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diff --git a/old/50479-8.txt b/old/50479-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 32e6fd3..0000000 --- a/old/50479-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7733 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Far-away Stories, by William J. Locke - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Far-away Stories - -Author: William J. Locke - -Release Date: November 18, 2015 [EBook #50479] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAR-AWAY STORIES *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines - - - - - - - - - FAR-AWAY STORIES - - BY - - WILLIAM J. LOCKE - - AUTHOR OF "THE ROUGH ROAD," "THE RED PLANET," - "THE WONDERFUL YEAR," "THE BELOVED VAGABOND," ETC. - - - - NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY - LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD - TORONTO: S. B. GUNDY - MCMXIX - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY - JOHN LANE COMPANY - - - - THE PLIMPTON PRESS - NORWOOD, MASS. U.S.A. - - - - - -_TO THE READER_ - -_DEAR SIR OR MADAM:--_ - -_Good wine needs no bush, but a collection of mixed vintages does. And -this book is just such a collection. Some of the stories I do not want -to remain buried for ever in the museum files of dead -magazine-numbers--an author's not unpardonable vanity; others I have -resuscitated from the same vaults in the hope that they still may -please you._ - -_The title of a volume of short stories is always a difficult matter. -It ought to indicate frankly the nature of the book so that the unwary -purchaser shall have no grievance (except on the score of merit, which -is a different affair altogether) against either author or publisher. -In my title I have tried to solve the problem. But why "Far-away?" -Well, the stories cover a long stretch of years, and all, save one, -were written in calm days far-away from the present convulsion of the -world._ - -_Anyhow, no one will buy the book under the impression that it is a -novel, and, finding that it isn't, revile me as a cheat. And so I have -the pleasure of offering it for your perusal with a clear conscience._ - -_You, Dear Sir or Madam, have given me, this many a year, an indulgence -beyond my deserts. Till now, I have had no opportunity of thanking -you. I do now with a grateful heart, and to you I dedicate the two -stories that I love the best, hoping that they may excuse those for -which you may not so much care, and that they may win continuance of -that which is to me, both as a writer and as a human being, my most -cherished possession, namely, your favourable regard for_ - -_Your most humble and obedient Servant to command,_ - - _W. J. LOCKE_ - _June_, 1919 - - - - -CONTENTS - -THE SONG OF LIFE - -LADIES IN LAVENDER - -STUDIES IN BLINDNESS - I. AN OLD-WORLD EPISODE - II. THE CONQUEROR - III. A LOVER'S DILEMMA - IV. A WOMAN OF THE WAR - -THE PRINCESS'S KINGDOM - -THE HEART AT TWENTY - -THE SCOURGE - -MY SHADOW FRIENDS - - - - -THE SONG OF LIFE - -_Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum_. It is not everybody's -good fortune to go to Corinth. It is also not everybody's good fortune -to go to Peckham--still less to live there. But if you were one of the -favoured few, and were wont to haunt the Peckham Road and High Street, -the bent figure of Angelo Fardetti would have been as familiar to you -as the vast frontage of the great Emporium which, in the drapery world, -makes Peckham illustrious among London suburbs. You would have seen -him humbly threading his way through the female swarms that clustered -at the plate-glass windows--the mere drones of the hive were fooling -their frivolous lives away over ledgers in the City--the inquiry of a -lost dog in his patient eyes, and an unconscious challenge to Philistia -in the wiry bush of white hair that protruded beneath his perky soft -felt hat. If he had been short, he might have passed unregarded; but -he was very tall--in his heyday he had been six foot two--and very -thin. You smile as you recall to mind the black frock-coat, somewhat -white at the seams, which, tightly buttoned, had the fit of a garment -of corrugated iron. Although he was so tall one never noticed the -inconsiderable stretch of trouser below the long skirt. He always -appeared to be wearing a truncated cassock. You were inclined to laugh -at this queer exotic of the Peckham Road until you looked more keenly -at the man himself. Then you saw an old, old face, very swarthy, very -lined, very beautiful still in its regularity of feature, maintaining -in a little white moustache with waxed ends a pathetic braggadocio of -youth; a face in which the sorrows of the world seemed to have their -dwelling, but sorrows that on their way thither had passed through the -crucible of a simple soul. - -Twice a day it was his habit to walk there; shops and faces a -meaningless confusion to his eyes, but his ears alert to the many -harmonies of the orchestra of the great thoroughfare. For Angelo -Fardetti was a musician. Such had he been born; such had he lived. -Those aspects of life which could not be interpreted in terms of music -were to him unintelligible. During his seventy years empires had -crumbled, mighty kingdoms had arisen, bloody wars had been fought, -magic conquests been made by man over nature. But none of these -convulsive facts had ever stirred Angelo Fardetti's imagination. Even -his country he had well-nigh forgotten; it was so many years since he -had left it, so much music had passed since then through his being. -Yet he had never learned to speak English correctly; and, not having an -adequate language (save music) in which to clothe his thoughts, he -spoke very little. When addressed he smiled at you sweetly like a -pleasant, inarticulate old child. - -Though his figure was so familiar to the inhabitants of Peckham, few -knew how and where he lived. As a matter of fact, he lived a few -hundred yards away from the busy High Street, in Formosa Terrace, at -the house of one Anton Kirilov, a musician. He had lodged with the -Kirilovs for over twenty years--but not always in the roomy splendour -of Formosa Terrace. Once Angelo was first violin in an important -orchestra, a man of mark, while Anton fiddled away in the obscurity of -a fifth-rate music-hall. Then the famous violinist rented the -drawing-room floor of the Kirilovs' little house in Clapham, while the -Kirilovs, humble folk, got on as best they could. Now things had -changed. Anton Kirilov was musical director of a London theatre, but -Angelo, through age and rheumatism and other infirmities, could fiddle -in public no more; and so it came to pass that Anton Kirilov and Olga, -his wife, and Sonia, their daughter (to whom Angelo had stood godfather -twenty years ago), rioted in spaciousness, while the old man lodged in -tiny rooms at the top of the house, paying an infinitesimal rent and -otherwise living on his scanty savings and such few shillings as he -could earn by copying out parts and giving lessons to here and there a -snub-nosed little girl in a tradesman's back parlour. Often he might -have gone without sufficient nourishment had not Mrs. Kirilov seen to -it; and whenever an extra good dish, succulent and strong, appeared at -her table, either Sonia or the servant carried a plateful upstairs with -homely compliments. - -"You are making of me a spoiled child, Olga," he would say sometimes, -"and I ought not to eat of the food for which Anton works so hard." - -And she would reply with a laugh: - -"If we did not keep you alive, Signor Fardetti, how should we have our -quatuors on Sunday afternoons?" - -You see, Mrs. Kirilov, like the good Anton, had lived all her life in -music too--she was a pianist; and Sonia also was a musician--she played -the 'cello in a ladies' orchestra. So they had famous Sunday quatuors -at Formosa Terrace, in which Fardetti was well content to play second -fiddle to Anton's first. - -You see, also, that but for these honest souls to whom a musician like -Fardetti was a sort of blood-brother, the evening of the old man's days -might have been one of tragic sadness. But even their affection and -his glad pride in the brilliant success of his old pupil, Geoffrey -Chase, could not mitigate the one great sorrow of his life. The -violin, yes; he had played it well; he had not aimed at a great -soloist's fame, for want of early training, and he had never dreamed -such unrealisable dreams; but other dreams had he dreamed with -passionate intensity. He had dreamed of being a great composer, and he -had beaten his heart out against the bars that shut him from the great -mystery. A waltz or two, a few songs, a catchy march, had been -published and performed, and had brought him unprized money and a -little hateful repute; but the compositions into which he had poured -his soul remained in dusty manuscript, despised and rejected of musical -men. - -For many years the artist's imperious craving to create and hope and -will kept him serene. Then, in the prime of his days, a tremendous -inspiration shook him. He had a divine message to proclaim to the -world, a song of life itself, a revelation. It was life, -indestructible, eternal. It was the seed that grew into the tree; the -tree that flourished lustily, and then grew bare and stark and -perished; the seed, again, of the tree that rose unconquerable into the -laughing leaf of spring. It was the kiss of lovers that, when they -were dead and gone, lived immortal on the lips of grandchildren. It -was the endless roll of the seasons, the majestic, triumphant rhythm of -existence. It was a cosmic chant, telling of things as only music -could tell of them, and as no musician had ever told of them before. - -He attempted the impossible, you will say. He did. That was the pity -of it. He spent the last drop of his heart's blood over his sonata. -He wrote it and rewrote it, wasting years, but never could he imprison -within those remorseless ruled lines the elusive sounds that shook his -being. An approximation to his dream reached the stage of a completed -score. But he knew that it was thin and lifeless. The themes that -were to be developed into magic harmonies tinkled into commonplace. -The shell of this vast conception was there, but the shell alone. The -thing could not live without the unseizable, and that he had not -seized. Angelo Fardetti, broken down by toil and misery, fell very -sick. Doctors recommended Brighton. Docile as a child, he went to -Brighton, and there a pretty lady who admired his playing at the Monday -Popular Concerts at St. James's Hall, got hold of him and married him. -When she ran away, a year later, with a dashing young stockbroker, he -took the score of the sonata that was to be the whole interpretation of -life from its half-forgotten hiding-place, played it through on the -piano, burst into a passion of tears, in the uncontrollable Italian -way, sold up his house, and went to lodge with Anton Kirilov. To no -son or daughter of man did he ever show a note or play a bar of the -sonata. And never again did he write a line of music. Bravely and -humbly he faced life, though the tragedy of failure made him -prematurely old. And all through the years the sublime message -reverberated in his soul and haunted his dreams; and his was the bitter -sorrow of knowing that never should that message be delivered for the -comforting of the world. - -The loss of his position as first violin forced him, at sixty, to take -more obscure engagements. That was when he followed the Kirilovs to -Peckham. And then he met the joy of his old age--his one pupil of -genius, Geoffrey Chase, an untrained lad of fourteen, the son of a -well-to-do seed merchant in the High Street. - -"His father thinks it waste of time," said Mrs. Chase, a gentle, -mild-eyed woman, when she brought the boy to him, "but Geoffrey is so -set on it--and so I've persuaded his father to let him have lessons." - -"Do you, too, love music?" he asked. - -Her eyes grew moist, and she nodded. - -"Poor lady! He should not let you starve. Never mind," he said, -patting her shoulder. "Take comfort. I will teach your boy to play -for you." - -And he did. He taught him for three years. He taught him passionately -all he knew, for Geoffrey, with music in his blood, had the great gift -of the composer. He poured upon the boy all the love of his lonely old -heart, and dreamed glorious dreams of his future. The Kirilovs, too, -regarded Geoffrey as a prodigy, and welcomed him into their circle, and -made much of him. And little Sonia fell in love with him, and he, in -his boyish way, fell in love with the dark-haired maiden who played on -a 'cello so much bigger than herself. At last the time came when -Angelo said: - -"My son, I can teach you no more. You must go to Milan." - -"My father will never consent," said Geoffrey. - -"We will try to arrange that," said Angelo. - -So, in their simple ways, Angelo and Mrs. Chase intrigued together -until they prevailed upon Mr. Chase to attend one of the Kirilovs' -Sunday concerts. He came in church-going clothes, and sat with -irreconcilable stiffness on a straight-backed chair. His wife sat -close by, much agitated. The others played a concerto arranged as a -quintette; Geoffrey first violin, Angelo second, Sonia 'cello, Anton -bass, and Mrs. Kirilov at the piano. It was a piece of exquisite -tenderness and beauty. - -"Very pretty," said Mr. Chase. - -"It's beautiful," cried his wife, with tears in her eyes. - -"I said so," remarked Mr. Chase. - -"And what do you think of my pupil?" Angelo asked excitedly. - -"I think he plays very nicely," Mr. Chase admitted. - -"But, dear heavens!" cried Angelo. "It is not his playing! One could -pick up fifty better violinists in the street. It is the concerto--the -composition." - -Mr. Chase rose slowly to his feet. "Do you mean to tell me that -Geoffrey made up all that himself?" - -"Of course. Didn't you know?" - -"Will you play it again?" - -Gladly they assented. When it was over he took Angelo out into the -passage. - -"I'm not one of those narrow-minded people who don't believe in art, -Mr. Fardetti," said he. "And Geoff has already shown me that he can't -sell seeds for toffee. But if he takes up music, will he be able to -earn his living at it?" - -"Beyond doubt," replied Angelo, with a wide gesture. - -"But a good living? You'll forgive me being personal, Mr. Fardetti, -but you yourself----" - -"I," said the old man humbly, "am only a poor fiddler--but your son is -a great musical genius." - -"I'll think over it," said Mr. Chase. - -Mr. Chase thought over it, and Geoffrey went to Milan, and Angelo -Fardetti was once more left desolate. On the day of the lad's -departure he and Sonia wept a little in each other's arms, and late -that night he once more unearthed the completed score of his sonata, -and scanned it through in vain hope of comfort. But as the months -passed comfort came. His beloved swan was not a goose, but a wonder -among swans. He was a wonder at the Milan Conservatoire, and won prize -after prize and medal after medal, and every time he came home he bore -his blushing honours thicker upon him. And he remained the same frank, -simple youth, always filled with gratitude and reverence for his old -master, and though on familiar student terms with all conditions of -cosmopolitan damsels, never faithless to the little Anglo-Russian -maiden whom he had left at home. - -In the course of time his studies were over, and he returned to -England. A professorship at the Royal School of Music very soon -rendered him financially independent. He began to create. Here and -there a piece of his was played at concerts. He wrote incidental music -for solemn productions at great London theatres. Critics discovered -him, and wrote much about him in the newspapers. Mr. Chase, the seed -merchant, though professing to his wife a man-of-the-world's -indifference to notoriety, used surreptitiously to cut out the notices -and carry them about in his fat pocket-book, and whenever he had a new -one he would lie in wait for the lean figure of Angelo Fardetti, and -hale him into the shop and make him drink Geoffrey's health in sloe -gin, which Angelo abhorred, but gulped down in honour of the prodigy. - -One fine October morning Angelo Fardetti missed his walk. He sat -instead by his window, and looked unseeingly at the prim row of houses -on the opposite side of Formosa Terrace. He had not the heart to go -out--and, indeed, he had not the money; for these walks, twice daily, -along the High Street and the Peckham Road, took him to and from a -queer little Italian restaurant which, with him apparently as its only -client, had eked out for years a mysterious and precarious existence. -He felt very old--he was seventy-two, very useless, very poor. He had -lost his last pupil, a fat, unintelligent girl of thirteen, the -daughter of a local chemist, and no one had sent him any copying work -for a week. He had nothing to do. He could not even walk to his usual -sparrow's meal. It is sad when you are so old that you cannot earn the -right to live in a world which wants you no longer. - -Looking at unseen bricks through a small window-pane was little -consolation. Mechanically he rose and went to a grand piano, his one -possession of price, which, with an old horsehair sofa, an oval table -covered with a maroon cloth, and a chair or two, congested the tiny -room, and, sitting down, began to play one of Stephen Heller's _Nuits -Blanches_. You see, Angelo Fardetti was an old-fashioned musician. -Suddenly a phrase arrested him. He stopped dead, and remained staring -out over the polished plane of the piano. For a few moments he was -lost in the chain of associated musical ideas. Then suddenly his -swarthy, lined face lit up, and he twirled his little white moustache -and began to improvise, striking great majestic chords. Presently he -rose, and from a pile of loose music in a corner drew a sheet of ruled -paper. He returned to the piano, and began feverishly to pencil down -his inspiration. His pulses throbbed. At last he had got the great -andante movement of his sonata. For an hour he worked intensely; then -came the inevitable check. Nothing more would come. He rose and -walked about the room, his head swimming. After a quarter of an hour -he played over what he had written, and then, with a groan of despair, -fell forward, his arms on the keys, his bushy white head on his arms. - -The door opened, and Sonia, comely and shapely, entered the room, -carrying a tray with food and drink set out on a white cloth. Seeing -him bowed over the piano, she put the tray on the table and advanced. - -"Dear godfather," she said gently, her hand on his shoulder. - -He raised his head and smiled. - -"I did not hear you, my little Sonia." - -"You have been composing?" - -He sat upright, and tore the pencilled sheets into fragments, which he -dropped in a handful on the floor. - -"Once, long ago, I had a dream. I lost it. To-day I thought that I -had found it. But do you know what I did really find?" - -"No, godfather," replied Sonia, stooping, with housewifely tidiness, to -pick up the litter. - -"That I am a poor old fool," said he. - -Sonia threw the paper into the grate and again came up behind him. - -"It is better to have lost a dream than never to have had one at all. -What was your dream?" - -"I thought I could write the Song of Life as I heard it--as I hear it -still." He smote his forehead lightly. "But no! God has not -considered me worthy to sing it. I bow my head to His--to His"--he -sought for the word with thin fingers--"to His decree." - -She said, with the indulgent wisdom of youth speaking to age: - -"He has given you the power to love and to win love." - -The old man swung round on the music-stool and put his arm round her -waist and smiled into her young face. - -"Geoffrey is a very fortunate fellow." - -"Because he's a successful composer?" - -He looked at her and shook his head, and Sonia, knowing what he meant, -blushed very prettily. Then she laughed and broke away. - -"Mother has had seventeen partridges sent her as presents this week, -and she wants you to help her eat them, and father's offered a bargain -in some good Beaujolais, and won't decide until you tell him what you -think of it." - -Deftly she set out the meal, and drew a chair to the table. Angelo -Fardetti rose. - -"That I should love you all," said he simply, "is only human, but that -you should so much love me is more than I can understand." - -You see, he knew that watchful ears had missed his usual outgoing -footsteps, and that watchful hearts had divined the reason. To refuse, -to hesitate, would be to reject love. So there was no more to be said. -He sat down meekly, and Sonia ministered to his wants. As soon as she -saw that he was making headway with the partridge and the burgundy, she -too sat by the table. - -"Godfather," she said, "I've had splendid news this morning." - -"Geoffrey?" - -"Of course. What other news could be splendid? His Symphony in E flat -is going to be given at the Queen's Hall." - -"That is indeed beautiful news," said the old man, laying down knife -and fork, "but I did not know that he had written a Symphony in E flat." - -"That was why he went and buried himself for months in Cornwall--to -finish it," she explained. - -"I knew nothing about it. Aie! aie!" he sighed. "It is to you, and -no longer to me, that he tells things." - -"You silly, jealous old dear!" she laughed. "He _had_ to account for -deserting me all the summer. But as to what it's all about, I'm as -ignorant as you are. I've not heard a note of it. Sometimes Geoff is -like that, you know. If he's dead certain sure of himself, he won't -have any criticism or opinions while the work's in progress. It's only -when he's doubtful that he brings one in. And the doubtful things are -never anything like the certain ones. You must have noticed it." - -"That is true," said Angelo Fardetti, taking up knife and fork again. -"He was like that since he was a boy." - -"It is going to be given on Saturday fortnight. He'll conduct himself. -They've got a splendid programme to send him off. Lembrich's going to -play, and Carli's going to sing--just for his sake. Isn't it gorgeous?" - -"It is grand. But what does Geoffrey say about it? Come, come, after -all he is not the sphinx." He drummed his fingers impatiently on the -table. - -"Would you really like to know?" - -"I am waiting." - -"He says it's going to knock 'em!" she laughed. - -"Knock 'em?" - -"Those were his words." - -"But----" - -She interpreted into purer English. Geoffrey was confident that his -symphony would achieve a sensational success. - -"In the meanwhile," said she, "if you don't finish your partridge -you'll break mother's heart." - -She poured out a glass of burgundy, which the old man drank; but he -refused the food. - -"No, no," he said, "I cannot eat more. I have a lump there--in my -throat. I am too excited. I feel that he is marching to his great -triumph. My little Geoffrey." He rose, knocking his chair over, and -strode about the confined space. "_Sacramento_! But I am a wicked old -man. I was sorrowful because I was so dull, so stupid that I could not -write a sonata. I blamed the good God. _Mea maxima culpa_. And at -once he sends me a partridge in a halo of love, and the news of my dear -son's glory----" - -Sonia stopped him, her plump hands on the front of his old corrugated -frock-coat. - -"And your glory, too, dear godfather. If it hadn't been for you, where -would Geoffrey be? And who realises it more than Geoffrey? Would you -like to see a bit of his letter? Only a little bit--for there's a lot -of rubbish in it that I would be ashamed of anybody who thinks well of -him to read--but just a little bit." - -Her hand was at the broad belt joining blouse and skirt. Angelo, -towering above her, smiled with an old man's tenderness at the laughing -love in her dark eyes, and at the happiness in her young, comely face. -Her features were generous, and her mouth frankly large, but her lips -were fresh and her teeth white and even, and to the old fellow she -looked all that man could dream of the virginal mother-to-be of great -sons. She fished the letter from her belt, scanned and folded it -carefully. - -"There! Read." - -And Angelo Fardetti read: - -"I've learned my theory and technique, and God knows what--things that -only they could teach me--from professors with world-famous names. But -for real inspiration, for the fount of music itself, I come back all -the time to our dear old _maestro_, Angelo Fardetti. I can't for the -life of me define what it is, but he opened for me a secret chamber -behind whose concealed door all these illustrious chaps have walked -unsuspectingly. It seems silly to say it because, beyond a few odds -and ends, the dear old man has composed nothing, but I am convinced -that I owe the essentials of everything I do in music to his teaching -and influence." - -Angelo gave her back the folded letter without a word, and turned and -stood again by the window, staring unseeingly at the prim, -semi-detached villas opposite. Sonia, having re-hidden her treasure, -stole up to him. Feeling her near, he stretched out a hand and laid it -on her head. - -"God is very wonderful," said he--"very mysterious. Oh, and so good!" - -He fumbled, absently and foolishly, with her well-ordered hair, saying -nothing more. After a while she freed herself gently and led him back -to his partridge. - -A day or two afterwards Geoffrey came to Peckham, and mounted with -Sonia to Fardetti's rooms, where the old man embraced him tenderly, and -expressed his joy in the exuberant foreign way. Geoffrey received the -welcome with an Englishman's laughing embarrassment. Perhaps the only -fault that Angelo Fardetti could find in the beloved pupil was his -uncompromising English manner and appearance. His well-set figure and -crisp, short fair hair and fair moustache did not sufficiently express -him as a great musician. Angelo had to content himself with the lad's -eyes--musician's eyes, as he said, very bright, arresting, dark blue, -with depths like sapphires, in which lay strange thoughts and human -laughter. - -"I've only run in, dear old _maestro_, to pass the time of day with -you, and to give you a ticket for my Queen's Hall show. You'll come, -won't you?" - -"He asks if I will come! I would get out of my coffin and walk through -the streets!" - -"I think you'll be pleased," said Geoffrey. "I've been goodness knows -how long over it, and I've put into it all I know. If it doesn't come -off, I'll----" - -He paused. - -"You will commit no rashness," cried the old man in alarm. - -"I will. I'll marry Sonia the very next day!" - -There was laughing talk, and the three spent a happy little quarter of -an hour. But Geoffrey went away without giving either of the others an -inkling of the nature of his famous symphony. It was Geoffrey's way. - -The fateful afternoon arrived. Angelo Fardetti, sitting in the stalls -of the Queen's Hall with Sonia and her parents, looked round the great -auditorium, and thrilled with pleasure at seeing it full. London had -thronged to hear the first performance of his beloved's symphony. As a -matter of fact, London had also come to hear the wonderful orchestra -give Tchaikowsky's Fourth Symphony, and to hear Lembrich play the -violin and Carli sing, which they did once in a blue moon at a symphony -concert. But in the old man's eyes these ineffectual fires paled -before Geoffrey's genius. So great was his suspense and agitation that -he could pay but scant attention to the first two items on the -programme. It seemed almost like unmeaning music, far away. - -During the interval before the Symphony in E flat his thin hand found -Sonia's, and held it tight, and she returned the pressure. She, too, -was sick with anxiety. The great orchestra, tier upon tier, was -a-flutter with the performers scrambling into their places, and with -leaves of scores being turned over, and with a myriad moving bows. -Then all having settled into the order of a vast machine, Geoffrey -appeared at the conductor's stand. Comforting applause greeted him. -Was he not the rising hope of English music? Many others beside those -four to whom he was dear, and the mother and father who sat a little -way in front of them, felt the same nervous apprehension. The future -of English music was at stake. Would it be yet one more disappointment -and disillusion, or would it rank the young English composer with the -immortals? Geoffrey bowed smilingly at the audience, turned and with -his baton gave the signal to begin. - -Although only a few years have passed since that memorable first -performance, the modestly named Symphony in E flat is now famous and -Geoffrey Chase is a great man the wide world over. To every lover of -music the symphony is familiar. But only those who were present at the -Queen's Hall on that late October afternoon can realise the wild -rapture of enthusiasm with which the symphony was greeted. It answered -all longings, solved all mysteries. It interpreted, for all who had -ears to hear, the fairy dew of love, the burning depths of passion, -sorrow and death, and the eternal Triumph of Life. Intensely modern -and faultless in technique, it was new, unexpected, individual, -unrelated to any school. - -The scene was one of raging tumult; but there was one human being who -did not applaud, and that was the old musician, forgotten of the world, -Angelo Fardetti. He had fainted. - -All through the piece he had sat, bolt upright, his nerves strung to -breaking-point, his dark cheeks growing greyer and greyer, and the -stare in his eyes growing more and more strange, and the grip on the -girl's hand growing more and more vice-like, until she, for sheer -agony, had to free herself. And none concerned themselves about him; -not even Sonia, for she was enwrapped in the soul of her lover's music. -And even between the movements her heart was too full for speech or -thought, and when she looked at the old man, she saw him smile wanly -and nod his head as one who, like herself, was speechless with emotion. -At the end the storm burst. She rose with the shouting, clapping, -hand- and handkerchief-waving house, and suddenly, missing him from her -side, glanced round and saw him huddled up unconscious in his stall. - -The noise and movement were so great that few noticed the long lean old -figure being carried out of the hall by one of the side doors -fortunately near. In the vestibule, attended by the good Anton and his -wife and Sonia, and a commissionaire, he recovered. When he could -speak, he looked round and said: - -"I am a silly old fellow. I am sorry I have spoiled your happiness. I -think I must be too old for happiness, for this is how it has treated -me." - -There was much discussion between his friends as to what should be -done, but good Mrs. Kirilov, once girlishly plump, when Angelo had -first known her, now florid and fat and motherly, had her way, and, -leaving Anton and Sonia to see the hero of the afternoon, if they -could, drove off in a cab to Peckham with the over-wrought old man and -put him to bed and gave him homely remedies, invalid food and drink, -and commanded him to sleep till morning. - -But Angelo Fardetti disobeyed her. For Sonia, although she had found -him meekly between the sheets when she went up to see him that evening, -heard him later, as she was going to bed--his sitting-room was -immediately above her--playing over, on muted strings, various themes -of Geoffrey's symphony. At last she went up to his room and put her -head in at the door, and saw him, a lank, dilapidated figure in an old, -old dressing-gown, fiddle and bow in hand. - -"Oh! oh!" she rated. "You are a naughty, naughty old dear. Go to bed -at once." - -He smiled like a guilty but spoiled child. "I will go," said he. - -In the morning she herself took up his simple breakfast and all the -newspapers folded at the page on which the notices of the concert were -printed. The Press was unanimous in acclamation of the great genius -that had raised English music to the spheres. She sat at the foot of -the bed and read to him while he sipped his coffee and munched his -roll, and, absorbed in her own tremendous happiness, was content to -feel the glow of the old man's sympathy. There was little to be said -save exclamatory pæans, so overwhelming was the triumph. Tears -streamed down his lined cheeks, and between the tears there shone the -light of a strange gladness in his eyes. Presently Sonia left him and -went about her household duties. An hour or so afterwards she caught -the sound of his piano; again he was recalling bits of the great -symphony, and she marvelled at his musical memory. Then about -half-past eleven she saw him leave the house and stride away, his head -in the air, his bent shoulders curiously erect. - -Soon came the clatter of a cab stopping at the front door, and Geoffrey -Chase, for whom she had been watching from her window, leaped out upon -the pavement. She ran down and admitted him. He caught her in his -arms and they stood clinging in a long embrace. - -"It's too wonderful to talk about," she whispered. - -"Then don't let us talk about it," he laughed. - -"As if we could help it! I can think of nothing else." - -"I can--you," said he, and kissed her again. - -Now, in spite of the spaciousness of the house in Formosa Terrace, it -had only two reception-rooms, as the house-agents grandiloquently term -them, and these, dining-room and drawing-room, were respectively -occupied by Anton and Mrs. Kirilov engaged in their morning lessons. -The passage where the young people stood was no fit place for lovers' -meetings. - -"Let us go up to the _maestro's_. He's out," said Sonia. - -They did as they had often done in like circumstances. Indeed, the old -man, before now, had given up his sitting-room to them, feigning an -unconquerable desire to walk abroad. Were they not his children, -dearer to him than anyone else in the world? So it was natural that -they should make themselves at home in his tiny den. They sat and -talked of the great victory, of the playing of the orchestra, of -passages that he might take slower or quicker next time, of the -ovation, of the mountain of congratulatory telegrams and letters that -blocked up his rooms. They talked of Angelo Fardetti and his deep -emotion and his pride. And they talked of the future, of their -marriage which was to take place very soon. She suggested postponement. - -"I want you to be quite sure. This must make a difference." - -"Difference!" he cried indignantly. - -She waved him off and sat on the music-stool by the piano. - -"I must speak sensibly. You are one of the great ones of the musical -world, one of the great ones of the world itself. You will go on and -on. You will have all sorts of honours heaped on you. You will go -about among lords and ladies, what is called Society--oh, I know, -you'll not be able to help it. And all the time I remain what I am, -just a poor little common girl, a member of a twopenny-halfpenny -ladies' band. I'd rather you regretted having taken up with me before -than after. So we ought to put it off." - -He answered her as a good man who loves deeply can only answer. Her -heart was convinced; but she turned her head aside and thought of -further argument. Her eye fell on some music open on the rest, and -mechanically, with a musician's instinct, she fingered a few bars. The -strange familiarity of the theme startled her out of preoccupation. -She continued the treble, and suddenly with a cold shiver of wonder, -crashed down both hands and played on. - -Geoffrey strode up to her. - -"What's that you're playing?" - -She pointed hastily to the score. He bent over and stared at the faded -manuscript. - -"Why, good God!" he cried, "it's my symphony." - -She stopped, swung round and faced him with fear in her eyes. - -"Yes. It's your symphony." - -He took the thick manuscript from the rest and looked at the -brown-paper cover. On it was written: - -"The Song of Life. A Sonata by Angelo Fardetti. September, 1878." - -There was an amazed silence. Then, in a queer accusing voice, Sonia -cried out: - -"Geoffrey, what have you done?" - -"Heaven knows; but I've never known of this before. My God! Open the -thing somewhere else and see." - -So Sonia opened the manuscript at random and played, and again it was -an echo of Geoffrey's symphony. He sank on a chair like a man crushed -by an overwhelming fatality, and held his head in his hands. - -"I oughtn't to have done it," he groaned. "But it was more than me. -The thing overmastered me, it haunted me so that I couldn't sleep, and -the more it haunted me the more it became my own, my very own. It was -too big to lose." - -Sonia held him with scared eyes. - -"What are you talking of?" she asked. - -"The way I came to write the Symphony. It's like a nightmare." He -rose. "A couple of years ago," said he, "I bought a bundle of old -music at a second-hand shop. It contained a collection of -eighteenth-century stuff which I wanted. I took the whole lot, and on -going through it, found a clump of old, discoloured manuscript partly -in faded brown ink, partly in pencil. It was mostly rough notes. I -tried it out of curiosity. The composition was feeble and the -orchestration childish--I thought it the work of some dead and -forgotten amateur--but it was crammed full of ideas, crammed full of -beauty. I began tinkering it about, to amuse myself. The more I -worked on it the more it fascinated me. It became an obsession. Then -I pitched the old score away and started it on my own." - -"The _maestro_ sold a lot of old music about that time," said Sonia. - -The young man threw up his hands. "It's a fatality, an awful fatality. -My God," he cried, "to think that I of all men should have stolen -Angelo Fardetti's music!" - -"No wonder he fainted yesterday," said Sonia. - -It was catastrophe. Both regarded it in remorseful silence. Sonia -said at last: - -"You'll have to explain." - -"Of course, of course. But what must the dear old fellow be thinking -of me? What else but that I've got hold of this surreptitiously, while -he was out of the room? What else but that I'm a mean thief?" - -"He loves you, dear, enough to forgive you anything." - -"It's the Unforgivable Sin. I'm wiped out. I cease to exist as an -honest man. But I had no idea," he cried, with the instinct of -self-defence, "that I had come so near him. I thought I had just got a -theme here and there. I thought I had recast all the odds and ends -according to my own scheme." He ran his eye over a page or two of the -score. "Yes, this is practically the same as the old rough notes. But -there was a lot, of course, I couldn't use. Look at that, for -instance." He indicated a passage. - -"I can't read it like you," said Sonia. "I must play it." - -She turned again to the piano, and played the thin, uninspired music -that had no relation to the Symphony in E flat, and her eyes filled -with tears as she remembered poignantly what the old man had told her -of his Song of Life. She went on and on until the music quickened into -one of the familiar themes; and the tears fell, for she knew how poorly -it was treated. - -And then the door burst open. Sonia stopped dead in the middle of a -bar, and they both turned round to find Angelo Fardetti standing on the -threshold. - -"Ah, no!" he cried, waving his thin hands. "Put that away. I did not -know I had left it out. You must not play that. Ah, my son! my son!" - -He rushed forward and clasped Geoffrey in his arms, and kissed him on -the cheeks, and murmured foolish, broken words. - -"You have seen it. You have seen the miracle. The miracle of the good -God. Oh, I am happy! My son, my son! I am the happiest of old men. -Ah!" He shook him tremulously by both shoulders, and looked at him -with a magical light in his old eyes. "You are really what our dear -Anton calls a prodigy. I have thought and you have executed. Santa -Maria!" he cried, raising hands and eyes to heaven. "I thank you for -this miracle that has been done!" - -He turned away. Geoffrey, in blank bewilderment, made a step forward. - -"_Maestro_, I never knew----" - -But Sonia, knowledge dawning in her face, clapped her hand over his -mouth--and he read her conjecture in her eyes, and drew a great breath. -The old man came again and laughed and cried and wrung his hand, and -poured out his joy and wonder into the amazed ears of the -conscience-stricken young musician. The floodgates of speech were -loosened. - -"You see what you have done, _figlio mio_. You see the miracle. -This--this poor rubbish is of me, Angelo Fardetti. On it I spent my -life, my blood, my tears, and it is a thing of nothing, nothing. It is -wind and noise; but by the miracle of God I breathed it into your -spirit and it grew--and it grew into all that I dreamed--all that I -dreamed and could not express. It is my Song of Life sung as I could -have sung it if I had been a great genius like you. And you have taken -my song from my soul, from my heart, and all the sublime harmonies that -could get no farther than this dull head you have put down in immortal -music." - -He went on exalted, and Sonia and Geoffrey stood pale and silent. To -undeceive him was impossible. - -"You see it is a miracle?" he asked. - -"Yes," replied Geoffrey in a low voice. - -"You never saw this before. Ha! ha!" he laughed delightedly. "Not a -human soul has seen it or heard it. I kept it locked up there, in my -little strong-box. And it was there all the time I was teaching you. -And you never suspected." - -"No, _maestro_, I did not," said the young man truthfully. - -"Now, when did you begin to think of it? How did it come to you--my -Song of Life? Did it sing in your brain while you were here and my -brain was guiding yours, and then gather form and shape all through the -long years?" - -"Yes," said Geoffrey. "That was how it came about." - -Angelo took Sonia's plump cheeks between his hands and smiled. "Now -you understand, my little Sonia, why I was so foolish yesterday. It -was emotion, such emotion as a man has never felt before in the world. -And now you know why I could not speak this morning. I thought of the -letter you showed me. He confessed that old Angelo Fardetti had -inspired him, but he did not know how. I know. The little spark flew -from the soul of Angelo Fardetti into his soul, and it became a Divine -Fire. And my Song of Life is true. The symphony was born in me--it -died in me--it is re-born so gloriously in him. The seed is -imperishable. It is eternal." - -He broke away, laughing through a little sob, and stood by the window, -once more gazing unseeingly at the opposite villas of Formosa Terrace. -Geoffrey went up to him and fell on his knees--it was a most un-English -thing to do--and took the old hand very reverently. - -"_Padre mio_," said he. - -"Yes, it is true. I am your father," said the old man in Italian, "and -we are bound together by more than human ties." He laid his hand on -the young man's head. "May all the blessings of God be upon you." - -Geoffrey rose, the humblest man in England. Angelo passed his hand -across his forehead, but his face bore a beautiful smile. - -"I feel so happy," said he. "So happy that it is terrible. And I feel -so strange. And my heart is full. If you will forgive me, I will lie -down for a little." He sank on the horse-hair sofa and smiled up in -the face of the young man. "And my head is full of the _andante_ -movement that I could never write, and you have made it like the -harmonies before the Throne of God. Sit down at the piano and play it -for me, my son." - -So Geoffrey took his seat at the piano, and played, and as he played, -he lost himself in his music. And Sonia crept near and stood by him in -a dream while the wonderful story of the passing of human things was -told. When the sound of the last chords had died away she put her arms -round Geoffrey's neck and laid her cheek against his. For a while time -stood still. Then they turned and saw the old man sleeping peacefully. -She whispered a word, he rose, and they began to tiptoe out of the -room. But suddenly instinct caused Sonia to turn her head again. She -stopped and gripped Geoffrey's hand. She caught a choking breath. - -"Is he asleep?" - -They went back and bent over him. He was dead. - -Angelo Fardetti had died of a happiness too great for mortal man. For -to which one of us in a hundred million is it given to behold the utter -realisation of his life's dream? - - - - -LADIES IN LAVENDER - -I - -As soon as the sun rose out of the sea its light streamed through a -white-curtained casement window into the whitest and most spotless room -you can imagine. It shone upon two little white beds, separated by the -width of the floor covered with straw-coloured matting; on white -garments neatly folded which lay on white chairs by the side of each -bed; on a white enamelled bedroom suite; on the one picture (over the -mantel-piece) which adorned the white walls, the enlarged photograph of -a white-whiskered, elderly gentleman in naval uniform; and on the -white, placid faces of the sleepers. - -It awakened Miss Ursula Widdington, who sat up in bed, greeted it with -a smile, and forthwith aroused her sister. - -"Janet, here's the sun." - -Miss Widdington awoke and smiled too. - -Now to awake at daybreak with a smile and a childlike delight at the -sun when you are over forty-five is a sign of an unruffled conscience -and a sweet disposition. - -"The first glimpse of it for a week," said Miss Widdington. - -"Isn't it strange," said Miss Ursula, "that when we went to sleep the -storm was still raging?" - -"And now--the sea hasn't gone down yet. Listen." - -"The tide's coming in. Let us go out and look at it," cried Miss -Ursula, delicately getting out of bed. - -"You're so impulsive, Ursula," said Miss Widdington. - -She was forty-eight, and three years older than her sister. She could, -therefore, smile indulgently at the impetuosity of youth. But she rose -and dressed, and presently the two ladies stole out of the silent house. - -They had lived there for many years, perched away on top of a -projecting cliff on the Cornish coast, midway between sea and sky, like -two fairy princesses in an enchanted bit of the world's end, who had -grown grey with waiting for the prince who never came. Theirs was the -only house on the wind-swept height. Below in the bay on the right of -their small headland nestled the tiny fishing village of Trevannic; -below, sheer down to the left, lay a little sandy cove, accessible -farther on by a narrow gorge that split the majestic stretch of -bastioned cliffs. To that little stone weatherbeaten house their -father, the white-whiskered gentleman of the portrait, had brought them -quite young when he had retired from the navy with a pension and a -grievance--an ungrateful country had not made him an admiral--and -there, after his death, they had continued to lead their remote and -gentle lives, untouched by the happenings of the great world. - -The salt-laden wind buffeted them, dashed strands of hair stingingly -across their faces and swirled their skirts around them as they leaned -over the stout stone parapet their father had built along the edge of -the cliff, and drank in the beauty of the morning. The eastern sky was -clear of clouds and the eastern sea tossed a fierce silver under the -sun and gradually deepened into frosted green, which changed in the -west into the deep ocean blue; and the Atlantic heaved and sobbed after -its turmoil of the day before. Miss Ursula pointed to the gilt-edged -clouds in the west and likened them to angels' thrones, which was a -pretty conceit. Miss Widdington derived a suggestion of Pentecostal -flames from the golden flashes of the sea-gulls' wings. Then she -referred to the appetite they would have for breakfast. To this last -observation Miss Ursula did not reply, as she was leaning over the -parapet intent on something in the cove below. Presently she clutched -her sister's arm. - -"Janet, look down there--that black thing--what is it?" - -Miss Widdington's gaze followed the pointing finger. - -At the foot of the rocks that edged the gorge sprawled a thing -checkered black and white. - -"I do believe it's a man!" - -"A drowned man! Oh, poor fellow! Oh, Janet, how dreadful!" - -She turned brown, compassionate eyes on her sister, who continued to -peer keenly at the helpless figure below. - -"Do you think he's dead, Janet?" - -"The sensible thing would be to go down and see," replied Miss -Widdington. - -It was by no means the first dead man cast up by the waves that they -had stumbled upon during their long sojourn on this wild coast, where -wrecks and founderings and loss of men's lives at sea were commonplace -happenings. They were dealing with the sadly familiar; and though -their gentle hearts throbbed hard as they made for the gorge and sped -quickly down the ragged, rocky path, they set about their task as a -matter of course. - -Miss Ursula reached the sand first, and walked over to the body which -lay on a low shelf of rock. Then she turned with a glad cry. - -"Janet. He's alive. He's moaning. Come quickly." And, as Janet -joined her: "Did you ever see such a beautiful face in your life?" - -"We should have brought some brandy," said Miss Widdington. - -But, as she bent over the unconscious form, a foolish moisture gathered -in her eyes which had nothing to do with forgetfulness of alcohol. For -indeed there lay sprawling anyhow in catlike grace beneath them the -most romantic figure of a youth that the sight of maiden ladies ever -rested on. He had long black hair, a perfectly chiselled face, a -preposterously feminine mouth which, partly open, showed white young -teeth, and the most delicate, long-fingered hands in the world. Miss -Ursula murmured that he was like a young Greek god. Miss Widdington -sighed. The fellow was ridiculous. He was also dank with sea water, -and moaned as if he were in pain. But as gazing wrapt in wonder and -admiration at young Greek gods is not much good to them when they are -half-drowned, Miss Widdington despatched her sister in search of help. - -"The tide is still low enough for you to get round the cliff to the -village. Mrs. Pendered will give you some brandy, and her husband and -Luke will bring a stretcher. You might also send Joe Gullow on his -bicycle for Dr. Mead." - -Miss Widdington, as behoved one who has the charge of an orphaned -younger sister, did not allow the sentimental to weaken the practical. -Miss Ursula, though she would have preferred to stay by the side of the -beautiful youth, was docile, and went forthwith on her errand. Miss -Widdington, left alone with him, rolled up her jacket and pillowed his -head on it, brought his limbs into an attitude suggestive of comfort, -and tried by chafing to restore him to animation. Being unsuccessful -in this, she at last desisted, and sat on the rocks near by and -wondered who on earth he was and where in the world he came from. His -garments consisted in a nondescript pair of trousers and a flannel -shirt with a collar, which was fastened at the neck, not by button or -stud, but by a tasselled cord; and he was barefoot. Miss Widdington -glanced modestly at his feet, which were shapely; and the soles were -soft and pink like the palms of his hands. Now, had he been the -coarsest and most callosity-stricken shell-back half-alive, Janet -Widdington would have tended him with the same devotion; but the -lingering though unoffending Eve in her rejoiced that hands and feet -betokened gentler avocations than that of sailor or fisherman. And -why? Heaven knows, save that the stranded creature had a pretty face -and that his long black hair was flung over his forehead in a most -interesting manner. She wished he would open his eyes. But as he kept -them shut and gave no sign of returning consciousness, she sat there -waiting patiently; in front of her the rough, sun-kissed Atlantic, at -her feet the semicircular patch of golden sand, behind her the sheer -white cliffs, and by her side on the slab of rock this good-looking -piece of jetsam. - -At length Miss Ursula appeared round the corner of the headland, -followed by Jan Pendered and his son Luke carrying a stretcher. While -Miss Widdington administered brandy without any obvious result, the men -looked at the castaway, scratched their heads, and guessed him to be a -foreigner; but how he managed to be there alone with never a bit of -wreckage to supply a clue surpassed their powers of imagination. In -lifting him the right foot hung down through the trouser-leg, and his -ankle was seen to be horribly black and swollen. Old Jan examined it -carefully. - -"Broken," said he. - -"Oh, poor boy, that's why he's moaning so," cried the compassionate -Miss Ursula. - -The men grasped the handles of the stretcher. - -"I'd better take him home to my old woman," said Jan Pendered -thoughtfully. - -"He can have my bed, father," said Luke. - -Miss Widdington looked at Miss Ursula and Miss Ursula looked at Miss -Widdington, and the eyes of each lady were wistful. Then Miss -Widdington spoke. - -"You can carry him up to the house, Pendered. We have a comfortable -spare room, and Dorcas will help us to look after him." - -The men obeyed, for in Trevannic Miss Widdington's gentle word was law. - - - -II - -It was early afternoon. Miss Widdington had retired to take her -customary after-luncheon siesta, an indulgence permitted to her -seniority, but not granted, except on rare occasions, to the young. -Miss Ursula, therefore, kept watch in the sick chamber, just such a -little white spotless room as their own, but containing only one little -white bed in which the youth lay dry and warm and comfortably asleep. -He was exhausted from cold and exposure, said the doctor who had driven -in from St. Madoc, eight miles off, and his ankle was broken. The -doctor had done what was necessary, had swathed him in one of old -Dorcas's flannel nightgowns, and had departed. Miss Ursula had the -patient all to herself. A bright fire burned in the grate, and the -strong Atlantic breeze came in through the open window where she sat, -her knitting in her hand. Now and then she glanced at the sleeper, -longing, in a most feminine manner, for him to awake and render an -account of himself. Miss Ursula's heart fluttered mildly. For -beautiful youths, baffling curiosity, are not washed up alive by the -sea at an old maid's feet every day in the week. It was indeed an -adventure, a bit of a fairy tale suddenly gleaming and dancing in the -grey atmosphere of an eventless life. She glanced at him again, and -wondered whether he had a mother. Presently Dorcas came in, stout and -matronly, and cast a maternal eye on the boy and smoothed his pillow. -She had sons herself, and two of them had been claimed by the pitiless -sea. - -"It's lucky I had a sensible nightgown to give him," she remarked. "If -we had had only the flimsy things that you and Miss Janet wear----" - -"Sh!" said Miss Ursula, colouring faintly; "he might hear you." - -Dorcas laughed and went out. Miss Ursula's needles clicked rapidly. -When she glanced at the bed again she became conscious of two great -dark eyes regarding her in utter wonder. She rose quickly and went -over to the bed. - -"Don't be afraid," she said, though what there was to terrify him in -her mild demeanour and the spotless room she could not have explained; -"don't be afraid, you're among friends." - -He murmured some words which she did not catch. - -"What do you say?" she asked sweetly. - -He repeated them in a stronger voice. Then she realised that he spoke -in a foreign tongue. A queer dismay filled her. - -"Don't you speak English?" - -He looked at her for a moment, puzzled. Then the echo of the last word -seemed to reach his intelligence. He shook his head. A memory rose -from schoolgirl days. - -"_Parlez-vous français?_" she faltered; and when he shook his head -again she almost felt relieved. Then he began to talk, regarding her -earnestly, as if seeking by his mere intentness to make her understand. -But it was a strange language which she had not heard before. - -In one mighty effort Miss Ursula gathered together her whole stock of -German. - -"_Sprechen Sie deutsch?_" - -"_Ach ja! Einige Worte,_" he replied, and his face lit up with a smile -so radiant that Miss Ursula wondered how Providence could have -neglected to inspire a being so beautiful with a knowledge of the -English language, "_Ich kann mich auf deutsch verständlich machen, aber -ich bin polnisch_." - -But not a word of the halting sentence could Miss Ursula make out; even -the last was swallowed up in guttural unintelligibility. She only -recognised the speech as German and different from that which he used -at first, and which seemed to be his native tongue. - -"Oh, dear, I must give it up," she sighed. - -The patient moved slightly and uttered a sudden cry of pain. It -occurred to Miss Ursula that he had not had time to realise the -fractured ankle. That he realised it now was obvious, for he lay back -with closed eyes and white lips until the spasm had passed. After that -Miss Ursula did her best to explain in pantomime what had happened. -She made a gesture of swimming, then laid her cheek on her hand and -simulated fainting, acted her discovery of his body on the beach, broke -a wooden match in two and pointed to his ankle, exhibited the medicine -bottles by the bedside, smoothed his pillow, and smiled so as to assure -him of kind treatment. He understood, more or less, murmured thanks in -his own language, took her hand, and to her English woman's -astonishment, pressed it to his lips. Miss Widdington, entering -softly, found the pair in this romantic situation. - -When it dawned on him a while later that he owed his deliverance -equally to both of the gentle ladies, he kissed Miss Widdington's hand -too. Whereupon Miss Ursula coloured and turned away. She did not like -to see him kiss her sister's hand. Why, she could not tell, but she -felt as if she had received a tiny stab in the heart. - - - -III - -Providence has showered many blessings on Trevannic, but among them is -not the gift of tongues. Dr. Mead, who came over every day from St. -Madoc, knew less German than the ladies. It was impossible to -communicate with the boy except by signs. Old Jan Pendered, who had -served in the navy in the China seas, felt confident that he could make -him understand, and tried him with pidgin-English. But the youth only -smiled sweetly and shook hands with him, whereupon old Jan scratched -his head and acknowledged himself jiggered. To Miss Widdington, at -last, came the inspiration that the oft-repeated word "_Polnisch_" -meant Polish. - -"You come from Poland?" - -"_Aus Polen, ya_," laughed the boy. - -"Kosciusko," murmured Miss Ursula. - -He laughed again, delighted, and looked at her eagerly for more; but -there Miss Ursula's conversation about Poland ended. If the discovery -of his nationality lay to the credit of her sister, she it was who -found out his name, Andrea Marowski, and taught him to say: "Miss -Ursula." She also taught him the English names of the various objects -around him. And here the innocent rivalry of the two ladies began to -take definite form. Miss Widdington, without taking counsel of Miss -Ursula, borrowed an old Otto's German grammar from the girls' school at -St. Madoc, and, by means of patient research, put to him such questions -as: "Have you a mother?" "How old are you?" and, collating his written -replies with the information vouchsafed by the grammar, succeeded in -discovering, among other biographical facts, that he was alone in the -world, save for an old uncle who lived in Cracow, and that he was -twenty years of age. So that when Miss Ursula boasted that she had -taught him to say: "Good morning. How do you do?" Miss Widdington -could cry with an air of triumph: "He told me that he doesn't suffer -from toothache." - -It was one of the curious features of the ministrations which they -afforded Mr. Andrea Marowski alternately, that Miss Ursula would have -nothing whatever to do with Otto's German grammar and Miss Widdington -scorned the use of English and made as little use of sign language as -possible. - -"I don't think it becoming, Ursula," she said, "to indicate hunger by -opening your mouth and rubbing the front of your waist, like a -cannibal." - -Miss Ursula accepted the rebuke meekly, for she never returned a pert -answer to her senior; but reflecting that Janet's disapproval might -possibly arise from her want of skill in the art of pantomime, she went -away comforted and continued her unbecoming practices. The -conversations, however, that the ladies, each in her own way, managed -to have with the invalid, were sadly limited in scope. No means that -they could devise could bring them enlightenment on many interesting -points. Who he was, whether noble or peasant, how he came to be lying -like a jellyfish on the slab of rock in their cove, coatless and -barefoot, remained as great a puzzle as ever. Of course he informed -them, especially the grammar-equipped Miss Widdington, over and over -again in his execrable German; but they grew no wiser, and at last they -abandoned in despair their attempts to solve these mysteries. They -contented themselves with the actual, which indeed was enough to absorb -their simple minds. There he was cast up by the sea or fallen from the -moon, young, gay, and helpless, a veritable gift of the gods. The very -mystery of his adventure invested him with a curious charm; and then -the prodigious appetite with which he began to devour fish and eggs and -chickens formed of itself a joy hitherto undreamed of in their -philosophy. - -"When he gets up he must have some clothes," said Miss Widdington. - -Miss Ursula agreed; but did not say that she was knitting him socks in -secret. Andrea's interest in the progress of these garments was one of -her chief delights. - -"There's the trunk upstairs with our dear father's things," said Miss -Widdington with more diffidence than usual. "They are so sacred to us -that I was wondering---- - -"Our dear father would be the first to wish it," said Miss Ursula. - -"It's a Christian's duty to clothe the naked," said Miss Widdington. - -"And so we must clothe him in what we've got," said Miss Ursula. Then -with a slight flush she added: "It's so many years since our great loss -that I've almost forgotten what a man wears." - -"I haven't," said Miss Widdington. "I think I ought to tell you, -Ursula," she continued, after pausing to put sugar and milk into the -cup of tea which she handed to her sister--they were at the breakfast -table, at the head of which she formally presided, as she had done -since her emancipation from the schoolroom--"I think I ought to tell -you that I have decided to devote my twenty-five pounds to buying him -an outfit. Our dear father's things can only be a makeshift--and the -poor boy hasn't a penny in the pockets he came ashore in." - -Now, some three years before, an aunt had bequeathed Miss Widdington a -tiny legacy, the disposal of which had been a continuous subject of -grave discussion between the sisters. She always alluded to it as "my -twenty-five pounds." - -"Is that quite fair, dear?" said Miss Ursula impulsively. - -"Fair? Do you mind explaining?" - -Miss Ursula regretted her impetuosity. "Don't you think, dear Janet," -she said with some nervousness, "that it would lay him under too great -an obligation to you personally? I should prefer to take the money our -of out joint income. We both are responsible for him and," she added -with a timid smile, "I found him first." - -"I don't see what that has to do with it," Miss Widdington retorted -with a quite unusual touch of acidity. "But if you feel strongly about -it, I am willing to withdraw my five-and-twenty pounds." - -"You're not angry with me, Janet?" - -"Angry? Of course not," Miss Widdington replied freezingly. "Don't be -silly. And why aren't you eating your bacon?" - -This was the first shadow of dissension that had arisen between them -since their childhood. On the way to the sick-room, Miss Ursula shed a -few tears over Janet's hectoring ways, and Miss Widdington, in pursuit -of her housekeeping duties, made Dorcas the scapegoat for Ursula's -unreasonableness. Before luncheon time they kissed with mutual -apologies; but the spirit of rivalry was by no means quenched. - - - -IV - -One afternoon Miss Janet had an inspiration. - -"If I played the piano in the drawing-room with the windows open you -could hear it in the spare room quite plainly." - -"If you think it would disturb Mr. Andrea," said Miss Ursula, "you -might shut the windows." - -"I was proposing to offer him a distraction, dear," said Miss -Widdington. "These foreign gentlemen are generally fond of music." - -Miss Ursula could raise no objection, but her heart sank. She could -not play the piano. - -She took her seat cheerfully, however, by the bed, which had been -wheeled up to the window, so that the patient could look out on the -glory of sky and sea, took her knitting from a drawer and began to turn -the heel of one of the sacred socks. Andrea watched her lazily and -contentedly. Perhaps he had never seen two such soft-treaded, -soft-fingered ladies in lavender in his life. He often tried to give -some expression to his gratitude, and the hand-kissing had become a -thrice daily custom. For Miss Widdington he had written the word -"Engel," which the vocabulary at the end of Otto's German grammar -rendered as "Angel"; whereat she had blushed quite prettily. For Miss -Ursula he had drawn, very badly, but still unmistakably, the picture of -a winged denizen of Paradise, and she, too, had treasured the -compliment; she also treasured the drawing. Now, Miss Ursula held up -the knitting, which began distinctly to indicate the shape of a sock, -and smiled. Andrea smiled, too, and blew her a kiss with his fingers. -He had many graceful foreign gestures. The doctor, who was a plain, -bullet-headed Briton, disapproved of Andrea and expressed to Dorcas his -opinion that the next things to be washed ashore would be the young -man's monkey and organ. This was sheer prejudice, for Andrea's manners -were unexceptionable, and his smile, in the eyes of his hostesses, the -most attractive thing in the world. - -"Heel," said Miss Ursula. - -"'Eel," repeated Andrea. - -"Wool," said Miss Ursula. - -"Vool," said Andrea. - -"No--wo-o," said Miss Ursula, puffing out her lips so as to accentuate -the "w." - -"Wo-o," said Andrea, doing the same. And then they both burst out -laughing. They were enjoying themselves mightily. - -Then, from the drawing-room below, came the tinkling sound of the old -untuned piano which had remained unopened for many years. It was the -"Spring Song" of Mendelssohn, played, schoolgirl fashion, with -uncertain fingers that now and then struck false notes. The light died -away from Andrea's face, and he looked inquiringly, if not wonderingly, -at Miss Ursula. She smiled encouragement, pointed first at the floor, -and then at him, thereby indicating that the music was for his benefit. -For awhile he remained quite patient. At last he clapped his hands on -his ears, and, his features distorted with pain, cried out: - -"_Nein, nein, nein, das lieb' ich nicht! Es ist hässlich!_" - -In eager pantomime he besought her to stop the entertainment. Miss -Ursula went downstairs, hating to hurt her sister's feelings, yet -unable to crush a wicked, unregenerate feeling of pleasure. - -"I am so sorry, dear Janet," she said, laying her hand on her sister's -arm, "but he doesn't like music. It's astonishing, his dislike. It -makes him quite violent." - -Miss Widdington ceased playing and accompanied her sister upstairs. -Andrea, with an expressive shrug of the shoulders, reached out his two -hands to the musician and, taking hers, kissed her finger-tips. Miss -Widdington consulted Otto. - -"_Lieben Sie nicht Musik?_" - -"_Ja wohl_," he cried, and, laughing, played an imaginary fiddle. - -"He _does_ like music," cried Miss Widdington. "How can you make such -silly mistakes, Ursula? Only he prefers the violin." - -Miss Ursula grew downcast for a moment; then she brightened. A -brilliant idea occurred to her. - -"Adam Penruddocke. He has a fiddle. We can ask him to come up after -tea and play to us." - -She reassured Andrea in her queer sign-language, and later in the -afternoon Adam Penruddocke, a sheepish giant of a fisherman, was shown -into the room. He bowed to the ladies, shook the long white hand -proffered him by the beautiful youth, tuned up, and played "The -Carnival of Venice" from start to finish. Andrea regarded him with -mischievous, laughing eyes, and at the end he applauded vigorously. - -Miss Widdington turned to her sister. - -"I knew he liked music," she said. - -"Shall I play something else, sir?" asked Penruddocke. - -Andrea, guessing his meaning, beckoned him to approach the bed, and -took the violin and bow from his hands. He looked at the instrument -critically, smiled to himself, tuned it afresh, and with an air of -intense happiness drew the bow across the strings. - -"Why, he can play it!" cried Miss Ursula. - -Andrea laughed and nodded, and played a bit of "The Carnival of Venice" -as it ought to be played, with gaiety and mischief. Then he broke off, -and after two or three tearing chords that made his hearers start, -plunged into a wild czardas. The ladies looked at him in open-mouthed -astonishment as the mad music such as they had never heard in their -lives before filled the little room with its riot and devilry. -Penruddocke stood and panted, his eyes staring out of his head. When -Andrea had finished there was a bewildered silence. He nodded -pleasantly at his audience, delighted at the effect he had produced. -Then, with an artist's malice, he went to the other extreme of emotion. -He played a sobbing folk-song, rending the heart with cries of woe and -desolation and broken hopes. It clutched at the heart-strings, turning -them into vibrating chords; it pierced the soul with its poignant -despair; it ended in a long-drawn-out note high up in the treble, whose -pain became intolerable; and the end was greeted with a sharp gasp of -relief. The white lips of the ruddy giant quivered. Tears streamed -down the cheeks of Miss Widdington and Miss Ursula. Again there was -silence, but this time it was broken by a clear, shrill voice outside. - -"Encore! Encore!" - -The sisters looked at one another. Who had dared intrude at such a -moment? Miss Widdington went to the window to see. - -In the garden stood a young woman of independent bearing, with a -pallette and brushes in her hand. An easel was pitched a few yards -beyond the gate. Miss Widdington regarded this young woman with marked -disfavour. The girl calmly raised her eyes. - -"I apologise for trespassing like this," she said, "but I simply -couldn't resist coming nearer to this marvellous violin-playing--and my -exclamation came out almost unconsciously." - -"You are quite welcome to listen," said Miss Widdington stiffly. - -"May I ask who is playing it?" - -Miss Widdington almost gasped at the girl's impertinence. The latter -laughed frankly. - -"I ask because it seems as if it could only be one of the big, -well-known people." - -"It's a young friend who is staying with us," said Miss Widdington. - -"I beg your pardon," said the girl. "But, you see my brother is Boris -Danilof, the violinist, so I've that excuse for being interested." - -"I don't think Mr. Andrea can play any more to-day," said Miss Ursula -from her seat by the bed. "He's tired." - -Miss Widdington repeated this information to Miss Danilof, who bade her -good afternoon and withdrew to her easel. - -"A most forward, objectionable girl," exclaimed Miss Widdington. "And -who is Boris Danilof, I should like to know?" - -If she had but understood German, Andrea could have told her. He -caught at the name of the world-famous violinist and bent eagerly -forward in great excitement. - -"Boris Danilof? _Ist er unten_?" - -"_Nicht_--I mean _Nein_," replied Miss Widdington, proud at not having -to consult Otto. - -Andrea sank back disappointed, on his pillow. - - - -V - -However much Miss Widdington disapproved of the young woman, and -however little the sisters knew of Boris Danilof, it was obvious that -they were harbouring a remarkable violinist. That even the -bullet-headed doctor, who had played the double bass in his Hospital -Orchestral Society and was, therefore, an authority, freely admitted. -It gave the romantic youth a new and somewhat awe-inspiring value in -the eyes of the ladies. He was a genius, said Miss Ursula--and her -imagination became touched by the magic of the word. As he grew -stronger he played more. His fame spread through the village and he -gave recitals to crowded audiences--as many fisher-folk as could be -squeezed into the little bedroom, and more standing in the garden -below. Miss Danilof did not come again. The ladies learned that she -was staying in the next village, Polwern, two or three miles off. In -their joy at Andrea's recovery they forgot her existence. - -Happy days came when he could rise from bed and hobble about on a -crutch, attired in the quaint garments of Captain Widdington, R.N., who -had died twenty years before, at the age of seventy-three. They added -to his romantic appearance, giving him the air of the _jeune premier_ -in costume drama. There was a blue waistcoat with gilt buttons, -calculated to win any feminine approval. The ladies admired him -vastly. Conversation was still difficult, as Miss Ursula had succeeded -in teaching him very little English, and Miss Widdington, after a -desperate grapple with Otto on her own account, had given up the German -language in despair. But what matters the tongue when the heart -speaks? And the hearts of Miss Widdington and Miss Ursula spoke; -delicately, timidly, tremulously, in the whisper of an evening breeze, -in undertones, it is true--yet they spoke all the same. The first -walks on the heather of their cliff in the pure spring sunshine were -rare joys. As they had done with their watches by his bedside, they -took it in turns to walk with him; and each in her turn of solitude -felt little pricklings of jealousy. But as each had instituted with -him her own particular dainty relations and confidences--Miss -Widdington more maternal, Miss Ursula more sisterly--to which his -artistic nature responded involuntarily, each felt sure that she was -the one who had gained his especial affection. - -Thus they wove their gossamer webs of romance in the secret recess of -their souls. What they hoped for was as dim and vague as their concept -of heaven, and as pure. They looked only at the near future--a circle -of light encompassed by mists; but in the circle stood ever the beloved -figure. They could not imagine him out of it. He would stay with -them, irradiating their lives with his youth and his gaiety, playing to -them his divine music, kissing their hands, until he grew quite strong -and well again. And that was a long, long way off. Meanwhile life was -a perpetual spring. Why should it ever end? - -One afternoon they sat in the sunny garden, the ladies busy with -needlework, and Andrea playing snatches of dreamy things on the violin. -The dainty remains of tea stood on a table, and the young man's crutch -rested against it. Presently he began to play Tschaikowsky's "Chanson -Triste." Miss Ursula, looking up, saw a girl of plain face and -independent bearing standing by the gate. - -"Who is that, Janet?" she whispered. - -Miss Janet glanced round. - -"It is the impertinent young woman who was listening the other day." - -Andrea followed their glances, and, perceiving a third listener, half -consciously played to her. When the piece was finished the girl slowly -walked away. - -"I know it's wrong and unchristianlike," said Miss Widdington, "but I -dislike that girl intensely." - -"So do I," said Miss Ursula. Then she laughed. "She looks like the -wicked fairy in a story-book." - - - -VI - -The time came when he threw aside his crutch and flew, laughing, away -beyond their control. This they did not mind, for he always came back -and accompanied them on their wild rambles. He now resembled the -ordinary young man of the day as nearly as the St. Madoc tailors and -hosiers could contrive; and the astonishing fellow, with his cameo face -and his hyacinthine locks, still looked picturesque. - -One morning he took Pendruddocke's fiddle and went off, in high -spirits, and when he returned in the late afternoon his face was -flushed and a new light burned in his eyes. He explained his -adventures volubly. They had a vague impression that, Orion-like, he -had been playing his stringed instrument to dolphins and waves and -things some miles off along the coast. To please him they said "_Ja_" -at every pause in his narration, and he thought they understood. -Finally he kissed their hands. - -Two mornings later he started, without his fiddle, immediately after -breakfast. To Miss Ursula, who accompanied him down the road to the -village, he announced Polwern as his destination. Unsuspecting and -happy, she bade him good-bye and lovingly watched his lithe young -figure disappear behind the bounding cliff of the little bay. - -Miss Olga Danilof sat reading a novel by the door of the cottage where -she lodged when the beautiful youth came up. He raised his hat--she -nodded. - -"Well," she said in German, "have you told the funny old maids?" - -"_Ach_," said he, "they are dear, gracious ladies--but I have told -them." - -"I've heard from my brother," she remarked, taking a letter from the -book. "He trusts my judgment implicitly, as I said he would--and you -are to come with me to London at once." - -"To-day?" - -"By the midday train." - -He looked at her in amazement. "But the dear ladies----" - -"You can write and explain. My brother's time is valuable--he has -already put off his journey to Paris one day in order to see you." - -"But I have no money," he objected weakly. - -"What does that matter? I have enough for the railway ticket, and when -you see Boris he will give you an advance. Oh, don't be grateful," she -added in her independent way. "In the first place, we're brother -artists, and in the second it's a pure matter of business. It's much -better to put yourself in the hands of Boris Danilof and make a fortune -in Europe than to play in a restaurant orchestra in New York; don't you -think so?" - -Andrea did think so, and he blessed the storm that drove the ship out -of its course from Hamburg and terrified him out of his wits in his -steerage quarters, so that he rushed on deck in shirt and trousers, -grasping a life-belt, only to be cursed one moment by a sailor and the -next to be swept by a wave clean over the taffrail into the sea. He -blessed the storm and he blessed the wave and he blessed the life-belt -which he lost just before consciousness left him; and he blessed the -jag of rock on the sandy cove against which he must have broken his -ankle; and he blessed the ladies and the sun and the sea and sky and -Olga Danilof and the whole of this beautiful world that had suddenly -laid itself at his feet. - -The village cart drew up by the door, and Miss Danilof's luggage that -lay ready in the hall was lifted in. - -"Come," she said. "You can ask the old maids to send on your things." - -He laughed. "I have no things. I am as free as the wind." - -At St. Madoc, whence he intended to send a telegram to the dear, -gracious ladies, they only had just time to catch the train. He sent -no telegram; and as they approached London he thought less and less -about it, his mind, after the manner of youth, full of the wonder that -was to be. - - - -VII - -The ladies sat down to tea. Eggs were ready to be boiled as soon as he -returned. Not having lunched, he would be hungry. But he did not -come. By dinner-time they grew anxious. They postponed the meal. -Dorcas came into the drawing-room periodically to report deterioration -of cooked viands. But they could not eat the meal alone. At last they -grew terrified lest some evil should have befallen him, and Miss -Widdington went in to the village and despatched Jan Pendered, and Joe -Gullow on his bicycle, in search. When she returned she found Miss -Ursula looking as if she had seen a ghost. - -"Janet, that girl is living there." - -"Where?" - -"Polwern. He went there this morning." - -Miss Widdington felt as if a cold hand had touched her heart, but she -knew that it behoved her as the elder to dismiss her sister's fears. - -"You're talking nonsense, Ursula; he has never met her." - -"How do we know?" urged Miss Ursula. - -"I don't consider it delicate," replied Miss Widdington, "to discuss -the possibility." - -They said no more, and went out and stood by the gate, waiting for -their messengers. The moon rose and silvered the sea, and the sea -breeze sprang up; the surf broke in a melancholy rhythm on the sands -beneath. - -"It sounds like the 'Chanson Triste,'" said Miss Ursula. And before -them both rose the picture of the girl standing there like an Evil -Fairy while Andrea played. - -At last Jan Pendered appeared on the cliff. The ladies went out to -meet him. - -Then they learned what had happened. - -In a dignified way they thanked Jan Pendered and gave him a shilling -for Joe Gullow, who had brought the news. They bade him good night in -clear, brave voices, and walked back very silent and upright through -the garden into the house. In the drawing-room they turned to each -other, and, their arms about each other's necks, they broke down -utterly. - -The stranger woman had come and had taken him away from them. Youth -had flown magnetically to youth. They were left alone unheeded in the -dry lavender of their lives. - -The moonlight streamed through the white-curtained casement window into -the white, spotless room. It shone on the two little white beds, on -the white garments, neatly folded on white chairs, on the -white-whiskered gentleman over the mantle-piece, and on the white faces -of the sisters. They slept little that night. Once Miss Widdington -spoke. - -"Ursula, we must go to sleep and forget it all. We've been two old -fools." - -Miss Ursula sobbed for answer. With the dawn came a certain quietude -of spirit. She rose, put on her dressing-gown, and, leaving her sister -asleep, stole out on tiptoe. The window was open and the curtains were -undrawn in the boy's empty room. She leaned on the sill and looked out -over the sea. Sooner or later, she knew, would come a letter of -explanation. She hoped Janet would not force her to read it. She no -longer wanted to know whence he came, whither he was going. It were -better for her, she thought, not to know. It were better for her to -cherish the most beautiful thing that had ever entered her life. For -all those years she had waited for the prince who never came; and he -had come at last out of fairyland, cast up by the sea. She had had -with him her brief season of tremulous happiness. If he had been -carried on, against his will, by the strange woman into the unknown -whence he had emerged, it was only the inevitable ending of such a -fairy tale. - -Thus wisdom came to her from sea and sky, and made her strong. She -smiled through her tears, and she, the weaker, went forth for the first -time in her life to comfort and direct her sister. - - - - -STUDIES IN BLINDNESS - -I - -AN OLD-WORLD EPISODE - -I - -I have often thought of editing the diary (which is in my possession) -of one Jeremy Wendover, of Bullingford, in the county of Berkshire, -England, Gent., who departed this life in the year of grace 1758, and -giving to the world a document as human as the record of Pepys and as -deeply imbued with the piety of a devout Christian as the Confessions -of Saint Augustine. A little emendation of an occasional ungrammatical -and disjointed text--though in the main the diary is written in the -scholarly, florid style of the eighteenth century; a little intelligent -conjecture as to certain dates; a footnote now and then elucidating an -obscure reference--and the thing would be done. It has been a great -temptation, but I have resisted it. The truth is that to the casual -reader the human side would seem to be so meagre, the pietistic so -full. One has to seek so carefully for a few flowers of fact among a -wilderness of religious and philosophical fancy--nay, more: to be so -much in sympathy with the diarist as to translate the pious rhetoric -into terms of mundane incident, that only to the curious student can -the real life history of the man be revealed. And who in these -hurrying days would give weeks of patient toil to a task so barren of -immediate profit? I myself certainly would not do it; and it is a good -working philosophy of life (though it has its drawbacks) not to expect -others to do what you would not do yourself. It is only because the -study of these yellow pages, covered with the brown, almost -microscopic, pointed handwriting, has amused the odd moments of years -that I have arrived at something like a comprehension of the things -that mattered so much to Jeremy Wendover, and so pathetically little to -any other of the sons and daughters of Adam. - -How did the diary, you ask, come into my possession? I picked it up, -years ago, for a franc, at a second-hand bookseller's in Geneva. It -had the bookplate of a long-forgotten Bishop of Sodor and Man, and an -inscription on the flyleaf: "John Henderson, Calcutta, 1835." How it -came into the hands of the Bishop, into those of John Henderson, how it -passed thence and eventually found its way to Geneva, Heaven alone -knows. - -I have said that Jeremy Wendover departed this life in 1758. My -authority for the statement is a lichen-covered gravestone in the -churchyard of Bullingford, whither I have made many pious pilgrimages -in the hope of finding more records of my obscure hero. But I have -been unsuccessful. The house, however, in which he lived, described at -some length in his diary, is still standing--an Early Tudor building, -the residence of the maltster who owned the adjoining long, gabled -malthouse, and from whom he rented it for a considerable term of years. -It is situated on the river fringe of the little town, at the end of a -lane running at right angles to the main street just before this loses -itself in the market square. - -I have stood at the front gate of the house and watched the Thames, -some thirty yards away, flow between its alder-grown banks; the wide, -lush meadows and cornfields beyond dotted here and there with the red -roofs of farms and spreading amid the quiet greenery of oaks and -chestnuts to the low-lying Oxfordshire hills; I have breathed in the -peace of the evening air and I have found myself very near in spirit to -Jeremy Wendover, who stood, as he notes, many and many a summer -afternoon at that self-same gate, watching the selfsame scene, far away -from the fever and the fret of life. - -I have thought, therefore, that instead of publishing his diary I might -with some degree of sympathy set forth in brief the one dramatic -episode in his inglorious career. - - - -II - -The overwhelming factor in Jeremy Wendover's life was the appalling, -inconceivable hideousness of his face. The refined, cultivated, pious -gentleman was cursed with a visage which it would have pleased Dante to -ascribe to a White Guelph whom he particularly disliked, and would have -made Orcagna shudder in the midst of his dreams of shapes of hell. As -a child of six, in a successful effort to rescue a baby sister, he had -fallen headforemost into a great wood fire, and when they picked him up -his face "was like unto a charred log that had long smouldered." -Almost the semblance of humanity had been wiped from him, and to all -beholders he became a thing of horror. Men turned their heads away, -women shivered and children screamed at his approach. He was a pariah, -condemned from early boyhood to an awful loneliness. His parents, a -certain Sir Julius Wendover, Baronet, and his wife, his elder brother -and his sisters--they must have been a compassionless family--turned -from him as from an evil and pestilential thing. Love never touched -him with its consoling feather, and for love the poor wretch pined his -whole youth long. Human companionship, even, was denied him. He seems -to have lived alone in a wing of a great house, seldom straying beyond -the bounds of the park, under the tutorship of a reverend but scholarly -sot who was too drunken and obese and unbuttoned to be admitted into -the family circle. This fellow, one Doctor Tubbs, of St. Catherine's -College, Cambridge, seems to have shown Jeremy some semblance of -affection, but chiefly while in his cups, "when," as Jeremy puts it -bitterly, "he was too much like unto the beasts that perish to -distinguish between me and a human being." When sober he railed at the -boy for a monster, and frequently chastised him for his lack of beauty. -But, in some strange way, in alternate fits of slobbering and -castigating, he managed to lay the groundwork of a fine education, -teaching Jeremy the classics, Italian and French, some mathematics, and -the elements of philosophy and theology; he also discoursed much to him -on the great world, of which, till his misfortunes came upon him, he -boasted of having been a distinguished ornament; and when he had three -bottles of wine inside him he told his charge very curious and -instructive things indeed. - -So Jeremy grew to man's estate, sensitive, shy, living in the world of -books and knowing little, save at second-hand, of the ways of men and -women. But with all the secrets of the birds and beasts in the -far-stretching Warwickshire park he was intimately acquainted. He -became part of the woodland life. Squirrels would come to him and -munch their acorns on his shoulder. - -"So intimate was I in this innocent community," says he, not without -quiet humour, "that I have been a wet-nurse to weasels and called in as -physician to a family of moles." - -When Sir Julius died, Jeremy received his younger son's portion -(fortunately, it was a goodly one) and was turned neck and crop out of -the house by his ill-conditioned brother. Tubbs, having also suffered -ignominious expulsion, persuaded him to go on the grand tour. They -started. But they only got as far as Abbeville on the road to Paris, -where Tubbs was struck down by an apoplexy of which he died. Up to -that point the sot's company had enabled Jeremy to endure the insult, -ribaldry and terror that attended his unspeakable deformity; but, left -alone, he lost heart; mankind rejected him as a pack of wolves rejects -a maimed cub. Stricken with shame and humiliation he crept back to -England and established himself in the maltster's house at Bullingford, -guided thither by no other consideration than that it had been the -birthplace of the dissolute Tubbs. He took up his lonely abode there -as a boy of three-and-twenty, and there he spent the long remainder of -his life. - - - -III - -The great event happened in his thirty-fourth year. You may picture -him as a solitary, scholarly figure living in the little Tudor house, -with its mullioned windows, set in the midst of an old-world garden -bright with stocks and phlox and hollyhocks and great pink roses, its -southern wall generously glowing with purple plums. Indoors, the house -was somewhat dark. The casement window of the main living-room was -small and overshadowed by the heavy ivy outside. The furniture, of -plain dark oak, mainly consisted of bookcases, in which were ranged the -solemn, leather-covered volumes that were Jeremy's world. A great -table in front of the window contained the books of the moment, the -latest news-sheets from London, and the great brass-clasped volume in -which he wrote his diary. In front of it stood a great straight-backed -chair. - -You may picture him on a late August afternoon, sitting in this chair, -writing his diary by the fading light. His wig lay on the table, for -the weather was close. He paused, pen in hand, and looked wistfully at -the mellow eastern sky, lost in thought. Then he wrote these words: - - -_O Lord Jesus, fill me plentifully with Thy love, which passeth the -love of woman; for love of woman never will be mine, and therefore, O -Lord, I require Thy love bountifully: I yearn for love even as a weaned -child. Even as a weaned child yearns for the breast of its mother, so -yearn I for love._ - - -He closed and clasped the book with a sigh, put on his wig, rose and, -going into the tiny hall, opened the kitchen door and announced to his -household, one ancient and incompetent crone, his intention of taking -the air. Then he clapped on his old three-cornered hat and, stick in -hand, went out of the front gate into the light of the sunset. He -stood for a while watching the deep reflections of the alders and -willows in the river and the golden peace of the meadows beyond, and -his heart was uplifted in thankfulness for the beauty of the earth. He -was a tall, thin man, with the stoop of the scholar and, despite his -rough, country-made clothes, the unmistakable air of the -eighteenth-century gentleman. The setting sun shone full on the -piteous medley of marred features that served him for a face. - -A woman, sickle on arm, leading a toddling child, passed by with -averted head. But she curtsied and said respectfully: "Good evening, -your honour." The child looked at him and with a cry of fear shrank -into the mother's skirts. Jeremy touched his hat. - -"Good evening, Mistress Blackacre. I trust your husband is recovered -from his fever." - -"Thanks to your honour's kindness," said the woman, her eyes always -turned from him, "he is well-nigh recovered. For shame of yourself!" -she added, shaking the child. - -"Nay, nay," said Jeremy kindly. "'Tis not the urchin's fault that he -met a bogey in broad daylight." - -He strolled along the river bank, pleased at his encounter. In that -little backwater of the world where he had lived secluded for ten years -folks had learned to suffer him--nay, more, to respect him: and though -they seldom looked him in the face their words were gentle and -friendly. He could even jest at his own misfortune. - -"God is good," he murmured as he walked with head bent down and hands -behind his back, "and the earth is full of His goodness. Yet if He in -His mercy could only give me a companion in my loneliness, as He gives -to every peasant, bird and beast----" - -A sigh ended the sentence. He was young and not always able to control -the squabble between sex and piety. The words had scarcely passed his -lips, however, when he discerned a female figure seated on the bank, -some fifty yards away. His first impulse--an impulse which the habit -of years would, on ordinary occasions, have rendered imperative--was to -make a wide detour round the meadows; but this evening the spirit of -mild revolt took possession of him and guided his steps in the -direction of the lady--for lady he perceived her to be when he drew a -little nearer. - -She wore a flowered muslin dress cut open at the neck, and her arms, -bare to the elbows, were white and shapely. A peach-blossom of a face -appeared below the mob-cap bound by a cherry-coloured ribbon, and as -Jeremy came within speaking distance her dark-blue eyes were fixed on -him fearlessly. Jeremy halted and looked at her, while she looked at -Jeremy. His heart beat wildly. The miracle of miracles had -happened--the hopeless, impossible thing that he had prayed for in -rebellious hours for so many years, ever since he had realised that the -world held such a thing as the joy and the blessing of woman's love. A -girl looked at him smilingly, frankly in the face, without a quiver of -repulsion--and a girl more dainty and beautiful than any he had seen -before. Then, as he stared, transfixed like a person in a beatitude, -into her eyes, something magical occurred to Jeremy. The air was -filled with the sound of fairy harps of which his own tingling nerves -from head to foot were the vibrating strings. Jeremy fell -instantaneously in love. - -"Will you tell me, sir," she said in a musical voice--the music of the -spheres to Jeremy--"will you tell me how I can reach the house of -Mistress Wotherspoon?" - -Jeremy took off his three-cornered hat and made a sweeping bow. - -"Why, surely, madam," said he, pointing with his stick; "'tis yonder -red roof peeping through the trees only three hundred yards distant." - -"You are a gentleman," said the girl quickly. - -"My name is Jeremy Wendover, younger son of the late Sir Julius -Wendover, Baronet, and now and always, madam, your very humble servant." - -She smiled. Her rosy lips and pearly teeth (Jeremy's own description) -filled Jeremy's head with lunatic imaginings. - -"And I, sir," said she, "am Mistress Barbara Seaforth, and I came but -yesterday to stay with my aunt, Mistress Wotherspoon. If I could -trespass so far on your courtesy as to pray you to conduct me thither I -should be vastly beholden to you." - -His sudden delight at the proposition was mingled with some -astonishment. She only had to walk across the open meadow to the clump -of trees. He assisted her to rise and with elaborate politeness -offered his arm. She made no motion, however, to take it. - -"I thought I was walking in my aunt's little railed enclosure," she -remarked; "but I must have passed through the gate into the open -fields, and when I came to the river I was frightened and sat down and -waited for someone to pass." - -"Pray pardon me, madam," said Jeremy, "but I don't quite understand----" - -"La, sir! how very thoughtless of me," she laughed. "I never told you. -I am blind." - -"Blind!" he echoed. The leaden weight of a piteous dismay fell upon -him. That was why she had gazed at him so fearlessly. She had not -seen him. The miracle had not happened. For a moment he lost count of -the girl's sad affliction in the stress of his own bitterness. But the -lifelong habit of resignation prevailed. - -"Madam, I crave your pardon for not having noticed it," he said in an -unsteady voice. "And I admire the fortitude wherewith you bear so -grievous a burden." - -"Just because I can't see is no reason for my drowning the world in my -tears. We must make the best of things. And there are compensations, -too," she added lightly, allowing her hand to be placed on his arm and -led away. "I refer to an adventure with a young gentleman which, were -I not blind, my Aunt Wotherspoon would esteem mightily unbecoming." - -"Alas, madam," said he with a sigh, "there you are wrong. I am not -young. I am thirty-three." - -He thought it was a great age. Mistress Barbara turned up her face -saucily and laughed. Evidently, she did not share his opinion. Jeremy -bent a wistful gaze into the beautiful, sightless eyes, and then saw -what had hitherto escaped his notice: a thin; grey film over the pupils. - -"How did you know," he asked, "that I was a man, when I came up to you?" - -"First by your aged, tottering footsteps, sir," she said with a pretty -air of mockery, "which were not those of a young girl. And then you -were standing 'twixt me and the sun, and one of my poor eyes can still -distinguish light from shadow." - -"How long have you suffered from this great affliction?" he asked. - -"I have been going blind for two years. It is now two months since I -have lost sight altogether. But please don't talk of it," she added -hastily. "If you pity me I shall cry, which I hate, for I want to -laugh as much as I can. I can also walk faster, sir, if it would not -tire your aged limbs." - -Jeremy started guiltily. She had divined his evil purpose. But who -will blame him for not wishing to relinquish oversoon the delicious -pressure of her little hand on his arm and to give over this blind -flower of womanhood into another's charge? He replied disingenuously, -without quickening his pace: - -"'Tis for your sake, madam, I am walking slowly. The afternoon is -warm." - -"I am vastly sensible of your gallantry, sir," she retorted. "But I -fear you must have practised it much on others to have arrived at this -perfection." - -"By heavens, madam," he cried, cut to the heart by her innocent -raillery, "'tis not so. Could you but see me you would know it was -not. I am a recluse, a student, a poor creature set apart from the -ways of men. You are the first woman that has walked arm-in-arm with -me in all my life--except in dreams. And now my dream has come true." - -His voice vibrated, and when she answered hers was responsive. - -"You, too, have your burden?" - -"Could you but know how your touch lightens it!" said he. - -She blushed to the brown hair that was visible beneath the mob-cap. - -"Are we very far now from my Aunt Wotherspoon's?" she asked. Whereupon -Jeremy, abashed, took refuge in the commonplace. - -The open gate through which she had strayed was reached all too -quickly. When she had passed through she made him a curtsey and held -out her hand. He touched it with his lips as if it were sacramental -bread. She avowed herself much beholden to his kindness. - -"Shall I ever see you again, Mistress Barbara?" he asked in a low -voice, for an old servant was hobbling down from the house to meet her. - -"My Aunt Wotherspoon is bed-ridden and receives no visitors." - -"But I could be of no further service to you?" pleaded Jeremy. - -She hesitated and then she said demurely: - -"It would be a humane action, sir, to see sometimes that this gate is -shut, lest I stray through it again and drown myself in the river." - -Jeremy could scarce believe his ears. - - - -IV - -This was the beginning of Jeremy's love-story. He guarded the gate -like Cerberus or Saint Peter. Sometimes at dawn he would creep out of -his house and tramp through the dew-filled meadows to see that it was -safely shut. During the day he would do sentry-go within sight of the -sacred portal, and when the flutter of a mob-cap and a flowered muslin -met his eye he would advance merely to report that the owner ran no -danger. And then, one day, she bade him open it, and she came forth -and they walked arm-in-arm in the meadows; and this grew to be a daily -custom, to the no small scandal of the neighbourhood. Very soon, -Jeremy learned her simple history. She was an orphan, with a small -competence of her own. Till recently she had lived in Somersetshire -with her guardian; but now he was dead, and the only home she could -turn to was that of her bed-ridden Aunt Wotherspoon, her sole surviving -relative. - -Jeremy, with a lamentable lack of universality, thanked God on his -knees for His great mercy. If Mistress Wotherspoon had not been -confined to her bed she would not have allowed her niece to wander at -will with a notorious scarecrow over the Bullingford meadows, and if -Barbara had not been blind she could not have walked happily in his -company and hung trustfully on his arm. For days she was but a wonder -and a wild desire. Her beauty, her laughter, her wit, her simplicity, -her bravery, bewildered him. It was enough to hear the music of her -voice, to feel the fragrance of her presence, to thrill at her light -touch. He, Jeremy Wendover, from whose distortion all human beings, -his life long, had turned shuddering away, to have this ineffable -companionship! It transcended thought. At last--it was one night, as -he lay awake, remembering how they had walked that afternoon, not -arm-in-arm, but hand-in-hand--the amazing, dazzling glory of a -possibility enveloped him. She was blind. She could never see his -deformity. Had God listened to his prayer and delivered this fair and -beloved woman into his keeping? He shivered all night long in an -ecstasy of happiness, rose at dawn and mounted guard at Barbara's gate. -But as he waited, foodless, for the thrilling sight of her, depression -came and sat heavy on his shoulders until he felt that in daring to -think of her in the way of marriage he was committing an abominable -crime. - -When she came, fresh as the morning, bareheaded, her beautiful hair -done up in a club behind, into the little field, and he tried to call -to her, his tongue was dry and he could utter no sound. Accidentally -he dropped his stick, which clattered down the bars of the gate. She -laughed. He entered the enclosure. - -"I knew I should find you there," she cried, and sped toward him. - -"How did you know?" he asked. - -"'By the pricking of my thumb,'" she quoted gaily; and then, as he took -both her outstretched hands, she drew near him and whispered: "and by -the beating of my heart." - -His arms folded around her and he held her tight against him, -stupefied, dazed, throbbing, vainly trying to find words. At last he -said huskily: - -"God has sent you to be the joy and comfort of a sorely stricken man. -I accept it because it is His will. I will cherish you as no man has -ever cherished woman before. My love for you, my dear, is as -infinite--as infinite--oh, God!" - -Speech failed him. He tore his arms away from her and fell sobbing at -her feet and kissed the skirts of her gown. - - - -V - -The Divine Mercy, as Jeremy puts it, thought fit to remove Aunt -Wotherspoon to a happier world before the week was out; and so, within -a month, Jeremy led his blind bride into the little Tudor house. And -then began for him a happiness so exquisite that sometimes he was -afraid to breathe lest he should disturb the enchanted air. Every germ -of love and tenderness that had lain undeveloped in his nature sprang -into flower. Sometimes he grew afraid lest, in loving her, he was -forgetting God. But he reassured himself by a pretty sophistry. "O -Lord," says he, "it is Thou only that I worship--through Thine own -great gift." And indeed what more could be desired by a reasonable -Deity? - -Barbara, responsive, gave him her love in full. From the first she -would hear nothing of his maimed visage. - -"My dear," she said as they wandered one golden autumn day by the -riverside, "I have made a picture of you out of your voice, the plash -of water, the sunset and the summer air. 'Twas thus that my heart saw -you the first evening we met. And that is more than sufficing for a -poor, blind creature whom a gallant gentleman married out of charity." - -"Charity!" His voice rose in indignant repudiation. - -She laughed and laid her head on her shoulder. - -"Ah, dear, I did but jest. I know you fell in love with my pretty -doll's face. And also with a little mocking spirit of my own." - -"But what made you fall in love with me?" - -"Faith, Mr. Wendover," she replied, "a woman with eyes in her head has -but to go whither she is driven. And so much the more a blind female -like me. You led me plump into the middle of the morass; and when you -came and rescued me I was silly enough to be grateful." - -Under Jeremy's love her rich nature expanded day by day. She set her -joyous courage and her wit to work to laugh at blindness, and to make -her the practical, serviceable housewife as well as the gay companion. -The ancient crone was replaced by a brisk servant and a gardener, and -Jeremy enjoyed creature comforts undreamed of. And the months sped -happily by. Autumn darkened into winter and winter cleared into -spring, and daffodils and crocuses and primroses began to show -themselves in corners of the old-world garden, and tiny gossamer -garments in corners of the dark old house. Then a newer, deeper -happiness enfolded them. - -But there came a twilight hour when, whispering of the wonder that was -to come, she suddenly began to cry softly. - -"But why, why, dear?" he asked in tender astonishment. - -"Only--only to think, Jeremy, that I shall never see it." - - - -VI - -One evening in April, while Jeremy was reading and Barbara sewing in -the little candle-lit parlour, almost simultaneously with a sudden -downpour of rain came a knock at the front door. Jeremy, startled by -this unwonted occurrence, went himself to answer the summons, and, -opening the door, was confronted by a stout, youngish man dressed in -black with elegant ruffles and a gold-headed cane. - -"Your pardon, sir," said the new-comer, "but may I crave a moment's -shelter during this shower? I am scarce equipped for the elements." - -"Pray enter," said Jeremy hospitably. - -"I am from London, and lodging at the 'White Hart' at Bullingford for -the night," the stranger explained, shaking the raindrops from his hat. -"During a stroll before supper I lost my way, and this storm has -surprised me at your gate. I make a thousand apologies for deranging -you." - -"If you are wet the parlour fire will dry you. I beg you, sir, to -follow me," said Jeremy. He led the way through the dark passage and, -pausing with his hand on the door-knob, turned to the stranger and said -with his grave courtesy: - -"I think it right to warn you, sir, that I am afflicted with a certain -personal disfigurement which not all persons can look upon with -equanimity." - -"Sir," replied the other, "my name is John Hattaway, surgeon at St. -Thomas' Hospital in London, and I am used to regard with equanimity all -forms of human affliction." - -Mr. Hattaway was shown into the parlour and introduced in due form to -Barbara. A chair was set for him near the fire. In the talk that -followed he showed himself to be a man of parts and education. He was -on his way, he said, to Oxford to perform an operation on the Warden of -Merton College. - -"What kind of operation?" asked Barbara. - -His quick, keen eyes swept her like a searchlight. - -"Madam," said he, not committing himself, "'tis but a slight one." - -But when Barbara had left the room to mull some claret for her guest, -Mr. Hattaway turned to Jeremy. - -"'Tis a cataract," said he, "I am about to remove from the eye of the -Warden of Merton by the new operation invented by my revered master, -Mr. William Cheselden, my immediate predecessor at St. Thomas's. I did -not tell your wife, for certain reasons; but I noticed that she is -blinded by the same disease." - -Jeremy rose from his chair. - -"Do you mean that you will restore the Warden's sight?" - -"I have every hope of doing so." - -"But if his sight can be restored--then my wife's----" - -"Can be restored also," said the surgeon complacently. - -Jeremy sat down feeling faint and dizzy. - -"Did you not know that cataract was curable?" - -"I am scholar enough," answered Jeremy, "to have read that King John of -Aragon was so cured by the Jew, Abiathar of Lerida, by means of a -needle thrust through the eyeball----" - -"Barbarous, my dear sir, barbarous!" cried the surgeon, raising a -white, protesting hand. "One in a million may be so cured. There is -even now a pestilential fellow of a quack, calling himself the -Chevalier Taylor, who is prodding folks' eyes with a six-inch skewer. -Have you never heard of him?" - -"Alas, sir," said Jeremy, "I live so out of the world, and my daily -converse is limited to my dear wife and the parson hard by, who is as -recluse a scholar as I am myself." - -"If you wish your wife to regain her sight," said Mr. Hattaway, "avoid -this Chevalier Taylor like the very devil. But if you will intrust her -to my care, Mr. Hattaway, surgeon of St. Thomas' Hospital, London, -pupil of the great Cheselden----" - -He waved his hand by way of completing the unfinished sentence. - -"When?" asked Jeremy, greatly agitated. - -"After her child is born." - -"Shall I tell her?" Jeremy trembled. - -"As you will. No--perhaps you had better wait a while." - -Then Barbara entered, bearing a silver tray, with the mulled claret and -glasses, proud of her blind surety of movement. Mr. Hattaway sprang to -assist her and, unknown to her, took the opportunity of scrutinising -her eyes. Then he nodded confidently at Jeremy. - - - -VII - -From that evening Jeremy's martyrdom began. Hitherto he had regarded -the blindness of his wife as a special dispensation of Divine -Providence. She had not seen him save on that first afternoon as a -shadowy mass, and had formed no conception of his disfigurement beyond -the vague impression conveyed to her by loving fingers touching his -face. She had made her own mental picture of him, as she had said, and -whatever it was, so far from repelling her, it pleased her mightily. -Her ignorance indeed was bliss--for both of them. And now, thought -poor Jeremy, knowledge would come with the restored vision, and, like -our too-wise first parents, they would be driven out of Eden. -Sometimes the devil entered his heart and prompted cowardly -concealment. Why tell Barbara of Mr. Hattaway's proposal? Why disturb -a happiness already so perfect? All her other senses were eyes to her. -She had grown almost unconscious of her affliction. She was happier -loving him with blinded eyes than recoiling from him in horror with -seeing ones. It was, in sooth, for her own dear happiness that she -should remain in darkness. But then Jeremy remembered the only cry her -brave soul had ever uttered, and after wrestling long in prayer he knew -that the Evil One had spoken, and in the good, old-fashioned way he -bade Satan get behind him. "_Retro me, Satanas_." The words are in -his diary, printed in capital letters. - -But one day, when she repeated her cry, his heart ached for her and he -comforted her with the golden hope. She wept tears of joy and flung -her arms around his neck and kissed him, and from that day forth filled -the house with song and laughter and the mirth of unbounded happiness. -But Jeremy, though he bespoke her tenderly and hopefully, felt that he -had signed his death-warrant. Now and then, when her gay spirit danced -through the glowing future, he was tempted to say: "When you see me as -I am your love will turn to loathing and our heaven to hell." But he -could not find it in his heart to dash her joy. And she never spoke of -seeing him--only of seeing the child and the sun and the flowers and -the buttons of his shirts, which she vowed must seem to be sewed on by -a drunken cobbler. - - - -VIII - -The child was born, a boy, strong and lusty--to Jeremy the incarnation -of miraculous wonder. That the thing was alive, with legs and arms and -feet and hands, and could utter sounds, which it did with much vigour, -made demands almost too great on his credulity. - -"What is he like?" asked Barbara. - -This was a poser for Jeremy. For the pink brat was like nothing on -earth--save any other newborn infant. - -"I think," he said hesitatingly, "I think he may be said to resemble -Cupid. He has a mouth like Cupid's bow." - -"And Cupid's wings?" she laughed. "Fie, Jeremy, I thought we had born -to us a Christian child." - -"But that he has a body," said Jeremy, "I should say he was a cherub. -He has eyes of a celestial blue, and his nose----" - -"Yes, yes, his nose?" came breathlessly from Barbara. - -"I'm afraid, my dear, there is so little of it to judge by," said -Jeremy. - -"Before the summer's out I shall be able to judge for myself," said -Barbara, and terror gripped the man's heart. - -The days passed, and Barbara rose from her bed and again sang and -laughed. - -"See, I am strong enough to withstand any operation," she declared one -day, holding out the babe at arm's length. - -"Not yet," said Jeremy, "not yet. The child needs you." - -The child was asleep. She felt with her foot for its cradle, and with -marvellous certainty deposited him gently in the nest and covered him -with the tiny coverlet. Then she turned to Jeremy. - -"My husband, don't you wish me to have my sight restored?" - -"How can you doubt it?" he cried. "I would have you undergo this -operation were my life the fee." - -She came close to him and put her hands about his maimed face. "Dear," -she said, "do you think anything could change my love for you?" - -It was the first hint that she had divined his fears; but he remained -silent, every fibre of his being shrinking from the monstrous argument. -For answer, he kissed her hands as she withdrew them. - -At last the time came for the great adventure. Letters passed between -Jeremy and Mr. Hattaway of St. Thomas' Hospital, who engaged lodgings -in Cork Street, so that they should be near his own residence in Bond -Street hard by. A great travelling chariot and post-horses were hired -from Bullingford, two great horse-pistols, which Jeremy had never fired -off in his life, were loaded and primed and put in the holsters, and -one morning in early August Jeremy and Barbara and the nurse and the -baby started on their perilous journey. They lay at Reading that night -and arrived without misadventure at Cork Street on the following -afternoon. Mr. Hattaway called in the evening with two lean and solemn -young men, his apprentices--for even the great Mr. Hattaway was but a -barber-surgeon practising a trade under the control of a City -Guild--and made his preparations for the morrow. - -In these days of anæsthetics and cocaine, sterilised instruments, -trained nurses and scientific ventilation it is almost impossible to -realise the conditions under which surgical operations were conducted -in the first half of the eighteenth century. Yet they occasionally -were successful, and patients sometimes did survive, and nobody -complained, thinking, like Barbara Wendover, that all was for the best -in this best of all possible worlds. For, as she lay in the close, -darkened room the next day, after the operation was over, tended by a -chattering beldame of a midwife, she took the burning pain in her -bandaged eyes--after the dare-devil fashion of the time Mr. Hattaway -had operated on both at once--as part of the cure, and thanked God she -was born into so marvellous an epoch. Then Jeremy came and sat by her -bed and held her hand, and she was very happy. - -But Jeremy then, and in the slow, torturing days that followed, went -about shrunken like a man doomed to worse than death. London increased -his agony. At first a natural curiosity (for he had passed through the -town but twice before, once as he set out for the grand tour with -Doctor Tubbs, and once on his return thence) and a countryman's craving -for air took him out into the busy streets. But he found the behaviour -of the populace far different from that of the inhabitants of -Bullingford, who passed him by respectfully, though with averted faces. -Porters and lackeys openly jeered at him, ragged children summoned -their congeners and followed hooting in his train; it was a cruel age, -and elegant gentlemen in flowered silk coats and lace ruffles had no -compunction in holding their cambric handkerchiefs before their eyes -and vowing within his hearing that, stab their vitals, such a fellow -should wear a mask or be put into the Royal Society's Museum; and in -St. James's Street one fine lady, stepping out of her sedan-chair -almost into his arms, fell back shrieking that she had seen a monster, -and pretended to faint as the obsequious staymaker ran out of his shop -to her assistance. - -He ceased to go abroad in daylight and only crept about the streets at -night, even then nervously avoiding the glare of a chance-met linkboy's -torch. Desperate thoughts came to him during these gloomy rambles. -Fear of God alone, as is evident from the diary, prevented him from -taking his life. And the poor wretch prayed for he knew not what. - - - -IX - -One morning Mr. Hattaway, after his examination of the patient, entered -the parlour where Jeremy was reading _Tillotson's Sermons_ (there were -the fourteen volumes of them in the room's unlively bookcase) and -closed the door behind him with an air of importance. - -"Sir," said he, "I bring you good news." - -Jeremy closed his book. - -"She sees?" - -"On removing the bandages just now," replied Mr. Hattaway, "I perceived -to my great regret that with the left eye my skill has been unavailing. -The failure is due, I believe, to an injury to the retina which I have -been unable to discover." He paused and took snuff. "But I rejoice to -inform you that sight is restored to the right eye. I admitted light -into the room, and though the vision is diffused, which a lens will -rectify, she saw me distinctly." - -"Thank God she has the blessing of sight," said Jeremy reverently. - -"Amen," said the surgeon. He took another pinch. "Also, perhaps, -thank your humble servant for restoring it." - -"I owe you an unpayable debt," replied Jeremy. - -"She is crying out for the baby," said Mr. Hattaway. "If you will -kindly send it in to her I can allow her a fleeting glimpse of it -before I complete the rebandaging for the day." - -Jeremy rang the bell and gave the order. "And I?" he inquired bravely. - -The surgeon hesitated and scratched his plump cheek. - -"You know that my wife has never seen me." - -"To-morrow, then," said Hattaway. - -The nurse and child appeared at the doorway, and the surgeon followed -them into Barbara's room. - -When the surgeon had left the house Jeremy went to Barbara and found -her crooning over the babe, which lay in her arms. - -"I've seen him, dear, I've seen him!" she cried joyously. "He is the -most wonderfully beautiful thing on the earth. His eyes are light -blue, and mine are dark, so he must have yours. And his mouth is made -for kisses, and his expression is that of a babe born in Paradise." - -Jeremy bent over and looked at the boy, who sniggered at him in a most -unparadisiacal fashion, and they talked parentwise over his perfections. - -"Before we go back to Bullingford you will let me take a coach, Jeremy, -and drive about the streets and show him to the town? I will hold him -up and cry: 'Ladies and gentlemen, look! 'Tis the tenth wonder of the -world. You only have this one chance of seeing him.'" - -She rattled on in the gayest of moods, making him laugh in spite of the -terror. The failure of the operation in the left eye she put aside as -of no account. One eye was a necessity, but two were a mere luxury. - -"And it is the little rogue that will reap the benefit," she cried, -cuddling the child. "For, when he is naughty mammy will turn the blind -side of her face to him." - -"And will you turn the blind side of your face to me?" asked Jeremy -with a quiver of the lips. - -She took his hand and pressed it against her cheek. - -"You have no faults, my beloved husband, for me to be blind to," she -said, wilfully or not misunderstanding him. - -Such rapture had the sight of the child given her that she insisted on -its lying with her that night, a truckle-bed being placed in the room -for the child's nurse. When Jeremy took leave of her before going to -his own room he bent over her and whispered: - -"To-morrow." - -Her sweet lips--pathetically sweet below the bandage--parted in a -smile--and they never seemed sweeter to the anguished man--and she also -whispered, "To-morrow!" and kissed him. - -He went away, and as he closed the door he felt that it was the gate of -Paradise shut against him for ever. - -He did not sleep that night, but spent it as a brave man spends the -night before his execution. For, after all, Jeremy Wendover was a -gallant gentlemen. - -In the morning he went into Barbara's room before breakfast, as his -custom was, and found her still gay and bubbling over with the joy of -life. And when he was leaving her she stretched out her hands and -clasped his maimed face, as she had done once before, and said the same -reassuring words. Nothing could shake her immense, her steadfast love. -But Jeremy, entering the parlour and catching sight of himself in the -Queen Anne mirror over the mantle-piece, shuddered to the inmost roots -of his being. She had no conception of what she vowed. - -He was scarce through breakfast when Mr. Hattaway entered, a full hour -before his usual time. - -"I am in a prodigious hurry," said he, "for I must go post-haste into -Norfolk, to operate on my Lord Winteringham for the stone. I have not -a moment to lose, so I pray you to accompany me to your wife's -bedchamber." - -The awful moment had come. Jeremy courteously opened doors for the -surgeon to pass through, and followed with death in his heart. When -they entered the room he noticed that Barbara had caused the nurse's -truckle-bed to be removed and that she was lying, demure as a nun, in a -newly made bed. The surgeon flung the black curtains from the window -and let the summer light filter through the linen blinds. - -"We will have a longer exposure this morning," said he, "and to-morrow -a little longer still, and so on until we can face the daylight -altogether. Now, madam, if you please." - -He busied himself with the bandages. Jeremy, on the other side of the -bed, stood clasping Barbara's hand: stood stock-still, with thumping -heart, holding his breath, setting his teeth, nerving himself for the -sharp, instinctive gasp, the reflex recoil, that he knew would be the -death sentence of their love. And at that supreme moment he cursed -himself bitterly for a fool for not having told her of his terror, for -not having sufficiently prepared her for the devastating revelation. -But now it was too late. - -The bandages were removed. The surgeon bent down and peered into the -eyes. He started back in dismay. Before her right eye he rapidly -waved his finger. - -"Do you see that?" - -"No," said Barbara. - -"My God, madam!" cried he, with a stricken look on his plump face, -"what in the devil's name have you been doing with yourself?" - -Great drops of sweat stood on Jeremy's brow. - -"What do you mean?" he asked. - -"She can't see. The eye is injured. Yesterday, save for the -crystalline lens which I extracted, it was as sound as mine or yours." - -"I was afraid something had happened," said Barbara in a matter-of-fact -tone. "Baby was restive in the night and pushed his little fist into -my eye." - -"Good heavens, madam!" exclaimed the angry surgeon, "you don't mean to -say that you took a young baby to sleep with you in your condition?" - -Barbara nodded, as if found out in a trifling peccadillo. "I suppose -I'm blind for ever?" she asked casually. - -He examined the eye again. There was a moment's dead silence. Jeremy, -white-lipped and haggard, hung on the verdict. Then Hattaway rose, -extended his arms and let them drop helplessly against his sides. - -"Yes," said he. "The sight is gone." - -Jeremy put his hands to his head, staggered, and, overcome by the -reaction from the terror and the shock of the unlooked-for calamity, -fell in a faint on the floor. - -After he had recovered and the surgeon had gone, promising to send his -apprentice the next day to dress the eyes, which, for fear of -inflammation, still needed tending, Jeremy sat by his wife's bedside -with an aching heart. - -"'Tis the will of God," said he gloomily. "We must not rebel against -His decrees." - -"But, you dear, foolish husband," she cried, half laughing, "who wants -to rebel against them? Not I, of a certainty. I am the happiest woman -in the world." - -"'Tis but to comfort me that you say it," said Jeremy. - -"'Tis the truth. Listen." She sought for his hand and continued with -sweet seriousness: "I was selfish to want to regain my sight; but my -soul hungered to see my babe. And now that I have seen him I care not. -Just that one little peep into the heaven of his face was all I wanted. -And 'twas the darling wretch himself who settled that I should not have -more." After a little she said, "Come nearer to me," and she drew his -ear to her lips and whispered: - -"Although I have not regained my sight, on the other hand I have not -lost a thing far dearer--the face that I love which I made up of your -voice and the plash of water and the sunset and the summer air." She -kissed him. "My poor husband, how you must have suffered!" - -And then Jeremy knew the great, brave soul of that woman whom the -Almighty had given him to wife, and, as he puts it in his diary, he did -glorify God exceedingly. - -So when Barbara was able to travel again Jeremy sent for the great, -roomy chariot and the horse-pistols and the post-horses, and they went -back to Bullingford, where they spent the remainder of their lives in -unclouded felicity. - - - - -II - -THE CONQUEROR - -Miss Winifred Goode sat in her garden in the shade of a clipped yew, an -unopened novel on her lap, and looked at the gabled front of the Tudor -house that was hers and had been her family's for many generations. In -that house, Duns Hall, in that room beneath the southernmost gable, she -had been born. From that house, save for casual absences rarely -exceeding a month in duration, she had never stirred. All the drama, -such as it was, of her life had been played in that house, in that -garden. Up and down the parapeted stone terrace walked the ghosts of -all those who had been dear to her--her father, a vague but cherished -memory; a brother and a sister who had died during her childhood; her -mother, dead three years since, to whose invalid and somewhat selfish -needs she had devoted all her full young womanhood. Another ghost -walked there, too; but that was the ghost of the living--a young man -who had kissed and ridden away, twenty years ago. He had kissed her -over there, under the old wistaria arbour at the end of the terrace. -What particular meaning he had put into the kiss, loverly, brotherly, -cousinly, friendly--for they had played together all their young lives, -and were distantly connected--she had never been able to determine. In -spite of his joy at leaving the lethargic country town of Dunsfield for -America, their parting had been sad and sentimental. The kiss, at any -rate, had been, on his side, one of sincere affection--an affection -proven afterwards by a correspondence of twenty years. To her the kiss -had been--well, the one and only kiss of her life, and she had -treasured it in a neat little sacred casket in her heart. Since that -far-off day no man had ever showed an inclination to kiss her, which, -in one way, was strange, as she had been pretty and gentle and -laughter-loving, qualities attractive to youths in search of a mate. -But in another way it was not strange, as mate-seeking youths are rare -as angels in Dunsfield, beyond whose limits Miss Goode had seldom -strayed. Her romance had been one kiss, the girlish dreams of one man. -At first, when he had gone fortune-hunting in America, she had fancied -herself broken-hearted; but Time had soon touched her with healing -fingers. Of late, freed from the slavery of a querulous bedside, she -had grown in love with her unruffled and delicately ordered existence, -in which the only irregular things were her herbaceous borders, between -which she walked like a prim school-mistress among a crowd of bright -but unruly children. She had asked nothing more from life than what -she had--her little duties in the parish, her little pleasures in the -neighbourhood, her good health, her old house, her trim lawns, her -old-fashioned garden, her black cocker spaniels. As it was at forty, -she thought, so should it be till the day of her death. - -But a month ago had come turmoil. Roger Orme announced his return. -Fortune-making in America had tired him. He was coming home to settle -down for good in Dunsfield, in the house of his fathers. This was Duns -Lodge, whose forty acres marched with the two hundred acres of Duns -Hall. The two places were known in the district as "The Lodge" and -"The Hall." About a century since, a younger son of The Hall had -married a daughter of The Lodge, whence the remote tie of consanguinity -between Winifred Goode and Roger Orme. The Lodge had been let on lease -for many years, but now the lease had fallen in and the tenants gone. -Roger had arrived in England yesterday. A telegram had bidden her -expect him that afternoon. She sat in the garden expecting him, and -stared wistfully at the old grey house, a curious fear in her eyes. - -Perhaps, if freakish chance had not brought Mrs. Donovan to Dunsfield -on a visit to the Rector, a day or two after Roger's letter, -fear--foolish, shameful, sickening fear--might not have had so dominant -a place in her anticipation of his homecoming. Mrs. Donovan was a -contemporary, a Dunsfield girl, who had married at nineteen and gone -out with her husband to India. Winifred Goode remembered a gipsy -beauty riotous in the bloom of youth. In the Rector's drawing-room she -met a grey-haired, yellow-skinned, shrivelled caricature, and she -looked in the woman's face as in a mirror of awful truth in which she -herself was reflected. From that moment she had known no peace. Gone -was her placid acceptance of the footprints of the years, gone her -old-maidish pride in dainty, old-maidish dress. She had mixed little -with the modern world, and held to old-fashioned prejudices which -prescribed the outward demeanour appropriate to each decade. One of -her earliest memories was a homely saying of her father's--which had -puzzled her childish mind considerably--as to the absurdity of sheep -being dressed lamb fashion. Later she understood and cordially agreed -with the dictum. The Countess of Ingleswood, the personage of those -latitudes, at the age of fifty showed the fluffy golden hair and -peach-bloom cheeks and supple figure of twenty; she wore bright colours -and dashing hats, and danced and flirted and kept a tame-cattery of -adoring young men. Winifred visited with Lady Ingleswood because she -believed that, in these democratic days, it was the duty of county -families to outmatch the proletariat in solidarity; but, with every -protest of her gentlewoman's soul, she disapproved of Lady Ingleswood. -Yet now, to her appalling dismay, she saw that, with the aid of paint, -powder, and peroxide, Lady Ingleswood had managed to keep young. For -thirty years, to Winifred's certain knowledge, she had not altered. -The blasting hand that had swept over Madge Donovan's face had passed -her by. - -Winifred envied the woman's power of attraction. She read, with a -curious interest, hitherto disregarded advertisements. They were so -alluring, they seemed so convincing. Such a cosmetic used by queens of -song and beauty restored the roses of girlhood; under such a treatment, -wrinkles disappeared within a week--there were the photographs to prove -it. All over London bubbled fountains of youth, at a mere guinea or so -a dip. She sent for a little battery of washes and powders, and, when -it arrived, she locked herself in her bedroom. But the sight of the -first unaccustomed--and unskilfully applied--dab of rouge on her cheek -terrified her. She realised what she was doing. No! Ten thousand -times no! Her old-maidishness, her puritanism revolted. She flew to -her hand-basin and vigorously washed the offending bloom away with soap -and water. She would appear before the man she loved just as she -was--if need be, in the withered truth of a Madge Donovan.... And, -after all, had her beauty faded so utterly? Her glass said "No." But -her glass mocked her, for how could she conjure up the young face of -twenty which Roger Orme carried in his mind, and compare it with the -present image? - -She sat in the garden, this blazing July afternoon, waiting for him, -her heart beating with the love of years ago, and the shrinking fear in -her eyes. Presently she heard the sound of wheels, and she saw the -open fly of "The Red Lion"--Dunsfield's chief hotel--crawling up the -drive, and in it was a man wearing a straw hat. She fluttered a timid -handkerchief, but the man, not looking in her direction, did not -respond. She crossed the lawn to the terrace, feeling hurt, and -entered the drawing-room by the open French window and stood there, her -back to the light. Soon he was announced. She went forward to meet -him. - -"My dear Roger, welcome home." - -He laughed and shook her hand in a hearty grip. - -"It's you, Winifred. How good! Are you glad to see me back?" - -"Very glad." - -"And I." - -"Do you find things changed?" - -"Nothing," he declared with a smile; "the house is just the same." He -ran his fingers over the corner of a Louis XVI table near which he was -standing. "I remember this table, in this exact spot, twenty years -ago." - -"And you have scarcely altered. I should have known you anywhere." - -"I should just hope so," said he. - -She realised, with a queer little pang, that time had improved the -appearance of the man of forty-five. He was tall, strong, erect; few -accusing lines marked his clean-shaven, florid, clear-cut face; in his -curly brown hair she could not detect a touch of grey. He had a new -air of mastery and success which expressed itself in the corners of his -firm lips and the steady, humorous gleam in his eyes. - -"You must be tired after your hot train journey," she said. - -He laughed again. "Tired? After a couple of hours? Now, if it had -been a couple of days, as we are accustomed to on the other side---- -But go on talking, just to let me keep on hearing your voice. It's -yours--I could have recognised it over a long-distance telephone--and -it's English. You've no idea how delicious it is. And the smell of -the room"--he drew in a deep breath--"is you and the English country. -I tell you, it's good to be back!" - -She flushed, his pleasure was so sincere, and she smiled. - -"But why should we stand? Let me take your hat and stick." - -"Why shouldn't we sit in the garden--after my hot and tiring journey?" -They both laughed. "Is the old wistaria still there, at the end of the -terrace?" - -She turned her face away. "Yes, still there. Do you remember it?" she -asked in a low voice. - -"Do you think I could forget it? I remember every turn of the house." - -"Let us go outside, then." - -She led the way, and he followed, to the trellis arbour, a few steps -from the drawing-room door. The long lilac blooms had gone with the -spring, but the luxuriant summer leafage cast a grateful shade. Roger -Orme sat in a wicker chair and fanned himself with his straw hat. - -"Delightful!" he said. "And I smell stocks! It does carry me back. I -wonder if I have been away at all." - -"I'm afraid you have," said Winifred--"for twenty years." - -"Well, I'm not going away again. I've had my share of work. And -what's the good of work just to make money? I've made enough. I sold -out before I left." - -"But in your letters you always said you liked America." - -"So I did. It's the only country in the world for the young and eager. -If I had been born there, I should have no use for Dunsfield. But a -man born and bred among old, sleepy things has the nostalgia of old, -sleepy things in his blood. Now tell me about the sleepy old things. -I want to hear." - -"I think I have written to you about everything that ever happened in -Dunsfield," she said. - -But still there were gaps to be bridged in the tale of births and -marriages and deaths, the main chronicles of the neighbourhood. He had -a surprising memory, and plucked obscure creatures from the past whom -even Winifred had forgotten. - -"It's almost miraculous how you remember." - -"It's a faculty I've had to cultivate," said he. - -They talked about his immediate plans. He was going to put The Lodge -into thorough repair, bring everything up-to-date, lay in electric -light and a central heating installation, fix bathrooms wherever -bathrooms would go, and find a place somewhere for a billiard-room. -His surveyor had already made his report, and was to meet him at the -house the following morning. As for decorations, curtaining, -carpeting, and such-like æsthetic aspects, he was counting on -Winifred's assistance. He thought that blues and browns would -harmonise with the oak-panelling in the dining-room. Until the house -was ready, his headquarters would be "The Red Lion." - -"You see, I'm going to begin right now," said he. - -She admired his vitality, his certainty of accomplishment. The Hall -was still lit by lamps and candles; and although, on her return from a -visit, she had often deplored the absence of electric light, she had -shrunk from the strain and worry of an innovation. And here was Roger -turning the whole house inside out more cheerfully than she would turn -out a drawer. - -"You'll help me, won't you?" he asked. "I want a home with a touch of -the woman in it; I've lived so long in masculine stiffness." - -"You know that I should love to do anything I could, Roger," she -replied happily. - -He remarked again that it was good to be back. No more letters--they -were unsatisfactory, after all. He hoped she had not resented his -business man's habit of typewriting. This was in the year of grace -eighteen hundred and ninety-two, and, save for Roger's letters, -typewritten documents came as seldom as judgment summonses to Duns Hall. - -"We go ahead in America," said he. - -"'The old order changeth, yielding place to new.' I accept it," she -said with a smile. - -"What I've longed for in Dunsfield," he said, "is the old order that -doesn't change. I don't believe anything has changed." - -She plucked up her courage. Now she would challenge him--get it over -at once. She would watch his lips as he answered. - -"I'm afraid I must have changed, Roger." - -"In what way?" - -"I am no longer twenty." - -"Your voice is just the same." - -Shocked, she put up her delicate hands. "Don't--it hurts!" - -"What?" - -"You needn't have put it that way--you might have told a polite lie." - -He rose, turned aside, holding the back of the wicker chair. - -"I've got something to tell you," he said abruptly. "You would have to -find out soon, so you may as well know now. But don't be alarmed or -concerned. I can't see your face." - -"What do you mean?" - -"I've been stone blind for fifteen years." - -"Blind?" - -She sat for some moments paralysed. It was inconceivable. This man -was so strong, so alive, so masterful, with the bright face and keen, -humorous eyes--and blind! A trivial undercurrent of thought ran -subconsciously beneath her horror. She had wondered why he had -insisted on sounds and scents, why he had kept his stick in his hand, -why he had touched things--tables, window jambs, chairs--now she knew. -Roger went on talking, and she heard him in a dream. He had not -informed her when he was stricken, because he had wished to spare her -unnecessary anxiety. Also, he was proud, perhaps hard, and resented -sympathy. He had made up his mind to win through in spite of his -affliction. For some years it had been the absorbing passion of his -life. He had won through like many another, and, as the irreparable -detachment of the retina had not disfigured his eyes, it was his joy to -go through the world like a seeing man, hiding his blindness from the -casual observer. By dictated letter he could never have made her -understand how trifling a matter it was. - -"And I've deceived even you!" he laughed. - -Tears had been rolling down her cheeks. At his laugh she gave way. An -answering choke, hysterical, filled her throat, and she burst into a -fit of sobbing. He laid his hand tenderly on her head. - -"My dear, don't. I am the happiest man alive. And, as for eyes, I'm -rich enough to buy a hundred pairs. I'm a perfect Argus!" - -But Winifred Goode wept uncontrollably. There was deep pity for him in -her heart, but--never to be revealed to mortal--there was also -horrible, terrifying joy. She gripped her hands and sobbed frantically -to keep herself from laughter. A woman's sense of humour is often -cruel, only to be awakened by tragic incongruities. She had passed -through her month's agony and shame for a blind man. - -At last she mastered herself. "Forgive me, dear Roger. It was a -dreadful shock. Blindness has always been to me too awful for -thought--like being buried alive." - -"Not a bit of it," he said cheerily. "I've run a successful business -in the dark--real estate--buying and selling and developing land, you -know--a thing which requires a man to keep a sharp look-out, and which -he couldn't do if he were buried alive. It's a confounded nuisance, I -admit, but so is gout. Not half as irritating as the position of a man -I once knew who had both hands cut off." - -She shivered. "That's horrible." - -"It is," said he, "but blindness isn't." - -The maid appeared with the tea-tray, which she put on a rustic table. -It was then that Winifred noticed the little proud awkwardness of the -blind man. There was pathos in his insistent disregard of his -affliction. The imperfectly cut lower half of a watercress sandwich -fell on his coat and stayed there. She longed to pick it off, but did -not dare, for fear of hurting him. He began to talk again of the -house--the scheme of decoration. - -"Oh, it all seems so sad!" she cried. - -"What?" - -"You'll not be able to see the beautiful things." - -"Good Heavens," he retorted, "do you think I am quite devoid of -imagination? And do you suppose no one will enter the house but -myself?" - -"I never thought of that," she admitted. - -"As for the interior, I've got the plan in my head, and could walk -about it now blindfold, only that's unnecessary; and when it's all -fixed up, I'll have a ground model made of every room, showing every -piece of furniture, so that, when I get in, I'll know the size, shape, -colour, quality of every blessed thing in the house. You see if I -don't." - -"These gifts are a merciful dispensation of Providence." - -"Maybe," said he drily. "Only they were about the size of bacteria -when I started, and it took me years of incessant toil to develop them." - -He asked to be shown around the garden. She took him up the gravelled -walks beside her gay borders and her roses, telling him the names and -varieties of the flowers. Once he stopped and frowned. - -"I've lost my bearings. We ought to be passing under the shade of the -old walnut tree." - -"You are quite right," she said, marvelling at his accuracy. "It stood -a few steps back, but it was blown clean down three years ago. It had -been dead for a long time." - -He chuckled as he strolled on. "There's nothing makes me so mad as to -be mistaken." - -Some time later, on their return to the terrace, he held out his hand. - -"But you'll stay for dinner, Roger," she exclaimed. "I can't bear to -think of you spending your first evening at home in that awful 'Red -Lion.'" - -"That's very dear of you, Winnie," he said, evidently touched by the -softness in her voice. "I'll dine with pleasure, but I must get off -some letters first. I'll come back. You've no objection to my -bringing my man with me?" - -"Why, of course not." She laid her hand lightly on his arm. "Oh, -Roger, dear, I wish I could tell you how sorry I am, how my heart aches -for you!" - -"Don't worry," he said--"don't worry a little bit, and, if you really -want to help me, never let me feel that you notice I'm blind. Forget -it, as I do." - -"I'll try," she said. - -"That's right." He held her hand for a second or two, kissed it, and -dropped it, abruptly. "God bless you!" said he. "It's good to be with -you again." - -When he was gone, Winifred Goode returned to her seat by the clipped -yew and cried a little, after the manner of women. And, after the -manner of women, she dreamed dreams oblivious of the flight of time -till her maid came out and hurried her indoors. - -She dressed with elaborate care, in her best and costliest, and wore -more jewels than she would have done had her guest been of normal -sight, feeling oddly shaken by the thought of his intense imaginative -vision. In trying to fasten the diamond clasp of a velvet band round -her neck, her fingers trembled so much that the maid came to her -assistance. Her mind was in a whirl. Roger had left her a headstrong, -dissatisfied boy. He had returned, the romantic figure of a conqueror, -all the more romantic and conquering by reason of his triumph over the -powers of darkness. In his deep affection she knew her place was -secure. The few hours she had passed with him had shown her that he -was a man trained in the significance not only of words, but also of -his attitude towards individual men and women. He would not have said -"God bless you!" unless he meant it. She appreciated to the full his -masculine strength; she took to her heart his masculine tenderness; she -had a woman's pity for his affliction; she felt unregenerate exultancy -at the undetected crime of lost beauty, and yet she feared him on -account of the vanished sense. She loved him with a passionate -recrudescence of girlish sentiment; but the very thing that might have, -that ought to have, that she felt it indecent not to have, inflamed all -her woman's soul and thrown her reckless into his arms, raised between -them an impalpable barrier against which she dreaded lest she might be -dashed and bruised. - -At dinner this feeling was intensified. Roger made little or no -allusion to his blindness; he talked with the ease of the cultivated -man of the world. He had humour, gaiety, charm. As a mere companion, -she had rarely met, during her long seclusion, a man so instinctive in -sympathy, so quick in diverting talk into a channel of interest. In a -few flashing yet subtle questions, he learned what she wore. The -diamond clasp to the black velvet band he recognized as having been her -mother's. He complimented her delicately on her appearance, as though -he saw her clearly, in the adorable twilight beauty that was really -hers. There were moments when it seemed impossible that he should be -blind. But behind his chair, silent, impassive, arresting, freezing, -hovered his Chinese body-servant, capped, pig-tailed, loosely clad in -white, a creature as unreal in Dunsfield as gnome or merman, who, with -the unobtrusiveness of a shadow from another world, served, in the -mechanics of the meal, as an accepted, disregarded, and unnoticed pair -of eyes for his master. The noble Tudor dining-room, with its great -carved oak chimney-piece, its stately gilt-framed portraits, its -Jacobean sideboards and presses, all in the gloom of the spent -illumination of the candles on the daintily-set table, familiar to her -from her earliest childhood, part of her conception of the cosmos, part -of her very self, seemed metamorphosed into the unreal, the -phantasmagoric, by the presence of this white-clad, exotic figure--not -a man, but an eerie embodiment of the sense of sight. - -Her reason told her that the Chinese servant was but an ordinary -serving-man, performing minutely specified duties for a generous wage. -But the duties were performed magically, like conjuror's tricks. It -was practically impossible to say who cut up Roger's meat, who helped -him to salt or to vegetables, who guided his hand unerringly to the -wine glass. So abnormally exquisite was the co-ordination between the -two, that Roger seemed to have the man under mesmeric control. The -idea bordered on the monstrous. Winifred shivered through the dinner, -in spite of Roger's bright talk, and gratefully welcomed the change of -the drawing-room, whither the white-vestured automaton did not follow. - -"Will you do me a favour, Winnie?" he asked during the evening. "Meet -me at The Lodge tomorrow at eleven, and help me interview these -building people. Then you can have a finger in the pie from the very -start." - -She said somewhat tremulously: "Why do you want me to have a finger in -the pie?" - -"Good Heavens," he cried, "aren't you the only human creature in this -country I care a straw about?" - -"Is that true, Roger?" - -"Sure," said he. After a little span of silence he laughed. "People -on this side don't say 'sure.' That's sheer American." - -"I like it," said Winifred. - -When he parted from her, he again kissed her hand and again said: "God -bless you!" She accompanied him to the hall, where the Chinaman, -ghostly in the dimness, was awaiting him with hat and coat. Suddenly -she felt that she abhorred the Chinaman. - -That night she slept but little, striving to analyse her feelings. Of -one fact only did the dawn bring certainty--that, for all her love of -him, for all his charm, for all his tenderness towards her, during -dinner she had feared him horribly. - -She saw him the next morning in a new and yet oddly familiar phase. He -was attended by his secretary, a pallid man with a pencil, note-book, -and documents, for ever at his elbow, ghostly, automatic, during their -wanderings with the surveyor through the bare and desolate old house. - -She saw the master of men at work, accurate in every detail of a -comprehensive scheme, abrupt, imperious, denying difficulties with -harsh impatience. He leaned over his secretary and pointed to portions -of the report just as though he could read them, and ordered their -modification. - -"Mr. Withers," he said once to the surveyor, who was raising -objections, "I always get what I want because I make dead sure that -what I want is attainable. I'm not an idealist. If I say a thing is -to be done, it has got to be done, and it's up to you or to someone -else to do it." - -They went through the house from furnace to garret, the pallid -secretary ever at Roger's elbow, ever rendering him imperceptible -services, ever identifying himself with the sightless man, mysteriously -following his thoughts, co-ordinating his individuality with that of -his master. He was less a man than a trained faculty, like the Chinese -servant. And again Winifred shivered and felt afraid. - -More and more during the weeks that followed, did she realize the iron -will and irresistible force of the man she loved. He seemed to lay a -relentless grip on all those with whom he came in contact and compel -them to the expression of himself. Only towards her was he gentle and -considerate. Many times she accompanied him to London to the great -shops, the self-effacing secretary shadow-like at his elbow, and -discussed with him colours and materials, and he listened to her with -affectionate deference. She often noticed that the secretary -translated into other terms her description of things. This irritated -her, and once she suggested leaving the secretary behind. Surely, she -urged, she could do all that was necessary. He shook his head. - -"No, my dear," he said very kindly. "Jukes sees for me. I shouldn't -like you to see for me in the way Jukes does." - -She was the only person from whom he would take advice or suggestion, -and she rendered him great service in the tasteful equipment of the -house and in the engagement of a staff of servants. So free a hand did -he allow her in certain directions, so obviously and deliberately did -he withdraw from her sphere of operations, that she was puzzled. It -was not until later, when she knew him better, that the picture vaguely -occurred to her of him caressing her tenderly with one hand, and -holding the rest of the world by the throat with the other. - -On the day when he took up his residence in the new home, they walked -together through the rooms. In high spirits, boyishly elated, he gave -her an exhibition of his marvellous gifts of memory, minutely -describing each bit of furniture and its position in every room, the -colour scheme, the texture of curtains, the pictures on the walls, the -knick-knacks on mantlepieces and tables. And when he had done, he put -his arm round her shoulders. - -"But for you, Winnie," said he, "this would be the dreariest possible -kind of place; but the spirit of you pervades it and makes it a -fragrant paradise." - -The words and tone were lover-like, and so was his clasp. She felt -very near him, very happy, and her heart throbbed quickly. She was -ready to give her life to him. - -"You are making me a proud woman," she murmured. - -He patted her shoulder and laughed as he released her. - -"I only say what's true, my dear," he replied, and then abruptly -skipped from sentiment to practical talk. - -Winifred had a touch of dismay and disappointment. Tears started, -which she wiped away furtively. She had made up her mind to accept -him, in spite of Wang Fu and Mr. Jukes, if he should make her a -proposal of marriage. She had been certain that the moment had come. -But he made no proposal. - -She waited. She waited a long time. In the meanwhile, she continued -to be Roger's intimate friend and eagerly-sought companion. One day -his highly-paid and efficient housekeeper came to consult her. The -woman desired to give notice. Her place was too difficult. She could -scarcely believe the master was blind. He saw too much, he demanded -too much. She could say nothing explicit, save that she was -frightened. She wept, after the nature of upset housekeepers. -Winifred soothed her and advised her not to throw up so lucrative a -post, and, as soon as she had an opportunity, she spoke to Roger. He -laughed his usual careless laugh. - -"They all begin that way with me, but after a while they're broken in. -You did quite right to tell Mrs. Strode to stay." - -And after a few months Winifred saw a change in Mrs. Strode, and not -only in Mrs. Strode, but in all the servants whom she had engaged. -They worked the household like parts of a flawless machine. They grew -to be imperceptible, shadowy, automatic, like Wang Fu and Mr. Jukes. - - * * * * * - -The months passed and melted into years. Roger Orme became a great -personage in the neighbourhood. He interested himself in local -affairs, served on the urban district council and on boards -innumerable. They made him Mayor of Dunsfield. He subscribed largely -to charities and entertained on a sumptuous scale. He ruled the little -world, setting a ruthless heel on proud necks and making the humble his -instruments. Mr. Jukes died, and other secretaries came, and those who -were not instantly dismissed grew to be like Mr. Jukes. In the course -of time Roger entered Parliament as member for the division. He became -a force in politics, in public affairs. In the appointment of Royal -Commissions, committees of inquiry, his name was the first to occur to -ministers, and he was invariably respected, dreaded, and hated by his -colleagues. - -"Why do you work so hard, Roger?" Winifred would ask. - -He would say, with one of his laughs: "Because there's a dynamo in me -that I can't stop." - -And all these years Miss Winifred Goode stayed at Duns Hall, leading -her secluded, lavender-scented life when Roger was in London, and -playing hostess for him, with diffident graciousness, when he -entertained at The Lodge. His attitude towards her never varied, his -need of her never lessened. - -He never asked her to be his wife. At first she wondered, pined a -little, and then, like a brave, proud woman, put the matter behind her. -But she knew that she counted for much in his strange existence, and -the knowledge comforted her. And as the years went on, and all the -lingering shreds of youth left her, and she grew gracefully into the -old lady, she came to regard her association with him as a spiritual -marriage. - -Then, after twenty years, the dynamo wore out the fragile tenement of -flesh. Roger Orme, at sixty-five, broke down and lay on his death-bed. -One day he sent for Miss Winifred Goode. - -She entered the sick-room, a woman of sixty, white-haired, wrinkled, -with only the beauty of a serene step across the threshold of old age. -He bade the nurse leave them alone, and put out his hand and held hers -as she sat beside the bed. - -"What kind of a day is it, Winnie?" - -"As if you didn't know! You've been told, I'm sure, twenty times." - -"What does it matter what other people say? I want to get at the day -through you." - -"It's bright and sunny--a perfect day of early summer." - -"What things are out?" - -"The may and the laburnum and the lilac----" - -"And the wistaria?" - -"Yes, the wistaria." - -"It's forty years ago, dear, and your voice is just the same. And to -me you have always been the same. I can see you as you sit there, with -your dear, sensitive face, the creamy cheek, in which the blood comes -and goes--oh, Heavens, so different from the blowsy, hard-featured -girls nowadays, who could not blush if--well--well----I know 'em, -although I'm blind--I'm Argus, you know, dear. Yes, I can see you, -with your soft, brown eyes and pale brown hair waved over your pure -brow. There is a fascinating little kink on the left-hand side. Let -me feel it." - -She drew her head away, frightened. Then suddenly she remembered, with -a pang of thankfulness, that the queer little kink had defied the -years, though the pale brown hair was white. She guided his hand and -he felt the kink, and he laughed in his old, exultant way. - -"Don't you think I'm a miracle, Winnie?" - -"You're the most wonderful man living," she said. - -"I shan't be living long. No, my dear, don't talk platitudes. I know. -I'm busted. And I'm glad I'm going before I begin to dodder. A seeing -dodderer is bad enough, but a blind dodderer's only fit for the grave. -I've lived my life. I've proved to this stupendous clot of ignorance -that is humanity that a blind man can guide them wherever he likes. -You know I refused a knighthood. Any tradesman can buy a -knighthood--the only knighthoods that count are those that are given to -artists and writers and men of science--and, if I could live, I'd raise -hell over the matter, and make a differentiation in the titles of -honour between the great man and the rascally cheesemonger----" - -"My dear," said Miss Winifred Goode, "don't get so excited." - -"I'm only saying, Winnie, that I refused a knighthood. But--what I -haven't told you, what I'm supposed to keep a dead secret--if I could -live a few weeks longer, and I shan't, I should be a Privy -Councillor--a thing worth being. I've had the official intimation--a -thing that can't be bought. Heavens, if I were a younger man, and -there were the life in me, I should be the Prime Minister of this -country--the first great blind ruler that ever was in the world. Think -of it! But I don't want anything now. I'm done. I'm glad. The whole -caboodle is but leather and prunella. There is only one thing in the -world that is of any importance." - -"What is that, dear?" she asked quite innocently, accustomed to, but -never familiar with, his vehement paradox. - -"Love," said he. - -He gripped her hand hard. There passed a few seconds of tense silence. - -"Winnie, dear," he said at last, "will you kiss me?" - -She bent forward, and he put his arm round her neck and drew her to -him. They kissed each other on the lips. - -"It's forty years since I kissed you, dear--that day under the -wistaria. And, now I'm dying, I can tell you. I've loved you all the -time, Winnie. I'm a tough nut, as you know, and whatever I do I do -intensely. I've loved you intensely, furiously." - -She turned her head away, unable to bear the living look in the -sightless eyes. - -"Why did you never tell me?" she asked in a low voice. - -"Would you have married me?" - -"You know I would, Roger." - -"At first I vowed I would say nothing," he said, after a pause, "until -I had a fit home to offer you. Then the blindness came, and I vowed I -wouldn't speak until I had conquered the helplessness of my affliction. -Do you understand?" - -"Yes, but when you came home a conqueror----" - -"I loved you too much to marry you. You were far too dear and precious -to come into the intimacy of my life. Haven't you seen what happened -to all those who did?" He raised his old knotted hands, clenched -tightly. "I squeezed them dry. I couldn't help it. My blindness made -me a coward. It has been hell. The darkness never ceased to frighten -me. I lied when I said it didn't matter. I stretched out my hands -like tentacles and gripped everyone within reach in a kind of madness -of self-preservation. I made them give up their souls and senses to -me. It was some ghastly hypnotic power I seemed to have. When I had -got them, they lost volition, individuality. They were about as much -living creatures to me as my arm or my foot. Don't you see?" - -The white-haired woman looked at the old face working passionately, and -she felt once more the deadly fear of him. - -"But with me it would have been different," she faltered. "You say you -loved me." - -"That's the devil of it, my sweet, beautiful Winnie--it wouldn't have -been different. I should have squeezed you, too, reduced you to the -helpless thing that did my bidding, sucked your life's blood from you. -I couldn't have resisted. So I kept you away. Have I ever asked you -to use your eyes for me?" - -Her memory travelled down the years, and she was amazed. She -remembered Mr. Jukes at the great shops and many similar incidents that -had puzzled her. - -"No," she said. - -There was a short silence. The muscles of his face relaxed, and the -old, sweet smile came over it. He reached again for her hand and -caressed it tenderly. - -"By putting you out of my life, I kept you, dear. I kept you as the -one beautiful human thing I had. Every hour of happiness I have had -for the last twenty years has come through you." - -She said tearfully: "You have been very good to me, Roger." - -"It's a queer mix-up, isn't it?" he said, after a pause. "Most people -would say that I've ruined your life. If it hadn't been for me, you -might have married." - -"No, dear," she replied. "I've had a very full and happy life." - -The nurse came into the room to signify the end of the visit, and found -them hand in hand like lovers. He laughed. - -"Nurse," said he, "you see a dying but a jolly happy old man!" - -Two days afterwards Roger Orme died. On the afternoon of the funeral, -Miss Winifred Goode sat in the old garden in the shade of the clipped -yew, and looked at the house in which she had been born, and in which -she had passed her sixty years of life, and at the old wistaria beneath -which he had kissed her forty years ago. She smiled and murmured aloud: - -"No, I would not have had a single thing different." - - - - -III - -A LOVER'S DILEMMA - -"How are you feeling now?" - -Words could not express the music of these six liquid syllables that -fell through the stillness and the blackness on my ears. - -"Not very bright, I'm afraid, nurse," said I. - -Think of something to do with streams and moonlight, and you may have -an idea of the mellow ripple of the laugh I heard. - -"I'm not the nurse. Can't you tell the difference? I'm Miss -Deane--Dr. Deane's daughter." - -"Deane?" I echoed. - -"Don't you know where you are?" - -"Every thing is still confused," said I. - -I had an idea that they had carried me somewhere by train and put me -into a bed, and that soft-fingered people had tended my eyes; but where -I was I neither knew nor cared. Torture and blindness had been quite -enough to occupy my mind. - -"You are at Dr. Deane's house," said the voice, "and Dr. Deane is the -twin brother of Mr. Deane, the great oculist of Grandchester, who was -summoned to Shepton-Marling when you met with your accident. Perhaps -you know you had a gun accident?" - -"I suppose it was only that after all," said I, "but it felt like the -disruption of the solar system." - -"Are you still in great pain?" my unseen hostess asked sympathetically. - -"Not since you have been in the room. I mean," I added, chilled by a -span of silence, "I mean--I am just stating what happens to be a fact." - -"Oh!" she said shortly. "Well, my uncle found that you couldn't be -properly treated at your friend's little place at Shepton-Marling, so -he brought you to Grandchester--and here you are." - -"But I don't understand," said I, "why I should be a guest in your -house." - -"You are not a guest," she laughed. "You are here on the most sordid -and commercial footing. Your friend--I forget his name----" - -"Mobray," said I. - -"Mr. Mobray settled it with my uncle. You see the house is large and -father's practice small, as we keep a nursing home for my uncle's -patients. Of course we have trained nurses." - -"Are you one?" I asked. - -"Not exactly. I do the housekeeping. But I can settle those -uncomfortable pillows." - -I felt her dexterous cool hands about my head and neck. For a moment -or two my eyes ceased to ache, and I wished I could see her. In -tendering my thanks, I expressed the wish. She laughed her delicious -laugh. - -"If you could see you wouldn't be here, and therefore you couldn't see -me anyhow." - -"Shall I ever see you?" I asked dismally. - -"Why, of course! Don't you know that Henry Deane is one of the -greatest oculists in England?" - -We discussed my case and the miraculous skill of Henry Deane. -Presently she left me, promising to return. The tones of her voice -seemed to linger, as perfume would, in the darkness. - -That was the beginning of it. It was love, not at first sight, but at -first sound. Pain and anxiety stood like abashed goblins at the back -of my mind. Valerie Deane's voice danced in front like a triumphant -fairy. When she came and talked sick-room platitudes I had sooner -listened to her than to the music of the spheres. At that early stage -what she said mattered so little. I would have given rapturous heed to -her reading of logarithmic tables. I asked her silly questions merely -to elicit the witchery of her voice. When Melba sings, do you take -count of the idiot words? You close eyes and intellect and just let -the divine notes melt into your soul. And when you are lying on your -back, blind and helpless, as I was, your soul is a very sponge for -anything beautiful that can reach it. After a while she gave me -glimpses of herself, sweet and womanly; and we drifted from commonplace -into deeper things. She was the perfect companion. We discussed all -topics, from chiffons to Schopenhauer. Like most women, she execrated -Schopenhauer. She must have devoted much of her time to me; yet I -ungratefully complained of the long intervals between her visits. But -oh! those interminable idle hours of darkness, in which all the -thoughts that had ever been thought were rethought over and over again -until the mind became a worn-out rag-bag! Only those who have been -through the valley of this shadow can know its desolation. Only they -can understand the magic of the unbeheld Valerie Deane. - -"What is the meaning of this?" she asked one morning. "Nurse says you -are fretful and fractious." - -"She insisted on soaping the soles of my feet and tickling me into -torments, which made me fractious, and I'm dying to see your face, -which makes me fretful." - -"Since when have you been dying?" she asked. - -"From the first moment I heard your voice saying, 'How are you feeling -now?' It's irritating to have a friend and not in the least know what -she is like. Besides," I added, "your voice is so beautiful that your -face must be the same." - -She laughed. - -"Your face is like your laugh," I declared. - -"If my face were my fortune I should come off badly," she said in a -light tone. I think she was leaning over the foot-rail, and I longed -for her nearer presence. - -"Nurse has tied this bandage a little too tightly," I said mendaciously. - -I heard her move, and in a moment her fingers were busy about my eyes. -I put up my hand and touched them. She patted my hand away. - -"Please don't be foolish," she remarked. "When you recover your sight -and find what an exceedingly plain girl I am, you'll go away like the -others, and never want to see me again." - -"What others?" I exclaimed. - -"Do you suppose you're the only patient I have had to manage?" - -I loathed "the others" with a horrible detestation; but I said, after -reflection: - -"Tell me about yourself. I know you are called Valerie from Dr. Deane. -How old are you?" - -She pinned the bandage in front of my forehead. - -"Oh, I'm young enough," she answered with a laugh. "Three-and-twenty. -And I'm five-foot-four, and I haven't a bad figure. But I haven't any -good looks at all, at all." - -"Tell me," said I impatiently, "exactly how you do look. I must know." - -"I have a sallow complexion. Not very good skin. And a low forehead." - -"An excellent thing," said I. - -"But my eyebrows and hair run in straight parallel lines, so it isn't," -she retorted. "It is very ugly. I have thin black hair." - -"Let me feel." - -"Certainly not. And my eyes are a sort of watery china blue and much -too small. And my nose isn't a bad nose altogether, but it's fleshy. -One of those nondescript, unaristocratic noses that always looks as if -it has got a cold. My mouth is large--I am looking at myself in the -glass--my my teeth are white. Yes, they are nice and white. But they -are large and protrude--you know the French caricature of an -Englishwoman's teeth. Really, now I consider the question, I am the -image of the English _mees_ in a French comic paper." - -"I don't believe it," I declared. - -"It is true. I know I have a pretty voice--but that is all. It -deceives blind people. They think I must be pretty too, and when they -see me--_bon soir, la compagnie_! And I've such a thin, miserable -face, coming to the chin in a point, like a kite. There! Have you a -clear idea of me now?" - -"No," said I, "for I believe you are wilfully misrepresenting yourself. -Besides, beauty does not depend upon features regular in themselves, -but the way those features are put together." - -"Oh, mine are arranged in an amiable sort of way. I don't look cross." - -"You must look sweetness itself," said I. - -She sighed and said meditatively: - -"It is a great misfortune for a girl to be so desperately plain. The -consciousness of it comes upon her like a cold shower-bath when she is -out with other girls. Now there is my cousin----" - -"Which cousin?" - -"My Uncle Henry's daughter. Shall I tell you about her?" - -"I am not in the least interested in your cousin," I replied. - -She laughed, and the entrance of the nurse put an end to the -conversation. - -Now I must make a confession. I was grievously disappointed. Her -detailed description of herself as a sallow, ill-featured young woman -awoke me with a shock from my dreams of a radiant goddess. It arrested -my infatuation in mid-course. My dismay was painful. I began to pity -her for being so unattractive. For the next day or two even her -beautiful voice failed in its seduction. - -But soon a face began to dawn before me, elusive at first, and then -gradually gaining in definition. At last the picture flashed upon my -mental vision with sudden vividness, and it has never left me to this -day. Its steadfastness convinced me of its accuracy. It was so real -that I could see its expression vary, as she spoke, according to her -mood. The plainness, almost ugliness, of the face repelled me. I -thought ruefully of having dreamed of kisses from the lips that barely -closed in front of the great white teeth. Yet, after a while, its -higher qualities exercised a peculiar attraction. A brave, tender -spirit shone through. An intellectual alertness redeemed the heavy -features--the low ugly brow, the coarse nose, the large mouth; and as I -lay thinking and picturing there was revealed in an illuminating flash -the secret of the harmony between face and voice. Thenceforward -Valerie Deane was invested with a beauty all her own. I loved the dear -plain face as I loved the beautiful voice, and the touch of her -fingers, and the tender, laughing womanliness, and all that went with -the concept of Valerie Deane. - -Had I possessed the daring of Young Lochinvar, I should, on several -occasions, have declared my passion. But by temperament I am a -diffident procrastinator. I habitually lose golden moments as some -people habitually lose umbrellas. Alas! There is no Lost Property -Office for golden moments! - -Still I vow, although nothing definite was said, that when the -unanticipated end drew near, our intercourse was arrant love-making. - -All pain had gone from my eyes. I was up and dressed and permitted to -grope my way about the blackness. To-morrow I was to have my first -brief glimpse of things for three weeks, in the darkened room. I was -in high spirits. Valerie, paying her morning visit, seemed depressed. - -"But think of it!" I cried in pardonable egotism. "To-morrow I shall -be able to see you. I've longed for it as much as for the sight of the -blue sky." - -"There isn't any blue sky," said Valerie. "It's an inverted tureen -that has held pea-soup." - -Her voice had all the melancholy notes of the woodwind in the unseen -shepherd's lament in "Tristan und Isolde." - -"I don't know how to tell you," she exclaimed tragically, after a -pause. "I shan't be here to-morrow. It's a bitter disappointment. My -aunt in Wales is dying. I have been telegraphed for, and I must go." - -She sat on the end of the couch where I was lounging, and took my hands. - -"It isn't my fault." - -My spirits fell headlong. - -"I would just as soon keep blind," said I blankly. - -"I thought you would say that." - -A tear dropped on my hand. I felt that it was brutal of her aunt to -make Valerie cry. Why could she not postpone her demise to a more -suitable opportunity? I murmured, however, a few decent words of -condolence. - -"Thank you, Mr. Winter," said Valerie. "I am fond of my aunt; but I -had set my heart on your seeing me. And she may not die for weeks and -weeks! She was dying for ever so long last year, and got round again." - -I ventured an arm about her shoulders, and spoke consolingly. The day -would come when our eyes would meet. I called her Valerie and bade her -address me as Harold. - -I have come to the conclusion that the man who strikes out a new line -in love-making is a genius. - -"If I don't hurry I shall miss my train," she sighed at last. - -She rose; I felt her bend over me. Her hands closed on my cheeks, and -a kiss fluttered on my lips. I heard the light swish of her skirts and -the quick opening and shutting of the door, and she was gone. - - -Valerie's aunt, like King Charles II, was an unconscionable time -a-dying. When a note from Valerie announced her return to -Grandchester, I had already gone blue-spectacled away. For some time I -was not allowed to read or write, and during this period of probation -urgent affairs summoned me to Vienna. Such letters as I wrote to -Valerie had to be of the most elementary nature. If you have a heart -of any capacity worth troubling about, you cannot empty it on one side -of a sheet of notepaper. For mine reams would have been inadequate. I -also longed to empty it in her presence, my eyes meeting hers for the -first time. Thus, ever haunted by the beloved plain face and the -memorable voice, I remained inarticulate. - -As soon as my business was so far adjusted that I could leave Vienna, I -started on a flying visit, post-haste, to England. The morning after -my arrival beheld me in a railway carriage at Euston waiting for the -train to carry me to Grandchester. I had telegraphed to Valerie; also -to Mr. Deane, the oculist, for an appointment which might give colour -to my visit. I was alone in the compartment. My thoughts, far away -from the long platform, leaped the four hours that separated me from -Grandchester. For the thousandth time I pictured our meeting. I -foreshadowed speeches of burning eloquence. I saw the homely features -transfigured. I closed my eyes the better to retain the beatific -vision. The train began to move. Suddenly the door was opened, a -girlish figure sprang into the compartment, and a porter running by the -side of the train, threw in a bag and a bundle of wraps, and slammed -the door violently. The young lady stood with her back to me, panting -for breath. The luggage lay on the floor. I stooped to pick up the -bag; so did the young lady. Our hands met as I lifted it to the rack. - -"Oh, please, don't trouble!" she cried in a voice whose familiarity -made my heart beat. - -I caught sight of her face, for the first time, and my heart beat -faster than ever. It was her face--the face that had dawned upon my -blindness--the face I had grown to worship. I looked at her, -transfixed with wonder. She settled herself unconcerned in the farther -corner of the carriage. I took the opposite seat and leaned forward. - -"You are Miss Deane?" I asked tremulously. - -She drew herself up, on the defensive. - -"That is my name," she said. - -"Valerie!" I cried in exultation. - -She half rose. "What right have you to address me?" - -"I am Harold Winter," said I, taken aback by her outraged demeanour. -"Is it possible that you don't recognize me?" - -"I have never seen or heard of you before in my life," replied the -young lady tartly, "and I hope you won't force me to take measures to -protect myself against your impertinence." - -I lay back against the cushions, gasping with dismay. - -"I beg your pardon," said I, recovering; "I am neither going to molest -you nor be intentionally impertinent. But, as your face has never been -out of my mind for three months, and as I am travelling straight -through from Vienna to Grandchester to see it for the first time, I may -be excused for addressing you." - -She glanced hurriedly at the communication-cord and then back at me, as -if I were a lunatic. - -"You are Miss Deane of Grandchester--daughter of Dr. Deane?" I asked. - -"Yes." - -"Valerie Deane, then?" - -"I have told you so." - -"Then all I can say is," I cried, losing my temper at her stony -heartlessness, "that your conduct in turning an honest, decent man into -a besotted fool, and then disclaiming all knowledge of him, is -outrageous. It's damnable. The language hasn't a word to express it!" - -She stood with her hand on the cord. - -"I shall really have to call the guard," she said, regarding me coolly. - -"You are quite free to do so," I answered. "But if you do, I shall -have to show your letters, in sheer self-defence. I am not going to -spend the day in a police-station." - -She let go the cord and sat down again. - -"What on earth do you mean?" she asked. - -I took a bundle of letters from my pocket and tossed one over to her. -She glanced at it quickly, started, as if in great surprise, and handed -it back with a smile. - -"I did not write that." - -I thought I had never seen her equal for unblushing impudence. Her -mellow tones made the mockery appear all the more diabolical. - -"If you didn't write it," said I, "I should like to know who did." - -"My Cousin Valerie." - -"I don't understand," said I. - -"My name is Valerie Deane and my cousin's name is Valerie Deane, and -this is her handwriting." - -Bewildered, I passed my hand over my eyes. What feline trick was she -playing? Her treachery was incomprehensible. - -"I suppose it was your Cousin Valerie who tended me during my blindness -at your father's house, who shed tears because she had to leave me, -who----" - -"Quite possibly," she interrupted. "Only it would have been at her -father's house and not mine. She does tend blind people, my father's -patients." - -I looked at her open-mouthed. "In the name of Heaven," I exclaimed, -"who are you, if not the daughter of Dr. Deane of Stavaton Street?" - -"My father is Mr. Henry Deane, the oculist. You asked if I were the -daughter of Dr. Deane. So many people give him the wrong title I -didn't trouble to correct you." - -It took me a few moments to recover. I had been making a pretty fool -of myself. I stammered out pleas for a thousand pardons. I confused -myself, and her, in explanation. Then I remembered that the fathers -were twin brothers and bore a strong resemblance one to the other. -What more natural than that the daughters should also be alike? - -"What I can't understand," said Miss Deane, "is how you mistook me for -my cousin." - -"Your voices are identical." - -"But our outer semblances----" - -"I have never seen your cousin--she left me before I recovered my -sight." - -"How then could you say you had my face before you for three months?" - -"I am afraid, Miss Deane, I was wrong in that as in everything else. -It was her face. I had a mental picture of it." - -She put on a puzzled expression. "And you used the mental picture for -the purpose of recognition?" - -"Yes," said I. - -"I give it up," said Miss Deane. - -She did not press me further. Her Cousin Valerie's love affairs were -grounds too delicate for her to tread upon. She turned the -conversation by politely asking me how I had come to consult her -father. I mentioned my friend Mobray and the gun accident. She -remembered the case and claimed a slight acquaintance with Mobray, whom -she had met at various houses in Grandchester. My credit as a sane and -reputable person being established, we began to chat most amicably. I -found Miss Deane an accomplished woman. We talked books, art, travel. -She had the swift wit which delights in bridging the trivial and the -great. She had a playful fancy. Never have I found a personality so -immediately sympathetic. I told her a sad little Viennese story in -which I happened to have played a minor part, and her tenderness was as -spontaneous as Valerie's--my Valerie's. She had Valerie's woodland -laugh. Were it not that her personal note, her touch on the strings of -life differed essentially from my beloved's, I should have held it -grotesquely impossible for any human being but Valerie to be sitting in -the opposite corner of that railway carriage. Indeed there were -moments when she was Valerie, when the girl waiting for me at -Grandchester faded into the limbo of unreal things. A kiss from those -lips had fluttered on mine. It were lunacy to doubt it. - -During intervals of non-illusion I examined her face critically. There -was no question of its unattractiveness to the casual observer. The -nose was too large and fleshy, the teeth too prominent, the eyes too -small. But my love had pierced to its underlying spirituality, and it -was the face above all others that I desired. - -Toward the end of a remarkably short four hours' journey, Miss Deane -graciously expressed the hope that we might meet again. - -"I shall ask Valerie," said I, "to present me in due form." - -She smiled maliciously. "Are you quite sure you will be able to -distinguish one from the other when my cousin and I are together?" - -"Are you, then, so identically alike?" - -"That's a woman's way of answering a question--by another question," -she laughed. - -"Well, but are you?" I persisted. - -"How otherwise could you have mistaken me for her?" She had drawn off -her gloves, so as to give a tidying touch to her hair. I noticed her -hands, small, long, and deft. I wondered whether they resembled -Valerie's. - -"Would you do me the great favour of letting me touch your hand while I -shut my eyes, as if I were blind?" - -She held out her hand frankly. My fingers ran over it for a few -seconds, as they had done many times over Valerie's. "Well?" she asked. - -"Not the same," said I. - -She flushed, it seemed angrily, and glanced down at her hand, on which -she immediately proceeded to draw a glove. - -"Yours are stronger. And finer," I added, when I saw that the tribute -of strength did not please. - -"It's the one little personal thing I am proud of," she remarked. - -"You have made my four hours pass like four minutes," said I. "A -service to a fellow-creature which you might take some pride in having -performed." - -"When I was a child I could have said the same of performing elephants." - -"I am no longer a child, Miss Deane," said I with a bow. - -What there was in this to make the blood rush to her pale cheeks I do -not know. The ways of women have often surprised me. I have heard -other men make a similar confession. - -"I think most men are children," she said shortly. - -"In what way?" - -"Their sweet irresponsibility," said Miss Deane. - -And then the train entered Grandchester Station. - -I deposited my bag at the station hotel and drove straight to Stavaton -Street. I forgot Miss Deane. My thoughts and longings centred in her -beloved counterpart, with her tender, caressing ways, and just a subtle -inflection in the voice that made it more exquisite than the voice to -which I had been listening. - -The servant who opened the door recognized me and smiled a welcome. -Miss Valerie was in the drawing-room. - -"I know the way," said I. - -Impetuous, I ran up the stairs, burst into the drawing-room, and -stopped short on the threshold in presence of a strange and exceedingly -beautiful young woman. She was stately and slender. She had masses of -bright brown hair waving over a beautiful brow. She had deep sapphire -eyes, like stars. She had the complexion of a Greuze child. She had -that air of fairy diaphaneity combined with the glow of superb health -which makes the typical loveliness of the Englishwoman. I gaped for a -second or two at this gracious apparition. - -"I beg your pardon," said I; "I was told--" - -The apparition who was standing by the fireplace smiled and came -forward with extended hands. - -"Why, Harold! Of course you were told. It is all right. I am -Valerie." - -I blinked; the world seemed upside down; the enchanting voice rang in -my ears, but it harmonized in no way with the equally enchanting face. -I put out my hand. "How do you do?" I said stupidly. - -"But aren't you glad to see me?" asked the lovely young woman. - -"Of course," said I; "I came from Vienna to see you." - -"But you look disappointed." - -"The fact is," I stammered, "I expected to see some one -different--quite different. The face you described has been haunting -me for three months." - -She had the effrontery to laugh. Her eyes danced mischief. - -"Did you really think me such a hideous fright?" - -"You were not a fright at all," said I, remembering my late travelling -companion. - -And then in a flash I realised what she had done. - -"Why on earth did you describe your cousin instead of yourself?" - -"My cousin! How do you know that?" - -"Never mind," I answered. "You did. During your description you had -her face vividly before your mind. The picture was in some telepathic -way transferred from your brain to mine, and there it remained. The -proof is that when I saw a certain lady to-day I recognised her at once -and greeted her effusively as Valerie. Her name did happen to be -Valerie, and Valerie Deane too, and I ran the risk of a -police-station--and I don't think it was fair of you. What prompted -you to deceive me?" - -I was hurt and angry, and I spoke with some acerbity. Valerie drew -herself up with dignity. - -"If you claim an explanation, I will give it to you. We have had young -men patients in the house before, and, as they had nothing to do, they -have amused themselves and annoyed me by falling in love with me. I -was tired of it, and decided that it shouldn't happen in your case. So -I gave a false description of myself. To make it consistent, I took a -real person for a model." - -"So you were fooling me all the time?" said I, gathering hat and stick. - -Her face softened adorably. Her voice had the tones of the wood-wind. - -"Not all the time, Harold," she said. - -I laid down hat and stick. - -"Then why did you not undeceive me afterward?" - -"I thought," she said, blushing and giving me a fleeting glance, "well, -I thought you--you wouldn't be sorry to find I wasn't--bad looking." - -"I am sorry, Valerie," said I, "and that's the mischief of it." - -"I was so looking forward to your seeing me," she said tearfully. And -then, with sudden petulance, she stamped her small foot. "It is horrid -of you--perfectly horrid--and I never want to speak to you again." The -last word ended in a sob. She rushed to the door, pushed me aside, as -I endeavoured to stop her, and fled in a passion of tears. _Spretæ -injuria formæ_! Women have remained much the same since the days of -Juno. - -A miserable, remorseful being, I wandered through the Grandchester -streets, to keep my appointment with Mr. Henry Deane. After a short -interview he dismissed me with a good report of my eyes. Miss Deane, -dressed for walking, met me in the hall as the servant was showing me -out, and we went together into the street. - -"Well," she said with a touch of irony, "have you seen my cousin?" - -"Yes," said I. - -"Do you think her like me?" - -"I wish to Heaven she were!" I exclaimed fervently. "I shouldn't be -swirling round in a sort of maelstrom." - -She looked steadily at me--I like her downrightness. - -"Do you mind telling me what you mean?" - -"I am in love with the personality of one woman and the face of -another. And I never shall fall out of love with the face." - -"And the personality?" - -"God knows," I groaned. - -"I never conceived it possible for any man to fall in love with a face -so hopelessly unattractive," she said with a smile. - -"It is beautiful," I cried. - -She looked at me queerly for a few seconds, during which I had the -sensation of something odd, uncanny having happened. I was fascinated. -I found myself saying: "What did you mean by the 'sweet -irresponsibility of man'?" - -She put out her hand abruptly and said good-bye. I watched her -disappear swiftly round a near corner, and I went, my head buzzing with -her, back to my hotel. In the evening I dined with Dr. Deane. I had -no opportunity of seeing Valerie alone. In a whisper she begged -forgiveness. I relented. Her beauty and charm would have mollified a -cross rhinoceros. The love in her splendid eyes would have warmed a -snow image. The pressure of her hand at parting brought back the old -Valerie, and I knew I loved her desperately. But inwardly I groaned, -because she had not the face of my dreams. I hated her beauty. As -soon as the front door closed behind me, my head began to buzz again -with the other Valerie. - -I lay awake all night. The two Valeries wove themselves inextricably -together in my hopes and longings. I worshipped a composite chimera. -When the grey dawn stole through my bedroom window, the chimera -vanished, but a grey dubiety dawned upon my soul. Day invested it with -a ghastly light. I rose a shivering wreck and fled from Grandchester -by the first train. - -I have not been back to Grandchester. I am in Vienna, whither I -returned as fast as the Orient Express could carry me. I go to bed -praying that night will dispel my doubt. I wake every morning to my -adamantine indecision. That I am consuming away with love for one of -the two Valeries is the only certain fact in my uncertain existence. -But which of the Valeries it is I cannot for the life of me decide. - -If any woman (it is beyond the wit of man) could solve my problem and -save me from a hopeless and lifelong celibacy she would earn my undying -gratitude. - - - - -IV - -A WOMAN OF THE WAR - -It was a tiny room at the top of what used to be a princely London -mansion, the home of a great noble--a tiny room, eight feet by five, -the sleeping-receptacle, in the good old days, for some unconsidered -scullery-maid or under-footman. The walls were distempered and bare; -the furniture consisted of a camp-bed, a chair, a deal chest of -drawers, and a wash-stand--everything spotless. There was no -fireplace. An aerial cell of a room, yet the woman in nurse's uniform -who sat on the bed pressing her hands to burning eyes and aching brows -thanked God for it. She thanked God for the privacy of it. Had she -been a mere nurse, she would have had the third share of a large, -comfortable bedroom, with a fire on bitter winter nights. But, as a -Sister, she had a room to herself. Thank God she was alone! Coldly, -stonily, silently alone. - -The expected convoy of wounded officers had been late, and she had -remained on duty beyond her hour, so as to lend a hand. Besides, she -was not on the regular staff of the private hospital. She had broken a -much needed rest from France to give temporary relief from pressure; so -an extra hour or two did not matter. - -The ambulances at length arrived. Some stretcher-cases, some walking. -Among the latter was one, strongly knit, athletic, bandaged over the -entire head and eyes, and led like a blind man by orderlies. When she -first saw him in the vestibule, his humorous lips and resolute chin, -which were all of his face unhidden, seemed curiously familiar; but -during the bustle of installation, the half-flash of memory became -extinct. It was only later, when she found that this head-bandaged man -was assigned to her care, that she again took particular notice of him. -Now that his overcoat had been taken off, she saw a major's crown on -the sleeve of his tunic, and on the breast the ribbons of the D.S.O. -and the M.C. He was talking to the matron. - -"They did us proud all the way. Had an excellent dinner. It's awfully -kind of you; but I want nothing more, I assure you, save just to get -into bed and sleep like a dog." - -And then she knew, in a sudden electric shock of certainty. - -Half dazed, she heard the matron say, - -"Sister, this is Major Shileto, of the Canadian army." - -Half dazed, too, she took his gropingly outstretched hand. The -gesture, wide of the mark, struck her with terror. She controlled -herself. The matron consulted her typed return-sheet and ran off the -medical statement of his injuries. - -Major Shileto laughed. - -"My hat! If I've got all that the matter with me, why didn't they bury -me decently in France?" - -She was rent by the gay laughter. When the matron turned away, she -followed her. - -"He isn't blind, is he?" - -The matron, to whose naturally thin, pinched face worry and anxiety had -added a touch of shrewishness, swung round on her. - -"I thought you were a medical student. Is there anything about -blindness here?" She smote the typed pages. "Of course not!" - -The night staff being on duty, she had then fled the ward and mounted -up the many stairs to the little room where she now sat, her hands to -her eyes. Thank God he was not blind, and thank God she was alone! - -But it had all happened a hundred years ago. Well, twenty years at -least. In some vague period of folly before the war. Yet, after all, -she was only five and twenty. When did it happen? She began an -agonized calculation of dates---- - -She had striven almost successfully to put the miserable episode out of -her mind, to regard that period of her life as a phase of a previous -existence. Since the war began, carried on the flood-tide of absorbing -work, she had had no time to moralize on the past. When it came before -her in odd moments, she had sent it packing into the limbo of deformed -and hateful things. And now the man with the gay laughter and the -distinguished soldier's record had brought it all back, horribly vivid. -For the scared moments, it was as though the revolutionary war-years -had never been. She saw herself again the Camilla Warrington whom she -had sought contemptuously to bury. - -Had there been but a musk grain of beauty in that Camilla's story, she -would have cherished the fragrance; but it had all been so ignoble and -stupid. It had begun with her clever girlhood. The London University -matriculation. The first bachelor-of-science degree. John Donovan, -the great surgeon, a friend of her parents, had encouraged her -ambitions toward a medical career. She became a student at the Royal -Free Hospital, of the consulting staff of which John Donovan was a -member. For the first few months, all went well. She boarded near by, -in Bloomsbury, with a vague sort of aunt and distant cousins, folks of -unimpeachable repute. Then, fired by the independent theories and -habits of a couple of fellow students, she left the home of dull -respectability and joined them in the slatternly bohemia of a Chelsea -slum. - -Oh, there was excuse for her youthful ardency to know all that there -was to be known in the world at once! But if she had used her -excellent brains, she would have realized that all that is to be known -in the world could not be learned in her new environment. The unholy -crew--they called it "The Brotherhood"--into which she plunged -consisted of the dregs of a decadent art-world, unclean in person and -in ethics. At first, she revolted. But the specious intellectuality -of the crew fascinated her. Hitherto, she had seen life purely from -the scientific angle. Material cause, material effect. On material -life, art but an excrescence. She had been carelessly content to -regard it merely as an interpretation of Beauty--to her, almost -synonymous with prettiness. - -At the various meeting-places of the crew, who talked with the -interminability of a Russian Bolshevik, she learned a surprising lot of -things about art that had never entered into her philosophy. She -learned, or tried to learn--though her intelligence boggled fearfully -at it--that the most vital thing in existence was the decomposition of -phenomena, into interesting planes. All things in nature were in -motion--as a scientific truth, she was inclined to accept the -proposition; but the proclaimed fact that the representation of the -Lucretian theory of fluidity by pictorial diagrams of intersecting -planes was destined to revolutionize human society was beyond her -comprehension. Still, it was vastly interesting. They got their -plane-system into sculpture, into poetry, in some queer way into -sociology. - -A dingy young painter, meagerly hirsute, and a pallid young woman of -anarchical politics assembled the crew one evening and, taking hands, -announced the fact of their temporary marriage. The temporary -bridegroom made a speech which was enthusiastically acclaimed. Their -association was connected (so Camilla understood) with some sublime -quality inherent in the intersecting planes. In these various pairings -gleamed none of the old Latin Quarter joyousness. Their immorality was -most austere. - -To Camilla, it was all new and startling--a phantasmagorical world. -Free love the merest commonplace. And, after a short while, into this -poisonous atmosphere wherein she dwelt there came two influences. One -was the vigilancy of the Women's Social and Political Union; the other, -Harry Shileto, a young architect, a healthy man in the midst of an -unhealthy tribe. - -First, young Shileto. It is not that he differed much from the rest of -the crew in crazy theory. He maintained, like everyone else, that -Raphael and Brunelleschi had retarded the progress of the world for a -thousand years; he despised Debussy for a half-hearted anarchist; he -lamented the failure of the architectural iconoclasts of the late -'Nineties; his professed contempt for all human activities outside the -pale of the slum was colossal; on the slum marriage-theory he was -sound, nay, enthusiastic. But he was physically clean, physically -good-looking, a man. And as Camilla, too, practised cleanliness of -person, they were drawn together. - -And, at the same time, the cold, relentless hand of the great feminist -organization got her in its grip. Blindly acting under orders, she -interrupted meetings, broke windows, went to prison, shrieked at -street-corners the independence of her sex. And then she came down on -the bed-rock of a sex by no means so independent--on the contrary, -imperiously, tyrannically dependent on hers. The theories of the slum, -uncompromisingly suffragist, were all very well; they might be -practised with impunity by the anemic and slatternly; but when Harry -Shileto entered into the quasi-marriage bond with Camilla, the instinct -of the honest Briton clamored for the comforts of a home. As all the -time that she could spare from the neglect of her studies at the -hospital was devoted to feminist rioting, and a mere rag of a thing -came back at night to the uncared-for flat, the young man rebelled. - -"You can't love and look after me and fool about in prison at the same -time. The two things don't hold together." - -And Camilla, her nerves a jangle, - -"I am neither your odalisk nor your housekeeper; so your remark does -not apply." - -Oh, the squalid squabbles! And then, at last, - -"Camilla"--he gave her a letter to read--"I'm fed up with all this rot." - -She glanced over the letter. - -"Are you going to accept this post in Canada?" she asked sourly. - -"Not if you promise to chuck the militant business and also these -epicene freaks in Chelsea. I should like you to carry on at the -hospital until you're qualified." - -"You seem to forget," she said, "that I'm like a soldier under orders. -If necessary, I must sacrifice my medical career. I also think your -remarks about The Brotherhood simply beastly. I'll do no such thing." - -Eventually it came to this: - -"I don't care whether women get the vote or not. I think our Chelsea -friends are the most pestilential set of rotters on the face of the -earth. I've got my way to make in the world. Help me to do it. Let -us get married in decent fashion and go out together." - -"I being just the appanage of the rising young architect? Thank you -for the insult." - -And so the argument went on until he delivered his ultimatum: - -"If I don't get a sensible message by twelve o'clock to-morrow at the -club, I'll never see or hear of you as long as I live." - -He went out of the flat. She sent no message. He did not return. -After a while, a lawyer came and equitably adjusted joint financial -responsibilities. And that was the end of the romance--if romance it -could be termed. From that day to this, Harry Shileto had vanished -from her ken. - -His exit had been the end of the romance; but it had marked the -beginning of tragedy. A man can love and, however justifiably, ride -away--gloriously free. But the woman, for all her clamoring -insistence, has to pay the debt from which man is physically exempt. -Harry Shileto had already arrived in Canada when Camilla discovered the -dismaying fact of her sex's disability. But her pride kept her silent, -and of the child born in secret and dead within a fortnight, Harry -Shileto never heard. Then, after a few months of dejection and loss of -bearings and lassitude, the war thundered on the world. Her friend, -John Donovan, the surgeon, was going out to France. She went to him -and said: "I've wasted my time. It will take years for me to qualify. -Let me go out and nurse." So, through his influence, she had stepped -into the midst of the suffering of the war, and there she still -remained and found great happiness in great work. - - -At length she drew her hands from her brow and went and poured out some -water, for her throat was parched. On catching sight of herself in the -mirror, she paused. She was pale and worn, and there were hollows -beneath her eyes, catching shadows, but the war had not altogether -marred her face. She took off her uniform-cap and revealed dark hair, -full and glossy. She half wondered why the passage of a hundred years -had not turned it white. Then she sat again on the bed and gripped her -hands together. - -"My God, what am I going to do?" - -Had she loved him? She did not know. Her association with him could -not have been entirely the callous execution of a social theory. There -must have been irradiating gleams. Or had she wilfully excluded them -from her soul? Once she had needed him and cried for him; but that was -in an hour of weakness which she had conquered. And now, how could she -face him? Still less, live in that terrible intimacy of patient and -nurse? Oh, the miserable shame of it! All her womanhood shivered. -Yet she must go through the ordeal. His bandaged eyes promised a short -time of probation. - -In the morning, after a restless night, she pulled herself together. -After all, what need for such a commotion? If the three and a half -years of war had not taught her dignity and self-reliance, she had -learned but little. - -There were four beds in the ward. Two on the right were occupied by -officers, one with an arm-wound, another with a hole through his body. -The third on the left by a pathetic-looking boy with a shattered knee, -which, as the night Sister told her, gave him unceasing pain. The -fourth by Major Shileto. To him she went first and whispered: - -"I'm the day Sister. What kind of a night have you had?" - -"Splendid!" His lips curled in a pleasant smile. "Just one long, -beautiful blank." - -"And the head?" - -"Jammy. That's what it feels like. How it looks, I don't know." - -"We'll see later when I do the dressings." - -She went off to the boy. He also was a Canadian officer, and his name -was Robin McKay. She lingered awhile in talk. - -"Strikes me my military career is over, and I'll just have to hump -round real estate in Winnipeg on a wooden leg." - -"They aren't going to cut your leg off, you silly boy!" she laughed. -"And what do you mean by 'humping round real estate?'" - -"I'm a land surveyor. That's to say, my father is. See here: When are -they going to send me back? I'm afraid of this country." - -"Why?" - -"It's so lonesome. I don't know a soul." - -"We'll fix that up all right for you," she said cheerily. "Don't -worry." - -The morning routine of the hospital began. In its appointed course -came the time for dressings. Camilla, her nerves under control, went -to Shileto. - -"I've got to worry you, but I'll try to hurt as little as I can." - -"Go ahead. Never mind me." - -A probationer stood by, serving the laden wheel-table. At first, the -symmetrically bandaged head seemed that of a thousand cases with which -she had dealt. But when the crisp brown hair came to view, her hand -trembled ever so little. She avoided touching it as far as was -possible, for she remembered its feel. Dead, forgotten words rose -lambent in her memory: "_It crackles like a cat's back. Let me see if -there are sparks_." - -But in the midst of a great shaven patch there was a horrible -scalp-wound which claimed her deftest skill. And she worked with -steady fingers and uncovered the maimed brows and eyelids and -cheekbones. How the sight had been preserved was a miracle. She -cleansed the wounds with antiseptics and freed the eyelashes. She bent -over him with deliberate intent. - -"You can open your eyes for a second or two. You can see all right?" - -"Rather. I can see your belt." - -"Hold on, then." - -With her swift craft, she blindfolded him anew, completed the -bandaging, laid him back on his pillow, and went off with the -probationer, wheeling the table to the other cases. - -Later in the day, she was doing him some trivial service. - -"What's the good of lying in bed all day?" he asked. "I want to get up -and walk about." - -"You've got a bit of a temperature." - -"How much?" - -"Ninety-nine point eight." - -"Call that a temperature? I've gone about with a hundred and three." - -"When was that?" - -"When I first went out to Canada. I'm English, you know--only left the -Old Country in Nineteen thirteen. But, when the war broke out, I -joined up with the first batch of Canadians--lucky to start with a -commission. Lord, it was hell's delight!" - -"So I've been given to understand," said Camilla. "But what about your -temperature of a hundred and three?" - -"I was a young fool," said he, "and I didn't care what happened to me." - -"Why?" she asked. - -For a while he did not answer. He bit his lower lip, showing just a -fine line of white teeth. Memory again clutched her. She was also -struck by his unconscious realization of the aging quality of the war -in that he spoke of his Nineteen-thirteen self as "a young fool." So -far as that went, they thought in common. - -Presently he said, - -"Your voice reminds me of some one I used to know." - -"Where?" - -"Oh, here, in London." - -She lied instinctively, with a laugh. - -"It couldn't have been me. I've only just come to London--and I've -never met Major Shileto before in my life." - -"Of course not," he asserted readily. "But I had no idea two human -voices could be so nearly identical." - -"Still," she remarked, "you haven't told me of the temperature of a -hundred and three." - -"Oh, it is no story. Your voice brought it all back. You've heard of -a man's own angry pride being cap and bells for a fool? Well"--he -laughed apologetically--"it's idiotic. There's no point in it. I just -went about for a week in a Canadian winter with that -temperature--that's all." - -"Because you couldn't bear to lie alone and think?" - -"That's about it." - -"Sister!" cried the boy, Robin McKay, from the next bed. - -She obeyed the summons. What was the matter? - -"Everything seems to have got mixed up, and my knee's hurting like -fury." - -She attended to his crumpled bedclothes, cracked a little joke which -made him laugh. Then the two other men claimed her notice. She -carried on her work outwardly calm, smiling, self-reliant, the -perfectly trained woman of the war. But her heart was beating in an -unaccustomed way. - -Her ministrations over, she left the ward for duty elsewhere. - -At tea-time she returned, and aided the blindfolded man to get through -the meal. The dread of the morning had given place to mingled -mind-racking wonder and timidity. He had gone off, on the hot speed of -their last quarrel, out of her life. Save for a short, anguished -period, during which she had lost self-control, she had never -reproached him. She had asserted her freedom. He had asserted his. -Nay; more--he had held the door open for a way out from an impossible -situation, and she had slammed the door in his face. Self-centered in -those days, centered since the beginning of the war in human suffering, -she had thought little of the man's feelings. He had gone away and -forgotten, or done his best to forget, an ugly memory. Her last -night's review of ghosts had proved the non-existence of any illusions -among them. But now, now that the chances of war had brought them -again together, the sound of her voice had conjured up in him, too, the -ghosts of the past. She had been responsible for his going-about with -a temperature of a hundred and three, and for his not caring what -happened to him. He had lifted the corner of a curtain, revealing the -possibility of undreamed-of happenings. - -"You were quoting Tennyson just now," she remarked. - -"Was I?" - -"Your cap-and-bells speech." - -"Oh, yes. What about it?" - -"I was only wondering." - -"Like a woman, you resent a half-confidence." - -She drew in a sharp little breath. The words, the tone, stabbed her. -She might have been talking to him in one of their pleasanter hours in -the Chelsea flat. In spite of her burning curiosity, she said, "I'm -not a woman; I'm a nurse." - -"Since when?" - -"As far as you people are concerned, since September, '14, when I went -out to France. I've been through everything--from the firing-line -field-ambulances, casualty clearing-stations, base hospitals--and now -I'm here having a rest-cure. Hundreds and hundreds of men have told me -their troubles--so I've got to regard myself as a sort of mother -confessor." - -He smiled. - -"Then, like a mother confessor, you resent a half-confidence?" - -She put a cigarette between his lips and lit it for him. - -"It all depends," she said lightly, "whether you want absolution or -not. I suppose it's the same old story." She held her voice in -command. "Every man thinks it's original. What kind of a woman was -she?" - -He parried the thrust. - -"Isn't that rather too direct a question, even for a mother confessor?" - -"You'll be spilling ash all over the bed. Here's an ash-tray." She -guided his hand. "Then you don't want absolution?" - -"Oh, yes, I do! But, you see, I'm not yet _in articulo mortis_, so -I'll put off my confession." - -"Anyhow, you loved the woman you treated badly?" The question was as -casual as she could make it, while she settled the tea-things on the -tray. - -"It was a girl, not a woman." - -"What has become of her?" - -"That's what I should like to know." - -"But you loved her?" - -"Of course I did! I'm not a blackguard. Of course I loved her." Her -pulses quickened. "But much water has run under London Bridge since -then." - -"And much blood has flowed in France." - -"Everything--lives, habits, modes of thought have been revolutionized. -Yes"--he reflected for a moment--"it's odd how you have brought back -old days. I fell in with a pestilential, so-called artistic crowd--I -am an architect by profession--you know, men with long greasy hair and -dirty finger nails and anarchical views. There was one chap -especially, who I thought was decadent to the bone. Aloysius -Eglington, he called himself." The man sprang vivid to her memory; he -had once tried to make love to her. "Well, I came across him the other -day with a couple of wound-stripes and the military-cross ribbon. For -a man like that, what an upheaval!" He laughed again. "I suppose I've -been a bit upheaved myself." - -"I'm beginning to piece together your story of the temperature," she -said pleasantly. "I suppose the girl was one of the young females of -this anarchical crowd?" - -Obviously the phrase jarred. - -"I could never regard her in that light," he said coldly. - -"The war has got hold of her, too, I suppose." - -"No doubt. She was a medical student. May I have another cigarette?" - -His tone signified the end of the topic. She smiled, for her -putting-down was a triumph. - -The probationer came up and took away the tea-tray. Camilla left her -patient and went to the other beds. - - -That night again, she sat alone in her little white room and thought -and thought. She had started the day with half-formed plans of flight -before her identity could be discovered. She was there voluntarily, -purely as an act of grace. She could walk out, without reproach, at a -moment's notice. But now--had not the situation changed? To her, as -to a stranger, he had confessed his love. She had not dared probe -deeper--but might not a deeper probing have brought to light something -abiding and beautiful? In the war, she had accomplished her womanhood. -Proudly and rightly she recognized her development. He, too, had -accomplished his manhood. And his dear face would be maimed and -scarred for the rest of his life. Then, with the suddenness of a -tropical storm, a wave of intolerable emotion surged through her. She -uttered a little cry and broke into a passion of tears. And so her -love was reborn. - -Professional to the tips of her cool fingers, she dressed his wounds -the next morning. But she did not lure him back across the years. The -present held its own happiness, tremulous in its delicacy. It was he -who questioned. Whereabouts in France had she been? She replied with -scraps of anecdote. There was little of war's horror and peril through -which she had not passed. She explained her present position in the -hospital. - -"By George, you're splendid!" he cried. "I wish I could have a look at -you." - -"You've lost your chance for to-day," she answered gaily. For she had -completed the bandaging. - -After dinner, she went out and walked the streets in a day-dream, a -soft light in her eyes. The moment of recognition--and it was bound -soon to come--could not fail in its touch of sanctification, its touch -of beauty. He and she had passed through fires of hell and had emerged -purified and tempered. They were clear-eyed, clear-souled. The -greatest gift of God, miraculously regiven, they could not again -despise. On that dreary afternoon, Oxford Street hummed with joy. - -Only a freak of chance had hitherto preserved her anonymity. A -reference by matron or probationer to Sister Warrington would betray -her instantly. Should she await or anticipate betrayal? - -In a fluttering tumult of indecision, she returned to the hospital. -The visiting-hour had begun. When she had taken off her outdoor -things, she looked into the ward. Around the two beds on the right, -little groups of friends were stationed. The boy, Robin McKay, in the -bed nearest the door on the left, caught sight of her and summoned her. - -"Sister, come and pretend to be a visitor. There's not a soul in this -country who could possibly come to see me. You don't know what it is -to be homesick." - -She sat by his side. - -"All right. Imagine I'm an elderly maiden aunt from the country." - -"You?" he cried, with overseas frankness. "You're only a kid yourself." - -Major Shileto overheard and laughed. She blushed and half rose. - -"That's not the way to treat visitors, Mr. McKay." - -The boy stretched out his hand. - -"I'm awfully sorry if I was rude. Don't go." - -She yielded. - -"All the same," she said, "you'll have to get used to a bit of -loneliness. It can't be helped. Besides, you're not the only tiger -that hasn't got a Christian. There's Major Shileto. And you can read -and he can't." - -The voice came from the next bed. - -"Don't worry about me. Talk to the boy. I'll have some one to see me -to-morrow. He won't, poor old chap!" - -"Have a game of chess?" said the boy. - -"With pleasure." - -She fetched the board and chessmen from the long table running down the -center of the ward, and they set out the pieces. - -"I reckon to be rather good," said he. "Perhaps I might give you -something." - -"I'm rather good myself," she replied. "I was taught by--" She -stopped short, on the brink of pronouncing the name of the young Polish -master who lived (in a very material sense) on the fringe of the -Chelsea crew. "We'll start even, at any rate." - -They began. She realized that the boy had not boasted, and soon she -became absorbed in the game. So intent was she on the problem -presented by a brilliant and unexpected move on his part that she did -not notice the opening of the door and the swift passage of a -fur-coated figure behind her chair. It was a cry that startled her. A -cry of surprise and joy, a cry of the heart. - -"Marjorie!" - -She looked up and saw the fur-coated figure--that of a girl with fair -hair--on her knees by the bedside, and Harry Shileto's arms were round -her and his lips to hers. She stared, frozen. She heard: - -"I didn't expect you till to-morrow." - -"I just had time to catch the train at Inverness. I've not brought an -ounce of luggage. Oh, my poor, poor, old Harry!" - -It was horrible. - -The boy said: - -"Never mind, Sister; he's got his Christian all right. Let's get on -with the game." - -Mechanically obeying a professional instinct, she looked at the -swimming chess-board and made a move haphazard. - -"I say--that won't do!" cried the boy. "It's mate for me in two moves. -Buck up!" - -With a great effort, she caught the vanishing tail of her previous -calculation and made a move which happened to be correct. - -"That's better," he said. "I hoped you wouldn't spot it. But I -couldn't let you play the ass with your knight and spoil the game. -Now, this demands deep consideration." - -He lingered a while over his move. She looked across. The pair at the -next bed were talking in whispers. The girl was now sitting on the -chair by the bedside, and her back hid the face of the man, though her -head was near his. - -"There!" cried the boy triumphantly. - -"I beg your pardon; I didn't see it." - -"Oh, I say!" His finger indicated the move. - -With half her brain at work, she moved a pawn a cautious step. The -boy's whole heart was in his offensive. He swooped a bishop -triumphantly athwart the board. - -"There's only one thing can save you for mate in five moves. I know it -isn't the proper thing to be chatting over chess, but I like it. I'm -chatty by nature." - -"Only one course open to save me from destruction?" she murmured. - -"Just one." - -And she heard, from the next bed: - -"Are you sure, darling, you're only saying it to break the shock -gently? Are you sure your eyes are all right?" - -"Perfectly certain." - -"I wish I could have real proof." - -Camilla stared at the blankness of her vanished dream. - -"Come along, Sister; put your back into it," chuckled Robin McKay. - -She held her brows tight with her hands and strove to concentrate her -tortured mind on the board. Her heart was in agony of desolation. The -soft murmurings she could not but overhear pierced her brain. The -poignant shame of her disillusionment burned her from head to foot. -Again she heard the girl's pleading voice: - -"Only for a minute. It couldn't hurt." - -The boy said: - -"Buck up. Just one tiny brain-wave." - -At the end of her tether, she cried: "The only way out! I give it up!" -and swept the pieces over the board. - -She rose, stood transfixed with horror and sense of outrage. Harry -Shileto, propped on pillows, was unwinding the bandages from his -mangled head. Devils within her clamored for hysterical outcry. But -something physical happened and checked the breath that was about to -utter his Christian name. The boy had gripped her arm with all his -young strength in passionate remonstrance. - -"Oh, dear old thing--do play the game!" - -"I'm sorry," she said, and he released her. - -So she passed swiftly round the boy's bed to that of the foolish -patient and arrested his hand. - -"Major Shileto, what on earth are you doing?" - -The girl, who was very pretty, turned on her an alarmed and tearful -face. - -"It was my fault, Sister. Oh, can I believe him?" - -"You can believe me, at any rate," she replied with asperity, swiftly -readjusting the bandage. "Major Shileto's sight is unaffected. But if -I had not been here and he had succeeded in taking off his dressings, -God knows what would have happened. Major Shileto, I put you on your -honor not to do such a silly thing again." - -"All right, Sister," he said, with a little shame-faced twitch of the -lips. "_Parole d'officier_." - -The girl rose and drew her a step aside. - -"Do forgive me, Sister. We have only been married five months--when he -was last home on leave--and, you understand, don't you, what it would -have meant to me if----" - -"Of course I do. Anyhow, you can be perfectly reassured. But I must -warn you," she whispered, and looked through narrowed eyelids into the -girl's eyes; "he may be dreadfully disfigured." - -The girl shrank terrified, but she cried, - -"I hope I shall love him all the more for it!" - -"I hope so, too," replied Camilla soberly. "I'll say good-by," she -added, in a louder tone, holding out her hand. - -"I'll see you again to-morrow?" the girl asked politely. - -"I'm afraid not." - -"What's that?" cried Shileto. - -"I told you I was only here as a bird of passage. My time's up to-day. -Good-by." - -"I'm awfully sorry. Good-by." - -They shook hands. Camilla went to Robin McKay and bent over him. - -"You're quite right, my dear boy. One ought to play the game to the -bitter end. It's the thing most worth doing in life. God bless you!" - -The boy stared wonderingly at her as she disappeared. - -"I'm glad she's not going to be here any more," said the girl. - -Her husband's lips smiled. - -"Why?" - -"She's a most heartless, overbearing woman." - -"Oh, they all seem like that when they're upset," he laughed. "And I -was really playing the most outrageous fool." - -She put her head close to him and whispered, - -"Don't you guess why I was so madly anxious to know that you could see?" - -She told him. And, from that moment, the possessor of the remembered -voice faded from his memory. - - -Camilla went to the matron. - -"I'm sorry, but I've bitten off more than I can chew. If I go on an -hour longer, I'll break down. I'm due in France in a fortnight, and I -must have my rest." - -"I can only thank you for your self-sacrificing help," said the matron. - -But, four days later, ten days before her leave had expired, Camilla -appeared at the casualty clearing-station in France of which she was a -Sister-in-charge. - -"What the devil are you here for?" asked the amazed commanding medical -officer. - -"England's too full of ghosts. They scared me back to realities." - -The M.O. laughed to hide his inability to understand. - -"Well, if you like 'em, it's all the same to me. I'm delighted to have -you. But give me the good old ghosts of blighty all the time!" - - -The piercing of the line at Cambrai was a surprise no less to the -Germans than to the British. The great tent of the casualty -clearing-station was crammed with wounded. Doctors and nurses, with -tense, burning eyes and bodies aching from strain, worked and worked, -and thought nothing of that which might be passing outside. No one -knew that the German wave had passed over. And the German wave itself, -at that part of the line, was but a set of straggling and mystified -groups. - -Camilla Warrington, head of the heroic host of women working in the -dimly lit reek of blood and agony, had not slept for two nights and two -days. The last convoy of wounded had poured in a couple of hours -before. She stood by the surgeon, aiding him, the perfect machine. At -last, in the terrible rota, they came to a man swathed round the middle -in the rough bandages of the field dressing-station. He was -unconscious. They unwound him, and revealed a sight of unimaginable -horror. - -"He's no good, poor chap!" said the surgeon. - -"Can't you try?" she asked, and put repressing hands on the wounded man. - -"Not the slightest good," said the medical officer. - -No one in the great tent of agony knew that they were isolated from the -British army. From the outside, it looked solitary, lighted, and -secure. Two German soldiers, casual stragglers, looked in at the door -of the great tent. In the kindly German way, they each threw in a -bomb, and ran off laughing. Seven men were killed outright and many -rewounded. And Camilla Warrington was killed.[1] - - -[1] The bloody and hideous incident related here is not an invention. -It is true. It happened when and where I have indicated.--W.J.L. - - -The guards, in their memorable sweep, cleared the ground. The casualty -clearing-station again came into British hands. - -There is a grave in that region whose head-board states that it is -consecrated "to the Heroic Memory of Camilla Warrington, one of the -Great Women of the War." - - -And Marjorie Shileto, to her husband healed and sound, searching like a -foolish woman deep into his past history: - -"It's awfully decent of you, darling, to hide nothing from me and to -tell me about that girl in Chelsea. But what was she like?" - -"My sweetheart," said he, like a foolish man, "she wasn't worth your -little finger." - - - - -THE PRINCESS'S KINGDOM - -That there was once a real Prince Rabomirski is beyond question. That -he was Ottilie's father may be taken for granted. But that the -Princess Rabomirski had a right to bear the title many folks were -scandalously prepared to deny. It is true that when the news of the -Prince's death reached Monte Carlo, the Princess, who was there at the -time, showed various persons on whose indiscretion she could rely a -holograph letter of condolence from the Tsar, and later unfolded to the -amiable muddle-headed the intricacies of a lawsuit which she was -instituting for the recovery of the estates in Poland; but her -detractors roundly declared the holograph letter to be a forgery and -the lawsuit a fiction of her crafty brain. Princess however she -continued to style herself in Cosmopolis, and Princess she was styled -by all and sundry. And little Ottilie Rabomirski was called the -Princess Ottilie. - -Among the people who joined heart and soul with the detractors was -young Vince Somerset. If there was one person whom he despised and -hated more than Count Bernheim (of the Holy Roman Empire) it was the -Princess Rabomirski. In his eyes she was everything that a princess, a -lady, a woman, and a mother should not be. She dressed ten years -younger than was seemly, she spoke English like a barmaid and French -like a cocotte, she gambled her way through Europe from year's end to -year's end, and after neglecting Ottilie for twenty years, she was -about to marry her to Bernheim. The last was the unforgivable offence. - -The young man walked up and down the Casino Terrace of -Illerville-sur-Mer, and poured into a friend's ear his flaming -indignation. He was nine and twenty, and though he pursued the -unpoetical avocation of sub-editing the foreign telegrams on a London -daily newspaper, retained some of the vehemence of undergraduate days -when he had chosen the career (now abandoned) of poet, artist, -dramatist, and irreconcilable politician. - -"Look at them!" he cried, indicating a couple seated at a distant table -beneath the awning of the café. "Did you ever see anything so horrible -in your life? The maiden and the Minotaur. When I heard of the -engagement to-day I wouldn't believe it until she herself told me. She -doesn't know the man's abomination. He's a by-word of reproach through -Europe. His name stinks like his infernal body. The live air reeks -with the scent he pours upon himself. There can be no turpitude under -the sun in which the wretch doesn't wallow. Do you know that he killed -his first wife? Oh, I don't mean that he cut her throat. That's far -too primitive for such a complex hound. There are other ways of -murdering a woman, my dear Ross. You kick her body and break her heart -and defile her soul. That's what he did. And he has done it to other -women." - -"But, my dear man," remarked Ross, elderly and cynical, "he is -colossally rich." - -"Rich! Do you know where he made his money? In the cesspool of -European finance. He's a Jew by race, a German by parentage, an -Italian by upbringing and a Greek by profession. He has bucket-shops -and low-down money-lenders' cribs and rotten companies all over the -Continent. Do you remember Sequasto and Co.? That was Bernheim. -England's too hot to hold him. Look at him now he has taken off his -hat. Do you know why he wears his greasy hair plastered over half his -damned forehead? It's to hide the mark of the Beast. He's Antichrist! -And when I think of that Jezebel from the Mile End Road putting Ottilie -into his arms, it makes me see red. By heavens, it's touch and go that -I don't slay the pair of them." - -"Very likely they're not as bad as they're painted," said his friend. - -"She couldn't be," Somerset retorted grimly. - -Ross laughed, looked at his watch, and announced that it was time for -_apéritifs_. The young man assented moodily, and they crossed the -Terrace to the café tables beneath the awning. It was the dying -afternoon of a sultry August day, and most of Illerville had deserted -tennis courts, _tir aux pigeons_ and other distractions to listen -lazily to the band in the Casino shade. The place was crowded; not a -table vacant. When the waiter at last brought one from the interior of -the café, he dumped it down beside the table occupied by the -unspeakable Bernheim and the little Princess Ottilie. Somerset raised -his hat as he took his seat. Bernheim responded with elaborate -politeness, and Princess Ottilie greeted him with a faint smile. The -engaged pair spoke very little to each other. Bernheim lounged back in -his chair smoking a cigar and looked out to sea with a bored -expression. When the girl made a casual remark he nodded rudely -without turning his head. Somerset felt an irresistible desire to kick -him. His external appearance was of the type that irritated the young -Englishman. He was too handsome in a hard, swaggering -black-mustachioed way; he exaggerated to offence the English style of -easy dress; he wore a too devil-may-care Panama, a too obtrusive -coloured shirt and club tie; he wore no waistcoat, and the hem of his -new flannel trousers, turned up six inches, disclosed a stretch of -tan-coloured silk socks clocked with gold matching elegant tan shoes. -He went about with a broken-spirited poodle. He was inordinately -scented. Somerset glowered at him, and let his drink remain untasted. - -Presently Bernheim summoned the waiter, paid him for the tea the girl -had been drinking and pushed back his chair. - -"This hole is getting on my nerves," he said in French to his -companion. "I am going into the _cercle_ to play écarté. Will you go -to your mother whom I see over there, or will you stay here?" - -"I'll stay here," said the little Princess Ottilie. - -Bernheim nodded and swaggered off. Somerset bent forward. - -"I must see you alone to-night--quite alone. I must have you all to -myself. How can you manage it?" - -Ottilie looked at him anxiously. She was fair and innocent, of a -prettiness more English than foreign, and the scare in her blue eyes -made them all the more appealing to the young man. - -"What is the good? You can't help me. Don't you see that it is all -arranged?" - -"I'll undertake to disarrange it at a moment's notice," said Somerset. - -"Hush!" she whispered, glancing round; "somebody will hear. Everything -is gossiped about in this place." - -"Well, will you meet me?" the young man persisted. - -"If I can," she sighed. "If they are both playing baccarat I may slip -out for a little." - -"As at Spa." - -She smiled and a slight flush came into her cheek. - -"Yes, as at Spa. Wait for me on the _plage_ at the bottom of the -Casino steps. Now I must go to my mother. She would not like to see -me talking to you." - -"The Princess hates me like poison. Do you know why?" - -"No, and you are not going to tell me," she said demurely. "_Au -revoir_." - -When she had passed out of earshot, Ross touched the young man's arm. - -"I'm afraid, my dear Somerset, you are playing a particularly silly -fool's game." - -"Have you never played it?" - -"Heaven forbid!" - -"It would be a precious sight better for you if you had," growled -Somerset. - -"I'll take another quinquina," said Ross. - -"Did you see the way in which the brute treated her?" Somerset -exclaimed angrily. "If it's like that before marriage, what will it be -after?" - -"Plenty of money, separate establishments, perfect independence and -happiness for each." - -Somerset rose from the table. - -"There are times, my good Ross," said he, "when I absolutely hate you." - -Somerset had first met the Princess Rabomirski and her daughter three -years before, at Spa. They were staying at the same hotel, a very -modest one which, to Somerset's mind, ill-accorded with the Princess's -pretensions. Bernheim was also in attendance, but he disposed his -valet, his motor-car, and himself in the luxurious Hôtel d'Orange, as -befitted a man of his quality; also he was in attendance not on -Ottilie, but on the Princess, who at that time was three years younger -and a trifle less painted. Now, at Illerville-sur-Mer the trio were -stopping at the Hotel Splendide, a sumptuous hostelry where season -prices were far above Somerset's moderate means. He contented himself -with the little hotel next door, and hated the Hotel Splendide and all -that it contained, save Ottilie, with all his heart. But at Spa, the -Princess was evidently in low water from which she did not seem to be -rescued by her varying luck at the tables. Ottilie was then a child of -seventeen, and Somerset was less attracted by her delicate beauty than -by her extraordinary loneliness. Day after day, night after night he -would come upon her sitting solitary on one of the settees in the -gaming-rooms, like a forgotten fan or flower, or wandering wistfully -from table to table, idly watching the revolving wheels. Sometimes she -would pause behind her mother's or Bernheim's chair to watch their -game; but the Princess called her a little _porte-malheur_ and would -drive her away. In the mornings, or on other rare occasions, when the -elder inseparables were not playing roulette, Ottilie hovered round -them at a distance, as disregarded as a shadow that followed them in -space of less dimensions, as it were, wherever they went. In the -Casino rooms, if men spoke to her, she replied in shy monosyllables and -shrank away. Somerset who had made regular acquaintance with the -Princess at the hotel and taken a chivalrous pity on the girl's -loneliness, she admitted first to a timid friendship, and then to a -childlike intimacy. Her face would brighten and her heart beat a -little faster when she saw his young, well-knit figure appear in the -distance; for she knew he would come straight to her and take her from -the hot room, heavy with perfumes and tobacco, on to the cool balcony, -and talk of all manner of pleasant things. And Somerset found in this -neglected, little sham Princess what his youth was pleased to designate -a flower-like soul. Those were idyllic hours. The Princess, glad to -get the embarrassing child out of the way, took no notice of the -intimacy. Somerset fell in love. - -It lasted out a three-years' separation, during which he did not hear -from her. He had written to several addresses, but a cold Post Office -returned his letters undelivered, and his only consolation was to piece -together from various sources the unedifying histories of the Princess -Rabomirski and the Count Bernheim of the Holy Roman Empire. He came to -Illerville-sur-Mer for an August holiday. The first thing he did when -shown into his hotel bedroom was to gaze out of window at the beach and -the sea. The first person his eyes rested upon was the little Princess -Ottilie issuing, alone as usual, from the doors of the next hotel. - -He had been at Illerville a fortnight--a fortnight of painful joy. -Things had changed. Their interviews had been mostly stolen, for the -Princess Rabomirski had rudely declined to renew the acquaintance and -had forbidden Ottilie to speak to him. The girl, though apparently as -much neglected as ever, was guarded against him with peculiar -ingenuity. Somerset, aware that Ottilie, now grown from a child into -an exquisitely beautiful and marriageable young woman, was destined by -a hardened sinner like the Princess for a wealthier husband than a poor -newspaper man with no particular prospects, could not, however, quite -understand the reasons for the virulent hatred of which he was the -object. He overheard the Princess one day cursing her daughter in -execrable German for having acknowledged his bow a short time before. -Their only undisturbed time together was in the sea during the bathing -hour. The Princess, hating the pebbly beach which cut to pieces her -high-heeled shoes, never watched the bathers; and Bernheim did not -bathe (Somerset, prejudiced, declared that he did not even wash) but -remained in his bedroom till the hour of _déjeuner_. Ottilie, attended -only by her maid, came down to the water's edge, threw off her -_peignoir_, and, plunging into the water, found Somerset waiting. - -Now Somerset was a strong swimmer. Moderately proficient at all games -as a boy and an undergraduate, he had found that swimming was the only -sport in which he excelled, and he had cultivated and maintained the -art. Oddly enough, the little Princess Ottilie, in spite of her -apparent fragility, was also an excellent and fearless swimmer. She -had another queer delight for a creature so daintily feminine, the -_salle d'armes_, so that the muscles of her young limbs were firm and -well ordered. But the sea was her passion. If an additional bond -between Somerset and herself were needed it would have been this. Yet, -though it is a pleasant thing to swim far away into the loneliness of -the sea with the object of one's affections, the conditions do not -encourage sustained conversation on subjects of vital interest. On the -day when Somerset learned that his little princess was engaged to -Bernheim he burned to tell her more than could be spluttered out in ten -fathoms of water. So he urged her to an assignation. - -At half-past ten she joined him at the bottom of the Casino steps. The -shingly beach was deserted, but on the terrace above the throng was -great, owing to the breathless heat of the night. - -"Thank Heaven you have come," said he. "Do you know how I have longed -for you?" - -She glanced up wistfully into his face. In her simple cream dress and -burnt straw hat adorned with white roses around the brim, she looked -very fair and childlike. - -"You mustn't say such things," she whispered. "They are wrong now. I -am engaged to be married." - -"I won't hear of it," said Somerset. "It is a horrible nightmare--your -engagement. Don't you know that I love you? I loved you the first -minute I set my eyes on you at Spa." - -Princess Ottilie sighed, and they walked along the boards behind the -bathing-machines, and down the rattling beach to the shelter of a -fishing boat, where they sat down, screened from the world with the -murmuring sea in front of them. Somerset talked of his love and the -hatefulness of Bernheim. The little Princess sighed again. - -"I have worse news still," she said. "It will pain you. We are going -to Paris to-morrow, and then on to Aix-les-Bains. They have just -decided. They say the baccarat here is silly, and they might as well -play for bon-bons. So we must say good-bye to-night--and it will be -good-bye for always." - -"I will come to Aix-les-Bains," said Somerset. - -"No--no," she answered quickly. "It would only bring trouble on me and -do no good. We must part to-night. Don't you think it hurts me?" - -"But you must love me," said Somerset. - -"I do," she said simply, "and that is why it hurts. Now I must be -going back." - -"Ottilie," said Somerset, grasping her hands: "Need you ever go back?" - -"What do you mean?" he asked. - -"Come away from this hateful place with me--now, this minute. You need -never see Bernheim again as long as you live. Listen. My friend Ross -has a motor-car. I can manage it--so there will be only us two. Run -into your hotel for a thick cloak, and meet me as quickly as you can -behind the tennis-courts. If we go full speed we'll catch the -night-boat at Dieppe. It will be a wild race for our life happiness. -Come." - -In his excitement he rose and pulled her to her feet. They faced each -other for a few glorious moments, panting for breath, and then Princess -Ottilie broke down and cried bitterly. - -"I can't dear, I can't. I must marry Bernheim. It is to save my -mother from something dreadful. I don't know what it is--but she went -on her knees to me, and I promised." - -"If there's a woman in Europe capable of getting out of her -difficulties unaided it is the Princess Rabomirski," said Somerset. "I -am not going to let you be sold. You are mine, Ottilie, and by Heaven, -I'm going to have you. Come." - -He urged, he pleaded, he put his strong arms around her as if he would -carry her away bodily. He did everything that a frantic young man -could do. But the more the little Princess wept, the more inflexible -she became. Somerset had not realized before this steel in her nature. -Raging and vehemently urging he accompanied her back to the Casino -steps. - -"Would you like to say good-bye to me to-morrow morning, instead of -to-night?" she asked, holding out her hand. - -"I am never going to say good-bye," cried Somerset. - -"I shall slip out to-morrow morning for a last swim--at six o'clock," -she said, unheeding his exclamation. "Our train goes at ten." Then -she came very close to him. - -"Vince dear, if you love me, don't make me more unhappy than I am." - -It was an appeal to his chivalry. He kissed her hand, and said: - -"At six o'clock." - -But Somerset had no intention of bidding her a final farewell in the -morning. If he followed her the world over he would snatch her out of -the arms of the accursed Bernheim and marry her by main force. As for -the foreign telegrams of _The Daily Post_, he cared not how they would -be sub-edited. He went to bed with lofty disregard of Fleet Street and -bread and butter. As for the shame from which Ottilie's marriage would -save her sainted mother, he did not believe a word of it. She was -selling Ottilie to Bernheim for cash down. He stayed awake most of the -night plotting schemes for the rescue of his Princess. It would be an -excellent plan to insult Bernheim and slay him outright in a duel. Its -disadvantages lay in his own imperfections as a duellist, and for the -first time he cursed the benign laws of his country. At length he fell -asleep; woke up to find it daylight, and leaped to his feet in a -horrible scare. But a sight of his watch reassured him. It was only -five o'clock. At half-past he put on a set of bathing things and sat -down by the window to watch the hall door of the Hotel Splendide. At -six, out came the familiar figure of the little Princess, draped in her -white _peignoir_. She glanced up at Somerset's window. He waved his -hand, and in a minute or two they were standing side by side at the -water's edge. It was far away from the regular bathing-place marked by -the bathing cabins, and further still from the fishing end of the beach -where alone at that early hour were signs of life visible. The town -behind them slept in warmth and light. The sea stretched out blue -before them unrippled in the still air. A little bank of purple cloud -on the horizon presaged a burning day. - -The little Princess dropped her _peignoir_ and kicked off her -straw-soled shoes, and gave her hand to her companion. He glanced at -the little white feet which he was tempted to fall down and kiss, and -then at the wistful face below the blue-silk foulard knotted in front -over the bathing-cap. His heart leaped at her bewildering sweetness. -She was the morning incarnate. - -She read his eyes and flushed pink. - -"Let us go in," she said. - -They waded in together, hand-in-hand, until they were waist deep. Then -they struck out, making for the open sea. The sting of the night had -already passed from the water. To their young blood it felt warm. -They swam near together, Ottilie using a steady breast stroke and -Somerset a side stroke, so that he could look at her flushed and -glistening face. From the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky to -the light blue of the silk foulard, the blue of her eyes grew magically -deep. - -"There seems to be nothing but you and me in God's universe, Ottilie," -said he. She smiled at him. He drew quite close to her. - -"If we could only go on straight until we found an enchanted island -which we could have as our kingdom." - -"The sea must be our kingdom," said Ottilie. - -"Or its depths. Shall we dive down and look for the 'ceiling of amber, -the pavement of pearl,' and the 'red gold throne in the heart of the -sea' for the two of us?" - -"We should be happier than in the world," replied the little Princess. - -They swam on slowly, dreamily, in silence. The mild waves lapped -against their ears and their mouths. The morning sun lay at their -backs, and its radiance fell athwart the bay. Through the stillness -came the faint echo of a fisherman on the far beach hammering at his -boat. Beyond that and the gentle swirl of the water there was no -sound. After a while they altered their course so as to reach a small -boat that lay at anchor for the convenience of the stronger swimmers. -They clambered up and sat on the gunwale, their feet dangling in the -sea. - -"Is my princess tired?" he asked. - -She laughed in merry scorn. - -"Tired? Why, I could swim twenty times as far. Do you think I have no -muscle? Feel. Don't you know I fence all the winter?" - -She braced her bare arm. He felt the muscle; then, relaxing it, by -drawing down her wrist, he kissed it very gently. - -"Soft and strong--like yourself," said he. Ottilie said nothing, but -looked at her white feet through the transparent water. She thought -that in letting him kiss her arm and feeling as though he had kissed -right through to her heart, she was exhibiting a pitiful lack of -strength. Somerset looked at her askance, uncertain. For nothing in -the world would he have offended. - -"Did you mind?" he whispered. - -She shook her head and continued to look at her feet. Somerset felt a -great happiness pulse through him. - -"If I gave you up," said he, "I should be the poorest spirited dog that -ever whined." - -"Hush!" she said, putting her hand in his. "Let us think only of the -present happiness." - -They sat silent for a moment, contemplating the little red-roofed town -and Illerville-sur-Mer, which nestled in greenery beyond the white -sweep of the beach, and the rococo hotels and the casino, whose cupolas -flashed gaudily in the morning sun. From the north-eastern end of the -bay stretched a long line of sheer white cliff as far as the eye could -reach. Towards the west it was bounded by a narrow headland running -far out to sea. - -"It looks like a frivolous little Garden of Eden," said Somerset, "but -I wish we could never set foot in it again." - -"Let us dive in and forget it," said Ottilie. - -She slipped into the water. Somerset stood on the gunwale and dived. -When he came up and had shaken the salt water from his nostrils, he -joined her in two or three strokes. - -"Let us go round the point to the little beach the other side." - -She hesitated. It would take a long time to swim there, rest, and swim -back. Her absence might be noticed. But she felt reckless. Let her -drink this hour of happiness to the full. What mattered anything that -could follow? She smiled assent, and they struck out steadily for the -point. It was good to have the salt smell and the taste of the brine -and the pleasant smart of the eyes; and to feel their mastery of the -sea. As they threw out their flashing white arms and topped each tiny -wave they smiled in exultation. To them it seemed impossible that -anyone could drown. For the buoyant hour they were creatures of the -element. Now and then a gull circled before them, looked at them -unconcerned, as if they were in some way his kindred, and swept off -into the distance. A tired white butterfly settled for a moment on -Ottilie's head; then light-heartedly fluttered away sea-wards to its -doom. They swam on and on, and they neared the point. They slackened -for a moment, and he brought his face close to hers. - -"If I said 'Let us swim on for ever and ever,' would you do it?" - -"Yes," she said, looking deep into his eyes. - -After a while they floated restfully. The last question and answer -seemed to have brought them a great peace. They were conscious of -little save the mystery of the cloudless ether above their faces and -the infinite sea that murmured in their ears strange harmonies of Love -and Death--harmonies woven from the human yearnings of every shore and -the hushed secrets of eternal time. So close were they bodily together -that now and then hand touched hand and limb brushed limb. A happy -stillness of the soul spread its wings over them and they felt it to be -a consecration of their love. Presently his arm sought her, encircled -her, brought her head on his shoulder. - -"Rest a little," he whispered. - -She closed her eyes, surrendered her innocent self to the flooding -rapture of the moment. The horrors that awaited her passed from her -brain. He had come to the lonely child like a god out of heaven. He -had come to the frightened girl like a new terror. He was by her side -now, the man whom of all men God had made to accomplish her womanhood -and to take all of soul and body, sense and brain that she had to give. -Their salt lips met in a first kiss. Words would have broken the spell -of the enchantment cast over them by the infinite spaces of sea and -sky. They drifted on and on, the subtle, subconscious movement of foot -and hand keeping them afloat. The little Princess moved closer to him -so as to feel more secure around her the circling pressure of his arm. -He laughed a man's short, exultant laugh, and gripped her more tightly. -Never had he felt his strength more sure. His right arm and his legs -beat rhythmically and he felt the pulsation of the measured strokes of -his companion's feet and the water swirled past his head, so that he -knew they were making way most swiftly. Of exertion there was no sense -whatever. He met her eyes fixed through half-shut lids upon his face. -Her soft young body melted into his. He lost count of time and space. -Now and then a little wave broke over their faces, and they laughed and -cleared the brine from their mouths and drew more close together. - -"If it wasn't for that," she whispered once, "I could go to sleep." - -Soon they felt the gentle rocking of the sea increase and waves broke -more often over them. Somerset was the first to note the change. -Loosening his hold of Ottilie, he trod water and looked around. To his -amazement they were still abreast of the point, but far out to sea. He -gazed at it uncomprehendingly for an instant, and then a sudden -recollection smote him like a message of death. They had caught the -edge of the current against which swimmers were warned, and the current -held them in its grip and was sweeping them on while they floated -foolishly. A swift glance at Ottilie showed him that she too realized -the peril. With the outcoming tide it was almost impossible to reach -the shore. - -"Are you afraid?" he asked. - -She shook her head. "Not with you." - -He scanned the land and the sea. On the arc of their horizon lay the -black hull of a tramp steamer going eastwards. Far away to the west -was a speck of white and against the pale sky a film of smoke. -Landwards beyond the shimmering water stretched the sunny bay of the -casino. Its gilt cupolas shot tiny flames. The green-topped point, -its hither side deep in shadow, reached out helplessly for them. -Somerset and Ottilie still paused, doing nothing more than keeping -themselves afloat, and they felt the current drifting them ever -seawards. - -"It looks like death," he said gravely. "Are you afraid to die?" - -Again Ottilie said, "Not with you." - -He looked at the land, and he looked at the white speck and the puff of -smoke. Then suddenly his heart leaped with the thrilling inspiration -of a wild impossibility. - -"Let us leave Illerville and France behind us. Death is as certain -either way." - -The little Princess looked at him wonderingly. - -"Where are we going?" - -"To England." - -"Anywhere but Illerville," she said. - -He struck out seawards, she followed. Each saw the other's face white -and set. They had current and tide with them, they swam steadily, -undistressed. After a silence she called to him. - -"Vince, if we go to our kingdom under the sea, you will take me down in -your arms?" - -"In a last kiss," he said. - -He had heard (as who has not) of Love being stronger than Death. Now -he knew its truth. But he swore to himself a great oath that they -should not die. - -"I shall take my princess to a better kingdom," he said later. - - -Presently he heard her breathing painfully. She could not hold out -much longer. - -"I will carry you," he said. - -An expert swimmer, she knew the way to hold his shoulders and leave his -arms unimpeded. The contact of her light young form against his body -thrilled him and redoubled his strength. He held his head for a second -high out of the water and turned half round. - -"Do you think I am going to let you die--now?" - -The white speck had grown into a white hull, and Somerset was making -across its track. To do so he must deflect slightly from the line of -the current. His great battle began. - -He swam doggedly, steadily, husbanding his strength. If the vessel -justified his first flash of inspiration, and if he could reach her, he -knew how he should act. As best he could, for it was no time for -speech, he told Ottilie his hopes. He felt the spray from her lips -upon his cheek, as she said: - -"It seems sinful to wish for greater happiness than this." - -After that there was utter silence between them. At first he thought -exultingly of Bernheim and the Princess Rabomirski, and the rage of -their wicked hearts; of the future glorified by his little Princess of -the unconquerable soul: of the present's mystic consummation of their -marriage. But gradually mental concepts lost sharpness of definition. -Sensation began to merge itself into a half-consciousness of stroke on -stroke through the illimitable waste. Despite the laughing morning -sunshine, the sky became dark and lowering. The weight on his neck -grew heavier. At first Ottilie had only rested her arms. Now her feet -were as lead and sank behind him; her clasp tightened about his -shoulders. He struggled on through a welter of sea and mist. Strange -sounds sang in his ears, as if over them had been clamped great -sea-shells. At each short breath his throat gulped down bitter water. -A horrible pain crept across his chest. His limbs seemed paralysed and -yet he remained above the surface. The benumbed brain wondered at the -miracle.... - -The universe broke upon his vision as a blurred mass of green and -white. He recognised it vaguely as his kingdom beneath the sea, and as -in a dream he remembered his promise. He slipped round. His lips met -Ottilie's. His arms wound round about her, and he sank, holding her -tightly clasped. - - -Strange things happened. He was pulled hither and thither by sea -monsters welcoming him to his kingdom. In a confused way he wondered -that he could breathe so freely in the depths of the ocean. -Unutterable happiness stole upon him. The Kingdom was _real_. His -sham Princess would be queen in very truth. But where was she? - -He opened his eyes and found himself lying on the deck of a ship. A -couple of men were doing funny things to his arms. A rosy-faced man in -white ducks and a yachting cap stood over him with a glass of brandy. -When he had drunk the spirit, the rosy man laughed. - -"That was a narrow shave. We got you just in time. We were nearly -right on you. The young woman is doing well. My wife is looking after -her." - -As soon as he could collect his faculties, Somerset asked, - -"Are you the _Mavis_?" - -"Yes." - -"I felt sure of it. Are you Sir Henry Ransome?" - -"That's my name." - -"I heard you were expected at Illerville to-day," said Somerset. "That -is why I made for you." - -The two men who had been doing queer things with his arms wrapped him -in a blanket and propped him up against the deck cabin. - -"But what on earth were you two young people doing in the middle of the -English Channel?" asked the owner of the _Mavis_. - -"We were eloping," said Somerset. - -The other looked at him for a bewildered moment and burst into a roar -of laughter. He turned to the cabin door and disappeared, to emerge a -moment afterwards followed by a lady in a morning wrapper. - -"What do you think, Marian? It's an elopement." - -Somerset smiled at them. - -"Have you ever heard of the Princess Rabomirski? You have? Well, this -is her daughter. Perhaps you know of the Count Bernheim who is always -about with the Princess?" - -"I trod on him last winter at Monte Carlo," said Sir Henry Ransome. - -"He survives," said Somerset, "and has bought the Princess Ottilie from -her mother. He's not going to get her. She belongs to me. My name is -Somerset, and I am foreign sub-editor of the _Daily Post_." - -"I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Somerset," said Sir -Henry with a smile. "And now what can I do for you?" - -"If you can lend us some clothes and take us to any part on earth save -Illerville-sur-Mer, you will earn our eternal gratitude." - -Sir Henry looked doubtful. "We have made our arrangements for -Illerville," said he. - -His wife broke in. - -"If you don't take these romantic beings straight to Southampton, I'll -never set my foot upon this yacht again." - -"It was you, my dear, who were crazy to come to Illerville." - -"Don't you think," said Lady Ransome, "you might provide Mr. Somerset -with some dry things?" - -Four hours afterwards Somerset sat on deck by the side of Ottilie, who, -warmly wrapped, lay on a long chair. He pointed to the far-away -coastline of the Isle of Wight. - -"Behold our kingdom!" said he. - -The little Princess laughed. - -"That is not our kingdom." - -"Well, what is?" - -"Just the little bit of space that contains both you and me," she said. - - - - -THE HEART AT TWENTY - -The girl stood at the end of the little stone jetty, her hair and the -ends of her cheap fur boa and her skirts all fluttering behind her in -the stiff north-east gale. Why anyone should choose to stand on a -jetty on a raw December afternoon with the wind in one's teeth was a -difficult problem for a comfort-loving, elderly man like myself, and I -pondered over it as I descended the slope leading from the village to -the sea. It was nothing, thought I, but youth's animal delight in -physical things. A few steps, however, brought me in view of her face -in half-profile, and I saw that she did not notice wind or spray, but -was staring out to sea with an intolerable wistfulness. A quick turn -in the path made me lose the profile. I crossed the road that ran -along the shore and walked rapidly along the jetty. Arriving within -hailing distance I called her. - -"Pauline." - -She pivoted round like a weather-cock in a gust and with a sharp cry -leaped forward to meet me. Her face was aflame with great hope and -joy. I have seen to my gladness that expression once before worn by a -woman. But as soon as this one recognised me, the joy vanished, killed -outright. - -"Oh, it's you," she said, with a quivering lip. - -"I am sorry, my dear," said I, taking her hand. "I can't help it. I -wish from my heart I were somebody else." - -She burst into tears. I put my arm around her and drew her to me, and -patted her and said "There, there!" in the blundering masculine way. -Having helped to bring her into the world twenty years before, I could -claim fatherly privileges. - -"Oh, Doctor," she sobbed, dabbing her pretty young eyes with a -handkerchief. "Do forgive me. Of course I am glad to see you. It was -the shock. I thought you were a ghost. No one ever comes to Ravetot." - -"Never?" I asked mildly. - -The tears flowed afresh. I leaned against the parapet of the jetty for -comfort's sake, and looked around me. Ravetot-sur-Mer was not the -place to attract visitors in December. A shingle beach with a few -fishing-boats hauled out of reach of the surf; a miniature casino, like -an impudently large summer-house, shuttered-up, weather-beaten and -desolate; a weather-beaten, desolate, and shuttered-up Hôtel de -l'Univers, and a perky deserted villa or two on the embankment; a cliff -behind them, topped by a little grey church; the road that led up the -gorge losing itself in the turn--and that was all that was visible of -Ravetot-sur-Mer. A projecting cliff bounded the bay at each side, and -in front seethed the grey, angry Channel. It was an Aceldama of a spot -in winter; and only a matter of peculiar urgency had brought me hither. -Pauline and her decrepit rascal of a father were tied to Ravetot by -sheer poverty. He owned a pretty villa half a mile inland, and the -rent he obtained for it during the summer enabled them to live in some -miraculous way the rest of the year. They, the Curé and the -fisher-folk, were the sole winter inhabitants of the place. The -nearest doctor lived at Merville, twenty kilometres away, and there was -not even an educated farmer in the neighbourhood. Yet I could not help -thinking that my little friend's last remark was somewhat disingenuous. - -"Are you quite sure, my dear," I said, "that no one ever comes to -Ravetot?" - -"Has father told you?" she asked tonelessly. - -"No. I guessed it. I have extraordinary powers of divination. And -the Somebody has been making my little girl miserable." - -"He has broken my heart," said Pauline. - -I pulled the collar of my fur-lined coat above my ears which the -north-east wind was biting. Being elderly and heart-whole I am -sensitive to cold. I proposed that we should walk up and down the -jetty while she told me her troubles, and I hooked her arm in mine. - -"Who was he?" I asked. "And what was he doing here?" - -"Oh, Doctor! what does it matter?" she answered tearfully. "I never -want to see him again." - -"Don't fib," said I. "If the confounded blackguard were here now----" - -"But he isn't a blackguard!" she flashed. "If he were I shouldn't be -so miserable. I should forget him. He is good and kind, and noble, -and everything that is right. I couldn't have expected him to act -otherwise--it was awful, horrible--and when you called me by name I -thought it was he----" - -"And the contradictious feminine did very much want to see him?" said I. - -"I suppose so," she confessed. - -I looked down at her pretty face and saw that it was wan and pinched. - -"You have been eating little and sleeping less. For how long?" I -demanded sternly. - -"For a week," she said pitifully. - -"We must change all that. This abominable hole is a kind of cold -storage for depression." - -She drew my arm tighter. She had always been an affectionate little -girl, and now she seemed to crave human sympathy and companionship. - -"I don't mind it now. It doesn't in the least matter where I am. -Before he came I used to hate Ravetot, and long for the gaiety and -brightness of the great world. I used to stand here for hours and just -long and long for something to happen to take us away; and it seemed no -good. Here I was for the rest of time--with nothing to do day after -day but housework and sewing and reading, while father sat by the fire, -with his little roulette machine and Monte Carlo averages and paper and -pencil, working out the wonderful system that is going to make our -fortune. We'll never have enough money to go to Monte Carlo for him to -try it, so that is some comfort. One would have thought he had had -enough of gambling." - -She made the allusion, very simply, to me--an old friend. Her father -had gambled away a fortune, and in desperation had forged another man's -name on the back of a bill, for which he had suffered a term of -imprisonment. His relatives had cast him out. That was why he lived -in poverty-stricken seclusion at Ravetot-sur-Mer. He was not an -estimable old man, and I had always pitied Pauline for being so -parented. Her mother had died years ago. I thought I would avoid the -painful topic. - -"And so," said I, after we had gone the length of the jetty in silence -and had turned again, "one day when the lonely little princess was -staring out to sea and longing for she knew not what, the young prince -out of the fairy tale came riding up behind her--and stayed just long -enough to make her lose her heart--and then rode off again." - -"Something like it--only worse," she murmured. And then, with a sudden -break in her voice, "I will tell you all about it. I shall go mad if I -don't. I haven't a soul in the world to speak to. Yes. He came. He -found me standing at the end of the jetty. He asked his way, in -French, to the cemetery, and I recognised from his accent that he was -English like myself. I asked him why he wanted to go to the cemetery. -He said that it was to see his wife's grave. The only Englishwoman -buried here was a Mrs. Everest, who was drowned last summer. This was -the husband. He explained that he was in the Indian Civil Service, was -now on leave. Being in Paris he thought he would like to come to -Ravetot, where he could have quiet, in order to write a book." - -"I understood it was to see his wife's grave," I remarked. - -"He wanted to do that as well. You see, they had been separated for -some years--judicially separated. She was not a nice woman. He didn't -tell me so; he was too chivalrous a gentleman. But I had learned about -her from the gossip of the place. I walked with him to the cemetery. -I know a well-brought-up girl wouldn't have gone off like that with a -stranger." - -"My dear," said I, "in Ravetot-sur-Mer she would have gone off with a -hippogriffin." - -She pressed my arm. "How understanding you are, doctor, dear." - -"I have an inkling of the laws that govern humanity," I replied. -"Well, and after the pleasant trip to the cemetery?" - -"He asked me whether the café at the top of the hill was really the -only place to stay at in Ravetot. It's dreadful, you know--no one goes -there but fishermen and farm labourers--and it is the only place. The -hotel is shut up out of the season. I said that Ravetot didn't -encourage visitors during the winter. He looked disappointed, and said -that he would have to find quiet somewhere else. Then he asked whether -there wasn't any house that would take him in as a boarder?" - -She paused. - -"Well?" I enquired. - -"Oh, doctor, he seemed so strong and kind, and his eyes were so frank. -I knew he was everything that a man ought to be. We were friends at -once, and I hated the thought of losing him. It is not gay at Ravetot -with only Jeanne to talk to from week's end to week's end. And then we -are so poor--and you know we do take in paying guests when we can get -them." - -"I understand perfectly," said I. - -She nodded. That was how it happened. Would a nice girl have done -such a thing? I replied that if she knew as much of the ways of nice -girls as I did, she would be astounded. She smiled wanly and went on -with her artless story. Of course Mr. Everest jumped at the -suggestion. It is not given to every young and unlamenting widower to -be housed beneath the same roof with so delicious a young woman as -Pauline. He brought his luggage and took possession of the best spare -room in the Villa, while Pauline and old, slatternly Jeanne, the _bonne -à tout faire_, went about with agitated minds and busy hands attending -to his comfort. Old Widdrington, however, in his morose -chimney-corner, did not welcome the visitor. He growled and grumbled -and rated his daughter for not having doubled the terms. Didn't she -know they wanted every penny they could get? Something was wrong with -his roulette machine which ought to be sent to Paris for repairs. -Where was the money to come from? Pauline's father is the most -unscrupulous, selfish old curmudgeon of my acquaintance! - -Then, according to my young lady's incoherent and parenthetic -narrative, followed idyllic days. Pauline chattered to Mr. Everest in -the morning, walked with him in the afternoon, pretended to play the -piano to him in the evening, and in between times sat with him at -meals. The inevitable happened. She had met no one like him -before--he represented the strength and the music of the great world. -He flashed upon her as the realisation of the vague visions that had -floated before her eyes when she stared seawards in the driving wind. -That the man was a bit in love with her seems certain. I think that -one day, when a wayside shed was sheltering them from the rain, he must -have kissed her. A young girl's confidences are full of details; but -the important ones are generally left out. They can be divined, -however, by the old and experienced. At any rate Pauline was radiantly -happy, and Everest appeared contented to stay indefinitely at Ravetot -and watch her happiness. - -Thus far the story was ordinary enough. Given the circumstances it -would have been extraordinary if my poor little Pauline had not fallen -in love with the man and if the man's heart had not been touched. If -he had found the girl's feelings too deep for his response and had -precipitately bolted from a confused sense of acting honourably towards -her, the story would also have been commonplace. The cause of his -sudden riding away was peculiarly painful. Somehow I cannot blame him; -and yet I am vain enough to imagine that I should have acted otherwise. - -One morning Everest asked her if Jeanne might search his bedroom for a -twenty-franc piece which he must have dropped on the floor. In the -afternoon her father gave her twenty francs to get a postal order; he -was sending to Paris for some fresh mechanism for his precious -roulette-wheel. Everest accompanied her to the little Post Office. -They walked arm in arm through the village like an affianced couple, -and I fancy he must have said tenderer things than usual on the way, -for at this stage of the story she wept. When she laid the louis on -the stab below the _guichet_, she noticed that it was a a new Spanish -coin. Spanish gold is rare. She showed it to Everest, and meeting his -eyes read in them a curious questioning. The money order obtained, -they continued their walk happily, and Pauline forgot the incident. -Some days passed. Everest grew troubled and preoccupied. One -live-long day he avoided her society altogether. She lived through it -in a distressed wonder, and cried herself to sleep that night. How had -she offended? The next morning he gravely announced his departure. -Urgent affairs summoned him to Paris. In dazed misery she accepted the -payment of his account and wrote him a receipt. His face was set like -a mask, and he looked at her out of cold, stern eyes which frightened -her. In a timid way she asked him if he were going without one kind -word. - -"There are times, Miss Widdrington," said he "when no word at all is -the kindest." - -"But what have I done?" she cried. - -"Nothing at all but what is good and right. You may think whatever you -like of me. Good-bye!" - -He grasped his Gladstone bag, and through the window she saw him give -it to the fisher-lad who was to carry it three miles to the nearest -wayside station. He disappeared through the gate, and so out of her -life. Fat, slatternly Jeanne came upon her a few moments later moaning -her heart out, and administered comfort. It is very hard for -Mademoiselle--but what could Mademoiselle expect? Monsieur Everest -could not stay any longer in the house. Naturally. Of course, -Monsieur was a little touched in the brain, with his eternal -calculations--he was not responsible for his actions. Still, Monsieur -Everest did not like Monsieur to take money out of his room. But, -Great God of Pity! did not Mademoiselle know that was the reason of -Monsieur Everest going away? - -"It was father who had stolen the Spanish louis," cried Pauline in a -passion of tears, as we leaned once more against the parapet of the -jetty. "He also stole a fifty-franc note. Then he was caught -red-handed by Mr. Everest rifling his despatch-box. Jeanne overheard -them talking. It is horrible, horrible! How he must despise me! I -feel wrapped in flames when I think of it--and I love him so--and I -haven't slept for a week--and my heart is broken." - -I could do little to soothe this paroxysm, save let it spend itself -against my great-coat, while I again put my arm around her. The grey -tide was leaping in and the fine spray dashed in my face. The early -twilight began to settle over Ravetot, which appeared more desolate -than ever. - -"Never mind, my dear," said I, "you are young, and as your soul is -sweet and clean you will get over this." - -"Never," she moaned. - -"You will leave Ravetot-sur-Mer and all its associations, and the -brightness of life will drive all the shadows away." - -"No. It is impossible. My heart is broken and I only want to stay -here at the end of the jetty until I die." - -"I shall die, anyhow," I remarked with a shiver, "if I stay here much -longer, and I don't want to. Let us go home." - -She assented. We walked away from the sea and struck the gloomy inland -road. Then I said, somewhat meaningly: - -"Haven't you the curiosity to enquire why I left my comfortable house -in London to come to this God-forsaken hole?" - -"Why did you, Doctor, dear?" she asked listlessly. - -"To inform you that your cross old aunt Caroline is dead, that she has -left you three thousand pounds a year under my trusteeship till you are -five-and-twenty, and that I am going to carry off the rich and -beautiful Miss Pauline Widdrington to England to-morrow." - -She stood stock-still looking at me open-mouthed. - -"Is it true?" she gasped. - -"Of course," said I. - -Her face was transfigured with a sudden radiance. Amazement, rapture, -youth--the pulsating wonder of her twenty years danced in her eyes. In -her excitement she pulled me by the lapels of my coat---- - -"_Doctor_! DOCTOR! Three thousand pounds a year! England! London! -Men and women! Everything I've longed for! All the glad and beautiful -things of life!" - -"Yes, my dear." - -She took my hands and swung them backwards and forwards. - -"It's Heaven! Delicious Heaven!" she cried. - -"But what about the broken heart?" I said maliciously. - -She dropped my hands, sighed, and her face suddenly assumed an -expression of portentous misery. - -"I was forgetting. What does anything matter now? I shall never get -over it. My heart _is_ broken." - -"Devil a bit, my dear," said I. - - - - -THE SCOURGE - -I - -Up to the death of his wife, that is to say for fifty-six years, Sir -Hildebrand Oates held himself to be a very important and upright man, -whose life not only was unassailable by slander, but even through the -divine ordering of his being exempt from criticism. To the world and -to himself he represented the incarnation of British impeccability, -faultless from the little pink crown of his head to the tips of his -toes correctly pedicured and unstained by purples of retributive gout. -Except in church, where a conventional humility of attitude is imposed, -his mind was blandly _conscia recti_. No ghost of sins committed -disturbed his slumbers. He had committed no sin. He could tick off -the Ten Commandments one by one with a serene conscience. He objected -to profane swearing; he was a strict Sabbatarian; he had honoured his -father and his mother and had erected a monument over their grave which -added another fear of death to the beholder; he neither thieved nor -murdered, nor followed in the footsteps of Don Juan, nor in those of -his own infamous namesake; and being blessed in the world's goods, -coveted nothing possessed by his neighbour--not even his wife, for his -neighbours' wives could not compare in wifely meekness with his own. -In thought, too, he had not sinned. Never, so far as he remembered, -had he spoken a ribald word, never, indeed had he laughed at an -unsavoury jest. It may be questioned whether he had laughed at any -kind of joke whatsoever. - -Sir Hildebrand stood for many things: for Public Morality; his name -appeared on the committees of all the societies for the suppression of -all the vices: for sound Liberalism and Incorruptible Government; he -had poured much of his fortune into the party coffers and, to his -astonishment, a gracious (and minister-harrassed) Sovereign had -conveyed recognition of his virtues in the form of a knighthood. For -the sacred rights of the people; as Justice of the Peace he sentenced -vagrants who slept in other people's barns to the severest penalties. -For Principle in private life; in spite of the rending of his own heart -and the agonized tears of his wife, he had cast off his undutiful -children, a son and a daughter who had been guilty of the sin of -disobedience and had run away taking their creaking destinies in their -own hands. For the Sanctity of Home Life; night and morning he read -prayers before the assembled household and dismissed any maidservant -who committed the impropriety of conversing with a villager of the -opposite sex. From youth up, his demeanour had been studiously grave -and punctiliously courteous. A man of birth and breeding, he made it -his ambition to be what he, with narrow definition, termed "a gentleman -of the old school"; but being of Whig lineage, he had sat in Parliament -as an hereditary Liberal and believed in Progressive Institutions. - -It is difficult to give a flashlight picture of a human being at once -so simple and so complex. An ardent Pharisee may serve as an -epigrammatic characterisation. Hypocrite he was not. No miserable -sinner more convinced of his rectitude, more devoid of pretence, ever -walked the earth. Though his narrowness of view earned him but little -love from his fellow-humans, his singleness of purpose, aided by an -ample fortune, gained a measure of their respect. He lived -irreproachably up to his standards. In an age of general scepticism he -had unshakable faith. He believed intensely in himself. Now this -passionate certitude of infallibility found, as far as his life's drama -is concerned, its supreme expression in his relation to his wife, his -children, and his money. - -He married young. His wife brought him a fortune for which he was sole -trustee, a couple of children, and a submissive obedience unparalleled -in the most correct of Moslem households. Eresby Manor, where they had -lived for thirty years, was her own individual property, and she drew -for pocket money some five hundred pounds a year. A timid, weak, -sentimental soul, she was daunted from the first few frosty days of -honeymoon by the inflexible personality of her husband. For thirty -years she passed in the world's eye for little else than his shadow. - -"My dear, you must allow me to judge in such matters," he would say in -reply to mild remonstrance. And she deferred invariably to his -judgment. When his son Godfrey and his daughter Sybil went their -respective unfilial ways, it was enough for him to remark with cold -eyes and slight, expressive gesture: - -"My dear, distressing as I know it is to you, their conduct has broken -my heart and I forbid the mention of their names in this house." - -And the years passed and the perfect wife, though, in secret, she may -have mourned like Rachel for her children, obeyed the very letter of -her husband's law. - -There remains the third vital point, to which I must refer, if I am to -make comprehensible the strange story of Sir Hildebrand Oates. It was -money--or, more explicitly, the diabolical caprice of finance--that -first shook Sir Hildebrand's faith, not, perhaps, in his own -infallibility, but in the harmonious co-operation of Divine Providence -and himself. For the four or five years preceding his wife's death his -unerring instinct in financial affairs failed him. Speculations that -promised indubitably the golden fruit of the Hesperides produced -nothing but Dead Sea apples. He lost enormous sums of money. -Irritability constricted both his brow and the old debonair "s" at the -end of his signature. And when the County Guarantee Investment Society -of which he was one of the original founders and directors called up -unpaid balance on shares, and even then hovered on the verge of -scandalous liquidation, Sir Hildebrand found himself racked with -indignant anxiety. - -He was sitting at a paper-strewn table in his library, a decorous -library, a gentleman's library, lined from floor to ceiling with -bookcases filled with books that no gentleman's library should be -without, and trying to solve the eternal problem why two and two should -not make forty, when the butler entered announcing the doctor. - -"Ah, Thompson, glad to see you. What is it? Have you looked at Lady -Oates? Been a bit queer for some days. These east winds. I hold them -responsible for half the sickness of the county." - -He threw up an accusing hand. If the east wind had been a human -vagabond brought before Sir Hildebrand Oates, Justice of the Peace, it -would have whined itself into a Zephyr. Sir Hildebrand's eyes looked -blue and cold at offenders. From a stature of medium height he managed -to extract the dignity of six-foot-two. Beneath a very long and very -straight nose a grizzling moustache, dependent on the muscles of the -thin lips as to whether it should go up or down, symbolised, as it -were, the scales of justice. Sketches of accurately trimmed grey -whiskers also indicated the exact balance of his mind. But to show -that he was human and not impassionately divine, his thin hair once -black, now greenish, was parted low down on the left side and brought -straight over, leaving the little pink crown to which I have before -alluded. His complexion was florid, disavowing atrabiliar prejudice. -He had the long blunted chin of those secure of their destiny. He was -extraordinarily clean. - -The doctor said abruptly: "It's nothing to do with east winds. It's -internal complications. I have to tell you she's very seriously ill." - -A shadow of impatience passed over Sir Hildebrand's brow. - -"Just like my wife," said he, "to fall ill, when I'm already half off -my head with worry." - -"The County Guarantee----?" - -Sir Hildebrand nodded. The misfortunes of the Society were public -property, and public too, within the fairly wide area of his -acquaintance, was the knowledge of the fact that Sir Hildebrand was -heavily involved therein. Too often had he vaunted the beneficent -prosperity of the concern to which he had given his august support. At -his own dinner-table men had dreaded the half-hour after the departure -of the ladies, and at his club men had fled from him as they flee from -the Baconian mythologist. - -"It is a worry," the doctor admitted. "But financial preoccupations -must give way"--he looked Sir Hildebrand clear in the eyes--"must give -way before elementary questions of life and death." - -"Death?" Sir Hildebrand regarded him blankly. How dare Death intrude -in so unmannerly a fashion across his threshold? - -"I should have been called in weeks ago," said the doctor. "All I can -suggest now is that you should get Sir Almeric Home down from London. -I'll telephone at once, with your authority. An operation may save -her." - -"By all means. But tell me--I had no idea--I wanted to send for you -last week, but she's so obstinate--said it was mere indigestion." - -"You should have sent for me all the same." - -"Anyhow," said Sir Hildebrand, "tell me the worst." - -The doctor told him and departed. Sir Hildebrand walked up and down -his library, a man undeservedly stricken. The butler entered. -Pringle, the chauffeur, desired audience. - -Admitted, the man plunged into woeful apology. He had been trying the -Mercédès on its return from an overhaul, and as he turned the corner by -Rushworth Farm a motor lorry had run into him and smashed his -head-lamps. - -"I told you when I engaged you," said Sir Hildebrand, "that I allowed -no accidents." - -"It's only the lamps. I was driving most careful. The driver of the -lorry owns himself in the wrong," pleaded the chauffeur. - -"The merits or demerits of the case," replied Sir Hildebrand, "do not -interest me. It's an accident. I don't allow accidents. You take a -month's notice." - -"Very well, Sir Hildebrand, but I do think it----" - -"Enough," said Sir Hildebrand, dismissing him. "I have nothing more to -hear from you or to say to you." - -Then, when he was alone again, Sir Hildebrand reflected that noble -resignation under misfortune was the part of a Christian gentleman, and -in chastened mood went upstairs to see his wife. And in the days that -followed, when Sir Almeric Home, summoned too late, had performed the -useless wonders of his magical craft and had gone, Sir Hildebrand, most -impeccable of husbands, visited the sick-room twice a day, making the -most correct enquiries, beseeching her to name desires capable of -fulfilment, and urbanely prophesying speedy return to health. At the -end of the second visit he bent down and kissed her on the forehead. -The ukase went forth to the servants' hall that no one should speak -above a whisper, for fear of disturbing her ladyship, and the gardeners -had orders to supply the sick-room with a daily profusion of flowers. -Mortal gentleman could show no greater solicitude for a sick wife--save -perhaps bring her a bunch of violets in his own hand. But with an -automatic supply of orchids, why should he think of so trumpery an -offering? - -Lady Oates died. Sir Hildebrand accepted the stroke with Christian -resignation. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Yet his house -was desolate. He appreciated her virtues, which were many. He went -categorically through her attributes: A faithful wife, a worthy mother -of unworthy children, a capable manager, a submissive helpmate, a -country gentlewoman of the old school who provided supremely for her -husband's material comforts and never trespassed into the sphere of his -intellectual and other masculine activities. His grief at the loss of -his Eliza was sincere. The impending crash of the County Guarantee -Investment Society ceased to trouble him. His own fortune had -practically gone. Let it go. His dead wife's remained--sufficient to -maintain his position in the county. As Dr. Thompson had rightly said, -the vulgarities of finance must give way to the eternal sublimities of -death. His wife, with whom he had lived for thirty years in a conjugal -felicity unclouded save by the unforgivable sins of his children now -exiled through their own wilfulness to remote parts of the Empire, was -dead. The stupendous fact eclipsed all other facts in a fact-riveted -universe. Lady Oates who, after the way of women of limited outlook, -had always taken a great interest in funerals, had the funeral of her -life. The Bishop of the Diocese conducted the funeral service. The -County, headed by the old Duke of Dunster, his neighbour, followed her -to the grave. - - - -II - -"She was a good Christian woman, Haversham," said Sir Hildebrand later -in the day. "I did not deserve her. But I think I may feel that I did -my best all my life to ensure her happiness." - -"No doubt, of course," replied Haversham, the county lawyer. -"Er--don't you think we might get this formal business over? I've -brought Lady Oates's will in my pocket." - -He drew out a sealed envelope. Sir Hildebrand held out his hand. The -lawyer shook his head. "I'm executor--it's written on the outside--I -must open it." - -"You executor? That's rather strange," said Sir Hildebrand. - -Haversham opened the envelope, adjusted his glasses, and glanced -through the document. Then he took off his glasses and his brows -wrinkled, and with a queer look, half scared, half malicious, in his -eyes, gazed at Sir Hildebrand. - -"I must tell you, my dear Oates," said he, after a moment or so, "that -I had nothing to do with the making of this. Nothing whatsoever. Lady -Oates called at my office about two years ago and placed the sealed -envelope in my charge. I had no idea of the contents till this minute." - -"Let me see," said Sir Hildebrand; and again he stretched out his hand. - -Haversham, holding the paper, hesitated for a few seconds. "I'm afraid -I must read it to you, there being no third party present." - -"Third party? What do you mean?" - -"A witness. A formal precaution." The lawyer again put on his -glasses. "The introductory matter is the ordinary phraseology of the -printed form one buys at stationers' shops--naming me executor." Then -he read aloud: - -"I will and bequeath to my husband, Sir Hildebrand Oates, Knight, the -sum of fifteen shillings to buy himself a scourge to do penance for the -arrogance, uncharitableness and cruelty with which he has treated -myself and my beloved children for the last thirty years. I bequeath -to my son Godfrey the house and estate of Eresby Manor and all the -furniture, plate, jewels, livestock and everything of mine comprised -therein. The residue of my possessions I bequeath to my son Godfrey -and my daughter Sybil, in equal shares. I leave it to my children to -act generously by my old servants, and my horses and dogs." - -Sir Hildebrand's florid face grew purple. He looked fishy-eyed and -open-mouthed at the lawyer, and gurgled horribly in his throat. -Haversham hastily rang a bell. The butler appeared. Between them they -carried Sir Hildebrand up to bed and sent for the doctor. - - - -III - -When Sir Hildebrand recovered, which he did quickly, he went about like -a man in a daze, stupified by his wife's hideous accusation and -monstrous ingratitude. It was inconceivable that the submissive angel -with whom he had lived and the secret writer of those appalling words -should be one and the same person. Surely, insanity. That invalidated -the will. But Haversham pointed out that insanity would have to be -proved, which was impossible. The will contained no legal flaw. Lady -Oates's dispositions would have to be carried out. - -"It leaves me practically a pauper," said Sir Hildebrand, whereat the -other, imperceptibly, shrugged his shoulders. - -He realised, in cold terror, that the house wherein he dwelt was his no -longer. Even the chairs and tables belonged to his son, Godfrey. His -own personal belongings could be carried away in a couple of handcarts. -Instead of thousands his income had suddenly dwindled to a salvage of a -few hundreds a year. From his position in the county he had tumbled -with the suddenness and irreparability of Humpty-Dumpty! All the -vanities of his life sprang on him and choked him. He was a person of -no importance whatever. He gasped. Had mere outside misfortune beset -him, he doubtless would have faced his downfall with the courage of a -gentleman of the old school. His soul would have been untouched. But -now it was stabbed, and with an envenomed blade. His wife had brought -him to bitter shame.... "Arrogance, uncharitableness, cruelty." The -denunciation rang in his head day and night. He arrogant, -uncharitable, cruel? The charge staggered reason. His indignant -glance sweeping backward through the years could see nothing in his -life but continuous humility, charity, and kindness. He had not -deviated a hair's breath from irreproachable standards of conduct. -Arrogant? When Sybil, engaged in consequences of his tender sagacity -to a neighbouring magnate, a widowed ironmaster, eloped, at dead of -night on her wedding eve, with a penniless subaltern in the Indian -Army, he suffered humiliation before the countryside, with manly -dignity. No less humiliating had been his position and no less -resigned his attitude when Godfrey, declining to obey the tee-total, -non-smoking, early-to-bed, early-to-breakfast rules of the house, -declining also to be ordained and take up the living of Thereon in the -gift of the Lady of the Manor of Eresby, went off, in undutiful -passion, to Canada to pursue some godless and precarious career. -Uncharitableness? Cruelty? His children had defied him, and with -callous barbarity had cut all filial ties. And his wife? She had -lived in cotton-wool all her days. It was she who had been -cruel--inconceivably malignant. - - - -IV - -Sir Hildebrand, after giving Haversham, the lawyer, an account of his -stewardship--in his wild investments he had not imperilled a penny of -his wife's money--resigned his county appointments, chairmanships and -presidentships and memberships of committees, went to London and took a -room at his club. Rumour of his fallen fortunes spread quickly. He -found himself neither shunned nor snubbed, but not welcomed in the -inner smoke-room coterie before which, as a wealthy and important -county gentleman, he had been wont to lay down the law. No longer was -he Sir Oracle. Sensitive to the subtle changes he attributed them to -the rank snobbery of his fellow-members. No doubt he was right. The -delicate point of snobbery that he did not realise was the difference -between the degrees of sufferance accorded to the rich bore and the -poor bore. In the eyes of the club, Sir Hildebrand Oates was the poor -bore. He became freezingly aware of a devastating loneliness. In the -meanwhile his children had written the correctest of letters. Deep -grief for mother's death was the keynote of each. With regard to -worldly matters, Sybil confessed that the legacy made a revolution in -her plans for her children's future, but would not affect her present -movements, as she could not allow her husband to abandon a career which -promised to be brilliant. She would be home in a couple of years. The -son, Godfrey, welcomed the unexpected fortune. The small business he -had got together just needed this capital to expand into gigantic -proportions. It would be two or three years before he could leave it. -In the meantime, he hoped his father would not dream of leaving Eresby -Manor. Neither son nor daughter seemed to be aware of Sir Hildebrand's -impoverishment. Also, neither of them expressed sympathy for, or even -alluded to, the grief that he himself must be suffering. The omission -puzzled him; for he had the lawyer's assurance that they should remain -ignorant, as far as lay in his power, of the dreadful text of the will. -Did the omission arise from doubt in their minds as to his love for -their mother and the genuineness of his sorrow at her death? To solve -the riddle, Sir Hildebrand began to think as he had never thought -before. - - - -V - -Arrogance, uncharitableness, and cruelty. To wife and children. For -thirty years. Fifteen shillings to buy a scourge wherewith to do -penance. He could think of nothing else by day or night. The earth -beneath his feet which he had deemed so solid became a quagmire, so -that he knew not where to step. And the serene air darkened. The -roots of his being suffered cataclysm. Either his wife had been some -mad monster in human form, or her terrible indictment had some basis of -truth. The man's soul writhed in the flame of the blazing words. A -scourge for penance. Fifteen shillings to buy it with. In due course -he received the ghastly cheque from Haversham. His first impulse was -to tear it to pieces; his second, to fold it up and put it in his -letter-case. At the end of a business meeting with Haversham a day or -two later, he asked him point-blank: - -"Why did you insult me by sending me the cheque for fifteen shillings?" - -"It was a legal formality with which I was bound to comply." - -"_De minimis non curet lex_," said Sir Hildebrand. "No one pays -barley-corn rent or farthing damages or the shilling consideration in a -contract. Your action implies malicious agreement with Lady Oates' -opinion of me." - -He bent his head forward and looked at Haversham with feverish -intensity. Haversham had old scores to settle. The importance, -omniscience, perfection, and condescending urbanity of Sir Hildebrand -had rasped his nerves for a quarter of a century. If there was one -living man whom he hated whole-heartedly, and over whose humiliation he -rejoiced, it was Sir Hildebrand Oates. He yielded to the swift -temptation. He rose hastily and gathered up his papers. - -"If you can find me a human creature in this universe who doesn't share -Lady Oates's opinion, I will give him every penny I am worth." - -He went out, and then overcome with remorse for having kicked a fallen -man, felt inclined to hang himself. But he knew that he had spoken -truly. Meanwhile Sir Hildebrand walked up and down the little -visitors' room at the club, where the interview had taken place, -passing his hand over his indeterminate moustache and long blunt chin. -He felt neither anger nor indignation--but rather the dazed dismay of a -prisoner to whom the judge deals a severer sentence than he expected. -After a while he sat at a small table and prepared to write a letter -connected with the business matters he had just discussed with -Haversham. But the words would not come, his brain was fogged; he went -off into a reverie, and awoke to find himself scribbling in arabesque, -"Fifteen shillings to buy a scourge." - -After a solitary dinner at the club that evening he discovered in a -remote corner of the smoking-room, a life-long acquaintance, an old -schoolfellow, one Colonel Bagot, reading a newspaper. He approached. - -"Good evening, Bagot." - -Colonel Bagot raised his eyes from the paper, nodded, and resumed his -reading. Sir Hildebrand deliberately wheeled a chair to his side and -sat down. - -"Can I have a word or two with you?" - -"Certainly, my dear fellow," Bagot replied, putting down his paper. - -"What kind of a boy was I at school?" - -"What kind of a ... what the deuce do you mean?" asked the astonished -colonel. - -"I want you to tell me what kind of a boy I was," said Sir Hildebrand -gravely. - -"Just an ordinary chap." - -"Would you have called me modest, generous, and kind?" - -"What in God's name are you driving at?" asked the Colonel, twisting -himself round on his chair. - -"At your opinion of me. Was I modest, generous, and kind? It's a -vital question." - -"It's a damned embarrassing one to put to a man during the process of -digestion. Well, you know, Oates, you always were a queer beggar. If -I had had the summing up of you I should have said: 'Free from vice.'" - -"Negative." - -"Well, yes--in a way--but----" - -"You've answered me. Now another. Do you think I treated my children -badly?" - -"Really, Oates--oh, confound it!" Angrily he dusted himself free from -the long ash that had fallen from his cigar. "I don't see why I should -be asked such a question." - -"I do. You've known me all your life. I want you to answer it -frankly." - -Colonel Bagot was stout, red, and choleric. Sir Hildebrand irritated -him. If he was looking for trouble, he should have it. "I think you -treated them abominably--there!" said he. - -"Thank you," said Sir Hildebrand. - -"What?" gasped Bagot. - -"I said 'thank you.' And lastly--you have had many opportunities of -judging--do you think I did all in my power to make my wife happy?" - -At first Bagot made a gesture of impatience. His position was both -grotesque and intolerable. Was Oates going mad? Answering the -surmise, Sir Hildebrand said: - -"I'm aware my question is extraordinary, perhaps outrageous; but I am -quite sane. Did she look crushed, down-trodden, as though she were not -allowed to have a will of her own?" - -It was impossible not to see that the man was in a dry agony of -earnestness. Irritation and annoyance fell like garments from Bagot's -shoulders. - -"You really want to get at the exact truth, as far as I can give it -you?" - -"From the depth of my soul," said Sir Hildebrand. - -"Then," answered Bagot, quite simply, "I'm sorry to say unpleasant -things. But I think Lady Oates led a dog's life--and so does -everybody." - -"That's just what I wanted to be sure of," said Sir Hildebrand, rising. -He bent his head courteously. "Good night, Bagot," and he went away -with dreary dignity. - - - -VI - -A cloud settled on Sir Hildebrand's mind through which he saw immediate -things murkily. He passed days of unaccustomed loneliness and -inaction. He walked the familiar streets of London like one in a -dream. One afternoon he found himself gazing with unspeculative eye -into the window of a small Roman Catholic Repository where crucifixes -and statues of the Virgin and Child and rosaries and religious books -and pictures were exposed for sale. Until realisation of the objects -at which he had been staring dawned upon his mind, he had not been -aware of the nature of the shop. The shadow of a smile passed over his -face. He entered. An old man with a long white beard was behind the -counter. - -"Do you keep scourges?" asked Sir Hildebrand. - -"No, sir," replied the old man, somewhat astonished. - -"That's unfortunate--very unfortunate," said Sir Hildebrand, regarding -him dully. "I'm in need of one." - -"Even among certain of the religious orders the Discipline is forbidden -nowadays," replied the old man. - -"Among certain others it is practised?" - -"I believe so." - -"Then scourges are procurable. I will ask you to get one--or have one -made according to religious pattern. I will pay fifteen shillings for -it." - -"It could not possibly cost that--a mere matter of wood and string." - -"I will pay neither more nor less," said Sir Hildebrand, laying on the -counter the cheque which he had endorsed and his card. "I--I have made -a vow. It's a matter of conscience. Kindly send it to the club -address." - -He walked out of the shop somewhat lighter of heart, his instinct for -the scrupulous satisfied. The abominable cheque no longer burned -through letter-case and raiment and body and corroded his soul. He had -devoted the money to the purpose for which it was ear-marked. The -precision was soothed. In puzzling darkness he had also taken an -enormous psychological stride. - -The familiar club became unbearable, his fellow-members abhorrent. -Friends and acquaintances outside--and they were legion--who, taking -pity on his loneliness, sought him out and invited him to their houses, -he shunned in a curious terror. He was forever meeting them in the -streets. Behind their masks of sympathy he read his wife's deadly -accusation and its confirmation which he had received from Haversham -and Bagot. When the scourge arrived--a business-like instrument in a -cardboard box--he sat for a long time in his club bedroom drawing the -knotted cords between his fingers, lost in retrospective thought.... -And suddenly a scene flashed across his mind. Venice. The first days -of their honeymoon. The sun-baked Renaissance façade of a church in a -Campo bounded by a canal where their gondola lay waiting. A tattered, -one-legged, be-crutched beggar holding out his hat by the church -door.... He, Hildebrand, stalked majestically past, his wife -following. Near the _fondamenta_ he turned and discovered her in the -act of tendering from her purse a two-lire piece to the beggar who had -hobbled expectant in her wake. Hildebrand interposed a hand; the shock -accidentally jerked the coin from hers. It rolled. The one-legged -beggar threw himself prone, in order to seize it. But it rolled into -the canal. An agony of despair and supplication mounted from the -tatterdemalion's eyes. - -"Oh, Hildebrand, give him another." - -"Certainly not," he replied. "It's immoral to encourage mendicity." - -She wept in the gondola. He thought her silly, and told her so. They -landed at the Molo and he took her to drink chocolate at Florian's on -the Piazza. She bent her meek head over the cup and the tears fell -into it. A well-dressed Venetian couple who sat at the next table -stared at her, passed remarks, and giggled outright with the ordinary -and exquisite Italian politeness. - -"My dear Eliza," said Hildebrand, "if you can't help being a victim to -sickly sentimentality, at least, as my wife, you must learn to control -yourself in public." - -And meekly she controlled herself and drank her salted chocolate. In -compliance with a timidly expressed desire, and in order to show his -forgiveness, he escorted her into the open square, and like any vulgar -Cook's tourist bought her a paper cornet of dried peas, wherewith, to -his self-conscious martyrdom, she fed the pigeons. Seeing an old man -some way off do the same, she scattered a few grains along the -curled-up brim of her Leghorn hat; and presently, so still she was and -gracious, an iridescent swarm enveloped her, eating from both hands -outstretched and encircling her head like a halo. For the moment she -was the embodiment of innocent happiness. But Hildebrand thought her -notoriously absurd, and when he saw Lord and Lady Benham approaching -them from the Piazzetta, he stepped forward and with an abrupt gesture -sent the pigeons scurrying away. And she looked for the vanished birds -with much the same scared piteousness as the one-legged beggar had -looked for the lost two-lire piece. - -After thirty years the memory of that afternoon flamed vivid, as he -drew the strings of the idle scourge between his fingers. And then the -puzzling darkness overspread his mind. - -After a while he replaced the scourge in the cardboard box and summoned -the club valet. - -"Pack up all my things," said he. "I am going abroad to-morrow by the -eleven o'clock train from Victoria." - - - -VII - -Few English-speaking and, stranger still, few German-speaking guests -stay at the Albergo Tonelli in Venice. For one thing, it has not many -rooms; for another, it is far from the Grand Canal; and for yet -another, the fat proprietor Ettore Tonelli and his fatter wife are too -sluggish of body and brain to worry about _forestieri_ who have to be -communicated with in outlandish tongues, and, for their supposed -comfort, demand all sorts of exotic foolishness such as baths, -punctuality, and information as to the whereabouts of fusty old -pictures and the exact tariff of gondolas. The house was filled from -year's end to year's end with Italian commercial travellers; and -Ettore's ways and their ways corresponded to a nicety. The Albergo -Tonelli was a little red-brick fifteenth-century palazzo, its Lombardic -crocketed windows gaily picked out in white, and it dominated the -_campiello_ wherein it was situated. In the centre of the tiny square -was a marble well-head richly carved, and by its side a pump from which -the inhabitants of the vague tumble-down circumambient dwellings drew -the water to wash the underlinen which hung to dry from the windows. A -great segment of the corner diagonally opposite the Albergo was -occupied by the bare and rudely swelling brick apse of a -seventeenth-century church. Two inconsiderable thoroughfares, _calle_ -five foot wide, lead from the _campiello_ to the wide world of Venice. - -It was hither that Sir Hildebrand Oates, after a week of -nerve-shattering tumult at one of the great Grand Canal hotels, and -after horrified examination of the question of balance of expenditure -over income, found his way through the kind offices of a gondolier to -whom he had promised twenty francs if he could conduct him to the -forgotten church, the memorable scene of the adventure of the beggar -and the two-franc piece. With unerring instinct the gondolier had -rowed him to Santa Maria Formosa, the very spot. Sir Hildebrand -troubled himself neither with the church nor the heart-easing wonder of -Palma Vecchio's Santa Barbara within, but, with bent brow, traced the -course of the lame beggar from the step to the _fondamenta_, and the -course of the rolling coin from his Eliza's hand into the canal. Then -he paused for a few moments deep in thought, and finally drew a -two-lire piece from his pocket, and, recrossing the Campo, handed it -gravely to a beggar-woman, the successor of the lame man, who sat -sunning herself on the spacious marble seat by the side of the great -door. When he returned to the hotel he gave the gondolier his colossal -reward and made a friend for life. Giuseppe delighted at finding an -English gentleman who could converse readily hi Italian--for Sir -Hildebrand, a man of considerable culture, possessed a working -knowledge of three or four European languages--expressed his gratitude -on subsequent excursions, by overflowing with picturesque anecdote, -both historical and personal. A pathetic craving for intercourse with -his kind and the solace of obtaining it from one remote from his social -environment drew Sir Hildebrand into queer sympathy with a genuine -human being. Giuseppe treated him with a respectful familiarity which -he had never before encountered in a member of the lower classes. One -afternoon, on the silent _lagune_ side of the Giudecca, turning round -on his cushions, he confided to the lean, bronzed, rhythmically working -figure standing behind him, something of the puzzledom of his soul. -Guiseppe, in the practical Italian way, interpreted the confidences as -a desire to escape from the tourist-agitated and fantastically -expensive quarters of the city into some unruffled haven. That evening -he interviewed the second cousin of his wife, the Signora Tonelli of -the Albergo of that name, and the next day Sir Hildebrand took -possession of the front room overlooking the _campiello_, on the _piano -nobile_ or second floor of the hotel. - -And here Sir Hildebrand Oates, Knight, once Member of Parliament, Lord -of the Manor, Chairman of Quarter Sessions, Director of great -companies, orchid rival of His Grace the Duke of Dunster, important and -impeccable personage, the exact temperature of whose bath water had -been to a trembling household a matter of as much vital concern as the -salvation of their own souls--entered upon a life of queer discomfort, -privation and humility. For the first time in his life he experienced -the hugger-mugger makeshift of the bed-sitting room--a chamber, too, -cold and comfortless, with one scraggy rug by the bedside to mitigate -the rigour of an inlaid floor looking like a galantine of veal, once -the pride of the palazzo, and meagrely furnished with the barest -objects of necessity, and these of monstrous and incongruous ugliness; -and he learned in the redolent restaurant downstairs, the way to eat -spaghetti like a contented beast and the relish of sour wine and the -overrated importance of the cleanliness of cutlery. In his dignified -acceptance of surroundings that to him were squalid, he manifested his -essential breeding. The correct courtesy of his demeanour gained for -the _illustrissimo signore inglese_ the wholehearted respect of the -Signore and Signora Tonelli. And the famous scourge nailed -(symbolically) over his hard little bed procured him a terrible -reputation for piety in the _parrocchia_. After a while, indeed, as -soon as he had settled to his new mode of living, the inveterate habit -of punctilio caused him, almost unconsciously, to fix by the clock his -day's routine. Called at eight o'clock, a kind of eight conjectured by -the good-humoured, tousled sloven of a chamber-maid, he dressed with -scrupulous care. At nine he descended for his morning coffee to the -chill deserted restaurant--for all the revolution in his existence he -could not commit the immorality of breakfasting in his bedroom. At -half-past he regained his room, where, till eleven, he wrote by the -window overlooking the urchin-resonant _campiello_. Then with gloves -and cane, to outward appearance the immaculate, the impeccable Sir -Hildebrand Oates of Eresby Manor, he walked through the narrow, -twisting streets and over bridges and across _campi_ and _campiello_ to -the Piazza San Marco. As soon as he neared the east-end of the great -square, a seller of corn and peas approached him, handed him a paper -cornet, from which Sir Hildebrand, with awful gravity, fed the pigeons. -And the pigeons looked for him, too; and they perched on his arms and -his shoulders and even on the crown of his Homburg hat, the brim of -which he had, by way of solemn rite, filled with grain, until the -gaunt, grey, unsmiling man was hidden in fluttering iridescence. And -tourists and idlers used to come every day and look at him, as at one -of the sights of Venice. The supply finished, Sir Hildebrand went to -the Café Florian on the south of the Piazza and ordering a _sirop_ -which he seldom drank, read the _Corriere de la Sera_, until the midday -gun sent the pigeons whirring to their favourite cornices. Then Sir -Hildebrand retraced his steps to the Albergo Tonelli, lunched, read -till three, wrote till five, and again went out to take the air. -Dinner, half an hour's courtly gossip in the cramped and smelly apology -for a lounge, with landlord or a commercial traveller disinclined for -theatre or music-hall, or the absorbing amusement of Venice, walking in -the Piazza or along the Riva Schiavoni, and then to read or write till -bedtime. - -No Englishman of any social position can stand daily in the Piazza San -Marco without now and then coming across acquaintances, least of all a -man of such importance in his day as Sir Hildebrand Oates. He accepted -the greetings of chance-met friends with courteous resignation. - -"We're at the Hôtel de l'Europe. Where are you staying, Sir -Hildebrand?" - -"I live in Venice, I have made it my home. You see the birds accept me -as one of themselves." - -"You'll come and dine with us, won't you?" - -"I should love to," Sir Hildebrand would reply; "but for the next month -or so I am overwhelmed with work. I'm so sorry. If you have any time -to spare, and would like to get off the beaten track, let me recommend -you to wander through the Giudecca on foot. I hope Lady Elizabeth is -well. I'm so glad. Will you give her my kindest regards? Good-bye." -And Sir Hildebrand would make his irreproachable bow and take his -leave. No one learned where he had made his home in Venice. In fact, -no one but Messrs. Thomas Cook and Son knew his address. He banked -with them and they forwarded his letters to the Albergo Tonelli. - -It has been said that Sir Hildebrand occupied much of his time in -writing, and he himself declared that he was overwhelmed with work. He -was indeed engaged in an absorbing task of literary composition, and -his reference library consisted in thirty or forty leather-covered -volumes each fitted with a clasp and lock, of which the key hung at the -end of his watch-chain; and every page of every volume was filled with -his own small, precise handwriting. He made slow progress, for the -work demanded concentrated thought and close reasoning. The rumour of -his occupation having spread through the parrocchia, he acquired, in -addition to that of a pietist, the reputation of an _erudito_. He -became the pride of the _campiello_. When he crossed the little -square, the inhabitants pointed him out to less fortunate out-dwellers. -There was the great English noble who had made vows of poverty, and -gave himself the Discipline and wrote wonderful works of Theology. And -men touched their hats and women saluted shyly, and Sir Hildebrand -punctiliously, and with a queer pathetic gratitude, responded. Even -the children gave him a "Buon giorno, Signore," and smiled up into his -face, unconscious of the pious scholar he was supposed to be, and of -the almighty potentate that he had been. Once, yielding to an obscure -though powerful instinct, he purchased in the Merceria a packet of -chocolates, and on entering his _campiello_ presented them, with -stupendous gravity concealing extreme embarrassment, to a little gang -of urchins. Encouraged by a dazzling success, he made it a rule to -distribute sweetmeats every Saturday morning to the children of the -_campiello_. After a while he learned their names and idiosyncrasies, -and held solemn though kindly speech with them, manifesting an interest -in their games and questioning them sympathetically as to their -scholastic attainments. Sometimes gathering from their talk a notion -of the desperate poverty of parents, he put a lire or two into grubby -little fists, in spite of a lifelong conviction of the immorality of -indiscriminate almsgiving; and dark, haggard mothers blessed him, and -stood in his way to catch his smile. All of which was pleasant, though -exceedingly puzzling to Sir Hildebrand Oates. - - - -VIII - -Between two and three years after their mother's death, Sir -Hildebrand's son and daughter, who bore each other a devoted affection -and carried on a constant correspondence, arranged to meet in England, -Godfrey travelling from Canada, Sybil, with her children, from India. -The first thing they learned (from Haversham, the lawyer) was the -extent of their father's financial ruin. They knew--many kind friends -had told them--that he had had losses and had retired from public life; -but, living out of the world, and accepting their childhood's tradition -of his incalculable wealth, they had taken it for granted that he -continued to lead a life of elegant luxury. When Haversham, one of the -few people who really knew, informed them (with a revengeful smile) -that their father could not possibly have more than a hundred or two a -year, they were shocked to the depths of their clean, matter-of-fact -English souls. The Great Panjandrum, arbiter of destinies, had been -brought low, was living in obscurity in Italy. The pity of it! As -they interchanged glances the same thought leaped into the eyes of each. - -"We must look him up and see what can be done," said Godfrey. - -"Of course, dear," said Sybil. - -"I offered him the use of Eresby, but he was too proud to take it." - -"And I never offered him anything at all," said Sybil. - -"I should advise you," said Haversham, "to leave Sir Hildebrand alone." - -Godfrey, a high-mettled young man and one who was accustomed to arrive -at his own decisions, and moreover did not like Haversham, gripped his -sister by the arm. - -"Whatever advice you give me, Mr. Haversham, I will take just when I -think it necessary." - -"That is the attitude of most of my clients," replied Haversham drily, -"whether it is a sound attitude or not----" he waved an expressive hand. - -"We'll go and hunt him up, anyway," said Godfrey. "If he's impossible, -we can come back. If he isn't--so much the better. What do you say, -Sybil?" - -Sybil said what he knew she would say. - -"Sir Hildebrand's address is vague," remarked Haversham. "Cook's, -Venice." - -"What more, in Hades, do we want?" cried the young man. - -So, after Sybil had made arrangements for the safe keeping of her -offspring, and Godfrey and herself had written to announce their -coming, the pair set out for Venice. - -"We are very sorry, but we are unable to give you Sir Hildebrand -Oates's address," said Messrs. Thomas Cook and Son. - -Godfrey protested. "We are his son and daughter," he said, in effect. -"We have reason to believe our father is living in poverty. We have -written and he has not replied. We must find him." - -Identity established, Messrs. Thomas Cook and Son disclosed the -whereabouts of their customer. A gondola took brother and sister to -the _Campo_ facing the west front of the church behind which lay the -_Campiello_ where the hotel was situated. Their hearts sank low as -they beheld the mildewed decay of the Albergo Tonelli, lower as they -entered the cool, canal-smelling _trattoria_--or restaurant, the main -entrance to the Albergo. Signore Tonelli in shirt sleeves greeted -them. What was their pleasure? - -"Sir Hildebrand Oates?" - -At first from his rapid and incomprehensible Italian they could gather -little else than the fact of their father's absence from home. After a -while the reiteration of the words _ospedale inglese_ made an -impression on their minds. - -"_Malade?_" asked Sybil, trying the only foreign language with which -she had a slight acquaintance. - -"_Si, si!_" cried Tonelli, delighted at eventual understanding. - -And then a Providence-sent bagman who spoke a little English came out -and interpreted. - -The _illustrissimo signore_ was ill. A pneumonia. He had stood to -feed the pigeons in the rain, in the northeast wind, and had contracted -a chill. When they thought he was dying, they sent for the English -doctor who had attended him before for trifling ailments, and -unconscious he had been transported to the English hospital in the -Giudecca. And there he was now. A thousand pities he should die. The -dearest and most revered man. The whole neighbourhood who loved him -was stricken with grief. They prayed for him in the church, the -signore and signora could see it there, and vows and candles had been -made to the Virgin, the Blessed Mother, for he too loved all children. -Signore Tonelli, joined by this time by his wife, exaggerated perhaps -in the imaginative Italian way. But every tone and gesture sprang from -deep sincerity. Brother and sister looked at each other in dumb wonder. - -"_Ecco, Elizabetta!_" Tonelli, commanding the doorway of the -restaurant, summoned an elderly woman from the pump by the well-head -and discoursed volubly. She approached the young English couple and -also volubly discoursed. The interpreter interpreted. They gained -confirmation of the amazing fact that, in this squalid, stone-flagged, -rickety little square, Sir Hildebrand had managed to make himself -beloved. Childhood's memories rose within them, half-caught, but -haunting sayings of servants and villagers which had impressed upon -their minds the detestation in which he was held in their Somersetshire -home. - -Godfrey turned to his sister. "Well, I'm damned," said he. - -"I should like to see his rooms," said Sybil. - -The interpreter again interpreted. The Tonellis threw out their arms. -Of course they could visit the apartment of the _illustrissimo -signore_. They were led upstairs and ushered into the chill, dark -bed-sitting-room, as ascetic as a monk's cell, and both gasped when -they beheld the flagellum hanging from its nail over the bed. They -requested privacy. The Tonellis and the bagman-interpreter retired. - -"What the devil's the meaning of it?" said Godfrey. - -Sybil, kind-hearted, began to cry. Something strange and piteous, -something elusive had happened. The awful, poverty-stricken room -chilled her blood, and the sight of the venomous scourge froze it. She -caught and held Godfrey's hand. Had their father gone over to Rome and -turned ascetic? They looked bewildered around the room. But no other -sign, crucifix, rosary, sacred picture, betokened the pious convert. -They scanned the rough deal bookshelf. A few dull volumes of English -classics, a few works on sociology in French and Italian, a flagrantly -staring red _Burke's Landed Gentry_, and that was practically all the -library. Not one book of devotion was visible, save the Bible, the -Book of Common Prayer, and a little vellum-covered Elzevir edition of -Saint Augustine's _Flammulæ Amoris_, which Godfrey remembered from -childhood on account of its quaint wood-cuts. They could see nothing -indicative of religious life but the flagellum over the bed--and that -seemed curiously new and unused. Again they looked around the bare -characterless room, characteristic only of its occupant by its -scrupulous tidiness; yet one object at last attracted their attention. -On a deal writing-table by the window lay a thick pile of manuscript. -Godfrey turned the brown paper covering. Standing together, brother -and sister read the astounding title-page: - -"An enquiry into my wife's justification for the following terms of her -will:-- - -"'I will and bequeath to my husband, Sir Hildebrand Oates, Knight, the -sum of fifteen shillings to buy himself a scourge to do penance for the -arrogance, uncharitableness and cruelty with which he has treated -myself and my beloved children for the last thirty years.' - -"This dispassionate enquiry I dedicate to my son Godfrey and my -daughter Sybil." - -Brother and sister regarded each other with drawn faces and mutually -questioning eyes. - -"We can't leave this lying about," said Godfrey. And he tucked the -manuscript under his arm. - -The gondola took them through the narrow waterways to the Grand Canal -of the Giudecca, where, on the Zattere side, all the wave-worn merchant -shipping of Venice and Trieste and Fiume and Genoa finds momentary -rest, and across to the low bridge-archway of the canal cutting through -the island, on the side of which is Lady Layard's modest English -hospital. Yes, said the matron, Sir Hildebrand was there. Pneumonia. -Getting on as well as could be expected; but impossible to see him. -She would telephone to their hotel in the morning. - -That night, until dawn, Godfrey read the manuscript, a document of -soul-gripping interest. It was neither an _apologia pro vita sua_, nor -a breast-beating _peccavi_ cry of confession; but a minute analysis of -every remembered incident in the relations between his family and -himself from the first pragmatical days of his wedding journey. And -judicially he delivered judgments in the terse, lucid French form. -"Whereas I, etc., etc...." and "whereas my wife, etc., -etc...."--setting forth and balancing the facts--"it is my opinion that -I acted arrogantly," or "uncharitably," or "cruelly." Now and again, -though rarely, the judgments went in his favour. But invariably the -words were added: "I am willing, however, in this case, to submit to -the decision of any arbitrator or court of appeal my children may think -it worth while to appoint." - -The last words, scrawled shakily in pencil, were: - -"I have not, to my great regret, been able to bring this record -up-to-date; but as I am very ill and, at my age, may not recover, I -feel it my duty to say that, as far as my two years' painful -examination into my past life warrants my judgment, I am of the opinion -that my wife had ample justification for the terms she employed -regarding me in her will. Furthermore, if, as is probable, I should -die of my illness, I should like my children to know that long ere this -I have deeply desired in my loneliness to stretch out my arms to them -in affection and beg their forgiveness, but that I have been prevented -from so doing by the appalling fear that, I being now very poor and -they being very rich, my overtures, considering the lack of affection I -have exhibited to them in the past might be misinterpreted. The -British Consul here, who has kindly consented to be my executor, -will..." - -And then strength had evidently failed him and he could write no more. - -The next morning Godfrey related to his sister what he had read and -gave her the manuscript to read at her convenience; and together they -went to the hospital and obtained from the doctor his somewhat -pessimistic report; and then again they visited the Albergo Tonelli and -learned more of the strange, stiff and benevolent life of Sir -Hildebrand Oates. Once more they mounted to the cold cheerless room -where their father had spent the past two years. Godfrey unhooked the -scourge from the nail. - -"What are you going to do?" Sybil asked, her eyes full of tears. - -"I'm going to burn the damned thing. Whether he lives or dies, the -poor old chap's penance is at an end. By God! he has done enough." He -turned upon her swiftly. "You don't feel any resentment against him -now, do you?" - -"Resentment?" Her voice broke on the word and she cast herself on the -hard little bed and sobbed. - - - -IX - -And so it came to pass that a new Sir Hildebrand Oates, with a humble -and a contrite heart, which we are told the Lord doth not despise, came -into residence once more at Eresby Manor, agent for his son and -guardian of his daughter's children. Godfrey transferred his legal -business from Haversham to a younger practitioner in the neighbourhood -to whom Sir Hildebrand showed a stately deference. And every day, -being a man of habit--instinctive habit which no revolution of the soul -can alter--he visited his wife's grave in the little churchyard, a -stone's throw from the manor house, and in his fancy a cloud of pigeons -came iridescent, darkening the air.... - -The County called, but he held himself aloof. He was no longer the -all-important unassailable man. He had come through many fires to a -wisdom undreamed of by the County. Human love had touched him with its -simple angel wing--the love of son and daughter, the love of the rude -souls in the squalid Venetian _Campiello_; and the patter of children's -feet, the soft and trusting touch of children's hands, the glad welcome -of children's voices, had brought him back to the elemental wells of -happiness. - -One afternoon, the butler entering the dining-room with the -announcement "His Grace, the Duke of----" gasped, unable to finish the -title. For there was Sir Hildebrand Oates--younger at fifty-nine than -he was at thirty--lying prone on the hearthrug, with a pair of flushed -infants astride on the softer portions of his back, using the once -almighty man as a being of little account. Sir Hildebrand turned his -long chin and long nose up towards his visitor, and there was a new -smile in his eyes. - -"Sorry, Duke," said he, "but you see, I can't get up." - - - - -MY SHADOW FRIENDS - -My gentle readers have been good enough to ask me what some of the folk -whose adventures I have from time to time described have done in the -Great War. It is a large question, for they are so many. Most of them -have done things they never dreamed they would be called upon to do. -Those that survived till 1914 have worked, like the rest of the -community in England and France, according to their several capacities, -in the Holiest Crusade in the history of mankind. - -Well, let me plunge at once into the midst of things. - -About a year ago the great voice of Jaffery came booming across my -lawn. He was a Lieutenant-Colonel, and a D.S.O., and his great red -beard had gone. The same, but yet a subtly different Jaffery. Liosha -was driving a motor-lorry in France. He told me she was having the -time of her life. - -I have heard, too, of my old friend Sir Marcus, leaner than ever and -clad in ill-fitting khaki, and sitting in a dreary office in Havre with -piles of browny-yellow army forms before him, on which he had checked -packing-cases of bully-beef ever since the war began. And if you visit -a certain hospital--in Manchester of all places, so dislocating has -been the war--there you will still see Lady Ordeyne (it always gives me -a shock to think of Carlotta as Lady Ordeyne) matronly and inefficient, -but the joy and delight of every wounded man. - -And Septimus? Did you not know that the Dix gun was used at the front? -His great new invention, the aero-tank, I regret to say, was looked on -coldly by the War Office. Now that Peace has come he is trying, so -Brigadier-General Sir Clem Sypher tells me, to adapt it to the -intensive cultivation of whitebait. - -And I have heard a few stories of others. Here is one told me by a -French officer, one Colonel Girault. The scene was a road bridge on -the outskirts of the zone of the armies. His car had broken down -hopelessly, and with much profane language he swung to the bridge-head. -The sentry saluted. He was an elderly Territorial with a ragged pair -of canvas trousers and a ragged old blue uniform coat and a battered -kepi and an ancient rifle. A scarecrow of a sentry, such as were seen -on all the roads of France. - -"How far is it to the village?" - -"Two kilometres, _mon Colonel_." - -There was something familiar in the voice and in the dark, humorous -eyes. - -"Say, _mon vieux_, what is your name?" asked Colonel Girault. - -"Gaston de Nérac, _mon Colonel_." - -"_Connais pas_," murmured the Colonel, turning away. - -"Exalted rank makes Gigi Girault forget the lessons of humility he -learned in the Café Delphine." - -Colonel Girault stood with mouth agape. Then he laughed and threw -himself into the arms of the dilapidated sentry. - -"_Mon Dieu_! It is true. It is Paragot!" - -Then afterwards: "And what can I do for you, _mon vieux_?" - -"Nothing," said Paragot. "The _bon Dieu_ has done everything. He has -allowed me to be a soldier of France in my old age." - -And Colonel Girault told me that he asked for news of the little -Asticot--a painter who ought by now to be famous. Paragot replied: - -"He is over there, killing Boches for his old master." - -Do you remember Paul Savelli, the Fortunate Youth? He lived to see his -dream of a great, awakened England come true. He fell leading his men -on a glorious day. His Princess wears on her nurse's uniform the -Victoria Cross which he had earned in that last heroic charge, but did -not live to wear. And she walks serene and gracious, teaching proud -women how to mourn. - -What of Quixtus? He sacrificed his leisure to the task of sitting in a -dim room of the Foreign Office for ten hours a day in front of masses -of German publications, and scheduling with his scientific method and -accuracy the German lies. Clementina saw him only on Sundays. She -turned her beautiful house on the river into a maternity home for -soldiers' wives. Tommy, the graceless, when last home on leave, said -that she was capable of murdering the mothers so as to collar all the -babies for herself. And Clementina smiled as though acknowledging a -compliment. "Once every few years you are quite intelligent, Tommy," -she replied. - -I have heard, too, that Simon, who jested so with life, and Lola of the -maimed face, went out to a Serbian hospital, and together won through -the horror of the retreat. They are still out there, sharing in -Serbia's victory, and the work of Serbia's reconstruction. - -In the early days of the war, in Regent Street, I was vehemently -accosted by a little man wearing the uniform of a French captain. He -had bright eyes, and a clean shaven chin which for the moment perplexed -me, and a swaggering moustache. - -"Just over for a few hours to see the wife and little Jean." - -"But," said I, "what are you doing in this kit? You went out as a -broken-down Territorial." - -"_Mon cher ami_," he cried, straddling across the pavement to the -obstruction of traffic, and regarding me mirthfully, "it is the -greatest farce on the world. Imagine me! I, a broken-down -Territorial, as you call me, bearded a lion of a General of Division in -his den--and I came out a Captain. Come into the Café Royal and I'll -tell you all about it." - -His story I cannot set down here, but it is not the least amazing of -the joyous adventures of my friend Aristide Pujol. - -What Doggie and Jeanne did in the war, my gentle readers know. Their -first child was born on the glorious morning of November 11, 1918, amid -the pealing of bells and shouts of rejoicing. When Doggie crept into -the Sacred Room of Wonderment, he found the babe wrapped up in the -Union Jack and the Tricolour. "There's only one name for him," -whispered Jeanne with streaming eyes, "Victor!" - - -To leave fantasy for the brutal fact. You may say these friends of -mine are but shadows. It is true. But shadows are not cast by -nothingness. These friends must live substantially and corporeally, -although in the flesh I have never met them. Some strange and -unguessed sun has cast their shadows across my path. I _know_ that -somewhere or the other they have their actual habitation, and I know -that they have done the things I have above recounted. These shadows -of things unseen are real. In fable lies essential truth. These -shadows that now pass quivering before my eyes have behind them great, -pulsating embodiments of men and women, in England and France, who have -given up their lives to the great work which is to cleanse the foulness -of the Central Empires of Europe, regenerate humanity, and bring -Freedom to God's beautiful earth. - - - -THE END - - - - * * * * * - - - - BY THE SAME AUTHOR - - IDOLS - JAFFERY - VIVIETTE - SEPTIMUS - DERELICTS - THE USURPER - STELLA MARIS - WHERE LOVE IS - THE ROUGH ROAD - THE RED PLANET - THE WHITE DOVE - SIMON THE JESTER - A STUDY IN SHADOWS - A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY - THE WONDERFUL YEAR - THE FORTUNATE YOUTH - THE BELOVED VAGABOND - AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA - THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA - THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE - THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE - THE JOYOUS ADVENTURES OF ARISTIDE PUJOL - - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Far-away Stories, by William J. 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