I can," said the Duchess, gently tilting forward her -square person on to its flat white satin feet, and looking with -calculating approval at her daughter. Surely Anne had never looked so -lovely as at this obviously propitious moment. - -"Take a turn with me, young man," continued the Duchess, "and I will see -what I can do. And Anne," she said with a backward glance at her -daughter, "try and persuade Mr Vanbrunt to come to us in September." - -"I will do my best," said Anne, and she sat down on the bench. - -Stephen, who had risen when she joined them, looked at her with shy, -angry admiration. - -It was a new departure for Anne so openly to abet her mother, and it -wounded him. - -"Won't you sit down again?" said Anne, meeting his eyes firmly. "I wish -to speak to you." - -He sat down awkwardly. He was always awkward in her presence. Perhaps it -was only a moment, but it seemed to him an hour while she kept silence. - -The same voice sang across the starlit dark: - - "Some souls have quickened, eye to eye, - And heart to heart, and hand in hand; - The swift fire leaps, and instantly - They understand." - -Neither heard it. Nearer than the song, close between them some mighty -enfolding presence seemed to have withdrawn them into itself. There is a -moment when Love leaves the two hearts in which He dwells, and stands -between them revealed. - -So far it has been man and woman and Love--three persons met painfully -together, who cannot walk together, not being agreed. But the hour comes -when in awe the man and woman perceive, what was always so from the -beginning, that they twain are but one being, one foolish creature who, -in a great blindness, thought it was two, mistook itself for two. - -Perhaps that moment of discovery of our real identity in another is the -first lowest rung of the steep ladder of love. Does God, who flung down -to us that nearest empty highway to Himself, does He wonder why so few -travellers come up by it; why we go wearily round by such bitter -sin-bogged, sorrow-smirched by-paths, to reach Him at last? - -There may be much love without that sense of oneness, but when it comes -it can only come to two, it can only be born of a mutual love. Neither -can feel it without the other. Anne knew that. By her love for him she -knew he loved her. He was slower, more obtuse; yet even he, with his -limited perceptions and calculating mind, even he nearly believed, -nearly had faith, nearly asked her if she could love him. - -But the old self came to his perdition, the strong, shrewd, iron-willed -self that had made him what he was, that had taught him to trust few, to -follow his own judgment, that in his strenuous life had furnished him -with certain dogged conventional ready-made convictions regarding women. -Men he could judge, and did judge. He knew who would cheat him, who -would fail him at a pinch, whom he could rely on. But of women he knew -little. He regarded them as apart from himself, and did not judge them -individually, but collectively. He knew how one of Anne's sisters, -possibly more than one of them, had been coerced into marriage. He did -not see that Anne belonged to a different class of being. His -shrewdness, his bitter knowledge of the seamy side of a society to which -he did not naturally belong, its uncouth passion for money, blinded him. - -He had become very pale while he sat by her, while poor Anne vainly -racked her brain to remember what it was she wished to say to him. The -overwhelming impulse to speak, to have it out with her, the thirst for -her love was upon him. When was it not upon him? He looked at her -fixedly, and his heart sank. How could she love him--she in her -wand-like delicacy and ethereal beauty? She was not of his world, she -was not made of the same clay. No star seemed so remote as this still -dark-eyed woman beside him. How could she love him? No, the thing was -impossible. - -A very ugly emotion laid violent momentary hold on him. Let him take her -whether she cared for him or not. If money could buy her, let him buy -her. - -He glanced sidelong at her, and then moved nearer to her. She turned -her head, and looked full at him. She had no fear of him. The fierce, -harsh face did not daunt her. She understood him, his stubborn humility, -his blind love, this momentary hideous lapse, and knew that it was -momentary. - -"Lady Anne," he said hoarsely, "will you marry me?" - -It had come at last, the word her heart had ached for so long. She did -not think. She did not hesitate. She, who had so often been troubled by -the mere sight of him across a room, was calm now. She looked at him -with a certain gentle scorn. - -"No, thank you," she said. - -"I love you," he said, taking her hand. "I have long loved you." - -It was his hand that trembled. Hers was steady as she withdrew it. - -"I know," she said. - -"Then could not you think of me? I implore you to marry me." - -"You are speaking on impulse. We have hardly exchanged a word with each -other for the last three months. You had no intention of asking me to -marry you when you came here this evening." - -"I don't care what intentions I may or may not have had," said Stephen, -his temper, always quick, rising at her self-possession. "I mean what I -say now, and I have meant it ever since I first saw you." - -"Do you think I love you?" - -"I love you enough for both," he said with passion. "You are in my heart -and my brain, and I can't tear you out. I can't live without you." - -"In old days, when you were not quite so rich, and not quite so -worldly-wise, did you not sometimes hope to marry for love?" - -"I hope to marry for love now. Do you doubt that I love you?" - -"No, I don't. But have you never hoped to marry a woman who would care -for you as much as you did for her?" - -"I can't expect that," said the millionaire. "I don't expect it. I'm -not--I'm not the kind of man whom women easily love." - -"No," said Anne, "you're not." - -"But when I care, I care with my whole heart. Will you think this over, -and give me an answer to-morrow?" - -"I have already answered you." - -"I beg you to reconsider it." - -"Why should I reconsider it?" - -"I would try to make you happy. Let me prove my devotion to you." - -She looked long at him, and she saw, without the possibility of -deceiving herself, that if she told him she loved him he would not -believe it. It was the conventional answer when a millionaire offers -marriage, and he had a rooted belief in the conventional. After marriage -it would be the same. He would think duty prompted it, her kiss, her -caress. Oh! suffocating thought. She would be farther from him than ever -as his wife. - -"I think we should get on together," he faltered, her refusal reaching -him gradually, like a cold tide rising round him. "I had ventured to -hope that you did not dislike me." - -"I do not dislike you," said Anne deliberately. "You are quite right. -The thing I dislike is a mercenary marriage." - -He became ashen white. He rose slowly to his feet, and drawing near to -her looked steadily at her, lightning in his eyes. - -"Do I deserve that insult?" he said, his voice hardly human in its -suppressed rage. - -He looked formidable in the uncertain light. - -She confronted him unflinching. - -"Yes," she said, "you do. You calmly offer me marriage while you are -firmly convinced that I don't care for you, and you are surprised--you -actually dare to be surprised--when I refuse you. Those who offer -insults must accept them." - -"I intended none, as you well know," he said, drawing back a step. He -felt his strength in him, but this slight woman, whom he could break -with one hand, was stronger than he. - -"Why should I marry you if I don't love you?" she went on. "Why, of -course because you are Mr Vanbrunt, the greatest millionaire in -England. Your choice has fallen on me. Let me accept with gratitude my -brilliant fate, and if I don't actually dislike you, so much the better -for both of us." - -Stephen continued to look hard at her, but he said nothing. Her beauty -astonished him. - -"And what do we both lose," said Anne, "in such a marriage--you as well -as I? Is it not the _one_ chance, the one hope of a mutual love? Is it -so small a thing in your eyes that you can cast the possibility from you -of a love that will meet yours and not endure it, the possibility of a -woman somewhere, who might be found for diligent seeking, who might walk -into your life without seeking, who would love you as much as"--Anne's -voice shook--"perhaps even more than you love her;--to whom you--you -yourself--stern and grim as you seem to many--might be the whole world? -Have you always been so busy making this dreadful money, which buys so -much, that you have forgotten the things that money can't buy? No; no. -Do not let us lock each other out from the only thing worth having in -this hard world. We should be companions in misfortune." - -She held out her hands to him with a sudden beautiful gesture, and -smiled at him through her tears. - -He took her hands in his large grasp, and in his small quick eyes there -were tears too. - -"We have both something to forgive each other," she said, trembling like -a reed. "I have spoken harshly, and you unwisely. But the day will come -when you will be grateful to me that I did not shut you out from the -only love that could make you, of all men, really happy--the love that -is returned." - -He kissed each hand gently, and released them. He could not speak. - -She went swiftly from him through the trees. - -"May God bless her," said Stephen. "May God in heaven bless her." - - - - -CHAPTER X - - "Thine were the weak, slight hands - That might have taken this strong soul, and bent - Its stubborn substance to thy soft intent." - - --WILLIAM WATSON. - - -It was hard on Stephen that when he walked into a certain drawing-room -the following evening he should find Anne there. It was doubly hard that -he should have to take her in to dinner. Yet so it was. There ought to -have been a decent interval before their next meeting. Some one had -arranged tactlessly, without any sense of proportion. Though he had not -slept since she left him in the garden, still it seemed only a moment -ago, and that she was back beside him in an instant, without giving him -time to draw breath. - -She met him as she always met him, with the faint enigmatical smile, -with the touch of gentle respect never absent from her manner to him, -except for one moment last night. He needed it. He had fallen in his -own estimation during that sleepless night. He saw the sudden impulse -that had goaded him into an offer of marriage--the kind of offer that -how many men make in good faith--in its native brutality--as he knew she -had seen it. When he first perceived her in the dimly-lighted room, and -he was aware of her presence before he saw her, he felt he could not go -towards her, as a man may feel that he cannot go home. Home for Stephen -was wherever Anne was, even if the door were barred against him. - -But after a few minutes he screwed his "courage to the sticking-place," -and went up to her. - -"I am to take you in to dinner," he said. "It is your misfortune, but -not my fault." - -"I am glad," she said. "I came to you last night because I had something -urgent to say to you. I shall have an opportunity of saying it now." - -The constraint and awkwardness he had of late felt in her presence fell -from him. It seemed as if they had gone back by some welcome short cut -to the simple intercourse of the halcyon days when they had first met. - -He cursed himself for his mole-like obtuseness in having thought last -night that she was playing into her mother's hands. When had she ever -done so? Why had he suspected her? - -In the meanwhile the world was - - "At rest with will - And leisure to be fair." - -The Duchess was not there, suddenly and mercifully laid low by that -occasional friend of society--influenza. The Duke, gay and _débonnaire_ -in her absence, was beaming on his hostess whom he was to take into -dinner, and to whom he was sentimentally linked by a mild flirtation in -a past decade, a flirtation so mild that it had no real existence, -except in the imaginative remembrance of both. - -Presently Anne and Stephen were walking in to dinner together. It was a -large party, and they sat together at the end of the table. - -Anne did not wait this time. She began to talk at once. - -"I am anxious about a friend of mine," she said, "who is, I am afraid, -becoming entangled in a far greater difficulty than she is aware. But it -is a long story. Do you mind long stories?" - -"No." - -Stephen turned towards her, becoming a solid block of attention. - -"My friend is a Miss Black, a very beautiful woman, whom Mr De Rivaz is -dying to paint. You may recollect having seen her where he saw her -first, the day after the fire in Lowndes Mansions, in the burnt-out flat -of that unfortunate Mrs Brand." - -"I saw her. I remember her perfectly. I spoke to her about the dangerous -state of the passages. I thought her the most beautiful creature, bar -none, I had ever seen." - -Stephen pulled himself up. He knew it was most impolitic to praise one -woman to another. They did not like it. It was against the code. He -must be more careful, or he should offend her again. - -Anne looked at him very pleasantly. Her eyes were good to meet. She was -evidently not offended. Dear me! Mysterious creatures, women! It struck -him, not for the first time, that Anne was an exception to the whole of -her sex. - -"Isn't she beautiful!" said the exception warmly. "But I am afraid she -is not quite as wise as she is beautiful. She is in a great difficulty." - -"What about?" - -"It seems she burned something when she was alone in the flat. At least -she is accused by Mr Brand of burning something. A very valuable -paper--an I O U for a large sum which her brother owed Mr Brand, and -which became due a month ago--is missing." - -"She did burn something," said Stephen. "I was on the floor above at the -time, and smelt smoke, and came down, and De Rivaz told me it was -nothing; only the divinity burning some papers. He was alarmed, and -left his sketch to find where the smoke came from. He saw her burn -them." - -"He said that to you," said Anne, "but to no one else. I talked over the -matter with him last night, and directly he heard Miss Black was in -trouble, he assured me that he had thoughtlessly burnt a sheet of -drawing-paper himself. That was what caused the smoke. And he said he -would tell Mr Brand so." - -"H'm! Brand is not made up of credulity." - -"No. He seems convinced Miss Black destroyed that paper." - -"And does she deny it?" - -"Of course." - -"She can't deny that she burned something." - -"Yes, she does. She sticks to it that she burned nothing." - -"Then she must be a fool, because three of us know she did. De Rivaz -knows it, I know it, and I see you know it." - -"And it turns out the lift man knows it; at least he was reprimanded for -being on the upper floors without leave, and he said he only went there -because there was a smoke, and he was anxious; and the smoke came from -the Brands' sitting-room, which Miss Black left as he came up. He told -Mr Brand this, who put what he thought was two and two together. Fred -Black, it seems, would have been ruined if Mr Brand had enforced -payment, and he believes Miss Black got hold of the paper at her -brother's instigation and destroyed it." - -"Well! I suppose she did," said Stephen. - -"If you knew her you would know that that is impossible." - -Stephen looked incredulous. - -"I've known a good many unlikely things happen about money," he said -slowly. "I daresay she did it to save her brother." - -"She did not do it," said Anne. - -"If she didn't, why doesn't she say what she did burn, and why? What's -the use of sticking to it that she burned nothing when Brand knows -that's a lie? A lie is a deadly stupid thing unless it's uncommonly well -done." - -"She has had very little practice in lying. I fancy this is her first." - -"The only possible course left for her to take is to admit that she -burned something, and to say what it was. Why doesn't she see that?" - -"Because she is a stupid woman, and she does not see the consequences of -her insane denial, and the conclusions that must inevitably be drawn -from it. When the room was examined, ashes were found in the grate that -had been paper." - -"How does she explain that?" - -"She does not explain it. She explains nothing. She just sets her teeth -and repeats her wretched formula that she burned nothing." - -"What took her up to the flat at all then, just when her friend was -dying?" - -"She says Mrs Brand sent her up to see if her portrait was safe. But Mr -Brand does not believe that either, as he says he had already told his -wife that it was uninjured." - -"This Miss Black is a strong liar," said Stephen. "I should not have -guessed it from her face. She looked as straight and innocent as a -child; but one never can tell." - -"I imagine I do not look like a liar. But would you say if I also were -accused of lying that you never can tell?" - -Stephen was taken aback. He bit his little finger and frowned at the -wonderful roses in front of him. - -"I know you speak the truth," he said, "because you have spoken it to -me. I should believe what you said--always--under any circumstances." - -"You believe in my truthfulness from experience. Do you never believe by -intuition?" - -"Not often." - -"When first I saw Miss Black I perceived that she was a perfectly -honest, upright woman. I did not wait till she had given me any proof of -it. I saw it." - -"I certainly thought the same. To say the truth, I am surprised at her -duplicity." - -"In my case you judged by experience. In her case I want you to go by -intuition, by your first impression, which I know is the true one. I -would stake my life upon it." - -"I don't see how my intuitions would help her." - -"Oh! yes, they will. Mr Brand is aware from the lift man, who saw you, -that you were on the spot directly before he smelt smoke. Mr Brand will -probably write to you." - -"He has written already. He has asked me to see him on business -to-morrow morning. He does not say what business." - -"He is certain to try and find out from you what Miss Black was doing -when you saw her in his flat. It seems you and Mr De Rivaz both left -your cards on the table--why I can't think--but it shows you were both -there. He came up himself next day and found them." - -"We both sent messages to Brand by Miss Black." - -"It seems she never gave them. She says now she forgot all about them." - -Stephen shook his head. - -"If Brand comes I shall be obliged to tell him the truth," he said. - -"That was why I was so bent on seeing you. I am anxious you _should_ -tell him the truth." - -Stephen looked steadily at her. - -"What truth?" he said. - -"Whatever you consider will disabuse his mind of the suspicion that she -burned her brother's I O U. Mr De Rivaz' view of the truth is that the -smoke came from a burnt sheet of his own drawing-paper." - -"I am not accountable for De Rivaz. He can invent what he likes. That is -hardly my line." - -He coloured darkly. It was incredible to him that Anne could be goading -him to support her friend's fabric of lies by another lie. He would not -do it, come what might. But he felt that Fate was hard on him. He would -have done almost anything at that moment to please her. But a lie--no. - -"I fear your line would naturally be to tell the blackest lie that has -ever been told yet, by repeating the damaging facts exactly as they are. -If you do--to a man like him--not only will you help to ruin Miss Black, -but you will give weight to this frightful falsehood which is being -circulated against her. And if you, by your near-sighted truthfulness, -give weight to a lie, it is just the same as telling one. No, I think -it's worse." - -Stephen smiled grimly. This was straight talk. Plain speaking always -appealed to him even when, as now, it was at his expense. - -"Are you certain that your friend did not burn her brother's I O U?" he -said after a pause. - -"I am absolutely certain. Remember her face. Now, Mr Vanbrunt, think. -Don't confuse your mind with ideas of what women generally are. Think of -her. Are not you certain too?" - -"Yes," he said slowly, "I am. She is concealing something. She has done -some folly, and is bolstering it up by a stupid lie. But the other, -that's swindling--no, she did not do that." - -"Then help the side of truth," said Anne. "My own conviction is that she -burned something compromising Mrs Brand, at Mrs Brand's dying request, -under an oath of secrecy. And that is why her mouth is shut. But this is -only a supposition. I ask you not to repeat it. I only mention it -because you are so----" she shot a glance at him unlike any, in its -gentle raillery, that had fallen to his lot for many a long day--"so -stubborn." - -He was unreasonably pleased. - -"I should still be in a dry goods warehouse in Hull if I had not been -what you call stubborn," he said, smiling at her. - -"May I ask you a small favour for myself?" she said. "So far I have only -asked for my friend." - -"It seems hardly necessary to ask it. Only mention it." - -"If my mother talks to you, and she talks to you a great deal, do not -mention to her our--our conversation of last night. It would be kinder -to me." - -Stephen bowed gravely. He was surprised. It had not struck him that Anne -had not told her mother. A brand-new idea occurred to him, namely that -Anne and her mother were not in each other's confidence. H'm! That -luminous idea required further thought. - -"And now," said Anne, "having got out of you all I want, I will -immediately desert you for my other neighbour." And she spoke no more to -Stephen that night. - - * * * * * - -"My dear," said the Duke of Quorn to Anne as they drove home, "it -appeared to me that you and Vanbrunt were on uncommonly good terms -to-night. Is there any understanding between you?" - -"I think he is beginning to have a kind of glimmering of one." - -"Really! Understandings don't as a rule lead to marriage. -Misunderstandings generally bring about those painful dislocations of -life. But the idea struck me this evening--I hope needlessly--that I -might after all have to take that richly gilt personage to my bosom as -my son-in-law." - -"Mr Vanbrunt asked me to marry him yesterday, and I refused him." - -The Duke experienced a slight shock, tinged with relief. - -"Does your mother know?" he said at last in an awed voice. - -"Need you ask?" - -"Well, if she ever finds out, for goodness' sake let her inform me of -the fact. Don't give me away, Anne, by letting out that I knew at the -time. If she thought I was an accomplice of the crime--your -refusal--really if she once got that idea into her head---- But next -time she tackles Vanbrunt, perhaps he will tell her himself. Oh, -heavens!" - -"I asked him not to mention it to her." - -The Duke sighed. - -"And so he really did propose at last. I thought your mother had choked -him off. Most men would have been. Well, Anne, I'm glad you did not -accept him. I don't hold with mixed marriages. In these days people talk -as if class were nothing, and the fact of being well-born of no account. -And, of course, it's a subject one can't discuss, because certain -things, if put into words, sound snobbish at once. But they are true all -the same. The middle classes have got it screwed into their cultivated -heads that education levels class differences. It doesn't, but one can't -say so. Not that Vanbrunt is educated, as I once told him." - -"Oh! come, father. I am sure you did not." - -"You are right, my dear. I did not. He said himself one day, in a moment -of expansion, that he regretted that he had never had the chance of -going to a public school, or the University, and I said the sort of life -he had led was an education of a high order. So it is. That man has -lived. Really when I come to think of it, I almost--no, I don't--Ahem! -Associate freely with all classes, but marry in your own. That is what -I say when no one is listening. By no one I mean of course yourself, my -dear." - -Anne was silent. There had been days when she had felt that difference -keenly though silently. Those days were past. - -"Vanbrunt is a Yorkshire dalesman, with Dutch trading blood in him. It -is extraordinary how Dutch the people look near Goole and Hull. I shall -like him better now. I always have liked him till--the last few months. -You would never say Vanbrunt was a gentleman, but you would never say he -wasn't. He seems apart from all class. There is no hall-mark upon him. -He is himself. So you would not have him, my little Anne? That's over. -It's the very devil to be refused, I can tell you. I was refused once. -It was some time ago, as you may imagine, but--I have not forgotten it. -I learned what London looks like in the dawn, after walking the streets -all night. So it's his turn to wear out the pavement now, is it! Poor -man! He'll take it hard in a bottled-up way. When next I see him I -shall say: 'Aha! money can't buy everything, Vanbrunt.'" - -"Oh! no, father. You won't be so brutal." - -"No, my dear, I daresay I shall not. I shall pretend not to know. Really -I have a sort of regard for him. Poor Vanbrunt!" - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - "C'est son ignorance qui fixe son malheur." - - --MAETERLINCK. - - -Did you ever, as a child, see ink made? Did you ever watch, with -wondering intentness, the mixing of one little bottle of colourless -fluid--which you imagined to be pure water--with another equally -colourless? No change. Then at last, into the cup of clear water, the -omnipotent parent hand pours out of another tiny phial two or three -crystal drops. - -The latent ink rushes into being at the contact of those few drops. The -whole cup is black with it, transfused with impenetrable darkness, -terrible to look upon. - -We are awed, partly owing to the exceeding glory of the magician with -the Vandyke hand, who knows everything, and who can work miracles at -will, and partly because we did not see the change coming. We were -warned that it would come by that voice of incarnate wisdom. We were all -eyes. But it was there before we knew. Some of us, as older children, -watch with our ignorant eyes the mysterious alchemy in our little cup of -life. We are warned, but we see not. We somehow miss the sign. The water -is clear, quite clear. Something more is coming, straight from the same -Hand. In a moment all is darkness. - -A wiser woman than Janet would perhaps have known, would at any rate -have feared, that a certain small cloud on her horizon, no larger than a -man's hand, meant a great storm. But until it broke she did not realize -that that ever-increasing ominous pageant had any connection with the -hurricane that at last fell upon her: just as some of us see the rosary -of life only as separate beads, not noticing the divine constraining -thread, and are taken by surprise when we come to the cross. - - * * * * * - -The cloud first showed itself, or rather Janet first caught sight of it, -on a hot evening towards the end of June, when Fred returned from -London, whither he had been summoned by Mr Brand, a fortnight after his -wife's death. - -The days which had passed since Cuckoo's death had not had power to numb -the pain at Janet's heart. The shock had only so far had the effect of -shifting the furniture of her mind into unfamiliar, jostling positions. -She did not know where to put her hand on anything, like a woman who -enters her familiar room after an earthquake, and finds the contents -still there, but all huddled together or thrown asunder. - -Her deep affection for her brother, and her friend Cuckoo, were wrenched -out of place, leaving horrible gaps. She had always felt a vague -repulsion to Monkey Brand, with his dyed hair and habit of staring too -hard at her. The repulsion towards him had shifted, and had crashed up -against her love for Fred, and Monkey Brand had acquired a kind of -dignity, even radiance. Even her love for George had altered in the -general dislocation. Its halo had been jerked off. Who was true? Who was -good? She looked at him wistfully, and with a certain diffidence. She -felt a new tenderness for him. George had noticed the change in her -manner towards him since her return from London, and, not being an -expert diver into the recesses of human nature, he had at first -anxiously inquired whether she still loved him the same. Janet looked -slowly into her own heart before she made reply. Then she turned her -grave gaze upon him. "More," she said, as every woman, whose love is -acquainted with grief must answer if she speaks the truth. - -It was nearly dark when Janet caught the sounds of Fred's dog-cart, -driving swiftly along the lanes, too swiftly considering the darkness. -He drove straight to the stables, and then came out into the garden, -where she was walking up and down waiting for him. It was such a small -garden, merely a strip out of the field in front of the house, that he -could not miss her. - -He came quickly towards her, and even in the starlight she saw how white -his face was. Her heart sank. She knew Fred had gone to London in -compliance with a request from Mr Brand. Had Mr Brand refused to renew -his bond, or to wait? - -Fred took her suddenly in his arms, and held her closely to him. He was -trembling with emotion. His tears fell upon her face. She could feel the -violent beating of his heart. She could not speak. She was terrified. -She had never known him like this. - -"You have saved me," he stammered, kissing her hair and forehead. "Oh! -my God! Janet, I will never forget this, never while I live. I was -ruined, and you have saved me." - -She did not understand. She led him to the garden seat, and they sat -down together. She thought he had been drinking. He generally cried when -he was drunk. But she saw in the next moment that he was sober. - -"Will Mr Brand renew?" she said, though she knew he would not. Monkey -Brand never renewed. - -Fred laughed. It was the nervous laugh of a shallow nature, after a -hairbreadth escape. - -"Brand will not renew, and he will not wait," he said. "You know that as -well as I do. Janet, I misjudged you. All these awful days, while I have -been expecting the blow to fall--it meant ruin, sheer ruin, for you as -well as me--all this time I thought you did not care what became of me. -You seemed so different lately, so cold." - -"I did care." - -"I know. I know now. You are a brave woman. It was the only thing to do. -If you had not burnt it he would have foreclosed. And of course I shall -pay him back when I can. I said so. He knows I'm a gentleman. He has my -word for it. A gentleman's word is as good as his bond. I shall repay -him gradually." - -"I don't understand," said Janet, who felt as if a cold hand had been -laid upon her heart. - -"Oh! You can speak freely to me. And to think of your keeping silence -all this time--even to me. You always were one to keep things to -yourself, but you might have just given me a hint. My I O U is not -forthcoming, and Brand as good as knows you burned it. He knows you went -up to his flat and burned something when his wife was dying. He wasn't -exactly angry; he was too far gone for that, as if he couldn't care for -anything one way or the other. He looks ten years older. But, of course, -he's a business man, whether his wife is alive or dead, and I could see -he was forcing himself to attend to business to keep himself from -thinking. He said very little. He was very distant. Infernally distant -he was. He is no gentleman, and he doesn't understand the feelings of -one. If it hadn't been that he was in trouble, and well--for the fact -that I had borrowed money of him--I would not have stood it for a -moment. I'm not going to allow any cad to hector over me, be he who he -may. He mentioned the facts. He said he had always had a high opinion of -you, and that he should come down and see you on the subject next week. -You must think what to say, Janet." - -"I never burned your I O U," said Janet in a whisper, becoming cold all -over. It was a revelation to her that Fred could imagine she was capable -of such a dishonourable action. - -"Why, Fred," she said, deeply wounded, "you know I could not do such a -thing. It would be the same as stealing." - -"No, it wouldn't," said Fred, with instant irritation, "because you know -I should pay him back. And so I will--only I can't at present. And, of -course, you knew too, you must have guessed, that your two thousand---- -And as you are going to be married, that is important too. I should have -been ruined, sold up, if that I O U had turned up, and you yourself -would have been in a fix. You knew that when you got hold of it and -burned it. Come, Janet, you can own to me you burned it--between -ourselves." - -"I burnt nothing." - -Fred peered at her open-mouthed. - -"Janet, that's too thin. You must go one better than that when Brand -comes. He knows you burnt something when you went up to his flat." - -"I burnt nothing," said Janet again. It was too dark to see her face. - -Did she realise that the first heavy drops were falling round her of the -storm that was to wreck so much? - -"Well," said Fred, after a pause, "I take my cue from you. You burnt -nothing then. I don't see how you are going to work it, but that's your -affair.... But oh, Janet, if that cursed paper had remained! If you had -known what I've been going through since you came home a fortnight ago, -when my last shred of hope left me when I found you had not spoken to -the Brands. It wasn't only the money--that was bad enough--it wasn't -only that--but----" - -And Fred actually broke down, and sobbed with his head in his hands. -Presently, when he recovered himself, he told her, in stammering, -difficult words, that he had something on his conscience, that his life -had not been what it should have been, but that a year ago he had come -to a turning-point; he had met some one--even his light voice had a -graver ring in it--some one who had made him feel how--in short, he had -fallen in love, with a woman like herself, like his dear Janet--good and -innocent, a snowflake; and for a long time he feared she could never -think of him, but how at last she seemed less indifferent, but how her -father was a strict man and averse to him from the first. And if he had -been sold up, all hope--what little hope there was--would have been -gone. - -"But, please God, now," said Fred, "I will make a fresh start. I've had -a shock lately, Janet. I did not talk about it, but I've had a shock. -I've thought of a good many things. I mean to turn round and do better -in future. There are things I've done, that lots of men do and think -nothing of them, that I won't do again. I mean to try from this day -forward to be worthy of her, to put the past behind me; and if I ever do -win her--if she'll take me in the end--I shall not forget, Janet, that I -owe it to you." - -He kissed her again with tears. - -She was too much overcome to speak. Cuckoo had repented, and now Fred -was sorry too. It was the first drop of healing balm which had fallen on -that deep wound which Cuckoo's dying voice had inflicted how many -endless days ago. - -"It is Venetia Ford," said Fred shyly, but not without triumph. "You -remember her? She is Archdeacon Ford's eldest daughter." - -A recollection rose before Janet's mind of the eldest Miss Ford, with -the pretty pink and white empty face, and the demure, if slightly -supercilious, manner that befits one conscious of being an Archdeacon's -daughter. Janet knew her slightly, and admired her much. The eldest Miss -Ford's conversation was always markedly suitable. Her sense of propriety -was only equalled by her desire to impart information. Her slightly -clerical manner resembled the full-blown Archidiaconal deportment of her -parent, as home-made marmalade resembles an orange. Archdeacon Ford was -a pompous, much-respected prelate, with private means. Mrs Smith was -distantly related to the Fords, and very proud of the connection. She -seldom alluded to the eldest Miss Ford without remarking that Venetia -was her ideal of what a perfect lady should be. - -"O Fred, I am so glad!" said Janet, momentarily forgetting everything -else in her rejoicing that Fred should have attached himself seriously -at last, and to a woman for whom she felt respectful admiration, who -had always treated herself with the cold civility that was, in Janet's -eyes, the hall-mark of social and mental superiority. - -"And does she like you?" she said, with pride. She could not see Fred -any longer, but her mind's eye saw him--handsome, gay, irresistible. Of -course she adored him. - -"Sometimes I think she does," said Fred, "and sometimes I'm afraid she -doesn't." And he expounded at great length, garnished with abundant -detail, his various meetings with her; how on one occasion she had -hardly looked at him; on another she had spoken to him of Browning--that -was the time when he had bought Browning's works; on a third, how there -had been another man there--a curate--a beast, but thinking a lot of -himself; on a fourth she had said that balls--the Mudbury ball where he -had danced with her--were an innocent form of recreation, etc., etc. - -Janet drank in every word. It reminded her, she said, of "her and -George." Indeed, there were many salient points of resemblance between -the two courtships. The brother and sister sat long together hand in -hand in the soft summer night. Only when she got up at last did the -thought of the missing I O U return to Janet. - -"O Fred!" she said, as they walked towards the house, "supposing after -all your I O U turns up? How dreadful! What would happen?" - -"It won't turn up," said Fred, with a laugh. - -When Janet was alone in her room she remembered again, with pained -bewilderment, that Fred had actually believed that she had destroyed -that missing paper. It did not distress her that Monkey Brand evidently -believed the same. She would, of course, tell him that he was mistaken. -_But Fred!_ He ought to have known better. Her thoughts returned -speedily to her brother's future. He would settle down now, and be a -good man, and marry the eldest Miss Ford. She felt happier about him -than she had done since Cuckoo's death. Her constant prayer, that he -might repent and lead a new life, had evidently been heard. - -As she closed her eyes she said to herself, "I daresay Fred and Venetia -will be married the same day as George and me." - - * * * * * - -Monkey Brand appeared at Ivy Cottage a few days later. Janet was in the -field with Fred, taking the setter puppies for a run, when the "Trefusis -Arms" dog-cart from Mudbury drove up, and Nemesis, in the shape of -Monkey Brand, got slowly down from it, wrong leg first. Even in the -extreme heat Monkey Brand wore a high hat and a long buttoned-up -frock-coat and varnished boots. As he came towards them in the sunshine, -there was a rigid, controlled desolation in his yellow lined face, which -made Janet feel suddenly ashamed of her happiness in her own love. - -"I had better go," said Fred hurriedly. "I don't want to be uncivil to -the brute in my own house." - -"Go!" said Janet. "But, of course, you must stop. Mr Brand has come -down on purpose to see us." - -She went forward to meet him, and, as he took her hand somewhat stiffly, -he met the tender sympathy in her clear eyes, and winced under it. - -His face became a shade less rigid. He looked shrunk and exhausted, as -if he had undergone the extreme rigour of a biting frost. Perhaps he -had. - -"I have come to see you on business," he said to Janet, hardly returning -Fred's half nervous, half defiant greeting. - -Janet led the way into the little parlour, and they sat down in silence. -Fred sat down near the door, and began picking at the rose in his -buttonhole. - -Monkey Brand held his hat in his hand. He took off one black glove, -dropped it into his hat, and looked fixedly at it. - -The cloud on Janet's horizon lay heavy over her whole sky. A single -petal, loosened by a shaking hand, fell from Fred's rose on to the -floor. - -"I am sure, Miss Black," said Monkey Brand, "that you will offer me an -explanation respecting your visit to my flat when my wife was dying." - -"I went up at her wish," said Janet, breathing hard. She seemed to see -again Cuckoo's anguished fading eyes fixed upon her. - -"Why?" - -"She asked me to go and see if her picture was safe." - -"I had already told her it was safe." - -Janet did not answer. - -The rose in Fred's buttonhole fell petal by petal. - -Monkey Brand's voice had hardened when he spoke again. - -"I am sure," he said, and for a moment he fixed his dull sinister eyes -upon her, "that you will see the advisability, the necessity, of telling -me why you burnt some papers when you clandestinely visited my flat." - -"I burnt nothing." - -He looked into his hat. Janet's bewildered eyes followed the direction -of his, and looked into his hat too. There was nothing in it but a -glove. - -"There were ashes of burnt papers in the grate," he continued. "The lift -man saw you leave the room, which had smoke in it. A valuable paper, -your brother's I O U is missing. I merely state established facts, which -it is useless, which it is prejudicial, to you to contradict." - -"I burnt nothing," said Janet again, but there was a break in her voice. -Her heart began to struggle like some shy woodland animal, which -suddenly sees itself surrounded. - -Monkey Brand looked again at her. His wife had loved her. Across the -material, merciless face of the money-lender a flicker passed of some -other feeling besides the business of the moment; as if, almost as if he -would not have been averse to help her if she would deal -straightforwardly with him. - -"You were my wife's friend," he said after a moment's pause. "She often -spoke of you with affection. I also regarded you with high esteem. A -few days before you came to stay with us I was looking over my papers -one evening, and I mentioned that your brother's I O U would fall due -almost immediately. She said she believed it would ruin him if I called -in the money then. I said I should do so, for I had waited once already -against my known rules of business. I never wait. I should not be in the -position which I occupy to-day if I had ever waited. She said, 'Wait at -least till after Janet's wedding. It might tell against her if her -brother went smash just before.' I replied that I should foreclose, -wedding or none. She came across to me, and, by a sudden movement, took -the I O U out of my hand before I could stop her. 'I won't have Janet -distressed,' she said. 'I shall keep it myself till after the wedding,' -and she locked it up before my eyes in a cabinet I had given her, in -which she kept her own papers. I seldom yield to sentiment, but she--she -recalled to me my own wedding--and in this instance I did so. It was the -last evening we spent at home alone together. She went much to the -theatre and into society, and I seldom had time to accompany her." - -Monkey Brand stopped a moment. Then he went on: - -"My wife saw you alone when she was dying. She was evidently anxious to -see you alone. It was like her, even then, to think of others. If you -tell me, on your word of honour, that she asked you to go up to the flat -and burn that I O U, and that she told you where to find it--No; if she -even gave you leave, as you were no doubt anxious on the subject,--if -you assure me that she yielded to your entreaties, and that she even -gave you leave to destroy it,--I will believe it. I will accept your -statement. The last wish of my wife--if you say it _was_ her wish--is -enough for me." Monkey Brand looked out of the window at the still -noonday sunshine. "I would abide by it," he said, and his face worked. - -"She never spoke to me on the subject of the I O U," said Janet, two -large tears rolling down her quivering cheeks. "She never gave me leave -to burn it. I didn't burn it. I burnt nothing." - -"Janet," almost shrieked Fred, nearly beside himself. "Janet, don't you -see that--that---- Confess. Tell him you did it. We both know you did -it. Own the truth." - -Janet looked from one to the other. - -"I burnt nothing," she said, but her eyes fell. Her word had never been -doubted before. - -Both men saw she was lying. - -Monkey Brand's face changed. It became once again as many poor wretches -had seen it, whose hard-wrung money had gone to buy his wife's gowns and -diamonds. - -He got up. He took his glove out of the crown of his hat, put on his hat -in the room, and walked slowly out of the house. In the doorway he -looked back at Janet, and she saw, directed at her for the first time, -the expression with which she was to grow familiar, that which meets the -swindler and the liar. - -The brother and sister watched in silence the rigid little departing -figure, as it climbed back wrong leg first into the dog-cart and drove -away. - -Then Fred burst out. - -"Oh! you fool, you fool!" he stammered, shaking from head to foot. "Why -didn't you say Mrs Brand told you to burn it? His wife was his soft -side. Oh! my God! what a chance, and you didn't take it. That man will -ruin us yet. I saw it in his face." - -"But she didn't tell me to burn it." - -Janet looked like a bewildered, distressed child, who suddenly finds -herself in a room full of machinery of which she understands nothing, -and whose inadvertent touch, as she tries to creep away, has set great -malevolent wheels whirring all round her. - -"I daresay she didn't," said Fred fiercely, and he flung out of the -room. - -He went and stood a long time leaning over the fence into the paddock -where his yearlings were. - -"It's an awful thing to be a fool," he said to himself. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - "Il n'est aucun mal qui ne naisse, en dernière analyse--d'une - pensée étroite, ou d'un sentiment mediocre." - - --MAETERLINCK. - - -The storm had fallen on Janet at last. She saw it was a storm, and met -it with courage and patience, and without apprehension as to what so -fierce a hurricane might ultimately destroy, what foundations its rising -floods might sweep away. She suffered dumbly under the knowledge that -Monkey Brand and Fred both firmly believed her to be guilty, suffered -dumbly the gradual alienation of her brother, who never forgave her her -obtuseness when a way of escape had been offered her, and who shivered -under an acute anxiety as to what Monkey Brand would do next, together -with a gnawing suspense respecting the eldest Miss Ford, who had become -the object of marked attentions on the part of a colonial Bishop. - -Janet said to herself constantly in these days, "Truth will prevail." -She did not believe in the principle, but in her version of it. Her -belief in the power of truth became severely shaken as the endless July -days dragged themselves along, each slower than the last. Truth did not -prevail. The storm prevailed instead. Foundations began to crumble. - -How it came about it would be difficult to say, but the damning evidence -against Janet, the suspicion, the almost certainty of her duplicity, -reached Easthope. - -Mrs Trefusis seized upon it to urge her son to break with Janet. He -resisted with stubbornness his mother's frenzied entreaties. -Nevertheless after a time his fixity of purpose was undermined by a -sullen, growing suspicion that Janet was guilty. Fred had hinted as -much. Fred's evident conviction of Janet's action, and inability to see -that it was criminal, his confidential assertion that the money would be -repaid, pushed George slowly to the conclusion that Janet had been her -brother's catspaw--perhaps not for the first time. George felt with deep -if silent indignation, that with him, her future husband if with any -one, Janet ought to be open, truthful. But she was not. She repeated her -obvious lie even to him when at last he forced himself to speak to her -on the subject. His narrow, upright nature abhorred crookedness, and, -according to his feeble searchlight, he deemed Janet crooked. - -His mother's admonitions began to work in him like leaven. How often she -had said to him, "She has lied to others. The day will come when she -will lie to you." That day had already come. Perhaps his mother was -right after all. He had heard men say the same thing. "What is bred in -the bone will come out in the flesh." "Take a bird out of a good nest," -etc., etc. - -And George who, in other circumstances, would have defended Janet to the -last drop of his blood, who would have carried her over burning deserts -till he fell dead from thirst--George, who was capable of heroism on her -behalf--weakened towards her. - -She had fallen in love with him in the beginning, partly because he was -"straighter" than the men she associated with. Yet this very rectitude -which had attracted her was now alienating her lover from her, as -perhaps nothing else could have done. Strange back-blow of Fate, that -the cord which had drawn her towards him should tighten to a noose round -her neck. - -George weakened towards her. - -It seems to be the miserable fate of certain upright, closed natures, -who take their bearings from without, always to fail when the pinch -comes; to disbelieve in those whom they obtusely love when suspicion -falls on them, to be alienated from them by their success, to be -discouraged by their faults, incredulous of their higher motives, -repelled by their enthusiasms. - -George would not have failed if the pinch had not come. Like many -another man, found faithful because his faith had not been put to the -test, he would have made Janet an excellent and loving husband, and they -would probably have spent many happy years together--if only the pinch -had not come. Anne early divined, from Janet's not very luminous -letters, that George was becoming estranged from her. Anne came down for -a Sunday to Easthope early in July, and quickly discovered the cause of -this estrangement (which Janet had not mentioned) in the voluble -denunciations of Mrs Trefusis, and the sullen unhappiness of her son. - -Mrs Trefusis had wormed out all the most damning evidence against Janet, -partly from Fred's confidence to George, and partly from Monkey Brand, -with whom she had had money dealings, and to whom she applied direct. -She showed Anne the money-lender's answer, in its admirable restrained -conciseness, with its ordered sequence of inexorable facts. Anne's heart -sank as she read it, and she suddenly remembered Janet's words in -delirium. "I have burnt them all. Everything. There is nothing left." - -The letter fell from her nerveless hand. She looked at it, momentarily -stunned. - -"And this is the woman," said Mrs Trefusis, scratching the letter -towards her with her stick, and regaining possession of it, "this is -the woman whom you pressed me, only a month ago, to receive as my -daughter-in-law. Didn't I say she came of a bad stock? Didn't I say that -what was bred in the bone would come out in the flesh? George would not -listen to me then, but my poor deluded boy is beginning to see now that -I was right." - -Mrs Trefusis wiped away two small tears with her trembling claw-like -hand. Anne could not but see that she was invincibly convinced of -Janet's guilt. - -"You think I am vindictive, Anne," she said. "You may be right; I know I -was at first, and perhaps I am still. I always hated the connection, and -I always hated her. But--but it's not _only_ that now. It's my boy's -happiness. I must think of him. He is my only son, and I can't sit still -and see his life wrecked." - -"I am certain Janet did not do it," said Anne suddenly, her pale face -flaming. "George and you may believe she did, if you like. I don't." - -Anne walked over to Ivy Cottage the same afternoon, and Janet saw her in -the distance, and fled out to her across the fields and fell upon her -neck. But even Anne's tender entreaties and exhortations were of no -avail. Janet understood at last that her mechanically-repeated formula -was ruining her with her lover. But she had promised Cuckoo to say it, -and she stuck to it. - -"Why does not George believe in me even if appearances are against me?" -said Janet at last. "I would believe in him." - -"That is different." - -"How different?" - -"Because you are made like that, and he isn't. It's a question of -temperament. You have a trustful nature. He has not. You must take -George's character into consideration. It is foolish to love a person -who is easily suspicious, and then allow him to become suspicious. You -have no right to perplex him. Just as some people who care for us must -have it made easy to them all the time to go on caring for us. If there -is any strain or difficulty, or if they are put to inconvenience, they -will leave us." - -Janet was silent. - -"As you and George both love each other," continued Anne, "can't you say -something to him? Don't you see it would be only right to say a few -words to him, which will show him--what I am sure is the truth--that you -are concealing something, which has led to this false suspicion falling -on you?" - -Janet shook her head. "He ought to know it's false," she said. - -"Could not you say to _him_, even though you cannot say so to your -brother or Mr Brand--that you burnt some compromising papers at Mrs -Brand's dying request? He might believe that, for it is known that you -_did_ burn papers, dearest, and it is also obvious that you must have -burnt a good many. That one I O U does not account for the quantity of -ashes." - -"I could not say that," said Janet, whitening. "And besides," she added -hastily, "I have said so many times" (and indeed she had) "that I burnt -nothing, that George would not know what to believe if I say first one -thing and then another." - -"He does not know what to believe now. Unless you can say something to -reassure his mind, you will lose your George." - -"You believe in me?" - -"Implicitly." - -"Then why doesn't George?" continued Janet, with the feminine talent for -reasoning in a circle. "That is the only thing that is necessary. Not -that I should say things I can't say, but that he should trust me. I -don't care what other people think so long as he believes in me." - -She, who had never exacted anything heretofore, whose one object had -been to please her George, now made one demand upon him. It was the -first and last which she ever made upon her lover. And he could not meet -it. - -"His belief is shaken." - -"Truth will prevail," said Janet stubbornly. - -"It will no doubt in the end, but in the meanwhile? And how if the -truth is masked by a lie?" - -Janet did not answer. Perhaps she did not fully understand. She saw only -two things in these days: one, that George ought to believe in her; and -the other, that, come what might, she would keep the promise made to -Cuckoo on her death-bed. She constantly remembered the rigid dying face, -the difficult whisper: "Promise me that whatever happens you will never -tell anyone that you have burnt anything." - -"I promise." - -"You swear it." - -"I swear it." - -That oath she would keep. - - * * * * * - -Anne returned to London with a heavy heart. She left no stone unturned. -She interviewed De Rivaz and Stephen on the subject, as we have seen. -But her efforts were unavailing, as far as George was concerned. The -affair of the burning of papers was hushed up, but it had reached the -only person who had the power to wreck Janet's happiness. - -Some weeks after Anne's visit Janet one day descried the large figure of -Stephen stalking slowly up across the fields. Janet tired her eyes daily -in scanning the fields in the direction of Easthope, but a certain -person came no more by that much frequented way. - -The millionaire had a long interview with Janet, but his valuable time -was wasted. He could not move her. He told her that he firmly believed -the missing I O U would turn up, and that in the meanwhile he had paid -Mr Brand, and that she might repay him at her convenience. He could -wait. For a moment she was frightened, but a glance at Stephen's -austere, quick eyes, bent searchingly upon her, reassured her. She -trusted him at once. It was never known what he had said to Monkey -Brand, as to his having seen Janet in the burnt flat, but Monkey Brand -gained nothing from the discussion of that compromising fact--except his -money. - -Fred was awed by the visit of Stephen, and by the amazing fact that he -had paid Monkey Brand. Fred said repeatedly that it was the action of a -perfect gentleman, exactly what he should have done if he had been in -Stephen's place. He let George hear of it at the first opportunity. But -the information had no effect on George's mind, except that it was -vaguely prejudicial to Janet. - -Why had she accepted such a large sum from a man of whom she knew next -to nothing, whom she had only seen once before for a moment, and that an -equivocal one? Women should not accept money from men. _And why did he -offer it?_ - -He asked these questions of himself. To Fred he only vouchsafed a nod, -to show that he had heard what Fred had waylaid him to say. - -Some weeks later still, in August, De Rivaz came to Ivy Cottage, hat in -hand, stammering, deferential, to ask Janet to allow him to paint her. -He would do anything, take rooms in the neighbourhood, make his -convenience entirely subservient to hers if she would only sit to him. -He saw with a pang that she was not conscious that they had met before. -She had forgotten him, and he did not remind her of their first meeting. -He knew that hour had brought trouble upon her. Her face showed it. The -patient, enduring spirit was beginning to look through the exquisite -face. Her beauty overwhelmed him. He trembled before it. He pleaded -hard, but she would not listen to him. She said apathetically that she -did not wish to be painted. She was evidently quite unaware of the -distinction which he was offering her. His name had conveyed nothing to -her. He had to take his leave at last, but, as he walked away in the -rain, he turned and looked back at the house. - -"I will come back," he said, his thin face quivering. - -It was a wet August, and the harvest rotted on the ground. No one came -to Ivy Cottage along the sodden footpath from Easthope. A slow anger was -rising in Janet's heart against her lover, the anger that will invade -at last the hearts of humble sincere natures, when they find that love -and trust have not gone together. - -George never openly broke with Janet, never could be induced to write -the note to her which, his mother told him, it was his duty to write. -No. He simply stayed away from her, week after week, month after month. -When his mother urged him to break off his engagement formally, he said -doggedly that Janet could see for herself that all was over between -them. - -The day came at last when Janet met him suddenly in the streets of -Mudbury, on market day. He took off his hat in answer to her timid -greeting, and passed on looking straight in front of him. - -Perhaps he had his evil hour that night, for Janet was very fair. Seen -suddenly, unexpectedly, she seemed more beautiful than ever. And she was -to have been his wife. - -After that blighting moment, when even Janet perceived that George was -determined not to speak to her; after that Janet began to see that when -foundations are undermined that which is built upon them will one day -totter and--fall. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - "The heart asks pleasure first, - And then, excuse from pain; - And then, those little anodynes - That deaden suffering; - - And then, to go to sleep; - And then if it should be - The will of its Inquisitor, - The liberty to die." - - --EMILY DICKINSON. - - -There are long periods in the journey of life when "the road winds -uphill all the way." There are also long periods when the dim plain -holds us, endless day after day, till the last bivouac fires of our -youth are quenched in its rains. - -But when we look back across our journey, do we not forget alike the -hill and the plain? Do we not rather remember that one turn, exceeding -sharp, of the narrow inevitable way, what time the light failed, and the -ground yawned beneath our feet, and we knew fear? - -There is a slow descent, awful, step by step, into a growing darkness, -which those know who have strength to make it. Only the strong are -broken on certain wheels. Only the strong know the dim landscape of -Hades, that world which underlies the lives of all of us. - -I cannot follow Janet down into it. I can only see her as a shadow, -moving among shadows; going down unconsciously with tears in her eyes, -taking, poor thing, her brave, loving unselfish heart with her, to meet -anguish, desolation, desertion, and at last despair. If we needs must go -down that steep stair we go alone, and who shall say how it fared with -us? Nature has some appalling beneficent processes, of which it is not -well to speak. Life has been taught at the same knee, out of the same -book, and when her inexorable disintegrating hand closes over us, the -abhorrent darkness, from which we have shrunk with loathing, becomes -our only friend. - - * * * * * - -In the following autumn and winter Janet slowly descended, inch by inch, -step by step, that steep stair. She reached at last the death of love. -She thought she reached it many times before she actually touched it. -She believed she reached it when the news of George's engagement -penetrated to her. But she did not in reality. No, she hoped against -hope to the last day, to the morning of his wedding. She did not know -she hoped. She supposed she had long since given up all thought of a -reconciliation between her and her lover. But when the wedding was over, -when he was really gone, then something broke within her--the last -string of the lyre over which blind Hope leans. - -There are those who tell us that we have not suffered till we have known -jealousy. Janet's foot reached that lowest step, and was scorched upon -it. - -Only then she realised that she had never, never believed that he could -really leave her. Even on his wedding morning she had looked out across -the fields, by which she had so often seen him come, which had been so -long empty of that familiar figure. She knew he was far away at the -house of the bride, but nevertheless she expected that he would come to -her, and hold her to his heart, and say: "But, Janet, I could never -marry anyone but you. You know such a thing could never be. What other -woman could part you and me, who cannot part?" And then the evil dream -would fall from her, and she and George would look gravely at each -other, and the endless, endless pain would pass away. - - * * * * * - -Wrapt close against the anguish of love there is always a word such as -this with which human nature sustains its aching heart--poor human -nature which believes that, come what come may, Love can never die. - -"Some day," the woman says to herself, half knowing that that day can -never dawn, "some day I shall tell him of these awful months, full of -days like years, and nights like nothing, please God, which shall ever -be endured again. Some day--it may be a long time off--but some day I -shall say to him: 'Why did you leave me?' And he will tell me his -foolish reasons, and we shall lean together in tears. And surely some -day I shall say to him: 'I always burnt your letters for fear I might -die suddenly and others should read them. But see, here are the -envelopes, every one. That envelope is nearly worn out. Do you remember -what you said inside it? That one is still new. I only read the letter -it had in it once. How could you--could you write it?'" - - * * * * * - -"Some day," the man says to himself, when the work of the day is -done--"some day my hour will come. She thinks me harsh and cold, but -some day, when these evil days are past, and she understands, I will -wrap her round with a tenderness such as she has never dreamed of. I -will show her what a lover can be. She finds the world hard, and its -ways a weariness--let her; but some day she shall own to me, to me here -in this room, that she did not know what life was, what joy and peace -were, until she let my love take her." - -Yet he half knows she will never come, that woman whose coming seems -inevitable as spring. So the heart comforts itself, telling itself fairy -stories until the day dawns when Reality's stern, beneficent figure -enters our dwelling, and we know at last that not one word of all we -have spoken in imagination will ever be said. What we have suffered we -have suffered. The one for whom it was borne will hear no further word -from us. - -The moth and the rust have corrupted. - -The thieves have broken through and stolen. - -Then rise up, lay hold of your pilgrim's staff, and take up life with a -will. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - "My river runs to thee: - Blue sea, wilt welcome me?" - - --EMILY DICKINSON. - - -The winter, that dealt so sternly with Janet, smiled on Anne. She spent -Christmas in London, for the Duke was, or at least he said he was, in -too delicate a state of health to go to his ancestral halls in the -country, where the Duchess had repaired alone, believing herself to be -but the herald of the rest of her family; and where she was expending -her fearful energy on Christmas trees, magic-lanterns, ventriloquists, -entertainments of all kinds for children and adults, tenants, inmates of -workhouses, country neighbours, Sunday School teachers, Mothers' Unions, -Ladies' Working Guilds, Bands of Hope, etc., etc. She was in her -element. - -Anne and her father were in theirs. The Duke did not shirk the constant -inevitable duties of his position, but by nature he was a recluse, and -at Christmas-time he yielded to his natural bias. Anne also lived too -much on the highway of life. She knew too many people, her sympathy had -drawn towards her too many insolvent natures. She was glad to be for a -time out of the pressure of the crowd. She and her father spent a -peaceful Christmas and New Year together, only momentarily disturbed by -the frantic telegrams of the Duchess, commanding Anne to despatch five -hundred presents at one shilling suitable for schoolgirls, or forty -ditto at half-a-crown for young catechists. - -The New Year came in in snow and fog. But it was none the worse for -that. On this particular morning Anne stood a long time at the window of -her sitting-room, looking out at the impenetrable blanket of the fog. -The newsboys were crying something in the streets, but she could hear -nothing distinctive except the word "city." - -Presently she took out of her pocket two letters, and read them slowly. -There was no need for her to read them. Not only did she know them by -heart, but she knew exactly where each word came on the paper. "Martial -law" was on the left-hand corner of the top line of the second sheet. -"Dependent on Kaffir labour" was in the middle of the third page. They -were dilapidated-looking letters, possibly owing to the fact that they -were read last thing every night and first thing every morning, and that -they were kept under Anne's pillow at night, so that if she waked she -could touch them. It is hardly necessary to add that they were in -Stephen's small, cramped, mercantile handwriting. - -Stephen had been recalled to South Africa on urgent business early in -the autumn. He had been there for nearly three months. During that time, -after intense cogitation, he had written twice to Anne. I am under the -impression that he was under the impression that those two documents -were love letters. At any rate, they were the only two letters which -Stephen ever composed which could possibly be classed under that -heading. And their composition cost him much thought. In them he was so -good as to inform Anne of the population of the town he wrote from, its -principal industries, its present distress under martial law. He also -described the climate. His nearest approach to an impulsive outburst was -a polite expression of hope that she and her parents were well, and that -he expected to be in England again by Christmas. Anne kissed the -signature, and then laughed till she cried over the letter. Stephen did, -as a matter of fact, indite a third letter, but it was of so bold a -nature--it expressed a wish to see her again--that, after reading it -over about twenty times, he decided not to risk sending it. - -When Anne was an old woman she still remembered the population of two -distracted little towns in South Africa, and their respective -industries. - -Stephen was as good as his word. His large foot was once more planted on -English soil a day or two before Christmas. In spite of an overwhelming -pressure of business, he had found time to dine with Anne and her father -several times since he arrived. The Duke had met him at a directors' -meeting, and quite oblivious of Anne's refusal of him, had pressed him -to come back with him to dinner. The Duke asked him constantly to dine -after that. The old attraction between the two men renewed its hold. - -These quiet evenings round the fire seemed to Stephen to contain the -pith of life. The Duke talked well, but on occasion Stephen talked -better. Anne listened. The kitchen cat, now alas! grown large and -vulgar, with an unmodulated purr, was allowed to make a fourth in these -peaceful gatherings, and had coffee out of Anne's saucer, sugared by -Stephen, every evening. - -Then, for no apparent reason, Stephen ceased to come. - -Anne, who had endured so much suspense about him, could surely endure a -little more. But it seemed she could not. For a week he did not come. In -that one week she aged perceptibly. The old pain took her again, the -old anger and resentment at being made to suffer, the old fierceness, -"which from tenderness is never far." She had thought that she had -conquered these enemies so often, that she had routed them so entirely, -that they could never confront her again. But they did. In the ranks of -her old foes a new one had enlisted--Hope; and Hope, if he forces his -way into the heart where he has been long a stranger, knows how to -reopen many a deep and barely healed wound, which will bleed long after -he is gone. - -And where were Anne's patience, her old steadfastness and fortitude? -Could they be worn out? - -As she stood by the window, trying to summon her faithless allies to her -aid, her father came in, with a newspaper in his hand. - -"This is serious," he said, "about Vanbrunt." - -She turned upon him like lightning. - -The Duke tapped the paper. - -"I knew Vanbrunt was in difficulties," he said. "A week ago, when he -was last here, he advised me sell out certain shares. It seems he would -not sell out himself. He said he would see it through, and now the smash -has come. I'm afraid he's ruined." - -A beautiful colour rose to Anne's face. Her eyes shone. She felt a -sudden inrush of life. She became young, strong, alert. - -Her father was too much preoccupied to notice her. - -"Vanbrunt is a fine man," he said. "He had ample time to get out. But he -stuck to the ship, and he has gone down with it. I'm sorry. I liked -him." - -"Are you sure he is really ruined?" - -"The papers say so. They also say he can meet his liabilities." The Duke -read aloud a paragraph which Anne did not understand. "That spells ruin -even for him," he said. - -He took several turns across the room. - -"He has been working day and night for the last week," he said, "to -avoid this crash. It might have been avoided. He told me a little when -he was last here, but in confidence. He is straight, but others weren't. -He has not been backed. He has been let in by his partners." - -The Duke sighed, and went back to his study on the ground floor. - -Anne opened the window with a trembling hand, and peered out into the -fog. - - * * * * * - -Stephen was sitting in his inner room at his office in the City, biting -an already sufficiently bitten little finger. His face bore the mark of -the incessant toil of the last week. His eyes were fixed absently on the -electric light. His mind was concentrated with unabated strength on his -affairs, as a magnifying glass may focus its light into flame on a given -point. He had fought strenuously, and he had been beaten--not by fair -means. He could meet the claims upon him. He could, in his own language, -"stand the racket;" but in the eyes of the financial world he was -ruined. In his own eyes he was on the verge of ruin. But a man with an -iron nerve can find a foothold on precipices where another turns giddy -and loses his head. Stephen's courage rose to the occasion. He felt -equal to it. His strong, acute, alert mind worked indefatigably hour -after hour, while he sat apparently idle. He was not perturbed. He saw -his way through. - -He heard the newsboys in the streets crying out his bankruptcy, and -smiled. At last he drew a sheet of paper towards him, and became -absorbed in figures. - -He was never visible to anyone when he was in this inner chamber. His -head clerk knew that he must not on any pretext be disturbed. And those -who knew Stephen discovered that he was not to be disturbed with -impunity. - -He looked up at last, and rose to his feet, shaking himself like a dog. - -"I can carry through," he said. "They think I can't, but I can. But if -the worst comes to the worst--which it shall not--I doubt if I shall -have a shilling left." - -He took a turn in the room. - -"Wait a bit, you fools," he said half aloud; "if your cowardice does -ruin me, wait a bit. I have made money not once, nor twice,--and I can -make it again." - -A tap came to the door. - -He reddened with sudden anger. Did not Jones know that he was not to be -interrupted till two, when he must meet, and, if possible, pacify -certain half frantic, stampeding shareholders? - -The door opened with decision, and Anne came in. For a moment Stephen -saw the aghast face of his head clerk behind her. Then Anne shut the -door and confronted him. - -The image of Anne was so constantly with Stephen, her every little trick -of manner, from the way she turned her head, to the way she folded her -hands, was all so carefully registered in his memory, had become so -entirely a part of himself, that it was no surprise to him to see her. -Did he not see her always! Nevertheless, as he looked at her, all power -of going forward to meet her, of speaking to her, left him. The blood -seemed to ebb slowly from his heart, and his grim face blanched. - -"How did you come here?" he stammered at last, his voice sounding harsh -and unfamiliar. - -"On foot." - -"In this fog?" - -"Yes." - -"Who came with you?" - -"I came alone. I wished to speak to you. I hear you are ruined." - -"I can meet my liabilities," he said proudly. - -"Is it true that you have lost two millions?" - -"It is--possibly more." - -A moment of terror seemed to pass over Anne. The lovely colour in her -cheek faded suddenly. She supported herself against the table, with a -shaking gloved hand. Then she drew herself up, and said in a firm voice: - -"Do you remember that night in Hamilton Gardens when you asked me to -marry you?" - -Stephen bowed. He could not speak. Even his great strength was only just -enough. - -"I refused you because I saw you were convinced that I did not care for -you. If I had told you I loved you then you would not have believed it." - -Stephen's hand gripped the mantelpiece. He was trembling from head to -foot. His eyes never left her. - -"But now the money is gone," she said, becoming paler than ever, -"perhaps, now the dreadful money is gone, you will believe me if I tell -you that I love you." - -And so Stephen and Anne came home to each other at last--at last. - - * * * * * - -"My dear," said the Duke to Anne the following day, "this is a very -extraordinary proceeding of yours. You refuse Vanbrunt when he is rich, -and accept him when he is tottering on the verge of ruin. It seems a -reversal of the usual order of things. What will your mother say?" - -"I have already had a letter from her, thanking Heaven that I was not -engaged to him. She says a good deal about how there is a Higher Power -which rules things for the best." - -"I wish you would allow it freer scope," said the Duke. "All the same, I -should be thankful if she were here. It will be my horrid, vulgar duty -to ask Vanbrunt what he has got; what small remains there are of his -enormous fortune. I hear on good authority that he is almost penniless. -One is not a parent for nothing. I wish to goodness your mother were in -town. She always did this sort of thing herself with a dreadful relish -on previous occasions. You must push him into my study, my dear, after -his interview with you. I will endeavour to act the heavy father. That -is his bell. I will depart. I have letters to write." - -The Duke left the room, and then put his head in again. - -"It may interest you to know, Anne," he said, "that I've seen handsomer -men, and I've seen better dressed men, and I've even seen men of rather -lighter build, but I've not seen any man I like better than your -ex-millionaire." - -Two hours later, after Stephen's departure, the Duke returned to his -daughter's sitting-room, and sank exhausted into a chair. - -"Really I can't do this sort of thing twice in a lifetime," he said -faintly. "Have you any salts handy? No--you--need not fetch them. I'm -not seriously indisposed. How heartlessly blooming you are looking, -Anne, while your parent is suffering. Now remember, if ever you want to -marry again, don't send your second husband to interview me, for I won't -have it." - -"Come, come, father. Didn't you tell me to push him into your study? And -I thought you looked so impressive and dignified when I brought him in. -Quite a model father." - -"I took a firm attitude with him," continued the Duke. "I saw he was -nervous. That made it easier for me. Vanbrunt is a shy man. I was in the -superior position. Hateful thing to ask a man for his daughter. I said, -'Now look here, Vanbrunt, I understand you wish to marry my daughter. I -don't wish it myself, but----'" - -"Oh! father, you never said that?" - -"Well, not exactly. I owned to him that I could put up with him better -than with most, but that I could not let you marry to poverty. He asked -me what I considered poverty. That rather stumped me. In fact, I did not -know what to say. It was not his place to ask questions." - -"Father, you did promise me you would let me marry him on eight hundred -a year." - -"Well, yes, I did. I don't like it, but I did say so. In short, I told -him you had worked me up to that point." - -"And what did he say?" - -"He said he did not think in that case that any real difficulty about -money need arise; that at one moment he had stood to lose all he had, -and he had lost two millions, but that his affairs had taken an -unexpected turn during the last twenty-four hours, and he believed he -could count on an odd million or so, certainly on half a million. I -collapsed, Anne. My attitude fell to pieces. It was Vanbrunt who scored. -He had had a perfectly grave face till then. Then he smiled grimly, and -we shook hands. He did not say much, but what he did say was to the -point. I think, my dear, that while Vanbrunt lasts, his love for you -will last. He has got it very firmly screwed into him. But these -interviews annihilate me." - -The Duke raised the kitchen cat to his knee, and rubbed it behind the -ears. - -"I made the match, Anne," he said; "you owe it all to me. I asked him to -dinner when I met him at that first directors' meeting a fortnight ago. -I had it in my mind then." - -"Father! You _know_ you had not." - -"Well, no. I had not. I did not think of it! I can't say I did. But -still, I was a sort of bulwark to the whole thing. You had my moral -support. I shall tell your mother so." - - - - -CONCLUSION - - "So passes, all confusedly - As lights that hurry, shapes that flee - About some brink we dimly see, - The trivial, great, - Squalid, majestic tragedy - Of human fate." - - --WILLIAM WATSON - - -I wish life were more like the stories one reads, the beautiful stories, -which, whether they are grave or gay, still have picturesque endings. -The hero marries the heroine, after insuperable difficulties, which in -real life he would never have overcome: or the heroine creeps down into -a romantic grave, watered by our scalding tears. At any rate, the story -is gracefully wound up. There is an ornamental conclusion to it. But -life, for some inexplicable reason, does not lend itself with docility -to the requirements of the lending libraries, and only too frequently -fails to grasp the dramatic moment for an impressive close. None of us -reach middle age without having watched several violent melodramas, -whose main interest lies further apart from their moral than we were -led, in our tender youth, to anticipate. We have seen better plays off -the stage than even Shakespeare ever put on. But Shakespeare finished -his, and pulled down the curtain on them; while, with those we watch in -life, we have time to grow grey between the acts; and we only know the -end has come, when at last it does come, because the lights have been -going out all the time, one by one, and we find ourselves at last alone -in the dark. - -Janet's sweet melancholy face rises up before me as I think of these -things, and I could almost feel impatient with her, when I remember how -the one dramatic incident in her uneventful life never seemed to get -itself wound up. The consequences went on, and on, and on, till all -novelty and interest dropped inevitably from them and from her. - -Some of us come to turning-points in life, and don't turn. We become -warped instead. It was so with Janet. - -Is there any turning-point in life like our first real encounter with -anguish, loneliness, despair? - -I do not pity those who meet open-eyed these stern angels of God, and -wrestle with them through the night, until the day breaks, extorting -from them the blessings that they waylaid us to bestow. But is it -possible to withhold awed compassion for those who, like Janet, go down -blind into Hades, and struggle impotently with God's angels as with -enemies? Janet endured with dumb, uncomplaining dignity she knew not -what, she knew not why; and came up out of her agony, as she had gone -down into it--with clenched empty hands. The greater hope, the deeper -love, the wider faith, the tenderer sympathy--these she brought not back -with her. She returned gradually to her normal life with her -conventional ideas crystallised, her small crude beliefs in love and her -fellow-creatures withered. - -That was all George did for her. - -The virtues of narrow natures such as George's seem of no use to anyone -except possibly to their owner. They are as great a stumbling-block to -their weaker brethren, they cause as much pain, they choke the spiritual -life as mercilessly, they engender as much scepticism in unreasoning -minds, as certain gross vices. If we are unjust, it matters little to -our victim what makes us so, or whether we have prayed to see aright, if -for long years we have closed our eyes to unpalatable truths. - -George's disbelief in Janet's rectitude, which grew out of a deep sense -of rectitude, had the same effect on her mind as if he had deliberately -seduced and deserted her. The executioner reached the gallows of his -victim by a clean path. That was the only difference. So much the better -for him. The running noose for her was the same. Unreasoning belief in -love and her fellow-creatures was followed by an equally unreasoning -disbelief in both. - -Janet kept her promise. She held firm. Amid all the promises of the -world, made only to be broken, kept only till the temptation to break -them punctually arrived, amid all that débris one foolish promise -remained intact, Janet's promise to Cuckoo. - -George married. Then, shortly afterwards, Fred married the eldest Miss -Ford, and found great happiness. His bliss was at first painfully -streaked with total abstinence, but he gradually eradicated this -depressing element from his new home life. And in time his slight -insolvent nature reached a kind of stability, through the love of the -virtuous female prig, the "perfect lady," to whom he was all in all. -Fred changed greatly for the better after his marriage, and in the end -he actually repaid Stephen part of the money the latter had advanced to -Monkey Brand, for Janet's sake. - -Janet lived with the young couple at first, but Mrs Fred did not like -her. She knew vaguely, as did half the neighbourhood, that Janet had -been mixed up in something discreditable, and that her engagement had -been broken off on that account. Mrs Fred was, as we know, a person of -the highest principles; and high principles naturally shrink from -contact with any less exalted. Several months after the situation -between the two women had become untenable, Janet decided to leave home. -She had nowhere to go, and no money; so, like thousands of other women -in a similar predicament, she decided to support herself by education. -She had received no education herself, but that was not in her mind any -bar to imparting it. Anne, who had kept in touch with her, interfered -peremptorily at this point, and when Janet did finally leave home, it -was to go to Anne's house in London, till "something turned up." - -It was a sunny day in June when Janet arrived in London, for the first -time since her ill-fated visit there a year ago. She looked up at -Lowndes Mansions, as her four-wheeler plodded past them, towards Anne's -house in Park Lane. Even now, a year after the great fire, scaffoldings -were still pricking up against the central tower of the larger block of -building. The damage caused by the fire was not even yet quite -repaired. Perhaps some of it would never be repaired. - -Mrs Trefusis was sitting with Anne on this particular afternoon, -confiding to her some discomfortable characteristics of her new -daughter-in-law, the wife whom she had herself chosen for her son. - -"I am an old woman," said Mrs Trefusis, "and of course I don't march -with the times, the world is for the young, I know that very well; but I -must own, Anne, I had imagined that affection still counted for -something in marriage." - -"I wonder what makes you think that." - -"Well, not the marriages I see around me, my dear, that is just what I -say, though what has made you so cynical all at once, I don't know. But -I ask you--look at Gertrude. She does not know what the word 'love' -means." - -"I'm not so sure of that." - -"I am. She has been married to George three months, and it might be -thirty years by the way they behave. And she seemed such a particularly -nice girl, and exceedingly sensible, and well brought up. I should have -thought she would at any rate _try_ to make my boy happy, after all the -sorrow he has gone through. But they don't seem to have any real link to -each other. It isn't that they don't get on. They do in a way. She is -sharp enough for that. She does her duty by him. She is nice to him, but -all her interests, and she has interests, seem to lie apart from -anything to do with him." - -"Does he mind?" - -"I never really know what George minds or doesn't mind," said Mrs -Trefusis. "It has been the heaviest cross of the many crosses I have had -to bear in life, that he never confides in me. George has always been -extremely reticent. Thoughtful natures often are. He will sit for hours -without saying a word, looking----" - -"_Glum_ is the word she wants," said Anne to herself, as Mrs Trefusis -hesitated. - -"Reserved," said Mrs Trefusis. "He does not seem to care to be with -Gertrude. And yet you know Gertrude is very taking, and there is no -doubt she is good-looking. And she sings charmingly. Unfortunately -George does not care for music." - -"She is really musical." - -"They make a very handsome couple," said Mrs Trefusis plaintively. "When -I saw them come down the aisle together I felt happier about him than I -had done for years. It seemed as if I had been rewarded at last. And I -never saw a bride smile and look as bright as she did. But somehow it -all seems to have fallen flat. She didn't even care to see the -photographs of George when he was a child, when I got them out the other -day. She said she would like to see them, and then forgot to look at -them." - -Anne was silent. - -"Well," said Mrs Trefusis, rising slowly, "I suppose the truth is that -in these days young people don't fall in love as they did in my time. I -must own Gertrude has disappointed me." - -"I daresay she will make him a good wife." - -"Oh! my dear, she does. She is an extremely practical woman, but one -wants more for one's son than a person who will make him a good wife. If -she were a less good wife, and cared a little more about him, I should -feel less miserable about the whole affair." - -Mrs Trefusis sighed heavily. - -"I must go," she said, in the voice of one who might be persuaded to -remain. - -But Anne did not try to detain her, for she was expecting Janet every -moment, though she did not warn Mrs Trefusis of the fact, for the name -of Janet was never mentioned between Anne and Mrs Trefusis. Mrs Trefusis -had once diffidently endeavoured to reopen the subject with Anne, but -found it instantly and decisively closed. If Janet had existed in a -novel, she would certainly have been coming up Anne's wide white -staircase at the exact moment that Mrs Trefusis was going down them, -but, as a matter of fact, Mrs Trefusis was packed into her carriage, and -drove away, quite half a minute before Janet's four-wheeler came round -the corner. - -Anne's heart ached for Janet when she appeared in the doorway. She -almost wished that Mrs Trefusis had been confronted with the worn white -face of the only woman who had loved her son. - -Janet and Anne kissed each other. - -Then Janet looked at the wedding ring on Anne's finger, and smiled at -her in silence. - -Anne looked down tremulously, for fear lest the joy in her eyes should -make Janet's heart ache, as her own heart had ached one little year ago, -when she had seen Janet and George together in the rose garden. - -"I am so glad," said Janet. "I did so wish that time at Easthope--do you -remember?--that you could be happy too. It's just a year ago." - -"Just a year," said Anne. - -"I suppose you cared for him then," said Janet. "But I expect it was in -a more sensible way than I did. You were always so much wiser than me. -One lives and learns." - -"I cared for him then," said Anne, busying herself making tea for her -friend. When she had made it she went to a side table, and took from it -a splendid satin tea cosy, which she placed over the teapot. It had been -Janet's wedding present to her. - -Janet's eyes lighted on it with pleasure. - -"I am glad you use it every day," she said. "I was so afraid you would -only use it when you had company." - -Anne stroked it with her slender white hand. There was a kind of tender -radiance about her which Janet had never observed in her before. - -"It makes me happy that you are happy," said Janet. "I only hope it will -last. I felt last year that you were in trouble. Since then it has been -my turn." - -"I wish happiness could have come to both of us," said Anne. - -"Do you remember our talk together," said Janet, spreading out a clean -pocket-handkerchief on her knee, and stirring her tea, "and how -sentimental I was? I daresay you thought at the time how silly I was -about George. I see now what a fool I was." - -Anne did not answer. She was looking earnestly at Janet, and there was -no need for her now to veil the still gladness in her eyes. They held -only pained love and surprise. - -"And do you remember how the clergyman preached about not laying up our -treasure on earth?" - -"I remember everything." - -"I've often thought of that since," said Janet, with a quiver in her -voice, which brought back once more to Anne the childlike innocent -creature of a year ago, whom she now almost failed to recognise, in her -new ill-fitting array of cheap cynicism. - -"I did lay up my treasure upon earth," continued Janet, drawn -momentarily back into her old simplicity by the presence of Anne. "I -didn't seem able to help it. George was my treasure. I mustn't think of -him any more because he's married. But I cared too much. That was where -I was wrong." - -"One cannot love too much," said Anne, her fingers closing over her -wedding ring. - -"Perhaps not," said Janet, "but then the other person must love too. -George did not love me enough to carry through. When the other person -cares, but doesn't care strong enough, I think that's the worst. It's -like what the Bible says. The moth and rust corrupting. George did care, -but not enough. Men are like that." - -"Some one else cares," said Anne diffidently--"poor Mr de Rivaz. He -cares enough." - -"Yes," said Janet apathetically. "I daresay he does. We've all got to -fall in love some time or other. But I don't care for him. I told him so -months ago. I don't mean to care for any one again. I've thought a great -deal about things this winter, Anne. It's all very well for you to -believe in love. I did once, but I don't now." - -Janet got up, and, as she turned, her eyes fixed suddenly. - -"Why, that's the cabinet," she said below her breath. "Cuckoo's -cabinet!" Her face quivered. She saw again the scorched room, the pile -of smoking papers on the hearth, the flame which had burnt up her -happiness with them. - -Anne did not understand. - -"Stephen gave me that cabinet a few days ago," she said. - -"It was Cuckoo's. It used to stand under her picture." - -"Don't you think it may be a replica?" - -"No, it is the same," said Janet, passing her hand over the mermaid and -her whale. "There is the little chip out of the dolphin's tail." - -Then she shrank suddenly away from it, as if its touch scorched her. - - * * * * * - -"Where did you get the Italian cabinet?" said Anne to Stephen that -evening, as he and De Rivaz joined her and Janet after dinner in her -sitting-room. - -"At Brand's sale. He sold some of his things when he gave up his flat in -Lowndes Mansions. He has gone to South Africa for his boy's health." - -Stephen opened it. Janet drew near. - -"I had to have a new key made for it," he said, letting the front fall -forward on his careful hand. "Look, Anne! how beautifully the drawers -are inlaid." - -He pulled out one or two of them. - -Janet slowly put out her hand, and pulled out the lowest drawer on the -left-hand side. It stuck, and then came out. It was empty like all the -rest. - -Stephen closed it, and then drew it forward again. - -"Why does it stick?" he said. - -He got the drawer entirely out, and looked into the aperture. Then he -put in his hand, and pulled out something wedged against the slip of -wood which supported the upper drawer, without reaching quite to the -back of the cabinet. It was a crumpled, dirty sheet of paper. He tore it -as he forced it out. - -"It must have been in the lowest drawer but one," he said, "and fallen -between the drawer and its support." - -Janet was the first to see her brother's signature, and she pointed to -it with a cry. - -It was the missing I O U. - -"I always said it would turn up," said Stephen gently. - -"But it's too late," said Janet hoarsely, "too late! too late! Oh! why -didn't George believe in me!" - -"He will believe now." - -"It doesn't matter what he believes now. Why didn't he _know_ I had not -burnt it?" - -"I believed in you," said De Rivaz, his voice shaking. "I knew you had -not burnt it, though I saw you burning papers. Though I saw you with my -own eyes, I did not believe." - -There was a moment's pause. Her three faithful friends looked at Janet. - -"I burnt nothing," she said. - - * * * * * - -Janet married De Rivaz at last, but not until she had nearly worn him -out. It was after their marriage that he painted his marvellous portrait -of her, a picture that was the outcome of a deep love, wed with genius. - -She made him a good wife, as wives go, and bore him beautiful children, -but she never cared for him as she had done for George. Later on her -daughters carried their love affairs, not to their mother, but--to -Anne. - - - * * * * * - - - - -GEOFFREY'S WIFE - - "Oh, how this spring of love resembleth - Th' uncertain glory of an April day." - - -Every one felt an interest in them. The mob-capped servants hung over -the banisters to watch them go downstairs. Alphonse reserved for them -the little round table in the window, which commanded the best view of -the court, with its dusty flower-pots grouped round an intermittent -squirt of water. Even the landlord, Monsieur Leroux, found himself often -in the gateway when they passed in or out, in order to bow and receive a -merry word and glance. - -Even the _concierge_, who dwelt retired, aloof from the contact of the -outer world in his narrow, key-adorned shrine, even he unbent to them -and smiled back when they smiled. It was a queer little old-fashioned -hotel, rather out of the way. Nevertheless, young married couples _had_ -stayed there before. Their name, indeed, at certain periods of the year -was Legion. There were other young married couples staying there at that -very moment, but everybody felt that a peculiar interest attached to -this young married couple. For one thing, they were so absurdly, so -overwhelmingly happy. People, Monsieur Leroux himself, and others, had -been happy in an early portion of their married lives, but not like this -couple. People had had honeymoons before, but never one like this -couple. Although they were English, they were so handsome and so sunny. -And he was so well made and devoted, the chambermaids whispered. And, -ah! how she was _piquante_, the waiters agreed. - -They had a little sitting-room. It was not the best sitting-room, -because they were not very rich; but Geoffrey (she considered Geoffrey -such a lovely name, and so uncommon) thought it the most delightful -little sitting-room in the world when she was in it. And Mrs Geoffrey -also liked it very much; oh! very much indeed. - -He had had hard work to win her. Sometimes, when he watched her tangling -many-coloured wools over the mahogany back of one of the tight horsehair -chairs, he could hardly believe that she was really his wife, that they -were actually on that honeymoon for which he had toiled and waited so -long. Beneath the gaiety and the elastic spirit of youth there was a -depth of earnestness in Geoffrey which his little wife vaguely wondered -at and valued as something beyond her ken, but infinitely heroic. He -looked upon her with reverence and thanked God for her. He had never had -much to do with womankind, and he felt a respectful tenderness for -everything of hers, from her prim maid to her foolish little shoelace, -which was never tired of coming undone, and which he was never tired of -doing up. The awful responsibility of guarding such a treasure, and an -overpowering sense of its fragility, were ever before his mind. He -laughed and was gay with her, but in his heart of hearts there was an -acute joy nigh to pain--a wonder that he should have been singled out -from among the sons of men to have the one pearl of great price bestowed -upon him. - -They had come to Paris, and to Paris only, partly because it was the -year of the Exhibition, and partly because she was not very strong, and -was not to be dragged through snow and shaken in _diligences_ like other -ordinary brides. The bare idea of Eva in a _diligence_, or tramping in -Switzerland, was not to be thought of. No; Geoffrey knew better than -that. A quiet fortnight in Paris, the Opera, the Exhibition, Versailles, -St Cloud, Notre Dame--these were dissipations calculated not to disturb -the exquisite poise of a health of such inestimable value. He knew Paris -well. He had seen it all in those foolish bachelor days, when he had -rushed across the water with men companions, knowing no better, and -enjoying himself in a way even then. - -And so he took her to St Cloud, and showed her the wrecked palace; and -they wandered by the fountains and bought _gaufre_ cake, which he told -her was called "_plaisir_," only he was wrong--but what did that matter? -And they went down to Versailles, and saw everything that every one else -had seen, only they saw it glorified--at least he did. And they sat very -quietly in Notre Dame, and listened to a half divine organ and a wholly -divine choir, and Geoffrey looked at the sweet, awed face beside him, -and wondered whether he could ever in all his life prove himself worthy -of her. And though of course, being a Protestant, he did not like to -pray in a Roman Catholic Church, still he came very near it, and was -perhaps none the worse. - -And now the fortnight was nearly over. Geoffrey reflected with pride -that Eva was still quite well. Her mother, of whom he stood in great -awe--her mother, who had an avowed disbelief in the moral qualities of -second sons--even her mother would not be able to find any fault. Why, -James himself, his eldest brother, whom she had always openly preferred, -could not have done better than he had done. He who had so longed to -take her away was now almost longing to take her back home, just for -five minutes, to show her family how blooming she was, how trustworthy -he had proved himself to be. - -The fortnight was over on Saturday, but at the last moment they decided -to stay till Monday. Was it not Sunday, the night of the great -illuminations? suggested Alphonse reproachfully. Were not the Champs -Elysées to present a spectacle? Were not fires of joy and artifice to -mount from the Bois de Boulogne? Surely Monsieur and Madame would stay -for the illuminations! Was not the stranger coming from unknown -distances to witness the illuminations? Were not the illuminations in -honour of the Exhibition? It could not be that Monsieur would suffer -Madame to miss the illuminations. - -Eva was all eagerness to stay. Two more nights in Paris. To go out in -the summer evening, and see Paris _en fête_! Delightful! Geoffrey was -not to say a single word! He did not want to! Well, never mind, he was -not to say one; and she was going instantly, that very moment, to stop -Grabham packing up, and he was to go instantly, that very moment, to let -Monsieur Leroux know they intended to stay on. - -And they both went instantly, that very moment, and they stayed on. And -he was very severe in consequence, and refused to allow her to tire -herself on Saturday, and insisted on her resting all Sunday afternoon, -as a preparation for the dissipation of the evening. They had met some -English friends on Sunday morning, who had invited them to their house -in the Champ Elysées in the course of the evening to see the -illuminations from their balcony. And then towards night Geoffrey -became more autocratic than ever, and insisted on a woollen gown instead -of a muslin, because he felt certain that it would not be so hot towards -the middle of the night as it then was. She said a great many very -unkind things to him, and they sallied forth together at nine o'clock as -happy as two pleasure-seeking children. - -"You will not be of return till the early morning. I see it well," said -Monsieur Leroux, bowing to them. "Monsieur does well to take the little -_châle_ for Madame for fear later she should feel herself fresh. But as -for rain, will not Madame leave her umbrella with the _concierge_? No? -Monsieur prefers? _Eh bien! Bon soir!_" - -It was a perfect night. It had been fiercely hot all day, but it was -cooler now. The streets were already full of people, all bearing the -same way toward the Champ Elysées. With some difficulty Geoffrey -procured a little carriage, and in a few minutes they were swept into -the chattering, idle, busy throng, and slowly making their way toward -the Langtons' house. Every building was gay with coloured lanterns. The -Place de la Concorde shone afar like a belt of jewelled light. The great -stone lions glowed upon their pedestals. Clear as in noonday sunshine, -the rocking sea of merry faces met Eva's delighted gaze; she beaming -with the rest. - -And now they were driving down the Champs Elysées. The fountains leaped -in coloured flame. The Palais de l'Industrie gleamed from roof to -basement, built in fire. The Arc de Triomphe, crowned with light, stood -out against the dark of the moonless sky, flecked by its insignificant -stars. - -"Beautiful! Beautiful!" and Eva clapped her hands and laughed. - -And now it was the painful, the desolating duty of the driver to tell -them he could take them no further. Carriages were not allowed beyond a -certain hour, and either he must take them back or put them down. -Geoffrey demurred. Not so Mrs Geoffrey. In a moment she had sprung out -of the carriage, and was laughing at the novel idea of walking in a -crowd. Geoffrey paid his man and followed. There was plenty of room to -walk in comfort, and Eva, on her husband's arm, wished the Langtons' -house miles away, instead of a few hundred yards. She said she must and -would walk home. Geoffrey must relent a little, or she on her side might -not be so agreeable as she had hitherto shown herself. She was quite -certain that she should catch a cold if she drove home in the night air -in an open carriage. What was that he was mumbling? That if he had known -_that_ he would not have brought her? But she was equally certain that -it would not hurt her to walk home. Walking was a very different thing -from driving in open carriages late at night. An ignorant creature like -him might not think so, but her mother would not have allowed her to do -such a thing for an instant. Geoffrey quailed, and gave utterance to -that sure forerunner of masculine defeat, that "he would see." - -It was very delightful on the Langtons' balcony, with its constellation -of swinging Chinese lanterns. Eva leaned over and watched the people, -and chatted to her friends, and was altogether enchanting--at least -Geoffrey thought so. - -The night is darkening now. The streets blaze bright and brighter. The -crowd below rocks and thickens and shifts without ceasing. Long lines of -flame burn red along the Seine, and mark its windings as with a hand of -fire. The great electric light from the Trocadéro casts heavy shadows -against the sky. Jets of fire and wild vagaries of leaping stars rush up -out of the Bois de Boulogne. - -And now there is a contrary motion in the crowd, and a low murmur -swells, and echoes, and dies, and rises again. The torchlight procession -is coming. That square of fire, moving slowly down from the Arc de -Triomphe through the heart of the crowd, is a troop of mounted soldiers -carrying torches. Hark! Listen to the low, sullen growl of the -multitude, like a wild beast half aroused. - -The army is very unpopular in Paris just now. See, as the soldiers come -nearer, how the crowd sweeps and presses round them, tossing like an -angry sea. Look how the soldiers rear their horses against the people to -keep them back. Hark again to that fierce roar that rises to the balcony -and makes little Eva tremble; the inarticulate voice of a great -multitude raised in anger. - -They have passed now, and the crowd moves with them. Look down the -Champs Elysées, right down to the cobweb of light which is the Place de -la Concorde. One moving mass of heads! Look up toward the Arc de -Triomphe. They are pouring down from it on their way back from the Bois -in one continuous black stream, good-humoured and light-hearted again as -ever, now the soldiers have passed. - -It is long past midnight. Ices and lemonade and sugared cakes have -played their part. It is time to go home. The summer night is soft and -warm, without a touch of chill. The other guests on the Langtons' -balcony are beginning to disperse. The Langtons look as if they would -like to go to bed. The crowd below is melting away every moment. The -play is over. - -Eva is charmed when she hears that a carriage is not to be had in all -Paris for love or money. To walk home through the lighted streets with -Geoffrey! Delightful! A few cheerful leave-takings, and they are in the -street again, with another English couple who are going part of the way -with them. - -"Come, wife, arm-in-arm," says the elder man; adding to Geoffrey, "I -advise you to do the same. The crowd is as harmless as an infant, but it -will probably have a little animal spirits to get rid of, and it won't -do to be separated." - -So arm-in-arm they went, walking with the multitude, which was not dense -enough to hamper them. From time to time little groups of _gamins_ would -wave their hats in front of magisterial buildings and sing the -prohibited Marseillaise, while other bands of _gamins_, equally -good-humoured, but more hot-headed, would charge through the crowd with -Chinese lanterns and drums and whistles. - -"Not tired?" asked Geoffrey regularly every five minutes, drawing the -little hand further through his arm. - -Not a bit tired, and Geoffrey was a foolish, tiresome creature to be -always thinking of such things. She should say she _was_ tired next time -if he did not take care. In fact, now she came to think of it, she was -_rather_ tired by having to walk in such a heavy woollen gown. - -"Don't say that, for Heaven's sake, if it is not true!" said the -long-suffering husband, "for we have a mile in front of us yet." - -The other couple wished them good-night and turned off down a side -street. Everywhere the houses were putting out their lights. Night was -gaining the upper hand at last. As they entered the Place de la -Concorde, Geoffrey saw a small body of mounted soldiers crossing the -Place. Instantly there was a hastening and pushing in the crowd, and the -low, deep growl arose again, more ominous than ever. Geoffrey caught a -glimpse of a sudden upraised arm, he heard a cry of defiance, and -then--in a moment there was a roar and shout from a thousand tongues, -and an infuriated mob was pressing in from every quarter, was elbowing -past, was struggling to the front. In another second the whole Place de -la Concorde was one seething mass of excited people, one hoarse jangle -of tongues, one frantic effort to push in the direction the soldiers had -taken. - -Geoffrey, a tall, athletic Englishman, looked over the surging sea of -French heads, and looked in vain for a quarter to which he could beat a -retreat. He had not room to put his arm round his wife. She had given a -little laugh, but she was frightened, he knew, for she trembled in the -grasp he tightened on her arm. One rapid glance showed him there was no -escape. The very lions at the corners were covered with human figures. -They were in the heart of the crowd. Its faint, sickening smell was in -their nostrils. - -"No, Eva," he said, answering her imploring glance, "we can't get out of -this yet. We must just move quietly, with the rest, and wait till we get -a chance of edging off. Lean on me as much as you can." - -She was frightened and silent, and nestled close to him, being very -small and slight of stature, and by nature timid. - -Another deep roar, and a sudden rush from behind, which sent them all -forward. How the people pushed and elbowed! Bah! The smell of a crowd! -Who that has been in one has ever forgotten it? - -This was a dreadful ordeal for his hothouse flower. - -"How are you getting on?" he asked with a sharp anxiety, which he vainly -imagined did not betray itself in his voice. - -She was getting on very well, only--only could not they get out? - -Geoffrey looked round yet again in despair. Would it be possible to edge -a little to the left, to the right, anywhere? He looked in vain. A -vague, undefined fear took hold on him. "We must have patience, little -one," he said. "Lean on me, and be brave." - -His voice was cheerful, but he felt a sudden horrible sinking of the -heart. How should he ever get her out of this jostling, angry crowd -before she was quite tired out? What mad folly it had been to think of -walking home! Poor Geoffrey forgot that there had been no other way of -getting home, and that even his mother-in-law could not hold him -responsible for a disagreement between the soldiers and the citizens. - -Another ten minutes! Geoffrey cursed within himself the illumination and -the soldiers and his own folly, and the rough men and rougher women, -whom, do what he would, he could not prevent pressing upon her. - -She did not speak again for some time, only held fast by his arm. -Suddenly her little hands tightened convulsively on it, and a face pale -to the lips was raised to his. - -"Geoffrey, I'm very sorry," with a half sob, "but I'm afraid I'm going -to faint." - -The words came like a blow, and drove the blood from his face. The vague -undefined fear had suddenly become a hideous reality. He steadied his -voice and spoke quietly, almost sternly. - -"Listen to me, Eva," he said. "Make an effort and attend, and do as I -tell you. The crowd will move again in a moment. I see a movement in -front already. Directly the move comes the press will loosen for an -instant. I shall push in front of you and stoop down. You will instantly -get on my back. I insist upon it. I will do my best to help you up, but -I can't get hold of you in any other way. The faintness will pass off -directly you are higher up and can get a breath of air. Now do you -understand?" - -She did not answer, but nodded. - -There was a moment's pause, and the movement came. Geoffrey flung down -his stick, drew his wife firmly behind him, and pressing suddenly with -all his might upon those in front, made room to stoop down. Two nervous -hands were laid on his coat. Good God! she hesitated. A moment more, and -the crowd behind would force him down, and they would both be lost. -"Quick! Quick!" he shouted; but before the words had left his lips the -trembling arms were clasped convulsively round his neck, and with a -supreme effort he was on his legs again, shaking like a leaf with the -long horror of that moment's suspense. - -But the tight clasp of the hands round his neck, the burden on his -strong shoulders, nerved him afresh. He felt all his vitality and -resolution return tenfold. He could endure anything which he had to -endure alone, now that horrible anxiety for her was over. He could no -longer tell where he was. He was bent too much to endeavour to do -anything except keep on his feet. A long wait! Would the crowd never -disperse? Moving, stopping, pushing, pressing, stopping again. Another -pause, which seemed as if it would never end. A contrary motion now, and -he had not room to turn! No. Thank Heaven! A tremor through the crowd, -and then a fierce snarl and a rush. A violent push from behind. A -plunge. Down on one knee. Good God! A blow on the mouth from some one's -elbow. A wild struggle. A foot on his hand. Another blow. Up again. Up, -only to strike his foot against a curbstone, and to throw all his weight -away from a sudden pool of water on his left, into which he is being -edged. - -The great drops are on his brow, and his breath comes short and thick. -He staggers again. The weight on him and his fall are beginning to tell. -But as his strength wanes a dogged determination takes its place. He -steels his nerves and pulls himself together. It is only a question of -time. He will and must hold out. His whole soul is centred on one thing, -to keep his feet. Once down--and--he clenches his teeth. He will not -suffer himself to think. He is bruised and aching in every limb with the -friction of the crowd. Drums begin to beat in his temples, and his mouth -is bleeding. There is a mist of blood and dust before his eyes. But he -holds on with the fierce energy of despair. Another push. God in Heaven! -almost down again! He can see nothing. A frantic struggle in the dark. -The arms round his neck tremble, and he hears a sharp-drawn gasp of -terror. Hands from out of the darkness clutch him up, and he regains his -footing once more. "Courage, Monsieur," says a kind voice, and the hands -are swept out of his. He tries to move his lips in thanks, but no words -come. There is a noise in the crowd, but it is as a feeble murmur to the -roar and sweep and tumult of many waters that is sounding in his ears. -He cannot last much longer now. He is spent. But the crowd is thinning. -If he can only keep his feet a few minutes more! The crowd is thinning. -He catches a glimpse of ground in front of him. But it sways before him -like the waves of the sea. One moment more. He stumbles aside where he -feels there is space about him. - -There is a sudden hush and absence of pressure. _He is out of the -crowd._ He is faintly conscious that the tramp of many feet is passing -but not following him. The pavement suddenly rises up and strikes him -down upon it. He cannot rise again. But it matters little, it matters -little. It is all over. The fight is won, and she is safe. He tries to -lift his leaden hand to unloose the locked fingers that hurt his neck. -At his touch they unclasp, trembling. She has not fainted then. He -almost thought she had. He raises himself on his elbow, and tries to -wipe the red mist from his eyes that he may see her the more clearly. -She slips to the ground, and he draws her to him with his nerveless -arms. The street lamps gleam dull and yellow in the first wan light of -dawn, and as his haggard eyes look into hers, her face becomes clear -even to his darkening vision--and--_it is another woman!_ Another woman! -A poor creature with a tawdry hat and paint upon her cheek, who tries to -laugh, and then, dimly conscious of the sudden agony of the gray, -blood-stained face, whimpers for mercy, and limps away into a doorway, -to shiver and hide her worn face from the growing light. - - * * * * * - -It was one of the English acquaintances of the night before who found -him later in the day, still seeking, still wandering from street to -street. - -His old friend Langton came to him and took him away from the hotel to -his own house. Alphonse wept and the _concierge_ could not restrain a -tear. - -"And have they found _her_ yet?" asked Mrs Langton that night of her -husband when he came in late. - -His face was very white. - -"Yes," he said, and turned his head away. "I've been to--I've seen--no -one could have told--you would not have known who it was. And all her -little things, her watch and rings--they were all gone. But the maid -knew by the dress. And--and I wanted to save a lock of hair, but"--his -voice broke down.--"So I got one of the little gloves for him. It was -the only thing I could." - -He pulled out a half-worn tan glove, cut and dusty with the tramp of -many feet, which the new wedding ring had worn ever so slightly on the -third finger. He laid it reverently on the table and hid his face in his -hands. - -"If he could only break down," he said at last. "He sits and sits, and -never speaks or looks up." - -"Take him the little glove," said his wife softly. And Langton took it. - -The sharpness of death had cut too deep for tears, but Geoffrey kept the -little glove, and--he has it still. - - - * * * * * - - - - -THE PITFALL - - - - -PART I - - "Oh Thou who didst with Pitfall and with Gin - Beset the Road I was to wander in." - - --OMAR KHAYYÁM. - - -Lady Mary Carden sat near the open window of her blue and white boudoir -looking out intently, fixedly across Park Lane at the shimmer of the -trees in Hyde Park. It was June. It was sunny. The false gaiety of the -season was all around her; flickering swiftly past her in the crush of -carriages below her window; dawdling past her in the walking and riding -crowds in the park. She looked at it without seeing it. Perhaps she had -had enough of it, this strange conglomeration of alien elements and -foreign bodies, this _bouille-à-baisse_ which is called "The Season." -She had seen it all year after year for twelve years, varying as little -as the bedding out of the flowers behind the railings. Perhaps she was -as weary of society as most people become who take it seriously. She -certainly often said that it was rotten to the core. - -She hardly moved. She sat with an open letter in her hand, thinking, -thinking. - -The house was very still. Her aunt, with whom she lived, had gone early -into the country for the day. The only sound, the monotonous whirr of -the great machine of London, came from without. - -Mary was thirty, an age at which many women are still young, an age at -which some who have heads under their hair are still rising towards the -zenith of their charm. But Mary was not one of these. Her youth was -clearly on the wane. She bore the imprint of that which ages--because if -unduly prolonged it enfeebles--the sheltered life, a life centred in -conventional ideas, dwarfed by a conventional religious code, a life -feebly nourished on cut and dried charities sandwiched between petty -interests and pettier pleasures. She showed the mark of her twelve -seasons, and of what she had made of life, in the slight fading of her -delicate complexion, the fatigued discontent of her blue eyes, the faint -dignified dejection of her manner, which was the reflection of an -unconscious veiled surprise that she of all women--she the gentle, the -good, the religious, the pretty Mary Carden was still--in short was -still Mary Carden. - -The onlooker would perhaps have shared that surprise. She was -indubitably pretty, indubitably well bred, graceful, slender, with a -delicate manicured hand, and fair waved hair. Her fringe, which seemed -inclined to grow somewhat larger with the years, was nearly all her own. -She possessed the art of dress to perfection. You could catalogue her -good points. But somehow she remained without attraction. She lacked -vitality, and those who lack vitality seldom seem to get or keep what -they want, at any rate in this world. - -She was the kind of woman whom a man marries to please his mother, or -because she is an heiress, or because he has been jilted and wishes to -show how little he feels it. She was not a first choice. - -She was one of that legion of perfectly appointed women who at seventeen -deplore the rapacity of the older girls in ruthlessly clutching up all -the attention of the simpler sex; and who at thirty acidly remark that -men care only for a pink cheek and a baby face. - -Poor Mary was thinking of a man now, of a certain light-hearted -simpleton of a soldier with a slashed scar across his hand, which a -Dervish had given him at Omdurman, the man as commonplace as herself, on -whom for no particular reason she had glued her demure, obstinate, -adhesive affections twelve years ago. - -Our touching faithfulness to an early love is often only owing to the -fact that we have never had an adequate temptation to be unfaithful. -Certainly with Mary it was so. The temptations had been pitiably -inadequate. She had never swerved from that long-ago mild flirtation of -a boy and girl in their teens, studiously thrown together by their -parents. She had taken an unwearying interest in him. She had petitioned -Heaven that he might pass for the Army, and he did just squeeze in. By -the aid of fervent prayer she had drawn him safely through the Egyptian -campaign, while other women's husbands and lovers fell right and left. -He had not said anything definite before he went out, but Mary had found -ample reasons for his silence. He could not bear to overshadow her life -in case, etc., etc. But now he had been safely back a year, two years, -and still he had said nothing. This was more difficult to account for. -He was fond of her. There was no doubt about that. They had always been -fond of each other. Every one had expected them to marry. His parents -had wished it. Her aunt had favoured the idea with heavy-footed zeal. -Her brother, Lord Rollington, when he had a moment to spare from his -training-stable, had jovially opined that "Maimie" would be wise to -book Jos Carstairs while she could, as if she was not careful she might -outstand her market. - -Mary, who had for many years dreamed of gracefully yielding to Jos's -repeated and urgent entreaties, had even begun to wonder whether it -would not be advisable if one of her men relations were to "speak to -Jos." Such things were done. As she had said to her aunt with dignity, -"This sort of thing can't go on for ever," when her aunt--who yearned -for the rest which, according to their own account, seems to elude stout -persons--pleaded that difficulties clustered round such a course. - -The course was not taken, for Jos suddenly engaged himself to a girl of -seventeen, a new girl whom London knew not, the only child of one of -those ruinous unions which had been swallowed up in a flame of scandal -seventeen years ago, which had been forgotten for seventeen years all -but nine days. - -It was sedulously raked up again now. People whispered that Elsa Grey -came of a bad stock; that Jos Carstairs was a bold man to marry a woman -with such antecedents; a woman whose mother had slipped away out of her -intolerable home years ago for another where apparently life had not -been more tolerable. - -Jos brought his Elsa to see Mary, for he was only fit to wave his sword -and say, "Come on, boys." He did not understand anything about anything. -He only remembered that Mary was a tender, loving soul. Had she not -shown herself so to him for years? So he actually besought Mary to be a -friend to the beautiful young sombre creature whom he had elected to -marry. - -Mary behaved admirably according to her code, touched Elsa's hand, -civilly offered the address of a good dressmaker (not her best one), and -hoped they should meet frequently. The girl looked at her once, -wistfully, intently, with unfathomable lustrous eyes, as of some -untamed, prisoned, woodland creature, and then took no further notice of -her. - -That was a fortnight ago. They were to be married in three weeks. - -Mary sighed, and looked once again for the twentieth time at the letter -in her hand. It was a long epistle from her bosom friend, Lady Francis -Bethune, the electric tramways heiress, joylessly married to the -handsomest man in London, the notorious Lord Francis Bethune. - -"My dear," said the letter, "men are always like that. They are brutes, -and it is no good thinking otherwise. They will throw over the woman -they have loved for years for a flower-girl. You are too good for him. I -have always thought so. (So had Mary.) But the game is not up yet. I -could tell him things about his Elsa that would surprise him, not that -he ought to be surprised at anything in her mother's daughter. He is -coming to me this afternoon to tea. He said he was busy; but I told him -he must come as it was on urgent business, and so it is. He is my -trustee, you know, and there really is something wrong. Francis has been -at it again. After the business is over I shall tell him a few things -very nicely about that girl. Now, my advice to you is--chuck the -Lestrange's water-party this afternoon, and come in as if casually to -see me. I shall leave you alone together, and you must do the rest -yourself. You may pull it off yet, after what I shall say about Elsa, -for Jos has a great idea of you. Wire your reply by code before midday." - -Mary got up slowly, and walked to the writing-table. Should she go and -meet him? Should she not? She would go. She wrote a telegram quickly in -code form. She knew the code so well that she did not stop to refer to -it. She and Jos had played at code telegrams when he was cramming for -the Army. She rang for the servant and sent out the telegram. Then she -sat down and took up a book. It was nearly midday, and too hot to go -out. - -But after a few minutes she cast it suddenly aside, and began to move -restlessly about the room. What was the use of going, after all? What -could she say to Jos if she did see him? How could she touch his heart? -Like many another woman when she thinks of a man, Mary stopped before a -small mirror, and looked fixedly at herself. Was she not pretty? Had she -not gentle, appealing eyes? See her little hand raised to put back a -strand of fair hair. Was not everything about her pretty, and refined, -and good? The vision of Elsa rose suddenly before her, with her dark, -mysterious beauty and her formidable youth. Mary's heart contracted -painfully. "I love him, and she doesn't," she said to herself, with -bitterness. But Jos would never give up Elsa. She would make him -miserable, but--he would marry her. Oh! what was the use of going to -waylay him to-day? Why had she lent herself to Lady Francis's idiotic -plan? Why had she accepted from her help that was no help? She would -telegraph again to say she would not come after all. No. She would -follow up her own telegram, and tell her friend that on second thoughts -she did not care to see Jos. - -She ran upstairs, put on her hat, and in a few minutes was driving in a -hansom to Bruton Street. The Bethunes' footman knew her and admitted -her, though Lady Francis was technically "not at home." - -Yes, her ladyship was in, but she was engaged with the doctor at the -moment in the drawing-room. The footman hesitated. "They were a-tuning -of the piano in her ladyship's boudoir," he said, and he tentatively -opened the door of a room on the ground floor. It was Lord Francis' -sitting-room. - -"Was his lordship in?" - -"No, his lordship had gone out early." - -"Then I will wait here," said Mary, "if you will let her ladyship know -that I am here." - -The man withdrew. - -Mary's face reddened with annoyance. She disliked the idea of telling -Lady Francis she had changed her mind, and the discussion of the -subject. Oh! why had she ever spoken of the subject at all? Why had she -telegraphed that she would come? - -The painful, reiterated stammering of the piano came to her from above. -It seemed of a piece with her own indecision, her own monotonous -jealousy. - -Suddenly the front door bell rang, and an instant later the footman came -in with a telegram, put it on the writing-table, and went out again. - -Her telegram! Then she was not too late to stop it. She need not explain -after all. - -The drawing-room door opened, and Lady Francis' high metallic voice -sounded on the landing. - -Mary seized up the pink envelope and crushed it in her hand! What? The -drawing-room door closed again. The conference with the doctor was not -quite over after all. She tore open the telegram and looked again at her -foolish words before destroying them. - -Then her colour faded, and the room went round with her. Who had changed -what she had said? Why was it signed "Elsa"? - -She looked at the envelope. It was plainly addressed--"Lord Francis -Bethune." She had never glanced at the address till this moment. The -contents were in code as hers had been, but it was the same code, and -before she knew she had done so, she had read it. - -What did it mean? What _could_ it mean? Why should Elsa promise to meet -him after the Speaker's Stairs--to-day--at Waterloo main entrance? - -Mary was not quick-witted, but after a few dazed moments she suddenly -understood. Elsa was about to go away with Lord Francis. But what Elsa? -Her heart beat so hard that she could hardly breathe. Could it be Elsa -Grey? - -As we piece together all at once a puzzle that has been too simple for -us, so Mary remembered in a flash Elsa's enigmatical face, and a certain -ball where she had seen--only for a moment as she passed--- Lord Francis -and Elsa sitting out together. Elsa had looked quite different then. It -_was_ Elsa Grey. She knew it. Degraded creature, not fit to be an honest -man's wife. - -Mary shook from head to foot under a climbing, devastating emotion, -which seemed to rend her whole being. The rival was gone from her path. -Jos would come back to her. - -As she stood stunned, half blind, trembling, a hansom dashed up to the -door, and in a moment Lord Francis' voice was in the hall speaking to -the footman. - -"Any letters or telegrams?" - -"One telegram on your writing-table, my lord." - -The servant went on to explain something, Lady Mary Carden, etc., but -his master did not hear him. He was in the room in a second, and had -closed the door behind him. Lord Francis' beautiful, thin, reckless face -was pinched and haggard. He seemed possessed by some fierce passion -which had hold of him and drove him before it as a storm holds and spins -a leaf. - -Mary was frightened, paralysed. She had not known that men could be so -moved. He did not even see her. He rushed to the writing-table, and -swept his eye over it. Then he gave a sharp, low, hardly human cry of -rage and anguish, and turned to ring the bell. As he turned he saw her. - -"I beg your pardon. I don't understand," he said hoarsely. "Why did my -fool of a servant bring you in here?" - -Then he saw the open telegram in her hand, and his face changed. It -became alert, cold, implacable. There was a deadly pause. From the room -above came the acute, persistent stammer of the piano. - -He took the telegram from her nerveless hand, read it, and put it in his -pocket. He picked up the envelope from the floor, and threw it into the -waste-paper basket. Then he came close up to her, and looked her in the -eyes. There was murder in his. - -"It was in cypher," he said. - -She was incapable of speech. - -"But you understood it? Answer me. By--did you understand it, or did you -not?" - -"I did not." She got the words out. - -"You are lying. You did, you paid spy. Now listen to me. If you dare to -say one word of this to any living soul I'll----" - -The door suddenly opened, and Lady Francis hurried in. - -"Sorry to keep you, my dear," said the high, unmodulated voice. "Old -Carr was such a time. What! You here, Francis? I thought you had gone -out." - -"I have been doing my best to entertain Lady Mary till you appeared," he -said. - -"I came to say I'm engaged this afternoon," said Mary. "I can't go with -you to your concert." - -The footman appeared with another telegram. - -Lord Francis opened it before it could reach his wife, and then tossed -it to her. - -"For you," he said, and left the room. - -"Well, my dear," said Lady Francis, "in this you say you _will_ come, -and now you say you _won't_, or am I reading it wrong? I don't -understand." - -"I have changed my mind," said Mary feebly. "I mean I can't throw over -the Lestranges. I only ran in to explain. I must be going back now." - -Lord Francis, who was in the hall, put her into her hansom and closed -the doors. As he did so he leaned forward and said: - -"If you dare to interfere with me you will pay for it." - - - - -PART II - - "Ah! woe that youth should love to be - Like this swift Thames that speeds so fast, - And is so fain to find the sea,-- - That leaves this maze of shadow and sleep, - These creeks down which blown blossoms creep, - For breakers of the homeless deep." - - --EDMUND GOSSE. - - -The little river steamer, with its gay awning, was hitched up to the -Speaker's Stairs. The Lestranges were standing at the gangway welcoming -their guests. There was a crowd watching along the parapet of -Westminster Bridge just above. - -"Are we all here? It is past four," said Captain Lestrange to his wife. - -Mrs Lestrange looked round. "Eighteen, twenty, twenty-four. Ah! Here is -Lady Mary Carden, late as usual. She is the last. No. There is one more -to come. Miss Grey." - -"Which Miss Grey?" - -"Why, the one Jos Carstairs is to marry. She is coming under my wing. -And now she isn't here. What on earth am I to do? We can't wait for -ever." - -A tall white figure was advancing slowly, as if dragged step by step, -through the shadow of the great grey building. - -"She does not hurry herself," said Mrs Lestrange indignantly, and she -did not welcome Elsa very cordially as she came on board. The youngest -of the party had made all the rest of that distinguished gathering wait -for her. - -Mary, in a gown of immaculate white serge stitched with black, was -sitting under the awning when Elsa passed her on her way towards a -vacant seat lower down. The two women looked fixedly at each other for -a moment, and in that moment Mary saw that Elsa knew that she knew. Even -in that short time Lord Francis had evidently warned the girl against -her. - -Do what she would, Mary could not help watching Elsa. This was the less -difficult, as no one ever talked for long together to Mary. The seat -next her was never resolutely occupied. Her gentle voice was one of -those which swell the time-honoured complaint, that in society you hear -nothing but the same vapid small talk, the same trivial remarks over and -over again. She was not neglected, but she awakened no interest. Her -china blue eyes turned more and more frequently towards that tall figure -with its lithe, panther-like grace sitting in the sun, regardless of the -glare. Mary, whose care for her own soul came second only to her care -for her complexion, wondered at her recklessness. - -Mrs Lestrange introduced one or two men to Elsa, but they seemed to find -but little to say to her. She was _distraite_, indifferent to what was -going on round her. After a time she was left alone, except when Mrs -Lestrange came to sit by her for a few minutes. Yet she was a marked -feature of the party. Wherever Elsa might be she could not be -overlooked. Mysterious involuntary power which some women possess, not -necessarily young and beautiful like Elsa, of becoming wherever they go -a centre, a focus of attention whether they will or no. - -Married men looked furtively at her, and whispered to their approving -wives that Carstairs was a bold man, that nothing would have induced -_them_ to marry a woman of that stamp. The unmarried men looked at her -too, but said nothing. - -At seventeen Elsa's beauty was mature. It was not the thin wild-flower -beauty of the young English girl who emerges but slowly from her -chrysalis. It was the splendid pale perfection of the magnolia which -opens in a night. The body had outstripped the embryo spirit. Out of the -exquisite face, with its mysterious foreshadowing of latent emotion, -looked the grave inscrutable eyes of a child. - -Elsa appeared quite unconscious of the interest she excited. She looked -fixedly at the gliding dwindling buildings, at the little alert -brown-sailed eel-boats, and the solemn low-swimming hay barges, burning -yellow in the afternoon sun, and dropping gold into the grey water as -they went. Sometimes she looked up at the overhanging bridges, and past -them to the sky. Presently a white butterfly came twinkling on toddling, -unsteady wings across the water, and settled on the awning. Elsa's eyes -followed it. "It is coming with us," she said to Captain Lestrange, who -was standing near her. The butterfly left the awning. It settled for a -moment on the white rose on Elsa's breast. Now it was off again, a -dancing baby fairy between the sunny sky and sunny river. Then all in a -moment some gust of air caught its tiny spread sails, and flung it with -wings outstretched upon the swift water. - -Elsa gave a cry, and tearing the rose out of her breast, leaned far -over the railing and flung it towards the butterfly. It fell short. The -current engulfed butterfly and rose together. - -Captain Lestrange caught her by the arm as she leaned too far, and held -her firmly till she recovered her balance. - -"That was rather dangerous," he said, releasing her gently. - -"I could not stand by and see it drown," said Elsa, shivering, and she -turned her eyes back across the river, to where in the distance the -white buildings of Greenwich stood almost in the water in the pearl -haze. - -Who shall say what Elsa's thoughts were as she leaned against the -railing, white hand against white rose cheek, and watched the tide which -was sweeping them towards the sea? Did she realise that another current -was bearing her whither she knew not, was hurrying her little barque, -afloat for the first time, towards a surging line of breakers where -white sails of maiden innocence and faith and purity might perchance go -under? Did she with those wonderful melancholy eyes look across her -youth and dimly foresee, what all those who have missed love learn in -middle life, how chill is the deepening shadow in which a loveless life -stands? Did she dimly see this, and shrink from the loveless marriage -before her, which would close the door against love for ever? Did she in -her great ignorance mistake the jewelled earthen cup of passion for the -wine of love which should have brimmed it? Did she think to allay the -thirst of the soul at the dazzling empty cup which was so urgently -proffered to her? Who shall say what Elsa's thoughts were as the river -widened to the sea. - - * * * * * - -They were coming back at last, beating up slowly, slowly against the -tide towards London, lying low and dim against an agony of sunset. To -Mary it had been an afternoon of slow torture. Ought she to speak to -Elsa? "After the Speaker's Stairs" the telegram had said. Then Elsa -meant to join Lord Francis on her return _this evening_. Ought not she, -Mary, to go to Elsa now, where she sat apart watching the sunset, and -implore her to go home? Ought she not to tell her that Lord Francis was -an evil man, who would bring great misery upon her? Ought she not to -show her that she was steeping her young soul in sin, ruining herself -upon the threshold of life? Something whispered urgently to Mary that -she ought at least to try to hold Elsa back from the precipice, -whispered urgently that perhaps Elsa, friendless as she was, might -listen to her even at the eleventh hour. And Elsa knew she knew. - -Was it Mary's soul--dwarfed and starved in the suffocating bandages of -her straitened life and narrow religion--which was feebly stirring in -its shroud, was striving to speak? - -Mary clenched her little blue-veined hands. - -No, no. Elsa would never listen to her. Elsa knew very well what she was -doing. Any girl younger even than she knew that it was wicked to allow a -married man to make love to her. Elsa was a bad woman by temperament and -heredity, not fit to be a good man's wife. Even if Mary could persuade -her to give up her lover, still Elsa was guilty in thought, and that was -as bad as the sin itself. Did not our Saviour say so? _Elsa was lost -already._ - -"No, no," whispered the inner voice. "She does not know what she is -doing." - -She did know very well what she was doing--Mary flushed with anger--she -was always doing things for effect, in order to attract attention. Look -how she had made eyes at Captain Lestrange about that butterfly. If -there is one thing more than another which exasperates a conventional -person it is an impulsive action. The episode of the butterfly rankled -in Mary's mind. Several silly men had been taken in by it. No. She, -Mary, would certainly speak to Elsa; she would be only too glad to save -a fellow-creature from deadly sin if it was any use speaking--but it was -not. And she did not care to mix herself up with odious, disgraceful -subjects unless she could be of use. She had always had a high standard -of refinement. She had always kept herself apart from "that sort of -thing." Perhaps, in her meagre life, she had also kept herself apart -from all that makes our fellow-creatures turn to us. - -Lord Francis' last threat, spoken low and distinct across the hansom -doors, came back to her ears--"If you dare to interfere with me you will -pay for it." - -The river was narrowing. The buildings and wharves pushed up close and -closer. The fretted outlines and towers of Westminster were detaching -themselves in palest violet from the glow in the west. - -A river steamer passed them with a band on board. A faint music, tender -and gay, came to them across the water, bringing with it the promise of -an abiding love, making all things possible, illuminating with sudden -distinctness the vague meaning of this mysterious world of sunset sky -and sunset water, and ethereal city of amethyst and pearl; and then--as -suddenly as it came--passing away down stream, and taking all its -promises with it, leaving the twilight empty and desolate. - -The sunset burned dim like a spent furnace. The day lost heart and waned -all at once. It seemed as if everything had come to an end. - -And as, when evening falls, jasmine grows white and whiter in the -falling light, so Elsa's face grew pale and paler yet in the dusk. - -Once she looked across at Mary, and a faint smile, tremulous, wistful, -stole across her lips. Tears shone in her eyes. "Is there any help -anywhere?" the sweet troubled eyes seemed to say. But apparently they -found none, for they wandered away again to the great buildings of -Westminster rising up within a stone's throw over the black arch of -Westminster Bridge. - -The steamer slowed and stopped once more against the Speaker's Stairs. - -The Lestranges put Elsa into a hansom before they hurried away in -another themselves. All the guests were in a fever to depart, for there -was barely time to dress for dinner--and they disappeared as if by -magic. Mary, whose victoria was a moment late, followed hard on the -rest. As she was delayed in the traffic she saw the hansom in front of -her turn slowly round. She saw Elsa's face inside as it turned. Then the -hansom went gaily jingling its bell over Westminster Bridge, and was -lost in the crowd. - - - - -PART III - - "Thou wilt not with Predestination round - Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?" - - --OMAR KHAYYÁM. - - -The scandal smouldered for a day or two, and then raged across London -like a fire. Mary stayed at home. She could not face the glare of it. -She said she was ill. Her hand shook. She started at the slightest -sound. She felt shattered in mind and body. - -"I could not have stopped her," she said stubbornly to herself a hundred -times, lying wide-eyed through the long, terrifying nights. She -besieged Heaven with prayers for Elsa. - -On the fourth day Jos came to her. - -She went down to her little sitting-room, and found him standing at the -open window with his back to her. She came in softly, trembling a -little. She would be very gentle and sympathetic with him. She would -imply no reproach. As she entered he turned slowly and faced her. The -first moment she did not recognise him. Then she saw it was he. - -Jos' face was sunk and pinched, and the grey eyes were red with tears -fiercely suppressed by day, red with hard crying by night. Now as they -met hers they were fixed, unflinching in their tearless, enduring agony, -like those of a man under the surgeon's knife. - -"Oh! Jos, don't take it so hard," said Mary, laying her hand on his arm. - -She had never dreamed he would feel it like this. She had thought that -he would see at once he had had a great escape. - -He did not appear to hear her. He looked vacantly at her, and then -recollected himself, and sat down by her. - -"You saw her last," he said, biting his lips. - -Mary's heart turned sick within her. - -"The Lestranges saw her last," she said hastily. He made an impatient -movement. He knew all that. - -"You were with her all the afternoon on the boat?" - -"Yes. But, of course, there were numbers of others. I had many friends -whom I had to----" - -"Did you notice anything? Did you have any talk with her? Was she -different to usual?" - -"She does not generally talk much. She was rather silent." - -"You did not think she looked as if she had anything on her mind." - -"I couldn't say. I know her so very slightly." Mary's voice was cold. - -"She did not care for me," said Jos. "I knew that all along," and he put -his scarred hand over his mouth. - -"She was not worthy of you." - -He did not hear her. He took away his hand and clenched it heavily on -the other. - -"I knew she didn't care," he said in a level, passionless voice. "But I -loved her. From the first go-off I saw she was different to other women. -And I thought--I know I'm only a rough fellow--but I thought perhaps in -time ... I'm not up to much, but I would have made her a good -husband--and at any rate, I would have taken her away from--her father. -He said she was willing. I--I tried to believe him. He wanted to get rid -of her--and--I wanted to have her. That was the long and the short of -it. We settled it between us.... She hadn't a chance in that house. I -thought I'd give her another--a home--where she was safe. She had never -had a mother to tell her things. She had never had any upbringing at -that French school. She had no women friends. She had never known a good -woman, except her old nurse, till I brought her to you, Mary. I told her -you were good and gentle and loving, and would be a friend to her; and -that I had known you all my life, and she might trust you." - -"She never liked me," said Mary. It seemed to her that she must defend -herself. Against what? Against whom? - -"If she had only confided in you," he said. "I knew she was in trouble, -but I could not make out what it was. She was such a child, and I seemed -a long way off her. I took her to plays and things after I had seen them -first, to be sure they were all right; and she would cheer up for a -little bit--she liked the performing dogs. I had thought of taking her -there again; but she always sank back into low spirits. And I knew that -sometimes young girls do feel shy about being married--it's a great -step--a lottery--that is what it is, a lottery--so I thought it would -all come right in time. I never thought. I never guessed." Jos' voice -broke. "I see now I helped to push her into it--but--I didn't know.... -If only you had known that last afternoon, and could have pleaded with -her ... if only you had known, and could have held her back--my white -lamb, my little Elsa." - -He ground his heel against the polished floor. There was a long silence. - -Then he got up and went away. - - * * * * * - -It was not until the end of July that Mary saw him again. She heard -nothing of him. She only knew that he had left London. He came in one -evening late, and Mary's aunt discreetly disappeared after a few -minutes' desultory conversation. - -He looked worn and aged, but he spoke calmly, and this time he noticed -Mary's existence. "You look pulled down," he said kindly. "Has the -season been too much for you?" - -"It is not that," she said. "I have been distressed because an old -friend of mine is in trouble." - -He looked at her and saw that she had suffered. A great compunction -seized him. He took her hand and kissed it. - -"You are the best woman in the world," he said. "Don't worry your kind -heart about me. I'm not worth it." Then he moved restlessly away from -her, and began turning over the knick-knacks on the silver table. - -"Bethune has been tackled," he said suddenly. "The Duke of ---- did it, -and he has promised to marry her--if--if----" - -"If what?" - -"If his wife will divorce him. The Duke has got his promise in black and -white." - -"I don't think Lady Francis will divorce him." - -"N-no. I've been with her to-day for an hour, but I couldn't move her. -She doesn't seem to see that it's--life or death--for Elsa." - -"You would not expect her under the circumstances to consider Elsa." - -"Yes, I should," said the simpleton. "Why should not she help her? There -are no children, and she does not care for Bethune. She never did. She -ought to release him for the sake of--others." - -"I don't think she will." - -"I want you to persuade her, Mary." Mary's heart swelled. This then was -what he had come about. - -"Aren't you her greatest friend? Do put it before her plainly. I'm a -blundering idiot, and she seemed to think I had no right to speak to her -on the subject. Perhaps I had not. I never thought of that. I only -thought of----. But do you go to her, and bring her to a better mind." - -"I will try," said Mary. - -"I wish there were more women like you, Maimie," he said, using for the -first time for years the pet name which he had called her by when they -were boy and girl together. - -Mary went to Lady Francis next day, but she did not make a superhuman -effort to persuade her friend. She considered that it was not desirable -that Elsa should be reinstated. If there were no punishment for such -misdemeanours, what would society come to? For the sake of others, as a -warning, it was necessary that Elsa should suffer. - -All she said to Lady Francis was: "Are you going to divorce Lord -Francis?" - -"No, my dear," said that lady with a harsh little laugh. "I am not. Not -that I could not get a divorce. He has been quite brute enough, but if I -did it would be forgotten in about a quarter of an hour, whether I had -divorced him or he had divorced me. I have a right to his name, and I -mean to stick to it. It's about all I've got out of my marriage. I don't -intend to go about as a divorced woman under my maiden name of Huggins. -The idea does not smile on me. Besides, I know Francis. He will come -back to me. He did--before. He has not a shilling, and he is in debt. He -can't get on without me. I was a goose to marry him; but still I am the -goose that lays the golden eggs." - -Jos' parents sent Mary a pressing invitation to stay with them after the -season. Mary went, and perhaps she tasted something more like happiness -in that quiet old country house than she had known for many years. Jos' -father and mother were devoted to her, with that devotion, artificial -in its origin, but genuine in its later stages, of parents who have made -up their minds that she was "the one woman" for their son. Mary played -old Irish melodies in the evenings by the hour, and sang sweetly at -prayers. She was always ready to listen to General Carstairs' history of -the _fauna_ of Dampshire, and to take an interest in Mrs Carstairs' -Sunday School. She had a succession of the simplest white muslin gowns -(she could still wear white) and wide-brimmed garden hats. Mary in the -country was more rural than those who abide in it all the year round. - -Jos was often there. There was no doubt about it. Jos was coming back to -his early allegiance. Perhaps his parents, horrified by his single -unaided attempt at matrimony, were tenderly pushing him back. Perhaps, -in the entire exhaustion and numbness that had succeeded the shock of -Elsa's defection, he hardly realised what others were planning round -him. Perhaps when a man has been heartlessly slighted he turns -unconsciously to the woman of whose undoubted love he is vaguely aware. - -Jos sat at Mary's feet, not metaphorically but literally, for hours -together by the sundial in the rose-garden; hardly speaking, like a man -stunned. Still he sat there, and she did her embroidery, and looked -softly down at him now and then. The doors of the narrow, airless prison -of her love were open to receive him. They would be married presently, -and she should make him give up the Army, and become a magistrate -instead. She would never let him out of her sight. A wife's place is -beside her husband. She knew, for how many wives compact of experience -had assured her during the evening hour of feminine confidence when the -back hair is let down, that the perpetual presence of the wife was the -only safeguard for the well-being of that mysterious creature of low -instincts, that half-tamed wild animal, always liable to break away -unless held in by feminine bit and bridle, that irresponsible babe, -that slave of impulse--man. She would give him perfect freedom of -course. She should encourage him to go into the Yeomanry, and she should -certainly allow him to go out without her for the annual training. He -would be quite safe in a tent, surrounded by his own tenantry; but, on -other occasions, she, his wife, would be ever by his side. That was the -only way to keep a man good and happy. - - * * * * * - -Early in September Jos went away for a few days' shooting. Mary, who -generally paid rounds of visits after the season at dull country houses -(she was not greatly in request at the amusing ones), still remained -with the Carstairs, who implored her to stay on whenever she suggested -that she was paying them "a visitation." - -Jos was to return that afternoon, for General Carstairs was depending on -him to help to shoot his own partridges on the morrow. But the afternoon -passed, and Jos did not come. The next day passed, and still no Jos. -And no letter or telegram. His father and mother were silently uneasy. -They said, no doubt he had been persuaded to stay on where he was, and -had forgotten the shoot at home. Mary said, "No doubt," but a reasonless -fear gathered like thin mist across her heart. Where was he? The letters -that had been forwarded to his last address all came back. A week -passed, and still no Jos, and no answers to autocratic telegrams. - -Then suddenly Jos telegraphed from London saying he should return early -that afternoon, and asking to be met at the station. - -When the time drew near, Mary established herself with a book in the -rose-garden. He would come to her there, as he had so often done before. -The roses were well-nigh over, but in their place the sweet white faces -of the Japanese anemones were crowding up round the old grey sundial. -The sunny windless air was full of the cawing of rooks. It was the time -and the place where a desultory love might come by chance, and linger -awhile, not where a desperate love, brought to bay, would wage one of -his pitched battles. Peace and rest were close at hand. Why had she been -fearful? Surely all was well, and he was coming back. He was coming -back. - -She waited as it seemed to her for hours before she heard the faint -sound of his dog-cart. She should see him in a moment. He would speak to -his parents, and then ask where she was, and come out to her. Oh! how -she loved him; but she must appear calm, and not too glad to see him. -She heard his step--strong, light, alert, as it used to be of old, not -the slow, dragging, aimless step of the last two months. - -He came quickly round the yew hedge and stood before her. She raised her -eyes slowly from her book to meet his, a smile parting her lips. - -He was looking hard at her with burning scorn and contempt in his -lightning grey eyes. - -The smile froze on her lips. - -"I have seen Elsa," he said. "I only came back here for half-an-hour -to--speak to you." - -A cold hand seemed to be pressed against Mary's heart. - -"I found by chance, the merest chance, where she was," he continued. "I -went at once. She was alone, for Bethune has gone back to his wife. I -suppose you knew he had gone back. I did not. I found her----" He -stopped as if the remembrance were too acute, and then went on firmly. -"We had a long talk. She was in great trouble. She told me everything, -and how he, that devil, had made love to her from the first day she came -back from school, and how her father knew of it, and had obliged her to -accept me. And she said she knew it was wrong to run away with him, but -she thought it was more wrong to marry without love, and that the nearer -the day came the more she felt she must escape, and she seemed hemmed -in on every side, and she did love Bethune, and he had sworn to her that -he would marry her directly he got his divorce, and that his wife did -not care for him, and would be glad to be free, and that all that was -necessary was a little courage on her part. So she tried to be -brave--and--she said she did not think at the time it could be so very -wicked to marry the person she really loved, for _you_ knew, and you -never said a word to stop her. She said you had many opportunities of -speaking to her on the boat, and she knew you were so good, you would -certainly have told her if it was really so very wicked." - -"I knew it was no use speaking," said Mary, hoarsely. - -"You might have tried to save my wife for my sake," said Jos. "You -might have tried to save her for her own. But you didn't. I don't -care to know your reasons. I only know that--you did not do it. You -deliberately--let--her--drown." His eyes flashed. The whole quiet, -commonplace man seemed transfigured by some overmastering, ennobling -emotion. "And I have come to tell you that I think the bad women are -better than the good ones, and that I am going back to Elsa; to -Elsa--betrayed, deserted, outcast, my Elsa, who, but for you, might -still be like one of these." He touched one of the white anemones with -his scarred hand. "I am going back to her--and if--in time she can -forget the past and feel kindly towards me--I will marry her." - -And he did. - - -THE END - - - * * * * * - - - - -Mr MURRAY'S SIX SHILLING NOVELS - - - =TALES OF A FAR RIDING.= By OLIVER ONIONS, Author of "The Compleat - Bachelor." - - =LESLIE FARQUHAR.= By ROSALINE MASSON, Author of "In Our Town." - - =DANNY.= By ALFRED OLLIVANT, Author of "Owd Bob." - - =THE VALLEY OF DECISION.= By EDITH WHARTON, Author of "A Gift from the - Grave," "Crucial Instances," etc. - - =HIGH TREASON.= A Tale of the Days of George II. - - =THE SHADOWY THIRD.= By HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL, Author of "John - Charity," etc. - - =THE TRIAL OF MAN.= An Allegorical Romance. - - =A MODERN ANTAEUS.= By the Writer of "An Englishwoman's Love-Letters." - - =THE CAVALIER.= A Tale of Life and Adventures among the Confederates - during the Civil War in the United States. By G. W. CABLE. - - =THE ROAD TO FRONTENAC.= A Novel of the Days of the French Occupation - of Canada. 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He - avoids alike the sentimentality of yesterday, and the brutality of - to-day, and writes no less than nobly when he is grave and no less - than graciously when he is gay."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ - - - LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. - - - * * * * * - - - PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS - 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET. - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Moth and Rust, by Mary Cholmondeley - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOTH AND RUST *** - -***** This file should be named 40566-8.txt or 40566-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/5/6/40566/ - -Produced by M. 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