path: root/49074-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49074 ***

Produced by Al Haines.





                             *THE GARDEN OF
                               MEMORIES*


                                   BY

                        *HENRY ST. JOHN COOPER*

              AUTHOR OF "SUNNY DUCROW," "JAMES BEVANWOOD,
                             BARONET," ETC.



                                TORONTO
                        THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY
                                LIMITED




                        COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1921.



                                 MUSSON
                        ALL CANADIAN PRODUCTION




                               *CONTENTS*

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER

I  In the Garden of Dreams
II  A Marriage Has Been Arranged
III  A Desirable Family Mansion
IV  How Allan Came to the Garden
V  In Which Allan Buys the Manor House
VI  "I Hate Him—Hate Him I Du!"
VII  "How Wonderful—the Way of Things"
VIII  "Kathleen—Do You Remember?"
IX  How Sir Josiah Opened His Purse
X  Confidences
XI  In Which Sir Josiah Proves Himself a Gentleman
XII  The Hands of Abram Lestwick
XIII  The Homecoming
XIV  "His Son’s Wife"
XV  "Will You Take This Man?"
XVI  "My Lady Merciful"
XVII  Harold Scarsdale Returns
XVIII  In the Dawn
XIX  The Dream Maiden
XX  The Road to Homewood
XXI  After Ten Years
XXII  Mr. Coombe Wears a White Tie
XXIII  "I Belong to Thee"
XXIV  In Which Lord Gowerhurst Rises Early
XXV  Beside the Lake
XXVI  On Other Shoulders
XXVII  The Conqueror
XXVIII  The Watcher
XXIX  Why Abram Lestwick Stayed from Church
XXX  The Religion of Sir Josiah
XXXI  "A Very Worthy Man"
XXXII  The Awakening
XXXIII  By the Lake
XXXIV  The Going of Betty
XXXV  "I Shall Return"




                             *THE GARDEN OF
                               MEMORIES*



                               *PROLOGUE*


From the house a broad white stone path runs to the very heart of the
garden and there opens out into a wide circle in the middle of which is
set a sundial, and here too are placed some great benches of the same
white stone; where, when the heat of the sun is not too great, it is
pleasant enough to sit and watch the glory of the flowers.

They are wealthy folk, the Elmacotts, and they love their garden and
pride themselves on it and hold that in all Sussex no soil can produce
finer flowers and sweeter fruit, and though in this year of grace
seventeen hundred and three the house, which is the Manor House of the
Parish of Homewood, has no great antiquity, being scarce more than sixty
years old, it has about it that completeness, those niceties of detail,
the neatness and the order and the well being that are found only in the
home which is ruled by a house-proud mistress.

And Madame Elmacott is proud of her house, proud of her garden, proud of
the flowers that grow in it and above all proud of her stalwart sons,
Master Nat and Master Dick, who are at this time with his Grace of
Marlborough in Flanders, fighting their country’s battles.

To-day the sun shines on the garden and the flowers stir gently, swaying
in the light breeze that also lifts the white dimity at the open windows
of the house, whence comes the sweet tinkling of a spinet, the keys of
which are touched by the skilled white fingers of Mistress Phyllis
Elmacott.

The tall hollyhocks that cast wavering blue shadows on the white stone
pathway nod to one another in the breeze, nod, it seems, knowingly, for
from the pathway one may see into the pleasant room where the spinet and
its fair player are and seeing these may also see the handsome figure of
the Captain, who leans upon the spinet, the better to see into those
bright eyes that have brought him home to England and Sussex from across
the seas, though at this time in the service of his Grace the Captain
General there is much to be done and much to be won.

He has but waited to see and share in the victory of Donauwort and then
has come hastening home on the wings of love and with the merry peal of
marriage bells a-ringing in his ears.

But it is not of these, not of the dashing Captain in his red coat and
fair-haired Mistress Elmacott, who thinks him the most perfect and
wonderful, as well as the bravest and handsomest of all created beings.
It is of the garden and of a lad who sits on the grassy bank at the edge
of the lake and watches with eyes, that yet seem scarcely to see, the
slim white figure of a maiden wrought of stone. She stands up from the
green waters, in the center of the lake and on her sun-kissed shoulder
she holds a pitcher, from which the glittering water is flung aloft
into, the air to fall with a pleasant tinkling, back into the green pool
beneath.

And so silent, so motionless does he sit here, that the swallows that
now and again skim the water, the dragon flies in all the glory of their
green and crimson, and blue sheen that dart hither and thither take no
heed of him, no more heed than if he too were of senseless stone.

In all the colour, in all the glory of the garden, he is the sombre, the
one sombre note.  His clothes are drab, his shoes are stout and thick
and ungainly and clasped with great brass buckles.  His hands are the
hands of a man who toils for his living, rough and hardened by spade and
hoe and rake and scythe, and stained by the good earth of the garden.
His eyes that stare so unceasingly on that white stone figure are blue,
his face is lean and tanned, his neck too is tanned deeply to the very
shoulders where the coarse shirt falls open.

Straight and strong and courageous he is.  Has he not listened with
bated breath and with quick beating heart to the brave stories told in
the bar parlour of the "Fighting Cocks" in Stretton.  Cross?  Has he not
watched the Serjeant who has told these thrilling tales, of every one of
which, who should be the hero but the Serjeant himself, in his fine red
coat and his crossed belts and his tall hat, that makes him, fine man
that he is, seem almost a giant?

He has done well here in Stretton and Homewood and at Bush Corner and in
all those other quiet places, has the Serjeant.  There are at least a
score of fine young Sussex lads, even at this very moment on their way
to Harwich, en route for Flanders and glory, who have been wheedled from
field and wood and garden and alehouse and stable by the Serjeant’s
persuasive tongue, his jolly laugh and his generous hand.

And Allan Pringle, sitting here by the green pool, clasping his strong
brown chin with his hands, knows that he too would have been of that
score, but for one reason—one reason that now, alas, is no more!

It is the first grief he has ever known and it is a bitter one, for what
more bitter sorrow can youth feel than for wasted hopes, for broken
faith, for misplaced love?

Only Betty and his love for her, only the happiness that she had
promised should one day be his, had deafened him to the persuasive
eloquence of the Serjeant.

But it is not too late now, others will hearken to the Serjeant and set
off for Harwich and he will be among the next.  Yes, he will be among
the next to go, and pray God that he may never return!

He does not hear a light step on the long stone pathway, for it is
scarce heavier than a bird might make.  From the house a little maid
comes hurrying.  Now she stands hesitatingly and looks about her, her
finger on her lips, as one a little fearful, a little anxious.  Again
and yet again, she pauses, as she looks about her, then comes to where
beyond the great hedge of clipped yew trees the green waters of the pool
reflect the golden, sunshine.

And now she sees him and stands watching, a tender smile on her lips.  A
dainty slip of a maiden is she, with hair that gleams gold under her
cap, the soft rounded arms are bare to the dimpled elbows, save for the
thin black lace mittens, through which her white skin shines.

Though he, the silent, solitary figure sitting beside the pool is but
ten paces from her, yet she hesitates, half a score of times, making a
timorous step and then pausing before the next, her blue eyes filled,
now with mischief and love and now clouded by some fear.  And then
suddenly she makes a brave little run to him and drops lightly on her
knees behind him and lifts her hands and clasps them over his eyes.

"And you—you would leave your Betty?  Oh, Allan, you would leave your
Betty who loves you and go away to the cruel wars?" she sobs.

He has taken her hands, has taken them strongly in his hold and holding
them yet, he turns to her.  "Why did you come, why did you come to me,
Betty?"

"Because," and the blue eyes are lifted to his filled with an innocence
and candour that even he, jealous and despairing though he is, cannot
but recognise, "because I do love thee so and cannot let thee go!"

"And why, loving me, Betty, do you suffer the kisses of such a man as
Timothy Burnand, a rascally tinker and a thieving poacher, a man whose
hand I would not have touch thee, Betty?"

Into her face there flames a great flush, a look of anger, then it dies
out and the laughter comes rippling to her lips and into her eyes come
back the mischief and the love and a little pride too, for she realises
that he is jealous of her, this man she loves and though jealousy be a
sin, yet it is not without its sweetness, too, for say what the
wiseacres may, jealously is oftentimes a proof of love.

"And you saw—" she cries, "Allan, you—saw—ugh!"  She makes a little
gesture, a little grimace.  "Did you think that I invited, that I
welcomed him?  Did you think that I bore his kiss with patience?  Go and
seek him now and look for the red mark upon his face!  He came on me
unawares and then all suddenly—" she pauses.  "Allan," she says
pleadingly, "Allan, you will not go, you will not go, my dear, you will
not go and leave me?"  And sobbing she is in his arms.  And so for Allan
Pringle the sun shines out again and the flowers are blooming brightly
and the little slim maiden of stone from the centre of the pool seems to
throw the glittering water higher and yet higher into the air as though
in joy that all is well between these two, who hold one another so
tightly, who are mingling their tears and their laughter and their
kisses, now that the cloud has passed.

                     *      *      *      *      *

There are no flowers in the garden now, for the garden of Homewood Manor
and all the world beside lies under a pall of white, for the winter is
here, the winter of seventeen hundred and five, which is remembered by
all men as a winter of bitter cold, of great frosts and heavy snows.

In a tiny cottage that stands a bare quarter of a mile on the Stretton
Road from the Homewood gates, a man is on his knees beside a bed.

And that bed holds all his world, all that the world can give him, all
that makes life sweet, and his heart is black and bitter with suffering
and despair and cries out against God that he, who was rich only in her
and in her love, must lose her now, must spend the rest of his days
solitary, and heartbroken.

His eyes are on the sweet white face, on those lips once so red and now
so pale, but which even yet have a smile for him, a smile of wonderful
tenderness and undying love. He takes no heed of the fretful cry that
comes from the cradle, for there is no other in all his world now, but
her, she who is so soon to leave him.

"Betty, my Betty, I cannot let thee go!  Oh, remember, Betty, once when
I would have left thee, you called me back and I came.  I am calling,
calling to you now, my life, my sweet, I cannot let you go!  Stay with
me, stay with me, for you are all my life and the world is black without
you; stay with me!"

She would lift her thin little hand to caress, to touch his face, but
the strength is not hers to do it.

"Allan, take me, hold me in your arms, hold me tightly, my dear, hold me
tightly," she says.

And he puts his strong arms about her.  God pity him, how light she is,
how small, how fragile a thing this, that death is taking from him!

His very soul is in rebellion against fate, he is mad with the
suffering, mad with his impotence.  He can do nothing save watch her
die, watch her fade out of his life; and it must be soon "A matter of
hours," the doctor from Stretton had said and that was long ago and now,
now it is but a matter of minutes.

"Allan, I wanted, always, to die like this, with your arms about me,
your dear eyes the last of earth that I shall see—ah!  Allan, it is
now——"

"Betty, Betty, I am calling, calling to you, come back, beloved, come
back!"

And then he knows that it is useless, she is leaving him, slipping away,
no matter how tightly he may hold her.  It is good-bye, their last
good-bye and the sad word comes perhaps unconsciously to his lips.

And then, is it fancy?  Is it some trick of his tortured brain?  For as
he watches, the dear lips move and it seems to him that the message they
whisper to him with her dying breath is this: "It is not good-bye!"

He is holding her against his breast, he is kissing those lips that for
the first time give not back kiss for kiss.  He is calling to her from
his aching, breaking heart, but she has passed beyond the sound of his
voice, though the smile on her dead lips is still for him.

And those last words, were they real?  Did they pass her lips with her
dying breath, were they meant for him in pity and compassion and love?

"It is not good-bye!"




                              *CHAPTER I*

                       *IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS*


A girl, a slip of a maid with sunny hair and wonderful blue eyes, stood
beside a crumbling old rose-red brick wall.  She looked up the long
country road and she looked down it, there was no one, not a soul in
sight.  So she thrust the too of one small and broken boot into a
crevice of the wall, made a little spring and caught at the top, then
dragged herself up till she sat, flushed and triumphant, on the coping.

She was a village girl and her dress was of print, well washed, well
mended, skimpy, too, for her slight figure, slender though it was, for
it had been hers for three years, and a dress that is originally made
for a maiden of fourteen is apt to be small when worn by a maid of
seventeen.

It was a demure and a very sweet face, the eyes big and strangely
dreamy, the white skin of her face and neck powdered lightly with tiny
golden freckles, her hair a deep red gold.

And wonderful hair it was, wonderfully untidy, too, so rebellious that
it spurned all hairpins and fretted and struggled agains ribbons and
tapes.

So now, she sat on top of the old rose red wall and looked down on the
other side and saw a green tangle of brambles and grass and other things
that grew rankly and luxuriously in that deserted place.

It was easier to descend the wall than to climb it, for here was a
friendly tree that held out an inviting branch. Sho seized it, with
small brown hands and lightly swung herself to the ground and then drew
a sigh of relief and pleasure.

It was forbidden ground!  Were there not many notices that announced the
fact that "Trespassers Would Be Prosecuted"?  But she cared nothing for
these, the notice that she dreaded most of all was "This Desirable
Historical Family Mansion, with Seven Hundred and Fifty Acres of Land,
to be Sold."

How she dreaded lest one day someone should come and see and covet this
place and buy it and so shut her out forever from its delights and its
pleasures.  But that someone had not come yet.

So she made her way through the tangle of the growth, and came presently
to a great garden, a wonderful garden once, but now a weed-grown place
of desolation.

Always this garden attracted her; to-day it brought a soft, tender light
into her eyes as she stood with clasped hands and looked at it!  She
could see the old broken stone-paved pathway that led through the heart
of the garden. She knew where that stone pathway opened out into a great
circle in the midst of which was set a sundial, a sundial of stone
chipped and green and the gnomon of the dial rusted away so that never
again should its shadow fall upon the dial and mark the passing of the
brighter hours.  And about this circle, she knew, were old stone seats,
green now like the pedestal of the dial and through the crevices of the
paving grew and flourished and blossomed foxglove and dandelion,
hollyhock and groundsell.

It had been a very, very beautiful garden long years ago, when ladies
had tapped up and down the stone pathway in their little red-heeled
shoes.  Ladies who wore wide flounced skirts and powdered hair and
cunning little patches on their fair cheeks.  The garden with its roses,
with its stately hollyhocks, its cloves and sweet-williams, its rosemary
and lavender and all the sweet things that grow in English gardens, must
have been a very lovely and perfect place then.  But to this little maid
with the dreamy eyes, it was a very wonderful place now.  There was no
other place like it in all the world; she had come here by sunshine and
by moonlight, for sometimes in the night the garden had seemed to call
to her and she had risen from her bed under the thatched roof of her old
grandmother’s cottage and had come stealing here to watch it, all bathed
in the silver light of the moon.  Perhaps she loved it best by
moonlight, for then strange dreams seemed to come to her, dreams that
never came when the sun was shining.

It seemed as if some kindly gentle hand touched lightly on the chords of
memory, and then—the weeds and the tall rank grass, the decay of the
present, the rioting growth, all were gone and she saw the old garden as
it had once been, and she saw folk, strangely dressed folk, whom never
in her life could she have met.  These came and went, men with strange
affected antics and gestures, gestures she might have smiled at, yet
never did, and sweet, gracious ladies who moved with stately dignity
through the old garden.

But always there was one, a young man whose clothes were plain and
lacking all the finery that made the others seem so grand.  She knew him
for a servant, for one who worked in the garden, for often she would see
him stooping over some trim bed, or with keen scythe sweeping the short
grass.

They were dreams, only dreams that the old garden seemed to bring to
her, when she came when the world was sleeping. Dreams, and yet she
seemed to be so curiously awake.

But she never spoke of the old garden to the others, or told of the
things that she saw here.  Yet they knew she came, her grandmother rated
her, "One day, my maid, caught ee’ll be," she said, "and then summoned
very likely for trespassing!"

But the Law had no terrors for her, so she came whenever the garden
seemed to be calling to her and the high rank grass brushed her thin
cotton skirt and wetted the coarse stocking that clad her slim ankle.

For an hour she wandered about the garden, she stood by the sundial and
watched the line of the path-way, sadly encroached on now by the weeds
and the self-seeded flowers. A tall yew hedge, once clipped into
fantastic shapes, but now reclaimed by Nature, shut out what had once
been the rose garden, all weed grown now and the roses gone.  And beyond
the rose garden, the lake in which the great carp swam lazily and over
which the birds skimmed!  From the lake’s centre rose a figure in stone,
sadly battered and marred, the figure of a slim girl, a girl that might
have been, herself, changed into stone.

She often came to look at this figure rising from the centre of the
lake.  It held a vase poised on its shoulder, once a fountain had been
flung high into the air from this vase, but the fountain had been dead
long ago.  To-day a rook sat perched on one stone shoulder, but flew
away when the living girl came down to the brink.

She had a feeling for this stone maiden, all so lonely in the midst of
the desolation.  She never came into the garden without coming to the
edge of the lake and nodding her little head to the figure who never
nodded back.

And so, for an hour she wandered about the garden.  She picked none of
the flowers that grew so freely here, for she would not dare take them
back, mute tale tellers that they would be.  So, empty handed as she
came, she presently made her way back to the old wall and seeing that no
one was in sight, gained the road and went on to the cottage in the
village.

Her grandmother was leaning over the gate, an old woman with the face of
a russet apple that has been kept till it has wrinkled and mellowed.

"So there you be, Betty Hanson, and seeing the way you hev come it be
useless and idle it be, for me to ask you where hev you been tu!"

The girl did not answer.

"You’ve been in that garden again, spite o’ all I du say. Betty Hanson,
it hev got to cease, my maid, and cease it will now!"

"Why?" the girl said and there was a frightened look in her eyes.

"Why? for I hev been talking to Mr. Dalabey and he du tell me that there
be several parties after the old house, and one rich American he very
likely to buy it and if he du, then there be an end to all your
philanderings in that there disgraceful old garden, my maid!"

"Buy it!  Buy it!"  She looked at her grandmother and in the blue eyes
there was a look of actual fear.  "’Ee don’t mean as—as anyone be going
to buy—buy it?"  She whispered, "’ee be only saying it!"

"A rich American!"  The old woman nodded her head, "and going to buy it,
he be, and a dratted good job, too!" she added.  "Look at your frock
now, what a sight it be!"

But she did not look at her frock, her face had gone very pitifully
white.  She lifted her little brown hands and laid them against her
breast and went into the cottage with tragedy and misery in her blue
eyes.

"And a dratted good job, too," the old woman said again.




                              *CHAPTER II*

                     *A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED*


"My dear child, if I were to say that we had arrived at our last
shilling, such a statement would not be quite true, for we had reached
that unpleasant position some months ago, and I fear that it is on other
people’s shillings that we are existing at the present moment.  Not only
is our financial position unsatisfactory, to say the least of it, but,
and forgive me for speaking of it, Kathleen, the years are passing and
five years ago—well, dear one, you were five years younger than you are
to-day!"

"Father, if you think that you can goad me——"

"I never goad, it would be too fatiguing!  Besides, Kathleen, as my
daughter and a Stanwys, you are not a fool—the Stanwys——"

"Oh, please do not tell me about the Stanwys, father," she said
bitterly.

"Would you rather that I spoke about the Homewoods? There is the father,
Sir Josiah——"

"Common and vulgar!" the girl said with a note of contempt in her voice.

"But the son—he at least is presentable, have we not agreed that the son
is not so bad, and the position——"

"I know of the position; do you think I can forget it for even a
moment?"

She rose and went to the window and stared out into the dull London
Square.

She was twenty-eight.  It is not a great age, yet at twenty-eight the
first sweet freshness of youth is on the wane—a woman of twenty-eight
realises that she is no longer a girl, her girlhood is behind her.
Sometimes she is terribly conscious of it.  It is a little tragedy to be
eight and twenty, unmarried and unsought.  Kathleen Stanwys at
twenty-eight was unmarried, nor was she engaged.  Society was a little
puzzled by the fact, for she was unusually and exceedingly handsome.
She had been a very lovely girl and she was now a radiantly beautiful
woman.

Seven years ago she had outshone all rival beauties in the great world
of Fashion, but she had made no bid for popularity.  She shrank from
anything of the nature of publicity and cheap advertisement; rarely if
ever had her photograph appeared in the press.  She wrapped herself in a
mantle of reserve.  Ever conscious of the poverty which she was never
permitted to forget she had earned the reputation of being cold and
haughty and proud.  Admirers she had never lacked, but suitors had been
few and shy!  Young men, well provided with money, had a wholesome fear
of Lord Gowerhurst, her father, for he was a very finished specimen of
his type.

Smooth tongued, with a charming and plausible manner, cynical, handsome
as all the Stanwys are and have been, an accomplished gambler, too
accomplished, perhaps his enemies, and he had many, whispered.  He was
utterly selfish, utterly pitiless.  He had never been known to spare a
man or a woman either.  Woe to him or to her who fell into his toils.
With what fine courtesy, with what charm of manner would he relieve some
luckless victim, of his last shilling!  How sweetly and sympathetically
he would speak of his victims’ ill fortune, would suggest some future
"revenge," and then pocket his winnings with a grace that could have
brought but little comfort to the poor wretch whose possessions had
passed out of his own into the keeping of this courtly, delightful,
aristocratic gentleman.

So, young men well endowed with money, having a wholesome fear of His
Lordship, avoided his Lordship’s beautiful daughter, and young men
without money were of course not to be considered for a moment.

Therefore, at twenty-eight, Kathleen, unappropriated, and a very
beautiful woman, stood staring out of the window this fine May morning,
into the dull London Square.

My Lord, slender, dressed with exquisite care, was of a tallness and
slimness that permitted his tailor to do justice and honour to his
craft.  Few men could wear their clothes with such perfect grace as his
Lordship.  His tailor, long suffering man, groaned at the length of the
unpaid bill, but realised that as a walking advertisement Lord
Gowerhurst was an asset to his business not to be despised.  So the
lengthy bill grew longer and more formidable, but youngsters, fresh to
town, admiring his Lordship’s appearance prodigiously, made it their
business to discover who was his Lordship’s tailor and Mr. Darbey, of
Dover Street, saw to it that Lord Gowerhurst never went shabby and
possibly, cunning man, made those who could and would pay, contribute
unconsciously to the upkeep of Lord Gowerhurst’s external appearance.

He came of a handsome family, the women of which had been toasts in many
reigns and through many generations. His forehead was broad and high,
crowned by silver hair that curled crisply, his nose was of the type of
the eagle’s beak, his hands white, well kept, reminiscent of the eagle’s
claws, a moustache of jetty blackness in admirable contrast to his
silvered hair, shaded and beneficently concealed a thin-lipped, hard and
somewhat cruel mouth.

My Lord rolled a cigar between his delicate fingers.  It was an
excellent cigar; years ago Julius Dix and Company had acquired the habit
of supplying Lord Gowerhurst with cigars on credit and bad habits are
difficult to eradicate. But then his Lordship sent wealthy customers to
the quiet but extremely expensive little shop near the Haymarket.

"Our position, Kathleen, is irksome," he said softly, "deucedly irksome.
Now and again I have little windfalls, but alas—they grow fewer and
farther between as time goes on—at the moment I haven’t a bob, you,
dear, have not a bob—" he paused and laughed softly.  "It recalls the
French exercise of my youth.  I have not a bob, thou hast not a bob, he
has not a bob—" he waved the cigar.  "Anyhow, that is the position, and
then some kindly breeze of Heaven wafts that stout, prosperous, opulent
craft the "Sir Josiah Homewood" on to the horizon of our "sea of
troubles," as Shakespeare so aptly puts it!"

He paused, he looked at the slender, upright, girlish back of his
daughter.

"So," he went on, "this large, stout, prosperous and richly freighted
cargo boat, the Sir Josiah Homewood, rises on the horizon of our
eventful lives and——"

"Oh, please," the girl said with a note of impatience in her voice,
"leave out all that; I wish to understand exactly—exactly what you
propose——"

"Not what I propose, but what Homewood proposes. Really, I rather admire
the fellow’s presumption.  As you know, he has a son, a lad not
altogether displeasing, who fortunately but little resembles his father,
a fact you may have noticed, Kathleen.  Indeed, I might almost say the
young fellow is not without his good points; he is prepossessing, a
little shy and silent, in which he does not resemble his father.  He is
well educated, he has Eton and Oxford behind him.  By the way, what a
time he must have had at Eton, if his parentage ever leaked out, poor
devil—however, there it is, the lad is at least presentable—but the
father is——"

"Terrible!" the girl said with a shudder.

"Too true, yet it is not proposed you should marry the father.  We need
money.  You, child, need money, and what is more, a prospect, a future.
You have nothing and the outlook is not cheering."

"The outlook is hopeless; I have nothing in the world, our family was
always hopelessly impoverished, still the little we once had——"
Kathleen paused.

"Recriminations, my love, are useless!" his Lordship said.

"There was very little and now that little hath taken unto itself wings
and has flown away——"  He stroked his long drooping moustache with his
slender hand.  "So it behoves us to make our arrangements for the
future.  Sir Josiah and I have discussed everything."

"You mean myself, you have arranged the deeds of sale, I suppose, how
much am I worth?"

"Your value is inestimable.  Sir Josiah, worthy Baronet, more daring
than I, puts it down in actual figures—" he paused.  "I made a note of
them.  He advances me—"  He took some papers from his pocket, "the sum
of twelve thousand pounds—advances, mind you, Kathleen, a kindly loan,
which I shall, no doubt, find useful——"

"That is your part of the payment," she said bitterly, "go on!"

"He buys a fine house, an estate, he settles it on his son; by the way
the lad’s name is Allan."

"I know," she said, "go on."

"He settles a fine estate on this Allan, with an income of eight
thousand a year, not so bad, eh?"

"And this is all conditional——"

"On your marrying the said Allan Homewood.  I think," he said, as he
rose from his breakfast table, "I have on the whole not done so badly
for you!"

"And yourself," she said; "not so badly!"  She smiled bitterly, then
shrugged her shapely shoulders.  "Very well, I suppose it is only left
for me to say thank you very much indeed!"

"Quite so.  The alternative, dear child, is this"—his lordship waved his
hand—"an elderly unmarried lady residing in, say, a Brighton Boarding
House, her face bearing some evidence of a past but long since faded
beauty, her title, if she is foolish enough to make use of it,
subjecting her to some little annoyance, mingled with a certain amount
of servile respect.  Not a pretty picture, my love, but a very true
one."

"And the alternative is to marry Mr. Allan Homewood?"

"A pleasant alternative, and its acceptance never for a moment in doubt,
eh?"

"Never for a moment in doubt," she repeated.

"Then it only remains for me to say Heaven bless you, my child, and to
send a wire of acceptance to Sir Josiah. No, on second thought, I’ll
telephone him from the Club."  He paused for a moment to arrange his
necktie before the glass over the mantel, then went to the door.  At the
door. he stood and looked at her for a moment, then went out, a
satisfied smile on his thin aristocratic face.

The girl stood there by the window for a long time.  She was thinking.
She had much to think about.  She was twenty-eight and a beautiful woman
of twenty-eight has no doubt many memories.

Presently she sighed and turned away from the window.  A fine place and
eight thousand a year and more when Josiah Homewood was laid with his
fathers.  Well! things might be worse, and the lad himself, she liked
him.  He was younger than she was by four years, but what did that
matter?

She had seen him once or twice, had liked him vaguely, there was little
to dislike about him.  He was not handsome, she was glad of that, she
hated handsome men, nor was he plain.  Again she was glad; she disliked
anything that was ugly.  He was also, despite his parentage, a
gentleman.  She liked him for that most of all.

"If he had been vulgar like his father, three times the money would not
have been enough," she said to herself.

Still, there were memories, memories that rose up out of the past, the
memory of a face, of eager, ardent, worshipping eyes, of a lame, halting
speech, words disjointed and broken, eager, pleading, yet hopeless
words.  "I love you, oh!  I love you; don’t turn from me.  I know I am
not worthy, Kathleen, but I love you so!"

She laughed suddenly, she felt ashamed and annoyed to realise that there
were tears on her lashes and on her cheeks.

"Folly!" she said aloud.  "Folly, and it’s all dead and gone ten, years
ago, ten years—" she laughed, "a lifetime! He’s married to someone else;
if he’s sensible, he will have married someone with money, for he had
none, poor fellow!"

Meanwhile at the Club, where the better part of his day and practically
the whole of his night was spent, Lord Gowerhurst had looked up a
telephone number and was putting a call through.

"Homewood—yes, Sir Josiah Homewood, is he in?  Yes, I do,
Gowerhurst—Lord Gowerhurst—You’ll put him through—then hurry!"

He waited and then came a voice.  It was evidently the voice of a stout
man in a state of anxiety.

"Yes, it’s me, it’s Homewood, my Lord——"

Lord Gowerhurst detected the anxiety, purposely he delayed, he told
himself the man was anxious—naturally—"Let him be anxious, let him
remain on tenter hooks for a time!"  It would do him no harm.

"Is that Sir Josiah Homewood?"

"Yes, yes, Homewood, I’m speaking to Lord Gowerhurst, aren’t I?"

"Yes—ah, Homewood, is that you?  Well, about that little matter we were
discussing yesterday—" his lordship drawled, "the proposition that you
placed before me with such engaging frankness, I should not be surprised
if you remember——"

"Yea, my Lord, I’ve not forgotten!  Not me!"  The voice came chokingly,
uncertain, but above all things eager.

"I have discussed it with the person—most concerned!"

"And what does her ladyship——"

"My dear Homewood, no names on the telephone, no names I beg!"

"No, no, of course not, my mistake, my Lord.  I wouldn’t think of
mentioning any names, not for a moment, my Lord. Still what does she—the
person—the party, I mean, my Lord, what does she—er—her——"

"I quite understand the—as you say—party—is inclined to give very
favourable consideration to the matter.  In fact, I may say, my dear
Homewood, that the matter is practically settled on the basis you
suggested."

Sir Josiah Homewood in his luxurious City office, closed his eyes as in
ecstasy!  He clung to the telephone receiver and an expression of rapt
and perfect contentment stole over his features.

"Then—then it’s all right.  I may regard it as all right,
my—my—Lord—she, the party, I mean——"

"Agrees—" said Lord Gowerhurst shortly.  "Briefly, yes she agrees—the
matter is settled and now it only remains to complete the contract, you
understand, eh?"

"I understand, ha, ha, very good, just so, the Contract, always dealing
with contracts I am, but not many like this! Ha, ha, splendid—and now
your Lordship and the other party, I mean the other contracting party,
will dine at my house in Grosvenor Square to-night."

Gowerhurst frowned.  "Oh, very well!" he said ungraciously.

"Half past seven at Grosvenor Square, your Lordship remembers the
number?"

"At half past seven, then!"  His Lordship said and hung up the receiver.

"And that," my Lord said, "is that!  When my time comes, and I am in no
hurry for it to come, especially just now, I shall be able to close my
eyes on this world, knowing that I have done my duty to my only child, a
truly comforting reflection—And now for a brandy with the merest
suggestion of soda, and if possible a little game of billiards."  And he
went up the Club’s handsome staircase.

None of the multitudinous clerks in the large and palatial offices of
Sir Josiah Homewood, Son and Company, Limited, had ever seen the
Managing Director in such a delightful temper, for sometimes his temper
was not delightful.   This morning he beamed on all and sundry.  Young
Alfred Cope, who supported a widowed Mother on an insignificant salary,
had long been trying to muster up courage to ask for a rise. It seemed
to him that this morning, this bright May morning, the opportunity had
come, and so opportunity sent him, a shivering, trembling wretch,
tapping nervously on the highly polished mahogany door of Sir Josiah’s
private office.

"Well?" Sir Josiah said.  "Well, and what do you want?"

Alfred stumbled lamely into his pitiful story.

Sir Josiah frowned.  "How much are you getting paid now?" he demanded.

"Forty-two.  Forty-two shillings a week!  Bless my heart and soul,
princely, princely!  Why, when I was a lad such a wage would have been
considered handsome, sir, and here you come asking me for more—Why;
bless me, let me tell you this, Cope—the City is bristling with clerks,
bristling with ’em, you can’t move for clerks, sir, and most of ’em out
of work!  I’ve only got to hold up my finger, sir, like this—"  He
thrust a broad, stumpy finger into the air, "and say ’Clerk!’ and a
hundred would rush at me.  I’d be suffocated! Do you understand me,
Cope?  Simply crushed to death by the rush!  If I put an advertisement
in the papers, I’d have to hire a policeman to keep the Quee—the
Queek—what d’ye call the thing from obstructing the traffic—Forty-two
shillings, you ought to go down on your knees, sir, on your knees and
thank Heaven that you are earning such a salary!  Princely!  That’s what
it is, princely!"

And so on, for ten long, fear laden, wretched minutes, at the end of
which the hapless wretch slunk away, thanking God that he had not been
dismissed or that his wretched two and forty shillings had not been
reduced to thirty or less.

"Forty-two shillings—and wants more," Sir Josiah said to himself, "bless
me, what are things coming to?"  Then he banished the frown, he beamed
all over his round red face.

"Lady Kathleen Homewood," he said to himself, "Lady Kathleen Homewood,
my daughter-in-law!  Lady Kathleen—ah ha!"  He rubbed his hands.
"That’ll make Cutler sit up!  The fellow gives himself airs because his
daughter married a fellow who is Governor of some place no one in their
senses ever heard of—His Excellency the Governor—Bless my heart!  I’m
sick to death of His Excellency!  Now Cutler will turn green, eh?
There’s nothing like the real thing, the real old true blue-blooded
British aristocracy—can’t get over that, eh?  No, no fear!"

Usually it takes but two to make a bargain; in this case it required
four.  Three of the four were agreed, himself first of all, now His
Lordship, the Earl of Gowerhurst, and Lady Kathleen Stanwys, his
daughter.  There was but one other, but that one other was a good boy, a
dutiful son; he would do exactly what his father wished.

"Thank God I don’t look for opposition from him!" Sir Josiah thought.
"Never trod a better lad than mine, bless him!  He knows my heart’s set
on this, knows it he does, and he’ll do it to please me!  He’s not like
other young fellows with their fancy tricks.  Besides that, the girl’s a
beauty, apart from her blood and breeding!  If she is a little older
than he, well, what of that?  It’s the blood, the birth that is, what
tells every time and by George—by George, when I have grandchildren I’ll
be able to look at ’em and say to myself—’These grandchildren of mine
are also the grandchildren of an Earl!’  And that’s something these
days, eh?  That’s something!"  So he fell to muttering and chuckling to
himself, this highly pleased old gentleman, and presently he picked up a
pen and all unconsciously scribbled many times on the blotting paper:

"Lady Kathleen Homewood, Lady Kathleen Homewood, my daughter-in-law,
Lady Kath——"

"Eh, what’s that?"

"I thought I’d remind you that it is past one, Sir Josiah, and you were
to lunch with Mr. Cutler and Mr.——"

"Oh, bless my soul, yes, I’d clean forgotten—many thanks—Jarvis—quite
right, sensible of you!"

Mr. Jarvis, the head clerk, bowed and would have retired.

"Oh, Jarvis, one moment, here, help me into my coat, there’s a good
feller!  That young feller, young what’s his name—Cope—Crope—eh?"

"Cope, sir, yes, sir!"

"What sort of a chap is he, good worker and all that?"

"A very attentive worker and a respectable young man!"

"Supports a widowed mother, I understand?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Bless me, well, well.  I’ve been having a chat with him—where’s my
umbrella?—having a chat with him—a man can’t support a widowed mother
cheaply these days, eh, Jarvis?"

"Very expensive days, sir!"

"Quite so, expensive hobby, too, supporting widowed mothers.  Raise his
salary to—say Three pound ten, Jarvis, and report to me how he goes on!
My hat, do you see my hat?  Oh, thanks, I’ll be back at two-thirty,
Jarvis——"

And Sir Josiah went out.




                             *CHAPTER III*

                      *A DESIRABLE FAMILY MANSION*


DEAR SIR,

"In reply to your advertisement in the _Daily Telegraph,_ I am at the
moment in a position to offer you a very fine old historical mansion
situated in West Sussex on the Hampshire border.  The house has been
untenanted for a number of years and will require considerable
attention.  In the hands of a man of wealth and taste, it could be
restored to its original condition and would form one of the most
picturesque and desirable mansions in the Country.  It is eminently a
place that it is necessary to see and a description of it would take too
much time now, for as I have previously mentioned, I am only, at the
moment, in a position to offer it as it has already been seen and highly
approved by a wealthy American gentleman and it is quite probable that
he will close at the bargain price at which the house and estate of
seven hundred and fifty acres, including part of a small and picturesque
village, is being offered.  I would urge on you, therefore, if you care
to consider the place, to view it without one moment’s delay, as
obviously it will be sold to the first who makes a good offer.  I may
add that the Mansion in question, with its many historical associations,
would make a country seat fit for any nobleman in the land.  May I
finally repeat my urgent advice to view the place at once, as the delay
of even an hour may be prejudicial to your obtaining it.  Believe me,
sir,

Yours truly,
       DALABEY AND SON."


Over this letter Sir Josiah pondered a little and frowned a little.

"It’s rather like having a pistol at one’s head!  Hanged if it isn’t!"
he muttered.  "But it reads all right, it reads—the goods!  Historical
Mansion, seven hundred and fifty acres, fit for a nobleman, with part of
a village, sounds right—sounds right—" he muttered.  He nodded his head.
"But this hurry—why it’s a confounded nuisance, that’s what it is.  How
can I go?  I’ve got—let me see—har hum—"  He muttered to himself and
frowned heavily.

He had much important business to see to, that day, a meeting of
Directors at twelve, another at two, and there were things to be
arranged and discussed that Sir Josiah knew would require his clear
brain and intellect.  How could, he go journeying down to some remote
part of Sussex to view this ancient mansion with its historical
associations, desirable as it might be?

Sir Josiah looked up from the letter and glanced across the breakfast
table at his son.

Allan was reading.  It would have been noteworthy had Allan not been
reading.  The lad was always reading.  His book was propped up against a
teacup and he seemed to have forgotten his breakfast.

A good looking, big and broad shouldered young fellow this, with clean
cut features and massive jaw and a broad high forehead!  Muscle and
sinew were there, but there was intelligence and brain power in that
noble forehead of his.

Fully six feet stood he in his socks, massive of build, with straight,
honest blue eyes and waving hair that was neither dark nor fair.  A face
that might in its strength seem a little hard, a little fierce, even a
little forbidding, but that the mouth atoned for all.

No man with a mouth like this could be other than very human, very
tender and kindly, very generous, the mouth of a man who could give
much, suffer much and love greatly.

But Sir Josiah saw nothing of all this, he only saw Allan, his son,
reading another of those confounded books, for which Sir Josiah had no
feeling, except of the deepest disgust.

"Allan!"

"Father?"  The young man looked up.  "I’m sorry!" he said.  "Did you
speak to me before?"

"No, I didn’t, and breakfast ain’t the time, Allan, to be stuffing your
head with all that there nonsense!"

Allan smiled.  "You had your letters, and as I had my book——"

"You always have your book!  I never saw such a fellow for reading—but
I’m not saying anything, my boy.  No, no, you’re a good lad.  Few sons
please their old fathers as you do me—we’re not quarrelling, Allan lad!"

"We never have yet, father, and we never will, I think!"

"I know!" said Sir Josiah.  "Ah, Allan, you’re doing well, a fine woman,
beautiful as a picture, tall and stately, and the daughter of an Earl.
Why, boy, you ought to be in the Seventh Heaven of delight and instead
you sit there with your nose in a book!"

"She is a fine and a beautiful and I believe a good woman," said Allan,
"but her father—" he paused.  "I could have wished her a better father!"

"An Earl, an Earl!" cried the old man.  "A better father than an Earl!
Bless me, Allan—what nonsense!  However, you’re marrying her not her
father; it’s all settled, all agreed—"  He rubbed his hands, his round
red face shone with benevolence and joy.  "You’re a sensible and dutiful
fellow, Allan!  You say to yourself, ’My old father wishes it—The girl
is good and beautiful and well born, I don’t know particularly that I
love her—come to that perhaps I don’t, but I might go farther and fare
worse!’  Eh, that’s it, isn’t it?  And you’re doing it, boy, because you
know it will give pleasure to the old man!"

"I think you have got my reasoning very correctly, father!" Allan said.

"There’s no one else?" Sir Josiah said.

"No one else, no—and I like Lady Kathleen.  I admire her and I pity
her——"

"Pity—pity—bless my soul, boy, pity.  Why should you pity her?  Isn’t
she well born, doesn’t she move in the best, the very best society?
Isn’t she the only daughter, only child come to that, of an Earl?  Pity
her?"

"Just that, I pity her, I am deeply sorry for her.  I think she suffers
a good deal and can’t you understand why?"

"I—I don’t know, lad, how should I know what the feelings of a young
Society lady are?"

"She is proud and she is poor, there’s suffering in that—She is proud
and she knows that her father’s name is in bad odour.  Do you think a
sensitive, highly strung girl as she is doesn’t feel a thing like that?
Yes, I pity her, and if through me her life may be made a little
happier, why not?  Last night when you and her father were talking
money—she and I had much to say to one another.  She was very open and
very frank to me and I to her.  We made no pretence—we know that we do
not love one another. She is desperately poor and she is marrying me
chiefly—entirely for the money you are going to give us both.  I know
that you are lending Lord Gowerhurst money, that he has not the
slightest intention of every repaying you—Oh, Kathleen and I have been
perfectly open and frank with one another—I understand that she cares
for no one else. She has the same assurances from me, so there—"  Allan
laughed sharply, "you have it, the usual thing, a marriage of
convenience!  How can I pretend that I like it, Father, when I do not?
You—you know that I would sooner not—but it is arranged, it is agreed—I
do not love her, but thank God I can and do respect her and I feel sorry
for her—and so we shall go through with it, Father!" he concluded.

Josiah nodded.  "Yes, boy, you will go through with it and one day
you’ll thank me that I brought it about.  I know a good woman when I see
one and I tell you she is that—good—good to the core—I’m not clever and
not over well educated, Allan, like you are.  I don’t set up to be a
gentleman, but there’s one thing I can do, I can sum up my fellow men
and women, too, come to that.  You’ll find Allan, I’m making no mistake
when I say Lady Kathleen is as fine and as true a woman as ever stepped.
You’ll go through with this marriage, Allan, I count on you!"

"I’ve never failed you yet, Father."

"You never have, never, and never will!"  A look of rare tenderness came
into the commonplace, even vulgar face.  He rose and went to his son and
put a large trembling hand on his shoulder.

"No Allan, you’ve never failed me, not even when you were a little chap!
Do you think I don’t think of it?  Do you think I don’t thank God for
it, do you think when I hear other men speaking of their sons and of—of
the trouble some of ’em bring?  Do you think I don’t say to myself—’My
boy’s above that kind of thing, my boy’s an honest man and a
gentleman!’"  He gripped the shoulder under his hand tightly.

"And now read that, read this letter——" he went on in a changed voice.
"Read it, Allan!"

Allan took the letter and read it.

"Well, father?"

"It looks like being just the kind of place I’m after!"

"There are bound to be hundreds of others—hundreds!"

"That’s just what there aren’t.  You know how I’ve advertised, you know
how many places I’ve seen, twenty at least, and I wouldn’t be found dead
in any one of ’em. No! places like I want aren’t to be found every day,
and I’ve got an idea this might be the place.  Besides that, these
agents write, it’s to be bought cheaply.  I’m never above making a
bargain, Allan.  It’s in pretty bad condition evidently and I daresay
it’ll cost some money to put right, but what’s that matter if I get it
off the purchase price?  Now to-day I can’t go and you see that this
agent writes to say it’s urgent.  There’s an American out for it and I
don’t like to be beat, Allan, and especially I don’t like to be beat by
an American.  They are keen buyers and clever buyers and what I say is
this—if this place is good enough for a rich American—why it might also
be good enough for me!"

Allan nodded.  "And you will go and see this place and——"

"That’s just what I can’t do, I’ve got two Company meetings and
important ones they are, and I can’t miss ’em. Time’s short, it’s a bit
like having a pistol pointed at one’s head; but there you are, you can’t
help it and so my boy you’ve just got to put that book of poems, or
whatever it is, away and forget it for to-day—you’ve got to go
down—to——" he paused and looked at the letter, "this place, this Little
Stretton, Little Stretton——" he repeated.  "I seem to know the name,
been there before perhaps—motoring or something, however you’ll have to
go there to-day instead of—me!  You’re not a fool, Allan, you’ve got
eyes in your head—After all, the place is to be for you when you are
married to her Ladyship, and it’s right you should be the one to see it,
so go down there, boy, see the place, size it up and find out the price.
Use your own judgment because you’ve got it to use.  I’ll leave it in
your hands.  I’ll make out a cheque for five hundred and sign it and you
can leave it as deposit if you decide to buy.  Only make up your mind,
don’t beat about the bush, remember we’re not the only ones—and if it’s
the right place I don’t want to lose it!"

"But father—had you not better see it yourself, surely to-morrow——?"

"To-morrow won’t do—it must be done to-day—I know, worse luck, you’re
not a good hand at making a bargain, but I’ve got to make the best of
that!  Do your best, if you like the place, if you think it’s cheap, if
there are possibilities in it—why, Allan, boy, snap it up—don’t let
anyone get ahead of you!  Here’s the cheque."  Sir Josiah tore a cheque
out and made it out for five hundred pounds and signed it "Josiah
Homewood."

"And now you’d better look out a train to this place, this Little
Stretton——" again he seemed to linger over the name.  "Unless, of
course," he added, "you’ll go by the car?"

"I’ll go by train——" Allan said.  In the train he could read his beloved
books.  The car allowed no such relaxation.  "I’ll go by train!" he
said.




                              *CHAPTER IV*

                     *HOW ALLAN CAME TO THE GARDEN*


For May it was a very hot day, almost an unnaturally hot day.  It was a
day that might well have belonged to August.

Allan stepped it from the station, a sign post told him that Little
Stretton was yet a mile to go.  He took off his hat and henceforth
carried it in his hand.  He had read his book all the way down in the
train and his mind was still lingering on it, on the book rather than on
realities. So when he came to where stood an old, a very, very ancient
oak, the mere relic of a once noble tree, he looked at it vaguely, and
then looked beyond for the little red tiled barn that some fancy told
him would be there.  And it was there, but it was a very old barn and
the roof had fallen in, in places and lichen was growing on the broken
tiles.

Allan stared at it, he felt faintly surprised.

"Strange!" he said aloud.  "Strange—why——"

He had an idea that the barn was not so old, why it ought to have been
almost a new barn, had he not seen——

"Good Heavens!" he said aloud.  "I must be dreaming or something——"
Then he walked on rapidly.  He breasted a hill and descended on the far
side, following the twisting, turning road between the hedgerows all
sweet with May flowers, and so came at last to a little village of red
houses roofed with slabs of old Sussex stone, all green and yellow with
lichen, yellow mostly.

Allan stood still and looked at the village that lay almost at his feet.

"I suppose," he said slowly.  "I suppose we must, have motored through
here once!"

He seemed to know it all so well, the sleepy sloping street with the
quaintly irregular houses, the little shops with curved bow windows
thrusting out on to the pavement, and the low pitched doorways one
gained by climbing perhaps three or more worn stone steps.  The Inn, the
sign of which swung from a beam that spanned the street.  Yes surely he
had seen it all before—on some motoring trip perhaps—and yet—and yet in
a way it was strangely different, as the barn had differed from his
expectations.  For a time with a queer puzzled sensation, he stood, and
then he came back to realities.  He had journeyed here to see some house
agent—what was his name?

Dalabey! yes Dalabey!

"Boy," he called to a dusty white haired urchin playing with a dog.
"Boy, which is Mr. Dalabey’s, the house agent?"

The boy pointed.  "That be Dalabey’s up they steps be Dalabey’s shop."

So Allan went up the steps and found himself in the office of Dalabey
and Son.

Mr. Dalabey, a stout, red haired man, wearing no coat, was talking with
a visitor, he looked at Allan.

"My father had a letter about a house, an old house, he asked me——"

"Ah yes, to be sure, the house as Mr. Van Norden be after, well there be
nothing settled as yet, sir," Mr. Dalabey said as he reached up for a
huge key.

"I’ll be ten minutes about," he said, "if you’ll wait here while I get
finished with this gentleman!"

"Couldn’t I go on?  If you direct me I might find it."

"Aye, and I’ll follow.  Well you can’t make any mistake, ’tis just
beyond the village, you’ll see a high red wall, a very old wall it be,
follow the wall for maybe a quarter of a mile, then you will come to the
gates, well this key don’t fit the gates, you’ll hev to go a bit further
till you come to a green door.  This key is the key of the door, if
you’ll go on I’ll get my bicycle and follow you and maybe I’ll catch you
up before you get there."

"Thanks!" Allan said, he took the key, a ponderous thing and smiled at
it for its bigness and clumsiness.

Children in the roadway stared at the young man swinging the ponderous
key in his hand, women standing in their doorways nodded to one another.

They knew the key.  "Very like he be the rich American who be coming to
buy the Manor," they said.

Allan walked on.  Yes, certainly they must have motored through this
village, he remembered it vaguely, and yet it seemed to him always a
little changed.  Now was there not, should there not be a Cross standing
here where the road widened, in front of the Inn.

He paused and stared about him.  There was no Cross, no suggestion of
one.

An old man, typically Sussex, grey bearded and bent double by age, clad
in a smock and an ancient tall hat, stared at him with rheumy eyes.

"Grandfather," said Allan, "wasn’t there a cross here once?"

"Aye, a cross there were and a very fine cross it was tu," said the old
man.  "I du remember her, when I were a lad, seventy years ago; I du
remember that Cross, seventy years ago knocked down her were in broad
daylight, her were and I see it done, I did wi’ my two eyes, see it
done, I did!"  He nodded his hoary head.  "’Twere this a way, the doing
of it.  Village Street be wunnerful steep it be, they was bringing up
two great el’ums on a lurry, three strappin’ hosses they were a-pulling
of the lurry up the hill, then down all on a sudden goes one o’ the
hosses, and down goes another.  T’other hoss rares up her did and crack
goes the chain, lurry wi’ they two great el’ums goes running back’ard
down the bill it did.  I say it, as seen it done seventy years ago,
seventy and one to be parfectly correct, and bash goes they el’um trunks
into the Cross.  Bash goes the Cross, down it falls in little pieces.  I
picked up a piece, I du remember, the bit I’ve got to this day, it
stands on the chimbley shelf, it du.  Seventy and one years ago, and me
a lad of turned twelve a fine strapping lad tu."

Allan slipped a coin into the old man’s willing palm.

Strange he should have thought that a Cross stood there. And yet, why
strange?  He had seen some other village street like this one, with a
Cross set up in it.  One often saw Crosses set up in old world villages.

So he went on, swinging the great key in his hand and presently he came
to the end of the village, where was the beginning of the old brick
wall, a very high brick wall it was, fully ten feet, and the bricks were
of that rare rose tint, the like of which have never been made since
Anne was Queen, but these seemed to go back far before the time of Anne
and here and there the wall was somewhat broken. But nature had done her
best to make good the gaps, filling them up with lichen and moss of
brilliant green and vivid yellow, a feast of colour for eyes tired of
London’s sombre streets.

And he knew, because Mr. Dalabey had told him, that a quarter of a mile
on, he would come to the gates, wide gates of iron hung on stone pillars
and on each stone pillar was set the head of a deer, also carved in
stone.

And presently he came to the gates, and the pillars stood all moss
covered, surmounted, as he knew they would be, by the sculptured heads
of deer; but one had lost its antlers, and the other had its muzzle
broken short off.

Allan looked up at them and smiled, and then his smile vanished.  Mr.
Dalabey had not told him of the deers’ heads, and yet—they were here.
Curious! he thought.

It was as though he had come on a place that he had visited in a dream,
he could not shake off the feeling of familiarity, the knowledge, the
certainty that attended his every step.  He knew that the green door
would be arched at the top and that it would be studded with great nails
and bound with iron in many places.

He knew that it would be and it was!  He fitted the heavy key in the
lock and it turned at last with much rasping and complaining.

The door gave on a paved yard and in the crevices of the great flat
topped cobbles grew weeds of all kind that bloomed and flourished
untouched.

And now the feeling of familiarity, the knowledge of the place had grown
on him, so that he wondered at it no longer.  He accepted it, because it
was right, because—he refused to consider it at all.  He knew!

To the left stood the kitchen part of the house, he glanced towards it,
but turned to the right and picked his way across the weed grown yard
and came to a small wicket gate, between two tumble down buildings.  The
wicket gate had fallen into rottenness and lay all in fragments on the
ground, but through the opening that was left he passed and found
himself in the wild tangle of the great garden.

Through the garden he walked, a man waking, yet in a strange dream.  He
followed the flagged pathway past the old sundial that had lost its
gnomon, beyond the wild yew hedge and so to the lake, from which rose
the slim figure of a stone girl and at her he stared long.

He suddenly realised that, he had come here to see her, he had come on
purpose, just to see this stone figure of a girl.  He would have been
disappointed, almost shocked, if she had not been here—and she was
here—but the pitcher on her shoulder was empty and the upflung water
flashed no longer in the sunlight.

Slowly, very slowly, he turned away, he went back through the rose
garden with bowed head, he came to the great circle of stone in the
midst of which was set the old sundial, and on a stone seat, warmed by
the sun, he sat down.

"Strange!" he said.  He said it aloud.  "Strange!" he repeated.  "I seem
to know——"  He stretched his arm out and laid it on the back of the old
stone seat, and sat there staring at the moss grown sundial
pedestal—staring till it seemed to waver, to become all uncertain before
his sight.

And then—then he lifted his head and looked about him.

He saw a garden all glowing with flowers, and trim green lawns, the
weeds, the desolation and the ruin of centuries had passed as with a
breath.  The garden was all glowing and blowing as perhaps it had two
hundred years ago, and then slowly he turned his head and looked towards
the house and saw that doors and windows stood open and that curtains
swung from the casements lazily in the breeze.  And as he watched a door
opened and into the sunshine stepped, somewhat timidly he thought, a
little maid, a trim, slim bodied little maid.  She wore a flowered
cotton gown, short at the ankles and low in the neck, and how the sun
seemed to kiss it!  And the little face above, a rarely sweet little
face, purely oval with ripe red lips and the bluest eyes in the world.
So she came hurrying along the wide stone pathway to him, a smile on her
red lips and the copper red of her hair all flaming in the sunlight
under the dainty mob cap.

But ere she reached him, she stood still suddenly and looked at him with
a pretty frown that was yet half a smile on her little face.

"Allan!" she said.  "Allan, be you still angry wi’ your Betty now, dear?
Will ’ee take back the words ’ee did speak in your anger, Allan?  For
you should know I would not have let a gawky rogue like Tim Burnand buss
me, Allan, if I could ’a helped it.  Before I could tell what he was at,
he did steal a kiss, and I have rubbed my poor face sore to rub it all
away for—for I want no kisses but thine Allan, my—my dear!"

Her voice was very soft and sweet and the tears gathered in her
wonderful blue eyes, tears that seemed to wring his heart.

"I—I was overharsh and rough wi’ thee, my Betty," he said.  "I know
’twas not your fault, but all the fault of Tim Burnand whose bones I’ll
break for him, may——"

"Nay—swear not!" she said.  "Oh Allan, I love thee for thy jealousy, I
love thee for it!"  Her eyes were laughing and joyous now and her face
was all smiles and dimples and so she came to him, daintily, and put her
two small hands, little brown hands in queer black lace mittens, on his
shoulders and rising on her toes, she kissed him on the eyes.

"And never, never more will ’ee be angry and jealous of your Betty?" she
said.

"Never again!" he said.  "But because I do love thee so, my maid I could
not bear to think that other lips——"

"Have never touched mine, ’twas but my cheek he bussed, and I boxed his
ears soundly for him—but hush—I hear my lady calling to me—Listen!
Betty!  Betty! yes—I did but steal away, seeing you here—just to tell
thee——"  She paused for breath for a moment "to tell thee, my Allan, how
I do love thee!  Hark, my lady is calling again!"

"Blow me; sir, if I didn’t think you’d been and lost yourself or fell
down the old well, which I did ought to have reminded you about, or
something!" said a voice.

Allan started up, stared up into the round red and over-heated face of
Mr. Dalabey.  He looked about him with dazed eyes.  Weeds were rioting
over the old garden, the grass stood knee high on the lawns, dandelions
thrust their golden heads between the paving stones at his feet.  He
stared at the house and saw it all, sombre and lifeless, a house of the
dead.  Its windows were broken, desolation and ruin were upon it, and
then he looked back at the jolly red face of Mr. Dalabey.

"Fell asleep!" Mr. Dalabey said.  "And been dreaming!" he added.

"Yes—dreaming——" Allan said quietly.  "Dreaming!"




                              *CHAPTER V*

                 *IN WHICH ALLAN BUYS THE MANOR HOUSE*


In and out and up and down Mr. Dalabey led Allan over the old house.
They pried into dark and dusty corners, they ascended narrow and rickety
stairs.  It was a wonderful, rambling old place, the years had set their
mark on it.  The old oaken floors, worn and roughened by a thousand
feet, took on many a queer pitch; from the pine panelling the paint had
come away in great flakes; scarce a window but had its broken pane and
through the pane some impertinent creeper thrust into the room and
nodded to them familiarly.

Allan followed the stout, red faced, good humoured man up and down the
stairs and in and out the old rooms.  A great talker was Mr. Dalabey, a
born seller of houses.

"This here be the banquetting hall, a very noble room, sir, very noble,
fit for the aristocracy, her be, and a good many of the aristocracy it
hev seen, sir, and many a bottle hev been drunk here, sir, I’ll wager!
Look at the ceiling, sir, some of the finest old plaster work to be met
with in the kingdom, wonderful fine plaster work it be, as many gents as
be connoisseurs, hev remarked.  Greatly took with the plaster work was
Mr. Van Norden."

"Yes," Allan said, and "Yes!"  For his thoughts were far away, he looked
through the broken and dusty windows into the garden with its weeds and
its broken pathways and overgrown flower beds, and a strange sense of
loss came to him. He felt a little ache at his heart, for the girl who
had come to him in that same strange dream and had kissed his eyes and
called him "her dear."

How real she had been.  He marvelled now at the feeling that had been
his at the time, that she was a very part of his life.  How sweet and
musical her voice, how warm and soft the touch of her red lips and yet
it had only been a dream!

"This be one o’ the guest rooms and you’ll notice the wig cupboard,
sir," said Mr. Dalabey; "very remarkable this wig cupboard, you’ll see
’em in most of the bedrooms where the quality of them days kep’ their
wigs.  Much took Mr. Van Norden was with they wig cupboards!"

"Yes!" said Allan, and all the time his thoughts were with the maiden of
the garden, she who had kissed his eyes and had vanished as she had
come, leaving him with this strange sense of loneliness and longing and
hunger, and above all that deep, deep sense of loss.

"And now I think we’ve pretty well done it, sir, there’s the stables,
rare fine stables they was once.  Seldom less than twenty hosses did
they keep in them stables in the Elmacott’s days——"

"Whose days?"

"Elmacott, that were the name o’ the folk, dead and gone they be now—Sir
Nathaniel were the last, a rare wild devil of a man according to
history, my old grandfather, a wonderful man he were, would tell me many
a story of Sir Nat, as they called him, when I were a boy.  Stories my
old granddad had from his father before him—well sir," Mr. Dalabey
paused, "well, sir, there it be, I’ve shewn you all there is to see,
hiding nothing, a rare lot of money’ll be wanted to be spent on it, sir,
and there be no disguising the fact, nor have I attempted to disguise
it, as you’ll bear witness, sir, but there be this Mr. Van Norden keen
set on the place and likely for to make up his mind any moment,
considering of it he is at this very time, I daresay!"

"Who are the owners?" Allan asked.

"A gentleman of the name of Stimpson be the owner, a distant relative of
the Elmacotts by marriage.  I do understand, out in Canada he be, born
and bred there and never clapped eyes on the place, nor ever likely to.
I’ve got to get the best price I can for the place, seeing he be my
client, and the price I’ve asked Mr. Van Norden——"  Dalabey paused.  He
looked at Allan, he had no great opinion of Allan.  "Queer and dreamy
like," Mr. Dalabey thought, "not businesslike, one of they sort who goes
through the world mooning——"

"And the price?" Allan asked.

"Er—thirty thousand pounds," said Dalabey.

"It’s a great deal of money," Allan said, he said it more for the sake
of saying something than for any other reason. Had Dalabey said fifty
thousand pounds, he would probably have said the same thing.

"Open to an offer I be, but the offer’s got to come quick and soon, or
Mr. Van Norden——"

"I know, I know!"  Allan stood and stared out over the garden.  He
wondered at its strange fascination for him. Of course it had only been
a dream, yet a dream so strangely real, so clear cut, so logical and
why—why should it have come to him here in this old garden—why?

Mr. Dalabey was staring at him.

"Gone to sleep he hev seemingly."

"Thirty thousand, sir, and that be no more than forty pounds an acre for
good Sussex land by my reckoning, to say nothing of the old house and
the buildings and a dozen cottages in the village wi’ the alehouse, the
Elmacott Arms."

"Yes, yes!" Allan said.  "Yes!  I am acting for my father.  I have his
permission to—to settle—the house will cost a great deal to repair, a
great deal!"

"I haven’t disguised nothing from you and no one can say——"

"I will offer you twenty-five thousand on my father’s behalf!"

"Oh sir, oh consider!  A fine house her be and wunnerful good land the
best in all Sussex and twenty-five thousand b’ain’t no more than about
thirty pounds an acre, a terribul little money that, sir, for land so
good and the historical association and all!"

"Twenty-seven!" Allan said briefly.

"There be Mr. Van Norden a considering of it at this very moment——"

Allan hated bargaining, hated money.  His life had been spent in an
atmosphere of money.  He knew that above and before all he wanted to be
rid of this man, he wanted to go back to the old garden and sit there on
the sun warmed stone seat and see if his dream would not come back to
him.

"Twenty-eight thousand, then, and no more, I have done, take it or leave
it!"

"You’ll like to see the cottages and the Inn, a wunnerful old Inn her be
with historical interest and——"

"No!" said Allan.  "No! do you take my offer, yes or no? Tell me now!"

Mr. Balabey stroked his chin.  He did not like to do business in this
way.  True it was profitable business, for Mr. Van Norden was
considering the offer at twenty-five thousand.

"Very well, sir, done and done!" said Mr. Dalabey. "Done with you, sir,
and I congratulate you on a rare bargain, I do, sir!"  He held out his
large and moist hand.

Allan took it.

"Now," he said, "I will ask you to do me a favour!  I have purchased the
place at twenty-eight thousand pounds. I have a cheque for five hundred
pounds as deposit in my pocket, if I had a pen——"

"I’ve got a fountain pen with me, sir," said Dalabey, "always carry one
I du!"

"Very well then, we will sit down here—and if you will lend me your
pen——?"

They sat down on the old stone seat and Allan filled in the cheque.

"Make it payable to me," Dalabey said.  "Thomas J. Dalabey," which Allan
did.

"And now," Allan said, "I’d like to look about the old place alone, take
the cheque and I will call at your office on my way back, you can then
give me the receipt."

"To be sure and so I will, and once more congratulate you I do, and if
so be you’ll honour me, sir, I’ll have a cup of tea ready and waiting
for you when you come back!"

"Thank you!" Allan said.  "And now, one thing more, how is the old place
called, Mr. Dalabey?"

"Why ’tis Homewood Manor, I thought as I mentioned the name in my
letter——"

"No, you did not, though I remember someone else spoke of it to
me—Homewood Manor, that is strange!"

"In the Parish of Homewood it be," said Dalabey, "just within, and the
next Parish be Little Stretton, but as this——"

"I understand, I quite understand, but all the same it is curious!"

"I don’t see how," said Mr. Dalabey, "curious it ’ud be if it were
called anything else, sir!"

"Look at the cheque, at the signature!" Allan said.

Mr. Dalabey looked, he uttered an exclamation as he spelled out Josiah
Homewood’s crabbed handwriting.

"Very odd it be, I swear!" he said.  "And very right and proper too,
come to that, nothing could be better!  Mr. Homewood of Homewood Manor,
it sounds good, sir!  And now I’ll get back and a cup o’ tea’ll be ready
for you in say an hour’s time——"

"Say two——" Allan said, "and thank you!"

So Dalabey hurried off to spread the news through Little Stretton.
Beaming with joy he was, as he cycled down the road.

"Ah, Mrs. Hanson, there you be, Ma’am!" he shouted, slowing down by the
little cottage.  "News I’ve got for ’ee and for that little gel o’
thine!"

"News—hev the American——"

"No, ma’am, he hasn’t!  Why, my maid, what be the matter wi’ ’ee?"
Dalabey added, for he had caught sight of Betty’s blooming face in the
window.

And a pretty picture the girl made, her sweet face framed in the
clinging greenery and the roses on the point of breaking into bloom, but
the sweetest rose of all was there in the window.

"Fair joyous you do look," said Dalabey, "joyous be the word, all
bubbling over wi’ delight—and yet—you cannot have heard the news of the
selling yet?"

"The—the selling—Mr. Dalabey, not—not the selling of—my—of—oh you
said—the American hasn’t bought——"

"Homewood Manor be sold, sold by I, this very day, Mrs. Hanson, sold by
I within the hour!"  He rubbed his big red hands, "and a fair price, yes
I’ll admit, a fair price as things go—but sold it be, sold and done for,
but not to the American gentleman—Why, Mrs. Hanson, what be the matter
wi’ that gel o’ thine?"

For Betty had gone white, white as death, and the joy had gone out of
her face and her little red lips dragged down pitifully and into her
blue eyes had come tears, tears which all unnoticed trickled down her
pale cheeks.

"Fair daft that maid be about that old garden!" said Mrs. Hanson.  "And
glad I be, Mr. Dalabey, as the place be sold, and put to orders, I hope
it’ll be, so this maid of mine will go no more roamin’ where her haven’t
no business to be!"

"Ah yes, to be sure, to be sure!" Mr. Dalabey said.  "To be sure," he
added, "well! sold it be and, strangest of all, to a young gentleman,
leastways his father, which be all the same, of the name of Homewood.
There, what do ’ee think of that now?  Homewood Manor sold to a
Homewood, curious, eh?  Well, well, I must be getting along!"

"Sold it be and a dratted good job too!" Mrs. Hanson said.

Betty crept away to her attic room under the thatched roof.  Sold!  Her
garden sold and for ever now barred against her!  No more rambles in the
enchanted garden by moonlight, no more dreams in which she peopled the
old garden with all those strange folk, of whom she had seen visions.
And He—she would never see Him more, bending over the flower beds at his
work.  He whose face she had hardly seen, and yet somehow she knew that
He meant so much to her.  So the little maid crept to her room with
bursting heart.

"Sold it be, sold it be," she whispered to herself.




                              *CHAPTER VI*

                     *"I HATE HIM—HATE HIM I DU!"*


Allan sat on the old stone seat in the warm sunshine. He watched the
rioting weeds, the broken sundial, the long pathway of flagged stone
leading to the grim desolate house.

He closed his eyes and opened them again, hoping to see that vision he
had seen, but it came to him no more. No! there were only the weeds and
the decay and the green moss.

So he sat there for a full hour and tried to force that which would not
come.  He could see her, in fancy, tripping down the flagged path to
him, with love and tenderness in her blue eyes, that dainty little
figure with the head of flaming gold and the white neck.  But it was a
vision that could not be forced.

So presently, disheartened and hopeless, he rose and went to the lake
and stared hard at the broken stone nymph and watched the great idle
fish and the sense of loss grew stronger and yet stronger on him.

Who was she who had come out of the past to kiss his eyes and to tell
him that she loved him?  Why should such dreams come to him?  He had
never dreamed in all his life before, but she had been so real, even to
the little black lace mittens, black lace mittens such he had never seen
on a girl’s hands before.  Yet he had dreamed of her and the sweet voice
of her and the sweet Sussex speech and strangely enough, had he not
answered her in that same speech?  He remembered it now with a sudden
start of surprise.

Yes, he with Eton and Oxford behind him, had spoken as she had spoken,
as the old man who had told him about the broken Cross in Little
Stretton had spoken.

He turned away, he made his way back through the garden. He wondered at
his seeming previous knowledge of it now, for that knowledge was gone,
it took him some time to find the gap where the broken wicket gate had
been, but he found it and went, blundering and uncertain, across the
grass grown stable yard.

He locked the battered green door behind him and thrust the great key
into his coat pocket and went along the road, and on the way to the
village he passed a little thatched roofed cottage and under that
thatched roof a maid was lying on her little bed, face downward, weeping
her heart out for the thing that he had done, yet he could not know
that.  How could he?  He saw an old dame standing by the little gate, an
upright severe old dame, with white hair and a wrinkled face, and she
bobbed him a country curtsey.

To her Allan lifted his hat politely.

"A beautiful day!" he said.

"And that it be, a wunnerful fine day and hot like for May her be, sir
and might—might I make bold——" she hesitated.

Allan stopped and looked at her with kindly eyes.

"You were going to ask me something?"

"Cur-us I be, which be a besetting sin!" she admitted. "But Mr. Dalabey
he hev passed by just now when my maid and I—my granddarter her be, were
here and he told we as he hev sold the old Manor House and I were
thinking, sir, seeing the key was sticking out, of your pocket——"

Allan laughed.  "Yes," he said, "you are right, I have bought it, for my
father, that is——"

"A wunnerful fine place it be!" she said.

"And we shall be near neighbours, eh?"

Again she dropped a curtsey.

"’Tisn’t for the like of we to be a neighbour to the like of gentry,"
she added, "but if any little thing I can du——"

"Be sure I will come and ask you Mrs.——"

"Hanson be my name, sir, as anyone can tell ’ee.  Old this cottage be,
but there never yet lived in it one whose name was not Hanson.  ’Twere
Hansons lived here in the days when the Elmacotts lived at the Manor,
Hansons hev been servants there, always served the Elmacotts, they did,
and if, sir, there be any little thing that we can du——"

"You are very good!" Allan said.

"A dear talkative old soul," he thought; he held out a friendly hand to
her and she blushed at the honour and bobbed him a dozen curtseys as he
went his way.

"Betty, Betty, my maid, Betty, come ’ee here, Betty, where be ’ee?  Come
here!" cried Mrs. Hanson, when Allan had gone.

"Here I be, Grandmother!"  Betty came, a pale sorrowful faced little
maiden.

"And crying ’ee’ve been, shame on ’ee my maid for to cry because that
dirty old place hev been sold and who do ’ee think I have been talkin’
wi’?  Why bless ’ee wi’ the young gentleman as hev bought her and a
proper young gentleman he be, not above shaking hands wi’ an old body
like me and lifting of his hat to I, for all the world like I were a
fine lady!  Bless ’ee my maid, a fine, upstanding, smart, young
gentleman he be, one of the quality too, aye of the quality, my maid,
for mark ’ee the real quality are never above shaking hands wi’ a poor
body and talking pleasant to the likes o’ we!  ’Tis they upstarts and
nobodys as looks down on poor folks!  When ’ee sees him Betty, ’ee’ll——"

"I never want to see him, never!" the girl cried, "Never, never, I hope
I never shall see him!"

"Bless me what nonsense are ’ee talking now?"

"I never want to see him, for—for if I du, I shall hate him, hate him,
aye, I hate him now, I du—hate him terribul bad, I du——"

"For shame and to your room wi’ ’ee till you du come to your senses—I be
ashamed o’ you, Betty Hanson, that I be! Hate him indeed, hate him, a
fine upstanding——"

"I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!" Betty said, and then once again,
with defiance and anger and sorrow too in her blue eyes, "I hate him, I
du, Grandmother!"

Mrs. Hanson lifted a rigid arm, she pointed at the door.

"To your room wi’ ’ee, Betty Hanson," she said, "I be ashamed of ’ee, I
be, to your room, you perilous bad maid!"




                             *CHAPTER VII*

                  *"HOW WONDERFUL—THE WAY OF THINGS"*


"Bless my soul!" Sir Josiah said, "Bless my soul!"  He said it several
times, there was a look of astonishment on his red round face, "Bless my
soul, sir!"

He walked up and down the large and imposing room, his hands behind his
back.

"And how about the drains, did you make any enquiry about the drains?

"No!" said Allan.

"No, you wouldn’t, nor about the water!  Is water laid on, eh, answer me
that?"

"I—I don’t know, father, I am afraid I—I was a bad representative!"

"It’s enough to worry a man’s head off," cried his father. "Here do I go
trusting you to go and—and—not a thing do you know!  Hand over my cheque
for five hundred pounds like it was a bagatelle as the saying is.  You
don’t know anythin’ about the title deeds, nothing about the drains,
nothing about the water, while you admit the state of repair of the
house is somethin’ disgraceful!"

"Father, I wish you had gone yourself, I told you——"

"Yes, I know, you told me I know, you did—told me you weren’t no good at
bargaining, and I’m afraid you were right!  Here you go and—and—and——"
Sir Josiah paused, a little breathlessly.

"Well, what’s the place like?  Just try my lad and pull yourself
together and describe it!"

"Homewood Manor is——"

"What Manor?"

"Homewood—it bears the same name as we do, father!"

Sir Josiah sat down, he sat down abruptly and stared wide eyed at his
son.

"Homewood——" he gasped, "Little Stretton—Homewood Manor—well, well if
this don’t beat anything—anything I’ve ever heard—Homewood——"

"It is an odd coincidence," said Allan.

"Odd coincidence, it’s more—it’s more.  It is the very hand of Fate,
that’s what it is, the hand of Fate, you don’t understand of course you
don’t——" he paused.  "Allan, did you ever hear the name Pringle?"

"Pringle?" asked Allan, puzzled, "of course I have heard it, but——"

"Heard it, just heard it—eh?  That’s all, just heard it, mentioned and
nothing more, eh?"

"It’s a name I have heard, father, that’s all!"

"And don’t signify anything to you, nothing particular, out of the way,
eh?"

"Nothing, father!"

"Bless me, bless me, you never heard me speak of Allan Pringle of The
Green Gate Inn in Aldgate?"

Allan shook his head.

"A wonderful man!" said Sir Josiah.  "Allan, his name was, the same as
yours and Allan was his father before him and his father before him, yes
Allans all along the line, till they came to me, only me they called
Josiah, Josiah after Josiah Rodwell, my mother’s father, hoping to get a
bit out of the old man, which they never did, bless me! and never heard
of Allan Pringle, you haven’t?

"Queer too," Josiah rambled on, "that he should be the kind of man he
was, they said of him as he could squeeze gold out of a stone and I
b’lieve he could.  Coming from the country, a farm hand he was and his
father a gardener and his father’s father a gardener, grubbing about in
the earth, Allan, and yet Allan Pringle came to London, a farmer’s boy
and makes a little fortune!"

"But who was he?"

"My grandfather, Allan Pringle was.  He laid the foundation of our
fortune!  My father was keen and clever, not up to the old man though.
Still he did not do so badly, he left me forty thousand when he died,
that’s what I’ve been building on, Allan, and now—now—maybe it’s nearer
twenty times forty thousand, my boy!  That comes of having a head on
you—a head which you haven’t got and never will have!"

"Then your name is—is Pringle?"

"Was!" said Sir Josiah.  "It was my father who took the name of Homewood
when he began to get on a bit and wanted to sink the aleshop, called
himself Homewood after the place where his father was born and where all
the family came from——"

"And it is this very place that to-day——?"

Sir Josiah nodded.  "The very place!" he said.  "Queer, isn’t it, Allan?
Very queer!  When I heard the name Little Stretton, it set me thinking,
but even then I didn’t quite catch on.  But now, Homewood Manor, why
bless me, boy—my grandfather, Allan Pringle’s mother, was maid in that
very house and my great grandfather, Allan Pringle he was, Allan, the
same as you, he and she was sweethearting, her the lady’s maid, he the
under gardener, and got married, they did.  A wonderful pretty young
woman, so I’ve heard and a sad story if what one hears is true, hadn’t
been married a year when she died when the boy was born, him as
afterwards kept the Green Gate Inn in Aldgate.  And now, now after all
these years, Allan, here am I, buying the very house, the very house, my
boy, where my great-grandfather was under gardener and my
great-grandmother was lady’s maid. Wonderful, isn’t it?  Wonderful the
way of things, Allan?"

"Wonderful!" Allan said dreamily.  "Very wonderful—the way of
things—Father——"  He turned suddenly on Sir Josiah, "This—this marriage
of mine——"

"Well, what about it?"

"It—it must go on—there’s no way——"

Sir Josiah stared, his round face grew redder, it turned purple.  "Way,"
he shouted, "to what?  Are you going to kick against it now?  Are you
going to, to turn everything down now?  But—but you can’t do it—you
can’t do it!  If you do I’ll never forgive you, never to my dying day
and after and then—think of her ladyship—Lady Kathleen, do you mean you
want to back out of it, Allan, now?"

Allan did not answer, he stared out of the window, he did not see the
gloomy London Square, he saw a garden, sweet with flowers and down the
paved pathway a little maid with sunkissed hair and eyes as blue as the
Heavens came tripping towards him.

"Allan, Allan," she said, "my dear, I love you so!"

"Allan you—you can’t do it!"  Sir Josiah’s old voice trembled, he came
and put a hand on Allan’s shoulder.  "It—it isn’t as if it was only a
promise to me, to me now, it’s a promise to her, you can’t shame and
disgrace her—Lady Kathleen—you can’t—by—by Heaven you can’t!  Allan, it
isn’t a thing that even I’d do, much less a gentleman like you!"

"I understand, father, I understand that, it—it must go on, I shall not
back out of it as you say—it shall go on!"

"Ah!" Sir Josiah said, "ah, a lady, an Earl’s daughter, Lady Kathleen
Homewood of Homewood Manor, that sounds good, Allan boy, eh?  Sounds
good, don’t it?  I can hear myself saying it at the Club—my
daughter-in-law, Lady Kathleen Homewood!  No, you can’t back out of it
now, Allan, I’d never forgive you if you did—Besides, why should you?
Last night, you weren’t against it, Allan——"

"Last night," Allan said, "last night——" he paused. How far away seemed
last night!  Sir Josiah was watching him anxiously and Allan smiled.

"Yes, I understand, it must go on now, but—last night—was last night!"




                             *CHAPTER VIII*

                     *"KATHLEEN—DO YOU REMEMBER?"*


My lady sat with her chin in her hand, her dressing gown had slipped
over the polished loveliness of her white shoulders, on which the soft
dark brown of her hair fell in heavy glistening curls.

She had sat here for many minutes, her thoughts away in the past.  Now
she stirred, she sighed a little, she roused herself and laughed
wearily, then reached out a white hand and took a ring from the dressing
table.  A magnificent ring, one of immense value, a ring worthy of her
and of the man who had put it on her finger, yet she doubted if Allan
had bought it.  It looked in its ostentatious magnificence more like his
father, somehow, and she shivered suddenly and cast the ring aside.  And
then laughed again a queer, uncertain, trembling little laugh that might
have sounded naturally enough from the lips of a maiden of eighteen, but
which came a little oddly from the lips of a woman of twenty-eight.

But to-night her eyes were soft and misty.  To-night memory was there,
tapping at the door of her soul.  "You can’t shut me out," it seemed to
say, "close the door, bolt it, bar it against me, but you can’t shut out
memory, you never, never can!  Fight against me, but I am always here,
always ready to come to you—a chance word, a chance gesture, the scent
of a flower or a perfume, the music of an old song and though you think
you have locked the door against me, see I am back again!  Listen, even
the ticking of the clock—the little clock on your mantel.  Kathleen, do
you remember how the clock ticked that night when you—you and he——"

She threw out her hands suddenly, she rose, a tall, queenly young
figure.

"The past is past, is dead and will remain dead!" she said, then she
crossed the room, and very resolutely she unlocked a drawer, from the
drawer took a little steel japanned box, she unlocked it and from it
took a packet of letters.

Should she read them before she destroyed them?  Should she?  No, and
yet she hesitated—the strength and resolution of a moment ago were gone,
she sat down and toyed with the ribbon that held the papers together.

"Just for the last time," she said, "and then I shall forget them
utterly!"  So she untied the ribbon and took the letters one by one and
read them and the misty look in her eyes seemed to grow more soft and
more gentle and there came a sweet womanly tenderness to her lips that
the world until now had thought a little hard and contemptuous.

Is there not some little packet of old letters jealously hidden away in
your possession?  Haven’t you treasured just one or two?  Open the
packet with reverent fingers, touch them gently, for here are holy
things!

A child’s unformed hand, the unsteady letters yet so neatly and so
carefully made.  Can’t you see him as he makes them? that little chubby
fist, that somehow cannot hold the pen in just the way the master says
it must be held.

Can’t you see the little curly head leaning a little to one side?
Slowly he forms the great round "Os" and fashions the long tailed "Ys"
and does his honest best to keep them fair and square upon the pencilled
line that even now you can see ruled faintly on the old paper?

A child’s letter, a little odd glove, a lock of yellow hair, his hair!
Only these, but they bring back memories, don’t they?  Do you remember—?
Ah, can you forget?  When you held him so tightly in your arms that
day—when he went away for ever.  Such a great strong fellow, so brave,
so confident of the future!  How he looked into that future with clear
shining eyes, eyes that were unafraid.

"Dear, it is all right, I shall come back to you, safe and sound!"  So
he said, and then the waiting, the agony of it, the long suspense, the
silence, the hourly prayers to Almighty God that all might be well with
him—and then—then the news—that came at last!

And all that you have now is the child’s letter—the little glove and the
curl of yellow hair.

And there are other letters, yours, Kathleen.  I wonder did he think
when he wrote them ten long years ago that you would be sitting here
to-night reading them over yet once again?  I wonder, did he think that
those letters of his could bring the tears to your eyes, Kathleen?  Did
he dream when in his eagerness and his passion and his love for you, as
he penned them, never weighing his words, only eager to pour out his
soul to you, that you would keep them and cherish them all these years,
Kathleen, only to destroy them at last?

The unsteady writing fades and is gone.  Your eyes through a mist of
tears see a young, ardent, boyish face, you see eyes that plead and are
filled with a hope that fights valiantly against despair.  Those hastily
scrawled, passionate words are as voices that come to you out of the
past, voices that remind you of how he loved you once—when you were but
eighteen!

There came from the little clock on, the mantel a whirring sound, then
it struck One—Two—She lifted her head for a moment, there was a step on
the stairs outside, her father come home from the Club, he passed her
door.

A mist was before her eyes, the letters were all blurred and indistinct,
the writing—she could no longer see, yet, she knew every word written
there.  How many times had she read them over and over and yet over
again!

And what need to read them when, she knew them so well? Would she ever
forget them?  So many pages, so closely written and yet all that had
been said, could have been said in but three words, three short words,
"I love you!"

So she sat there with the letters all in a heap in her lap, and her head
bowed.

Memory—Memory was monarch of all to-night.  Memory ruled and reigned
supreme.

That night, do you remember, Kathleen?  The night when the raindrops
pattered on the glossy leaves of the magnolia that grew beneath your
window?  Do you remember how he stood there looking up at you, the light
from your lamp on his face?  Do you remember?  And that day, the day you
met him by the end of the lane and put your hand in his and went with
him down the long road?  Do you remember? And then again——

She moved suddenly, she flung her head back, her face was white and
drawn and there was agony in her eyes.  She rose suddenly and thrust the
letters into the empty grate, she bent over them and struck a match and
watched them burn.

And then, when the last was turned to grey and black ash, she went back
to the table and took up the great expensive, glittering ring, the ring
that represented more money than He had ever owned.  And so she turned
it over and over between her white fingers and laughed suddenly.  But
the laughter was not good to hear.




                              *CHAPTER IX*

                   *HOW SIR JOSIAH OPENED HIS PURSE*


Sir Josiah garaged his two thousand guinea car in the old coach house of
"The Fighting Cocks" Inn.  He ordered a sumptuous repast in that antique
house of call, the best and the oldest wines must be brought up from the
cellars for him.

A keen money getter, yet he was at heart a very generous man.  The
respect, the bobbing curtseys, the doffed hats and smiling faces here at
Little Stretton delighted him.  He felt just a thrill of regret that he
had bought the old place for Allan rather than for himself.  He had an
idea that he would make a far better and more imposing Lord of the Manor
than Allan.

In the City of London he was "somebody," but here in little quiet out of
the world Little Stretton, he was "everybody."

Mr. Dalabey fawned on him, he fetched and carried, he was hat in hand.
A cunning, artful fellow Mr. Dalabey, he sized Sir Josiah up, he called
him "Squire," and Sir Josiah glowed with satisfaction.

"A good feller, that Dalabey, a sensible man!" Sir Josiah said to Allan,
"a useful feller!"  It puzzled the Baronet that his son refused to
accompany him on his many trips to Little Stretton and Homewood.  Allan
went once, and on that once he was moody and silent.  While his father
stamped about the house and thrust the blade of his pen-knife into
suspicious woodwork, Allen held aloof, he went out into the old garden
by himself and stood staring at the battered nymph, whose slim stone
figure was reflected in the dark pool.  He sat down, on the old mossy
stone seat in the great circle about the sundial and stared at the weeds
and decay, and somehow the desolation of the place seemed to creep into
his heart.  He was glad to get away.

He loved his father, he knew what a fine old fellow he was at heart,
what noble and generous impulses he was capable of.  But to-day his
father’s loud self-confident voice, his intense self-satisfaction, his
huge importance, Dalabey’s servility all irked him.  He was intensely
glad to leave Homewood behind him and thereafter he always found some
excuse that prevented him from accompanying Sir Josiah on his many
visits to Homewood.

So the Baronet came and gave his orders to Dalabey and to the builders
and decorators and the gardeners, and he spent money like water.

"When I do things, I don’t half do things, eh Dalabey?" Sir Josiah
enquired.

"No, that you don’t, Squire, beg your pardon, Sir Josiah!" said Dalabey.
"Never was such a free and open handed gentleman, sir!"

"Your Mr. Van Norden wouldn’t have done the thing in such style, eh?"
enquired Sir Josiah.

"No, sir, not to be thought of, not for a moment, Squire!"

It meant thousands, yet what did thousands matter to Sir Josiah with his
hundreds of thousands?  He spent and spent, he was extravagant.  Before,
as he said himself, one could say "Jack Robinson," he had an army of
workpeople slaving at the place, and he walked about the house and
garden and saw his men doing his work and drawing his pay, and for the
first time in his life he felt himself a really great man.

And once—once his forebears had delved and dug this very soil that was
now his own!  Once for a few miserable shillings a week had they turned
over the sweet brown earth over which he was lord and master.

In Little Stretton, in Homewood, at Bargate and Bushcorner, and all the
little villages round about, there were smiling faces and curtseys for
him and he was utterly unconscious that one pair of blue eyes grew hard
and bitter and one red lipped mouth curled with contempt and dislike,
that in one soft little breast a usually tender little heart was filled
with hate for him.  For this was the mab who had bought "her" garden,
and who was spoiling it, spoiling it so that it would never, never
again, be as it hud been.  With one wave of his thick hand he had
banished all those dear ghosts of the past who had been her friends,
even more her friends than the honest, red faced rustics who were very
much real flesh and blood, and who regarded her with commiserating eyes
as a "queer" maid.

Oozing satisfaction and gold, Sir Josiah was beloved of everyone save of
this unreasonable little maid, who hated his jolly round red face and
loathed the sound of his loud and domineering voice.

"Get some of them old trees cut down and out of the way, Dalabey, get
all this tangle rooted out of it and get that wall pointed, yes that’s
what it wants—pointing, make it look smart—and Dalabey——"

"Yes, Squire?"

"How about some broken class along the top of the walls? We don’t want
people climbing over and trespassing, Dalabey!"

"Certainly, Squire, broken glass!"

So on moonlight nights broken glass, securely set in cement, glittered
and twinkled like a line of frost along the top of the walls and the
little maid looked at it with bursting heart and a terrible sense of
loss.

"Very sullen, not to say quiet, my granddarter du be getting," said Mrs.
Hanson to Mrs. Colley, her neighbour.

"Maids du get that way," said Mrs. Colley.  "’Tis a home of her own her
be pining for—gone eighteen your maid be, Mrs. Hanson?"

"Gone eighteen Feb’ry last," said Mrs. Hanson.

"Then time it is her was married and in a home of her own, with, things
to look after to keep her hands and her mind full!  Marriage be the
right and proper and nat’ral thing for young maids of her years——"

"And her not wanting for chances," said Mrs. Hanson; "why she hev but to
hold up her finger and there be a dozen ready to run to she!"

Mrs. Colley wagged her head.  "And who be they?" she asked jealously,
for she had a granddaughter of her own who was as yet unappropriated.
"There be Tom Spinner, who du be spending his evenings in the bar of the
Three Ploughs, and Bob Domer, a nice ne’er-do-well he, and young Frank
Peasgood as du make eyes at every maid he sees.  Why I did order him the
door myself when he would have come a-courting my ’Lizbeth."

"And there be Abram Lestwick," said Mrs. Hanson, "who be a fine and
proper young man, reg’lar to Church, one as walks in fear of the Lord
and no beer drinker, nor smoker neither, and a steady worker with a nice
cottage of his own, and standing high with Farmer Patcham.  Aye, there
be Abram Lestwick as would kneel down and kiss the very floor my maid
treads on!"

Mrs. Colley sniffed.  She had had designs on Abram Lestwick herself for
her ’Lizbeth, but Abram had always stolidly passed her inviting door by
and never had be given a second glance to sallow faced, black haired,
shrewish tempered ’Lizbeth Colley.

"Too mysterious he be and too quiet and sullen like, I count him, for a
young man.  I like young men as enjoys life, not such as walks about
with a book in his pocket and scarce ever takes his eyes from the
ground.  Fair and square and open I du like young men to be, Mrs.
Hanson, and as for your Abram Lestwick, I give him to you, I du!"

"Very gen’rous you be, givin’ what bain’t yours to give!" said Mrs.
Hanson with spirit; "and thank you kindly, I be sure, Mrs. Colley!"

So they parted, not the best of friends, but into Mrs. Hanson’s mind had
come an image of Betty settling down with Abram Lestwick as her partner,
and that same evening she opened fire on Betty with:

"A very proper young man be Abram Lestwick, a pity ’tis there bain’t a
few more like he!"

Betty made no answer.

"And very frequent he du pass this cottage, whiles round by Perry’s
medder be the nearest and nighest way for he."

"Well, what about Abram Lestwick, Grandmother?"

"I du believe, Betty, he hev serious intentions," said the old lady,
"and a nice little cottage, well furnished and steady money coming in,
not less than thirty-five shillings every week, as would make a maid
happy and comfortable."

Betty sprang to her feet, her face flushed, her eyes seemed to dart
points of light.

"What do ’ee mean, Grandmother?  Be ’ee goading I to marry Abram
Lestwick?  Do ’ee want to get rid o’ I, is that it?"

"Bless me, my maid, what tantrums ’ee do fly into!" cried the astonished
old body.  "Wherever did ’ee get thy temper from I don’t know, a
peaceful soul thy mother was and thy father being my own son, was as
easy a man as ever trod and here be ’ee, my maid, with a hot temper, of
which I be ashamed, and down on your knees and ask God to forgive ’ee
and make a better maid of ’ee!"

"I shan’t!" said Betty.

Mrs. Hanson rose: "’Tis the first time as ever ’ee said shan’t to me,
Betty Hanson, and after this I be determined and my mind be made
up—marry Abram Lestwick ’ee shall!"

"No, no!"

"Or out through that door do ’ee go, never was there a maid so bad and
so ungrateful as ’ee be.  Go to your room and consider of things, Betty
Hanson, till ’ee be come to a better frame of mind!"




                              *CHAPTER X*

                             *CONFIDENCES*


When Sir Josiah had enquired of Mr. Dalabey how long it would take to
put Homewood into the order in which he desired to see it, Mr. Dalabey
had scratched his head.

"Three months, maybe four, and I shouldn’t he s’prised, seeing how
powerful a lot there du be to du, no I shouldn’t be s’prised, Squire, if
it warn’t five months, aye, all five months I should say it would be!"

"And now, listen to me, Dalabey," said Sir Josiah, "two months I say,
and not a minute longer, two mouths I give you and if the last workman
isn’t out of the house and the last bit of timber and papering and what
not in and done with, the garden straight and all the rest of it, then
I’ll get someone else to do my work for me, Dalabey!"

"Har!" said Dalabey.

"And it’s not money I’m stinting you of, my man, get twenty more men at
work on the place, I don’t care, get as many as you can handle, but two
months is the time I give you and then I clear you all out, lock, stock
and barrel. So get busy, Dalabey my man, if you wish to remain in my
good graces."

Dalabey got busy.  He hired more painters and carpenters and joiners,
more labourers and gardeners, stone masons and brick layers till
Homewood was given over to a small industrial army, of which Dalabey was
the indefatigable general.

There was no slacking at Homewood, Dalabey saw to that, he was here,
there and everywhere.  He himself was doing very well, he had no cause
to complain, he charged his own time very handsomely and there were
other pickings besides.  But he worked, he was honest at least in that,
and he made the others work.  A week did wonders, a fortnight shewed an
amazing change, at the end of the first month Sir Josiah nodded
approval.

"Getting to be something like shipshape, Dalabey," he said.  "And you
got talking to me about five months, here we ain’t been five weeks on
the job and look you——"

"You be right, Squire, and I were wrong," said Dalabey humbly.

In one thing at least Dalabey was to be highly complimented. He was out
to "restore" the old place, to make it look as nearly like it had been
in the time of the Elmacotts as possible.  He introduced no newfangled
ideas and innovations, no modern improvements, except of course the
power plant and the dynamo and the huge collection of storage cells
which were to light the old house with electricity.  Except for the
electric lighting outfit, the old house was to look so like its old own
and original self that had an eighteenth century Elmacott come to life
and walked in through the hall door, he would not have been in the least
surprised by anything he saw.

In the garden Dalabey had a very able lieutenant in old Markabee.

"Restore," said Dalabey, "find out all the lines of the old beds and
borders and replace ’em, clean up the stone work, but not too much.  You
got to remember, Markabee, as time du meller things, an old garden this
be and an old garden it hev got to remain, mark that, Markabee.  It have
got to look like, so be as if a gentleman in powdered wig and silk
stockings and maybe a sword at his side were to come strolling down yon
path, a-taking snuff out of his box and walking with a lady in hoops,
Markabee, and patches and her hair all done high and whitened, as—as you
wouldn’t take, it to be the Fifth of November, Markabee, you get the
hang of my meaning?"

"I du!" said Markabee, and he did his work well.

Inch by inch the old ground was reclaimed, the old yew hedge was clipped
and trimmed, till it began to assume a faint suggestion of its once
fanciful shape, the grass was scythed and weeded and patched and rolled
and mowed.  The weeds were torn up from the crevices in the old pathway
of stone, but Markabee was artist enough to leave many a flower blooming
where perhaps a flower should not have been.

The stonemasons and the rest would have pulled down and replaced the
little stone nymph, but Dalabey ordered them off sternly.

"You leave yon maid alone, her be in keeping wi’ the old place, her be!
Too true some o’ they weeds might be cleared off the pond, Markabee, but
there be a line beyond which no one must go, so let the stone maid
bide!"

So the little nymph was left in her old place, and the sunlight kissed
her white stone shoulders, and dappled the slender little stone body
with splashes of vivid brightness, and, little by little, the old garden
came back to its own again.  The weeds were all gone and the flowers
bloomed, and the June sunshine and the June showers made the grass green
and pleasant to the sight.

Meanwhile Allan stayed away; he was in London and his time was not
unpleasantly employed.

He was too healthy and too young to brood over what after all had been
merely a dream.  It had been wonderfully real and wonderfully tender and
beautiful while it had lasted. He had come back to reality with a sense
of loss and a heartache for the little maid who had looked at him with
such love in her blue eyes, who had put her arms about, his neck and
called him her dear and kissed his eyes.  Very, very real it had been
and for many a day and many a night he could not put it out of his
memory.

But this was to-day and there was all the world about him and he was to
be married to a girl who was beautiful and good, and for whom he felt a
liking and admiration that bordered on real affection.

Most of all he felt sorry for her, why he hardly knew, sometimes when
she did not know that he was looking at her, there was a sadness about
her eyes, a sad pensive little droop to her lips, which was gone all in
a moment if he spoke to her.

There was a very comfortable understanding between them. They were going
to be man and wife very soon, in the natural course of events they would
have to live their lives together. They were beginning that life with
mutual regard, liking and friendship.  Love and passion were entirely
absent.

"I am old, Allan," Kathleen said, "much, much older than you dear, in
every way, not only in years, but——" she paused.

"In suffering and knowledge!" she might have said, but did not.

"You will never be old, I think," he said, he took her hand.  "Kathleen,
we understand one another.  I—I’m a clumsy fellow, clumsy and slow of
speech.  I belong to a different world from yours!"

She shook her head.

"I am not going to apologise for my people, for in my heart I am proud
of them.  They were nothing and nobodies and they have made a place for
themselves in the world—I love my father, honour and respect him, though
I know, I know that you in your heart cannot like him."

"Your father is kind and generous, mine cynical and selfish, I think
that you are richer in this matter than I am, Allan, but——"

It was the first night of a new play.  London was still full, the season
had not waned, the new play was dull and lifeless, the audience was
yawning consumedly.  These two had retired to the back of the box which
Lord Gowerhurst had quitted just now and found more interest in
discussing their own affairs than in following the fortunes of the
characters on the boards.

Kathleen was looking wonderfully, regally beautifully to-night, and
Allan was looking—what he was—an honest, clean living, stalwart young
Englishman, whose dress clothes sat well on his shapely body.  Son of
the people he might be, but he was not a man to feel shame for.

"I do not disguise anything from myself, Allan, nor from you.  I want to
feel that you are my friend, that you are the friend I can come to and
open my heart and speak to plainly as I might to one who is truly and
indeed my friend!"

He pressed her hand by way of answer.

"I’ve wanted this opportunity to speak to you, it has come unexpectedly,
but I shall speak now," she paused.  "Our marriage was only a bargain, a
very sordid bargain, and it—it hurt me at first, it hurt me a great
deal.  I—I hated myself, despised myself for agreeing to it, but since
then, since I have come to know you better and understand you better,
Allan, I think we can make something more of our lives than most others
similarly placed might.  I do not love you, my dear, and I know that you
do not love me—No, don’t speak yet, Allan, let me say what I have to
say! Years ago there was someone—I was scarcely more than a child and I
loved him very, very truly, very deeply.  He was poor and so was I,
marriage was impossible.  He—went, away, I have never seen him since and
I shall never see him again—the night we became engaged—you and I—I
burned his letters.  It hurt a little, Allan, but I did it, dear,
because I want to come to you without a secret on my soul.  I want to
lay my heart bare to you.  I want to look you in the face, to take your
hand, knowing that I am keeping nothing back from you, knowing there is
no secret that might lead to bitterness and anger and perhaps even to
dislike.  Though I feel very, very old sometimes, Allan, I know that I
am young yet; we are both young, there are many years before us in the
natural course of events.  All those years we must spend together, so we
will be truthful and frank and honest with each other and keeping our
own self-respect, dear, we shall keep our respect for one another."

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

"You are a good, sweet, woman, Kathleen!" he said.

She laughed a little, very softly, "And you, Allan, have you nothing to
tell me?"

"Nothing!" he said, yet hesitated and smiled to himself.

"I think there is something——" she said, "was there never even for a
little while, someone!"

"Yes," he said, "a girl who called me her dear, who looked at me with
loving tender blue eyes, who put her arms about my neck and kissed me——"

"Oh Allan, and yet——"

"Wait!" he said, he smiled, he still held her hand.  "To me she was the
most wonderful, the most lovely thing I ever saw, I loved her with all
my heart——"

Kathleen would have drawn her hand away, gently, yet have drawn it away,
but he, smiling down at her, would not let the little hand go.

"But she was not real, she was only a dream maiden.  I never thought to
tell anyone, Kathleen, but will you listen to me?"

"Yes!"

And so, still holding her hand, he told her.

"That was a very wonderful dream, Allan," she said.

"It was a very wonderful dream, and when I looked about me and saw all
the weeds and the desolation, then I felt as if I had lost something—as
if——"

"I understand!" she said.  She was pensive and thoughtful. "What can it
mean?  Why should such a dream be sent to you?  There was some meaning
behind it, something—I wish I knew!"

"It was only a dream, and I am trying to forget it, perhaps I have
nearly forgotten it—the sense of loss is passing away—not quite——"

She looked at him.  "It will never quite pass, I think," she said.
"Allan," she hesitated, "Allan, if—if it ever became real, if someone
else, someone who awakened your heart ever came into your life——"

"I should remember that you are——"

"No, no, listen, I want you to promise me something, to promise me on
your honour, and I know that I can trust that—if such a thing comes to
you, if the real love that may come that comes into nearly every man’s
life does come—Allan, will you tell me, frankly, as one friend to
another, will you tell me, dear?"

"I promise," he said, "and you, Kathleen!"

"It—it came—it can never come again—I was only a child, but he was all
my world.  I have never seen him since and shall never see him again——"

"But if you did—then will you tell me, will you be less frank with me
than I with you?"

"No!" she said.  "I will tell you, I promise, if—but it never, never
will, still, if—if it should—then I promise, always we will be frank
with one another!"

"Always!" he said.

Lord Gowerhurst opened the door of the box and closed it very softly
behind him.

"Ah!" he said, "quite so; you are wise, the play is not the thing—it is
rubbish—I am sorry for the author, I am sorry for the management, but as
usual I am sorry most of all for myself.  You two young people have
something more interesting to discuss.  I don’t blame you!  No, hang me,
I don’t blame you!  Now I’ll confess, I met Lumeyer, an excellent
fellow, one who knows of good things, he put me on to one ’The Stelling
Reef Gold Mine,’ shares bound to go up. I’ve a good mind to have a
flutter.  By the way, Allan, where’s your father?  Our worthy and
excellent Baronet!"

Allan flushed.  He always did when his Lordship spoke of his father.
Unintentional it might be, but there was always a suggestion of a sneer
in the cultivated voice of the man whose pockets were at this moment
supplied with the Baronet’s money.

"My father is at Little Stretton to-day and staying over night, he is
very busy down there at Homewood, sir, our—my—our future home—he takes a
great interest in it and is doing the place up thoroughly!"

"An excellent man, you’re lucky to have such a father!"

"I never lose sight of that fact, my lord!" Allan said gravely.

"Quite right, quite right—would to Heaven——" his lordship said
tragically, "would to Heaven Kathleen could say the same!  She can’t,
she can’t, sir, too deuced honest to tell lies!  She is like her sainted
Mother!  Bless me this drivel doesn’t seem to be shaping for a finish.
Supposing we clear out, eh?  What about a snack of supper at
Poligninis?"

Kathleen rose, "I would prefer to go home," she said, "I am tired
to-night!"  She looked at Allan, her eyes were very bright, very kind
and friendly.

"My dear child," said his lordship, "at Poligninis they have some
eighty-seven Heidsick, which I regard practically as my own property.
It is never offered to casual customers. Polignini is an excellent
fellow who appreciates my taste and keeps it for me," he paused.

"I am tired and I shall go home!" Kathleen said briefly.

"I will see you home!" Allan said.

His lordship shrugged his shoulders.  "So be it, I will go to my lonely
caravanserie and a frugal meal.  I’m an old fellow, an old fellow, I
realise that youth must be served!"  He waved a white hand.  "Youth,
youth!" he said.  "How lightly we hold it when it is ours, how we even
resent it, and how, when it is lost to us forever, do we worship and
yearn and long for it.  Oh the happy, goutless indigestionless days of
our long since fled youth, how precious they were!  And how ill spent!
Give me my lost youth back again, as I think it was Faust, remarked, and
what would I do with it?  I am afraid, my dears, I would do with it
exactly as I did with it before.  We never learn wisdom!  Adieu mes
enfants, bon repos, my Kathleen!  May angels guard thee and bring happy
dreams!  Allan, dear lad, good night, my respectful compliments to the
Baronet, an old man, my dears, and a lonely; I realise that youth is
impatient of garrulous though well intentioned age!  Good night once
again!"  He waved his hand and the box door closed on him, he was gone.

Kathleen sighed a little, she looked at Allan with a queer smile on her
lips.

"Yes, I think Allan," she said, "you are more fortunate than I, and now,
dear, I am tired, I am going home—to bed!"




                              *CHAPTER XI*

            *IN WHICH SIR JOSIAH PROVES HIMSELF A GENTLEMAN*


St. George’s, Hanover Square, had always been at the back of Sir
Josiah’s mind.  His lordship had favoured St. Margaret’s, Westminster.
July was nearly out, London was emptying, if not emptied of people who
really count, which was a great disappointment to Sir Josiah.  But
Homewood was nearly complete, the old gentleman walked through the
transformed and glorious rooms, he looked through sound windows into a
garden that was a delight to see with never a weed to mar its
perfection.  He took Montague Davenham, the celebrated art dealer, down
with him to see the place.

"There you are, you ought to have seen it two months ago, you’d never
believe, a ruin it was!" said Sir Josiah.  "Fairly hopeless it looked,
said I, keep to the old lines!  It’s an old house and you’ve got to make
it look like an old house, but a well kept one, renew and restore!  If
you take away a piece of old moulding that’s gone rotten, put back a new
piece shaped the same, nothing new, that was my instructions, and they
have carried ’em out, and now the rest’s up to you, Mr. Davenham.  I
don’t pretend to know what I don’t know. But I do know this, that if you
were to put say bamboo furniture and Japanese fans and umbrellas in this
here old room with that ceiling and them panelled walls, why they’d be
out of place, you wouldn’t go and make a mistake like that! I’ve got
money, I don’t deny, and this house has been a bit of a hobby with me.
I want to see it looking like it should look, so just take a look round,
make up your mind and put the right stuff into it!"

"My dear sir, if every rich man were as wise as you, the world would
certainly look a great deal more pleasant than it does.  The house will
form an admirable setting for furnishings of the right period.  I
compliment you on the manner in which the work has been done.  I
couldn’t have done it better myself, the garden in particular is
delightful, simply delightful!"

"Markabee here, done it, under Dalabey, a useful man. Dalabey, I don’t
know what I’d done without him, but it’s ready for you now.  Mr.
Davenham, get ahead, get the place fixed up as it should be, the right
furniture, the right decorations.  Keep the price reasonable, I don’t
say stint, nor I don’t say launch out too wildly.  I leave it to you!"

"It is a commission that I accept with a great deal of pleasure.  I
think and hope that I shall please you and at a not too terrible
expenditure!"

"Get ahead with it!" Sir Josiah said.

"Fine feller Davenham!" he said to Allan.  "Knows his business; one
thing you’ll have a house that you needn’t be ashamed to shew to anyone,
a fit setting, my boy, a fit setting for a very sweet and lovely young
lady, bless her heart, and a lucky fellow you are!"

"To have such a father!" Allan said, in all honest sincerity.

"Bless you, bless you, it’s been a pleasure, I don’t know when I’ve put
myself heart and soul into a thing like I’ve done into this!  I’m almost
sorry I’ve put it in Davenham’s hands now, but then he knows what’s
right and I don’t. Now about the wedding, Allan!  His lordship and me
was talking last night.  Something about St. Margaret’s, Westminster, he
said.  ’I beg your pardon, my lord,’ I said. ’St. Georges, Hanover
Square, if you don’t mind.’  I’ve set my heart on it, Allan; I always
had an idea I’d like you to be married at Hanover Square; there’s
something solid about the very name of it, right down respectable!" he
paused.  "Then, for the reception afterwards, I’m for taking the
Whitehall Rooms at——"

"Father, I want to speak to you!" Allan said.  "I—I hate to disappoint
you, but in this matter I think the first person to be considered is
Kathleen!"

"Bless me, and so it is!  What she says goes!"

"She wishes the wedding to be very quiet, very quiet indeed; she wants
only our own selves there, my father and hers and no one besides!"

"Why—why, bless me, bless my soul!  You don’t mean to say——"  Sir
Josiah’s face was almost pitiful.

"She asked me last night, she begged me to side with her and uphold her
wishes and I promised.  I—I know, father, it’s a disappointment to you,
but we can’t go against her, can we?"

"No, no, we can’t go against her, that’s right, right enough, no we
can’t go against her—never think of such a thing, I wouldn’t, but I’d a
thought that a young girl with all her friends would have liked——"

"It cannot be too quiet for her!  And I promised to speak to you about
it.  Her father is very angry, unnecessarily angry, he spoke to her
sharply, almost rudely in my presence last night, in a way——"  Allan
paused, "that my father would not have spoken to a woman!" he added
proudly.

Sir Josiah gripped Allan’s hand.  "You—you’re right, the little girl
shall have her way, tell her; give her my love, Allan, and tell her what
she says goes.  As for his Lordship, his Lordship can—can go to the
Dickens——"

Allan smiled.  "I think his Lordship has been making for that quarter
all his life!"

It was a bitter blow to the Baronet, but he took it like a man.  He had
counted on a gorgeous spectacle, for which he had been very willing to
find the money.  He had counted on portraits of the bride and bridegroom
and bridegroom’s father, to say nothing of the bride’s father in the
fashionable illustrated papers, as well as the daily illustrated press.
He had cut out paragraphs from the _Times_ and the _Morning Post_.


"A marriage has been arranged between Mr. Allan Homewood, only son of
Sir Josiah Homewood, Bart., of Homewood, Sussex, and the Lady Kathleen
Nora Stanwys, only daughter of the Earl of Gowerhurst."


He had cut out these news items and carried them about with him and
shewn them to Jobson and Cuttlewell and Smith and Priestly (of Priestly,
Nicholson and Coombe), and others of his City cronies.  How proud he had
been of them, how he had beamed and swelled with pride!  He had hinted
that he might ask—might possibly—ask Priestley and the rest to witness
the ceremony.  It had not been an actual promise, but next door to it,
made by him in a moment of joyous enthusiasm following a good lunch and
a bottle of excellent port.

And now the marriage was to be a small quiet affair, it was a blow, but
he took it like a man!  He sought out Kathleen, he took her hand and
held it in his moist palm.

"My dear, Allan’s told me, he says you’re all for a quiet wedding; well
I did reckon on something a bit slap up and stylish and like that, but
if you’re set on a quiet wedding, my dear——"

"I am, I want it very much, Allan understands," she said.

"Then, bless you, my dear, so it shall be, as quiet as you like!  It’s
for you to say, what you say goes with me, Allan told you, that’s
right—why tears—my dear?  Tears! Bless me, my lady, my dear, don’t cry!"

"You are very good to me, now I understand why Allan is—is what he is,
the fine man he is!  He is like his father!"

"Like—like me—bless my soul, Allan like me, my love! My lady I mean—I’m
a common old chap!  Allan’s a gentleman, I made up my mind I’d do my
best for him and I done it—I’m what I am, my King, God bless him, saw
fit to make a "Sir" of me, but that don’t make a gentleman of me, my
dear, and I know it!"

"I am going to be frank with you, truthful," Kathleen said.  "I am going
to—to hurt you perhaps, and then I am going to try and make amends for
it—" She paused.  "When my father first spoke of my marriage, my
marriage with Allan, I shuddered at the thought of it—not because of
Allan, but because of you!"

"I know, I know," he said sadly.  "I ain’t everyone’s money, but——"

"No, listen, I looked down on you.  I thought you were vulgar and
purseproud and boastful, and, oh, I thought a thousand evil things of
you and pretended to shudder when your name was mentioned!"

"My dear, I know, I know; don’t, tell me more—I know!"

"But I am going to tell you more, I am going to tell you this!"  She
caught his hand and held it.  "It isn’t what you have given and what you
are giving us, it isn’t money—oh you know that, don’t you?  I was wrong,
wrong all the time!  I know you better now and I like and respect you
and I envy Allan his father—yes, envy him his father and so I have told
him and—please kiss me because I am going to be your daughter, aren’t I?
And because I want you to like me and be my friend!"

"God bless me!" he said.  "God bless my—oh, my lady, my, my dear—Kiss
you?  I’d be proud and happy!"

She laughed a little, she held up her face, there were tears on her
lashes.  "Then kiss me, Allan’s father!" she said.

My Lord had counted on an expensive and fashionable wedding, even more
than Sir Josiah had.  He had specially ordered a frock coat of a
peculiar and delicate shade of grey, which would become him handsomely.
That he would easily outshine everyone present he knew with certainty.
He would give his daughter away, everyone would remark on his
appearance, the exquisite sensibility that would mark his every action.
They would not compare him with the Baronet, it was no question of
comparison.  People would see with their own eyes how immeasurably
superior he was to Sir Josiah.

That the limelight would be mainly on himself, His Lordship had decided.
He had even rehearsed the part he would play.  He would be the tender,
loving father, heart-broken and bereaved at losing his darling child,
and yet he would bear up bravely, carry himself proudly, with a touch of
tender gaiety.  His speech at the reception he had written and
re-written—and now he was in a furious passion, shaking with rage, he
sought out Kathleen and swore viciously at her.

"What devil’s tomfoolery is this?" he shouted.  "What new pose have we
here?  What’s this confounded rotten, absurd business about, a twopenny
ha’penny housemaid’s wedding, hey?  Haven’t I asked, unofficially of
course, but asked all the same a hundred people?  Haven’t Bellendon and
the Cathcarts and—and George Royhills and his wife practically delayed
their departure from Town for this wedding, and now—now what rotten
nonsense have you got in your head now, hey?"

She eyed him steadily.  "Please don’t swear at me, father?" she said.
"There is no need.  I asked Allan——"

"Asked Allan, hang and confound Allan!  Ain’t I anyone? Don’t I count?
I’m only your father!  Haven’t I planned this for you, haven’t I
cherished the idea of making you a rich woman, haven’t I——?"  He paused,
floundering wildly in his fury.

"I asked Allan to humor me, I wanted a very quiet wedding, he was quite
willing, as eager as I almost.  He spoke to his father and his father
has agreed——"

"His father! that confounded old City shark, that common, vulgar old
brute, who—who——"

"Whom you are very pleased and glad to take money from, who has treated
me with every kindness and respect and gave way at once to my wishes,
though they were opposed to his own.  Yes, a common old man, but
generous and kind and good and—and I could wish, I could wish that my
father was as fine a gentleman!"  And with a stately curtsey, she left
him.

"Well, I’ll be damned!" His Lordship said in utter amazement.




                             *CHAPTER XII*

                     *THE HANDS OF ABRAM LESTWICK*


"You’ve got my wishes, Abram, you have!" said Mrs. Hanson.

He nodded.  "I know," he said gloomily.

Abram Lestwick was of that curious, foreign type that one comes on
unexpectedly in our English country villages. He was about thirty-two
years of age, five feet nine in height and of a strong wiry build.  His
complexion was swarthy, the skin sallow and drawn with a strange
suggestion of tightness, over the high and prominent cheek bones.  The
eyes were small, black and very bright and deeply set beneath heavy
brows.  No razor had ever touched the lower part of his face, which was
covered with a thin and straggling growth of coarse black hair, that
could scarcely be described as a "beard," for so thinly and far apart
did the hairs grow that the contour of a weak chin was clearly visible.

The whole appearance of the man suggested nervous unquiet and
restlessness, which particularly found expression in the constant
agitation of his hands.  He had a restless, nervous habit of fingering
things within his reach.

At this moment he was sitting on the one "easy" chair at Mrs. Hanson’s
little parlour.  He had dragged down the antimacassar that usually
adorned the chair back and was plucking at the threads and rolling the
edge of it into a tight curl.  Mrs. Hanson watched his face; she did not
look at his hands.  There was something hateful about Abram Lestwick’s
hands, the fingers were long, flexible and thin, save at the ends, where
they suddenly thickened out and flattened in a strange, unsightly
manner.  But it was their restlessness, their never ceasing movement
that was so remarkable.  Never for a moment were they still.

Mrs. Hanson, favouring the young man, yet knew she hated his hands!

"I feel, I du," she said to herself, "as I want to scream if I set and
watch them, but I du know he be a good man and a hard worker, with no
love for the alehouse and reg’lar to Church and like to make Betty a
good husband, and after all, what du a man’s hands matter?  So be as he
du work with them and earn his living honourable and upright in the
state of life which it du please God to call him!"

"I’ve got your wishes, I hev," he said, "I know that, but what be the
use of your wishes to me, Mrs. Hanson, so I haven’t got Betty’s liking?"

"You mustn’t take too much notice of the maid; maids be strange and
fickle things, aye and vain they be!  The man as praises a maid to her
face and tells her she be nice looking be the one as goes best with
they!"

"What do ’ee want I to do?" he said sullenly.  "I know there beain’t a
maid to compare wi’ Betty, there beain’t one as be fit to tie her
shoes!"  A dull red crept into his checks, his voice shook, his fingers
worked more nervously and more rapidly at the destruction of the
antimacassar.

"Slow of speech I be," he said thickly, "and difficult it du be for me
to find words—there be a thousand things I would say to she—they be here
all in my brain, but my tongue won’t utter them!  I—I try—" he paused,
choking, "I try, I look at she dumblike and stupid and knowing it, aye,
curse it, knowing it!"  His voice rose, he wrenched at the antimacassar,
he tore a piece away; his fingers were hideous to see at this moment and
Mrs. Hanson looked resolutely at his face.  Yet she was all the time
conscious of the havoc his fingers were making.

"Do ’ee think I don’t want to tell she?  I du!  I du, I try to, but my
tongue won’t do me sarvice.  I love her!"  He paused.  "I love her!"  He
said it again.  "Love her, I mean to tell her, yet like as not her’ll
laugh at me!"  He stood up, he flung the antimacassar to the floor, his
hands worked up and down his coat, tearing and fingering at the buttons
and the buttonholes.

"There bain’t a maid in all the world like she, not a man fit to kiss
the grounds she treads on.  If a man, a man in this village did look at
she wi’ harmful eyes, I’d kill him!"  He nodded.  "Kill him!"  He said.
"I’d get my hands on his throat and never let go!  Sometimes when I
think of her I feel that I be going mad like, I see red—red passion
before my eyes.  I tell ’ee, Mrs. Hanson, ma’am, I’ve got your wishes, I
know, I know!  But I must hev that maid; no one else shall, as God hears
me, no one else shall!"

He went to the door, swinging his arms violently, his fingers clenched
and unclenching.

"I’ve got your wishes, I hev, I’m glad of them, ma’am. I thank ’ee, I
du—your good wishes, Ma’am, and I be obliged greatly, I be—and—please
don’t mind my tempers! ’Tis thinking of the maid makes me so; a peaceful
man I be, and begging your pardon, Ma’am, that I did forget myself, but
’tis thinking of the maid that—that drives me like you see me, Ma’am!
But I beg your pardon I du, most politely!"

He was gone and Mrs. Hanson sighed and stooped and picked up from the
ground the work of her own busy fingers—and his!  She sighed again,
looking at the destruction of it.

"A terribul man he be—in his wrath, fit to kill anyone belike!" she
said.  "All tore it be, all tore and wrenched and broke apart—powerful
fingers he must hev!  Ill would it go wi’ man or maid that angered he
and did him hurt!"

Down the road in a tempest of passion went Abram Lestwick, swinging his
arms and muttering to himself like a madman, and yet at Farmer Patchams,
where he worked, they counted him as a man of an even and equable
temper. A foreman, he never cursed and swore at those under him. Little
things moved him not; his grim, glum, gloomy face never darkened with
rage.  A polite tongue he had, though a slow one, a steady man and
quiet, and yet he himself knew of the tempest of unbridled passion, the
mad tumult that his brain was capable of.

Rarely did his passions master him before others.  They had to-night,
before Mrs. Hanson, but he had her wishes, he was safe with her.

"If any man did look at she wi’ wishful eyes," he repeated, "by God’s
Heaven I would kill him!"  He clenched at the air with his nervously
working hands.  "Get my hands on his throat and kill him, grip and crash
it till the life were gone out o’ he, I would!"

He stopped suddenly, bathed in perspiration, but the fury gone.  She
stood before him in the gloaming of the evening.

"I be come from your house, Betty," he said, and his voice was mild as a
voice may be.  "A pleasant half hour I did have along wi’ your
grandmother, Betty!"

"I hope ’ee enjoyed yourself, Abram," she said with a little
contemptuous laugh.

"Aye, I did in a way, for I were talking about ’ee, Betty!"

She frowned.

"Betty!"  He felt as if he were suddenly choking, he lifted those
working, restless hands of his to his own throat. They made as to tear
open his shirt, so that he might breathe the more freely.

"Betty, do ’ee know what I and your grandmother were talking about?"

"I doan’t and I bain’t curus to hear!" she said.  She made to pass him,
but he held his ground.

"’Twere about ’ee!"

"Then ’twere nothing good," she said.  "My left ear were burning cruel
and now I know!"

"Betty," he said, "wait, ’ee shall, ’ee shall I say, wait, there’s
summut I must say to ’ee!"

"Let me—pass!"

"No, no."  He caught her by the arm and held her.

"Betty, I du love ’ee so, I want ’ee to wife!  If I don’t have ’ee no
one else shall, no one, I swear!  Look at me, stubborn o’ tongue I
be—and difficult it be for me to speak the words I want to say, but ’tis
all in this: ’I love ’ee better than life, better than death.  I love
’ee mad; mad I be, I tell ’ee wi’ love for ’ee!  My maid, I’d die for
’ee and live for ’ee and kill they as come between us!  Betty, Betty,
give yourself to me—to—cherish—"  He paused, the words of the marriage
service came to him uncertainly, "to hold and to keep, to cherish until
death us du part.  Give yourself to me, for never and you go through the
whole world will ’ee find a man as loves ’ee half so well!"

"I bain’t a marrying maid!" she said.  "And I’ll not marry ’ee or anyone
else and ’ee last and leastest of all, Abram Lcstwick.  I’ll never marry
’ee, never, never!"

"And I swear by Heaven ’ee shall!" he cried.  His fingers were at work
on her arm, she felt and hated the touch of them.  Hateful fingers—long
and sinuous, with their horrible, spatulated tips, they reminded her of
writhing snakes, with their venomous, flattened heads, just that!  She
tried to break away from him.

"A great coward ’ee be, to so beset a maid.  I hate ’ee, I du.  Let me
be, let me be!"

"I’ll never let ’ee be, for I du love ’ee mad, mad," he cried, "and ’ee
shall never belong to anyone else, never and——"

And then she broke from him, she lifted her strong young arm and smote
him across the face with all her strength. Abram Lestwick fell back
apace, his sallow skin went deathly white, he stood and stared at her.

"’Ee, ’ee made me du it!" she panted.  "I—I had to du it, Abram, I
didn’t mean it, I be sorry in my heart, I did strike ’ee!"

But he said nothing, he only looked at her, then without a word turned
and walked away down the road and she stood looking after him.  Even now
she could see the restless, nervous working of his hands.

"I hate—hate and I be afeared o’ him tu!" she said.  "I be terribul
afeared o’ him!"  She broke down, sobbing and crying.  "’Tisn’t fair as
a maid should be so bothered as I be!  I don’t want to marry anyone,
leastest of all he, for I du hate him most mortally, I du!"

Her grandmother was waiting for her.

"Did ’ee see Abram Lestwick down the road?" she asked.

"Aye, I did see him!"

"Well?"

"Well?"

"Didn’t he speak to ’ee, tell ’ee his mind?"

"Yes, he did and—and I hate him!"

"Hate?" said Mrs. Hanson.  "Still filled wi’ hate, ’ee be, which bain’t
seemly in a young maid!  What wi’ your hating first this one and then
t’other, fair fed up I be wi’ your hates, my maid, and ’tis time to put
a stop to all such nonsense!  Abram Lestwick hev been wi’ me to-night
and talking wi’ me he hev been, and about you—moreover.  And he be
willing to marry ’ee and a good match it’ll be, my maid, which Mrs.
Colley have been angling for for that putty-faced ’Lizbeth o’ hers,
though Abram would never look twice at she.  But ’tis you he be after,
an upright, godly young man with thirty-five shillings a week and a
cottage and all, and a rare chance for the likes of ’ee, Betty Hanson,
wi’out a shillin’ to your name!"

"I hate him and I’ll never, never marry him; I hate him and am afeared
of him as well!  And sooner than marry he I’d go and drownd myself in
the river, aye, that, I would, and that I will, for marry him I never
will!"

"That’s what ’ee say, but hark to me, marry him I say ’ee shall and I
have told him, he has my wishes!"

A defiant white face, with big glittering eyes faced the wrinkled, angry
old face.

"Drownd myself I will gladly and willingly afore I marry he!"

"Go ’ee in!" said Mrs. Hanson.  "A perilous bad maid ’ee be and ’shamed
of ’ee I be, and asking myself I be all the time—Be this my son Garge’s
child, or be she a changeling?  For such temper no Hanson ever did hev
yet—Go ’ee in, but mark this, marry him ’ee shall!"

"Mark this!" Betty cried.  "Marry him I never will! I’ll drownd myself
first!  Aye and blithely and gaily—for I du hate and fear him more than
any mortal man and they fingers o’ his that touched me—ugh!  That
touched me and—"  And then suddenly she broke down in a passion of sobs
and ran into the house.




                             *CHAPTER XIII*

                            *THE HOMECOMING*


Sir Josiah was performing his last friendly offices. Davenham had
finished his part of the work and had done it, as the Baronet knew he
would, with a complete and thorough knowledge and good taste.

Who, to look about one now, seeing those beautiful rooms with their
exquisite furnishing, that garden, a thing of delight and perfect
beauty, could reconcile it all with the desolate and derelict wilderness
of a place it had been three short months before?

"I’d like that there Van Norden, or whatever his name is, to see it, I
would!" Sir Josiah thought.  "Hang me, I’d like him to take a stroll
around now!  Them Americans are smart and wonderful skilful, aye, and
what’s more a fine nat’ral taste they’ve got, appreciating fine things
and old things more than we do!  I say all that and admit all that, but
this here Van Norden, he couldn’t have beat what I’ve done in the time,
he couldn’t!  He’d own it, too, for I’ve yet to meet the American who
wasn’t frank to admit the truth!"

Sir Josiah here was like a small king in great state.  He was to
interview potential servants, advertisements appeared in the London and
the local papers, inviting cooks and housemaids, parlourmaids, footmen,
grooms, scullery maids, still room maids and the like to present
themselves at Homewood Manor on a certain day, when all their expenses
would be paid by Sir Josiah Homewood, who would engage the most suitable
persons.  His own man Bletsoe was here to do honour to the occasion.

"How many are there, Bletsoe?"

"Nine young women, three old ones, two fellers and an old man as come
about the gardener’s place, only I understand as you’re keeping that old
feller, old Markabee, Sir Josiah!"

"That’s right, keeping him on I am, a sensible man and clever at his
work, that garden’s a credit to him!  Old very likely, but I’ve known
men as weren’t old, yet fools, Bletsoe!"

"Quite so, sir!" said Bletsoe.  "And now about h’interviewing ’em?"

Sir Josiah frowned to hide his nervousness.

"How many old ones did you say, Bletsoe?"

"Three, sir, and one of ’em with a wonderful fine moustache as I ever
see!"

"There’s the money, take it and settle with them, mark where they come
from and look up the fares in the A.B.C., Bletsoe, to see they don’t
cheat you, then give ’em five shillings over and above.  But pay ’em
their fares right and correct, not a penny more nor less, and Bletsoe,
when I say—ahem! like that, you’ll know as that one’s no good, you see!"

It was hard work and none too pleasant, but the house had to be staffed.
Allan and Lady Kathleen were married, they were spending a brief
honeymoon on the East Coast; they would be back here soon to take
possession and Allan’s father was resolved that when they came they
would find everything complete.  Had not he himself pried in the store
cupboards, which Messrs. Whiteley had obligingly stocked at his request?
He had satisfied himself that everything necessary was there,
everything, that is, of an unperishable nature.

Salt and tea, sugar and pepper.  He had been greatly disturbed in his
mind when he found that washing soda had been overlooked and he had
ordered a hundredweight forthwith. And now he was engaging servants.

"I am Sir Josiah Homewood, this house belongs to my son, Mr. Allan
Homewood, at present away on his honeymoon with his wife, the Lady
Kathleen Homewood, daughter to the Earl of Gowerhurst.  They are
returning in a week and I desire to have everything in readiness for
them.  What might your age be and what are your references and who were
you with last?  And why did you leave your last place?"

"Begging your pardon, sir, my age, I respectfully beg to say, I don’t
see hasn’t nothing to do with the matter.  As for my references, here
they are.  I’ve lived in a Duke’s family and there’s but little I don’t
know how to cook, even to peacocks, I have cooked, sir, and——"

"Bless my soul, I didn’t know people eat ’em!" said the Baronet.

"Only the best of the quality, sir!"

"Bless me, very well, hum, hah!"  He looked through the references, he
made notes on a piece of paper.  "Please settle with this lady, Bletsoe,
and give her, her out of pockets as according to arrangement—a—hem!"

And so the fate of the lady with the moustache was sealed, though she
knew it not.

Betty had heard of this reception that Sir Josiah was holding to-day.
Girls from Little Stretton, Bush Corner, and even from Gadsover and
Lindney, had come to offer themselves for hiring.  Betty hesitated,
since that evening when she had defied her Grandmother life had not been
very happy at Mrs. Hanson’s little cottage.  Should she go with the rest
and offer herself for service in the house?  But could she bear it,
could she bear to see her own beloved garden again as it was now, not as
she remembered it?  All the dear trees cut down, or most of them, and
hideous new walls put up, and her little stone friend gone from the lake
and a great ugly stone fountain erected in her place, for so she had
heard.  Could she bear to see it all as it was now?

No, she could not, so she hesitated.  The other girls went and were
engaged or not, as Sir Josiah decided, but Betty did not offer herself.

For three days after that night when she had struck Abram Lestwick in
the face, she did not see him, but on the evening of the fourth day he
presented himself at the door of her grandmother’s cottage.

He said nothing of that last interview.  His manner was nervous and
hesitating and without passion, his fingers worked incessantly, toying
and tearing at everything within his reach.  He sat upright on a
horsehair-covered chair, and tore little hairs out of the cloth all the
evening.  At a quarter to ten he rose and took his hat.

"I’ll be wishing you good night, Mrs. Hanson, ma’am!" he said.

"Good night, Abram, and always glad to see you," said Mrs. Hanson
heartily.

"I thank you, Ma’am, good night, Betty!" he said.

"Go to the door, my maid, and see Abram off the step," said her
grandmother.

Betty hesitated, then went, with her red-lipped mouth firmly compressed.

On the step in the summer darkness Abram found his tongue.

"Well?" he said.  "When is it to be!"

"When be, what to be?"

"Our wedding?"

"Didn’t I tell ’ee?"

"Aye, but ’ee didn’t mean it, besides I hev made up my mind; when is it
to be?"

"Never!" she said.  "Never, never!"

He laughed softly to himself as she closed the door in his face, but
to-night there was no passion, no tempest within him.  He laughed again
as he walked down the road in the velvety blackness.

There were lights in the Old Manor House, unfamiliar sight!  He did not
ever remember seeing lights there before and strange lights they were,
very bright and brilliant, and so many of them.  He stood still in the
road and stared at the house.

Presently the little arched green door in the wall opened and a woman
scuttled out, carrying a bundle suspiciously.

"Who be that?  Law!  How ’ee did frighten me!" she panted a little with
nervousness; perhaps that bundle had no right to be in her arms.  "Be it
you, Abram Lestwick?" she asked, peering into the darkness.

"Aye!" he said briefly.  "It be me all right, Mother Colley.  What be
’ee doing here to-night?"

"’Tis the young new Squire, the old man’s son, come home wi’ his lady
wife.  I see her for a minute, Abram, and a prettier creature I never
set eyes on, so kind and smiling her looks, too, and so mighty fond they
du seem to be of one another, arm in arm they was walking.  ’Father,’ he
were saying when I see him, ’Father have done wonders here, Kathleen!
You did ought to have seen the place no more than four months ago.
Father have worked wonderful, terribul hard for we!’ he said."

"Ah!" said Abram.

"Yes," said Mrs. Colley, nodding her head, "and she wonderful sweet and
dainty her looked, I tell ’ee, Abram—’Wonderful kind and good he be,
Allan,’ she says.  And, Abram, why don’t ’ee ever come in for a kindly
cup o’ tea to our cottage?  My maid ’Lizbeth continooally du ask me! A
clever maid her be wi’ her fingers and a worker she, not like someone as
I could name, some as bain’t too right in their mind!"

"Who?"

"I mention no names, Abram, only I say there be a kindly welcome and a
cup set for ’ee whenever ’ee do take the fancy and now I must be getting
along.  A wonderful place they hev made o’ it, and oh! the money it hev
cost!  It fair sets me wondering how there ever du be so much money in
the world!"

"And if," Abram thought, "all the money in the world were mine, I would
lay it at Betty’s feet!"  So he went on his way, for the man who rises
at four in the morning must to bed betimes.

                     *      *      *      *      *

Allan had been in no hurry for the honeymoon to end. Every day of their
companionship added to his liking and respect for Kathleen.  Now that
she was away from her father, now that she had shaken herself free from
the old environment, she seemed to be a different woman.  Her laughter
was more spontaneous; the sadness, for which in his heart he had pitied
her, was going, if not gone from her eyes.  She was a charming
companion, her good temper and entire unselfishness were never failing.
What more could a man ask?

He had rather dreaded the honeymoon, and now had come to realise that it
formed the most pleasant period of his life. But now that it had come to
its end, he felt a strange reluctance to go to Homewood.

He was young and healthy minded; for such a man to brood over a dream or
a vision was impossible.  The effect of that May day dream of his had
well nigh worn away, the vision of the girl who had come to him in the
old garden and kissed him had grown vague and shadowy.  Like most
visions, it was slowly passing and presently, unless something happened
to revive it, it would pass into oblivion altogether.

But this return to Homewood would and must revive it and bring back that
day and all that had happened on that day forcibly to mind once more.

And he asked himself, did he wish to be reminded?  Was he not well
enough content with life as it was?  He was married to a girl for whom
he felt a great liking, a growing affection, and a respect, a woman whom
he realised was the sweetest and best woman he had ever known.

It was not her beauty alone that attracted him, yet he could scarcely
repress a thrill of pride of possession that comes to many men when they
realise the envy of others and see the looks of admiration which were no
more than Kathleen’s well deserved tribute.

So the honeymoon had been a very pleasant and happy time.  They were
frank with one another, the best of friends. They kissed one another
with a quiet, undemonstrative affection that was not feigned.  There had
not been one breath to mar the perfect serenity of their lives.  No
foolish trumpery quarrel, but always that complete understanding and
good faith that willingness to give and take unselfishly.

Are honeymoons always such a success?  When the passionate lovers are
united at last and drive away radiant and triumphant, amidst a shower of
rice and good wishes, who can tell what pitfalls her pretty little feet
may trip into, what obstacles he may go stumbling and floundering over?
They believed that they knew and understood one another so well, all
unconsciously perhaps they have kept up many pretences, have only
permitted one another to see the brighter side.

But there is always the other and darker side, Romeo’s temper the first
thing in the morning may not be everything that is desirable.  When
Juliet finds that one of her dresses does not fit her quite so well as
it might, she must vent her annoyance on someone—and there is only
Romeo!

The good ship of matrimony has scarcely weighed anchor and set sail and
the Captain and the Mate have yet to learn one another’s characters,
perhaps they have even to decide who the Captain and who the Mate.
There are many little things to arrange, little difficulties to adjust.
Happy they who can do it all, with kindness and good temper, willing to
give freely and yet not asking for too much!

It was in the dusk of the late July evening that Allan and Kathleen came
to Homewood.

It was the last day of Sir Josiah’s reign, and never a sovereign gave up
his sceptre with better grace.  How he beamed, how he swelled with
visible pride, how he dragged them from room to room to see this and to
see that!

"There you are, my boy, what do you think of it? Wouldn’t know the
place, would you?  You’d ’a fallen through this floor three months ago;
look at it now!"  And the old gentleman jumped up and down to prove the
soundness of the joists and boards.

"Well, my dear, and what do you think of it?  Pretty, ain’t it?
Davenham didn’t let me down, there’s nothing like going to the right
man!  Davenham ain’t cheap, but—"  He caught himself up, this was no
time to talk of money and money matters.  He had spent freely and
willingly. Perhaps never before in his life had he spent quite so
freely, quite so willingly.  There was a heavy bill to meet, but what of
that?  He could meet it!

He had picked up a good deal from careful observations and from
listening to Davenham’s learned talk.  The names Hepplewhite and Adam,
Sheraton and Chippendale tripped glibly from his tongue.  True, he
confused Hepplewhite and Adam, but what did that matter?  Allan and
Kathleen did not mind, perhaps did not know, and the old fellow was
happy and smiling, though there was just a little ache at his heart, for
to-morrow his work would be done, to-morrow he would pack his traps,
order the car, tip the servants and say good-bye.  His reign would be
ended!  The villagers would give him their bobs and their smiles and
perhaps a cheer, Dalabey would come from his shop and grovel for a
moment as he passed and then—then life would of a sudden become
strangely empty, strangely without aim and object.

"Can almost see ’em, can’t you, Allan, my boy, those old Elmacotts; the
place must have looked very like this in their time.  Lord, it’s a pity
we’ve got into the way of dressing so plain and starchy like we do now!
But bless my soul! What would I look like in a flowered waistcoat and
powdered wig and silk stockings, eh?  Ha, ha, ha!  And how well she’s
looking, how pretty she is, prettier’n ever, Allan, and what a lucky
fellow you are!"

"The luckiest in the world and the happiest I think, father!" Allan said
very soberly.

The old man nodded, "That’s right, that’s right, that’s what I hoped to
hear.  Now, take her and shew her round. It’s a pity it’s gone so dark,
so you can’t see the gardens to-night.  I tell you, Allan, the gardens
are even better than the house.  You keep on that old Markabee, he knows
his job and you won’t get no better man for thirty-seven and six a week,
cottage found!"

In the dawn of the summer morning Allan wakened, his sleep had been
strangely disturbed.  He had dreamed, yet now he was awake the dreams
were all vague, half forgotten and meaningless.  He rose and went to the
open window and looked out into the garden.

He saw it as he had seen it that day in May, in his dream, all trim and
fair, the weeds and the desolation gone, the flower beds all gay and
bright with bloom, the lawns—and how old Markabee and his men had worked
on these lawns! shaved and rolled and weeded.

And though remembering it as he had seen it, with the desolation of
years over it all, it all looked unfamiliar to him now and yet
wonderfully, strangely familiar.

Then suddenly there came to him with a sense of shock and anxiety a
question.  What of the little stone nymph who had stood there in the
midst of the pool?  Had they torn her from her pedestal and banished her
from the place she had held for centuries?  Why had he never spoken of
her? Why had he never asked that she might be protected? Why—why above
all did he care?  What had become of a little stone image with a broken
arm and a battered vase, and the slender little stone body all stained
green?

But he did care, and he wanted to know what her fate was.  He turned
back into the room and saw his wife sleeping there.  The sunlight
slanted in through the uncurtained window and touched her face, and he
stood looking at her.

Sleeping, she seemed, in spite of her eight and twenty years, to be such
a child.  There was a smile on her lips, her face was pillowed on one
white bare arm, her hair fell about her on the pillow.

He stretched out his hand and lifted one heavy lock and held it lightly,
letting it slip softly through his fingers till it fell to the pillow
again.

And, watching her as she slept, he wondered why his heart did not throb,
why a great passionate love for her did not come—yet it did not!

He dressed and went out into the garden.  He was early, early even for
old Markabee, from whose little cottage even now the smoke was curling,
thin and blue, into the morning air.

In spite of the panic of anxiety of a while ago, he had forgotten the
little stone maid.  The enchantment of the garden was on him, his feet
trod the stone pathway, his hands were behind his back, his head bent a
little forward, yet he saw everything, the trim, carefully laid out
beds, the green grass, the foxglove and the hollyhock thrusting their
way to life and air and sun through the crevices in the old stone path.
So he stepped aside to avoid tramping on their loveliness, yet wondered
why they should be there.

Was it right?  What would my Lady say?  And he? Was not he dallying here
when he should be at his work?

What thoughts!  What strange jumble of thoughts was this?

Hoe and rake, he must get them from the shed; the shed there behind the
old red wall.  So he turned and came to the place and found no shed,
then started and came back to life again and frowned at himself for his
folly.

Was there some enchantment that brooded over the place, something that
held him in its grip when his feet trod the soil of this old garden?

"Dreams!" he said aloud, and again, "Dreams!"  And then laughed at
himself and turned back to the broad stone pathway, then suddenly
remembered the object of his quest, and hurried on to the lake.

She was there, untouched! and he was conscious of a relief, a sense of
gladness—yet why?  What did it matter? What would it have mattered had
they pulled her down and carried her away and used her to mend some
country road with and placed some fine marble fountain with basin all
complete in her place?  Yet it did matter and he knew that it did!

He turned, conscious of a relief and yet wondering at it and went back
along the path to where was the great circle in the middle of which
stood the sundial, and he noticed that some artificer had replaced the
long lost gnomon, so that once again the shadow might fall and tell the
passing of the hours.

And there was the seat on which he had sat that day. Then it had been
half lost in a maze of tangle and growth. Now it had been cleaned and
even mended a little, the moss and green growth removed.

Allan sat down, as he had sat down that day; he laid his arm along the
back of the stone seat, just as then, and as then presently, the reality
about him grew faint and uncertain, and he drifted into a light sleep.
But in that sleep no dreams came, no vision of a little figure tripping
down the stone pathway, no dainty little figure in her flowered gown,
with mob cap on her shining head.  Instead he opened his eyes and looked
into the face of an ancient man, who pulled a scanty lock of hair at him
and wished him "Good marning!" in purest Sussex.

"Good morning to you," said Allan and wondered for a moment who the old
man might be, then it dawned on him.

"A wunnerful and powerful difference be here," said the old man, "which
you will hev noticed, so be as you hev seen the place before!"

"I have seen it before, three months ago, and as you say a wonderful
difference is here," said Allan, "and you are——"

"Markabee be my name," the old man said, "gardener I were at Lord
Reldewood’s place, near Smarden in Kent, though I be Sussex born and
bred."

There was interrogation in his still, bright eyes.

"My name is Homewood, Allan Homewood!"

"Then you be the young master, the old master be a proper fine man and a
thorough gentleman!"

Allan laughed.  "I hope that you will be able to say the same of me,
though I warn you, Markabee, I am not such a fine man nor so good a
gentleman as my father!"

"That may be, that may be!" said Markabee.  "One finds out, one does,
for one’s self.  But I be one as speaks as I du find and I say the old
gentleman be a proper fine man, free handed moreover and pleasant of
speech!

"Very late in the season, it were," Markabee went on. "May, pretty nigh
out, when I du come to this garden. Powerful difficult it were to make
much of a show, as I did say to Mr. Dalabey.  ’Never mind,’ says he, ’du
your bestest, Markabee, for you be working for a proper fine gentleman
who don’t mind a little bit of extry money here and there, so be he gets
what he du want!’"

Allan nodded.  Not for all the world would he hurt the old fellow’s
feelings, but he could wish old Markabee safely off to his work in the
garden, leaving him here to his dreams in the sunshine.

But not so Markabee.  For he was old and had seen many things and many
gardens; old and garrulous was he and eager above all to make a good
impression on the young master!

"Things I hev seen and changes," he said, "you wouldn’t believe, and
now—how old might you take me to be, eh, young sir?  What aged man would
you say I were?"  He pulled himself up erect as a grenadier, and his
bright old eyes twinkled, while the long whisps of white hair fell about
his copper coloured face.

"Now, sir, make a guess, how old might ’ee take me to be, eh?"

"I should say—" said Allan cautiously, "that you might be sixty-five!"

"Ha, ha, ha, that be a good ’un, sixty-five—ha, ha!"  He laughed till
his voice cracked and he nearly choked.  "Two and eighty years hev I
seen, two and eighty wi’ never a lie, and look at me, fit for a long
day’s work I be with the best and youngest on ’em!  Ask anyone here,
young sir, ask what sort of worker be old Markabee, ask ’em to satisfy
yourself, sir!  Yes, two and eighty summers and winters hev I
seen—sixty-five—ha, ha, ha!  Sixty-five!"  And, chuckling with laughter,
he saluted, drew his old body erect and went marching off down the
garden with a jaunty air, and yet in his heart a little quavering wonder
and anxious fear.

"I wonder, du he think I be too old?"

If spell there had been, old Markabee had broken it.  So though he might
sit here on the old stone seat, no drowsiness came to him now.  He
watched a bee, a great velvety bumble bee, with its lustrous black and
tan body hurrying, full of business, from flower to flower.  The sun was
low yet, and cast slanting shadows all softly blue on the stone pathway.
The dew glinted and glistened in the cups of the flowers and in the
heart of the starry green leaves of the lupins.  He looked along the
broad straight pathway to the house and saw it, so strangely like he had
seen it that day, the windows open, the dimity curtains moving lightly
in the soft breeze. And now came a maid servant, but no mob cap and
flowered gown wore she, and her hair was black and her eyes sleepy, nor
did she trip daintily, but shuffled in sluggard fashion and let down the
new sun blinds outside the windows with a rasping, creaking sound of
iron on iron.

No dreams for him this day, nor did he want them?  Why seek them, invite
them?  For dreams would but bring him again to dissatisfaction and would
set him yearning and longing and even hoping for that which could never,
never come true.  Allan rose and seemed to shake himself, though he
shook himself more mentally than physically, to lighten himself of these
fancies, which were idle and foolish and which he must not encourage nor
harbour.

He smiled to himself as he set off for a ramble about the garden, for he
saw what he must do.  He must prove to old Markabee and to all the rest
that he was a man worthy of being his father’s son.

"A proper fine man he be and a thorough gentleman," old Markabee had
said, and so he was.  God bless him for a fine gentleman!

And then suddenly and unexpectedly, for he had wandered far into a part
of the garden where he had never been before and where even old Markabee
and his merry men had not yet penetrated, he came on a little stream
that flowed rapidly and clearly between high banks of thick green growth
and at one place was a deep pool where the water swirled and eddied,
obstructed for the moment in its course by an abrupt turn in the winding
of the stream.  About him were the trees and the greenery, an
impenetrable leafy screen and the silence; but for the birds there was
nothing to interrupt the solitude of the place.  So off with his clothes
and then a header into the cool green water for a brisk swim. Here,
under the shade of the trees, the water ran cold and its coldness sent
the blood leaping and throbbing through his veins.

A few minutes and he was out, glowing, dripping, a young giant in his
health and strength.  Now he had put his clothes on caring nothing that
his skin was wet beneath them.

Back through the garden and the sunshine he strode—dreams, what idle
things were dreams!  Only a fool or a poet might sit there on that old
old stone seat trying to conjure up visions of a long dead past.  His
body was in a glow, he was conscious of a great and voracious appetite.
He saw the girl who had pulled the sun blinds down and called to her.

"What’s your name?" he said.  "Mary or Peggy, or Molly, eh?" he smiled
at her.

"Ann is my name, sir!" she said.  "Ann!"

"You’re not Sussex?"

She tossed her head.  "Not me, thank you, sir, I come from the Fulham
Road!"

"Then, Ann, where you come from does not matter, but if you love me, get
me a cup of tea and—and—well anything—a good big hunk of bread and
butter will do, but see that it is big and that there is plenty of
butter on it and I’ll wait here till you come back, Ann!"

"What a very strange young gent," the girl thought.  "If I love him
indeed!  There’s a nice way of talking!"  She tossed her head, yet went
off to get the tea and the bread and butter.

"If I love him indeed, well of all the impudence!"




                             *CHAPTER XIV*

                           *"HIS SON’S WIFE"*


"Well, well, my boy, what do you think of it all? How do you think the
garden looks?"

"Wonderful!"

"Wonderful, yes, that old Markabee’s a treasure; you won’t part with
him, Allan?"

"Nothing would induce me to, father.  I hope he’ll stay here another
twenty years at least!"

"That’ll make him a hundred and two, the old man is very proud of his
age, eighty something!"

"Eighty-two and seems a mere boy!"  Allan went to his father and put his
arms about the old man’s shoulders.

"I—I’m not going to try and thank you!" he said.

"Don’t, there’s nothing to thank me for!  I—I did it—I enjoyed doing it,
never enjoyed anything so much in my life, put myself into it heart and
soul.  I’d like Cutler, you know Cutler, his daughter married the
Governor of somewhere or other—I’d like him to see this place!"

"Then why not?"

"Bless me—so I may—one day—I might bring him down, but, Allan, I’m not
going to interfere with you, not me!  Two’s company, three’s none!  I
know that!  And—good morning, my dear, and I don’t need to ask how you
slept!  As fresh as a rose you look this morning, as fresh and as
handsome too!"

And she did, her cheeks were glowing, her eyes were bright.  Fresh from
her cold bath, she was a picture of glowing health and beauty.  She went
to him and put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him.

"And now I want to know what is the meaning of those horrible looking
bags and portmanteaux and things I saw on the landing?"

"Why—why bless me—they are mine—I—I didn’t mean to leave ’em about, my
dear.  I’d never have forgiven myself if you’d tripped and fallen over
them, but——"

"I don’t mean that; what I want to know is: Why are they packed?"

"Because—because there’s my things in ’em and I’m off for London.
Bletsoe’s got his orders and after breakfast I’ll start——"

"But supposing I don’t mean to let you go?"

"Thank you, my dear, thank you and God bless you! I—I know what you
mean, but thank you, my dear, all the same!  I—I like to think that
you’re not in a hurry to push the old fellow out!  I’ll be glad to
remember that!"  His eyes shone.  "Yes, my love, I’ll be glad to
remember that, but——"

"How are we going to manage without you?" she asked. "You have been so
clever, it’s all so wonderful what you have done here.  Allan told me
what a terrible, terrible state the place was in and how like a fairy, a
good fairy, you have touched it with your wand and it—is like it is now!
And we can’t let our fairy go, can we?"

"But he’ll come back, my love, he’ll come back!"  The old man cried
happily.  "But you and Allan have got to settle down and I—I know what
it is, my dear, when Allan’s mother and me were married, settling down
is a bit difficult—I think you and Allan are best left to yourselves,
and then when you want me, why I’ll come, I’ll come, you won’t have to
ask twice.  You ought to have the telephone on—" he paused, took out his
pocketbook and made a rapid note, "arrange telephone, Homewood," then
you’ll be able to ring me up and I’ll be able to ring you up—now and
again, not that I want to be a nuisance or a worry to you—but—but—what’s
that?  What’s that?  Breakfast, eh?"

"Yes, sir, breakfast!" said the manservant.

Over breakfast they discussed an idea that had come to Kathleen.

"We must have a house warming," she said, "you know the old
superstition, there’ll be no luck about the house unless we have a
warming!"

"To be sure!" said Sir Josiah, a little puzzled, "but I had the fires
lighted and kep’ going for weeks and——"

"I know!" she laughed.  "But I mean a party, a house party, just a few
of our nearest and dearest.  You, of course, first and before all and
my—" she hesitated, "my father, of course, and then you will have one or
two of your own friends, Sir Josiah, won’t you?  Friends of yours you
might like to bring down?"

His eyes shone.  "Cutler!" he said.  "I’d like to bring him, take the
shine out of him, it will too.  I’m fed up with Her Excellency, the
Governor’s wife, that’s Cutler’s daughter. Why, my love, it’ll stifle
him, that’s what it will do! Why, of course, I’ll come!  And there’ll be
a few things, wines and spirits and like that.  I’ll see about them, see
about ’em at once—and now——"

And now the time for parting had come, the time he had dreaded, but it
must come; the car was at the door, the bags were put into the car.  And
the owner of the car dallied, he was in the morning room and Kathleen
was with him. She put her hand on his arm and delayed him, she had
smiled a signal to Allan to go out and leave them together for a moment
or so, and Allan had gone.

"You have been very, very good to us, you have given us this beautiful
home, you have given us more—I know—" she said and her eyes were very
bright and very kind, as she stood, a queenly young figure, with her
slim white hand resting on his arm—"And I want to tell you this—I want
to—to earn it all.  I want to earn all your kindness and affection.  I
want to prove myself worthy of it!  You have given me all this and you
have given me your son and he—he is the best of all!  A little while ago
I thought that I was an old, old woman; life seemed to hold very, very
little for me, my whole life was one long struggle, a struggle between
pride and poverty.  I suffered—" she paused, "more than I can ever tell.
I knew what people said of me and of—" she paused, "of—of me, and now
all suddenly I seem to realise that I am not old, but that I am young,
and that I am not afraid of the years that lie before me.  Our marriage,
Allan’s and mine, was—was—at first sordid and mercenary, and I hated it,
but Allan and I talked about it and we agreed, long ago, that we would
make the best, the very, very best possible of our lives and I think we
are doing it. I know how you love him and I know how deeply he loves you
and so—so I wanted to tell you that Allan’s wife will try, with God’s
help, to be worthy of him and of you, that she will be a good, true and
faithful wife to him, helping him when she may help, comforting him if
he should need comfort.  Perhaps—" she said softly, "I am not a
religious woman, I wish I were!  But no religious woman could have
prayed to her God more fervently, more from her heart than I have prayed
from mine that I may never fail in my duty, that I shall be all that he
would have me, that I shall be a good, true and faithful wife and friend
to the man whose name I bear!"

He did not speak, his lips trembled a little, he put his arms about her
and held her very tightly for a moment and then he went out, seeing
nothing very clearly, for the mist that was before his eyes.

And as he drove through the little town and out into the white Sussex
roads, past the green fields and under the shadow of the Downs, he
remembered, not that his daughter was Lady Kathleen, daughter of the
Earl of Gowerhurst, but that she was the sweetest and the best woman he
had ever known.




                             *CHAPTER XV.*

                      *"WILL YOU TAKE THIS MAN?"*


The kindly cup of tea of which Mrs. Colley had spoken to Abram Lestwick
must have grown cold or been replaced and renewed many times, but it was
not partaken of by him for whom it was so hospitably intended.

Mrs. Colley, a short, little body, with a long, lean, bony face and
black hair, dragged back painfully from a protruding and shiny forehead,
watched for Abram as eagerly as ever a maid watched for the coming of
her lover.

’Lizabeth, sallow faced, black haired like her grandmother, and with the
bad teeth possessed by too many country girls, tossed her head.

"I don’t go running after no man!" she said.  "Abram Lestwick least of
all!  I say if he doan’t want our tea, let him stop away!"

"You fool!" said her grandmother, "and there be that Mrs. Hanson forever
dangling after he.  Would you be beat, ’Lizabeth, by a pink and white
dolly faced hussy like Mrs. Hanson’s Betty?  I’d have more pride, I
would!"

"She be welcome to he!" said ’Lizabeth.  "Too quiet and mum mouthed he
be to my liking and——"

"There he be!" said Mrs. Colley.

She bounded out of her chair and was across the little sitting room
kitchen and down the garden path to the gate all in a moment; a very
energetic woman, Mrs. Colley!

"Oh, Abram!" she said a little breathlessly.  "Funny me coming out this
moment and meeting ’ee promiscus like, but I did see a great slug
a-settling on my geraniums and just at this very moment ’Lizabeth be
laying the tea and a fresh biscuit she hev baked, all hot from the oven,
so du ’ee come in now, Abram, for there be a powerful lot of things I
want to speak wi’ ’ee about!"

"I be sorry," he said gloomily, "afraid I be I cannot stop!"

"And the tea fresh brewed and on the hob and the water on it not more’n
three minutes, Abram, and the biscuit of ’Lizabeth’s baking, a currant
biscuit, Abram!"

He shook his head.  "I wish ’ee good evening, Mrs. Colley," he said,
"and must be getting along!"  He lifted his hat to her, a polite man,
Abram Lestwick, and went on. Mrs. Colley went back, beaten and angry.

"She hev laid a spell on him, ’tis a good thing for Mother Hanson her
bain’t living a hundred years ago, or burned for a witch her would be,
certain sure!  And his coat buttons, I never see such a sight,
’Lizabeth!"

"Drat his coat buttons!  What be they to me?"

"Two gone out of the four and two others hanging by threads, and him
working his fingers whiles he were talking wi’ me, pulling they off, a
rare busy time wi’ her needle will Abram Lestwick’s wife hev!  Wonderful
restless and nervis he be about the hands, ’Lizabeth!"

"Drat his hands!" said Elizabeth Colley.  "He doan’t catch me sewing on
his buttons for him, no nor for the best man living neither, which Abram
Lestwick b’aint!"

Down the road went Abram Lestwick, the weak chin under the straggling
growth of black hair looked a shade more resolute this evening, for he
had made up his mind.

Was he, Abram Lestwick, the man to stand nonsense from a mere maid who
dared oppose his will with her own?  No! Was he not Farmer Patcham’s
foreman and first hand, looked up to and respected?  He was!

Had he not a cottage of four rooms of his own?  He had! Was he not in
receipt of a steady income of thirty-five shillings a week, of which he
had no less than forty-three pounds ten saved and standing in the Post
Office Savings Bank to his credit?  He was!

Very well then!

Down the road strode Abram Lestwick.

"I’ll put up wi’ no more dilly dallying wi’ she!" he said to himself, "I
be a strong intentioned man, not a boy like some, to be put off wi’ a
grimace and a shake o’ a head, and such like!  And so I’ll let her know
and I hev her grandmother’s good wishes!"

He did not falter, he flung open the little green painted gate of Mrs.
Hanson’s front garden and trod manfully up the broken stone pathway to
the cottage door.

"Why if it bain’t Abram!" said Mrs. Hanson, in a tone of surprise,
though she had been watching the clock for him this past half hour.
Betty, pouring boiling water from the kettle into the brown teapot,
started, so that the hot water splashed on her hand, but she uttered no
sound.  Her face turned white, perhaps it was the pain from the boiling
water, perhaps the sound of the man’s voice!

"Good evening!" he said.

"Good evening to ’ee, Abram," said Mrs. Hanson.  She looked across the
room to the girl.  "Betty, here be Abram!"

"Aye, I know!"

Abram had taken off his hat, he was twisting it between his restless
fingers, plucking at the felt, bending the brim. Mrs. Hanson stared
resolutely at his face.

"Wun’t ’ee draw a chair and set down, Abram?" she said. "An’ put your
hat down!"

He nodded, he put his hat down and sat by the table. Betty’s face was
white and set hard, her small round chin was thrust out obstinately.

Abram looked at her out of the corner of his eyes.

"I du hear good accounts of the new people at the Manor," he said.

"Aye, a sweet and pleasant spoken lady and the daughter of a Lord!" said
Mrs. Hanson.  "And Mr. Allan Homewood, who I did speak with the very day
he came here first, a very nicely spoken gentleman, I’m sure!"  She
looked at Betty.

Betty sat down, she stared straight before her, she knew that these were
but preliminaries, that which they were saying now mattered nothing at
all.  Her grandmother poured out the tea.  Abram took his cup, he
twisted it round and round in the saucer.

"I see Mrs. Colley as I passed the door, picking slugs she were!  She
asked me in to tea, she said there was a fresh biscuit of ’Lizbeth’s
baking!"

It was meant for conversation, and not as a reflection on the present
tea table, which was guiltless of a currant biscuit.

"A wunnerful hand at cooking, ’Lizbeth Colley be!" he said.

Mrs. Hanson shrugged her shoulders, "Hev you ever noticed her teeth,
Abram, terribul teeth they be!"

"Terribul!" he agreed; he looked at the girl facing him. He could not
see her teeth, for her small rosebud mouth was tightly compressed, but
he had seen them and remembered them for the whitest pearls he had ever
seen.

"A rare hand at fashioning and managing, ’Lizbeth Colley," he remarked.
He paused to drink with his mouth full of bread and butter.  It was not
a pretty exhibition, but neither Mrs. Hanson nor Betty remarked it.
Bread and butter and tea taken at one meal had to mingle, sooner or
later; why not sooner than later?

The meal went on, Abram smacked his lips noisily. Mrs. Hanson tried to
make conversation.

"A bit of luck for an old man like Markabee getting a permanent job at
his time of life!  I wonder how long du they think they’ll keep he?" she
asked.

"Ah!"

"Though I du admit very agile he be for his years!"

It was all idle, it was all eating up time, till the meal should be
over.  These, as Betty knew, were merely preliminaries, presently the
real business would start.  Her grandmother had warned her.

"Ahram be here to-night, he be, to hev a direct answer and for ’ee to
make up thy mind and name the day!" said Mrs. Hanson.

"He’ll get his direct answer, he will!  And as for naming the day, there
wun’t he no day to name!" said Betty.

"We’ll see, my gell!"

"Aye, we’ll see!" said Betty.

"I can’t think what have come to that maid!" Mrs. Hanson thought.  "All
contrairy and perilous defiant her be, and once——"

"Help me clear they things!" Mrs. Hanson said.

The meal was over at last.  Abram brought out his pipe; he did not light
it, he did not even put it between his long, yellowish teeth.  He held
it in his hand, he twisted it and turned it.  He made of the bowl a
thimble, which he set on his finger; he picked at the thin silver mount
and all the time he watched Betty.  And always that weak chin of his
under the coarse, sparse black hairs, seemed to grow stronger and more
protruberant, more pronounced.

Mrs. Hanson spun out the washing up, but it was over at last and she
came back and took her usual seat by the fireplace.

"And now, Abram?" she said.

It was the signal, Betty stiffened up, she clenched her small hands;
Abram dropped the pipe and stooped to recover it.

"Mrs. Hanson, Ma’am, and Betty, you both know full well why I be here
to-night," he said.  "Terribul slow of speech I be—"  He dropped the
pipe again and went in search of it; groping along the floor, again he
recovered it.

"Why not put the pipe down, Abram?" Mrs. Hanson said.  "Pipes be
terribul easy things to drop!"

He nodded, he put the pipe down on the table and fell to plucking out
the horsehairs from the chair seat.

"Terribul slow of speech I be!" he repeated.  "But you, Ma’am, Mrs.
Hanson, know, I think, why I be here to’night!  ’Tis about the maid,
Betty, your grand-darter, Ma’am!"

"Ah!" said Mrs. Hanson.

"What hev your visits to do wi’ me?" Betty demanded, a spot of vivid
colour in her white cheeks.

"I du love ’ee and want ’ee to marry me!" he said simply.

"That be well spoken, straight and to the point, that be!" said Mrs.
Hanson.  "No man could speak fairer!"

"Then I will speak straight and to the point tu," Betty said.  "I du not
love ’ee and will never marry ’ee!  I would sooner be dead, and drownd
myself I will before I marry ’ee, Abram Lestwick!"

"Ah!" he said, his eyes roved towards Mrs. Hanson.  What had she to say
to that?

"A perilous bad maid ’ee be!" said Mrs. Hanson.

"So ’ee’ve told me till I be sick to death o’ hearing it. Perilous bad
and wicked and ungrateful, I be—an all that’s bad!  Why do he come here
a persecutering me?  Why doan’t he leave I alone?" the girl cried
passionately.  "I doan’t ask him to—to foller me and worry me—why doan’t
he go and marry ’Lizbeth Colley, wi’ her currant biscuits? A wonderful
fashioner and manager she be!  He said it, said it and I—I wun’t marry
him.  I’ll die—die willing and glad, yes die!  Yes, I’ll die!"

She leaped to her feet, her face was burning, her eyes brilliant with
defiance and anger.

"No one hasn’t the right to so persecute a maid like he du persecute I!
I doan’t want him here.  I—I can’t bear nor bide ’ee, Abram Lestwick, I
can’t!"

Her voice faltered.  He sat there staring at her, never speaking a word
and his silence disconcerted her.

"A perilous—" began Mrs. Hanson.

"Say—say it again, say it again!" Betty panted, "And I’ll scream, I’ll
scream till I be dead.  Say it, again!"

"And ’ee be my son Garge’s child.  Garge as were ever mild and quiet,
and I be Garge’s mother!"  Up rose Mrs. Hanson.  "I be Garge’s mother
and thy grandmother and I be the one to speak, Betty Hanson, and speak I
will!"  She lifted a strong arm and pointed a long, thick-jointed finger
at the girl.  "Marry him ’ee shall, and I say it!  And wi’ a good grace
tu, and come to your senses, ’ee shall, my maid, if I break a stick over
your back!  And I’ll hev no more o’ these tantrums, no more of them, I
say, a perilous bad and wicked maid ’ee be!  Hev not Abram done we a
great honour?  Hev he not——"

"I’ll kill myself before I marry him!" the girl said, but she said it
without passion, only with an immense certainty in her voice.

Abram blinked, he stared at the ill smelling, newly lighted lamp.

"Listen to me, Betty Hanson.  Here be Abram asking ’ee to marry ’ee and
asking ’ee to name the day—answer!"

"I hev answered!"

"Answer as I order ’ee!"

"I shan’t!"

Mrs. Hanson stalked across the room, she went to a corner by the
fireplace, in that corner stood the stout old stick that had supported
her husband’s declining years.  She had always kept that stick in the
corner, it was more homely to see it there.  She took it now, she came
back to Betty.

"Will ’ee marry this good man?"

"No!"

One, two, three, down came the stick, heavily across the slender
shoulders.  The girl’s eyes filled with tears, born of the smart of the
blows, but she kept her white teeth clenched.

"I ask ’ee again, will ’ee name the day?"

"No, never!"

Thud, thud, thud!

Ahram Lestwick leaned forward, he stared at them both. He was tearing
the threads out of the fringe of the cheap tablecloth now.  He watched
Betty’s face without emotion. "Dogged abst’nate her be!" he muttered.

"Betty Hanson, my mind be made up!  Will ’ee take this man to be your
lawful wedded husband, in sickness and in health, for better an’ for
worser, till death du ’ee part?"

"I wun’t, I hate him!"

Thud, thud, thud.

"And I hate ’ee tu!" said Betty suddenly.

"That be enough!"  The stick fell.  "’Ee’ve said it, Betty Hanson!  Said
it!  Said it past recall!  Hate me, ’ee said it!  And to-morrow ’ee go
out, go out, my maid, for I live in no house where hate du abide!"

"I’ll go and glad, glad!" the girl said.

Abram rose slowly.

"I beg to thank ’ee for a good tea, which I did enjoy, Mrs. Hanson, ’tis
time for me to be going!" he turned towards the door.  "A very good
tea!" he said.  "I bain’t partial to new baked currant biscuits!"  He
paused at the door and looked at Betty.

"I’ll ask ’ee to name the day some other time, my maid! I be a patient
man, a very patient man, I be in no hurry, no hurry at all!  And I wish
’ee good night, Mrs. Hanson, and thank ’ee for your good tea once
again!"

Betty stared at him, her eyes were wide, filled with terror. She lifted
her hands to her face, she gripped her face between them, the sharp
little nails dug into the soft, peach-like cheeks, but she felt no pain,
was unconscious of what she was doing.

He looked at her and smiled, he backed out and closed the door, but she
did not move.  She heard his steps outside, her breast was rising and
falling and when she spoke, she spoke in gasps, in short breathless
sentences.

"Did ’ee see—grandmother, did ’ee see—his hands—his hateful hands?
Grandmother, did ’ee see?  One day—he’ll kill someone wi’ they hands,
kill ’em—grandmother, maybe—maybe ’twill be—me!"




                             *CHAPTER XVI*

                          *"MY LADY MERCIFUL"*


"I am glad Mr. Dalabey spared her," said Kathleen.

She nodded towards the little figure of the nymph standing up from the
middle of the lake.

"So am I!" Allan said.  "But I’ve a great respect for Dalabey, he does
not look it, but he is an artist.  He has a right perception, a sense of
fitness.  Dalabey is a reader and a thinker, too.  Kathleen, you would
be surprised by the depth of Dalabey’s knowledge, for all that, he says
’I be’ and ’Du ’ee?’  Which, after all, may be better English than that
which you and I speak.  You would hardly believe that Dalabey and Ruskin
have more than a nodding acquaintance, but so it is!  Yes, I’m glad he
spared the little stone maid. Do you know the first morning we were
here, dear, I worried about her.  I rose early and came out to see if
she were still here and there she was, a monument to Dalabey’s good
sense!  I’ve congratulated him since!"

She was listening to him with a smile on her lips.  Now she glanced at
him, at the tall, big young man by her side—her husband!

"Allan," she said suddenly, "Allan, you seem to be very happy!"

"Happy!" he was startled.  "Of course I am happy. Why—why did you say
that?  I am happy and content.  I Have the dearest and best man in the
world for father.  I have a wife who is friend and comrade——" he pressed
her hand.  "I have a home, the like of which there is not to be found in
all England!  Happy—why not, Kathleen?"

She was silent for a moment.  He had said the dearest father and his
wife—after all his wife was only friend and comrade—only!  Why did she
feel vaguely dissatisfied, had she not set herself to be just that very
thing, that he said she was—friend, comrade, and now he had said it, she
felt a little regret.

"And you would not have things different from what they are, Allan?"

"No!" he said.  "I’m very, very content, very proud and very happy,
Kathleen."

"And the dream," she said, "the dream you told me of, Allan, the pretty
girl who came——"

He laughed frankly, almost boyishly, a laugh so clear and so ringing
that it, was infectious.

"Because I had a pleasant dream and dreamed a pretty girl was imprudent
enough to come and kiss me, shall I moon about disconsolate and unhappy,
my mind filled with stupid longing and foolish regrets, eh?"

"But the dream did affect you for a time, Allan?"

"For a time," he said, "it was so clear, so real, so strange, so—so
undreamlike that it must affect me!  Kathleen, I never think of it now,
I’ve put it out of my mind, I’ve sat there a score of times on that very
seat and no dreams have come, I’ve smiled at the foolish fancy of it,
laughed it all to scorn—and forgotten it——"

"But if it were not—all a dream, if one day she came into your life—that
girl——"

He shook his head.  "She was a dream and she doesn’t exist, she never
will and never can—she came and she went—for good!"

"And yet," she persisted, with a woman’s strange persistence, "Allan,
if—if she came, if you saw her in life, if——"

"Then," he said quietly and looked her full in the eyes, "you have my
promise, dear, just as I have yours, but it will never, never
be—Kathleen, shall I be truthful, honest, candid with, you?  I never
want it to be, dear, I am well content!  And now come——" he went on
gaily, "and we’ll talk to old Markabee, that young fellow who refuses to
grow old!  Come, dear and——"

But she shook her head.  "I am going to the village, Allan," she said,
"at least, not to the village, but to a little cottage between here and
Little Stretton, Mrs. Hanson’s cottage."

"Hanson, I remember a kindly talkative old dame who has always a smile
and a country bob for us."

"I am afraid she is not as kindly as she looks!" Kathleen said.

"Why, what has the wicked old body been doing?"

"Ill-treating her granddaughter, so I have heard.  It was Debly Cassons
who told me.  She said she was passing Mrs. Hanson’s cottage as she came
here last evening, and she heard the sound of beating and looking in
through the window saw that wicked old woman thrashing the girl with a
stick. And there——"  Kathleen went on, "the girl was standing accepting
the blows without a sound, but later as Debly was going back, she heard
someone sobbing as thought her heart was breaking and she found the girl
lying on the grass in the little garden crying bitterly.  Debly is a
kindly old soul and she tried to comfort her and find out what the
trouble was, but the girl would not answer, so——"

"So my dear little Lady Bountiful, my Lady Merciful is going to carry
comfort to the ill-used child, eh?"

He looked at Kathleen, then stretched out his hand and touched hers.
"Kathleen, you are a good woman," he said sincerely and gently, "I wish
I could think that I were worthy of you!"

Kathleen shook her head, she did not speak.

There was a trace of sadness in her eyes as she went back alone to the
house.  It seemed to her that there was the chance of happiness of a
great and wonderful happiness, yet she could not stretch out her hand to
grasp it, could not because of memories, years old memories, memories of
another face and another voice, memories of a love that had filled her
life once.  She had loved then, she told herself, as a woman loves but
once, as she could never love again.

"Allan’s happiness and mine," she said to herself, "is built not on
love, but on friendship and respect, perhaps it is the surest, the best
foundation," yet while she consoled herself, she sighed a little and the
sadness stayed in her eyes.

Very grim and very silent was Mrs. Hanson this morning. Last night that
maid, the maid she had brought up from babyhood had told her that she
hated her, had said "shan’t" to her, had defied her.

Mrs. Hanson had had a strict upbringing herself, she had married Hanson
because he was in regular work and was drawing good pay, twelve
shillings a week, no less.  Her parents had told her to marry Hanson and
she had married him.  The marriage market has its branches in the
smallest of villages and marriages of convenience are not luxuries
enjoyed only by the rich and the wellborn.

And she, in her turn, had found a very suitable husband for this wayward
maid who, lacking in duty and obedience, definitely refused to accept
that husband.

Very well then!  Mrs. Hanson had every reason to be hurt and aggrieved.

Betty had risen early—as usual—had cleaned out the little cottage
kitchen, had polished the stove till it shone, had made the fire and had
prepared the breakfast just as usual, but all the time she was doing it,
she knew that she was doing it for the last time.

Last night her grandmother had said to her, "You shall go!"

Her grandmother never changed her mind, never relented, never altered.
Betty knew this of long, long experience, besides in any event she would
go, she would not stay—no, not even if her grandmother begged her to on
her bended knees, and that was not in the least likely. They had their
breakfast together in stony silence.  After breakfast Mrs. Hanson spoke.

"Wash they things and put them back on the dresser—for the last time!"
she added.

Betty had washed the things, she had replaced them on the dresser, on to
the snowy white board of the dresser top she had permitted one large hot
tear to splash.

Her grandmother sat stiffly upright in her chair by the window with the
huge family Bible open on the little rickety round table before her.

Mrs. Hanson always turned to the Bible for comfort and for advice in
times of stress and doubt.  She was reading stolidly through the story
of Naboth’s Vineyard and was deriving much spiritual comfort from it.
Very stern and unrelenting she looked sitting primly bolt upright, her
hands resting on the book and her spectacles adjusted on the end of her
long and pointed nose.

Now and again out of the corner of her eye she glanced at the girl who
was slowly putting the finishing touches to her work.  In a little while
the girl must be gone, Mrs. Hanson was a stern and unrelenting woman.

Where the girl would go to, Mrs. Hanson did not know, she never gave it
a thought.

"She did say, she did hate me!" the old woman thought. "Hate—a perilous
wicked thing for a young gell to say—and to abide in a house of hatred,
I will not!  There’s the Bible for it—’Better a dinner of yarbs and
contentment therewith than a stalled ox in the house——’"  Mrs. Hanson
looked up, a shadow had fallen across the window, there came a light
tapping on the door.

"Bless me and bless my dear soul!" said Mrs. Hanson aloud, "if here
b’ain’t my Lady Homewood, Betty quick—quickly open the door to Her
Ladyship, quick now!  Do ’ee hear me speak?"

The door was opened by Betty.  Coming from the hot bright sunlight of
the outer world into the twilight of the little room, Kathleen could
only see a slight, slender figure in an old cotton gown, which figure
bobbed a deferential, yet it almost seemed a defiant little curtsey to
her.

"This is Mrs. Hanson’s cottage?" Kathleen asked.

"Yes, my lady!"

Mrs. Hanson had risen, she bobbed, it was no half hearted curtsey this
of hers, she seemed to sink into the floor to her middle and then rose
again, tall and lean and agitated.

"Mrs. Hanson I be, my Lady, and proud I be to see your Ladyship
here—Betty, a chair for her Ladyship, my maid!"

Betty brought a chair, she flicked it with a duster and placed it that
Kathleen might be seated.

And now Kathleen, whose sight had grown accustomed to the dimmer light
of the room, could see the child plainly, and seeing her, wondered a
little at the loveliness of the little piteous face, the drawn mouth,
the big saddened eyes that had so evidently recently shed tears.

Poor pretty little maid!  Kathleen remembered what Debly had told her of
the child lying out in the grass, sobbing her heart out in the darkness
of the night.  She looked at the stern puritanical looking old woman and
Kathleen, who was hot blooded and generous, felt instinctive dislike of
her, which dislike was unjust and ill placed.

So, having come expressly about this girl with the golden hair and the
sweet oval face, Kathleen, being a very diplomatic young woman, spoke of
everything and anything else under the sun.  She told Mrs. Hanson how
often she had admired the neatness and prettiness of the little front
garden.

"It is so nice to see gardens so well kept, I am sure yours is a great
credit to you, and oh Mrs. Hanson, do please sit down, we can’t talk
comfortably, can we, if you stand?"

"Oh, my Lady, to sit in your presence!"

"Then you will force me to stand too!" said Kathleen.

So Mrs. Hanson sat down on the very edge of her hard chair and they
talked of the garden, that neat little garden with its flower beds,
surrounded by nice large flint stones which Betty whitened regularly
every Saturday, to make all prim and clean and spotless for the Sunday.

"You have lived here many years?" Kathleen asked.

"A Hanson hev always lived in this cottage, my Lady, from time out o’
mind.  A Bifley were I born, my mother being a Pringle, and me married
to Amos Hanson when I were just turned seventeen."

"Ah yes!" Kathleen said.  "And this is your granddaughter?"

"My granddarter her be," said Mrs. Hanson sternly.

"And of course you need her here to help you in this little cottage?"
Kathleen hazarded.

"I du not need she, my Lady, and her be going to leave me, her be, this
very day!"

"To—to leave—you—you mean the child is going away? Where is she going
to?"

Mrs. Hanson did not answer.  The girl was still in the room, seemingly
busy at the dresser, but Kathleen looking could see the slender
shoulders shake and knew what a big fight the little maid was putting up
to keep herself from bursting into tears.

What little village tragedy was here? she wondered.

"Is she going to London?" Kathleen asked.

"I du not know, my Lady!"

"But——" Kathleen said.

Mrs. Hanson rose, she was trembling.

"My Lady, that I should hev to tell ’ee a stranger, yet with a face so
kind, that emboldened I be—my Lady—this maid, this perilous wicked
maid——" the old dame stopped for a moment, quivering and shaking, "this
perilous bad, wicked onnatchral maid did say to me—I hate ’ee, I du!
Said it my lady wi’ her own lips and tongue, she did!  And I said tu her
’Betty Hanson, granddarter o’ mine, ’ee may be, but never, never will I
abide in a house where hatred du exist, so out of this house du ’ee go
for a bad perilous maid on the morrow!’  And this be the morrow, my
Lady——"

"But she is so young, only a child and surely you would not let her go
without, knowing she is going into safety and into the house of friends?
She is your granddaughter and you are responsible for her!  Do you think
that you are acting rightly?  Do you think—oh please don’t think that I
am preaching to you—but she is so young and so pretty and to think of
her going—and never even knowing where the poor child is going to!"

"I hev chose for she a good husband, a man wi’ thirty-five shillings a
week coming in, a cottage too and of quiet ways!"

"But if she does not love him?" Kathleen asked, and, remembering her own
marriage, blushed red as a rose.

"Love him indeed, my lady, hev I not chose he for she?  A good
upstanding, upright man as ever was, to Church reg’lar twice a Sundays,
walking in the fear of God, he du, and very respectable wi’ never a word
to be heard against he—and—and——"  Mrs. Hanson paused nervously and
exhausted for the moment.

"But she is only a child!  Betty, come here, Betty!"

"Betty, du ’ee hear her Ladyship a-speaking to ’ee?" cried the
grandmother.

But Betty at the dresser, her back obstinately turned, did not move.

"There, there!" said Mrs. Hanson triumphantly, "’ee can see for
yourself, my Lady, how bad and de-fiant and obstinant her du be—Oh
Betty, shame on thee!" the old woman added, for Kathleen herself had
risen and had gone across the room to the lonely little figure and all
suddenly had put a kind arm about those heaving shoulders.

"Betty, Betty child, come and tell me all about it!" she said in that
sweet gentle voice of hers that could break down any barrier of anger
and defiance.  And then Betty, knowing, feeling that here was a friend,
broke down suddenly and giving way to the long threatening tears, laid
her head against Kathleen’s breast and sobbed.

"I hate him, I hate him I du and fear him I du, My—my lady and
grandmother be so bent on my marrying he and I, I can’t!  Oh, I can’t
bear it, I can’t and ’tis breaking my heart, it be, my—my Lady!"

"Hush, little one, don’t cry!" Kathleen said.

"Betty, I be mortal ashamed of ’ee, I be!" said Mrs. Hanson.  "Mortal
ashamed and all put about I be!"

"Please, Mrs. Hanson, let me speak to her!" said Kathleen. She drew
Betty towards her chair, she sat down and held the girl’s hot little
hand and looked into the pretty flushed tear stained face.  Poor pretty
child!

"How old are you, Betty?" she asked.

"I be—be eighteen, my Lady!"

"And behaving she be like she were but seven!" said Mrs. Hanson.  "A
perilous bad——" she paused.

"Your grandmother says you must go, Betty!"

"Aye, I du, I du, and when I du say a thing, by that thing I du abide!"
said Mrs. Hanson.  "Go, I said, and go she shall!  A very unrelenting
woman I be!"

And then at last came a flash of anger into Kathleen’s eyes.

"Yes, a very hard and unrelenting woman, I fear, Mrs. Hanson! Has this
child no other friends, no other relations, than you?"

"Never a soul hev she got, and I hev brought she up!"

"And now would turn her out of the house, knowing that she had no one to
go to, no one to keep and protect her, for shame, Mrs. Hanson!" cried
Kathleen in just indignation. Mrs. Hanson said nothing, she quivered and
shook.  Perhaps in her heart of hearts she wanted to give way, but she
had said it, a stern and unrelenting woman was she, and prided herself
on it.

"And where will you go to, Betty, when you leave your grandmother’s
cottage?"

"Oh my lady, I du not know, indeed I du not!  For I hev not thought of
it, but I wouldn’t mind where I did go, so be it was not to Abram
Lestwick, who I du hate and of whom I be in most mortal terror, my—my
lady!"

"Then you shall not go to him, you shall come to me, Betty, and you
shall be my little maid!" Kathleen said.

"To—to the Manor House, my—my lady?" Betty stammered, "Oh my Lady, to—to
the Manor House?"

"Why, of course, child, for I live there!"

"Oh my Lady, I—I couldn’t, don’t ask me—I couldn’t bear to—to go there
and see it all—all as it be now—I couldn’t my Lady, ’twould break my
heart!"

Kathleen looked at her in amazement.  "But why, Betty?" she said.  "I
don’t understand!"

"My Lady," interposed Mrs. Hanson, "if so be as I may be allowed to
speak——" she paused, quivering with indignation, "’tis but right I
should tell ’ee this, that this wayward, obstinate, perilous gel was
forever in they old gardens before Mr. Homewood bought the old place,
forever she was, spite of all I did say to she.  Sometimes of nights I
du verily believe she would rise and go stealing off to they gardens, a
terribul state they was in too, and coming back wi’ her frock all
covered wi’ green like and sometimes tored by the wall over which she
did climb most shameful——"

Kathleen heard, she looked at the girl who stood with bowed head before
her.

"Why did you go to the garden, Betty?" she asked softly.

"Because—oh I—I don’t know, because—I can’t—can’t tell ’ee, my Lady, I
can’t tell ’ee, but it be all changed and altered now wi’ great fences
put up and—and my stone maid gone and ’twould break my heart, my Lady to
go there and not see she, my stone maid, any more!"

"The stone maid is not gone, Betty, and the gardens have not been
altered, but only made beautiful and they tell me that they must be just
as they were in the old days!"

"I wonder, my Lady, as ’ee have the patience to talk wi’ she!" said Mrs.
Hanson.

But Kathleen took no notice.  "So, Betty, will you come to me and be my
little maid?"

"And glad and grateful!" said Mrs. Hanson.  "Say it!" she commanded.
"Elizabeth Hanson, say it, yes—and glad and grateful I du be, my Lady,
to ’ee for your great kindness, and drop my Lady a curtsey, ’ee
unmannerly maid, as I be sore ashamed of!"

"If only——" Kathleen thought, "if only the old woman would leave the
child alone, poor Betty, I can see why that little spirit of hers was
goaded into rebellion at last!"

"I need no thanks!" Kathleen said, "I only want Betty to say that she
will come; you will come, child?"

How kind were those eyes that looked into hers, how sweet a smile there
was on her Ladyship’s beautiful face!  It must have melted a heart of
stone and Betty’s warm passionate little heart was not of stone.  So she
broke down, sobbing and crying, she would come and glad and grateful she
was, and come she would that very day if her Ladyship would but have
her.

"Pack your little box, Betty," Kathleen said, "and I will send one of
the men presently to fetch it for you and I think and hope you will be
happy and—and maybe Betty, you will not find the old garden so changed
after all.  I will answer for it there are no ugly fences and the stone
maid stands where she did in the middle of the lake, Betty, so—go come
and see your little friend again!"  She held out her kind hand, but
Betty did not take it, instead she dropped suddenly onto her knees and
kissed that white hand as if it had been the hand of a Queen, and so
like a queen was Kathleen to the country maid, a Queen all beautiful,
all generous, all kind.  Queen!  No, an angel from Heaven rather! And
when she had gone Betty stood there, all unmindful that her grandmother
was here and she spoke her thoughts aloud.

"Very willing and glad I would be," she said slowly, "very willing and
glad to die for she, I would!"

Mrs. Hanson sniffed, she had no patience with such outrageous and
exaggerated statements.

"Get ’ee off and pack your box," she said sharply, "and think yourself
lucky, Betty Hanson, as ’ee hev found another home, and a kind mistress,
too kind I be afeared!  Too kind and lenient like wi’ ’ee and your
folly, my maid!"




                             *CHAPTER XVII*

                       *HAROLD SCARSDALE RETURNS*


Kathleen’s face was very thoughtful, a little sad even, as she walked
back along the white dusty road. She hardly saw the village folk, who
bobbed and curtseyed to her as she passed.  She saw only a sweet oval
face, a glorious head of glittering hair, a pair of sad, wistful blue
eyes.

"So these people do, as their betters!" she thought.  "They drive and
goad their children into unhappy marriages!  My Lord’s daughter must be
made to marry thirty thousand a year, as little Betty, Mrs. Hanson’s
granddaughter, is to be forced into marriage with thirty shillings a
week!  How wrong and what a shame it all is!  Money, rank, position and
interest!  Is there no such thing as love left in the world at all?  May
not a man choose his mate, a woman choose for herself from among all
men, the one she loves?  It seems not, in village or in city, in cottage
or in palace, and I——" she paused.  "I did as I was bidden and I am
happier perhaps than I deserve to be!"

Kathleen, unlike other well born young ladies of Society, had had no
maid, in the old days she could not afford one. Amy, the parlour maid,
had assisted her into the dresses that were so very seldom paid for, and
Kathleen had long since adopted the unladylike practice of doing her own
hair.  So when she came to Homewood she had decided to continue without
a maid, though the funds were not lacking now and the dresses were
certainly paid for.

Of course little Betty Hanson would not know a tithe of those things
that a good and practiced lady’s maid should know.  She would not be
able to do her ladyship’s hair in the latest and most becoming style.
She would not be able to select gowns suitable for special occasions.
She would not be able to massage my lady’s white hands and perhaps her
face.  She would not be able to flatter and fawn and sponge and perhaps
rob and lie.  No, Betty Hanson was not likely to have any of these
desirable accomplishments.

Kathleen had an honest admiration for beauty.  She was one of those rare
women who can see and appreciate beauty in another woman.  She would
have everything about her beautiful if she could.  She feared that
perhaps to those who were unbeautiful, she was a little unjust.  To Ann,
the very plain housemaid who came from the Fulham Road, for instance,
Kathleen was more than unusually kind and generous, because in her heart
of hearts she did not like Ann.  And she believed that she did not like
Ann because Ann had a sallow, greasy skin, a misshapen nose and small
mean eyes, set too closely together and a loose, nondescript kind of
mouth.

Ann, as a matter of fact, was a stupid, blundering creature, who forgot
to do one half of what she was told and deliberately neglected to do the
other half, who generally did everything badly, and had a habit of
breaking the most expensive things she could put her clumsy hands on.
Once Kathleen, goaded and irritated by Ann’s hopeless imbecility had
spoken sharply—sharply for her—to the girl and had promptly repented of
it and had given Ann five shillings and begged a half day off for her
from Mrs. Crozier, the housekeeper.

But that was like Kathleen and that was why the servants adored her.

But Kathleen was a little disturbed in her mind.  She found herself
wondering, remembering and wondering—what was this about this child
haunting the old garden at the Manor House, climbing the high brick wall
and entering into that place of desolation and solitude, called thither,
who knows by what strange voices?  What was this about her going there
of nights to wander about the black solitudes of tangle and weed?
Surely it was not right, it was not canny.  She smiled at the word, the
word that she had heard her old Scottish nurse use years and years ago.
Yet it was the right word, it was not canny that a young and pretty girl
should have so strange a love for solitudes and weed grown gardens.

"Could it—could it have been she?"  What mad nonsense, what folly was
this?  Kathleen wondered at her own thoughts.  How could it have been
this girl whom Allan had seen there that day?  He had said it was a
dream, it must have been a dream—this girl was no dream, but living
reality. And then Allan had told her that the girl of his dream had been
dressed all in some strange, old world costume, how the garden about her
had been in bloom and all so trim and neat and tidy, how the old house,
a place of desolation, had been bright and gay with its open windows and
blowing curtains, and how the girl herself had gone to him and had
kissed him and had put her little mittened hands—mittened hands—had
little Betty Hanson ever owned a pair of mittens in her life?  No, no
those things had gone out in Betty’s great-grandmother’s time, what mad
nonsense it all was!  So Kathleen laughed merrily and laughed the ideas
and the notions all away.

She went to find Mrs. Crozier—Mrs. Crozier, the elderly, kindly autocrat
of the house, Mrs. Crozier who had been housekeeper in a far finer and
more magnificent mansion than this, no less a place than Dwennington
Hall, the seat of the Duke of Grandon.

"Mrs. Crozier, I have engaged a young village girl, Betty Hanson,
granddaughter of Mrs. Hanson, who lives in the cottage up the road
towards Little Stretton, she is to be my lady’s maid.  She is only a
child and she will feel strange here at first so——"

"I quite understand, my lady, I’ll look after the little thing and make
her feel quite at home!"

"Thank you, you do so readily understand me, Mrs. Crozier."

"It’s easy enough to understand your Ladyship," Mrs. Crozier said.
"There is always some kindly thought in your head, my lady, for others—I
know Mrs. Hanson slightly, a good and very respectable woman!"

"Will you send one of the men for Betty Hanson’s box presently?  And oh
Mrs. Crozier, about the fourteenth——"

"I’m making all preparations, my lady, Sir Josiah will be coming of
course!"  Mrs. Crozier smiled, she held Sir Josiah in very high esteem.

"Not a highly educated gentleman, perhaps," Mrs. Crozier had said over a
cup of tea to Mrs. Parsmon, the doctor’s wife, "but one of the kind,
Mrs. Parsmon that I call Nature’s gentlemen!  That is my opinion of Sir
Josiah Homewood!"  So when Mrs. Crozier mentioned his name to Sir
Josiah’s daughter-in-law, she smiled in a very kindly way.

"Sir Josiah will bring a friend, perhaps two, and my father will come of
course," Kathleen’s voice changed a little, as it always did in some
subtle manner when she spoke of her father.  Her face seemed to grow a
shade colder, then the cloud passed and she was smiling and thanking
Mrs. Crozier again, for her intended kindness to Betty Hanson.

"I’ll see her in the morning," she said, "let her come up to me after
breakfast and I’ll have a long talk with her, and O Mrs. Crozier, as she
is leaving her grandmother so suddenly, she may need some things,
clothes I mean—I know it is not always easy for a young girl to get all
the clothes she needs"—there was a sad reminiscent smile on Kathleen’s
face, "so will you get anything for her she may require and let me
know?"

"I will do everything, my lady."

The fourteenth was the date fixed for the house warming, that event that
had a little puzzled Sir Josiah.  But he quite understood what it meant
now, and he was looking forward to it with much the same feeling as a
schoolboy has regarding the coming summer holidays.

At the old fashioned chop house in the City, a table was regularly
reserved for Sir Josiah, which he sometimes shared with Cutler and
sometimes with Jobson or Cuttlewell, or Priestly (of Priestly,
Nicholson, and Coombe, those famous contractors).  At that same table
now, Sir Josiah bragged and boasted of the glories of Homewood, of his
daughter-in-law, Lord Gowerhurst’s only child.  How he told them of his
work at Homewood and of the wonders of the place.  "Historical, it is!"
he said.  "And that feller Davenham, I put him in charge.  I know my
limitations, Cuttlewell, no man better, when it comes to furnishing in
the Period style I’ll own I’m beat, but Davenham knows, an expensive man
I’ll admit, but what’s money, what’s money?"

What was money indeed!  Had not Sir Josiah been in pursuit of it all his
life, had he not seemed to worship it? Had not those plump knees of his
been for ever bent to the Golden Calf?

"What’s money, hey?" he cried.  "Ho!  William, William! Mr. Cuttlewell
will take a glass of that old port with me!"

And William, the antique waiter, of the white side whiskers and the
ancient evening dress suit and the large sized, untidy feet, shuffled
away to fill the order, for their best and most respected customer.

"I’d like you to see the place, I should, Priestly, my boy! My
daughter-in-law, Lady Kathleen, is giving a house warming on the
fourteenth.  Cutler’s running down with me—going to take him down in the
car.  Hang it, Priestly, you shall come!  My daughter-in-law, Lady
Kathleen, says all my friends are her friends, and she means it, she’s
that sort. God bless her!  There isn’t a truer, sweeter woman on earth
and so—so I say God bless her!"  The tears came into his eyes, they
trickled down his cheek.

Here was honest pride, honest and unfeigned!  He lifted his glass of
port, he beamed on them and gave them the toast from his heart.  "My
daughter-in-law, Lady Kathleen Homewood, God bless her!"

They smiled at him, they took it good naturedly, they knew his worth, a
sound man Sir Josiah, good for at least a couple or three hundred
thousand and very likely for a good deal more.  When a man has a credit
good for anything from two to four hundred thousand, who will not put up
with his little ways, even though it might be a trifle boring for those
who had not the pleasure of Lady Kathleen’s acquaintance?  So Priestly
was asked and Cutler and Cuttlewell too, only unfortunately Cuttlewell
could not come, but Jobson could and would!

When the expansive moment was past, Sir Josiah felt a little nervous.
Had he overstepped the limits?  Had he gone too far; would it not be
encroaching on Kathleen’s goodness?  Conscience smote him.  That he had
bought and paid for the house, that he was sending down cases of wines
regardless of cost, that he was ordering at the big London Stores with
the most lavish hand and purse in the world, all that mattered nothing
at all!  But would Kathleen be annoyed?  He wrote to her and received a
letter that made his cheeks flush like those of a school miss of
sixteen.

"Your friends are mine, bring them all, you cannot bring too many,
especially if they are like you.  Only let me know how many rooms you
want, dear, and believe me to be your affectionate and grateful
Kathleen."

"God bless her!" he said.  "God bless her!"  And that day he added
Coombe to the list.  What a time they would all have on the fourteenth!
How he talked and bragged and boasted, yet strangely enough a change had
come over his boasting, it was not of his Lordship the Earl, and her
"Ladyship, the Earl’s daughter, it was not of the "historical" mansion,
and the period rooms and Davenham’s whole hearted expenditure in the
matter of furnishing the place, it was of "My daughter-in-law,
Kathleen."

"Beautiful, ha, ha!" he laughed.  "I’ll shew you real beauty!  You think
Lesbia Carter and Sybil Montgomery, those actress girls, are beautiful
and so they are, sweetly pretty girls they are, and I don’t say one word
against ’em, not me!  But when you see my daughter Kathleen—Lady
Kathleen, then you’ll see beauty, then you’ll see goodness and sweet
gracious womanliness, my boy!"

Cutler and Jobson laughed, they had their little jokes together.  "The
old boy ought to have married her himself! I’ll bet you he’s more in
love with her than Allan, his son, is!"

"I know Gowerhurst," said Coombe.  Coombe was a large man who smoked
expensive cigars, with the bands on them, for effect.

"Know him, I should think I do.  He owes me a bit now! I’ll bet you if
he hears I’m going to—what’s the name of the place—Homewood—he won’t
turn up—catch him!"

Lord Gowerhurst had received his invitation.  He had not been down to
Homewood, he had no love for the country, ancient historical houses and
early English gardens did not appeal to him.  The house that found the
most favour in his sight was his favourite and particular Club, and he
preferred the card room there or the billiard room to any garden that
ever bloomed.  But he must go, he must offer himself up as a sacrifice.
Old Homewood would be there of course and his Lordship was not quite
easy in his mind about certain speculations into which he had been led.
Lumeyer had induced him to put five of the twelve thousand he had
obtained from Homewood into the Stelling Reef Gold Mine and his Lordship
had heard bad accounts of that same concern.  He had tried to sell out
and had tried vainly.

Lumeyer, a densely black bearded man, with cherry lips, had told him all
would be well, but his Lordship did not believe it.  It might
conceivably be possible that presently he would need old Homewood’s help
again.

"Doosid bore and beastly nuisance!" he said.  "But I’ll have to go, I
hate family parties and that kind of thing and Kathleen hasn’t mentioned
if there’s a billiard room.  Let me see—the fourteenth will be Friday.
I’ll leave a telegram with Parsons, the hall porter here, to send on to
me the first thing Monday morning, demanding my presence in Town.
Kathleen’s done well, doosid well, thanks to me!  I don’t like the tone
of her letter, though, no, hang me, I don’t like the tone of her letter!
Cold and formal, but that’s Kathleen, takes after her mother!  Doosid
cold and doosid formal, well, well!"  He paused.  "Whatever happens I’ll
be able to say I did the best possible for my daughter.  A man’s got to
consider his family, I’ve considered mine, no one can say to the
contrary!"

It was in the dining room during luncheon time at his Club that his
Lordship was holding communion with his own thoughts.  He started now at
the sight of a tall elderly, white haired, soldierly man who came in,
followed by a somewhat younger man—it was the younger man who claimed
his Lordship’s attention.

"Who’s that?" he asked himself.  "Seen that face before—who the doose is
it now?  Not a member——"

"Here Paul!"

"Yes, my Lord?"

"Paul, did you see that gentleman come in?  Who is he?"

"Sir Andrew Moly——"

"Yes, yes, I don’t mean the old one, I mean the younger one with him!"

"Don’t know, my Lord, can’t say!  I haven’t seen the gentleman before!"

"Then find out!"  The man scuttled off.

"I—I know that face, hang me if I don’t—wonder who he is?"  His Lordship
frowned, he adjusted his eyeglass and gazed across to the little table
where Sir Andrew Molyneux and his companion were seated.

"Confoundedly annoying to see a fellow’s face and not know who the doose
he is!" His Lordship thought.  "Hello, Paul, well?  Have you found out?"

"Yes, my Lord, I did, I took the liberty of asking Mr. Marsmith.  I
noticed Mr. Marsmith bow to the gentleman as he came in and I took the
liberty——"

"Yes, yes, but who is the fellow?"

"A very important gentleman, Governor of some place as I didn’t catch
the name of, my Lord, somewhere in America, I should think or the
Indies—I don’t know my Lord, anyhow he is Sir Harold Scarsdale, a very
rich——"

"Bless—my—soul!" his Lordship said.  "Thanks, that will do, Paul, that
will do!"

Paul went away.

"Harold Scarsdale—bless my soul!"  He sat and looked at the younger man.

"Altered, confoundedly altered, looks twenty years older, and it is only
ten!  Let me see, he can’t be a day over thirty-five and the fellow
looks forty-five.  By George, there was that love affair between him and
Kathleen.  I remember it well, Old Scarsdale, our Rector at Benningley’s
son.  I remember, by George I do, had a few words with the young fellow,
called him a presumptuous puppy if I remember right, so he was, by
George!  But byegones—eh—byegones can be byegones—Kathleen was too
sensible and too cold, yes by George, too cold to make a fool of
herself, turned him down, very rightly and properly, I remember it all,
remember catching him in the garden at Bishopsholme, I remember a letter
I got hold of, of his, asking Kathleen to run away with him, the young
fool.  By George if I remember right, I made it warm for him!  And he
cleared out, left the country, he seems to have done well for himself,
knighted, eh?  Well, well, things change, the wheel goes round, one man
gets carried up, t’others get taken down.  I’m t’other," he smiled
grimly.  "I’m down!  I think—I think——" he paused.  "I shall recall—why
not?  A rich man, Paul said so, sensible fellow Paul.  He knows I always
like to understand the financial position of other folk—I shall
certainly, yes certainly, recall our earlier acquaintance!"

His Lordship bided his time.  He waited, he had finished his own
luncheon some time since, but he timed his retirement from the dining
room to synchronise with that of the other two.

"Why, bless my soul, surely I am not mistaken?"

Sir Andrew turned to look at his Lordship, but this expression of
astonishment was not for him.

The other man had halted, seemed to draw back, his face stern and grave,
a handsome face, seemed to harden a shade as the Earl thrust himself
forward.

"I surely am not mistaking my old friend’s son, Harold Scarsdale.  If I
am, then believe me I offer my sincere apologies, but I can hardly make
a mistake!"

"My name is Scarsdale, and——"

"Then you don’t remember me, bless my soul, you don’t remember me, my
name is Gowerhurst!"

"I remember your Lordship perfectly!"

"My dear fellow, I am delighted to see you, it quite takes me back.
Come, come, we must have a long talk, a long talk together, eh?  How’s
the world been treating you? Well, I hope, if I can be of service to
you, command me! By George, Harold, I always had a sneaking affection
for you!"

"You managed to hide it very cleverly, my Lord, ten years ago!

"Ha, ha!  Had to, you know, had to!  Doting father, that sort of thing,
couldn’t let my little girl make a bad match! Hang it, if I’d been a
rich man, ha, ha, I wouldn’t have stood in your way, but I wasn’t; I
was, and am, come to that, doosid poor, and a father’s feelings, Harold,
my boy, as you’ll know when you are a father yourself, unless——"

"I am not married!" said Scarsdale quietly.

"No, no, quite right.  Well as I was saying, a father must consider his
child.  I may have seemed hard, a little hard perhaps, to you that day,
I remember it perfectly well, but I liked you, my dear fellow, all the
time my heart was bleeding for you, bleeding, sir!  I said to myself,
can I, dare I? No, by George, I can’t and daren’t!  I can’t see my girl
scrubbing her own doorstep and—and turning her dresses and making her
own bonnets—I can’t think of it!  So I nerved myself to be stern, nerved
myself, Harold, and all the time my heart bled for you, my dear lad!"

"I remember very well," Scarsdale said quietly, "that you on that
occasion called me a cunning, scheming, blackguardly young adventurer,
who had dared to presume to look far too high, and you were right, as to
the last, my lord, but not as to the first.  For I was not cunning or
scheming, I—I loved her, worshipped her and forgot everything else——"

"By George! and so you did, so you did!  But I was her father, I had to
consider ways and means, eh?  You’d do the same yourself, you’d have to!
But we can’t talk here!"

"I am with Sir Andrew Molyneux, an old friend of my father."

"Ah!  And your father, dear old fellow, how is he now, eh?"

"He has been dead four years, my Lord, and if you will excuse me——"

"Positively I must see you and have a chat with you over things, Harold.
You’ll dine with me to-night?  Say yes!"  Lord Gowerhurst wrung the
young man’s hand.  "Come, come, I can’t take no—I positively refuse to
take no!  Hang it, after all these years old friends and that sort of
thing, we can’t pass like ships in the confounded night, can we, eh?"

Sir Harold Scarsdale smiled.  He had a stern, grave face, but the smile
lighted it up.

"To-night then, my Lord, since you wish it, here—at what time?"

"Eight o’clock," his Lordship said briskly, "and I shall look for you,
it’s been a delight, a sheer delight to see you again!"




                            *CHAPTER XVIII*

                             *IN THE DAWN*


My dear Kathleen, I am looking forward with keen enjoyment to my coming
visit to your charming home. That I have not come before you will easily
understand, my love.  I am an old fellow and my ways are not your ways.
I am sensitive, very sensitive, as I think you know.  To have felt
myself de trop would have been a cause of pain to me.  I felt I could
not do it and though my heart was yearning for you and though I have
often, a thousand times, pictured your beautiful home, its master and
mistress, though I, in my solitary and none too comfortable rooms, have
often visioned to myself your delightful life at Homewood, yet I have
never intruded.  I have been tempted many times.  I have said to myself,
I will run down just for the day, then I hesitated.  Should I be
welcome?  I know, I know, my love, that my dear daughter’s heart is
always affectionately inclined to her doting father, yet in your new
life, with your new interests, with your young husband, I have wondered,
is there a place, some nook, some corner for the old fellow to stow
himself away in?

"But bless me, how I ramble on?  I live a very quiet and uneventful
life, my appetite is not what it was.  I sometimes walk round to the
Club and try and peck a morsel for lunch, but I am not my own man.  I
think I feel my loneliness.  Well, well, my dear, I look forward, as I
say, to the fourteenth of this month, with great expectation and
happiness.  Now I shall behold you in your own home.  I shall behold my
dear daughter, mistress of a good house, dispensing her and her
husband’s hospitality with the gracious courtesy that is the birthright
only of a woman of breeding. Give my kindly remembrance to your husband
and believe me, my dear Kathleen, ever your fond and devoted Father,
Gowerhurst.

"P.S. I am taking the liberty of bringing an old friend down with me.  I
know in such a mansion as Homewood, there are many rooms, may I hope
that I am not encroaching in asking that one may be reserved for one for
whom you once had a kindly feeling."

Kathleen smiled a little and frowned a little over this letter.  It was
like her father, he wrote as he spoke.  But who was the friend?  She
hardly gave it a thought, there were so many old friends, was there one
for whom she had once had a kindly feeling?  She doubted it.  Her
father, in the old days, had commanded her ready affection at all times
for any opulent acquaintance from whom he was hopeful of extracting
money.  This was in all probability another victim.  So Kathleen put the
letter aside and forgot all about it, except that she asked Mrs. Crozier
to have another room prepared.

She told Mrs. Crozier now, lest she might forget it.

"Oh, my lady," said the housekeeper, "there’s that little Betty Hanson
who came yesterday, she is waiting your ladyship’s pleasure."

"I had not forgotten," Kathleen said.  "Will you send her up to my
room?"

She smiled at Allan.  "My new maid," she said, "the one I told you
about, the little girl from the cottage down the road, such a pretty
little thing, I am sure you will admire her!"

Allan smiled when she had gone out, he wondered if other wives bespoke
their husband’s admiration for new maids in this way?  Then his smile
drifted away and he frowned a little, had Kathleen loved him—she would
have been more jealous of his admiration—loved him!  How good she was,
what a sweet, lovely nature hers was, and how utterly unworthy of her
was he!

Had she loved him?  Yet, why should he wish for her love when he had
given her none of his own?  None?  No, he did not love her, not as a man
should love the wife he has married.  He liked her, admired her,
respected her, above all living women.  She shared with his father the
whole of his heart, but it was not "the love," not the passion of young
manhood, the worshipping, devouring, all selfish and yet all unselfish
love that surely she was worthy to awaken in his breast.

"Betty!"  Who had said "Betty"?  Who had uttered that name?  Mrs.
Crozier of course, she had told Kathleen that Betty Hanson was here, but
the name awakened memories, memories of that dream.  "Her" name had been
Betty, had she not told him with her red lips, "Thy Betty," she had
said, and he had been "her Allan."

Betty, nonsense!  This Betty would be a big bouncing, red cheeked, bold
eyed, healthy country girl!  As for Betty of his dreams, there was no
place for her now in his busy life.  There was much to be done.  He had
taken up farming wholeheartedly, not for ever would he live on his
father’s bounty.  He would improve the place, make it almost
self-supporting.  He would prove to his father and Kathleen that there
was something in him and that he was not merely an idler and a dreamer.
So he filled his pipe and lighted it and went out to have a long talk
with old Custance at One Tree Hill Farm.  For Custance, though old,
seemed to be the most progressive man in the place and already he and
Allan had laid their heads together and had discussed ways and means to
wring money from the fertile soil.

Mrs. Crozier had been very kind to the timid and shy girl.  She had had
Betty to tea with her in her own private room, she had introduced her to
the other servants, and had kept a motherly eye on Betty till the time
came for Betty to retire to her own small room in the servant’s
quarters.

And she was here! actually here, sleeping in this old house, which she
had seen so often, watched so often by sunlight and moonlight.  She
remembered it as it had been then, with its broken windows, with the ivy
and the creepers growing over it in one great tangle.

But the garden, she had not seen the garden yet!  How would it look when
she saw it?  What terrible changes would there be there?  Her dear
garden, what harm had they done to it?  How strange and altered would it
be?

She could not sleep that night, she lay awake on the strange unfamiliar
bed, tossing restlessly.

Her ladyship had said, and how sweet and good was her ladyship, she had
said that the stone maiden was still there in the old lake, so she would
find one familiar friend.

After a long, sleepless, troubled night for Betty, the daylight dawned
at last, and then she rose and dressed very quietly and before the other
servants were waking, she crept down the steep stairs to the kitchen.

She did not hesitate for a moment, she seemed to know her way perfectly,
yet she had never been inside the house before. The House had always
repelled her, its gloom and its silence and its dust had forbidden any
desire on her part to explore it.  Yet now she made her way unerringly
through the great kitchen through the vast and cold scullery, down a
long passage till she came to a little door, a door that she knew must
be there.  And it was there and then she drew a ponderous bolt that had
been fashioned by a hand that had been dust for two centuries.  She
unfastened a huge lock, by a key that required all her strength to turn,
and so she opened the door and stepped out into the garden as the rising
sun flung its first ray of primrose and gold across the heavens.

Only two steps Betty took, then stood still.  The light was dim yet, yet
through the grey mists she could see it—not as she had seen it last—yet
as she had seen it perhaps in her dreams.  It was all so familiar, not
as she had dreaded, strange and cold, but it, was as the face of an old
friend suddenly grown young again, young and beautiful and sweet.

Her garden—yes it was hers!  Changed and yet not changed, even more
hers, it seemed to her, now, than had been the weed grown, tangled
desert she remembered.  Yet she remembered that she had seen it thus in
dreams and now, as the sun rose, as the sky was flooded with the glory
of the dawn, she saw her garden in all its beauty, in all its reality,
as sometimes she had seen it in those strange dreams that had come to
her.

Had she not seen it like this when those figures, those strange,
beautiful, unreal figures of her imagination had promenaded these old
walks, those gracious ladies with their strange old world costumes,
their hair dressed so high on their heads, their tiny slim waists, their
great bell-like skirts and their little red heeled shoes.  Those men in
their rich deep skirted coats, their stockinged legs, their swords,
their wigs—all those visions that had come to her in dreams, had they
not moved and lived in a garden like this, this same garden as it was
now, all trim and sweet and gay with flowers?

She felt her heart pounding, throbbing, beating as it had never beat
before.  She hurried on and on, down the broad stone pathway to the lake
and there she saw her little friend, just the same as always, the broken
pitcher on her shoulder.

So while the sun rose higher and higher, Betty stood there and nodded
solemnly to the little stone figure, who never nodded back.  And then,
turning to go back to the house before the others should know that she
had come here unpermitted, she stopped suddenly and uttered a little
choking cry of wonder and amazement.  For from here she could see the
house, a place of the living, no longer a place of the dead.  She could
see the curtains fluttering in the breeze at the many open windows, she
could see the signs of life there, the primness and neatness of it all!

And it was all familiar, there was no strangeness to her here, she was
looking at that which her eyes had seen before and yet how could it be,
since she had not entered this place, since those days before the
workmen had come to alter it all? How could it be? and yet it was!  And
then suddenly she turned and did not know why, and looked at an old
stone seat that stood on the edge of the great ring about the sundial.
Why had she looked at it?  What had she expected to see there?  What she
saw was an old, old stone seat, grey and brown and green in the shadows,
golden white where the sun’s rays touched it.

And then, filled with wonder, filled with a strange sense of fear, she
ran to the house and so back through the door which she bolted and
barred after her, and up the steep stairs to her own little room and to
sit on the bed with her hands clasped and her eyes staring into vacancy,
a vacancy which yet seemed to hold many things, and one thing she saw
very plainly, a man who was young, a man whom she knew instantly as he
whom she had seen so often at his work in the old garden.  But now she
saw his face, and he smiled at her, a lean, strong, sunburned face, with
eyes as blue as her own!  How often in those strange dreams had she seen
him, quaintly dressed in a suit of snuff coloured brown, toiling at his
work with spade and hoe.  "Allan!" she said suddenly.  "Allan!"  And
then she uttered a cry, she hid her face in her hands and shivered
suddenly, for she was conscious of a strange feeling of fear, for here
was something she could not understand.  "Allan!"  Why had she said that
name?  What had put it into her mind and brought it to her lips?




                             *CHAPTER XIX*

                           *THE DREAM MAIDEN*


If Allan Homewood, Esquire, should by chance meet his wife’s maid or any
other servant on the stairs, or in one of the innumerable passages of
the old fashioned house, it was scarcely likely that he would give more
than a passing glance and more than a passing thought to the domestic.
If little Betty Hanson should happen suddenly on the master of the house
at a turn in the passageway, what more becoming than she should drop her
eyes demurely and go on her way?

So while Allan and Betty Hanson had met perhaps a dozen times or more,
neither had really seen the other.

Allan was vaguely conscious of a small trim figure, and a wealth of
golden hair, which figure when he came tapping at the door of his wife’s
room usually flitted out by another door.

Betty took kindly to her new duties, she was intelligent, she was quick
and she was very eager to be of service to her mistress.  Because she
was eager to learn she learned rapidly. Kathleen was a gentle mistress,
who never lost her temper and saw something rather pitiful in the young
girl’s evident desire to please.

"Poor little thing!" she said, "she is grateful!"  So she was more than
usually kind to Betty and the girl whose heart was bursting with love
and gratitude, would very willingly have lain down and allowed Kathleen
to trample on her.

"What do you think of my little maid, Allan?  Don’t you think the child
is pretty?"

"Eh, your maid?  Oh yes!" Allan said.  "Quite a pretty little thing!"
He was thinking of something else, the fourteenth of the month was
weighing rather heavily on him and his spirits.

If it had only been his father who was coming, or only Kathleen’s, but
that both should come, that both should bring friends of their own
troubled Allan.  He knew that his father’s friends were not likely to
find much favour with his Lordship.  Allan had met most of them, he knew
Cutler, a prosy, self sufficient, middle aged bore.  Jobson was another
of the same type.  Coombe was a big man with a loud voice and vulgar
aggressive manner.  He told interminable stories without wit or point.
They were sound men in the City, very likely, but he dreaded their
advent here.  For his father he felt nothing but pride and affection.
He knew the old man’s goodness of heart, his generous nature, his
simplicity, for these he loved him and honoured him above all men. Let
my Lord Gowerhurst sneer at that good honest man if he dared—if he
dared—in his, Allan’s presence.  It was not of his father, but of
Cutler, Jobson, Coombe and Company that Allan felt nervous and whom he
worried about.

Kathleen had told him that her father was bringing a friend.

"Who?" Allan asked.

"I don’t know, Allan, he writes, an old friend of mine—but I doubt it,
very few of my father’s friends were mine—I am sorry," she said frankly,
"that he is coming.  I know that you do not like him, Allan, I cannot
wonder that you do not!"  She sighed and her head drooped a little.

And Allan, looking at her, felt his heart swell with pity, for he knew
what that proud spirit of hers had been called on to suffer because of
her father, the Earl.

But was it pity only that made his heart swell, that made him take a
step towards her, then stand hesitating?

He turned abruptly and went out into the garden.  He was puzzled,
uneasy, uncertain—Life had seemed so placid, the future as well as the
present had seemed so certain, as certain as anything human could be.
He and Kathleen understood one another so perfectly, were such firm
friends, such tried companions; yet did they understand one another
after all?  Did he even understand himself?

He flung himself down onto the stone seat facing the sundial.  He had
never been in love in his life, and therefore told himself that he knew
all about it.  Love, he believed, came like a tempest, it swept a man
off his feet, it robbed him of his appetite.  It caused him sleepless
nights, it drove him to a thousand and one follies.  Such mad,
passionate, foolish love had never assailed him.  He had a good appetite
and he slept well of nights, he did not write poetry, though he was
rather fond of reading it, if it were good.  So emphatically he could
not be in love and certainly not in love with his own wife!

He laughed at the thought, but the laughter was a little uncertain, a
little shaky.

"I am," he said aloud, "no more in love with her than she with me.  We
are the best of friends, our lives together are practically ideal, we
have not had one quarrel in all these weeks, we are not likely to have;
how could one quarrel with a woman so gracious, so sweet, so good as
Kathleen?"

He thrust his hands into his pockets and stretched out his long legs and
stared hard at his boots.

In love? certainly not! and most assuredly not with Kathleen, yet
supposing she were to leave him, supposing he must suddenly face life
without her?  He shuddered at the thought.

Then he refused to consider the matter, to-morrow was the fourteenth,
to-morrow would come his father, God bless him, with his beaming face,
his car probably packed full of little delicacies and little presents,
as well as of City friends, whose coming Allan distinctly dreaded, yet
his father should not be made aware of that.  There would be a royal
welcome for Coombe and Cutler and Jobson, for the sake of the dear old
man who brought them.

A telegram had been delivered by the red cheeked messenger from the
Little Stretton Telegraph office.

It was carried up to My Lady’s room, as Mr. Homewood himself was not
visible.

Kathleen tore open the envelope, it was from her father.

Womanlike she glanced at the signature "Gowerhurst" first and a faint
hope came that it was to say his Lordship would not be able to come, but
he was coming.

"Find trains serve badly, can you send a car to meet us three fifteen
Longworthy Station.  Gowerhurst."

Of course they could and must.  Kathleen sighed a little, she glanced
through the window and saw Allan sprawling on the old stone seat by the
sundial.

"Betty," she said, "take this telegram down to Mr. Homewood and ask him
if he will kindly arrange about it."

Nothing was farther from Allan’s thoughts, at this moment, than dreams,
or memories of dreams.  He had put all that nonsense behind him, long
since; he had laughed frankly and whole heartedly when the merest memory
of that strangely lifelike dream had come into his mind.  If it had
affected him—and it had—it affected him no longer.

He was thinking particularly of Coombe, if only his father had contented
himself with Cutler and Jobson!  They were at least quiet and
unobtrusive, while Coombe—Allan looked up.

Down the wide flagged pathway a girl was coming to him. About her was
the old world garden, all bright and gay with its flowers, and the trim
emerald green lawn, all dappled with sunlight and shadows.  Behind her
was the old house, the casement curtains fluttering in the gentle breeze
and the girl herself dainty and light footed.

Why did he start?  Why did he catch his breath suddenly? Why did his
eyes dilate?  She wore no quaint old-world cap on her gleaming little
head of golden hair, she wore no flowered gown, high waisted and cut low
to show the white neck.  No, she wore a very simple, plain black frock
with a dainty white apron.  But he knew her!  He knew her and his heart
seemed to stand still as he watched her, wide eyed with amazement.  His
outflung hand gripped the back of the stone seat.

So she came towards him, then as suddenly stopped, she stood there
looking, looking at him with the bluest eyes he had ever seen.  He saw a
little hand go to her breast as into her childlike face there came a
look of wonder and of fear.

"Betty!" he said.  "Betty!"  And scarcely knew that he had said it.

"Allan, oh Allan, I——" and then flashed into her face a crimson tide of
shame, she dropped her eyes, she stood before him, trembling and
abashed.

What had possessed her?  What madness was this?  Allan—she had dared so
to call him, him the master of the house—my lady’s husband!

So the man sat, gripping the old seat, and the girl stood there, covered
with shame and confusion, not daring to lift her eyes, and silence fell
on them both.

What strange mad fantasy was this?  Should he waken in a moment to hear
Dalabey’s voice, as once before?  But no, she was real at least, this
little maid in her black dress and her head crowned with its shining
glory.

But she had called him Allan, the name had seemed to come spontaneously
from her lips, as he had called her Betty!  He felt shaken, life had
suddenly become fantastic to him, nothing seemed very real.  It was
after all a world of dreams; this too, was a dream.  He could almost
have welcomed the voice of Dalabey, but it did not come.  So she stood
there, with bent head and he saw something fluttering in her little
hand.

"You—you have brought me a message?" he said, and his voice sounded
strangely hoarse and discordant.

"Yes, sir, from—from my Lady!"  She dropped him a little curtsey, he
could see the flush still in her cheeks, could see that it even stained
her white neck and her little ears. He rose and went to her and
stretched out his hand.  He hoped that she would look up but she did
not, never once were the blue eyes lifted to his own.  Why had she come,
why had she come?  He had not wanted her to come, yet she had come into
his life after all.  She was here, standing before him, not in the
picturesque trappings of a byegone century, but in her modern dress,
still he knew her well enough.

"Betty, Betty!"  Betty who had kissed him, who had told him that she
loved him.

He had hoped once that he might meet her in real life. He had pictured
her, tried to dream that dream again, yet had never succeeded.  And now
that at last he saw her, could stretch out his hand and touch her, he
knew that it were better that she had not come.

He put out his hand and took the telegram from her, yet did not look at
her.

"You are—Betty Hanson, my wife’s maid?"

The little head seemed to droop lower, he could see the childish breast
heaving under the pretty white apron.  She dropped him a curtsey humbly.

"You are Betty!" he said.  "And you called me——"

He paused.

"Oh sir, oh sir forgive me.  Indeed—indeed I du not know what made me,
sir!"  Now the blue eyes were lifted to him in pitiful appeal.

"Indeed—oh indeed, sir, I didn’t know what I were saying! ’Twasn’t as if
I myself spoke, ’twas as if—if summut in me made me say it—oh
sir—indeed, I couldn’t help it! I—I don’t know what made me du it!"

How blue her eyes were, how they shone and glittered now with the tears
that clung to the sweeping, upturned lashes, how pitiful in its appeal
for pardon was the little face!  He looked at her with a feeling of
pity, and yet not of pity only.  It was she! the girl of his dreams, the
girl who had come to him and called him "Allan, her Allan," this girl a
servant in the house, who had come to him this day in real life and had
called him by his name.

What meaning, what strange, unknown, force was behind it all?  How could
he tell, still less, poor maid, how could she?

"I am not angry, Betty," he said, "indeed, why should I be angry—with
you—for I called you Betty, knowing it to be your name, though I did not
recognise you as Betty Hanson, my wife’s maid.  Don’t think of it again,
child, and do not let it trouble you!  Perhaps you are right, it was not
you yourself who spoke——"

"And you bain’t angry wi’ me, sir?" she asked.

He shook his head and smiled.  Angry—angry with her—yet had she not once
before asked him that selfsame question? Strangely he remembered clearly
and distinctly the very words "Allan, Allan, be you still angry wi’ your
Betty now?"

Perhaps unconsciously he had muttered them aloud, for he was startled to
see the look in her face, the wonder, the and excitement.

"What—what made ’ee say those words?" she gasped.  "Oh, what made ’ee
say ’em?"

"I don’t know, I don’t know," he said.  "Betty, Betty, child, go back,
forget all this, it is nonsense—some foolish dream that you and I seem
to have shared.  Go back, little maid, to your mistress and your work
and forget—-" he paused, "forget that you knew my name to be Allan and
that I knew you for Betty!  Believe me it is better, far, far better
so!"  He smiled at her kindly.  "Don’t think that I am angry, why should
I be angry?  It seems to me, child, that fate is playing some strange
trick with us, that is far, far beyond understanding.  We must not try
to understand it.  Betty, better put it out of your mind and forget
it——"

"If—if I could!" she whispered.  "Oh if I could!"

"We must, both of us," he said sternly.  "We must forget what we should
never know!"

How pretty she was—and now that the colour was in her cheeks, how lovely
she looked in the sunlight with the old garden all about her!  Kathleen
was right—a rarely lovely little maid was Mrs. Hanson’s granddaughter!
And as she was, so had been that other maid, the maid of his dream, the
same gleaming, golden hair, the same delicate arched brows—the deep blue
eyes—with their wealth of uplifted lashes, the fair oval of her cheeks,
and the red lipped dainty little mouth that once had smiled on him so
kindly and not smiled only, but had come so willingly to meet his own
lips.

"Betty, there are some things that it is not given to us to understand,
perhaps now and again in the lives of some mortals the curtain is for a
moment lifted.  It may have been so with us, lifted and then, allowed to
fall again—and when it has been lifted only for a moment, Betty, it is
better that we who have been granted a sight beyond it, should forget
what we have seen and never let it influence our thoughts or our lives.
Can you understand me, Betty?"

She nodded silently, she looked at him with her glorious eyes and in
them he saw to his dismay, his terror almost, the same light, the light
of the love he had seen shining in the eyes of his dream maiden.

But now she broke the spell, she dropped him a curtsey, she was turning
away.

"Be there any answer to my lady’s message, sir?" she asked.

"No!" he said.  "No, there is no answer!"

He went back to the stone seat and sat there, conscious that life and
the world had changed suddenly for him.  He dropped his chin onto his
hand and sat staring, staring and seeing nothing.

He knew that once he had hoped that she might come and she had come and
now he knew he was sorry and yet glad, with a strange gladness.

"Betty!" he said and said it aloud.  "Betty——!"  And saw her, not as he
had seen her but a moment ago, but as he had seen her that first time in
her picturesque flowered gown, so quaintly high waisted, the neck cut
low to shew her slender white throat, the little mittened hands and the
mob cap on her shining head.

But the face, the eyes, the lips, ah! they were the same!

He rose suddenly and seemed to shake himself mentally and physically.
This was real life, this was the world all about him.  There was no time
for folly and for dreams—to-morrow the old house would be filled with
visitors.  He remembered the telegram suddenly and found it crushed into
a ball in his hand.  He opened it and smoothed it out and read it.

"It is from my wife’s father," he said aloud, and then repeated the
words as of some set meaning and for some known purpose, "my wife’s
father!"




                              *CHAPTER XX*

                         *THE ROAD TO HOMEWOOD*


Long ago before their marriage, Allan had promised to tell Kathleen if
his dream maiden should ever come to him in real life.  And she had
come, yet he had not told his wife.  To-morrow the old house would be
filled with guests.  Kathleen had much to do and much to think about,
why trouble her now with this foolish story?  After all the visitors
were gone—why then—perhaps—but not now!

Then they would have the old house to themselves, then would be the time
for confidences, and such foolish confidences after all, why tax her
patience with them now?

As for Betty, it was likely that he would see the child again, yet when
he saw her, what then?  He would not speak to her.  Yet at the very
thought of that fair, flowerlike face, those deep blue eyes, something
seemed to stir within him, the blood seemed to run more quickly in his
veins, he was conscious of a heart throb, of a subdued excitement.

And now that she was not here before his eyes, he pictured her, not as
he had seen her last, but as he had seen her for the first time, in
quaint gown and mob cap, with mittened hands.

No! when the visitors were all gone, when her father and his had taken
their departure, when they had the house to themselves once again—then
he would tell her and ask her opinion and advice.  Perhaps she would
send the child away, women did such things he knew, he hoped that
Kathleen would not.  On the whole he did not think she would. Kathleen
could not be guilty of anything that was small and mean.

She looked up at him now as he came in with the same frank kindly smile
as always.

"You had my father’s telegram, Allan?" she said.  "Did you arrange about
a car?"

"Yes!"

"Allan, it’s very, very wrong of me, yet when I saw the message was from
my father I almost hoped that it was to say he could not come!"

He did not answer and she went on.

"He has taken so little interest in us and the house, he has not thought
it worth his while to run down, even for an hour to see us, all these
weeks, while your father——" she paused.

"I wish," he said, "that my father was not bringing so many of his City
friends, I am afraid that his Lordship will not approve of them!"

"Your father surely has a right to bring whom he pleases to this house?"

"Yes, dear, but——"

"I wrote to him.  I did not tell you at the time, I told him that all
his friends were welcome here, Allan, if we can give him any little
pleasure; could we deny it to him, after all that he has given to us and
done for us?  And, oh!  I feel so humble when I think of him and his
goodness.  I remember what I used to think of him, what I used to permit
myself to say of him, before I knew him as I know him now.  I feel that
I can never sufficiently make amends for that!"

All that evening she talked to him of the visitors who were coming.  She
herself had seen to Sir Josiah’s room, she had arranged vases for the
flowers that she would not cut until the morning, so that they should be
fresh.  It was a sense of duty rather than a feeling of love that caused
her to put flowers in her own father’s room too, for one thing she knew
that he would not appreciate them.  That night Allan lay wakeful.  He
thought of Betty and thought of her with a sense of shame, yet with a
strange joy.

Why should it have been as it had?  What meaning was behind it all?  Was
there a meaning that he would ever understand?  He remembered what his
father had told him of a Pringle—an Allan Pringle who had married a
Betty, maid to the then mistress of the house.  It had been a sad story,
his father had said, the girl had died, poor Betty!  He listened to
Kathleen’s sweet regular breathing, he lifted himself on his arm and
watched her sleeping face in the moonlight that came in through the
widely opened window.

How good she was, how white and pure she looked lying here in her sleep!
He was strangely moved, his mind was filled with a great reverence for
her, he bent to her, he touched her cheeks with his lips, so lightly as
not to waken her, then he lay down again and slept.

No holiday maker ever set out for a day’s pleasuring with keener
anticipation than did Sir Josiah this bright September morning.  He was
to call for Cutler on the way.  Coombe was driving his own car and would
pick up Jobson, they were to meet at the Chequers at Horley, should they
not happen on one another on the road.

There were a thousand and one things to remember, a dozen packages to
stow away.

"Mind that there one, Bletsoe, my man, go lightly now!"

"Very good, Sir Josiah!"

"And see Mr. Cutler don’t go and put his foot on it," said Sir Josiah,
"and let me see, one, two, three, four, that’s all right!  One moment!"
Back into the house he dashed, to reappear with more parcels.

"Reg’lar old Santy Claus," muttered Bletsoe, with a kindly smile, "like
a blooming great kid he is, going to ’ave a day’s outing!"

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—seven’s right, and eight,
that’s in my pocket; what’s the time, Bletsoe?"

"Gone ten, sir!"

"Bless my soul and I promised to be at Cutler’s at ten—all right now,
Bletsoe, let her go!"

How he had racked his brain, what shops had he not rummaged, what
shopmen and shop maidens had he not pestered. He had sent down cases
from the wine merchant, stores from Messrs. Whiteley, hundred weights of
pâte de foie gras, Strasbourg pies, chocolates and Heaven knew what
besides from Messrs. Fortum and Mason’s.  That lengthy and evidently
fragile parcel he had been so careful about was a beautiful and costly
vase.  Something of the Ming Period or the Chang Dynasty, he was not
very sure what, but it cost a great deal.  That soft and pliable looking
parcel was a silken kimono of rare and wonderful workmanship.  Those
square parcels were cigars and cigarettes for Allan and Allan’s friends.
There he sat, this red faced, jolly old gentleman, with a great cigar in
the corner of his mouth and he beamed on the world as his magnificent
car whirled him up one street and down another.

And here was Cutler actually ready, standing in his open doorway, Cutler
in a new and rather becoming tweed suit, and a soft felt hat, an
unfamiliar Cutler, for Sir Josiah had never seen him in anything but a
silk hat and a correct black coat in the City.

"Hallo Cutler, here we are, a bit late, mind the parcels! Bletsoe, take
Mr. Cutler’s suitcase, here we are, my boy, lovely morning, looking
forward to a delightful run, picking up Coombe and Jobson at Horley.
Get in, get in!  Have a cigar, no you prefer a pipe.  I don’t know that
you ain’t right!"

And now they were really off and away.  How nimbly the big car twisted
in and out the traffic, how it dodged cumbersome, road monopolising
trams, how it slipped round the unwieldy omnibuses!  Then away southward
Streatham was passed—here was Croydon with its narrow congested streets,
past Purley and Redhill, down the long hill somewhere near the foot of
which lies the village of Horley and its well known Inn, where Coombe
and Jobson would be waiting.

What a morning, what sunshine, what a breeze!

"Does one good, Cutler.  Blows the cobwebs away! Better than all your
Doctor’s stuffs, my boy!"

"My daughter," said Cutler, "tells me that in Demauritius, of which her
husband is Governor, they have some extraordinarily beautiful country
and she constantly——"

But Cutler’s reminiscences are cut short, here is the Chequers, and here
is Coombe with a tankard of beer in his hand.  He waves the tankard to
Sir Josiah unblushingly and drinks his jolly good health.

"And your jolly good health too, Coombe, my boy, what a morning!  What’s
the time!  Eleven—Bless me, we must have dawdled on the way!  Beer! the
air’s good enough for me—like wine, sir, wine—the finest wine in the
world!"

"Race you to Crawley for a fiver," says Coombe.

"I—I trust—Sir Josiah," says Jobson, "you will not agree, believe me
Coombe needs no inducement at all to be reckless, he nearly ran over an
old lady in Streatham a very respectable looking old lady, in Croydon he
butted into a tram standard, and it is a mercy we were not all killed,
and then at Purley Corner—a butcher’s cart——"

But Coombe’s beer is finished, Jobson is bundled into the car, Coombe
starts her up, climbs over Jobson and tramples on his feet, seizes the
wheel and away they go.

For all Coombe’s boasting and reckless driving, Sir Josiah and Cutler
are in Crawley first.  Here they swing away to the right to Horsham and
leave the Brighton road for good. From now on, their road takes them
through the heart of Sussex, Sussex of the quaint wayside cottages, with
gardens all blooming and fragrant, Sussex of the chalky white roads, the
great undulating sweeps of noble hills.  Sing of Devon who will, but can
Devon shew such cottage gardens, can she shew anything to compare with
yonder glorious range of downs?  Green downs on which the passing clouds
cast moving shadows of purple and blue, and here and there a gleam of
purest white, where the sunlight strikes on to the bare white chalk of
some cliff or cutting.  Where in all the world grows turf so dense, so
fine, so short and sweet and perfect as here upon these rolling hills of
chalk.  Under the hills the trees are all glowing red and bronze and
orange. The car wheels swish among the fallen leaves, the children come
running out of the cottages and cling to the gates to watch as the cars
go whirling by.

But they are going at a more sober pace now, the country is all too
lovely under the September sunshine to rattle through in a cloud of
chalky dust.  Sir Josiah, eager as he is, calls on Bletsoe to go more
quietly, and it is luncheon time when they cross the river and run up
into Arundel Town, so luncheon they have in the old Inn and walk up the
hill to have a look at the castle, the home of the Howards, while the
steak is grilling.

And then the last stage of the journey, along the pleasant road to
Chichester, Chichester of the old market cross, and here the cars swing
to the right towards Midhurst, but the end of the journey is very near
now.  The Midhurst Road is left behind, up hill and down dale sweeps the
narrower bye-way.

"Here we are, this is Little Stretton!" said Sir Josiah. "That’s the
Fighting Cocks, many a good meal I’ve had there—hello Dalabey, how are
you?  Hello Crabb, hello Monson!"  He waves his hand, there are smiles
and bobs and greetings for him.  Dalabey could not bow more profoundly
if it had been a Royal Duke, and he could not have felt more honest
respect for so exalted a personage than he did for the red faced old
fellow who waved to him so pleasantly from the splendid car.

"We’re getting near, see that wall, that long wall, that’s Homewood, see
them—those gates—those are the Homewood gates, they are open, they are
expecting us of course! Drive in Bletsoe, drive right in, blow the horn
Bletsoe, here we are!"

His face is beaming.  It has been a jolly journey, a rare holiday in the
September sunshine, but perhaps this is the most pleasant part of it
all.  Here is Homewood, the gates stand open, they drive through, the
hall door stands open too!

And here is Kathleen; she has heard the wheels, she comes hurrying out.
No servants shall open the hall door to Sir Josiah and carry Sir
Josiah’s card to the lady of the house, that would be but a poor
welcome.  So my Lady Kathleen, all smiling and dimpling, runs down the
steps and springs lightly onto the running board of the car and puts her
arms around his neck and kisses him before them all.

"Welcome," she says, "welcome, I’ve been watching for you for hours!"

Yes, this is the pleasantest part of the whole journey after all!




                             *CHAPTER XXI*

                           *AFTER TEN YEARS*


Kathleen had looked forward to conducting Sir Josiah and his friends
around the house and grounds. But though she knew that he was pleased
and happy to have her with them, though he took a delight in her
company, yet her presence embarrassed them all a little, even Sir Josiah
himself.  How could he be the showman when she was near? How could he
tell Coombe how much money he had spent on this and that?  How crush
Cutler with the magnificence of the rooms and dazzle Jobson with the
extent and the beauty of the gardens?

Kathleen, with her rare tact and intelligence saw it in a moment.
Coombe had allowed his cigar to go out, Jobson looked nervous.  Sir
Josiah, while he beamed on her, had scarce a word to say.  Only Cutler
seemed to be at his ease and was telling her about his daughter’s
establishment in Demauritius, in which island she was the Lady of the
Governor.

Kathleen put her hand through Sir Josiah’s arm, she drew him aside a
little.

"I want you to shew them round, shew them everything, you know so much
more about it all than I do!  It is all your doing, you knew it as it
was, you can describe it so much better than I can, and besides I’m
terribly busy," she smiled at him.  "You know my father is coming and
he’s bringing some other guest who I do not know.  Allan will be back
soon, he is terribly busy these days," she laughed softly.  "He is at
One Tree Hill Farm with old Mr. Custance; they have great schemes; Allan
is going to make his fortune!"

"Bless me!" said Sir Josiah.  "Allan is!—well, well!"

"So I must run away," she said.  She smiled at him and hurried into the
house.

But from the window she watched them with bright eyes, she saw Sir
Josiah stretch his hand, pointing this way and that.

"You ought to have seen it, you ought, Coombe.  Derelict wasn’t the word
for it.  Weeds that high, my boy; now look, look at it.  Jobson, what do
you say to this for a garden, hey? and you, Cutler, you wait till you
see the house.  It’s something to see I promise you, and six months ago,
six months ago, my boy, you ought to have seen it, then."

The old man was himself again, that tender, kindly, loving greeting had
warmed his heart.

"I’ll bet it was her thought, keeping the gates open," he thought to
himself.  "It’s like her to think of little things like that.  Things
that make just all the difference."

"Tidy place," said Coombe, "good taste, too; shouldn’t be surprised if
her Ladyship had a good deal to say in the management of this garden."

"Her ladyship has a good deal to say in the management of everything,"
said Sir Josiah, "and quite right she should. A place like this is a
natural environment for her, while for me and my boy Allan, though he’s
twice—" he paused, "twice the gentleman I am—" he had been going to say,
but these were Jobson, Cutler and Coombe, men he kept up his dignity
with to a certain extent.

"What’s the old boy say to it, hey?" asked Coombe.

"Old boy?"

"The Earl—Gowerhurst—what’s he say to it all, hey?"

"Oh he—I don’t think he’s been down yet, but he’s coming, they are
expecting him to-day."

"I’ll lay he don’t know that I’m here," Coombe said.  "If he did he
wouldn’t show up, not he."

"And why not?" asked Sir Josiah.  "Why not, Coombe? I’d like to know."

"Money, my boy, money!  I’ve had dealings with his Lordship before.  His
Lordship knows me well enough; bet you a fiver, Homewood, when the old
boy sees me he’ll turn green."

"I hope," said Sir Josiah with great dignity, "that here in my
daughter-in-law’s house there is not going to be any discussion about
money matters.  No shop, Coombe, no shop. We owe it at least to Lady
Kathleen to behave like gentlemen when we are her guests."

Coombe looked at the old gentleman out of the corner of his eyes.
"Quite right, Homewood, I should be sorry to be guilty of any disrespect
to so charming and kind hearted a young lady I’m sure.  The only wonder
to me is that such a father should have such a child."  Coombe winked
broadly at Jobson, a very humorous man, Mr. Coombe, and fond of his
little joke.

And now came Allan, who had been delayed by the garrulous but competent
Mr. Custance.  He gripped his father by the hand and thrust his hand
through the old gentleman’s arm.

He was kindly and courteous to Coombe, whom he did not like, and to
Jobson and Cutler, whom he esteemed because they were his father’s
friends.

"You’ve seen Kathleen, father?"

"Seen her, yes, why bless her she was waiting on the steps to welcome
us, that’s what I call a welcome, Allan.  None of your Society manners
with Kathleen, no sending in of cards and being ushered in by servants.
There she was, bless her pretty face, watching for us and ran down the
steps, she did, and—and well, where have you been, Allan, hey?  I hear
you are going to make your fortune."

"I’m going to have a good try at earning a bit of money, father, and it
can be done; I’ll talk to you about it later. Now come in and have a
look at the house, Mr. Coombe, I am sure would like something."

"Ha, ha!" said Coombe.  "Guessed it at once, Allan, my boy!  I’ve just
been wondering how long it would be before someone made the suggestion."

"I am sorry," Allan said reddening.

They went in.  Kathleen saw them come, but she was watching for the
other visitor, the other guest, whom she told herself, she would not be
half so pleased to see as the guest who had already arrived.

She took herself to task and yet she knew that she could not try and
cheat herself.  Her father was her father.  It was Fate—respect for him
she had none—that she could not respect him had been one of the greatest
sorrows of her life. Affection for him she had but very little.  She
knew him too well, could read him too easily, understood his thoughts
too clearly and she pitied him for his utter selfishness.

She knew, for she had been old enough to know, something of her mother’s
sufferings before death came, not unwelcomed. He had never been anything
to his wife in the presence of others except polite and courteous, then
he treated her with his usual charm of manner, on which he prided
himself.

He had neglected her, ignored her when alone; he stung her and wounded
her with his sneers, his poisoned darts of contempt and contumely.  He
had never lifted his hand to her, yet he had killed her in the end as
surely as the drunken tinker slays the wife of his bosom with a boot
heel or the kitchen poker.

And Kathleen knew much of this, not quite all perhaps, but she
remembered the suffering of the quiet, pale-faced, cowed woman whom the
young girl had surrounded with a worshipping, adoring love.

So she stood watching and listening for the coming of the car.  Who the
other guest might be, she did not speculate on.  It was someone in whom
she felt not the slightest interest.  In a way she was glad that her
father was bringing a friend of his own choice.  It would be someone for
him to talk to.  Coombe, Jobson and Cutler would hardly prove to be
associates of whom his lordship would approve.  She knew his feelings
toward Sir Josiah and she felt a twinge of shame, for in a way she had
shared those feelings in the past.

His lordship was in an ill humour.  He disliked the country intensely.
The only occasions when he found the country at all bearable was, when
one of a large house party, there was some shooting to be done in the
daytime and unlimited bridge, billiards or baccarat to while away the
night.  That he would not find these amusements waiting him at Homewood
he was fully aware.

During the journey from London Bridge to Longworthy, he was fidgety and
faultfinding.  The carriage when the window was up was too hot; when it
was down the carriage was draughty, the seats were dusty, "a disgrace to
the Railway Company."  The line, he maintained, was the very worst laid
line in the Kingdom.  He was jolted to pieces, carriages worse sprung
than this he had never ridden in.

"We might have come by car," Scarsdale said.

"I hate cars, nasty draughty things, I dislike the smell of the petrol,
the hot oil, the dust, I hate running over children and dogs.  I’m
deuced unlucky in a car—never go out in one unless there’s an accident;
ran over a child last time when I was with Lysart, shook my nerves up
most confoundedly. By George, Harold, I blame myself, yes, I take blame
to myself, I do by Gad!"

"For running over the child?"

"No, I’m thinking of Kathleen’s marriage.  I was anxious about her,
deucedly anxious.  Kathleen was getting on, I don’t tell everyone, but
you know, you the friend of her childhood, that Kathleen isn’t so young
as she was.  Not that she’s gone off, not a bit of it.  I consider
Kathleen more handsome to-day than ever in her life.  She comes of the
right stock, Harold, the Stanwys wear well, the men and the women.  My
grandmother, begad, was a toast when she was fifty-five and they say she
did not look a day over thirty. She was a Stanwys by birth, Arabella
Stanwys, daughter of Francis—but this don’t interest you.  No, I was
speaking of Kathleen.  I say that I take blame to myself that I hurried
on the wedding, hurried it on.  I’ll admit it frankly.  Thoughts of
Kathleen caused me sleepless nights.  I’m naturally an affectionate man,
a man on whom responsibility weighs heavily.  I realised my position,
Harold.  ’When I am dead and gone, Begad!’ I said to myself, ’what of
Kathleen? What of my poor, dear child?’  You’d have said the same had
you been in my place.  Then I fell in with Homewood in connection with a
Company, common old fellow; you’ll dislike him intensely as I do, by
gad!"

"And so you married Kathleen to his son?"

"Yes, yes, I felt I had to.  The girl’s future troubled me, worried me
to death, Harold.  How was I to know that you’d come back; how the deuce
was I to know that you hadn’t married and settled down; how was I to
know that you——?"

"That I had succeeded in life and was in a position to offer Kathleen a
home?" Scarsdale asked.

"That’s it, that’s it, begad.  The very words I was going to say.  How
could I know all that?  I did not, I saw the chance.  Allan Homewood
isn’t a bad fellow, not a gentleman of course; how could he be with such
a father?  But quiet and unassuming, decently educated, sensible.  I was
torn, Harold, torn, I confess now that I thought of you—" the tears came
into his lordship’s fine eyes, he leaned forward and gripped Scarsdale’s
hand.  "I thought of you, I thought to myself, ’If ever that fine young
fellow comes back, what a blow to him, what a blow!’  Yet how did I know
you were coming back?"

"No, you were not to know."  Harold Scarsdale stared out of the window.
"I wish, Heaven knows, for many reasons, I had not come back.  I might
have known that Kathleen could not have waited, yet I watched the
papers, I saw no engagement, no marriage announced and I clung to hope,
then—" he laughed shortly.  "I ought not to be here now, Lord
Gowerhurst, it’s the weakest, most foolish thing I have ever done, yet
you say you wrote and told Kathleen."

"I did, I did, ’pon my honour I did, wrote to her and said I was
bringing you down and she wrote and said she’d be delighted to see you."

"Which was very kind and very friendly of her," said Scarsdale with a
bitter sneer, "and proves that she doesn’t care a hang for me now, and
in all probability never did."  He laughed again and his lordship, not
quite knowing why, laughed too.

Kathleen was waiting, she heard the car wheels, the hoot of the horn as
the car swung in through the open gateway. She could do no less to
welcome her own father than she had done to welcome Allan’s.  She
hurried out, and descended the steps, there was a smile on her face, her
hand was held out, then suddenly she stopped.  The smile seemed to set
on her face, which had grown rigid, and suddenly very white; the
outstretched hand shook and fell to her side.

So for a moment she stood there, wide eyed, conscious of the violent
throbbing of her heart.

After—ten years—and so they faced one another again. And the man knew
that her father had lied to him and that his coming was all unexpected
by her.

But it was only for a moment, just one moment, that was yet enough to
betray her to those keen, eager, watchful eyes.  Then she came forward,
calmly, with an artificial smile on her lips.  She took her father’s
hand, she kissed him, what she said she hardly knew, she touched the
other man’s hand.  She told him that his coming was an unexpected
pleasure.

Jardine, the chauffeur, holding open the door of the car saw nothing out
of the common.  James, the footman, coming down the steps to take the
rugs and handbags, little dreamed that here was a meeting between lovers
who ten years ago had parted in tears and an agony of heartbroken
hopelessness.

For Lady Kathleen was herself again, she was smiling, and if the colour
had not yet returned to her cheeks, who was to notice so insignificant a
fact?  Not James and Jardine, not Lord Gowerhurst certainly.

"And so this is Homewood, eh Kathleen?  Quite a nice little place;
reminds me a little of—of Clamberwick, Normandyke’a seat in Cumberland,
but smaller of course, a great deal smaller.  Had some deuced good
fishing there I remember.  Thought you’d like to see Harold again, hey?
By the way he is Sir Harold now, Governor of somewhere or other.  The
world’s treated him decently, yes decently, eh Harold?  And quite right
too, I like to see a man work his way up in the world."

"I am glad to hear it," Kathleen said.  "I am sure that any fortune that
has come to Mr. Scar—to Sir Harold Scarsdale, has been fairly and
honestly won—and thoroughly deserved."

"Ha, ha, nicely put, very simply and nicely put, eh Scarsdale?" said his
lordship.  "Give me your arm, my dear, I’m confoundedly cramped, getting
to be an old fellow now.  One of these days I may ask my daughter to
find some corner, some out of-the-way corner by the fire for the old
man, eh?  Some obscure place where the old man may sit and dream away
his last days.  It’s the fall of the leaf, my dear, the fall of the
leaf.  As I rode through your beautiful country a while ago, I saw the
leaves all strewn on the road and I thought—as with the year, so with
me—my leaves are falling, all wrinkled and brown.  And yet it seems but
yesterday since I put them on so fresh and green, hey, so fresh and
green and—and——"

He was talking the arrant nonsense he loved, in the self-pitying style
Kathleen knew only too well.  She shivered, but not with her usual
impatience of the humbug of it.  How had he dared—dared to bring this
man?  How had he dared to make friendly overtures to one whom he had
grossly and cruelly insulted ten years ago?  And Harold himself?  It
shocked her to think that he could come here—that he could bring himself
to accept her and Allan’s hospitality.  She had not looked at him since
that first quick glance, and short though that had been, it had shewn
her the change in him. The boy she had known—and loved—was gone—this
man, she felt, she hardly knew.  She asked herself even now, had she
foolishly made an ideal of that lad, or had she idealised her love for
him? she wondered—but it hurt her that he was here now.

Lord Gowerhurst, leaning far more heavily than he need on her arm,
entered the house.  He betrayed no interest in it.  The finely panelled
walls, the carefully selected and diligently sought after "Period"
furniture, the vista from the windows of the wonderful old English
garden in its autumnal glory, interested him not at all.  He was talking
of himself, which was the most interesting topic he could think of.

"I’m not eating too well, my dear, a bad sign, hey, a bad sign, and my
sleep is broken—terribly broken.  I never was one of the "fat kine" my
love, but I’m growing noticeably thinner.  I declare to you that
Crombie, my man, is positively shocked at the falling off in my girth
and Darbey, my tailor, poor fellow, is getting quite anxious about me."

Kathleen told herself that she ought to have known, ought to have
anticipated it, yet she felt hurt that he took so little interest in her
home.  He never looked at anything; he sat down in a delightful
Hepplewhite chair, a chair that the great Davenham had undertaken a
seventy-five mile journey to secure.  He sat down in the chair and
stared at the very pointed toes of his exquisite boots.

"I’m not my own man, no, my love, I don’t wish to pain you, I know how
sensitive you are, what a loving heart my child has; I don’t wish to
rouse one anxiety in your mind, my love, but I feel age, old age
creeping on."

Kathleen sat facing him, there was a set smile on her white lips.  She
heard him and did not realise one word that he was uttering, perhaps she
had heard it all so often before that it was not worth listening to now.

"He is here, he is here.  Here under this roof, here in this very room."
The man who had written her those passionate love letters, letters which
she had blistered with her tears, letters which she had destroyed at
last with an aching heart and feelings of reverence and solemnity.  How
often, his voice calling to her, had come up out of the past, "Kathleen,
I love you.  Kathleen, come with me, risk all, give all, dare all, but
come—come with me because I love you so."

And how nearly, how nearly she had said yes.  Sometimes she wondered why
she had not said yes, for it was in her heart to listen and to go—yet
she had not, and now he was here.

Was she glad?  No, no, no!  Yet was she sorry?  How could she answer,
how could she tell?

"Darbey, of Dover Street, you remember, my love, my tailor, though
Heaven knows I don’t patronise the poor fellow one half as much as he
deserves.  I tell you Darbey was shocked; he said to me, almost with
tears in his eyes and his voice shaking with emotion, ’My lord,’ he
said, ’I’m sorry to tell your lordship that your present measurements
shew a falling off of two and a half inches at the waist, it’s a serious
thing.’  He begged and besought me to consult a physician, but I did
not.  No, no, what does it matter after all?  When I look about me and
see your charming home—" he had not looked about him in the slightest
degree, "then I realise that I have done what I could.  I have seen to
it that my child is—Don’t I hear voices, hey, Kathleen?"

He certainly did, from the adjoining room came Coombe’s big bass voice:

"Sir Josiah Homewood is here and he has brought some friends——"

"Friends, eh! bless me, friends of Homewood, very interesting."  His
lordship laughed a thin, cackling, unpleasant laugh.  "My dear Harold, I
think I can promise you some amusement, Sir Josiah Homewood is——"

"Is my husband’s father," Kathleen said, and her cheeks suddenly blazed
with generous colour.  "He is also my very dear friend."

"And therefore entitled to the respect and esteem of all men," said
Scarsdale quietly.

She turned to him for the first time, looked at him, and saw the many
changes in him.  She looked for some sign, something that would recall
the boy lover of long ago, and it seemed to her that she looked in vain.

"My husband’s father has been very kind, very generous and good to us,"
she said.  "There are few for whom I have a greater esteem and a deeper
affection than I have for him."

Coombe, putting down his empty glass, looked out of the window and saw
the empty car turning towards the Garage. He gripped Jobson’s arm.

"The nobility and gentry have now arrived," he whispered. "This is going
to be as good as a play, Jobson.  Keep your eye on me and watch old
Gowerhurst, I’ll bet it’ll be amusing, you watch out, Jobson, he, he.
Watch him turn green.  Last time I saw the old boy he tried to borrow a
couple of thousand, but no thanks, not taking any, said I. Securities
too deuced rotten—rotten as his own confounded reputation.  Almost wept
to me, the old fellow did, but once bitten—twice shy—he had four hundred
out of me once and I’d like to see the colour of my money; a shark, a
confounded oily slimy old leech, that’s what he is.  Button your pockets
up, Jobson, my son, when his nobility, the Earl of Gowerhurst, is about
the premises."

All this was in an undertone to Jobson, who looked and felt very
uncomfortable.

Allan and his father had been talking in a low voice, and now Allan
turned.

"I think my wife is with her father in the drawing room; shall we go
in?" he asked.

"Yes, yes, let’s go in," Sir Josiah said.  "It’s a long time since I saw
his lordship; I trust his lordship is quite well."

"His lordship won’t be so jolly well presently," whispered Coombe to
Jobson, "it’s going to be as good as a play, watch the fun."  And Coombe
winked at Jobson knowingly.

And now the door of the drawing room opened and Allan, holding his
father’s arm, came in, followed by Jobson, Cutler and Coombe.

"The old fat common fellow;" thought his lordship, then suddenly
remembering that in the very near future he would in all probability
require the assistance of the "old fat common fellow," he rose and held
out a friendly generous hand.

"Delighted to see you, Homewood.  Looking well, positively well, you
are, ha, ha, you busy men with interests in life, you’re much to be
envied."

"Allan," Kathleen touched his arm.  "Allan, I want to present you to a—a
friend, an old friend whom my father has brought down with him."  Her
voice shook, yet so little that Allan, unobservant as he was, noticed
nothing.

"Sir Harold Scarsdale.  My husband!"

Allan’s hand was thrust out, his face lighted with pleasure and frank
and friendly welcome.

"I’m delighted to see you, Sir Harold," he said, "it’s kind of you to
come to such an out-of-the-world place as this."

"I’ve been out of England for many years, and it’s a great pleasure to
me to see my own country again and—and my old friends."  Scarsdale’s
voice shook a little.  Why had he come, why had he come?  Gowerhurst had
lied to him vilely, when he had told him that Kathleen was expecting him
and had expressed pleasure at the thought of seeing him; what a liar the
man was.

And Kathleen, how little she had altered.  The years had robbed her of
nothing, he remembered her as a sweet faced, lovely girl; he saw her now
a radiantly beautiful woman. Yes, the years had been kind to her.  How
often had he thought of her, pictured her to himself.  How had he, many
a time, lain awake in the sweltering heat of the tropical nights and
tried to picture her, and yet the reality, how immeasurably superior it
was to the vision his dreams had conjured up.  And while he was thinking
these things, he was talking to her husband.

His lordship’s calm superiority always made Sir Josiah feel a little
nervous, made him realise his own inferior station in life.  He was
feeling it now, he was conscious of a sensation of undue heat.  He had
been cool enough five minutes ago in the dining room, now he was visibly
perspiring.

"Yes, her Ladyship, Lady Kathleen, was so kind as to ask us to run down,
me and a few friends, ha, ha.  As your lordship says we busy City men
are much to be envied in one way, but when it comes to a holiday—ha,
ha."  He paused nervously.  "We’re always glad to get a week-end off,
ain’t we, Cutler?  Let me introduce you, my lord."

His lordship frowned.  He was not accustomed to be introduced to common
persons like Cutler; Cutler, the common person, should have been
presented to him.

"Mr. Cutler, Senior Partner of Cutler, Cutler and Wakethorpe, his
daughter is Governor of—of—I forget the name. Jobson, let me introduce
Lord Gowerhurst—" Sir Josiah went on, persisting in doing the honours
the wrong way about.

Monied men no doubt, rich, opulent men, Lord Gowerhurst thought; just as
well to keep in with them, one never knows.

"How de do Mr.—er—Johnson."  He held out a finger and Jobson took it and
shook it solemnly.

"Coombe," said Sir Josiah, "my friend, Mr. Coombe, my lord."

"Ah! ha!" said Coombe, "I’ve had the pleasure of meeting his lordship
before; how de do, my lord?  Hope I see you well?"  He held out a large,
red and moist hand.

Now was the moment, the moment for Jobson to hold his sides, the moment
to witness the discomfiture of this Peer of the Realm.  Did his lordship
start?  Did he turn pale? Did he tremble and turn green, as Coombe had
prophesied?

No, he did not; he looked at Coombe, he put his monocle very slowly and
deliberately in his eye and took another look.

"’Pon my soul, Mr.—er—Groom, did you say Groom, Sir Josiah?"

"Coombe," said Sir Josiah.

"I beg your pardon, Mr.—er—Coombe, ’pon my soul, I don’t recall the
pleasure."  Very insolently his lordship looked Mr. Coombe up and down
and Mr. Coombe turned red; the joke was not so good as he had thought it
would be.

"Langworthy," he said, "you remember Langworthy’s business, my Lord?"

"Langworthy, really did I meet you at Hansbar, my friend, Sir George
Langworthy’s house?  I haven’t been there, let me see, for three years,
and the last time——"

"No, it wasn’t there neither," said Coombe angrily.  "It was in my City
Office I met your lordship and it wasn’t Sir George Langworthy, it was
quite a different Langworthy."

"Indeed?" said his lordship politely, "indeed?"

Mr. Coombe’s hot hand dropped to his side.

"I don’t recall your face, ’pon my soul I am afraid I don’t. But one
sees so many faces, hey?  And now—my dear Homewood, tell me all about
the wonderful things you have been doing here."  And his lordship turned
his back on Mr. Coombe with marked deliberation.

Coombe clenched his fists.

"Supercilious beast!" he muttered.  "I’ll teach him, I ain’t done with
him yet, not by a long sight, I haven’t.  You wait, Jobson——"

But Jobson turned and stared out into the garden through the window.  He
was losing faith in the ability of Coombe to make Peers of the Realm
feel unhappy.




                             *CHAPTER XXII*

                     *MR. COOMBE WEARS A WHITE TIE*


Kathleen had given them tea, she had chatted and laughed, she had
concealed every feeling and every thought with that skill that is
acquired by every intelligent, well educated woman.

How daintily she presided over the tea tray.  Her white hand never
trembled—was it three lumps or only two that Sir Josiah took?  What a
kind, friendly glance she flashed at Allan as he took his father’s cup
from her hand.  How should Allan know, how should anyone in that room,
save perhaps one, know that every nerve in her delicate body was
quivering, that in her heart there was a mingled fear and joy, gladness
and sorrow, anxiety for the future, and regret for the past.

"No tea for me, child, the doctor positively forbids it, positively,"
his lordship said; he sighed.  "No one appreciates a cup of tea more
than I, but I am obliged to forego it.  One has to give up many things,
eh Sir Josiah, the falling leaf must not be too roughly dealt with, else
perhaps it will fall even before its time.  No, no tea for me, my love,
but if I might beg a glass of soda water—just a glass of plain soda
water—with perhaps the merest, the very merest touch of brandy, hey
Allan, just to take the bite off the soda water, so to speak?"

Coombe, sipping tea which he had no love for, eyed his enemy the peer,
malevolently.  His lordship, he noticed, reversed the programme, it was
the merest touch of the soda water to take the bite off the brandy.

"Owes me four hundred and treats me like dirt, hanged if I don’t bung a
writ into him!" thought Coombe.

He happened to be sitting near to Lord Gowerhurst and presently his
lordship adjusted his monocle and stared at Coombe.

"Ah, ha, Mr. Groom, I think that you were telling me just now that we
had met at Hansbar, Langworthy’s place in Somerset?  Have you known the
Langworthys long, eh?"

"I didn’t say anything of the kind," Coombe growled sullenly.  "I
said——"

"Oh, yes, I remember, some other Langworthy, quite so."

"I’ll bet a shilling," Coombe whispered under his breath, "I’ll bet a
shilling, my lord, as you remember me a sight better than you pretend
you do."

Gowerhurst regarded Coombe’s hot red face coldly and critically.

"I never, I never remember anyone I prefer to forget, my dear Mr.
Groom," he said.  "It’s an excellent plan—eh? An excellent plan, saves a
great deal of trouble and annoyance, eh?"

And now Kathleen was alone, she had come to her room, she had locked the
door on herself.  She sat down by the window and put her elbows on the
sill and rested her chin on her hands.

He had come back.

It had almost stunned her, its unexpectedness and suddenness. She had
not had time to realise what it all meant, all that she could realise
was, that he was here.

She saw herself now, as she had been, a girl of eighteen, a girl deeply,
desperately in love; she remembered how she had lain through long,
sleepless nights, tossing on her pillow. How willingly in those days she
would have gone with him into direst poverty, the deeper the poverty how
much more would she have gloried in it.  To tramp the roads by his side,
to sing in the streets with him, to crouch beside him under some
friendly hedge for the night—yes, she would have done that very
willingly and yet—yet perhaps common sense, perhaps the hereditary
instinct of her kind had kept her from such folly.

But she had loved him.  Now, sitting here, she was realising that
perhaps she had loved him more—more after he had gone and left her as
she believed forever, than she had actually loved him while he was yet
with her.

It is often the way, when the beloved object ceases to be real and
tangible, when he becomes a memory—with what virtues can we clothe him?
In memory we only recall all the good, the best that was in him—memory
charitably forgets the numerous little faults, the tiny acts of
selfishness, the little outbursts of foolish temper.  No, they are all
gone. So, because he was the beloved object, memory is eager to idealise
him.

Perhaps it had been so with her—yet she had loved him—she had thrilled
to the passion in his boyish voice, to the love in his boyish, ardent
eyes.  A child’s love, a school girl’s love, her father had said.  "My
dear child, I’m a man of the world and you are a young Miss who has only
just learned to do her back hair up; accept it from me, the person who
marries his or her first love lives to regret it.  First love is merely
a kind of preliminary canter, it’s good exercise, provided you don’t
take it too seriously, but if you do take it seriously why then it is
the deuce and all."

She smiled to herself, recalling her father’s words.  It had been her
first love and her only love, it had lived with her for ten years and
during those ten years it had seemed to her to have grown stronger,
better, purer.  It had perhaps made her a little cold to the world about
her, yet in reality it had made her heart more tender, had made her more
prone to sympathy and tenderness and kindness.

Why had he come, why had he come back?  She clenched her hands tightly.

The few short months of her married life with Allan had been quiet and
peaceful, uneventful, happy, yes happy! she had always liked him, she
liked him better now than she had before he had given his name to her.

She liked him better and yet better every day, she liked him because he
confided in her, because he was honest and open with her, because while
he lavished no caresses on her, for would not caresses have been humbug
and hypocrisy, he gave her a quiet affection and respect that won her
heart to him.  He had told her of his plans with old Custance, how he
would make money and help repay his father a little of the much that his
father had done for them both.

And then he had promised once that if ever—ever love came to him, the
love that nearly always comes knocking at a man’s heart at some time in
his life, he would tell her candidly and truthfully and they would face
the fact together.  And she for her part had promised that she would
tell him if—the lover of long ago should come back into her life.

And he had come, and so she must tell him, as she had promised to do;
she must be honest and truthful with Allan, surely he deserved that of
her.

There was a tap on the door and Kathleen rose and opened it.

"My lady, ’ee’ll be wanting me?  I’ve been waiting for the bell, my
lady, but ’ee didn’t ring it."

"No, Betty, I didn’t ring, but—but come in.  Betty, what is the matter?"

"Matter?  Oh, my lady, nothing du be the matter wi’ I."

"But your face is white, child, and your eyes look red from crying.  Is
there anything wrong, Betty?  Have you seen your grandmother and is she
still angry with you?"

"I bain’t seen her, my—my lady, and I du not care whether her be still
angry wi’ me or not—for it be all the same to I."

"You shouldn’t say that, child."

"For never, never will I marry Abram, my—my lady, never will I.  Sooner
would I drownd myself in the river, which I would du gaily, aye gaily,
my lady, than—than marry Abram who I never could abide."

Kathleen smiled.  "There need be no talk of that now, Betty, surely?"

"No, my lady, but I can’t help thinking about it, specially when I du
see Abram loitering about the green gate, my lady, and know he du be
waiting for I."

"Then I will see that he is not permitted to loiter there, as you
dislike him so much, Betty."

"I hate him, I du, I hate him mortally, my lady, I du. Oh, my lady, his
hands du be terribul, terribul; if ’ee did see ’em they would make you
shudder like they do I."

"But perhaps you dislike this poor Abram so much, Betty, because there
is someone else?" Kathleen asked.  "Is that the truth, my little maid?"

"Oh, my lady, I—I doan’t know, I doan’t know.  No, no, there bain’t
anyone else, no one else—I promise, I swear, my lady, there bain’t,
there couldn’t be!  How could there be?"

Kathleen took her hand, she held it, it was very hot, this small hand of
the girl’s.

"Betty, child," she said, "you are not well this evening, your hand is
hot and—" she lifted her hand to Betty’s forehead, that cool, white,
slender hand of hers, and let it rest there for a moment.

"And your head is hot, too, child, you had better go to bed and
presently I will ring and ask that something is taken to you.  No,
Betty, don’t wait, I can manage quite well to-night; go to bed, child,
and go to sleep and forget all your troubles, and if you don’t want
Abram, why then, Betty, you shall not have Abram and no one shall force
you to."  She pushed the silken fair hair back from the girl’s forehead;
she smiled af her.

"Now to bed, Betty, and to sleep and forget all your little troubles,
child, and to-morrow come to me with a smile on your lips as I would
have you."

"Oh—my lady, if—if I could only dare—dare tell—’ee," Betty cried
passionately.  She caught Kathleen’s hand and held it with both her own.
"If only I could dare——"

"Dare what?  Betty, tell me, child, if there is anything——?"

"No, no, I can’t, I be mad to speak of it even—I think I be going mad
altogether, my lady, sometimes I du think I bain’t like other maids wi’
such foolish strange notions that I get.  I can’t—can’t tell ’ee, my
lady, doan’t ask me, for I can’t—I can’t."  And then Betty flung the
kind hand away and rushed to the door, fumbled for a moment with the
lock, and then opened the door, fled.

"And so," Kathleen said, "we all have our troubles, our fears and our
loves, Betty and I and all Eve’s daughters."

She dressed herself, it was no hardship or novelty to her.

She looked at herself in the glass without vanity, but rather with a
curious interest.

"I’m twenty-eight," she said, "in a few months I shall be
twenty-nine—yet I have no wrinkles and there are no silver threads yet—I
wonder—I wonder does he think me much changed?  He is changed, greatly
changed, yet I knew him, of course I knew him; I should have known him
among ten thousand, I should have known him had he come in rags and
poverty, just as I knew him, now he has come to me in his prosperity and
health and strength."

She went down the stairs, she went into the drawing room and found, as
she had almost feared she would find, that he was there alone.  He came
forward eagerly to greet her.

"Kathleen, are you angry with me?"

"Why should I be angry, Harold?"

"For coming."

"It would have been better, kinder to me if—if you had stayed away."

"And kinder to myself," he said bitterly.  "Kathleen, do—do you think
that this does not mean suffering to me?"

"Why did you come?"

"Your father told me you—you knew and approved, that you would be glad
to welcome me."

She did not answer.

"But now I know that that was untrue; you did not know that I was
coming——"

"I did not know," she said.  "No, I did not know."

"Kathleen, Kathleen, you waited so long, all—all those years and yet not
quite long enough; another few months, if only you had waited another
few months, Kathleen."

She turned to him suddenly, her face bright, her cheeks flushed.

"You—you have seen him, my husband, you have taken his hand, you—you are
here, his guest—our honoured guest—the past is dead and gone; I
waited—ten years—" her voice broke for a moment, "then I looked at your
letters for the last time and—and burned them all, and when I saw their
black ashes in the grate, I knew that from that moment my new life
began, a life that could not, must not, hold memories of a past.  It was
Fate and we—we must accept it; I have accepted it—so we—you and I—we
meet again—as friends—"  She held out her hand to him, she smiled at
him.

He took her hand and held it tightly, he looked into her eyes, then he
groaned, he bent his head and kissed the hand before he let it go, and
then from beyond the door there came the sound of voices, Coombe’s loud
and dominant, argumentative.

"Not wear a white tie with a dinner jacket, Jobson?  I tell you I’ll
wear any tie I like—and if people don’t like it, they can do the other
thing.  A black tie makes me look like a waiter, by George, and I won’t
wear ’em.  And if I want to wear a pink or a sky blue tie, why hang it,
I’ll wear it. And if it isn’t the fashion, well I’ll make the fashion
like that fellow Beau—Beau Brummagem, or whatever his confounded name
was."

All unknowingly Coombe had struck the right note, he had done Kathleen a
service.  A dead and gone love, burned love-letters, ten long years of
waiting, of hoping and praying and nothing to reward the faithfulness
and the loyalty—what mattered all that?  Away with melancholy thoughts,
away with sadness and regrets—poor Romance must fly for the moment and
hide her diminished head before the advance of a stout gentleman in
evening dress, wearing a white tie.  Kathleen smiled.  Honest Mr. Coombe
little knew how grateful his hostess felt to him at that moment.




                            *CHAPTER XXIII*

                          *"I BELONG TO THEE"*


Lord Gowerhurst justly prided himself on the "Stanwys manner" which he
had to perfection.  If he were formal he carried his formality with
grace, he was studiously polite, he was courteous, urbane—and a wet
blanket.

He crushed utterly those four jolly City gentlemen, who would have been
ten times happier if his lordship and his manner had not been there.
Sir Josiah, seated on the right hand of his daughter-in-law, perspired
freely from sheer nervousness, mingled with a kind of admiration and
awe. Jobson and Cutler were noticeably ill at ease, and consumed by
anxiety lest they might say or do the wrong thing. Mr. Coombe was
resentful and would have been sarcastic had he dared.

That man, sitting facing Mr. Coombe, fingering the stem of his wineglass
with his delicate white fingers, monopolising the conversation with his
confounded drawling aristocratic voice and his infernal air of
superiority, who was he? Was not he the same man who one day had come
cringing into his, Coombe’s, office hoping to raise a loan of two
thousand on some rotten securities; was not he the same man who had well
nigh wept when the loan had not materialised?

"And there he sits," thought Coombe, "there he sits, treating us all as
if we were dirt, looking down on us, the rotten, humbugging, insolvent
old—old—beast."

No one could find fault with the dinner, indeed his lordship gracefully
congratulated his daughter on the excellence of her chef.  Good Mrs.
Crozier had watched over everything and had seen to everything, and a
lady of her experience was scarcely likely to allow a dinner to go to
table that would not be a credit to the household over which she ruled.

The wines, too, were above reproach, Sir Josiah had spared no expense in
this matter, but there was something wrong with the atmosphere, yes the
atmosphere was all wrong.  Sir Josiah could not find one word to say.
Even Cutler was unable to introduce an observation concerning the island
of Demauritius, its Governor and the Governor’s wife, his daughter.
Jobson was frankly and noticeably unhappy, and in his agitation had
splashed his white shirt front with gravy.  Coombe was oppressed, angry
and bitter, trying hard to find something to say that would take the
wind out of the sails of that drawling, dandified, supercilious
aristocrat on the other side of the table.

Kathleen had her own thoughts and the subject of them was sitting beside
her on her left, facing Sir Josiah.  She could feel his eyes on her now
and again, she tried to laugh and to talk frankly and freely, but she
was conscious of a weight, of a fear, of joy, she hardly knew what.

And Allan, too, his thoughts had strayed away from that unhappy dining
table.  They were out in the garden, not in the garden as it was now,
all shrouded in the soft darkness of the summer night, but in a garden
filled with sunshine, sunshine that touched and glorified a little head
of gold, that lighted up a sweet, oval face and glistened on eyes as
blue as the skies.

Why, why, why?  He asked himself and could scarce frame the question.
How much less the answer to it.  Better that she should go, but poor
child, how unfair to her.  Yet he could not go; how could he?  And to
live here, under the same roof, to see her, perhaps every day, to have
that strange memory, which was yet no memory, recalled every time he saw
her.  How could it be, how could he be loyal to Kathleen?  Why should
that girl, that child whom he had seen but once, mean so much to him?
How were their lives connected; what could some unknown past have held,
a past that affected their present and their future so greatly?

Coombe had grasped the opportunity.  There had come a lull, Coombe
seized on it, he began a story in a loud voice. It was about a deal in
some shares.  Coombe, in his eagerness to talk, grew involved, he
floundered.  He appealed to Sir Josiah, Sir Josiah who frowned,
remembering that he had instructed Coombe that there was to be no
"shop."  Coombe saw the frown and got more mixed than before, Sir Josiah
had let him down.  He turned to Jobson, but Jobson had no help to offer.

"Anyhow, there it was, Munston bought seven thousand and fifty and
Lockyer I forget how many, and the bottom fell out of the market see,
ha, ha."

"Now that is very interesting, very interesting indeed, Mr.—er—Groom—my
dear Allan, you and I are not business men, Mr. Groom here is a business
man, it is quite interesting to hear these stories, eh?  Of course we
don’t understand ’em, Allan, because, as I say, we are not business men.
I have no doubt but that it is an excellent story, but I don’t
understand it, no, be gad, I don’t see the point. It’s the same with
golfing stories, they may be deuced funny, but when you don’t understand
them, well you don’t, and that’s all there is to say to it.  Which
reminds me of Normandyke—you remember the Duke of Normandyke, my love?
His place at Clamberwick was recalled to me by this little place of
yours.  Of course your home, elegant though it is, is a mere cottage in
comparison; Clamberwick is one of the great houses—" and so on and so
on, belittling his daughter’s house with cheerful patronage and intense
superiority, till the colour flamed into Kathleen’s cheeks, born of the
generous indignation in her heart.  She slipped her hand under the table
and her cool white fingers closed round Sir Josiah’s thick old hand, and
pressed it in silent sympathy, love and gratitude.

"I understand, my dear, I understand," the old gentleman whispered.
"This Clamberwick may be a great place, my dear, and beyond an old
fellow like me, but I’d give you ten such places if I could, and you’d
be fit to reign over the lot of ’em."

"I—I wouldn’t exchange Homewood for all the Clamberwicks in the world.
You made it for us and gave it to us, and I love it for its own and the
giver’s sake."

She would not tell Allan to-night, she watched Allan. He looked, she
thought, a little unhappy, this house party was weighing on his mind.
No, she would not tell him to-night, she would wait till after they were
all gone.  She would keep her promise, of course, and when Harold
Scarsdale had gone, when they had bidden one another farewell, and it
would be for the last time, she would tell him that it must be for the
last time, and as he was a gentleman he would understand and so—so when
she told Allan, she would be able to tell him that she had seen the man
again, that he had come and gone, and this time forever.

She felt easier, lighter and happier now she had made up her mind.  She
went to the drawing room and played and sang.  Scarsdale, beside the
piano, watched her, he turned her music.  Now and again he spoke to her,
reminding her of some song that called up the past.

"Won’t you sing one of them to me, Kathleen?"

"No, no, not to-night, please don’t ask me, I—I don’t want to think of
the past.  I told you—there is no past—I burned it with the old
letters—it is ashes now."  Her lips trembled as she looked up at him and
smiled at him.  "It is better so, is it not?  You know it is.  So
to-night I shall sing the new songs, the old ones belong to the past and
are dead with it."

"If I could only think as you think, or do you think as you speak,
Kathleen, do you believe what you say?"

"Yes, I believe it, I know it, it is true."

His lordship, having made a very good dinner, had selected the easiest
chair in the room and settled himself down comfortably.  Sir Josiah and
his friends drifted to the smoking room and their cigars and their talk.

His lordship, taking his ease in his chair, had fallen into a sweet,
refreshing slumber, for which he would have to pay presently when
bed-time came.  Kathleen was singing at the piano with this old friend
of hers.  Allan looked at them both.  He did not quite know what to make
of this old friend of Kathleen’s, this man Scarsdale.  He had not summed
him up yet; on the whole he thought he did not much like him.  To-night
Allan felt in no mood to join his father and his friends, had Sir Josiah
been alone it would have been different.  Kathleen was interested in her
friend. His lordship was asleep, Allan crossed the room quietly, opened
a French window, and passed out into the garden.

When a man is face to face with a problem, he must wrestle with it, find
an answer to it and act on his own finding.  A man who thrusts the thing
behind him and leaves it all in the hands of Fate is little better than
a coward, and Allan Homewood was no coward.

In this garden he had dreamed a dream and in that dream there had come
to him the sweetest little maid on whom the sun had ever shone, and
though his eyes had never beheld her before, yet he knew that she came
to him as no stranger, but rather as some sweet vision or memory out of
a past, which past had never been, in this life at least, and when the
dream had gone he had awakened with a feeling of loss that had stayed
with him for many days till at last he had managed to banish that
feeling.

And now, now a living girl, the very maid of his dreams, had come to him
and he had looked at her and known her for the same, and all the old
tenderness, the love for her had come welling up in his heart again.
And she, strangely, seemed to know him even as he knew her.  Had she not
called him Allan?  Had she not looked at him with that same strange
light in her blue eyes as had shone in those of the little maid of his
dreams?

"What does it mean?" he whispered.  "And what am I to do?  Send her
away?  That would be cruel and unkind, poor little soul."  Where had she
to go to; why banish her for no fault of her own?  And yet how
impossible for him to go.  But to meet her every day, to see those blue
eyes of hers with their strange expression, half pleading, half
fearful—to know, for he did know, and must know that this little maid
for some strange reason loved him, as he must love her.  What should he
do?  Would Kathleen help him when he told her as tell her he must—yes,
he would rely on her sane judgment, on her generous nature, on her sweet
womanliness.  She would know how to act; he would place it all in
Kathleen’s hands and all would be well.

He felt relieved to think that he had arrived at some definite
conclusion.  Kathleen would—he paused suddenly and lifted his head.

From the soft darkness there came to him a sound, the sound of sobbing,
as of some child weeping bitterly in its loneliness.  It touched him,
for he was tender hearted to a fault.  Who was it?  He went on quickly,
yet softly, so as not to frighten or disturb the child.  And then he
found her, crouching on the stone seat, near the sundial, the slender
body bent, the little hands clasped over her face.  He knew her at once,
he saw the sheen of her hair in the dim light and stood still for a
moment, yet the piteous sobbing, the heaving of the shoulders hurt him
and he stretched out his hand and touched her gently.

"Betty," he said, "Betty, why are you here and crying, child?"

She did not start, she lifted her head slowly, her hands dropped, he
could see her face dimly, white in the starlight.

"Why do I find you here alone, Betty, and weeping?" he asked gently.
"Are you in some trouble or suffering?"

She shook her head in silence.

"Then why?"

"Oh, I doan’t know, I doan’t know," she cried suddenly, she flung out
her arms with a gesture of despair.  "I doan’t understand it all, and it
du frighten me, it du.  Oh, I be terribul frightened of it all, I be,
frightened and yet—glad."  She looked up at him.  He could see the oval
face more clearly now, the shining eyes and the trembling red lips.

He took both her hands suddenly and held them tightly.

"Betty, what does it all mean?  Can you tell me, for I do not
understand?"

"Nor du I understand," she said.  "Oh, tell me, Allan, tell me, did ’ee
know me when—Oh, sir—forgive."  She broke off suddenly and her head
dropped.

"Tell me, what were you going to ask?"

She lifted her head again.

"Did ’ee know me as I knew ’ee, yesterday when I came here and—and found
’ee here, Allan?"

"Yes, I knew you, I knew you, Betty.  Once before in a dream you came to
me here in this same place and I cannot understand why it should have
been so.  No, I cannot understand."

"And it du frighten me terribul, terribul, it du.  How did I know your
name were Allan?  How dared—dared I call ’ee Allan, seeing you be my
lady’s husband and my master, and yet I could not help myself, the name
did come from my lips wi’out my knowing it."

"And you never saw me before?"

"Aye, many, many times."

He was startled.  "You knew me, Betty, you had seen me before, but when,
where?"

"Here, here in this place, in this garden, but ’ee was so different
then.  Grandmother was angry wi’ me for coming, she said I were a bad
maid to come here into this old garden, all weed grown and ramy-shackle
that it were, but I came often—often—and then I used to see—’ee here,
Allan, oh sir."  She paused.

"Go on," he said.  "Go on, Betty."  And still held her quivering hands.

"But ’twas not as a fine gentleman as I did see ’ee," she went on,
seeming to gain a little in confidence, though her voice was still
tremulous, "’ee wore a queer old hat and brown clothes and—and
stockings, and heavy shoes wi’ brass buckles to ’em, sir, and for the
most part ’ee was working in the garden, digging sometimes, sometimes at
work wi’ hoe or rake, but always working, bending over the flower beds
’ee were, and never, never did I see your face, sir, yet when I did see
your face, I knew it for ’ee."

"Go on, go on."

"There’s nothing more to tell ’ee, sir, only that I, contrairywise, came
here to the old garden and climbed the wall, I did, and sometimes I did
come here of nights when the moon was shining and it was then I see ’ee,
sir, working here, bending over your work—and I knew—knew—" she paused.

"You knew——?"

"I knew as—as oh I—I can’t tell ’ee, sir, I daren’t tell ’ee."

"Tell me, Betty," he whispered, "tell me," and perhaps did not know how
much tenderness he had put into his voice.

"I knew as ’ee meant summut to me, sir, as—as somehow it seemed as if
’ee belonged to me and I to thee."

She dropped her eyes, her hands seemed to flutter in his and he said
nothing, could not, for he did not know what to say, but he realised
that she had put into words that which was in his own mind, in his own
knowledge, just as he had meant something to her so had she meant
something to him.  He had known that in some strange way they belonged
to each other.

He spoke, to break the silence that had fallen rather than for any other
reason.

"You were unhappy with your grandmother?"

"Terribul, terribul unhappy I were wi’ she, sir, for her willed me to
marry Abram."

"Abram?" he asked.

"Abram, aye, Abram Lestwick, sir, whom I du hate and de-test most
terribul."

"But who is he?"

"Grandmother willed me to marry him, sir, but I would not and she be
very wrathful wi’ I."

"Poor little soul," he said gently.  "Betty, it seems to me that strange
and perhaps foolish dreams have—have come to both of us here in this old
garden, and we must put those dreams out of our minds, and face life,
child, as it really is.  Just now you reminded me that I am your lady’s
husband and I am, and proud and happy that so good and sweet a woman
should be my wife——"

"Good and sweet her be, there bain’t none like she; I would die for her
willing, I would."

"And I think I too, Betty, and so—so—" he paused to listen—out of the
darkness there came voices.

"Wonderful air, isn’t it?  I don’t know any air like this. Get a smell
of the sea in it, don’t you, Cutler, my boy?"

Allan dropped the little hands.  He felt suddenly ashamed, felt as
though he were about, to be detected in some wrong-doing, and yet,
Heaven above knew, that there had not been one wrong thought in his
brain.

He would have told her to go, but it was unnecessary. Very quickly and
suddenly she snatched at one of his hands, he felt it pressed for a
moment against burning lips and then she had gone.  He heard the soft
rustling of her gown among the bushes, the light tap of her little
shoes, and then the heavier stolid tread of his father’s honest feet.

Allan dropped onto the stone bench, and there, a minute later Sir Josiah
found him.

"Why, who’s here, Allan, Allan, my boy—is it you?"

"Yes, father, come here to dream in the old garden.  Won’t you and Mr.
Cutler sit here and finish your cigars?"

He scarcely knew what he was saying.  He was glad that they had come,
and yet perhaps sorry too.




                             *CHAPTER XXIV*

                 *IN WHICH LORD GOWERHURST RISES EARLY*


His lordship had had a bad night.  He had gone to sleep after his
dinner, a foolish thing to do.  He had tossed and turned restlessly in a
strange bed and he loathed strange beds.  Then after what had seemed to
be interminable hours of sleeplessness and misery, he had fallen asleep
to be awakened in apparently a few minutes by a feathered chorus in the
beech tree, just outside his window.

What a noise they made, what a commotion with their piping and their
shrill chattering.  His Lordship sat up and solemnly cursed all birds.

A cock saluted the dawn in the customary manner; another, apparently
some little distance away, took up the challenge.  Lord Gowerhurst heard
the crowing receding farther and farther till it was lost in the
distance, then it came back, seemingly step by step to the original cock
that was somewhere in his immediate neighbourhood.  And all the time the
birds kept up their incessant twittering and chattering and piping till
the poor gentleman’s nerves were on edge.

He rose, he thrust one bony leg from the bed, then the other.  He went
to the window, he shook his fist at the birds.

"Shoo! go away you beasts!" he shouted.  "Go away, shoo!"

He slammed the window down and went back to bed, but it was useless.  He
put his head under the clothes, but he could still hear the babel of
sounds.  As the sun rose higher so did the sounds increase; there came
the barking of dogs, the lowing of cattle from the green pastures, a hen
had laid an egg somewhere and was proclaiming the fact triumphantly. Her
husband shouted his joy, the other cocks took up the chorus.  It was
Bedlam and Babel let loose.

Added to the other sounds of animal and bird life came presently fresh
contributions.  A sleepy-eyed servant banged a pail down somewhere,
doors were being opened and shut with unnecessary vigour.

"London, give me London.  It’s the only place in the world fit to sleep
in, as for this country, this—"  His lordship sat up and exploded with
wrath and profanity.

He would stay in bed no longer, bed was purgatory; it was but six.  He
had never risen at six in the morning in his life.  Frequently he had
retired at this hour.  He rang for hot water to shave.

At his chambers in Maybury Street, Webster, his landlord, valeted him.
Webster shaved him every morning and dressed him with the same care as a
young mother bestows on her darling.  But Webster was employed during
the day at his lordship’s club, so had not been able to come.

The old gentleman’s hand shook very severely this morning, he cut
himself twice.  He was entirely unhappy and in the blackest of ill
humours when he went downstairs.

Early as it was, everyone seemed to be up.  Sir Josiah, rosy and
cheerful, came in from the garden, looking ridiculous with a great
armful of flowers.

"Good morning, my lord, nice and early, eh?  Lovely morning, nothing
like getting up when the dew’s on the grass, eh?"  Then came Cutler,
followed by Coombe, offensive in white flannel trousers; Kathleen,
looking as fresh as the morning itself, came to him and kissed him.  She
saw his humour, she knew it of old, the morning was never his lordship’s
best time.

Happy he who can rise in the morning in a spirit of kindliness and good
humour, who commences the day as he means to live through it, in good
will and amity with all. Thrice happy they who live with such a man.

Kathleen knew her father.

"Would you like to have breakfast served you alone quietly in my own
little room, dear?" she asked.

"Would I what?  Hang it! do you want to get rid of me? Am I not good
enough to sit down to breakfast with your absurd friends?  Has that
gentleman in the white trousers been attending a tennis party?  It is
somewhat early for tennis parties, is it not?  Barely seven yet—is
Homewood going to decorate a Church or is he merely masquerading as a
Jack in the Green?  Where’s Scarsdale?  Not down yet?  I don’t blame
him, I never heard such an infernal din in my life—cocks crowing, birds
shouting, dogs barking and—and cut my face twice, begad, twice—which
means a deuced uncomfortable day for me and—and—and your father is to be
poked away into a little back room and have his meals by himself, is he?
I’m hurt, Kathleen, positively hurt; had you told me that my society was
distasteful to you, had you only told me that you were asking me out of
politeness, begad, out of compliment, why then I should have stayed
away.  I feel it, I am an old fellow and oversensitive perhaps, little
things, little unkindnesses wound me, as perhaps a few years ago they
would not.  As one grows older one——"

"Come into breakfast, father," she said, and slipped her hand under his
arm.

Scarsdale came down a little late.  He held Kathleen’s hand for a
moment, looked her in the eyes and sat down.

"I slept badly," he said quietly, "in fact I could not sleep at all, it
was strange to me to realise that the same roof that sheltered you—" he
paused.

"Tea or coffee?" Kathleen asked brightly.

His lordship was like a bear with a very sore head, the Stanwys manner
was not in evidence.  He growled and cursed under his breath.  He flung
poisoned darts of wit, sneers and jibes at Coombe and they glanced
harmless enough from that gentleman’s toughened hide, but they went home
when he turned his battery on Sir Josiah.

"Poisonous old devil he is," Coombe muttered to himself as he put away a
huge breakfast.




                             *CHAPTER XXV*

                           *BESIDE THE LAKE*


They had all gone out together, Sir Josiah and his Lordship in Sir
Josiah’s car, Mr. Coombe and Mr. Cutler and Mr. Jobson with a large
quantity of golf sticks in Allan’s car, and Allan himself had gone over
to One Tree Farm to discuss intensive culture, scientific pedigree
poultry and pig raising and farm business generally; and Kathleen found
herself for the first time alone with Harold Scarsdale.

She had tried to avoid this, yet in some fashion she had known that it
must come sooner or later.  She had suggested that he should go out with
the others, but he had quietly declined.  And so if it must be, well it
must be.  If she and Harold Scarsdale must come to a definite
understanding, why not sooner than later?  She was a coward to shun it.

From her bedroom window she saw him sauntering up and down the broad
paved pathway.  That he was waiting for her, confident that she would
come to him, she knew, and she knew that she must go.

"Betty!"

"Yes, my Lady?"

"Sir Harold Scarsdale is in the garden; will you go down to him and tell
him that I will join him soon?  There he is, Betty, you can see him from
here."

"I see him, my Lady, and I’ll go and tell him."  Betty turned away.

"Betty!"

"My Lady?"

"Betty, are you unhappy, child?"

"Unhappy, oh, my lady, I be very happy here, indeed—indeed I be—very
happy I be, my lady."

"You look white and troubled, child," Kathleen said. "Is—is that man, is
your grandmother—troubling you?"

"No, my Lady, I’ve not seen Grandmother since I came here."

"And Lestwick?"

"Abram du hang about waiting for I, my Lady, Polly Ransom have told me
that Abram du continually be hanging about the green door, my Lady, but
I doan’t go out and so I du never see he."

"I will speak to Mr. Homewood about it and ask him to interview this
Lestwick and tell him to keep away from here, for I will not have you
worried and troubled, Betty.  Now run down, child, and tell Sir Harold."

Scarsdale paced up and down in the warm sunlight, waiting, as years ago
he had waited in another garden for the coming of his beloved.

And presently she would come to him, he did not doubt that.  He turned
now at the sound of a light step, but it was not she, he knew that—who,
who loves, does not know the step of the beloved one?  Is it not
different from all other footfalls in the world, as different as ’her’
voice is different from all other voices.  A man usually knows the step
of the woman he loves, but a woman always knows the step of her man.
Scarsdale, turning slowly, knew full well that it was not Kathleen.  A
stern, silent man was he, misjudged by many who thought him cold and
even heartless. Men found but little pleasure in his society, women
none, for he had neither heart nor admiration to give them.  He had
looked at beautiful women and had failed to see their beauty, because
only one face was beautiful in his sight. But this little maid tripping
to him so demurely in the sunlight was pretty enough to win an
unaccustomed smile to his lips.

What a pretty child she was, a fit handmaiden for Her!

"You want me?" he asked, and his voice was a little more gentle than
usual.

She dropped him a curtsey, "My Lady sent me to say that she would be
here in the garden very soon, sir."

"Thank you."  He stood looking at her, at the pretty, downcast face.  He
looked after her when she had turned back towards the house.  A pretty
little country girl with a sweet voice, he thought, and then, even
before she had whisked out of sight behind a door, he had forgotten her
and his thoughts had gone back to the one to whom they were constant.

She was coming, and when she came what should he say to her?  Just as
ten years ago he had watched and waited for her in another garden, his
heart filled with love for her, so he was watching and waiting now and
his love was the same, no—not the same, for, even he, was conscious of
its change.  But it was no less, it was even more, it was greater, it
burned with a stronger flame, a greater passion.

And after ten years—did many men love for ten long years, were many men
as constant as he had been?  Would not that constancy count for
something with her?  Surely, surely it must, for women prized constancy
in a man above all other things.

So the smile still lingered on his lips, as he turned and slowly made
his way along the sun warmed path.  What should he say to her when she
came, what had he said to her in the old days when he had poured out his
heart to her? A thousand things, a million things, and yet all were
summed up in three words, "I love you."

He had given her everything, a man’s love, a man’s constancy.  His heart
had not beaten one throb the faster for any woman but her.  His eyes had
found no pleasure in looking on any other woman’s face.  Could man give
more than he had given?  What could he ask in return? Everything—and he
knew that he must ask everything of her.

Kathleen was conscious of a trepidation, of a nervousness unusual to
her.  A strange shyness had come to her, an unwillingness to meet him;
yet she must and because she must she was here.  She had asked
herself—Was he the same, had the years altered him?  And she had
answered her own questions with No and Yes: he was not the same, the
years had altered him.  She scarcely knew this silent, almost morose
man.  He came to her with his tanned, lean face, his deep sombre eyes,
as almost a stranger, just now and again for a fleeting moment she saw
something in his face, heard something in his voice that brought back
memories of the boy she had known and loved.  Yet they were but
fleeting.

The ardent, outspoken, honest, loving boy had changed into the quiet,
self-contained man.  The man had infinitely more self-control than the
boy.  Yet she had seen those eyes of his lighten up, had seen the spark
of fire gleam in them and she knew that it was not the same flame that
had burned so brightly in the boyish eyes.

He met her and looked at her with a smile on his face, but he did not
speak and she spoke because she knew that the silence must be broken.

"I saw you from my window, you have been admiring the—our garden," she
said.

"I do not think that I have given the garden a thought."

"Yet is it not beautiful enough?  And to think that a few months ago it
was little more than a jungle and now——"

"It is beautiful, yet I knew another infinitely more beautiful to me
than this.  You knew that garden too, Kathleen, our garden at
Bishopsholme, the garden where I used to wait for you, where I first
told you——" his voice quavered and trembled and her eyes, downcast,
dared not lift themselves to his face.

"Where I first told you how I loved you—I have seen that garden in my
dreams a thousand times, I have had cool visions of it in the sweltering
heat of the tropical nights. I have seen it—and you—always you—and yet
my memory never did you justice Kathleen.  To-day you are more
beautiful, more sweetly gracious, more lovable——"

"Hush!" she said.

"Why should I be silent when silence would be but pretence?  Ten years
ago I loved you with all my heart and soul, for ten years my love has
been constant, my dreams and my memories of you were sweeter to me than
the living realty of other women—I cared nothing for them, my heart was
all yours."

"Harold!" she said.  "Harold!"  She put her hand on his arm.  "The past
is dead and it must lie dead and—and forgotten——"

"Forgotten!  You tell me to forget when I have lived on memories, when
the visions of you that my brain has conjured up have been the only
real, the only beautiful things in my life: have I not heard your voice
speaking to me in the stillness of those hot nights, have I not felt
your cool hand on my brow when fever assailed me?  You, even though
thousands of miles parted us, were with me always.  You were by my side
in daylight and in darkness, my other self, my better, purer, sweeter
self, and now after ten years when all that I had of you, all that I had
in the world was memory of you, you tell me to forget——"

"Because you must," she said softly, "because—oh because you must."

"And did you forget?  Could you have forgotten at the word of command?"
he said.  His cheeks were flushed under their tan, his eyes were
gleaming and his words came quick and fast.  "Could you have forgotten
so easily?  No, you too were faithful, you waited, Kathleen.  You told
me so yourself.  You waited—hoping, dear, did you not, hoping that I
should come back to you as, God willing, I meant always to come back.
You knew as I knew that it was the great love, the one and only love of
our two lives.  It came to you, dear, when you were little more than a
child, to me when I was but a boy, but it will last through my life and
yours—yours too, and knowing this, you tell me to forget."

"Listen," she said.  "Listen—this is my home, you are my friend, my
husband’s guest——"

"Does that matter, does anything in this world matter save that I have
come back to you, that you and I love one another now as we did then and
that after years of separation, years of heart sickness and longing, we
are, thank God, together again.  Does anything matter but that?  You are
married, you married the man for his money—his father’s money—your
father told me this—I am not speaking in anger, dear, nor contempt, I am
only stating what I know to be a fact.  You gave him no love, how could
you, when you had none to give, for your heart was always mine."

"Oh hush, hush!  Before you say any more, Harold, listen, for you must
listen to me now.  My father told you only the truth, I married for
money, for a home, for a future—I had given up hope, I had waited so
long, my youth was passing.  I looked ahead, I saw old age and
loneliness and oh—perhaps I was a coward, but I was
afraid—afraid—Perhaps you had forgotten, perhaps you no longer
lived—remember, remember that for ten years I heard no word of you: I
know now that in not writing one word to me you were faithfully keeping
the word of honour that my father forced you to give.  Yet I did not
think you had died, Harold, for if you were dead I think—I think I
should have known—you were only a boy, I told myself, and the love of a
boy changes, absence so often means forgetfulness.  There are other
women younger and more beautiful than I—No, no, let me speak, I know now
that I was wrong—I know that I was wrong—yet how could I know it then?
I was twenty-eight, twenty-eight and what had I to look forward to?
Nothing! nothing in the world—my father had nothing to give me, I was
useless, I could not work, I knew of no trade—I had been brought up in
idleness, a useless creature—and the future—it meant—starvation, not
merely genteel poverty, it meant worse, it meant——"

"I know, and you married for money—for a home—have I blamed you, have I
shewn anger, Kathleen?  No, dear, I pitied you.  You married this man
for his money only——"

"Not wholly, I liked him, respected him——"

"Liked him, respected him——" he smiled grimly.  "But I had your heart?"

"Yes——" she said, "then."

"And now—now still now—always!"

"It is not fair, it is cruel, it is unlike you to ask me," she said, "it
is too late to ask me now——"

"It is not too late.  Was not your sin against me, against your love
greater when you married him than any you might commit against him now?"

"I am his wife, I have promised to be faithful and true to him."

"You promised to be faithful and true to me; do you remember our parting
at Bishopsholme, you promised then when I held you in my arms, when the
tears were in your dear eyes—you promised always to love me, always to
be faithful and true, all your life long—you promised me then with
tears, beloved."

"And I performed—I waited for ten years.  Never passed a day that I did
not waking think of you, that I did not when I lay down to sleep ask
God’s blessing on you and then Fate was too strong——"

"It was Fate that brought me here to-day."

"So that we could meet as friends, take one another by the hand and——"

"As friends—you and I——" his voice quivered with scorn and
bitterness—"Friends!"

They had come to the little lake, the pool where stood the stone nymph
and where in the deep green water the great carp swam lazily.  She was
remembering how she and Allan had stood here days ago and had spoken of
this little stone maiden.

"Kathleen, true love, love that is loyal and lasting and good and true
is the holiest, the best and most enduring thing in this world, it
stands far, far above a mere ceremony. It is Heavensent.  You dare not
sin against that love, dear, for Heaven itself put it in your heart.  I
have been faithful all those years, I have loved you.  I have dreamed of
you, spoken to you in my thoughts, and now I have come back, I have come
to you for—my reward, Kathleen."

She turned slowly and looked at him, her face had grown white.

"Harold, I do not understand."

"You must, oh you must, you do understand, Kathleen, don’t shrink from
me—you see before you the man who loves you better than he loves his
life, better I think, than he loves his soul.  Marriage—what is
marriage, such a marriage as yours, a marriage of convenience, a
marriage of accommodation, a marriage tainted by money.  Can you set up
such a marriage as yours against my steadfast love?  You cannot, you
shall not, Kathleen, you belong to me—you became mine when you gave me
your heart—when you let me hold you in my arms, when my lips first
kissed yours.  That—that gave you to me—I ask for my own now and you—you
are my own—I have come for you—I want you, God knows I need you. I shall
never let you go now never, never again in this world!"

She looked at him and saw that which was unfamiliar to her, looked at
him and seemed to see the face of a stranger, of a man she had never
known, that face was flushed, those eyes were bright, his hands
stretched out to her trembled with the passion that moved him.

"What are you asking me?"

"To come with me, to leave all this, for your love’s sake, for my love’s
sake, to let love rise triumphant above every earthly consideration, I
have come for you, I shall not go without you."

And then she turned from him, she turned to look at the little statue
that had stood there, reflected in the green waters through all those
centuries.  The stone maiden who would stand here perhaps when the grave
had closed over her, and looking at the little statue, rather than at
him, she spoke quietly.

"I loved you," she said, "I loved you all those years because I believed
you to be all that I would have had you be. I loved you for your respect
for me, for your honour, your purity and for your reverence.  In those
days you never offended me by word or look, I was safe with you as with
a brother—and because I knew that with you, I was so protected, so safe,
so secure, I loved you, I think I worshipped you and so I remembered you
as good and honourable and innocent and true—and—and now you come back
to me——" her voice broke a little, "and I know that the love I believed
in, trusted in so, has degenerated into what is nothing but a selfish
passion.  Here under my husband’s roof, you hold out your hand to me,
you bid me come, you bid me leave honour, happiness and peace of heart,
you bid me leave self-respect, all—all behind me."

"Kathleen—Kathleen!"

"Had I been free and had you come in rags, a beggar, with nothing in
your hands, had you called to me to go with you—I would have gone
gladly, proudly gone.  But you waited, Harold, and you waited too long,
and now you dishonour your love, you trample it into the dust at your
feet. I idealised you and the idol that I set up and which I in my
blindness and foolishness worshipped, is fallen and shattered, broken
beyond repair, and so——"  She turned to him for the first time and held
out her hand, "and so we have come to the parting of the ways, Harold,
the last parting.  It is good-bye between us, good-bye for always."

"If your love had been as strong as mine, had lived as mine had lived,
you would not say this to me now."

"It lived till a little while ago, till we came here just now and stood
beside the lake—it lived till then—and then—you killed it, Harold, you
killed it here."

"These are words, mere words!"

"Yet true words, it died here after I had kept it warm, after I had
cherished it in my heart, after I had regarded it as the best, the
sweetest, purest, noblest thing that could ever come into my life, and
here you taught me that I was wrong, you degraded it, you made me see
that it was not the pure and holy thing I had believed it.  You shewed
me that it was mean and cruel and selfish.  You asked me for—for your
reward, yet did not consider what the cost of that reward must be to me.
You would have made me an outcast, my name a word of shame, you, who ten
years ago never wronged me in word or thought.  You would take me from
here into the wilderness, thinking that if I could but hide my face from
others I might find happiness.  Did you give a thought to my soul, to my
conscience, where could I have hidden from that?"

He did not answer, he stood looking at her, his brown hands clenched.
Smouldering passion was in his breast, the passion of desire, the
passion of anger.  Yet he could be honest with himself and knew that she
was speaking the truth, and had never a word to say in contradiction.

"Just now," she said, "just now you killed my love, you drove it from my
heart—it belonged to the man I thought so fine, so splendid, so noble
and when I found him ignoble, selfish, self-seeking, it died; it had to
die, Harold, and being dead will never live again!"  She held out her
hand to him, there was a smile on her white face, a rather pitiful
smile, for only she and her God knew what she had suffered here in this
garden of sunshine.

"We must part here, dear, part—you and I who were lovers, part as lovers
for ever, yet we shall meet again in a few hours, I the hostess, you my
guest and friend.  But I part here from the man I once loved and bidding
him good-bye ask that God may bless him always."

"Once!" he said softly.  "Once, Kathleen, I once loved? Once?"

"Once!" she said, and bravely looked into his eyes.

Moments of silence passed while he stood looking at her. His face seemed
to have grown older, it was haggard, there were lines of pain upon it.

This place, she knew, would hold for ever a memory of pain and suffering
for her, here she would see his face in memory as she saw it now.  Never
would she see these green waters lying motionless under the deep shadows
of the yews, but that into her memory would come his face as she saw it.
now, all haggard and stricken, the face of one who has seen the gate to
happiness opened for an instant and then finds himself shut out in the
darkness and the cold for evermore.

Suddenly he fell to his knees, he lifted the soft and dainty fabric of
her dress and touched it with his lips and then, rising, turned and
strode away, leaving her by the water alone.




                             *CHAPTER XXVI*

                          *ON OTHER SHOULDERS*


When he had knelt and kissed the hem of her garment, Scarsdale had meant
it as an act of renunciation, as an acceptance of Kathleen’s decision.
He could not hope to fight against it.  The truth of what she had said
appealed to him.  True he could take her away back to his own little
domain at the farthest end of the earth.  He could take her to a place
where no one should know of her and his past. But he could not take her
away from her own thoughts, the upbraiding of her own conscience.  His
love for her was a strange mixture of passion and reverence.  Sometimes
it was the one that was uppermost, at another time the other.  Now it
was reverence, respect for her purity that filled his heart. He put his
passion away, for ever, he told himself.  He would go back whence he
came.  He would take back with him his dreams and his memories and
nothing else.

To-day was Saturday, his visit here would end on Monday. He would have
ended it to-day, yet he felt that he might appear a coward in her sight
if he ran away, besides, why should he cheat himself of these last few
hours of her? She was nothing to him, never could be anything, but he
could still watch her, still listen to her voice, still garner up in his
brain memories of her on which he would draw presently when he had gone
back to the old lonely, hopeless life.

No, he would not run away.

He found from one of the men servants, old Markabee it was, in which
direction lay the golf course, to which Messrs. Coombe, Cutler and
Jobson had repaired.

"Fower miles it be, fower good miles, sir," said Markabee, "through
Stretton you du go, then turns to the left and——"  And so on, Scarsdale
listened to the directions and followed them and an hour later stood on
the course and watched Mr. Coombe making wild and ineffective swipes at
a small ball perched on a mound.

Mr. Coombe, bathed in perspiration, appealed to him.

"Never tried this game before, I haven’t," he said, "and don’t know as
I’m going to spend sleepless nights before I try it again.  I daresay
it’s all right for those who like it—play it yourself perhaps, Sir
Harold?"

Scarsdale shook his head.  "There’s not much golf where I come from," he
said briefly.

"No, too hot I reckon—well for my part, give me a quiet game of bowls.
Innocent mirth I don’t find fault with, but I object to making myself a
sort of circus for a lot of grinning urchins, who ought to be at school
or somewhere."  He came and stood beside Scarsdale.  At any other time
Scarsdale might have avoided Mr. Coombe, to-day he welcomed him.  Even
Coombe was a better companion than his own thoughts.

"A decent feller," Coombe thought, "no airs about him, a bit silent, I
don’t expect he gets much society where he comes from."

Thereafter Mr. Combe left Cutler and Jobson to their golf and attached
himself to Scarsdale, and for long after the boastful Coombe would tell
in City chop houses how he and his friend Sir Harold Scarsdale played
golf together on Stretton Links.

"Walk," said Coombe, "why of course I’ll walk, nothing like walking to
get a man’s weight down."

"I gather you don’t do much walking, Mr. Coombe."

"Me?" said Coombe.  "You should see me, all over the City I am, in one
office out another up and down the stairs."

They lunched, the four of them, at a little Inn, lunched on bread and
cheese and good English ale.  Coombe called the pretty little maid who
waited on them his dear.  He chucked her under her dimpled chin and
asked her how many sweethearts she had—a gay dog, Mr. Coombe, playful
and ponderous, with no more vice in him than is in an honest British
bulldog.

"Pretty girl," said Coombe; "I always said London wants beating for
pretty girls.  You see more pretty girls in ten minutes in the streets
of London than you do in a day’s journeying anywhere else.  But next to
London comes Sussex, I’ve seen ’em handsome enough in Kent and passable
in Devonshire, but Sussex girls beat the best.  There’s a girl at
Homewood, Lady Kathleen’s maid I think she is, as pretty as a
picture—Jobson and I saw her last night, didn’t we, Jobson?"

Jobson blushed furiously.

"You did call my attention to a young woman, now I come to think of it,
Coombe."

"Call his attention—ha, ha!" roared Coombe.  "He didn’t want much
attention called, believe me Scarsdale, and mind you she was worth
looking at, the daintiest little bit I’ve seen for a long while, I can
tell you—neat, trim little body, hair as gold—as gold as that sunlight
yonder, a demure little face, my word—ask Jobson, hey Jobson?"

"The young woman was certainly prepossessing," said Jobson primly, "and
I suppose there’s no harm in a man admiring a pretty face and God forbid
because I see a pretty face and admire it that any other—thoughts—any
other ideas—should enter my head—and—and I don’t like your manner,
Coombe, it suggests things I do not like—sir, and if you must, have your
joke—as you call it, I would be infinitely obliged to you if you would
find another subject to joke about than myself."

"Bless my soul!" said Coombe.  "Bless my soul, Jobson, what are you
going off the deep end for now?  I said you saw a pretty girl and
admired her and so did I, begad!  I’d be a blind fool if I did not!  And
if you think I’m saying one word against you or the girl either, Jobson,
why then—then—hang it then——"

"If you meant no offence, Coombe, then none is taken," said Jobson.

They were good honest fellows, decent, clean minded men and if their
talk was mainly of money and of money getting, what did it matter?
Scarsdale found no fault with them, he even felt a kind of liking for
Mr. Coombe.  Coombe was so big, so noisy, so inoffensively vulgar.

"Yes, I say and I ain’t ashamed to say, that though I am fifty-nine I
can admire a pretty face.  Yes, fifty-nine," Coombe swelled out his
chest and looked around, expecting that someone would question his age,
but no one did. "Though I am fifty-nine, I can still, thank God, admire
the beauties of Nature, whether it’s a noble landscape, or a sweeping
view of the sea or—or a woman’s face.  I wouldn’t be fit to be blessed
with my sight if I couldn’t admire a pretty face—and that’s why, my
dear, I admire you," he added as the little serving maid came in with
more bread and cheese. "And why I hope that some fine young fellow will
come along with his pocket full of money and marry you and make you a
good husband."

"How ’ee du talk, sir!" the little maid said, blushing and curtseying;
"a rare comic gentleman ’ee du be, sir."

"And——" went on Mr. Coombe when the girl had gone out again, "what I
think is the most beautiful thing to see, gentlemen, the finest and
noblest of God’s created creatures, is a true bred, real English lady.
It isn’t only her looks, it’s her sweet graciousness, her kindness and
her friendliness and the dainty way she has of speaking, so’s you feel
at home and feel as she likes you and that’s she’s your friend and would
do you a kindness if she could.  There aren’t many of ’em about,
leastways it hasn’t been my lot to meet ’em—but I’ve met one
now—and—and"—Mr. Coombe paused, he rose, he held up his tankard, "Beer
isn’t good enough nor would the finest champagne ever vinted be good
enough, but it isn’t the stuff we drink her health in, it’s the feeling,
it’s the respect, the admiration we feel, gentlemen, that does her
honour and perhaps does honour to us too.  And so I ask you to drink the
health of the finest lady I ever met, the loveliest and best—and I tell
you when I look at Lady Kathleen, it makes me proud to remember I’m an
Englishman!"

"Hear, hear!" said Cutler and Jobson.  "If old Homewood were here,
Coombe, he’d love you for that," said Cutler.

Coombe might have been a hundred times more vulgar than he was, louder,
commoner, more boisterous, but Scarsdale from that moment on would never
see any harm in Coombe.  A good fellow, an honest man.  What mattered it
that he wore white trousers and canvas strapped shoes, a soft felt hat
to the golf course, that he perspired freely and that he bellowed like
the bull of Bashan, what did it all matter? His heart was in the right
place; and so mentally Scarsdale shook Coombe by his jolly big moist
hand and thanked him in his heart for his tribute of reverence and
respect to the One Woman in all Scarsdale’s world.

Back to the golf course went Mr. Cutler and Mr. Jobson, each eager to do
"something in so many," so Coombe vaguely understood, but here outside
the Inn on a seat in the sunshine, it was pleasant enough to stay and
Coombe and Scarsdale sat and smoked their pipes and watched the chickens
and the white ducks in the roadway and thought their own thoughts.

"Yes," said Coombe, "if I ever saw a pretty girl, it was that one!
Betty her name is, because I asked her, and she is Lady Kathleen’s maid
and all I’ve got to say is that her ladyship must be the purest and
sweetest soul living or she wouldn’t have a lovely young thing like that
in the same house as her own young husband!"

Scarsdale started.  "Why—what do you mean, Mr. Coombe? Is Homewood the
type of man who would——"

"Heaven forbid it, there isn’t a cleaner, better lad living than Allan
Homewood.  But there’s a certain prayer as runs—’Lead us not into
temptation,’ Sir Harold and knowing what I know——"  Mr. Coombe paused.

"And what do you know?"

"I know that Lady Kathleen Homewood is a sweet and lovely young lady,
though how she came to have such a father—at any rate I know there isn’t
a finer lady in this land than her, and I know that Allan Homewood is a
lad who if I had had a daughter of my own I’d have liked to have seen
her married to, but for all that it was old Homewood who made the
marriage, his money that did it, and though they like one another and
respect one another, as all the world can see, why—why—do you see, Sir
Harold, it isn’t the same as if it had been a love match and they had
married for love, do you take me?"

"I understand you quite well and because it was not a love match——"

"Well, Sir Harold, because Allan ain’t in love with Lady Kathleen, it’s
just possible, isn’t it, he might, I say—might—fall in love with someone
else, as is natural!  Young blood, Sir Harold, young blood—you know.
It’s natural for a man to seek his own mate and that’s why I don’t hold
with loveless marriages.  Depend on it the man, and very often the woman
too, will find he needs the love his marriage didn’t bring him and he’ll
look for it, or if he don’t look for it, Sir Harold, why then it may
come to him all the same."

"And you think that Mr. Allan Homewood might possibly fall in love with
his wife’s little maid, eh?"

"God forbid I should think anything of the kind," said Mr. Coombe.  "I
never said it and I don’t want to think it, but I do say if I was my
Lady Kathleen’s father, which I am not, I’d say to her, ’My dear, that
little maid of yours is too pretty by half, and it would be best that
you got rid of her!’"

"And Lady Kathleen would tell you that she was quite capable of
conducting her own business without interference, Mr. Coombe!"

"Which would serve me right for a meddling, interfering old fool!" said
Mr. Coombe.

He knocked out his pipe and then presently the warm sunshine, the drowsy
hum of the hees hovering about the old straw skeps on their bench in the
little orchard across the road, the good English ale, all had their
effect.  Mr. Coombe’s heavy head nodded.  He jerked himself awake, then
nodded again, and so fell asleep.  And Harold Scarsdale, an empty pipe
between his teeth, sat with folded arms and stared before him, seeing
nothing, but thinking deeply and his thoughts were: "After all—after all
might there not even now be some hope for him?  Must the years be all
lonely?"

She, God’s blessings on her, would not come to him in shame—her
shame—and his, yet might she not come if the burden of shame should fall
on other shoulders?

So Mr. Coombe snored in the pleasant sunshine and Harold Scarsdale
widely awake, dreamed of a future that might even yet be.




                            *CHAPTER XXVII*

                            *THE CONQUEROR*


A girl was leaning against the old rose red wall, she was sobbing
pitifully.

"’Ee du be cruel, for—for ever pestering I!" she moaned. "Why doan’t ’ee
leave me in peace, Abram?"

The man stood stolidly watching her, her tears moved him not at all.

"Every night ’ee du be hanging about here, I know it, for Polly Ransom
told me and getting I a bad name ’ee be!"

"Polly Ransom be a mischief making hussey!" the man said.

"She did but tell I the truth, Abram, for ’ee du be here all hours
watching for I, so I daren’t show my face beyond the walls."

"Who should I be watching and waiting for, if it be not ’ee, Betty?  ’Ee
be my promised wife, ’ee be!"

"I bain’t!" she said.  "I bain’t, and I du hate ’ee!"

He laughed hoarsely.

"Slow—slow I be, slow o’ speech and slow to make up my mind, yet when I
du speak, then the words I hev said be spoken and can never be recalled,
and when I du make up my mind, it be just the same, I never change, I
never alter, I chose ’ee, Betty Hanson, from all other maids!  I’ve set
my heart on ’ee, my maid, and nothing on God’s earth’ll make me alter,
nothing!"

They were words that might have been spoken with passion, yet he spoke
without passion, with a cool, deadly certainty that frightened the girl
infinitely more than blustering rage.  Only his fingers betrayed his
nervousness, they were plucking at each other for lack of something else
to pluck at.

"A patient man I be, wunnerful, terribul patient," he went on slowly.
"Night after night hev I come here, watching this door, knowing full
well that sooner or later ’ee must pass it.  Night, after night hev I
gone away and said to myself, ’To-morrer,’ and see ’ee’ve come, just as
I ’lowed ’ee would——" he paused.  "When’ll the day be, Betty Hanson?"

"The day?"

"The day for our wedding, surely?"

"Never, never," she said, "never!"  She clasped her hands over her
heaving breast, "Never, Abram Lestwick! My funeral day will come afore
my marriage day wi’ ’ee!"

He nodded his head slowly.  He had found a button, a button hanging by a
mere thread; he twisted and tore at it till it came off, then he
fingered the button, rolling it between finger and thumb, passing it
restlessly from one hand to the other till at last he dropped it.  He
stooped and fumbled in the dust hunting for it as though it were
something of great account.  The girl clasped her face between her two
hands and looked at him, terror in her eyes.

"Abram, Abram!"

He had not found the thing, he straightened himself up, but his yes
still roved the ground.

"Why du ’ee pester I so?"

"I don’t pester ’ee, my maid, I but come to look after my own!"

"I bain’t your own!"

"’Ee be chose by I, willed to me by your grandmother, so ’ee du belong
to I! and one day I will hev ’ee, Betty Hanson——"

"Never!"

He stood staring at her, forgetting the button.  About them was the dusk
of the night.  His restless eyes roved up and down the long straight
road, not a soul was there to be seen.  And then the slow passion that
sometimes came to him moved him.  He had been patient, truly he had said
he was patient, patient and slow, yet as sure as death itself—why should
he wait?  He took a step towards her, the girl shrank back, the green
door was behind her, she might have lifted the latch and escaped, but a
strange feeling of impotence, of helplessness was on her, she could only
stare at the man with distended eyes.

"’Ee do belong to I!" he said.  And he said it again and then again, and
each time he took a slow step toward her.

"No, no, Abram——" her voice rose shrill with terror, for his arms were
suddenly about her, his hateful hands were on her, she could feel his
hot breath on her cheek.

"Let—let I go, for God’s sake—Abram—let I go!"

But he did not answer, he dragged her towards him, her face closer to
his, his breath was on her lips now, his eyes shone brilliantly, their
dull, lifelessness was gone, the madness of his pent-up passion was on
him.

"Let I—let I go—for—for God’s sake let I——"

And then the green door behind her opened suddenly, Abram Lestwick
lifted his head, he looked at the newcomer, the man who stood in the
opening of the wall.

The girl was sobbing, struggling pitifully in his grip, yet he never let
her go, he held her tightly, staring at the man, and it seemed waiting
for him to pass.

"Let I go—let I go—for God’s mercy, let I go!"

Allan Homewood knew the voice, he knew the shimmer of her gold hair, he
knew that writhing little figure.  He put his hand on her arm, he drew
her back, Lestwick released her, yet did not stir.

"She be my promised wife," he said quietly, "my promised wife her be!"

"No, no!" the girl sobbed.  "Never have I given him a promise of
mine—never, never!  Doan’t let—doan’t let him touch me!  Oh I be
frightened—frightened!"

Allan thrust her back gently.  Strangely enough in some ways he and this
other man were alike, alike and yet so vastly different, slow to anger
was each, yet when that anger was aroused, it was deadly and terrible.
It was roused now, that pitiful cry, that white face, those tearful,
terrified eyes, those little clinging hands that were stretched out to
him, craving his protection.  What he said he did not know, the words
came hot and furious.  He called the other man cur and villain, he
ordered him away, he lifted clenched fists in threatening.

But Abram Lestwick stood staring, like one surprised at the interference
of this man.  What right had he, what was it to him?  He knew the man,
knew him for Allan Homewood, Esquire, of the gentry, so what right had
he to interfere between a man and his promised wife.

"You hear me, you coward, you hear me?  I order you to go and never to
come back; if you torment and threaten this child, I’ll thrash you, yes
man, thrash you till I cannot stand over you!"

"And me——" Abram Lestwick said, blinking his eyes at Allan, "me—what
would I be doing?"

There came slowly into his dull mind a dim suspicion. This man was
young, he lived beneath the same roof as Betty, Betty was beautiful, the
most beautiful maid in all Sussex, in all the world!  This man had seen
her, admired her, loved her, what man could help it?  But she belonged
to him, Abram Lestwick.

"What be that maid to ’ee," he said, "what be her to ’ee?"  A dull red
came into his face, his eyes shone evilly.

The girl crouched back against the wall, still clasping her soft cheeks
between her hands.  She was watching them, waiting, wondering, conscious
of a thrill of pride—these two men—were going to fight—for her.

She had no fear of the battle to come, and the bloodshed there might be,
she was eager for it.  She wanted to see Allan Homewood—Allan kill this
man whom she hated and feared so, rid her of him for ever.  Why—why did
not they begin, what were they waiting for?  Why this long silence?

"What be her to ’ee?" Lestwick asked again, and then the smouldering
passion burst into flame, foul words, fouler suggestions came to his
lips.  He ground his teeth together, he quivered from head to foot.  In
his madness and passion he fumbled with those restless hands of his with
his clothing—and Allan misunderstood.

And so the fight began and the girl drew a long shuddering breath and
watched.  She saw them strike at one another, saw Abram Lestwick reel,
staggering back with blood on his face, and she exulted, she wanted to
scream her joy and gladness aloud.  Oh! this man of hers, this Allan who
belonged to her, whom she loved so madly, so passionately, what a man,
what a man he was, how big and strong and broad, how fine to love a man
like this!

"Kill him, kill him, kill him!" she prayed voicelessly, "Oh kill him!"

They had fought away from the wall, they were near to the middle of the
chalk white road.

In the dim light she could see only Lestwick’s face, Allan’s broad back
was towards her and Lestwick’s face was all blood smeared and his eyes
shone with an unholy light.

"Kill him!" she whispered, "oh kill him!"

She uttered a choking cry of joy, she saw Lestwick fling up his arms and
spin round and then fall, fall crashing into the roadway, she watched
him for a breathless moment as he lay there motionless.  Then her breath
came back to her, the blood coursed in her veins again, for the man had
moved, he was rising slowly, painfully, but rising.  He stood up, shaken
and unsteady and his face was no sight for a maid to see, but she
rivetted her eyes on it.

"Will you go now?  Ah! you damned villain!"

Lestwick’s fingers were again busy with his clothes and yet again Allan
misunderstood.  He thought the man was fumbling for a knife to draw on
him and so gave him no time.

Another blow staggered Lestwick, but he did not go down, the fury in his
face was an ill thing to see, his teeth were bared and snapping like the
teeth of a mad dog.  He tried to close with Allan, disregarding the
blows that fell on him, tried to close and to get those long green teeth
of his into the other man’s soft flesh.  And the girl knew it and
screamed a warning.

"Mind—mind as he doan’t bite ’ee, mind as he doan’t bite ’ee.  Ah God,
save us, he be mad!"  She stooped, she fumbled in the dust, she found
what she sought for, a flint, a jagged, heavy flint.  There was hell
fire in Lestwick’s eyes, the passionate rage of a maniac.  This she saw
as she flung the stone. She flung it straight at that hideous, convulsed
face.

It struck Lestwick on the forehead, it broke the skin and the blood
gushed out.  He turned, he looked at her, noting it was her hand that
had flung it.  He laughed a curiously strange mocking laugh and then he
collapsed, seemed to crumple before her eyes and fall a limp heap in the
roadway.

"What did you do, Betty, Betty what have you done?"

She was sobbing and laughing at once.  "He—he meant to kill ’ee, meant
to—to get they teeth o’ his in your throat, Allan, oh I knew it, I knew
it!  Did—did ’ee see his face, Allan, did ’ee see his face and his eyes?
And oh they—they hands o’ his!"

"Go into the house quietly, say nothing to anyone, bring water quickly,
understand, not a word to a soul, bring water here at once!"

He went down on his knees beside the man, he lifted the sorely battered
head, the hideous blood stained face.  Yet it was not hideous now, the
passion was smoothed away, the eyes and mouth were closed.

She was back with the water in but a few seconds.

"Be he dead?"

"No!"

Minutes passed, between them they bathed away the blood, they cleaned
the wound, the jagged wound in his forehead. Allan bound it with his own
white handkerchief and then the man opened his eyes, now they were dull
and brooding.  He lifted his hand and passed it across his mouth, as a
man does in sheer nervousness.

"I—I be all right!" he said, and his voice was low and monotonous—"I be
quite all right, a strong man I be—’tis time I were going home——"

"Yes, it’s time you went home," Allan said, he ran his hands over the
man’s clothing, not yet trusting him, misdoubting Lestwick’s strange
passionless calm.  He was searching for the knife that twice he had
believed the man would have drawn on him, but there was no knife there.

"What be ’ee looking for?" Lestwick asked.

"Your knife!"

"I bain’t got a knife, cruel treacherous, dangerous things knives
be—I’ll be getting home——"

Allan helped him to his feet, the man stood dazed, swaying a little,
then he seemed to take hold on himself.

"A very passionate man I be," he said, "terribul wrathful in moments of
anger——"  He looked at Allan with that strange sullen expression of his.

"I beg your pardon if I did say or du anything as I should not—’tis my
anger as du master I—I wish ’ee good night!"

He turned and walked slowly and unsteadily down the road.  Betty caught
at Allan’s arm, and they stood there, the girl clinging to the man,
watching him go.  Once Abram turned his head and looked back, he saw
them there together, the girl and the man, holding to one another, the
dusky red came into his cheek, he breathed hard, then went on his way,
mumbling to himself.

"A knife—he did think I had a knife—what du, I need with a knife—bain’t
I got my hands——?"  He held them out before him and looked at them, as
the fingers writhed and clenched and unclenched.  "Terribul powerful my
hands be, but I did not get them on him—no, not then, not then——"

Betty had broken down and was sobbing and moaning, clinging to Allan’s
arm.

"Betty, hush, hush child, hush dear, he is gone—there is nothing to
fear!"

"But he will come back.  Oh, Allan, I did mean to kill he——"

"Hush!" he said again.

"For he meant to kill ’ee and—and Allan he will think about it and brood
about it, and one day he will surely kill ’ee, unless ’ee du watch he
terribul, terribul close, he will kill ’ee!"

He laughed softly.  "I am not afraid of him, Betty, hush dear, hush,
don’t cry!"

For she was sobbing bitterly and pressing her face against his arm,
clinging to him as in fear, or love, or both.

"Hush!" he said.  "Come, come, child, come!"  But his hands were
quivering and his heart seemed to be beating faster than usual, "Come!"
he said again.

"Oh Allan, Allan, if he did hurt ’ee, I would want to die!" she moaned.
"For I du; I du love ’ee—oh!  I love ’ee terribul, terribul bad, I du!"

"Betty," he said, "hush, you must not! hush! come!"  He drew her through
the little arched green door into the yard. He himself was shaking now,
trembling, afraid for her, afraid for himself, for his honour.  She said
she loved him and she clung to him, this passionate maiden.  What mad
folly it all was, what mad folly, God preserve them all!

"Betty go back, go into the house!" he said.

"No, no, don’t let me leave ’ee, Allan, let me bide wi’ ’ee for a time!"

He felt her tears on his hand, the hand she had taken and was holding
tight pressed to her face.

"Let me bide wi’ ’ee, Allan, Allan, don’t ’ee send me away yet!"

She was sobbing unrestrainedly, crying aloud as a child does, and he
feared lest any servant should come into the yard and hearing her, find
them here together.  Nor could he send her back into the house for
others to see, all tears and shaken as she was.  But stay here he could
not and would not.

"Come," he said, he held her hand tightly, he took her through the
little gateway into the garden.  Here at least they would be safe and
secure.

"A—a—cowardly maid I be," she moaned, "oh a coward I be, but I du feel
safe wi’ ’ee, Allan, don’t—don’t leave me!  Oh sir, I—I du forget——"

"That does not matter now," he said, "Betty, try and compose yourself.
I understand, you have been frightened, poor child, and upset, but—but
that man will not trouble you again!"

"You doan’t know he," she said quietly; "Allan if I—I did think that I
must marry he, I would go and drownd myself in the pond, the pond where
my stone maid be!"

"You are not going to drown yourself, Betty," he said. "You are going to
live for many happy years!"

"How—how can I?"

"There are other men, better men than this poor fellow Lestwick!"

"Oh Allan, du ’ee pity him?"

"Yes, for loving you vainly, child!"

They had taken a roundabout pathway under the dense shadow of the tall
yews and now they had come suddenly on the little lake, from which the
slender white figure rose.

"There her be, there be my stone maid—and one day, one day I will go to
her, I think Allan!"

"Hush!" he said.  "If you talk in this way I shall leave you!  Betty,
Betty, be brave, brave dear, for your own sake! For—for mine!" his voice
broke a little, he looked down at her, her lovely little face was
upturned to his.

And oh the temptation of that moment, the temptation of those red lips,
those eyes all filled with the soft light of her love, the love that she
felt no shame to admit.  His for the taking—his he seemed to know, even
before they had ever met—his in some past life, his now and through all
time—his in the life yet to come.

There came to him suddenly a great, an irresistible desire, a passionate
love of her, the desire to put his arms about her, to hold her to him
tightly, tightly, to crush his lips to hers, and she, he knew, would not
struggle, would not deny him.

And because he was young, because the lifeblood ran hot, in his veins,
because she was so near to him, so alluring, so loving, so beautiful,
God help him, how could he resist?

"Betty, Betty, why do you say you love me?"

"Du ’ee not know, Allan, why I love ’ee?" she said.  "Oh you du!"  She
put her hands against his breast, she looked up into his face, her eyes
smiled at his, her lips invited.  He bent to her, she could feel the
heavy, the wild beating of his heart under her little hands, and there
came to her a sense of joy, of triumph.

A cloud drifted across the moon, it blotted out for a moment that
glowing, inviting little face.  It was gone, leaving but an indistinct
shape of whiteness.

His father! his wife!—his old father’s pride in him, Kathleen’s faith in
him—Was he to prove himself unworthy? Was he to fall at this first
temptation?

"Allan, my Allan!" she said, and her voice came to him, soft as a caress
from out of the darkness.  She had thought him won, had believed him
hers, and she was waiting joyously, expectantly for the kiss, the kiss
that never came.

"Allan, my son," he seemed to hear the old voice say, that proud and
tender old voice.  "Allan my husband!"  Her voice now, calling him back
to a sense of honour, to a sense of duty and right and he heard the
voices, listened to them, heeded them.  He pushed the girl away gently.

"Betty, we must go back to the house, child—they will miss me and
wonder, you too, you may be wanted, you have dried your tears—go back,
go back."

"Allan!" she said and her voice was like a cry of pain. He gripped her
little hands and held them tightly, then he let them go.

"Go back!" he said, and his voice was harsh and stern, yet it was the
voice of his better self—the conqueror!




                            *CHAPTER XXVIII*

                             *THE WATCHER*


A man seated in the shadows watched them part, for the moon had come out
again, watched them part as he had watched them come, as he had watched
them standing there together on the edge of the pool.  To him, the
watcher, it had seemed that the girl was in the man’s arms, her face
uplifted to his—he had seen the moonlight on her face and had seen the
dull glimmer of her hair.

And the man—yes, he thought that he made no mistake—about the man!  So
Mr. Coombe was right, clever, farseeing, sensible Mr. Coombe—God’s
blessings on Mr. Coombe for his few idle words that meant so much to
this man watching here in the shadows.

He did not move.  He scarcely breathed, as the girl passed him, alone on
her way to the house.  He heard her sobbing softly to herself as she
went, saw the little head bent as in shame.

And to the watcher it seemed that she went in shame and he was
glad—Heaven knew how glad he was!

Yet he must make no mistake, he must not trust to intuition, to mere
suspicion.  He must know beyond the shadow of a doubt that this man was
Allan Homewood—’Her’ husband.

Scarsdale rose, the man was still standing by the edge of the pool, the
girl had gone some while.  Scarsdale walking softly on the turf, skirted
the hedge and came out on the broad flagged pathway.  He walked
leisurely towards the pool and seemed to see the other man for the first
time.

"Hello!" he said.  "Who is here?"

"I——"  Allan turned to him.

"You—oh Homewood, is that you, my host?"

So it was true.  He felt a sudden liking for this man, he felt he loved
him for his weakness and his sin, for would not that weakness, that sin
give him that which he wanted most? They talked of the night, of the old
garden, of the sweet soft English country air.  Scarsdale spoke of the
damp night heat of that country which had been the prison of his body
and soul.

He was a good talker when he pleased and to-night he wished to please.
He wanted this man’s liking—he exerted himself to gain it and yet felt a
deep contempt of himself while he strove.

He spoke of fights with savages, of fights against disease and death, of
perils that made the blood run cold.  Yet he did not boast or brag.
Dimly Allan realised that the man who was speaking was the hero of these
adventures, but Scarsdale never said so.

"You were long away from England, Scarsdale?"

"A thousand years!" Scarsdale said, he laughed softly, "according to the
calendar; ten years, to me a thousand! Thank God to be back!"  He drew a
deep breath.

"Will you go back again?"

"It depends, I do not know, I may, yet I hope not!"

"Perhaps you have come to seek a wife?"

"Yes!"

"But could you take her to this place of which you have been telling
me?"

"God forbid!"

"So it depends on your success with the lady whether you remain in
England or go back?"

"Yes, it depends on that!"

"You and Kathleen are old friends?"

"I knew her when she was a child, I hoped that she would not have
forgotten me!"

"And she did not, Kathleen would not, she never forgets!"

Strange that Allan should say this, here beside the pool where he and
Kathleen had stood but a few hours ago. "Kathleen never forgets!"  The
words sounded to Scarsdale like an ill omen, he shivered a little.  Then
he smiled at his own thoughts and his thoughts were—"The shame shall be
this man’s, not hers.  Her freedom shall come to her without a breath of
scandal to touch her fair name—but she shall be free—and those ten years
of waiting, ten years of constancy, ten years of love must find their
reward——"

They sat down on the stone seat beside the sundial, the stillness and
darkness of the garden about them, the perfume of the flowers in the
air.  A place to sit and dream in.  Many windows were lighted in the old
house, sending out friendly warm yellow rays of light into the night.
From the house came the distant sound of music, a woman’s voice, deep,
rich and beautiful, even more beautiful mellowed by the distance.

She was singing and both men were silent, listening.

Thank God, thank God presently he could go in and take her hand and face
her, look into her eyes, with no memory of guilt and of shame to stand
between them to mar the perfect understanding and the deep friendship
that was so sweet to both of them.

Thank God!  Thank God that he had mastered the temptation, the passion
of just now!  It had gone utterly.  Yet he felt a great tenderness, a
great love for the little maid who would have given herself as she had
given her love to him.

And now Scarsdale was talking, exerting himself to talk in his low,
deep, strong, man’s voice.  He was trying to win this other man’s liking
and friendship, for he had an object in view.  On Monday, at the latest
Tuesday, this little house party would break up, they would all go their
separate ways and he wanted to stay, as a few hours ago realising defeat
and failure, he had wanted to go.  Now with a new hope in his breast he
wished to remain.

What they talked of mattered little, of everyday things, of
commonplaces, but Scarsdale worked steadily towards the object he had in
view.

"After ten years—I went away a mere boy, I knew but a few people, my
father, who is dead since then, others who have passed out of my life.
I come back to England a stranger among strangers.  To me London is a
desert, I walk its streets, looking vainly for a familiar face; I know
no one, no one who passes knows me!"

"But you found Lord Gowerhurst?"

"Yes, he remembered me——"

"You and he were good friends?"

"No, as a boy I disliked him, may I say it to you?"

"But Kathleen and you were friends?"

"A—a boy and girl friendship—she has grown into a sweet and lovely
woman—I shall think of this place, of her, of you and of your happiness,
of the tranquil calm of this when I am back out there again—even when I
am back in that London that I do not know and that knows me not!"

"Is there haste for you to return to London?"

"Haste—every hour I remain out of it I feel I am gaining something!"

"Then why hurry back?" asked Allan in his hospitable generosity.  "Why
go back?  Lord Gowerhurst is eager for his Club, his billiards, his
cards, his manservant.  My father and his friends have their businesses,
but you—why go back?"

Scarsdale murmured something about imposing himself—Allan laughed.

"Stay and believe me we shall be glad—Kathleen will be glad to hear that
you are staying awhile with us—come, you will stay, eh?"

"It would give me more pleasure than you can know!" Scarsdale said.

Allan laughed, for him there was no double meaning in the other man’s
words.

He had gained his point, his host had asked him to remain on
indefinitely, for days, weeks even, there would be no time limit now.

"It is good of you, Homewood—you don’t realise how I appreciate it—my
opportunities of seeing home life, such as this, are not many!"

"But the lady you hope to marry?" Allan asked.

Scarsdale rose.

"She is not for me—yet——" he said steadily.  "Thank you again, Homewood,
may I tell your wife that you have asked me to remain?"

"She will be as pleased as I am!" Allan said simply.

Scarsdale turned to the house, he left Allan sitting there and Allan
rested his chin on his hands.  He was not deeply religious.  He had
prayed, as men do, by fits and starts, in moments of anxiety, in moments
of relief and gratitude.  But his heart was offering up thanksgiving
now.  He had been delivered from temptation.  He thanked God for it, for
his own sake and for hers, that child’s, for his father’s sake, for
Kathleen’s.

But temptation might assail him again, would—and he, knowing his own
weakness now, knowing how nearly he had succumbed to it, must do that
thing that even brave men may do and yet still keep their honour.  He
must avoid it, he must shun it, even flee from it if necessary—but how?

Betty or he must go and how could he when this was his home, when all
his interests were here?  How could he go, how could be explained his
reason for flight?  No, it must be she who must go!

"I must think, I must plan, I must consider her, yes, consider her in
every way, but she must go."




                             *CHAPTER XXIX*

                *WHY ABRAM LESTWICK STAYED FROM CHURCH*


Mrs. Colley wagged her ancient head, she looked at her granddaughter and
smiled, shewing toothless gums.

"Du ’ee notice now as Abram bain’t in Church this morning, my gell?"

’Lizbeth Colley frowned, "Abram Lestwick’s comings and goings du not
interest I," she said in a low voice.

The service was in progress.  There sat Mrs. Hanson, prim and stiffly
upright, the place beside her that had for so long been Betty’s was
still vacant.  There was Miss Dowell, tall, angular and lantern jawed,
gifted with a harsh and nasal voice that rose above all other voices
when the hymns were being sung, beyond her, her niece little Mary
Tiffley, who minded Miss Dowell’s shop, ran her unimportant errands,
cleaned her house and stye, windows and floors, a useful, hard working
little maid Mary, a good wife in the making for some man who would
probably work her even harder than did her Aunt Emily.  And beyond Mary,
that vacant space towards which Mrs. Colley’s small bright eyes had been
attracted.

Abram Lestwick, regular and devout worshipper, always occupied this
place.  He had knelt beside Mary Tiffley, had shared his torn and
tattered hymn book with her, had thundered the responses in her little
ears and it is doubtful if he had ever looked at the round childish
pretty face.

Mary Tiffley, Polly Ransom, Ann Geach, what were they to him, he to
them?  What mattered it to Abram Lestwick that they were pleasant to
look on, that they were fine, healthy country maids, any one of whom
would make some man a good wife?  He did not consider them, they did not
exist for him.  He could not have told from memory whether Mary Tiffley
had fair hair or dark.  He had sat next to her in Church; he had
bellowed the same hymns with her for five years, since she was a child
of twelve, she had grown up beside him and he had not noticed it.

"Aunt Emily, Mister Lestwick bain’t in Church this marning," whispered
Mary.

"I see him bain’t," said Miss Dowell.  "Mind your devotions now and
don’t ’ee getting looking about ’ee."

"Mortal glad I du be," Mary thought, "that he bain’t here, for his
fingers do fidget I something terribul, they du."

Everyone in Church noted the fact that Abram Lestwick was not there.
Compared with the women, there were noticeably few men in Church, Abram
was always a distinguished figure and they missed him.

Presently the sermon, which they knew by heart, was drawing towards its
natural conclusion.  When the Rector arrived at—"And so it behooves us
to bear these things in mind.  Let us put covetousness out of our heart,
let us be content with that which we have, no matter how poor or how
lowly be our lots in life.  Let us accept God’s goodness with thankful
hearts asking for no more than it pleaseth Him to give—and——"

They knew from long experience that the sermon would conclude in exactly
two minutes from this point and now there was a general movement, a
rustling of Sunday dresses, a shuffling of young feet, eager to be out
scampering on the grass, or on the good high road.

There was that movement in the little Church that takes place in a
railway carriage when the long, long journey is nearing its end, when
the station is almost gained.

Mrs. Colley stepped out briskly and smartly into the sunshine.

"A spryer woman I be than Mrs. Hanson, aye, a spryer and a nimbler I be,
so as one ’ud take I for being ten years younger, though we were at
school together.  See how stiff du be her walk, how she du lean on her
umber-rella.  ’Lizbeth, take notice how her hand du shake remarkable!
Good marning to ’ee, Mrs. Hanson, and ’tis a lovely fine day."

"’Tis:" said Mrs. Hanson briefly.

"A fine marning and a good sarmint," said Mrs. Colley.

"’Tis my favrit sarmint," said Mrs. Hanson, "I were always partial to
Nabob’s vineyard."

"Miss Dowell du be ageing terribul," said Mrs. Colley.

Mrs. Hanson sniffed.  She felt that she was ageing herself, she missed
the maid, though she would not admit it to herself. Perilous bad was
that maid and disobedient, and she, Mrs. Hanson, was a stern, unbending,
unyielding woman.

"Miss Dowell’s Mary be growing to a fine maid!" said Mrs. Hanson.  She
was approaching the vacant space in the pew as it were, step by step.

"I have never noticed she, pertickler, I remember her mother, one of
they empty heads as I never could abide."

"I noticed," said Mrs. Colley, "I noticed Mrs. Hanson as——"

"So did I!" said Mrs. Hanson, "Abram Lestwick were not in Church, I
noticed it tu."

"’Tis the first time——"

"’Tis his own business and ’tis not yours nor mine."

Mrs. Colley bridled.  "I du notice a great change in Abram, and if what
I du hear be half true, that maid of yours hev played Abram a bad trick,
leaving him in the lurk like and going and getting sarvice in the big
house."

"I will thank ’ee, Mrs. Colley, not to interfere wi’ me and my affairs.
My grand-darter had her own rights to get any place as she did chose,
and whoever hev been saying ill things o’ she—I would hev took it
friendly and neighbourly, seeing me and you went to school together as
young things, I—I say I would hev took it neighbourly and friendly if
you had up and spoke for the maid."

"And how did ’ee know as I didn’t?" demanded Mrs. Colley shrilly.

"Because I du know your tongue, Ann Colley and knowed it of old I du,
and it’s a tongue as would sooner speak ill things of your neighbours
than good things and—and I wish ’ee good marning, Mrs. Colley, and my
bes’ respects to ’ee!"  And shaking her old umbrella, Mrs. Hanson
marched on, a tall gaunt figure of a woman.

It had worried her too, that Abram was not in Church, she disliked
changes; she had come to look for Abram in his place every pleasant
Sunday morning, and every unpleasant one too for the matter of that.
But fine or dirty the weather, Abram had never failed till to-day.

"There be something wrong," Mrs. Hanson thought.  "I mislike it, Abram
not being in his place, I missed his voice in that ’ymn which we did
have to-day and which he was always partial to."

Not for days had she spoken to Abram.  He passed the cottage regularly,
he touched his hat politely when he saw Mrs. Hanson, for he was a polite
man.  But he had never crossed the threshold since Betty had got her
place in the big house.

But Mrs. Hanson had heard things from others than Ann Colley.  She had
heard how Abram patiently and stolidly spent two hours every night
staring at the arched green doorway in the wall of Homewood, through
which doorway he knew must come Betty sooner or later.

Mrs. Hanson sat down to her Sunday dinner, it was a frugal meal of cold
boiled bacon, a cold potato and a piece of bread.  Mrs. Hanson was a
strict Sabbatarian.  Many and many a time when Betty had dared to
remonstrate about the Sunday fare, Mrs. Hanson had said to her.

"Remember my maid, as you du keep holy the Sabbath day.  Six days shalt
’ee labour and do your work, and not a potato will I have cooked in
house of mine on the Seventh day, which be the day of the Lord, thy God,
nor baked nor biled meats will I hev."

"But ’ee du bile the kettle, Grandmother, for to make a cup of tea on
Sundays same as other days!" Betty had said.

"That be a different thing, tea one must hev; the Lord would not hev
sent we tea if He had not meant we to bile a kittle to make it with."

"Nor potatoes," Betty thought, "if they were not to be cooked.  After
all, why was it a sin to boil water in a saucepan and no sin to boil it
in a kettle."

So Mrs. Hanson sat down to cold bacon.  Primly and stiffly she sat and
mumbled the bacon between her hard gums, but she was not thinking of the
carnal pleasure of feasting, her thoughts were of Abram Lestwick.

Strange that he was not at Church, strange that he should have missed on
such a fine Sunday after all these years!

"Something must ail he," thought Mrs. Hanson and was surprised that the
idea had not occurred to her before.

Mrs. Hanson finished her meal, she washed her plate in cold water, she
set it on the dresser.  She put on her bonnet again, she took her
umbrella and locked the cottage door behind her.

Abram’s cottage was three-quarters of a mile away and Mrs. Hanson was
feeling her age to-day.  But she walked the distance, she reached the
cottage and tapped on the door.

"Come in!"

Mrs. Hanson went in.  Abram, dressed with his usual care, was seated in
a stiff chair, drawn up to a round table.  On the table, which was
covered with a red flannel table cloth, was a large Bible.  Abram was
reading from the Bible, following the lines as he read them with his
long, flat tipped finger.

Abram’s face was battered and scarred, there was a deep gash on the
forehead, there were livid marks under his right eye, on his left cheek,
and a contused wound on his upper lip.

Mrs. Hanson looked at him, but she said nothing.

"I wish you good marning, Mrs. Hanson, and beg of you to be seated,"
said Abram.

Mrs. Hanson sat down.

In higher circles educated and polite people are apt to remark on any
facial disturbance of a temporary disfiguring nature that may have
befallen their friends.  In Mrs. Hanson’s circle it would have been
considered bad form.

"It were remarked in Church, this marning, Abram, as ’ee was not
present."

"I were not!" he lifted his head and looked at her, the light shone in
from the window and illuminated his battered countenance.

"So being an old friend——"

"And very considerate of ’ee, Mrs. Hanson," he said.  "I will finish my
chapter," he added.

She sat there waiting, she watched him as with the forefinger of his
right hand, which appeared to her to be abnormally long and curiously
flattened at the end, he traced a line across the page, stopping at
every word, which though he uttered it not aloud, he evidently formed by
muscular exertion of his jaws.  His left hand not being engaged with the
book was twisting and tearing the edge of the red flannel table cloth.

Mrs. Hanson shut her eyes, she could hear Abram’s stertorous breathing,
then she heard a movement.  He had evidently finished, he closed the
book solemnly.

"I hev finished my chapter," he said; "spiritual comfort be a very great
blessing, Mrs. Hanson."

"Ah!" she said.  "We had Nabob’s vineyard for the sarmint to-day, Abram,
and ’ymn seventy-two, as I know ’ee be partial to."

He nodded.

She wondered if he would tell her about his face, not for all the world
would she transgress the unwritten laws of politeness and ask for an
explanation.  The reason, however, why he had not been present at Church
was obvious.

"Last night," he said after a long pause, "last night I see the maid——"

"Betty?"

"There be but one maid for me, Mrs. Hanson, and it be onnecessary for me
to give a name to she when I say the Maid ’ee will understand."

"Aye!" she said.

"Her still keeps contrairywise," said Abram.

"Her will give way," said Mrs. Hanson, "maids du!"

Abram’s right hand was trying to tear scraps from the worn leather of
the corner of the book, his left was still engaged with the tablecloth.

He was looking at Mrs. Hanson, it seemed as if he was trying to make up
his mind to say something, several times he opened his mouth and as many
times closed it again in silence.

"Well Abram, I must be getting along," she said it to urge him to
speech.

"I would beg of ’ee to take a cup of tea wi’ me," he said, "but Sunday
be a day of fasting and repentance and prayer, Mrs. Hanson, Ma’am!  And
moreover the fire hev gone out, Mrs. Hanson——"  Again he hesitated.
"Mrs. Hanson, hev ’ee ever met Mr. Homewood——"

"The barron-ite one," she asked, "or the young one as be master?"

"The young one."

"Aye, I hev met he and spoke to he and a very pleasant spoken gentleman
he be."

"Oh he be a very pleasant spoken gentleman—a very pleasant spoken one, I
du know!"  A spasm seemed to pass across the man’s face, his fingers
clenched suddenly, she heard his long nails rasp over the leather cover
of the book. Looking she could see a series of deep scratches they had
furrowed in the stout leather.

"Why Abram bain’t ’ee well to-day?"

"I be very well, I thank ’ee, Mrs. Hanson, I be enjoying unusual good
health, I thank ’ee.  I did not come to Church this marning
because—because in the dark last night—I did stumble and fell as ’ee may
have noticed, Mrs. Hanson."

That he was lying, that it was no stumble, no fall, she knew.  Had it
something to do with Betty and why had he asked her if she knew Allan
Homewood?

"And as ’ee said ’ee must be getting along——" he suggested. She rose to
her feet, it was a hint, a broad one and she took it.

"Aye!  I must be getting along, Abram," she said.

He saw her to the door, he went to the gate and opened it for her.

"I thank ’ee most politely for coming and calling, and I wish ’ee good
day, Mrs. Hanson!"

He stood watching the tall upright figure down the road.

"Her be ageing," he said to himself, "ageing her be."

He went back into the cottage and closed the door after him.  He took
the Bible and placed it on the small round table in the window, on the
Bible he laid an antimacassar, on that a small glass case containing
some flowers contrived in wool.

Then he stood still, he lifted his hands so that they were between him
and the light, he looked at them as though examining them curiously.

"A very pleasant spoken gentleman he be!"  And then he laughed
curiously.




                             *CHAPTER XXX*

                      *THE RELIGION OF SIR JOSIAH*


From Kathleen’s window the garden glowing in the white sunshine was a
feast of vivid colour.  To-day old Markabee, in clean smock and
respectable though ancient high hat, had wended his way to the village
church, in obedience to the persistent clanging of the unmusical bell.
But the bell was silent now, its noisy clamour was stilled and the peace
and calm of the day of rest brooded over the place.

Kathleen sat, her chin resting on her hands, her eyes fixed on the old
garden, yet seeing nothing of it.

To her within the last few hours had come knowledge, a wonderful
knowledge, knowledge that brought with it a strange fear and yet a great
joy.  She knew that she was to fulfil her woman’s destiny.  At first she
had been inclined to question that knowledge, to doubt it, then she had
waived doubts aside.  It was to be! and why should it not be?  She asked
herself, was she glad?  Was she sorry?  She could find no answer at
first, just at first her one thought was "fear."  But it passed quickly
and in its place came pride—pride and joy.

Glad—yes, she was glad—her eyes were bright with the joy that had come
to her, there was a smile on her lips, and yet about that smile there
was a shade of melancholy and sadness and a little too of the
wistfulness of hunger.  For strangely, of the one knowledge, had been
born another.

She had come to understand something which she had been faintly
conscious of for a long while past, something that she had thought of
perhaps yesterday when she had stood beside the pool, listening to
Harold Scarsdale.

That other knowledge that she had gained made her understand now why
that parting with Scarsdale had cost her so little anguish, so small a
heartache.  She had pitied him, yet not herself, and then she had not
known why this should be, yet she knew it now.

And so, after ten years dreaming, she had awakened to find that the
dream was but a dream after all.

Presently into the garden came two who walked side by side, the one tall
and upright and strong, the other a hale and hearty man, yet lacking the
spring of youth in his sure steps.  She watched them and there came into
her eyes a new light, a light born of wonderful tenderness, into her
fair cheeks came a faint colour.

She saw the younger put his arm about the elder’s shoulder. How they
loved one another, those two, father and son.

"I want to tell him, I want him to know and yet—yet I dare not tell
him!" she thought.  "Still, oh I want him to know!  I wonder, will he be
glad and proud, proud as I am? Or will he—be sorry?"  Her head sank a
little.  "He would be proud and glad if he loved me——"

"Allan!" she said softly, "Allan!"

It seemed almost as if from her brain there fled a message to his, for
he turned, he looked up at her and smiled.

And the sunshine was on his brown honest face and in his clear eyes.  He
could only see the smile she had for him, he could not read at this
distance the message in her eyes, a new message, one that they had never
sent to him before, a message of a newly found yet great and sure and
strong love.

And now, as she watched him, she knew why yesterday she had been able to
turn that leaf, in the book of her life with scarce a heartache.

She knew the truth now, she had idealised the child’s love, she had
lived on the ideal, had tended it and cared for it and worshipped it and
had made it the most beautiful and wonderful thing in her life.  She had
built for herself a great and wonderful palace and had found that its
foundations were laid on the shifting sands, and so the dream palace had
crumbled and fallen into utter ruin, the dream had ended, and with clear
eyes she beheld the truth.

This morning Scarsdale had told her quietly that he had been asked to
stay by Allan.  He had watched her curiously while he told her, had
wondered if she would shew anger or annoyance, and she had shewn
neither.

She was only the gracious hostess who expressed her pleasure at his
continued stay.

"When our other friends are gone, I am afraid you will find it very
dull, unless you are interested in those things that Allan is interested
in—this modern, scientific farming."  She smiled at him, there was no
self-consciousness.

Yesterday might never have been, all the years, all their memories might
never have been.  This man was her guest, her husband’s friend—his guest
from this moment, nothing more.  She was not playing a part, she was not
cheating herself.  Yesterday she had told him that as lovers they had
parted forever, as mere friends they would probably meet many times, and
so it was.

Harold Scarsdale represented nothing to her now; he was even less her
friend henceforth than her husband’s.

He had wondered at the far-away look in her eyes, at the almost
mechanical way in which she had accepted his news. How could he guess
how utterly and completely her thoughts were filled with this knowledge,
the greatest, most wonderful that ever comes into a woman’s life?

And so she sat here by her window and watched the figures of the two
men, both dear to her, but one grown suddenly so wonderfully, so
inexpressibly dear that the strength and depth of her love almost made
her afraid.

In spite of the smile he had given Kathleen a while ago, there was this
morning a cloud on Allan’s brow, a weight of care on his heart.  He was
worried and anxious, he wanted to do what was right, he wanted to act
justly and honourably, and he knew that he was afraid—afraid for
himself, afraid of a man’s weakness, afraid of temptation that he would
willingly flee if he could.

Long ago he had promised to be open and honest with Kathleen, had
promised to tell her if that which had been so unreal, so intangible,
should by any chance become real, and it had and yet he hesitated to
tell her.  It had been so easy to promise then, so difficult to perform.
But he wanted advice, he wanted help and to whom could he turn if not to
her?

There was his father.

He looked down at the kindly old face.  But would his father understand?
He doubted it.  What patience would Sir Josiah, man of affairs, business
man and materialist, have with dreams and visions and such-like rubbish?
Yet Allan had a boyish, and because it was boyish, an honest longing to
take someone into his confidence, to unburden his mind, to ask advice,
to share his thoughts with some other and if not Kathleen, who better,
who more natural than his father?

And so he made up his mind to speak, but hesitated. Twice he commenced,
twice he branched off lamely into something else.

"What’s the matter, Allan lad?" Sir Josiah asked.

"Matter, father?"

"Aye, matter, my son!  I know you better than you think I do perhaps.
You’ve got something worrying you and that’s a fact.  Now what is it?
Is it Gowerhurst, has his lordship been saying anything or—or wanting
anything, hey?"

"Lord Gowerhurst has——"

"Allan, look here," Josiah took his son’s arm and pressed it closely.
"I know his lordship, he’s a gentleman, a man of position, a man of rank
and title and like that—but he’s hard up and when a man’s pushed, well I
suppose he ain’t too particular, can’t afford to be; it just crossed my
mind that his lordship might—I say might have asked you, Allan, to lend
him a helping hand."

"No, no!"

"Well then I’m wrong, but it might happen, and if I turned out to be
right I wouldn’t like you to have to say no to Kathleen’s father, boy, I
wouldn’t like that—and it might hurt her, our—our little girl—eh, if she
knew."

"Our little girl," what a wealth of tenderness and love in those three
words!  It was never "her ladyship" now, it was just that: "our little
girl."  Allan felt something sting in his eyes for a moment, his hand
rested more heavily on his father’s shoulder.

"No, I wouldn’t like to hurt her in any way, even that way, Allan, so—so
if his lordship should—and it seems to me very likely that his lordship
may—why do you see, Allan, you can draw on me.  Of course he won’t never
pay back, that’s not to be looked for nor expected and one thing he
wouldn’t expect to get a wonderful lot out of you—so if he does ask you
must say Yes—up to five hundred, Allan, and then let me know quietly,
and there you are, there you are, my boy!"

"I wonder if there is another man in all the world like my father?"
Allan said.

"Bless you, heaps and heaps and a sight better.  But there’s one thing,
Allan, there’s never a father in this world as knows and loves his son
as I know and love mine and so—so boy—out with it, out with it now and
here."

They had come to a shady place, under the tall yews. Here was an
inviting seat and on the seat Sir Josiah settled himself and drew Allan
down beside him.

"Out with it—with what, father?" Allan asked lamely.

"Why out with what’s worrying you, my boy; do you think I didn’t see it,
do you think when I saw you first thing this morning and took just one
look at you I didn’t see it there—there in your face and eyes?  Why
bless you, of course I did; it ain’t money, Allan?"

"No, no!"

"I knew that, then what is it?  Not—not trouble, nothing amiss
with—between you and her?"

"No, thank God!"

"Thank God!" the old man said.  "And so—so it isn’t that and therefore
it can’t be anything bad—so I’m waiting, Allan, waiting, dear lad, tell
me."

"Father, if I did you could not understand."

"I’d try, Allan," the old man said simply.

"Then, by Heaven I will tell you, father, and you shall try and
understand, though—though if you do, you will be more clever than I, for
I cannot understand."  Allan lifted his hand to his head for a moment.

"Do you remember something that you told me once about—an ancestor of
ours—whose name was the same as mine—a labourer here—a gardener, who
married his mistress’ serving maid?"

"And whose son went to London and took over the Green Gates in
Aldgate—why of course I do!"

"Well," said Allan quietly, "that’s it——"

Sir Josiah looked at him.  "God bless my soul!" he said, and if ever
there were mystification on a man’s face, it was on his.

"Father, do you believe that the soul can outlast and outlive not one
earthly body, but many, ten, a hundred, a thousand, that when the body
perishes as all things earthly must perish, the soul can and does find
another dwelling place?  Ah!  I don’t make myself clear."  He broke off,
seeing the mystification deepen in the old man’s face.  "I am afraid I
never can.  Think this out, father, a man dies, the body perishes, but
the soul, the ego, the spirit lives on. It finds another body, which it
animates for good or for evil, it completes another life, and then all
happens over again.  Each time the body dies, the soul passes through
oblivion and returns to earth——"

"Here, here, Allan!" cried the old man.  "Here, bless my soul, didn’t
you ought to see someone?"

Allan smiled ruefully.

"Have you never heard of re-incarnation, the re-incarnation of the soul,
father?"

"No, I can’t say as I ever have and I don’t know as I ever want to.
I’ve only got one life and though I mayn’t succeed in many little things
none too well, I’m trying to do the best I can with it.  Looking back—"
the old man went on, "looking back, Allan, I can say and thank God as I
can say it that I can’t remember ever having done a dirty act or ever
having played a mean trick on a man or a woman in my life.  I accepted
my body like it was, a loan from God; I’ve used it and kept it clean and
when the time comes for me to hand it back to Him, why then I want to
feel as I can hand it back in good condition and good order—fair wear
and tear excepted, Allan, and that’s how I look at things.  I don’t
pretend to know, there’s some as does, yet they are only men, the same
as me and you, dear lad, and they don’t know—no one knows—and it’s as
well for us, maybe, we don’t!  It’s a beautiful world and a wonderful
world and God lent it to us the same as He lent us our bodies to use
properly, to admire and to make the most of and enjoy.  Beyond that, I
don’t seek to know anything, but when my time comes, I want to be able
to think to myself a prayer, that goes somehow this way—’God, this is
the body You lent to me, I’m done with it and now I’m giving it back;
I’ve tried to keep it clean and honest, I’ve treated it as if it was
something belonging to You more than to me—and that I was in honour
bound obliged to deal with carefully.  If there’s a Heaven and You know
best, I hope you’ll find a place in it for my soul, because in keeping
my body clean, oh Lord, I’ve kept my soul clean along with it!’  That’s
how I look at things, Allan, I ain’t good at talk of this sort.  Maybe
you’ll think I’ve got funny ideas, so I have, but don’t tell me nothing
about this re-incarnation of yours; I don’t hold with it, boy, I don’t
believe in it; if it’s true, and it may be, mind you, it may be, it
isn’t for us to know if it’s true or not.  If it was right, we should
know, then God would find some way of telling us."

"Perhaps He has!" Allan thought, but he said no more. No, he could not
tell his father, for his father would never understand!




                             *CHAPTER XXXI*

                         *"A VERY WORTHY MAN"*


Allan’s conscience smote him sorely.  He had misjudged and dealt hardly
with Abram Lestwick.  He had thought, had honestly believed, that the
man had intended drawing a knife on him and in his fury and anger had
punished his victim unmercifully.

Later, when he had gone carefully over Lestwick’s clothing and had found
no traces of weapons hidden there, he had known his suspicion had been
unjust.  It weighed on his mind, he went over the incident again and
again.  He wondered if he had seriously hurt the man.  He felt anxious
and ill at ease, as must every just man when he is conscious of an
unintentional act of injustice.

It troubled him the more because he knew that he did not like Lestwick,
that to a certain extent he shared Betty’s antipathy for the man.

Little Betty to spend all her days with Abram Lestwick! That could not
and should never be.

Yet in this Allan felt himself in the wrong and there was but one course
open to him.  To seek Lestwick out, to admit frankly that he had erred,
to ask the man’s forgiveness and to make amends, if amends were
possible.

And yet Allan decided that in a way the man deserved all that he had
got, he had pestered and worried Betty, he had waylaid her, to obtrude
his hateful love on the frightened, shrinking maid.

"Hang him!" Allan muttered between his teeth.  "If he ever does it again
I—" he clenched his hands and felt very bitter for a moment towards
Abram Lestwick, then the bitterness was gone.  He himself had done
wrong, had misjudged and therefore only one course was possible to Allan
Homewood.

Lord Gowerhurst having found another bedroom, where he was not likely to
be disturbed by sounds of bird life, had decided to stay on for a day or
two.  The country would do him no harm, he would be all the better by
the change.  His appetite was getting to be really quite satisfactory,
though even at the very worst of time, Lord Gowerhurst was no mean
performer with the knife and fork.

He had also made the discovery that Allan’s butler, the staid,
deferential and respectable Mr. Howard, had at some time in his career
been a valet and could still shave with some dexterity and was moreover
a very polite and capable man, so his lordship took possession of Howard
and another room and declared his intention of staying till Tuesday or
Wednesday.

Sir Josiah and Mr. Coombe and the rest were not averse to one day more
of holiday.  The newly installed telephone enabled them to get into
touch with their City offices, with the result that the little house
party would not definitely break up till Wednesday.

So Allan, with the weight of his injustice to Abram Lestwick on his
conscience, set out this Monday morning to do penance.

He knew that Lestwick was employed by Patcham at the Moat Farm.  Betty
had told him.  The Moat Farm formed part of the Homewood Estate and
Patcham was his tenant; what more natural than he should call on so
worthy a tenant and talk crops and soil and manures and such like with
him? And then how easily and naturally would slip out a word or two
about Abram Lestwick.  Was he a good man? an honest worker? and if he
should prove to be these and deserving, Allan must see what he could do
for the man to make up for the injustice of his treatment of him.

Kathleen followed him out of the breakfast room this morning.  Lord
Gowerhurst was not yet risen and Mr. Coombe had expanded under the
influence of His Lordship’s absence.  Mr. Coombe was telling stories of
high finance. That his stories were interminably long and without any
point and of no particular interest, did not matter.  Coombe was a sound
man, Sir Josiah honoured him, Cutler and Jobson admired him.  Sir Harold
Scarsdale took no notice of him, so was not bored by his stories.
Scarsdale was thinking naturally of Kathleen.  He thought of little
else, her manner troubled him.  He could not, frankly he could not
understand her.  She was smilingly polite, courteous and considerate,
she was friendly and sweet to him, and it made him realise that he
represented nothing at all to her.  But she was playing a part, and
playing it well, he argued with himself.  A woman, and a woman like
Kathleen, could not apparently without effort or sense of loss tear out
an image that has been enshrined in her heart for ten long years.  It
puzzled him, worried him, even angered him, but he told himself he must
be patient.  His was now the waiting game, and he believed that he had
but to wait long enough and all that he desired on this earth would be
his.

So Kathleen followed Allan out into the wide hall and found his cap and
selected his stick for him and did just those little things that a
tender, thoughtful, loving woman always does and meanwhile she looked at
him with a strange wistfulness, a curious pleading in her eyes, eyes
that told of a hunger and longing in her soul.  But he, man-like, was
blind to it, yet not insensible of her goodness and her thought for him.

To-day she felt a strange unwillingness to let him go, she did what she
had never done before.  She slipped her hand through his arm and walked
with him down the wide pathway to the gate, the sunshine in her hair and
on her face. Sir Josiah, bored by Coombe’s unending story, yet too
polite to shew it, watched them from the window, a smile on his face.
It was good to see them like this—such friends, such comrades!

She wanted to tell him—not of Scarsdale, for that had sunk into
insignificance now—now that there was something so much greater, so much
more wonderful for him to know. But not yet, not yet—not out here in the
sunshine with perhaps someone watching them from the window.
Presently—presently when they should be quite alone!

So at the gate she paused, she looked at him.

"And once I thought I loved—Harold!" she thought. "Once I thought so and
now I know—I love——"

"Don’t you want me to go out this morning, dear?"

"Oh, yes, yes, you’re going to old Custance to talk——"

"No, I’m going to the Moat Farm to see Patcham, it’s time I called on
him.  But if you would rather I stayed——

"No!" she said.  "Go!  Good-bye, Allan!" she added softly.

They would have parted with a touch of the hand as they always did.
They kissed on rising and on retiring, but at no other time of the day.
Yet to-day she clung to his hand for a moment, her heart was filled with
tenderness for him, longing and a desire to keep him that she was too
unselfish to pander to.

"Why dear——"

There was something about her that he could not understand to-day,
something in the tight hold of her hand, in the unwonted colour in her
cheeks, the wonderful brightness in her eyes.

"It is nothing, dear, go—good-bye!" she said, yet as she spoke she
lifted his hand and held it against her soft cheek, just for a moment
and then would have turned, yet before she did, he caught her
suddenly—why he did not know—it was a moment of passion irresistible,
something that came so swiftly that he could not question it, could not
understand it.  He caught her and held her and kissed her and then
quickly let her go and without a word went striding forth, conscious of
a feeling of shame, as though he had offered her insult.

And she stood looking after him, her hands pressed against her breast,
her eyes wide.  Not once did he turn; had he done so perhaps he might
have seen, might have understood the longing in her eyes, the hunger for
the love that he never dreamed she needed.

Allan walked on quickly.  A woman in moments of mental stress can find
relief in tears, a man more usually in violent movement.

He was a little shaken, a little unnerved, greatly surprised at himself.
Why had he done that, why had his heart leaped suddenly at the touch of
her soft cheek on his hand, why had he—done what he had done?  Yet,
having done it, regretted nothing.  It seemed to him that from that
moment Kathleen held a new interest for him.  He had regarded her as
friend and companion—from this moment on he knew that she meant more
than this to him.

Farmer John Patcham received him courteously, with a deference and
respect that had nothing whatever of servility about it.

"’Tis a fine marning," he said, "and I be just going to have my usual
lunch, Mr. Homewood, a very plain and simple lunch it be, just a glass
of ale and a plum-heavy, very partial I be to plum-heavies and there’s
no one in all Sussex makes ’em better than my wife, so if you’ll join
me——"

Allan did.  They sat in the somewhat stuffy little parlour, the window
of which remained hermetically sealed, summer and winter, and drank good
brown beer and ate those Sussex cakes that for some reason have never
achieved the fame of the cakes of Banbury or the Buns of Bath.

And over their cakes and ale they talked and Allan surprised the farmer
somewhat by the depth and advancement of his knowledge.

"You been getting your head laid alongside old Custance now I’ll be
bound," he said, "wunnerful advanced man Custance be, as sets great
store on book larning to be sure.  But if so be you be minded to try hop
raising in this part of Sussex, Mr. Homewood, I say give it up!  ’Tis
the soil, sir, ’tis the soil!  Hops be all right for Kent and the
Midlands, but—" and so on and so on, from hops to manures, chemical and
otherwise, to tithes and land taxes, to red cows and brindled cows and
the swine of Berkshire and of Yorkshire, on all of which subjects Mr.
Patcham laid down the law and smote the rickety round table with a heavy
hand, to drive his points home.

"Flints," said Patcham, "flints be the cussedest things, wunnerful how
flints du crop up.  Clean a field, pick it, hand-pick it of flints,
clear out every flint there du be and in three months what du ’ee find?
Flints, sir, bushels of ’em, tons of ’em!  In some counties it du be
fuzz and Sussex has its share of fuzz, come to that, but flints—I were
but saying to Abram last Saturday—no, ’twere Friday——"

"Abram—that is Abram Lestwick, isn’t it?" Allan asked. "He works for
you?"

"Aye, Abram be my right hand man, straight he be, straight as an arrer,
honest as the day be Abram, not a drinking man, quiet and respectable
like in his manners, never an angry word or a cross look do ’ee get from
Abram Lestwick.  Lucky I be to have such a man!"

"Ah!" Allan said.

"No one ever did see Abram lose his temper——"

"I have," thought Allan, "but it was pardonable."

"Soft spoken and gentle, but a wunnerful hand with the men, reg’lar to
Church and walking in the fear of the Lord du be Abram Lestwick, and wi’
sheep never a man to compare wi’ he—whether it be lambing time or
shearing, a born shepherd be Abram!"

"And a good reliable man?"

"There ain’t one to come nigh nor near to him," said Farmer Patcham, "a
good wage du I pay he and worth it every penny he be—thirty-five
shillings and a cottage to hisself, no less.  And what the maids be
about, beats I and the Missus too, a hard man to fault," went on
Patcham, "a very hard man to fault, sir, and you’ll believe me.  My
Missus and the maids here du complain a bit about they hands of his,
restless hands as you may have noticed, sir, but what’s that, all said
and done?  And now, maybe, you’ll take a look round the farm?"

Allan took a look round the farm and saw a back view of Abram in the
rick yard, but Abram never turned and apparently did not notice the
visitor.

"A good man," Patcham said, "a reliable, trustworthy, honest, sober man,
likely to make his way in the world.  No frequenter of the ale-house and
a regular churchgoer, a man with rare and wonderful knowledge of the
soil and of sheep. Hi, Abram, Abram, my lad, come ’ee here!  Here be Mr.
Homewood a-hearing all about ’ee from me!"

Very slowly Abram turned his discoloured face, his attitude was of
intense humility, he seemed to cower, his furtive hands wandered up and
down the edge of his waistcoat, yet never once did he look into Allan’s
face.

"Why, Abram lad, ’ee’ve been in the wars, surely!" cried Patcham.  "What
hev come to your face, lad?"

"An accident," Abram mumbled, "a blundering fellow, I be in the dark,
Mister Patcham!"

Patcham smiled.  "Had it been any other than ’ee, Abram, I would say it
were through fighting."

Allan looked at his victim, he felt a strange pity, mingled with an
invincible repugnance.  The man looked so inoffensive, so humble, even
servile and yet—Allan’s attention was directed to those strangely
restless hands; he found that they attracted and held his eyes.  He
remembered how Betty had cried out in fear and horror of those same
hands.  Poor little Betty, never, never, Allan resolved, should those
hands touch the child, if he could prevent it!

"I would like to speak to Lestwick, Mr. Patcham," he said, "if I have
your permission?"

"Oh, aye, of course, why not?" said the farmer, looking a little
surprised.  "Do ’ee mean alone, sir?"

"Yes, alone!"

Patcham eyed Allan a little resentfully, a little suspiciously.  "I
hope," he began, "I hope, Mr. Homewood, as ’ee’ve got no idea o’ trying
to get Abram away from me? I’ve spoke out for he and spoken as I did
find, but——"

Allan smiled.  "Have no fear, I want to speak to Lestwick on an entirely
different matter."

Patcham’s face cleared as he walked away.  "Now I du wonder what he can
have to say to Abram?" he thought.

And now the two were left together and Allan, looking at the abject,
servile creature before him, felt suddenly tongue-tied.  He was
conscious of a feeling of hot shame. Those unsightly marks, those livid
bruises were his work, the work of his fists.  How desperately he must
have punished the man in his rage.

"Lestwick—I have something to say to you, an apology to make, I wish to
ask your pardon."

The wandering eyes were lifted for a moment to Allan’s face, then
dropped again, the hands were at their nervous work.

"I misjudged you and in my anger treated you roughly, for which I am
deeply sorry," said Allan, eager to make his amends and be done with it,
for he could not but be conscious of his great and growing repugnance
and repulsion for the man.

He waited, but Abram said nothing, he stood there mute, his eyes seeming
to search the ground about him.

"You misled me—when we—when you and I—on Saturday night, when we fought,
I mean—I say you misled me, I thought you had a knife and thinking so I
struck you hardly.  I am sorry for it, I made a mistake and I wish to
ask your forgiveness for what I did."

And still the man did not answer; why did he not speak? What was he
waiting for, was it——?

A smile came into Allan’s face, it was a smile of contempt. He might
have guessed it, there was only one plaster for such a wound as Abram’s.
He took out his pocket-book and from it a five pound note.

"I hope you will accept this," he said, "and with it my apology."

Abram looked up, his eyes wandered from Allan’s face to the outstretched
hand that held the note.  He seemed to hesitate, a convulsion passed
across his features, then he stretched out his hand suddenly and took
the note.  He did not snatch it, for Abram was ever a polite man, he
took it gently and looked at it and then—then he tore it, slowly across
and across and yet again, tore it into small strips that he flung to the
ground and stamped into the soft earth with his foot.

"I thank ’ee, Mr. Homewood," he said in his low, passionless voice, "I
du thank ’ee most politely, I du, sir, for your good intentions toward
I—I thank ’ee, sir, most politely!"  And then he turned away and went
slowly to his work in the rick yard.

Allan stood lost in wonder, he watched the man go, he glanced down at
the ragged scraps of what had once been a valuable piece of paper,
trodden into the earth.

So be it!  He had done all that he could do, the man had apparently
refused to accept his apology.  Sudden anger came to him.

"Lestwick!" he called sharply.  "Lestwick!"

Lestwick stopped, but did not turn.

"I have this to say to you, my man," Allan said hotly, "I injured you,
under a wrong impression, for which I have expressed regret, but I
believe, on my soul, that you really deserved all you got.  You have
annoyed and terrorised a girl who has no feeling save of fear and
dislike of you.  In future you will leave her alone; if I find you
hanging about my house, waiting to waylay Betty Hanson, then I’ll deal
with you again, as I dealt with you on Saturday night. Remember that, my
man, it’s no idle threat!"

Lestwick made no answer, he did not turn, he stood still, as though
waiting patiently for Allan to complete his remarks, and then when
silence fell, Lestwick went slowly on his way.

Allan made his way homeward, with a feeling of anger in his breast.  He
had done all that a man might do, and he had been repulsed.  No wonder
that Betty, poor little Betty, felt horror and loathing for the man.

"Is he sane, is he normal?" Allan questioned himself. "There is
something—about him—" he shuddered.  "I can’t understand it, I never
loathed a human being in my life, as I loathe that man, but Betty——"

What could he do about Betty, how unravel the tangle, how straighten out
that very winding path of the child’s life?  She loved him, had she not
said it a hundred times with tears and with pleading?  Yet was it the
real love? The one passion of a life-time?  He doubted it, for Allan
Homewood held himself in no high esteem and could not think of himself
as one for whom any woman would care deeply.  No, it could not be that,
it must be the strange tie that united them, that lifting of the curtain
that had revealed to them both a glimpse into some strange past that was
not of this life.

What, did she want of him?  What did she expect, ask of him?  But
whatever it was, how impossible it all was!

To-day he had kissed Kathleen, his wife, as never before had he kissed
her and remembering this, a softer, more tender look came into his face.

What was Kathleen thinking now?  Had he surprised, even frightened her,
was she hurt or angry, or could she understand and forgive that sudden
wave of passion that had come to him?  Love and passion for her—his own
wife! His cheeks flushed a little, it seemed to him that all his little
world was in strange and dire confusion.

Mrs. Hanson, standing at her own gate, tall, erect, and brown of face,
beady of eyes, bobbed to him an exaggerated respectful curtsey.

Allan lifted his hat to her.

"Good morning!"

"And good morning to ’ee, sir," she said and treated him to another
curtsey.

"I hope my maid du be conducting herself in a seemly manner and giving
satisfaction to my lady, sir?"

"Yes!" Allan said; he felt confused before those keen bright eyes.

"A strange, wilful maid her be in many ways, sir, yet her heart be so
good as gold."

"She is wonderfully pretty, your granddaughter, Mrs. Hanson!"

"Beauty be but a snare and likewise is but skin deep.  I set no stores
by such, ’tis the heart as tells, sir."

"But her heart is good, I am sure."  He was talking for the mere sake of
talking, for an idea bad come into his brain, a little dim and vague as
yet, but yet an idea that possibly might mean a way to safety for them
all.

"Good-hearted her may be, but most terribul obstinate and stubborn, a
perilous obstinate maid, terribul contrairy and self willed her du be in
many ways——"

"In—in what ways?"

"In marrying," said Mrs. Hanson, "I hev chose for she a good honest man
as du walk upright in the sight of the Lord, a man as du keep hisself to
hisself and du keep holy the Sabbath day, reading in the Bible and not
with an eye to every maid, though there be many wishful of attracting
his attention.  Wonderful partial he be to my Betty tu, wonderful
partial and keen and eager for she."

"And the man?"

"There bain’t a better in all Sussex and yet that perilous obstinate
maid will hev none of he!"

"Because she may dislike the man!"

"Dis-like, what hev that to do with it, sir?  Why should Betty dis-like
Abram Lestwick—a man earning his thirty-five shillings a week and with a
cottage to himself and all keen set as he be——?"

"I have seen the man and can understand her dislike for him.  He lays in
wait for her, outside the gates; she is afraid to venture out of nights
because of this man, whom she fears and hates.  And you, can you not
understand the child’s aversion for such a man as Lestwick, Mrs.
Hanson?"

"That I cannot and will not!  A proper man be Abram and rare grateful
and glad any maid should be attracting the like of he!"

"Betty is neither glad nor grateful, she goes in fear of him, hates him
and is terrified by the very thought of him—it would be death—do you
understand, death to the girl to force her into a marriage so shocking!
Why are you so keen for it?  Why do you seek to drive her against her
own natural inclinations, why—why?" Allan cried hotly.

She eyed him with cold disfavour.  What business was all this of his, of
young Mr. Homewood of Homewood Manor House?  She would have looked on
him with some suspicion, yet there was something so open in his face,
his anger was so honest, that she could not, even if she would, suspect
him of an interest in pretty Betty, that reflected no credit on him.

"Abram hev thirty-five shillings a week and——"

"And for thirty-five shillings a week you would force this child to
marry a man she hates, you would wreck and ruin her life, you would
drive her perhaps—God knows—to death—to suicide!  Can’t you understand
that it is not mere dislike she feels for him, it is hate and terror!
Thirty-five shillings a week!"  He laughed aloud in scorn, he flung his
head back, his face was flushed, his eyes bright, and Mrs. Hanson stared
at him in wonderment and with something of anger too.

"Listen to me," Allan said and his voice was more gentle and quiet, he
looked into the keen, hard, old face.  "Listen to me, Mrs. Hanson, you
are Betty’s grandmother.  I believe you are her only living relative.
If you think so highly of thirty-five shillings a week and of a
cottage—I will make you an offer—"  He paused, "I will undertake to pay
to you as Betty’s guardian, a sum that will equal the amount of Abram
Lestwick’s wages.  I will find a cottage for you—not here—not near here
even—and you shall have it rent free, so that Betty may live with you
and that you shall not torment her further about this man Lestwick.  Do
you understand?  I will give to you and to Betty all that Abram Lestwick
could give, the money and the cottage!  And you and the girl shall go
away from here—away for good.  She is young and she is beautiful, she
will surely find many eager to marry her, and she shall choose and pick
among them for herself.  Do you understand, do I make myself plain?"

"Plain—aye, plain!" she said; under the black bodice the thin old breast
rose and fell, she gripped the rails of the gate and stared into his
face.

"And why—why are ’ee willing to do this, give this to Betty Hanson, Mr.
Homewood?"

"To save her from marriage with a man I dislike and distrust, as much as
she does—for that reason and that reason alone!"

"’Ee be mighty generous, Mr. Homewood!"  Her hard voice quivered with
suspicion, and yet—yet she looked him full in the eyes and he looked
back at her and there was no shame, no confusion, nothing of the look of
one who has something on his conscience.

"I—I do not understand—" she said slowly, "I do not understand!"

"No, I do not suppose you do understand.  Shall we leave it at that?  My
offer holds good, accept it and make a happy home for the child—but not
here."

"’Ee du seem mighty set on it not being here!" she said thoughtfully.
"Mighty set ’ee du be.  Does the maid know your intentions to she, sir?"

"No, I had no such intentions just now, the thought has only just come
into my mind."

She nodded slowly.  He had said that she could not understand and he was
right.  Whoever heard the like before?  Thirty-five shillings a week and
a cottage and all—all for nothing!  Whoever heard the like before?
Certainly not Mrs. Hanson.

"All bewildered I be," she said and said it aloud, though it was not
intended for his ears.  "All bewildered and wonder struck I du be!"

"Do you agree, answer me, do you agree to this?  Tell me, Mrs. Hanson?"

"But the maid—you du say, sir, she hev not heard?"

"She has not heard, but if you agree, you can tell her yourself, tell
her this evening and then you shall give me her and your answer."

"If the maid is willing," she said slowly, "though all the same I be
partial to Abram."

"Her terror of him should have some weight with you. Take her away from
this place to where she will never see him again, you will?"

She looked at him.  "Send the maid to me to-night and I will talk of it
wi’ she."

She stood at the gate, staring down the road after him.

"Thirty-five shillings a week and a cottage—far away from here for Betty
and for me and for nothing, for nothing! Very bewildered and
wonderstruck I be!"

And Allan, hurrying homeward, was thinking—if this might be the
solution, how easy it was after all, freedom for Betty from Abram
Lestwick—a new life for the little maid among new faces—where soon—soon
she would forget her dreams in the old garden and him.

And then, when all was done and Betty and her grandmother gone for good,
he would tell Kathleen; it would be easy to tell her then and Kathleen
would understand.




                            *CHAPTER XXXII*

                            *THE AWAKENING*


Bright eyes, the brightest he believed he had ever seen, greeted Allan.
Eyes so kind, so bright and so tender that he knew before ever a word
had been spoken that he had not offended, that Kathleen was not angry
with him, not hurt.

He felt a great wave of relief and then the feeling passed and gave
place to wonder, because in some subtle way Kathleen had changed.  To
others she was still the Kathleen he knew and loved and respected, but
to him she had become another being, her eyes were misty and soft and
tender, for him, there was a rich, rare colour in her cheeks.  He felt
his own heart respond.  As they were passing into lunch he touched her
hand—why?

There was no reason for it, it was just the impulse of the moment, yet
he felt that he must do it, so he did and she turned and looked at him
and it seemed to him that the colour deepened in her cheeks and the look
in her eyes was more tender than ever.

And the touch of that little hand of hers made his heart leap.  This was
no mere friendship, this was no mere liking, no symptom of respect.  He
wondered at himself, wondered at its meaning and as a result he failed
to hear Lord Gowerhurst, who was addressing himself particularly to
Allan.

As a matter of fact Lord Gowerhurst, departing on the morrow, found
himself woefully short of money.  He was not in the cue to approach Sir
Josiah and a timely loan of a comparatively small sum from Allan, a mere
fifty or even twenty-five, would be agreeable to his lordship.  Later on
Sir Josiah’s money bags must be properly besieged, with all due form and
with a regard to detail for which there was no time at the moment.

"If, therefore, you could give me ah—ten minutes—some time most
convenient to yourself, my dear Allan—" said his lordship with unwonted
humility.

"Of course, delighted!" Allan murmured, and was thinking of Kathleen all
the time.

Had he ever appreciated her properly?  Had he ever realised the
exquisite beauty of her face, a beauty that was spiritual, was of
expression rather than of mere form and mould of feature.  How sweetly
gracious she was, how charming, not even the loquacious and boresome
Coombe aroused irritability in her—how his old father worshipped
her—what a strange, yet perfect understanding there seemed to be between
them, the old City man of business, of plebeian origin and this young
and gracious well born lady.  Yet they were so obviously and so
certainly friends, good, close, true friends, with a mutual
understanding and a mutual love for one another.

So Allan did not make the most agreeable of companions at that meal and
his lordship felt uneasy.

"I wonder if the fellow suspects I’m going to ask a small loan, a mere
trifle till I get back to town?  Confound it, it’s deuced unpleasant for
a man in my position to—er—place himself under an obligation to a mere
stripling like this!  I can’t ask Scarsdale, there’s something deuced
standoffish about the fellow; I almost wish I hadn’t taken Scarsdale up
again, I’ve got an idea that Scarsdale lets bygones rankle.  By George,
though, I did give him a dressing down in those days, and by George he
deserved it—asked for it—begad, and got it too!"

Just for a moment Allan had an opportunity for a word with Kathleen when
lunch was over.

"You—you are not angry with me?"

"Angry?"

Was she a woman of twenty-nine almost, or only a maiden of nineteen that
suddenly her eyes dropped before his, that suddenly a deep rich colour
came flaming her face.

"Kathleen—Kathleen!"  He caught her hand, he was suddenly in a strange
tremble, and then in on them burst Mr. Coombe.

"Wistaria, not westeria, Jobson, my boy, if you’d done the gardening
I’ve done at Tulse Hill—I—I beg pardon!" stammered Mr. Coombe, taken
aback.

Kathleen smiled.  "You are quite right, Mr. Coombe, it is wistaria!" she
said.

"I’ve got one over my house at Tulse Hill," said Mr. Coombe, "with a
stem, if you’ll believe me, as thick as my body!"  Which was an
exaggeration, as Mr. Coombe’s body was of no ordinary thickness.

Allan turned away.

"Oh, I forgot—" he said, and his eyes and Kathleen’s met.  "I saw Mrs.
Hanson at her gate as I passed and she says if you can spare her
granddaughter this evening, Kathleen, she would be glad."

"I will send Betty," Kathleen said, "though the old woman was not very
kind to her, still she is old and alone.  Yes, I will see that Betty
goes!"

His lordship secured his quiet ten minutes with Allan.

"Most foolish and stupid of me, forgot to bring my cheque book, I can’t
think what possessed me—I assure you, Allan, I was astounded at my
oversight.  Of course one can draw a cheque on a sheet of note paper,
but my Bank don’t like it—no, they don’t like it, sir—and so—so——"

"I shall be only too pleased to be of service to you," said Allan
promptly, so promptly that his lordship was a little taken aback.

Yet Allan seemed so ready, so willing—it would be a shameful waste of
opportunity to make the amount so small as he had originally intended.

"If—if—er—a couple of hundred wouldn’t put you to inconvenience——"

"With pleasure," Allan said.  "I’ll send Howard over to Stretton in the
car, he’ll be able to get to the Bank just in time."

Never in the whole course of his experience, and it had been large, had
his lordship had such a request granted with such alacrity and
willingness.

"My dear Allan, ’pon my soul now, ’pon my soul, it is very good of you—I
take a pleasure, sir, a pleasure in being under an obligation to you,
even though it is only a temporary one.  You’re a good fellow, Allan, a
deuced generous, open-handed good fellow and—and I honour you, sir, and
your father too, and it’s a pleasure and a relief to me, be Gad, to
think that my girl has entered your family—a family of—of gentlemen, be
gad!"

"Poor old chap!" Allan thought.  "It must be hard for a man in his
position and of his rank to have to lower himself and demean himself to
borrow money—"  He sighed, and then smiled in wonder at himself that he
should feel so kindly towards Lord Gowerhurst, for whom he had
previously felt nothing but aversion and contempt.

But then Lord Gowerhurst was Kathleen’s father and for some reason
to-day that made just all the difference in the world to Allan.  So,
having lent Lord Gowerhurst two hundred pounds, Allan resolved that he
would say nothing to his own father about it.

Custance claimed Allan that afternoon and when Custance had done with
him there was barely time to reach home and dress for dinner, so he did
not see Kathleen till they met at the dinner table.  And to-night she
was looking her loveliest and her best.  Even Coombe remarked her
heightened colour and tried to pay her a clumsy compliment on her looks
and meeting Lord Gowerhurst’s cold stare when half way through his
speech, faltered and broke down and burst into profuse perspiration.

But Kathleen smiled on him and thanked him and told him in a little
confidential whisper, that highly pleased Coombe, that she was getting
to be an old, old woman.  In less than eighteen months she would be
thirty years of age, and though she had not found a grey hair as yet, no
doubt she soon would.

"Old, my dear—" said Mr. Coombe, and then blushed crimson, "I beg your
pardon——"

"You have nothing to beg my pardon for—Sir Josiah’s friends are mine—and
if one of them is kind enough to call me my dear, it only proves that he
likes me and I like to be liked, Mr. Coombe, by my friends!"

"And so you are, so you are, and as for getting old, never, you’ll never
be old, you’ll be young to the last day of your life, if you live to be
eighty, and please God you will!"  And Mr. Coombe turned deliberately
and stared Lord Gowerhurst full in the face with an expression that said
as plain as words—"If you don’t like the way I am behaving and if you
don’t like my paying compliments to your daughter—then you can go to the
deuce and go as soon as you like, my Lord, and be hanged to you!"

Among that company of gentlemen Harold Scarsdale was inconspicuous.
That he was better bred than Mr. Coombe and Mr. Jobson was obvious, that
he could talk a good deal better than any of them Allan at least knew,
but it pleased Scarsdale to hold his tongue and keep himself much in the
background.  From that background he watched Kathleen and the more he
watched the less did he seem to understand her.

He remembered the passion of the old days, he remembered that scene by
the lake only two short days ago, how during those two days had she
changed.  She greeted him with a friendly smile, she held out her hand
to him, she wished him good morning and good night and talked to him of
trivial, every day things, listening with interest to the few remarks he
made and that was all.

But she was a woman and he knew little of women, but had read much and
so had obtained a false impression.  She was clever, she was hiding her
feelings and doing it successfully.  When the time came, and it would
come, then she would fling all pretence to the winds, she would be his,
he would open his arms to her, the ten years of hunger would be ended.

To-night he sat in his corner and listened to everyone and said little,
but he was watchful and presently he saw Allan go out and, waiting for a
time, Scarsdale too rose and sauntered to the window and stepped out
into the garden.

Allan, however, had not gone to the garden.  He remembered that Betty
was going to her grandmother’s to-night.

She would be sure to leave the old woman’s cottage by nine.  He counted
on that.  He wanted to see her, he wanted to see how she had taken what
her grandmother would say to her, he wanted to know that Betty would
realise how sensible the arrangement was and how it would be for her own
good and happiness in the long run.  She was young, a mere child, in
some far away little village she would begin a new life, unmolested by
Abram Lestwick, the terror of his presence and his pretensions removed
for ever from her mind. And far away amid new surroundings, she would
surely forget in time—perhaps not at once—yet in time, all those strange
happenings and that strange tie that had drawn Betty and himself so
closely together.

Allan was not vain, he did not for one moment believe that it was his
own personality that had attracted Betty, or that he himself—the man he
was now, had ever awakened any feelings of tenderness and love in that
little heart.

It was the glamour, the strange mystery, the unsolvable mystery, those
visions that she—and he too—had seen, that dimly uncertain memory of
’something’ that had been, in the buried and unknown past; it was that
that had appealed to her as of course it had appealed to him.

So Allan lighted his pipe and strolled away down the dusky road and
strangely enough had not gone ten paces before he was thinking of
Kathleen, rather than of her he had come to meet.

                     *      *      *      *      *

Mrs. Hanson sat upright on her stiff old chair, her hands were folded
primly on her narrow lap, her eyes were fixed in an unwavering stare on
the closed door.

She was expecting Betty, she had been expecting the girl for the past
hour.  For an hour Mrs. Hanson had sat there listening for coming
footsteps but hearing only the steady persistent ’tick-tock’ of the long
cased clock.

During that hour Mrs. Hanson had been thinking, she had been asking of
herself questions, and as the minutes passed the stern old face grew
graver and grimmer.

Why should he be willing to give to Betty and herself such a mort of
money.  Why should he be wishful of sending Betty to some far off place.
Why should Mr. Allan Homewood interest himself in the very least with
the future of Betty Hanson at all?

Questions that Mrs. Hanson could not answer satisfactorily.

"A very pleasant and outspoken young gentleman he du seem—and yet——"
Mrs. Hanson shook her head.  "And yet——"

But the long expected footsteps were sounding, there came a tapping on
the door.  That in itself was unfamiliar.  In the old days Betty lifted
the latch and came in.

Betty came to-night as a visitor, and Mrs. Hanson realised the
difference.

"Come in," she said, and rose stiffly to receive her visitor. Betty came
in nervously; she looked at her grandmother, hesitated and then came
forward and offered a soft cheek.

"You will hev had your tea?"

"Yes grandmother."

"Will you be seated?"

Betty sat down, her nervousness increasing.

Mrs. Hanson stared at the childish pretty face, it was the face of most
perfect innocence, yet Mrs. Hanson looked with eyes of suspicion.

"The weather be holding up," she remarked, she was a woman who never
came straight to the matter in hand, as Betty well knew.

"Grandmother ’ee sent for I?"

It was like carrying the war into the enemy’s camp.

"True I did send for ’ee," Mrs. Hanson frowned.

"I hev had from young Mr. Allan Homewood an offer with which I be
greatly surprised."

"From—from——" the colour deepened in the pretty cheeks, a fact that Mrs.
Hanson’s keen eyes did not miss.

"And why pray should ’ee blush at the mention of the gentleman’s name."

"I bean’t blushing, grandmother."

"And now ’ee be lying as well, Betty Hanson."

Betty hung her head.

"Very distrustful and uneasy I be in my mind, very distrustful.  Betty
Hanson, look me in the eye and answer me this: what be there between ’ee
and Mr. Allan Homewood?"

"Oh! oh grandmother—there——"  Betty was silent, she pressed her hands
against her breast.  "Be-between I and Mr. Homewood grandmother,
what—what should there be?"

"There should be nothing Miss, but there be! there be, I see it.  What
be he to thee?"

"Nothing, nothing, nothing.  Oh grandmother, why do ’ee worry I so?  I
wish—I wish—I hadn’t come!"

"If so be as your mind were at rest and your conscience clear, Betty
Hanson, ’ee wouldn’t hev said that!  Now answer, answer me and speak the
truth for I be your dead father’s mother and your only living relative I
be.  What be Mr. Allan Homewood to ’ee?"

"Nothing," the girl whispered, "he bain’t nothing to I—nothing, and if
anyone hev told ’ee contrairywise he be a liar!"

"The truth I will hev! nor shall ’ee leave this place——"

Mrs. Hanson rose, she crossed the room to the door and turned the
ponderous key.  "The truth will I hev before I shall allow ’ee to
depart, what be Mr. Allan Homewood of Homewood Manor House, to ’ee,
Betty Hanson?"

Betty did not answer.  She sat with bowed head, she wrung and twisted
her hands.

"I—I did see he—of nights of moonlight—nights in—in the old garden," she
whispered.

Mrs. Hanson bristled, she sat upright: "’Ee did see him of nights in the
old garden!  Oh! shame on ’ee shame——

"So this be the meaning of your perilous bad conduct, slipping away out
of the cottage of nights to—to meet—a man, a man!  Terribul deceitful
and deceiving ’ee’ve been all this while, terribul and shameful and
perilous Betty Hanson."

"’Twasn’t a man I went to see," Betty cried, "Grandmother ’twere no
man."

"No man and ’ee said with your own lips——"

"Grandmother, ’ee can never, never understand—it—were a—a ghost——"

Mrs. Hanson fell back on her chair, her black eyes blazed in
indignation.

"’Ee’ve said enough, either ’ee be daft or the greatest liar as I ever
did hear on, a Ghost! ’ee wicked deceitful maid, a ghost indeed!"

"Grandmother, ’ee could never, never understand.  I’ll try and make ’ee,
but I know——"  Betty shook her head, "’ee never will.  ’Twasn’t Allan——"

"Allan," Mrs. Hanson lifted her two hands.

"’Twasn’t Allan, I did see in the old garden, but a ghost I see him and
others, fine ladies and gentlemen all in strange clothing, Grandmother,
and Allan he were for ever digging, he in his old brown suit wi’ the
brass buckles to his shoes and——"

"Betty Hanson, stop, stop, this minit; not another word will I sit here
and listen to, I hev made up my mind.

"This day, this man, this Allan, as ’ee do so shamelessly call him, made
an offer to me.  A fine offer that I did greatly mistrust.  ’Tis
this—take the child—away he said, take her far away, don’t worrit her
wi’ Abram Lestwick, and I will allow ’ee and her tu, the thirty-five
shillings a week, the same as Abram’s money and a cottage all for
nothin’ so as ’ee du take she far away from Homewood."

"Oh! oh! he said that?"

"Aye he did, my maid, which du mean as he be tired of ’ee, tired, ’ee
hear me, tired as men du tire of women like ’ee."

Betty lifted her head slowly, she looked at the grandmother and her
pretty face blazed with sudden anger.  She rose:

"Grandmother, ’ee be a wicked woman, a bad despiteful wicked woman.
What ’ee hev said, shames ’ee more, more than it does me, shames ’ee,
and—and——" she broke down suddenly, she sank back sobbing on to the
chair, she rocked to and fro.  "’Ee could never, never understand
’twasn’t Allan, yet ’twas Allan and I know he were something to I,
something very, very dear and precious he were to I.  But oh! oh! ’ee
could never understand."

"I du understand this," Mrs. Hanson said, "I do understand that ’ee
shall marry Abram Lestwick.  An honest and upright man, and ’ee shall
never take money from him as ’ee du most shamelessly call Allan, never,
nor I.  Money taken from he would choke me, ’twould spring up like the
tares and choke me."

Mrs. Hanson pointed a bony finger at the girl.

"’Ee shall marry Abram Lestwick a good man and honest, ’ee shall become
his wife.  I hev said it, and I say it again and I shall listen to no
more of this nonsense, and as for Mr. Allan Homewood for all he be a
frank and outspoken gentleman and lib’ral wi’ his money, I would take
shame to myself to accept of anything from he, nor allow ’ee to do
likewise. Marry Abram Lestwick ’ee shall——"

"I never will," Betty leaped up, her face convulsed, "I never will, I
bain’t your grand-darter any more, I bean’t nothing to ’ee, I wunt
listen to ’ee!  I wunt!  I be free, free—and——" she turned and darted to
the door, she wrenched at the heavy old key and turned it, just as Mrs.
Hanson rose and came stiffly to prevent her.

But Betty, younger and more active succeeded, she tore the door open and
in the open doorway turned:

"I bain’t your grand-darter anymore!  I be free of ’ee, I wunt marry
Abram Lestwick, I—I’ll be—damned if I du."

"Stop!" Mrs. Hanson said in a voice of thunder, but Betty did not, she
turned and fled into the night and the old woman unable to pursue stood
there shaking and quivering with honest indignation.

"De-fiant her be, perilous defiant and hev soiled her lips wi’ foul and
unseemly words, her henceforth be no granddarter of mine.  From this
moment I du renounce she."

Sobbing, panting, her little heart labouring, down the road sped Betty,
and then suddenly she saw him coming, slowly towards her, and to him she
ran with eager outstretched hands and a little cry of joy.

"O Allan, Allan be ’ee come to meet I?  O Allan, I be all upset and put
about, I be——"

"Betty—why Betty child, what is it, what has—come," he added as she
clung to his hand sobbing like a broken hearted child.

"Be kind to me, be kind to me, for I be all broken hearted," she pressed
her tear-stained face against his sleeve.

"Allan, I be all broken hearted.  Her be harsh and cruel wi’ me, and
said—said things—things—Oh!" she pressed her face tightly to his sleeve,
to hide the hot flush of shame that came to her.

"Hush little girl, hush," he said, "don’t cry, did your grandmother tell
you what I suggested about—about you and her going away——?"

"She told me—she told me, and she said she wouldn’t hev it, she said
that I must marry Abram."

"You never shall, Betty, don’t cry, I swear before Heaven you never
shall, trust me, rely on me in this, for rather than that, I would kill
the man, kill him with my two hands. Betty, you hear me?"

"Aye I hear ’ee; say it again Allan, say it over again, say as ’ee would
kill he, rather than I should marry he."

"I mean it, and it shall never be, and your grandmother then will not
agree to my plan.  Well, it does not matter, you will be perhaps happier
without her, I shall find some place where neither your grandmother nor
Abram Lestwick will trouble you, with people who will be good and kind
to you and will make your life happy.  Your future shall be protected,
too."

"Let me stay.  Let me stay here, and bide with ’ee, don’t, don’t send me
away from ’ee Allan, don’t ’ee send me away."

"Hush," he said.  "Hush," he was bitterly disappointed, he had thought
all arranged, and now—but her pitiful crying wrung his heart, poor
little maid, poor dear little soul, he put his arm about her and tried
to soothe and quiet her.

"Betty, Betty, don’t cry, don’t cry, it hurts me to hear you cry and
child, try and understand how—how impossible it all is.  There is no
other way, you yourself will see it and understand it presently."

"Don’t send me away from ’ee for I shall die, I shall die if ’ee do."
She was nestling close to him, holding his hand in both her own,
pressing it against her wet cheek.

Supposing someone should happen down the road and what more likely—oh
no, this would never do.

"Come, Betty!  Come, be brave, we must talk of this."

Not far away was the little green gate, and he drew her towards it and
in the deep shadows of the wall a man flattened himself against the
brickwork and held his breath as they passed him so closely, that he
might have stretched out his hand and touched them as they went, a man
who was shaking strangely with passion and whose eyes gleamed from the
dark shadows.  And then the little green door opened and took them and
Abram Lestwick stepped into the roadway.

"Pleasant spoken," he said.  "Aye, pleasant spoken he be. Pleasant
spoken!"  He repeated the words a score of times, he went to the green
door and his hands worked with it.  He fingered the heavy old nail heads
with which it was studded.

"Very, very pleasant spoken he be—robbing me of she—robbing—robbing——."
He scratched at the paint with his nails, then muttering to himself,
turned away and went down the road.

Allan led Betty into the garden, he led her along the path between the
tall yews and as they walked he spoke to her. It was difficult, yet it
must be done.  His heart yearned to her in pity—the spell of her, the
fascination of her was on him, but he fought against it—her childlike
weeping set him longing to take her in his arms, to comfort her, hold
her, kiss her tears away, for the weeping of women and of children
always affected him greatly.

"Betty, don’t cry, Betty listen to me.  Be reasonable, be sensible my
dear, listen——."

"O Allan, oh sir, that you—that you of all should turn against thy
Betty."

His Betty—what memories the words awakened, memories of this same
garden, of a little maid in quaint mob cap, with pretty mittened hands
and eyes all ashine with love—for him—Thy Betty, that maid had said as
she, by his side, had said it but a moment ago—His Betty!

Perhaps the devil walked with them that night along the path under the
dark yews, perhaps he tapped Allan on the shoulder and whispered in his
ear.

Allan turned to her suddenly, he gripped her wrists, he tore her hands
away from her face, his voice was harsh, as unlike his own voice as
voice could be.

"Listen, you—you must—this—this cannot go on.  What the past held, God
knows—yet whatever it held, it cannot and shall not influence the
future.  I have a wife, I am bound in honour to her, in honour to you,
Betty.  Hush, leave off crying, you hear me?"

She was frightened by the stern authority in his voice and left off her
whimpering.

"What I am doing, what I want to do is for your own sake, and for mine
because you are young and well nigh friendless and very beautiful,
because I too am young and—and afraid, yes afraid—Betty."

"Oh Allan, of—of me?"

"Yes of you, and for you Betty, I want you to be happy and, dear, I want
happiness myself.  This old garden, the garden here about us has meant
so much to us both, better dear that you should go and never see it
again, for then in time you will forget, and the love you speak of is
not real, it cannot be real, it is born of dreams Betty and like a dream
it will pass."

"Why—why when I du love——"

"You know why, because I have a wife, because I love her and honour her
and would sooner cut off my hand than cause her one moment of shame, of
pain or unhappiness."

He bent nearer to her, he could see her face glimmering white so near to
his, so tempting, yet he was not tempted.

"It means her happiness, do you know why—because—and God knows that I
speak without vanity, but very humbly, because I believe that she loves
me—how could I hurt her through you, would you hurt her?"

"I would die for her!"  She wrenched her hands free from his, she stood
before him.

"I—I will think of all as ’ee have said to I, sir, and I—I will try and
bring myself to thy way of thinking and I—I will try and bring myself
to—oh no, no!  I can’t, I can’t!"  She broke down, sobbing wildly, then
suddenly gained control of herself.  "I will not—not trouble thee any
more, sir."

"Betty, listen," he put his hands on her shoulders and held her.  "Take
time, take time, think this over, to-day is Monday, in three days, not
before three days, you will make up your mind, Betty, come to me—here in
this place—in three days—on Thursday night at this hour, come and tell
me then, child, that you will be wise and sensible."

"I—I will come to ’ee here in three days——" she said slowly, "and then I
will tell ’ee, sir, what I shall do,—in three days—good night!"  She
turned away, standing there he heard her go and heard a strange little
moaning noise coming back to him from out the darkness as she went.

So, after waiting a time, he too turned towards the house and passed
down the wide flagged pathway, and the man on the stone bench by the
sundial let him pass unchallenged.




                            *CHAPTER XXXIII*

                             *BY THE LAKE*


Lord Gowerhurst made an affecting little speech, for the time of parting
had come.  Sir Josiah’s big car, all spick and span, with the
respectable Bletsoe at the wheel, was waiting outside the hall door, so
too was Mr. Coombe’s automobile, which seemed to require some of its
owner’s attention at the last moment, for Mr. Coombe was only visible as
to his legs and feet, the rest of him being out of sight under his car.

"This visit, a trifling thing perhaps to you, my love, has been to me
like an oasis, a green and fragrant oasis be-gad, an the desert of my
life!  I am leaving my dear, dear daughter——" his lordship turned his
fine eyes upwards and his voice shook with noble emotion.  "I am leaving
my dear, dear daughter surrounded by love and happiness, I am leaving
her in her pretty little home——."  He spoke of the place as though it
were a cottage, to impress Messrs. Cutler and Jobson with the idea of
his own magnificence—"and I——" he sighed, "I go back to my quiet humdrum
life, my poor chambers, my loneliness!  Often and often as I sit alone
in my rooms, I shall picture you and this home of yours to myself.  I am
an old man, an old man my dear, and my time—may not be long——."  He
sighed deeply, there were tears in those fine eyes of his.  Kathleen was
very patient, she knew her father’s love for these tender, meaningless
speeches, she bore with them as she bore with him, with a sweet untiring
patience.

But he had done at last, he had taken his place in Sir Josiah’s car, Sir
Josiah was seated beside him, Mr. Coombe’s arrangements and
re-arrangements were complete, his oil-smeared countenance was beaming,
"All aboard!" he cried. "All aboard!  You’re coming with me this time,
Cutler, eh? We’ll shew ’em the way, my boy!"

"Good-bye, Allan, my lad, good-bye and thank ’ee, thank ’ee for a very
happy time and good-bye, Lady Kathleen, and thank you too for a time as
I shan’t forget in a hurry!"

Jobson tried to make a little speech, but broke down through
nervousness.

But Kathleen saved him all embarrassment.  "It’s been splendid having
you and when you are gone I shall miss you all terribly, terribly, and
you must all promise to come again soon, very soon, Mr. Jobson, and you
Mr. Coombe, and you Mr. Cutler!"

"Just ask me, my Lady, just give me the chance, that’s all!" shouted Mr.
Coombe—"Don’t forget my telephone number, City double three double five
one four——"

"I think, sir," said Bletsoe, "as we’d best let Mr. Coombe get away with
his little lot first, we won’t want their dust all the time, nor yet
have him trying to pass us every two minutes."

"Quite right!" said Sir Josiah.  "Yes, by all means allow Mr. Coombe to
get away!"

"I shall feel no personal grief if Mr. Coombe gets entirely away!" said
his lordship.  He did not like motoring, but the lift that Sir Josiah
had offered him had been accepted.  It meant that he would not have to
purchase a ticket to Town.

"Good-bye father, good-bye dear Sir Josiah!"

Kathleen had clambered on to the running board of the car like any young
girl for a last kiss.  His lordship disapproved of exhibitions of
affection before menials, he waved a white hand.

"Good-bye, dear child!"  But Sir Josiah was not to be deprived of his
kiss.

"It’s all right, Bletsoe!" he said at last with a sigh, "I think Mr.
Coombe has got well away."

They had stayed late, would have stayed later, but for his lordship’s
anxiety to be back in town.  As it was, the sun was near its setting,
the sweet mellow glow of the evening was on the earth, and the distances
were purple against the red and yellow sky.

They stood in the roadway, waving, Allan and Kathleen and Scarsdale.
She could have wished that he had gone with them and mentally took
herself to task for her lack of hospitality.

And now the white dust whirled up by the stout tyres of Sir Josiah’s
car, blotted it out.  It was gone and Kathleen slipped her hand through
Allan’s arm.

Scarsdale saw it.  It was done so spontaneously, it seemed so natural
that it angered him, his face stiffened.  She had married the fellow for
money, for nothing else, why did she find it necessary to make such
pretence with him?  It was mere acting, he knew that, yet he felt she
over-acted the part and she fell a little in his estimation, though his
love for her and desire of her was no less than before.

A man with bent head trudged past them down the road, he lifted his hand
to his hat and touched it as he went, yet never gave them a glance.  His
hand, having reached his hat, remained with it for some moments, his
fingers fumbling at the brim, then he was gone.

"Who was that?" Kathleen asked.

Allan hesitated for a moment.

"A man named Lestwick—he is——"

"Oh I know, so that is the man, Allan!  I can understand that child’s
feeling, I don’t like him, I don’t like him, there is something about
him——"

Kathleen’s eyes followed the black figure down the road. "I don’t know
why," she said, "it may be unjust and probably is, but I—I seemed to
feel a chill, a sense of dislike, of distaste as he passed us by!"

"Poor wretch, he is to be pitied since Kathleen dislikes him!" Scarsdale
said and a note of irony and sarcasm crept into his voice, which she
detected in a moment and her cheeks flushed a little.

"I am sorry," she said gently, "I may be mistaken, I hope I am, one is
often mistaken in one’s likes and dislikes, it is not well to trust too
much to instinct!"

"What did she mean?" Scarsdale wondered, but he said nothing and they
went back into the house, the house that seemed strangely deserted and
silent.

When the friends, whose pleasant voices have sounded in the rooms, have
gone their ways, like them much or little as we may, there is always a
sense of loneliness and desertion about the place.  Who can tell if the
hospitable door will ever open to them again?  Noisy Mr. Coombe and
embarrassed Mr. Jobson—we have no great affection for them perhaps, yet
because they were here a while ago and the place seems empty without
them, we can spare them a passing regret, we can admit to ourselves that
we miss them just a little.

"You will find it a little dull now, I am afraid Harold," Kathleen said.

"I shall not find it dull here!"

"Dull——" when she was near, perhaps that was what his words meant to
convey, but Allan, who heard them, noticed no double meaning, no
particular tenderness underlying the words.

"Allan must neglect Mr. Custance a little now and give you more of his
time."

"If you say that then you will make me feel that I am not wanted.  I
should hate to think that you regard me as a person who must be
entertained.  If I thought that my presence here, Homewood, made the
very smallest difference to your arrangements, then I should want to
leave you at once!"

"And I hope that you won’t think of leaving for a long while to come,"
said Allan heartily.

"But you must—must give him a little more time, Allan," Kathleen said
presently.  "He is your guest——"

"But your old friend, dear, you and he have far more to talk about than
he and I could have!  You have the past to dig in!"  He smiled.

The past—how little he knew!  Her heart smote her.  She ought to have
told him and yet, after all, how little was there to tell?  The man she
had loved had come back and she had discovered that she had lived in a
fool’s paradise, that she had not loved the man, but rather had loved
her love for him, had idealised it and had made of it the sweetest,
holiest and best thing in her life.  And now at last with eyes open and
clear, she could see that her gold had been tinsel after all, her
flowers so fresh and glorious and beautiful had been but poor
counterfeits of paper or coloured rag, the hero so noble, so brave, so
unselfish and splendid, whose image she had enshrined in her heart was
after all but a very ordinary man, very weak and selfish and lacking all
those fine qualities with which in her heart she had endowed her
childhood’s knight.

And now the guests were gone, all but Harold Scarsdale—and how she
wished that he too had gone with the others—She and Allan were alone and
the time had come to tell him that wonderful news!

And because the time had come, there came to Kathleen a thousand fears.
There came too a strange sense of modesty, a shrinking that would not be
there if only he loved her.  If only he loved her—would he be glad, glad
and proud, or would he be sorry and disappointed, worst of all perhaps
he would be indifferent!  And that would be the hardest, the cruelest
thing of all to bear.

Yet she must tell him.

To-night, yes to-night, and yet when to-night came she—coward-like—put
it off.

"To-morrow," she said, "I will tell him in the sunshine in the garden,
so that I may watch his face and know—know without spoken words what his
thoughts and feelings are——"

So to-night she lay sleepless beside him, torturing herself with those
fears that come to a woman who loves, torturing herself till at last her
nerves were all unstrung and she could lie here no longer.  So she rose
softly, not to waken him, and went to the window and stared out into the
glory of the brilliant night.

Somewhere far away was her father, probably playing cards in his Club or
billiards.  How idle were those fine sentimental touching speeches of
his, how little she believed in them!  She drew her thoughts away from
her father, they followed old Sir Josiah instead.

How fine and good and noble he was, how sincere and honest! And what he
was, she knew that Allan was too, generous and honourable, kind of
heart, true—true as steel!  What wonder then that she should love him,
that her love for him should awaken—

Her thoughts were interrupted, from the dark shadows in the garden below
there came in the stillness of the night a little moaning, sobbing cry.
Kathleen was startled.

She was a woman and therefore not without superstition, what good,
honest, tender woman has not some trace of superstition in her mind?
Just for a moment Kathleen held her breath and listened intently.  Again
she heard the sound and at the same time a light footfall and then,
watching, she saw a little figure come creeping from out the shadows
into the white path of the moon.

Betty—she knew the child in an instant—Betty out at this hour, Betty in
some sore trouble, crying to herself!  She had a mind to call softly to
the girl, yet did not, for fear of waking him.  So she sat for a moment
or so and watched the girl go slowly down the paved pathway and then
Kathleen made up her mind.  She rose, she thrust her white feet into
slippers, she threw a dressing gown on and went creeping down the silent
stairs.

Softly she drew back a bolt and turned a key and opened a door that gave
on to the garden.

The radiant light of the moon flooded the place, all save under the tall
yews, where the shadows lay blackly.  But of the girl she could see
nothing, yet had noted the way she had gone.

Like a ghost herself, a very lovely spirit all in white, her little
woollen slippers making never a sound on the old flagged pavement, she
sped on her way.

The moaning sobbing cry had awakened every sympathy in her heart, she
was filled with womanly tenderness and pity. "Poor child, poor pretty
child!" she thought and so hurried on, looking eagerly for the little
lonely figure.  Then presently Kathleen paused, she stood still, she had
meant to call softly to Betty, yet did not, for she heard the moaning
and crying near at hand now.

"Afraid—oh afraid—terribul, terribul afraid I be!" the broken voice
whispered.  "But I must.  Oh, I must, I hev made up my mind to it and I
must!"

Half a dozen noiseless steps and Kathleen saw her.  The girl stood on
the brink of the pool, her hands clasped over her breast.

"Afraid, oh terribul, terribul afraid I be!" she whispered and repeated
the words again and again.  Then she thrust out one bare foot and
touched the inky water with it and drew back with a low cry of fear.

"But I must, I must, ’tis all there be left for I to du now! I must, for
he does not want me and I can’t, oh I can’t du what he wishes me, so I
must!—I—I be coming to ’ee my little stone maid, perhaps ’ee always
knowed as I would come to ’ee one day—I be coming now, I be coming now!
It seems as ’ee always meant something to me, little stone maid standing
there, seems to me now as ’ee always called to me to come and I be
coming now—now——"  She stretched out her hands and suddenly uttered a
stifled shriek for she felt strong tender arms about her, felt herself
dragged back from the water’s edge and then all in a moment she was
sobbing out her breaking heart on Kathleen’s breast.

For many minutes Kathleen let the girl weep on unrestrainedly, for she
knew it for the better way.  Let her shed her tears, since she could,
and when they were passed the little troubled heart would be all the
easier for them.

So with Kathleen’s arms about her, Betty wept softly, clinging to the
other woman as to one to whom she looked for love and help and
protection and did not look in vain.

And then, little by little, Kathleen drew her away from the pool, drew
her presently to the stone bench beside the sundial and made her sit
beside her.

"Why Betty, why were you going to do that—that wicked thing?" Kathleen
whispered.  "No, child, keep your face against my breast, tell me while
I hold you!  You are safe with me, little Betty, you know that, child,
don’t you?"

"Oh safe—safe wi’ ’ee, safe wi’ ’ee!" the girl moaned.

"Why did you wish to do that?"

"There were nothing left for I to du.  Oh I didn’t want to, for I were
afraid, most terribul afraid—I were, but—but it seemed I must, ’twas as
if the little stone maid were calling to I, just—just as she used to
call to I of moonlight nights when I were in my grandmother’s cottage,
but—but ’twas different then—then I had not seen him, only—only in my
dreams!"

"Seen him?" Kathleen asked softly.

"Allan!" the girl said simply and for the moment seemed to forget that
it was Allan’s wife who held her in her arms.

"Allan?"

"I did see him here, here in the old garden, long, long before he came
here to live, many times I saw him digging at they flower beds, him all
in brown wi’ queer brass buckles to his shoes, and his hat all dragged
down over his face, strange that I scarce did ever see his face, and
yet—yet I knew him and when I came to him here in the garden while he
sat on this very bench I knew—oh my lady, what be I saying, what be I
saying?"

But Kathleen did not answer.  It had come to her with a sudden shock, a
feeling of desolation, of hopelessness.  Allan, her husband, and this
little maid, this Betty and the old garden!  She remembered the dream of
which he had told her, that night in a London theatre.  It was but a
dream then, a picture out of the past and nothing more and since then it
had become reality and yet he had not told her as he had promised!

"And I du love him so—so cruel!" the girl sobbed.

Never once while she listened to this confession did Kathleen’s arms
relax their hold on the sobbing girl, yet Kathleen’s heart was being
tortured and wounded by every word.

Allan, her husband, whom she had regarded as the soul of honour—could it
be—Allan into whose ears she had intended to pour this wonderful secret,
this secret of a little life yet to be, which belonged to him and to
her!

"Oh my lady, I be so terribul unhappy!" Betty whimpered, "So terribul
unhappy for I did think he loved me as I loved him!"

"And—did he not—love you?" Kathleen whispered and wondered at her own
voice, for it trembled so strangely, it was so filled with eagerness,
with fear and yet with hope.

"He was mine—mine!" the girl said passionately.  "For ’twas he I saw
here in this old garden many, many times—and I knew him, my lady, and
yet—yet when I would have felt his kisses on my lips, he held away from
me—and oh I be all broken hearted, I be, and now he be set against me
and wishful of my going away for ever, but I can’t, I can’t, I would
sooner die!  And that night here—here my lady, in the garden, he was all
stern and angry wi’ I!  He told me that I must go, that it would be for
my good and that I should be happy and—and he told me my lady as he was
afraid of I, afraid—they were his very words!"

"Thank God he was afraid!" Kathleen thought.  "Thank God for his fears,
for they did him honour.  Oh I was wrong, he is all I thought him, all I
believed him, even better, stronger, braver, thank God!"

"And he told me," Betty went on in her low sobbing voice, "that I were
to come to him here in the garden in three nights, ’twere Monday then
and to-morrow night I be to see him here and tell him what I will
do—if—if I will go far, far away and be wise and sensible—but I can’t—I
can’t ’twould break my heart!"

"It will not dear," Kathleen said.  "It will not, Betty!"  Her arm
tightened about the girl, she was such a child, did not her very
confession prove it?  "It seems very hard to bear now Betty, but you
must be brave and good and sensible, it will be far, far better that you
do not see Allan, my husband, again, for it is not for your happiness to
see him.  I do not understand, Betty, nor do I think that even you and
he understand, it is all so strange—so—so unusual!  But I shall send you
away——" she paused.  It was so easy to say "I will send you away," yet
where could she send the child? For a moment she pondered and then it
came to her like a flash of inspiration.

"You shall go away Betty quietly and no one need know of your going and
to-morrow I will tell him that you are gone and that you and he will not
meet again.  You will be happy, very happy with those to whom I shall
send you. Will you trust me, Betty?"

"Trust ’ee——."  The girl caught her hand and kissed it passionately.
"And—and bain’t I to see him again, never?"

"It will be better not, Betty!"

Betty leaned against her sobbing—"I du love him——" she sobbed, "and it
will be terribul to go and never see him again!"

"Had you thrown yourself into the water to-night you would never have
seen him again and you would have caused him grief and sorrow, Betty,
so—so dear it is better you should go quietly, and live and be happy,
for you will be happy, child and you will forget!  You are only a child,
Betty, and—and I—I know what a child’s love means, it is seldom the real
love—it will pass, for such love does pass, I know, Betty!  And
then—then one day the real love, the love of all your life will come to
you and you will look back on these memories and smile at them and when
that day comes, Betty——" Kathleen’s voice shook a little, "then—then,
child, go down on your knees and thank God that you gave your child’s
love to a good and noble man, a man who respected it—and you—and—and was
afraid—dear!"

And Betty, if she did not understand, was comforted by the kind voice
and nestled closer to Kathleen.  She dried her tears and presently had
forgotten them and was smiling, and the little tragedy was past.




                            *CHAPTER XXXIV*

                          *THE GOING OF BETTY*


"I want, dear Sir Josiah, to feel that the child is happy and well cared
for, her life here has not been a very happy one, her grandmother was
trying to force her into marriage with a man she hated, a man I myself
feel instinctive mistrust of.  I send her to you because I know of no
one so kind, so good, so generous.  I know that you will do all you can
for her.  I do not wish her, and I do not think she herself wishes ever
to come back to Homewood again.  She will be happier away from the place
and so, dear kind friend, to whom I seem to turn instinctively in any
moment of doubt and anxiety, I leave her in your hands, knowing that all
you may do for her will be right and for the child’s own good."

Kathleen had written the letter to Sir Josiah, she herself had helped to
pack Betty’s little box, she had taken the dependable and
uncommunicative Howard into her confidence.

"Your ladyship desires me to see the young woman and her box safe to Sir
Josiah’s London house?"

"That is what I wish, Howard, and I wish her going to be kept secret, I
don’t want others to know, it may be difficult, but——"

"It can quite easily be arranged, my lady, no difficulty at all.  I’ll
have the closed cab from the village and if your ladyship will be so
good as to inform the young person she is to walk quietly out of the
house and to take the Bursdon Road, I will direct the driver to take
that way, my lady, and pick her up and take her on to Bursdon station
and catch the three thirty-five for London.  It will be right if the
young person was to start at say half past two.  As for her box, my
lady, I’ll manage it, so that no one sees it—anything else, my lady?"

"Nothing, Howard, and I thank you very much, you are very, very
helpful," Kathleen said.

Just before the half hour after two, Betty sobbing as though her heart
was breaking, was in Kathleen’s room.

"Oh my lady, it be cruel hard to have to go and leave it all, when I du
love it so and——" she paused and sobbed aloud with many a catch of the
breath, as a child does.

Yet Kathleen felt as she kissed and comforted the girl that tears so
easily shed might be just as easily dried, and to prove that she was
right, in a little while Betty began to dry her eyes and shew interest
in her destination.

"To think that I be actually going to London, my lady, a terribul long
way it be and I always wishful of seeing it, though I never—never——" and
then a fresh torrent of tears and sighs and cries, tears which Kathleen
wiped away.

"You will be very happy, Betty, and life will be full of interest for
you.  London is a wonderful place, you cannot think how marvellous the
shops are.  Streets and streets of them, Betty—and the people and the
cars and carriages——"

Betty listened, wide eyed, forgetting her grief again.

"And there be theayters, my lady."

"Many of them and you shall go and see them, Betty."

The girl was actually smiling now and then suddenly, remembering her
sorrow, she began to cry again.  But Kathleen felt no fears.  The girl
was genuine and sincere enough, transparently honest, but she was not of
those who die of broken hearts.

"Now you will be a good brave girl, you know dear that you must go
because it will be kinder to—to him—to me and to yourself.  You are
going to someone whom I love very much and who will be kind to you, not
only because I have asked him to be and for your own sake too, but
because he is kindness itself.  You know, Betty, that you must go, don’t
you?  You know, child, that it is not possible that you could stay on
here, and—and Betty, you are going somewhere where you will never see
Abram Lestwick, you will be safe from him."

Betty nodded, she even smiled.  "Terribul put about and angry will Abram
be when he finds I be gone and grandmother, her too."

There was mischief and even enjoyment in her smile and Kathleen’s heart
felt eased and at peace.  She wanted to play no hard and cruel part in
this little drama, she did not want the girl to go broken hearted and
unhappy.

"And now—now Betty, it is time," she said, "time, dear, for you to go,
you—you quite understand?"

"Oh—oh my lady!"  And once more Betty was all tears, the tears rained
down her face and suddenly she rushed to Kathleen who held out her arms
to her.

"Good-bye, my dear, good-bye and God bless you and bring you to
happiness."  Kathleen strained her in her arms, held her tightly for a
moment and then let her go and her own eyes were not dry.

Presently Betty, in her neat little black gown, opened the arched green
gate for the last time, and of habit peered up and down the road, half
fearfully, lest someone might be there waiting for her.  But there was
no sign of Abram Lestwick.  In the distance she could see the blue smoke
curling from the chimney of her grandmother’s cottage and at the sight
the tears were gone and the pretty face grew a trifle hard, even a
little bitter.

"And now we shall see if I be going to marry Abram Lestwick,
grandmother," she thought, "terribul obstinate I be, yes and contrairy
and a perilous bad maid, but Abram will hev to look for someone
else—’Lizbeth Colley, who due bake such wonderful fine currant
biscuits."

She laughed softly a little laugh of triumph, mingled with grief and
then—then she stepped out into the white roadway and pulled the gate
after her.  She looked along the high wall of old red brick, over which
she had clambered—bad, perilous bad maid that she was—many a time.  The
wall was topped now with glittering glass and seeing it the tears all
came back with a rush and sobs broke from the labouring, childish
breast.

"Broken hearted I be——" she wailed, "broken hearted and wishful of
dying—oh—oh never never to see him again, never!"  She looked back along
the road and could see her grandmother’s cottage.  She pictured to
herself her grandmother, that stern, unbending woman, sitting in her
stiff, high backed chair—waiting—waiting for her, waiting to have her
will with her.

And the thought of the old woman sitting there waiting and waiting all
in vain banished the tears from the bright eyes.

"She said that I was bad and that I must go and—and so I be going for
good—going to London.  Powerful ’quisitive I be to see what London looks
like, bigger than Stretton it be, wi’ streets of shops and theayters and
oh!"  Her eyes shone, the grief was forgotten, she was hurrying on her
way down the road now.  The red wall had ceased to be and it seemed as
though the enchantment of the old garden that it protected was lifted,
for the girl was smiling and her eyes were bright with anticipation as
she hastened on her way, and never once did she look behind her now.

"A child’s love!" Kathleen thought, "a child’s love, very real, very
wonderful, with such power to bring grief or joy and yet after all only
a child’s love—mine lasted for ten long years and—and then it
passed—Little Betty’s, how long will hers last?  Ten days, ten hours
perhaps—not longer—poor, pretty, shallow little Betty, yet so
lovable—and he, my darling, my Allan was afraid—afraid of her for a
time—yes thank God afraid—and told her so nobly and bravely."  She
smiled at her thoughts and Scarsdale, looking at her, wondered what made
her smile.

"What are you thinking of Kathleen?" he said.

"Of my husband," she said gently.

Scarsdale turned away, he looked out into the garden. Should he stay,
was there still room for hope?  Was she acting a part as he believed and
hoped, or did it mean that she had ceased to care, that what she had
told him there beside the pool was true, that her love for him had died?
Yet it might not be dead, only slumbering for a while, when she found,
as she would find, that Homewood was untrue to her, that of nights he
was meeting a girl, a servant maid in the garden, that he loved that
girl, what then?  Would she not come back to him, eager for his love and
sympathy and protection?  He hoped so and believed so.

"I will wait a while yet," he thought.

They missed the guests of the past few days, these three, as they sat
down to dinner in the dining room.  They missed Sir Josiah, they missed
noisy genial Mr. Coombe, even they missed his lordship, for on these
three a silence had fallen and each was busy with his own thoughts.

To-night Betty would tell him, thought Allan, she would tell him that
she had decided to be, as he had said, sensible and wise.

"To-night," Kathleen thought, "to-night she would tell him all."

And Scarsdale’s thoughts were the same.  Would she come to him if she
might come in honour, if the dishonour fell on other shoulders?  He
believed it and hoped it and would hope it till the last.

Kathleen watched Allan that evening, watched him and saw the worried
anxious look on his face.  She knew that he was planning to meet Betty,
yet surely never a lover went to meet his love with such a look on his
face as Allan’s wore this night?  No, he did not love her, he was
anxious and troubled about her, about the girl herself and her future
and presently he should know that all was well, that Betty was gone and
would be happy and cared for.

So when the darkness had fallen completely, she rose and went up to her
own room and changed from the light dinner dress she had been wearing
into a plain dark frock.

"Will he be glad and proud, or will he be sorry?" she asked herself.
Glad and proud—please God he would be glad and proud!  And if it brought
gladness and pride to him, what then? might it not bring love also, the
love she hungered for, the love her heart craved?

The moon was late rising to-night.  There was no light save the dim
faint light of the stars.  Somewhere among the tall trees an owl was
making its plaintive cry.  Kathleen shivered a little at the sound, it
seemed almost like an ill omen.  She knew where he would be waiting and
then presently in the deep dark shadows under the high old yew hedge she
found him.

He heard the light footfall, he heard the rustle of her dress and made
no doubt that it was Betty, for who else would come to him here in this
place?

"Betty!" he said.

She did not answer him, she stood still, then hesitatingly came forward
towards him.  But he offered her no greeting, he did not hold out his
hands to her.  He seemed even to turn away from her.

"Listen," he said, and did not even look towards her.  "I have given you
time to think, to realise that what I hope to arrange for you is all—all
for your good.  What I said to you that night was true—Betty we do not
and we should not know what the past held for us, that we do know,
something of it has only brought us unhappiness and heartache. But the
past is past, Betty, it belonged to another life, another generation and
we who stand here to-night have to deal only with the present and even
more with the future."

Kathleen stood listening, her hands pressed against her breast.  Was she
wrong to listen to him, knowing that his words were meant for other
ears?  If he but turned to her now he might see, dim though the light,
that it was not the little country girl that he was talking to.

Yet he did not look at her once, but rather at the ground, or away into
the blue black distance.

"You have told me that you loved me, you have asked me for my love,
forgetting or not knowing, dear, that I could not give you that love
with honour.  Could I feel such love for you it would but dishonour you,
dishonour myself—and—and her, Betty, her."  His voice shook for a
moment.

"Once you came to me in a strange vision, a vision out of the long
buried past.  I was heartwhole then—and it seemed to me that some tie,
some link forged in another life, another existence held us together,
that vision was very wonderful and very sweet to me, it lived in my
memory for many and many a long day and then—then it faded, Betty, it
faded—and the link that was forged in the past was snapped and broken."
He was silent for a moment and then went on in a lower voice.

"It ended because something came into my life to end it, a greater love,
something that was not born of visions and fancies and fancied memories.
That love, Betty, is the most wonderful, the most beautiful thing that
has ever come to me.  It meant my salvation, dear, and yours, it meant
protection for you and for me.  For loving her, loving her——" his voice
rose, "loving my own wife with all my soul——."

"Allan, my Allan!"

He turned to her with a choking cry, he peered into her face through the
darkness, and then he took her hands and held them, drawing her closer
to him till he had clasped her hands against his breast, and all the
time he looked into the face that was uplifted to his.

"Kathleen!"

"Who needs you, even as you—you love her, Allan, who has come to tell
you, dear, that she knows all and honours you and respects you and loves
you with all her heart and soul and is—is proud of you—proud!  I sent
her away, dear, not in anger, but in love.  Poor child, I sent her away
all tears that—that I think will soon be dried and to-night I came here
to tell you this—to tell you this and—and——" She drew even closer to him
and he put his arms about her and held her tightly, "to tell you, my
husband——" and her voice was so soft, so low that he could hear, yet
only just hear—"to tell you that God is sending into our lives something
to make us happier and perhaps better, something that will belong to us
both, something for us to share and to love alike, something that will
draw us nearer, closer together and hold us together all our lives.
Allan, my husband, why don’t you speak to me?  Allan, are you glad or
sorry, dear?  Oh Allan!"

For suddenly, even while he still held her in his arms, he slipped down
on his knees before her and tried to tell her of the pride, the joy and
the gladness that he felt and yet could tell her nothing, save that he
loved her.

Beautiful and wonderful, wonderful above all women, more angel than
woman to him, now as always.

"You are giving so much, so much, my Kathleen, but you cannot give me
all your heart, for I know that in the past there was someone——."

"Someone who came back," she said, "who came back, Allan, and when I saw
him and listened to him again, I knew, oh I knew that, my love was never
love at all—I think it was less love than a religion with me.  Allan,
don’t you understand?  He is nothing to me—no more than any other
stranger, any guest who might sleep beneath our roof, for the love, the
great love of my life I give, my husband, to you—now and always!"

And then the pent up love and longing, the hunger of the time of waiting
found expression.  She stooped to him, she put her arms about him, she
drew his head to her breast and held him closely, a radiant joy in her
heart, knowing him to be what he was, worthy, well worthy of all her
love, knowing him to be simple and brave, strong and tender, and even
though brave, still afraid, afraid of temptation and his man’s weakness.

So she held him and blessed him and her heart was filled with a great
love and gratitude.

Faint though the starlight was, yet the watcher away among the shadows
could see them indistinctly and seeing them fell naturally into error.
For how should he dream that it was husband and wife he spied on?  He
watched them presently move slowly away, the man with his arm about the
woman, she with her head against his shoulder, and the man waiting in
the darkness smiled, wondering how long would this last, how long before
Kathleen knew?

He watched them till they were gone, swallowed up in the soft darkness,
and then he moved, he turned slowly towards the house.  The vigil was
over, but he frowned in thought. How should Kathleen know, how could she
be made aware of this?  And then—he heard a sound, the soft pad of a
foot behind him and had no time to turn for even as he would have swung
round, something leaped upon him and clung to him.  A hand gifted with a
curious strength sought for and found his throat, and finding it gripped
and gripped.

He fought, struggling madly, he tried to tear away that terrible hold,
yet it was like trying to unbend bars of steel. He fought at those
gripping, clinging fingers till his brain grew dazed, till the dark
night swam about him.  He could feel on his neck the hot quick breathing
of his enemy.

A hoarse scream, a shriek that ended in a choking, gasping sob broke
from the strangling throat, a scream of agony and of terror.  For he,
brave man though he was, felt a mad, horrible fear of the silent, the
unseen thing that was seeking to rob him of his life.

Kathleen threw up her head.  "Allan, Allan darling, did you hear?  Hush,
listen, what was that?"

"Only a screech owl beloved, and oh my Kathleen, to hear you call me——"
he paused and was silent, for there came a repetition of the sound, but
this time fainter, the strangling cry of a man in agony, hoarse
despairing, spent and gasping, ending in sudden silence, followed by the
sound of a fall.

"Kathleen go, run to the house, there is something wrong—send help!"
And then he turned and dashed into the darkness, in the direction whence
came the sound.  Scarsdale was down, he lay face downward on the stone
paving and with his last strength, his last effort was seeking to unlock
those fingers from his throat, but his movements were weakening, the man
was done, as near to death as a man can be and yet still live, and on
his back there crouched a figure, the figure of a small mean man, whose
wondrous strength was all contained in those hooked fingers that were
choking the life out of the jerking, labouring body.

"Pleasant spoken ’ee be—aye wonderful pleasant spoken ’ee du be!"  The
creature was chuckling, was laughing, his eyes seemed to burn with
strange fires.

"Wonderful pleasant spoken ’ee be—but never again, never again will ’ee
cheat a man of his maid, never again!  Stole her from me, lied her away
from me!—Oh wonderful pleasant spoken ’ee be——"

It was death that was come on him now, and he knew it, the death he had
defied—for so long—in savage places. Strange that it should come to him
here at last in this peaceful old garden.  Death—the world was swimming
about him—he seemed to see Kathleen’s face, the fighting hands were
grown powerless and never for a moment did that grip on his throat
relax.

"Oh wonderful, powerful pleasant spoken ’ee be——" chuckled the voice.

And then the man was torn from his victim, dragged from him and flung
violently to the stone pavement.  Kathleen had run screaming to the
house, the servants were alarmed, Howard, prompt and efficient, came
hurrying with lighted lamp; others followed, Kathleen with them.

"It’s Scarsdale—been attacked—he’s fainted—lift him, some of you, carry
him in—stop that man, stop him!"

For Abram Lestwick had risen, he stood there for a moment, then turned
to fly, but suddenly stood still, as the lamp-light stone for a moment
on Allan’s face.  Lestwick peered at him.  His hands rose to his own
throat, fumbled with it, tore at his collar till they tore it loose.

"Bless I if it bain’t Abram Lestwick!" said a voice, the voice belonged
to old Markabee, "Abram Lestwick it du be!"

"Aye, it be me!" Lestwick said, he spoke dully, still fumbling at his
throat, his eyes wandered from the figure of the man they were lifting,
to Allan’s face clear in the lamp-light, eyes from which all the fire
and passion had died out.

He had made a mistake, his slow brain was grasping the fact—a
mistake—why should he have made a mistake? Surely it had been the right
man, had he not climbed the wall and waited and seen a man with a woman
and that woman Betty—who else could it have been?  And then—then—

"A terribul strong intentioned man I be!" Abram muttered. "Terribul
passionate and quick——"  His eyes roved round restlessly, he still
worked at his frayed and torn collar.  "I must be going, time be getting
on, very late it be growing, I’ve stayed too long!"  He would have
turned, but old Markabee faced him resolutely.

"Stir from here, ’ee don’t, Abram Lestwick, after what ’ee hev done!"

One sweep of his arm would have felled Markabee and left the way clear
for him to depart, yet Abram Lestwick never thought of that—he stood
still, silent, submissive.

His dull brain refused to answer the question that he would have put to
it.  A mistake—how had he come to make a mistake—another man—what other
man could it be?  Had he not seen his enemy standing erect, unhurt, the
lamplight on his face?

"It be past, all past my understanding——" Abram Lestwick muttered.  "All
misty and dizzy it du seem to I—all misty and dizzy!"

They had carried the victim into the house, now they came back for
Lestwick, they took him and bound his hands behind his back, those
terrible, those death dealing hands, and he submitted without a word,
without a struggle.

Sullenly and with bent head, he shambled along between his captors.
They took him into the house, into the light, he stood with bent head,
then slowly lifted it, his restless eyes roamed the room, they fell on
Kathleen’s white face for a moment, then strayed away again.

The man was muttering to himself, they bent near to listen, yet could
make but little of it.

"Wonderful pleasant spoken he be——" he said, and said it again and yet
again, a score of times.

Old Markabee, tremulous, but staunch, gripping a Dutch hoe, stood on
guard.  "I du remember," he said, "aye I du remember his mother, my
Lady, and it be the same wi’ Abram as it were wi’ she—strange she were
always, terribul strange and they du say aye I have heard it said as her
did die in the madhouse!"

Kathleen drew back, but the horror died out of her face and in its place
there came pity, a great pity for this stricken wretch, the dull eyes
rested for a moment on her face, then sank to the ground, his fingers
were picking at the rope that bound his wrists together, but not with
any intention of picking himself free, just for the sake of picking and
fraying and tearing the cords, that was all.




                             *CHAPTER XXXV*

                           *"I SHALL RETURN"*


"Kathleen—Kathleen——"

"Yes, Harold, here beside you."  She touched his cheek with her fingers.
"You are easier now, better?"

"With you beside me, yes."  He lifted his hand slowly to the bandaged
throat.

"It was—Homewood—Allan Homewood who—saved—who dragged that man off me?"

"Yes, it was Allan, we heard your cry for help, he and I, we were
together in the garden and——"

"You—you and he—you and he in the garden?"

"We had been talking in the yew walk, we were returning to the house and
then we heard——"

He said nothing, his face twisted a little, as with pain, then it
passed.

"The man, Abram Lestwick was mad, quite mad, Harold. He made no effort
to get away, he was docile and quiet, dazed and stupid.  They took him
before the magistrates the next day, but the doctors certified at once,
he will not have his liberty again, poor creature, they say he is a
homicidal maniac.  Yet why—why should he have come creeping into the
garden that night, why should he have attacked you, Harold, you a
stranger to him?"

But it seemed that he was not listening, as though what she said had no
interest for him.  He lay looking at her, thinking—It was she—she in the
garden with Homewood that night, she walking with Homewood, his arm
about her.

He saw it all again, in memory, as he had seen it that night in reality,
the man and the woman walking as lovers walk, the man’s arm about the
woman, her head against his shoulder—and it was Homewood and Kathleen,
the husband and the wife—and he had thought—

"The doctor tells me that I shall mend soon, that I shall soon be my own
man again, Kathleen, and then," he smiled, "then I shall go back."

"Need you?"

He did not answer the question.  "You know why I came, what hopes I had.
It was folly and the hopes are over and ended and dead—so I shall go
back alone as I came.  There is nothing to remain for—nothing."  His
hand sought hers and she put hers into it.  He held it for a time and
then let it go.

"So I shall go back," he said again, and said it quietly and with a
fixity of purpose that she knew would never be changed.

Her eyes, filled with pity, looked down on him.  Yet she knew, better
that he went back, better that in the years to come they should never
meet again.

Her heart ached for him, but not for herself.  And then the door opened
and Allan came softly to the bedside and looked down at the invalid and
standing beside Kathleen his arm went round her and he never knew what
suffering it meant to the man lying there.

"Kathleen has told you about Lestwick, Scarsdale?  The poor wretch is
hopelessly insane.  There was no reason for his act, there could be
none.  It has all been horrible, you can imagine what our feelings have
been that you, our guest, our friend——" very kind was Allan’s smile as
he looked down on the man who would have been his enemy, "should have to
bear this.  But thank God it is no worse than it is.  You will be a well
man again soon, Scarsdale, and then you will stay on and rest here,
Kathleen will be your nurse——"

"You are good, but I shall leave you as soon as I may, for I am going
back to the place I came from, Homewood, going back soon."

"Going back?  I remember that you told me once you hoped——"

Scarsdale smiled faintly.  "I hoped—but that is over, I had hope, but
not now.  There is nothing to hold me to England.  I am a stranger in a
strange land, I shall be better out there among the people who know me."

"Are you sure—sure that there is no hope for you, Scarsdale?"

Again Scarsdale smiled.  "There never was," he said. "Yet I did not
realise it, would not understand it—but there was never any hope for me,
so—so I shall go, thanking my good friends for their care of me,
thanking them and blessing them——"  As he spoke he looked up at Kathleen
and Allan watching saw the yearning, the hunger, the love that the lips
could not utter, and then suddenly he understood that this was the man!

Yet, even understanding, he stooped and touched the other’s hand.

"Remember, if you will stay, my wife and I will be glad—we would have
you stay as long as you can—Scarsdale."

They turned away, went out of the room together, and then when the door
had closed on them, he turned to her.

"Kathleen, I remember that night you told me that you had met the man
again—it was he."

"He came back," she said, "he came back and I knew it meant nothing to
me.  It was a dream, as yours was dear, and it passed, as yours did, my
Allan and so—so——" she held up her arms and put them about his neck and
lifted her face to his.

"I meant to tell you—at first and then—then I forgot, yes forgot,
Allan—because of something of which I wanted to tell you far, far more."

"I know," he said, he put his arms about her and held her closely.
"Something that has made me the happiest and proudest man in all the
world, beloved."

                     *      *      *      *      *

A winter and a spring had passed and the garden at Homewood was blooming
with a loveliness that it had not been able to attain last summer.  Old
Markabee, bearing the weight of yet one more year on his round
shoulders, was snipping at the ivy covered wall.

"A pernicious thing be ivy, sir," he said, "a terribul pernicious thing,
eating away the very wall as du support it, tearing it away bit by bit,
ruining it, sir, it du—with them terribul little clinging fingers it hev
got, workin’ and workin’ till the old wall be crumbled quite and ready
to fall, a most terribul pernicious thing ivy be."

"Yes, yes to be sure, but hush my good man, not—not so loudly if you
please——"

Markabee turned contritely, "I bain’t gone and woke he wi’ my chatter?"
he asked.

"No, no, he is still sound asleep."

Sir Josiah rose from the stone bench, he peered under the holland awning
over the perambulator.

His reign was but short and presently nurse would come and demand of
him, her charge.  It was a great favour that she did him, leaving him
here in charge of the slumbering infant, there was no one else nurse
would trust, but she knew that she might Sir Josiah.

"You may look at him, Markabee, if you like, did you ever see a
healthier looking child?"

Markabee poked his brown face under the awning, holding his breath the
while.  Not till he was safely away did he trust himself with speech.

"A wunnerful child he be," he said.  "And so powerful strong he du
look."

"Would you say, Markabee?" Sir Josiah enquired anxiously, "is the child
like his mother or his father?"

"A bit like both," said Markabee.  "And wi’ a look, aye now I du see it
quite plain, a look of his grandfather tu, he hev got."

"You don’t say so!" said Sir Josiah.  "You don’t say so—well bless my
heart!"  His round red face beamed and Markabee, cunning old sinner,
chuckled behind his hand.

"That ought to be good enough for half a suvereign for I," he thought.

And now came nurse to take possession of her charge.

"He hasn’t awakened, Sir Josiah, has he?" she said.

"Bless you my dear, no, not moved, he hasn’t," Sir Josiah said.

She smiled.  "I always feel I can trust you with him at any rate, Sir
Josiah."

"A good woman that, a sensible woman, couldn’t have found a better," Sir
Josiah said as nurse wheeled the baby carriage away.  "And you were
saying just now, Markabee?"

"I were saying a terribul pernicious thing is this ivy working with its
little fingers on they old walls as du support it, tearing and tearing,
wonderful like the fingers of Abram Lestwick’s, I du remember."

"Ah poor fellow!" said Sir Josiah.

"Mad!" said Markabee, "like his mother were afore him—mad—and mad in
love moreover."

"Indeed!"

"Wi’ the prettiest maid in these parts, old Mother Hanson’s
grand-darter, sir."

"Little Betty Hanson?" said Sir Josiah—"whom my daughter-in-law Lady
Kathleen sent to me months and months ago, and to think that poor mad
fellow loved her.  But she’s married now, Markabee, and married
well—married to a young fellow who works for me, a lad named Cope!  I’m
paying him six pounds a week, Markabee, and he’s worth it, a hard
working honest lad.  I had tea with them in their little house and a
prettier little hostess you never saw.  But if you’ll believe me,
Markabee, an arrant little flirt, with those pretty eyes of hers——"

"Her mother were the same," said Markabee.  "All wimmen more or less be
the same—specially when they du have fine eyes as Betty had."

"Why I don’t know that you aren’t right Markabee, and yet not all, not
all women Markabee, there is one——"

Sir Josiah looked up and saw the one of whom he spoke. She was coming
slowly towards them along the flagged pathway, her husband’s arm about
her, her head against his shoulder and as they came slowly in the
sunshine, they halted now and again, for not yet, had all her strength
come back to her, though thank God, it was coming.  She was still a
little pale, still a little languid in her movements.  But in her eyes
there was a great and wonderful happiness and a deep tenderness and
unutterable love.  Love for this man beside her, this man to whom she
clung, this man, who was friend, lover, husband all in one.  Was ever
woman so blessed as she?

Sir Josiah stood watching them, knowing that these two had found a
happiness that was almost beyond his understanding.

And then he would have turned and gone quietly away, but Kathleen called
to him.

"Won’t you come here and sit with us in the sunshine dear?  Don’t go,
don’t go!"

He came back with a happy pleased look on his old face.

"I didn’t think you and Allan would want the old man," he said, "I
thought you two—together——"

"We want you always, when you are here our little world is all
complete," she said softly.  "I have those whom I love and those who
love me," she lifted her hand and held it against his cheek.

And so on the sunwarmed old stone bench they sat, and there was no sound
save the steady ’clip clip’ of old Markabee’s shears and the rustle of
the falling glossy green leaves from the ivied wall.

About them, was the sunshine and the glory of the flowers in bloom, the
little pool lay shimmering like molten gold, and from its midst rose the
slim white figure of the stone maiden, for ever holding the broken
pitcher on her sun kissed shoulder.



                                THE END



                T. H. BEST PRINTING CO. LIMITED, TORONTO

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49074 ***