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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f210fd5 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #53157 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53157) diff --git a/old/53157-0.txt b/old/53157-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a144086..0000000 --- a/old/53157-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,21823 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wood and Stone, by John Cowper Powys - -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: Wood and Stone - A Romance - -Author: John Cowper Powys - -Release Date: September 28, 2016 [EBook #53157] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOOD AND STONE *** - - - - -Produced by Stephen Rowland and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - - WOOD AND STONE - - - - - BOOKS BY - JOHN COWPER POWYS - - THE WAR AND CULTURE, 1914 $ .60 - VISIONS AND REVISIONS, 1915 $2.00 - - PUBLISHED BY G. ARNOLD SHAW - GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK - - - - - WOOD AND STONE - - A ROMANCE - - BY - JOHN COWPER POWYS - - Licuit, semperque licebit - Parcere personis, dicere de vitiis. - - [Illustration] - - 1915 - G. ARNOLD SHAW - NEW YORK - - COPYRIGHT, 1915 - BY G. ARNOLD SHAW - - COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN - AND COLONIES - - - - - DEDICATED - - WITH DEVOTED ADMIRATION - TO THE GREATEST POET AND NOVELIST - OF OUR AGE - - THOMAS HARDY - - - - -PREFACE - - -The following narrative gathers itself round what is, perhaps, one -of the most absorbing and difficult problems of our age; the problem -namely of getting to the bottom of that world-old struggle between the -“well-constituted” and the “ill-constituted,” which the writings of -Nietzsche have recently called so startlingly to our attention. - -Is there such a thing at all as Nietzsche’s born and trained -aristocracy? In other words, is the secret of the universe to be -reached only along the lines of Power, Courage, and Pride? Or,--on -the contrary,--is the hidden and basic law of things, not Power but -Sacrifice, not Pride but Love? - -Granting, for the moment, that this latter alternative is the true one, -what becomes of the drastic distinction between “well-constituted” and -“ill-constituted”? - -In a universe whose secret is not self-assertion, but self-abandonment, -might not the “well-constituted” be regarded as the vanquished, and -the “ill-constituted” as the victors? In other words, who, in such a -universe, _are_ the “well-constituted”? - -But the difficulty does not end here. Supposing we rule out of our -calculation both of these antipodal possibilities,--both the universe -whose inner fatality is the striving towards Power, and the universe -whose inner fatality is the striving towards Love,--will there not be -found to remain two other rational hypotheses, either, namely, that -there is no inner fatality about it at all, that the whole thing is a -blind, fantastic, chance-drifting chaos; or that the true secret lies -in some subtle and difficult reconciliation, between the will to Power -and the will to Love? - -The present chronicle is an attempt to give an answer, inevitably a -very tentative one, to this formidable question; the writer, feeling -that, as in all these matters, where the elusiveness of human nature -plays so prominent a part, there is more hope of approaching the -truth, indirectly, and by means of the imaginative mirror of art, than -directly, and by means of rational theorizing. - -The whole question is indeed so intimately associated with the actual -panorama of life and the evasive caprices of flesh and blood, that -every kind of drastic and clinching formula breaks down under its -pressure. - -Art, alone,--that mysterious daughter of Life,--has the secret of -following the incalculable movements of the Force to which she is so -near akin. A story which grossly points its moral with fixed indicative -finger is a story which, in the very strain of that premature -articulation, has lost the magic of its probability. The secret of our -days flies from our attempts at making it fit such clumsy categories, -and the maddening flavour of the cosmic cup refuses to be imprisoned in -any laboratory. - -At this particular moment in the history of our planet it is above -all important to protest against this prostituting of art to -pseudo-science. It must not be allowed to these hasty philosophical -conclusions and spasmodic ethical systems, to block up and close in, as -they are so ready to do, the large free horizons of humour and poetry. -The magic of the World, mocking both our gravity and our flippancy, -withdraws itself from our shrewd rationalizations, only to take refuge -all the deeper in our intrinsic and evasive hearts. - -In this story the author has been led to interest himself in the -curious labyrinthine subtleties which mark the difference,--a -difference to be observed in actual life, quite apart from moral -values,--between the type of person who might be regarded as born -to rule, and the type of person who might be regarded as born to be -ruled over. The grand Nietzschean distinction is, in a sense, rejected -here upon its own ground, a ground often inconsequently deserted by -those who make it their business to condemn it. Such persons are apt -to forget that the whole assumption of this distinction lies in a -substitution of _æsthetic_ values, for the values more commonly applied. - -The pivotal point of the ensuing narrative might be described as an -attempt to suggest, granting such an æsthetic test, that the hearts of -“ill-constituted” persons,--the hearts of slaves, Pariahs, cowards, -outcasts, and other victims of fate,--may be at least as _interesting_, -in their bizarre convolutions, as the hearts of the bravest and gayest -among us. And _interest_, after all, is the supreme exigency of the -æsthetic sense! - -In order to thrust back from its free horizons these invasions of its -prerogatives by alien powers, Art must prove itself able to evoke the -very tang and salt and bitter-sweetness of the actual pell-mell of -life--its unfolding spaces, its shell-strewn depths. She must defend -herself from those insidious traitors in her own camp who would betray -her into the hands of the system-makers, by proving that she can -approach nearer to the magic of the world, without a system, than all -these are able to do, with all of theirs! She must keep the horizons -open--that must be her main concern. She must hold fast to poetry and -humour, and about her creations there must be a certain spirit of -_liberation_, and the presence of large tolerant after-thoughts. - -The curious thing about so many modern writers is, that in their -earnest preoccupation with philosophical and social problems, they grow -strained and thin and sententious, losing the mass and volume, as well -as the elusive-blown airs, of the flowing tide. On the other hand there -is an irritating tendency, among some of the cleverest, to recover -their lost balance after these dogmatic speculations, by foolish -indulgence in sheer burlesque--burlesque which is the antithesis of all -true humour. - -Heaven help us! It is easy enough to criticize the lath and plaster -which, in so many books, takes the place of flesh and blood. It is less -easy to catch, for oneself, the breath of the ineffable spirit! - -Perhaps the deplorable thinness and sententiousness, to which reference -has been made, may be due to the fact that in the excitement of modern -controversy, our enterprising writers have no time to read. It is a -strange thing, but one really feels as though, among all modern English -authors, the only one who brings with him an atmosphere of the large -mellow leisurely humanists of the past,--of the true classics, in -fact,--is Mr. Thomas Hardy. - -It is for this reason, for the reason that with this great genius, life -is approached in the old ample ironic way, that the narrator of the -following tale has taken the liberty of putting Mr. Hardy’s name upon -his title-page. In any case mere courtesy and decency called for such -a recognition. One could hardly have the audacity to plant one’s poor -standard in the heart of Wessex without obeisance being paid to the -literary over-lord of that suggestive region. - -It must be understood, however, that the temerity of the author does -not carry him so far as to regard his eccentric story as in any sense -an attempted imitation of the Wessex novelist. Mr. Hardy cannot be -imitated. The mention of his admirable name at the beginning of this -book is no more than a humble salutation addressed to the monarch of -that particular country, by a wayward nomad, lighting a bivouac-fire, -for a brief moment, in the heart of a land that is not his. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - I. LEO’S HILL 1 - II. NEVILTON 9 - III. OLYMPIAN CONSPIRACY 21 - IV. REPRISALS FROM BELOW 33 - V. FRANCIS TAXATER 53 - VI. THE PARIAHS 80 - VII. IDYLLIC PLEASURES 109 - VIII. THE MYTHOLOGY OF SACRIFICE 134 - IX. THE MYTHOLOGY OF POWER 156 - X. THE ORCHARD 184 - XI. ART AND NATURE 212 - XII. AUBER LAKE 247 - XIII. LACRIMA 276 - XIV. UNDER-CURRENTS 317 - XV. MORTIMER ROMER 355 - XVI. HULLAWAY 386 - XVII. SAGITTARIUS 430 - XVIII. VOICES BY THE WAY 460 - XIX. PLANETARY INTERVENTION 489 - XX. VOX POPULI 519 - XXI. CÆSAR’S QUARRY 536 - XXII. A ROYAL WATERING-PLACE 572 - XXIII. AVE ATQUE VALE! 595 - XXIV. THE GRANARY 621 - XXV. METAMORPHOSIS 650 - XXVI. VARIOUS ENCOUNTERS 667 - XXVII. VENNIE SELDOM 679 - XXVIII. LODMOOR 696 - XXIX. THE GOAT AND BOY 714 - - - - -WOOD AND STONE - - - - -CHAPTER I - -LEO’S HILL - - -Midway between Glastonbury and Bridport, at the point where the eastern -plains of Somersetshire merge into the western valleys of Dorsetshire, -stands a prominent and noticeable hill; a hill resembling the figure of -a crouching lion. - -East of the hill, nestling at the base of a cone-shaped eminence -overgrown with trees and topped by a thin Thyrsus-like tower, lies the -village of Nevilton. - -Were it not for the neighbourhood of the more massive promontory -this conical protuberance would itself have stood out as an emphatic -landmark; but Leo’s Hill detracts from its emphasis, as it detracts -from the emphasis of all other deviations from the sea-level, between -Yeoborough and the foot of the Quantocks. - -It was on the apex of Nevilton Mount that the Holy Rood of Waltham -was first found; but with whatever spiritual influence this event may -have endowed the gentler summit, it is not to it, but to Leo’s Hill, -that the lives and destinies of the people of Nevilton have come to -gravitate. One might indeed without difficulty conceive of a strange -supernatural conflict going on between the consecrated repository of -Christian tradition guarding its little flock, and the impious heathen -fortress to which day by day that flock is driven, to seek their -material sustenance. - -Even in Pre-Celtic times those formidably dug trenches and frowning -slopes must have looked down on the surrounding valley; and to this day -it is the same suggestion of tyrannical military dominance, which, in -spite of quarries and cranes and fragrant yellow gorse, gives the place -its prevailing character. - -The rounded escarpments have for centuries been covered with pleasant -turf and browsed upon by sheep; but patient antiquarian research -constantly brings to light its coins, torques, urns, arrow-heads, -amulets; and rumour hints that yet more precious things lie concealed -under those grassy mounds. - -The aboriginal tribes have been succeeded by the Celt; the Celt by -the Roman; the Roman by the Saxon; without any change in the place’s -inherent character, and without any lessening of its tyranny over the -surrounding country. For though Leo’s Hill dominates no longer by means -of its external strength, it dominates, quite as completely, by means -of its interior riches. - -It is, in fact, a huge rock-island, washed by the leafy waves of the -encircling valleys, and containing, as its hid treasure, stone enough -to rebuild Babylon. - -In that particular corner of the West Country, so distinct and -deep-rooted are the legendary survivals, it is hard not to feel as -though some vast spiritual conflict were still proceeding between the -two opposed Mythologies--the one drawing its strength from the impulse -to Power, and the other from the impulse to Sacrifice. - -A village-dweller in Nevilton might, if he were philosophically -disposed, be just as much a percipient of this cosmic struggle, as if -he stood between the Palatine and St. Peter’s. - -Let him linger among the cranes and pulleys of this heathen promontory, -and look westward to the shrine of the Holy Grail, or eastward to where -rested the Holy Rood, and it would be strange if he did not become -conscious of the presence of eternal spiritual antagonists, wrestling -for the mastery. - -He would at any rate be made aware of the fatal force of Inanimate -Objects over human destiny. - -There would seem to him something positively monstrous and sinister -about the manner in which this brute mass of inert sandstone had -possessed itself of the lives of the generations. It had come to this -at last; that those who owned the Hill owned the dwellers beneath the -Hill; and the Hill itself owned them that owned it. - -The name by which the thing had come to be known indicated sufficiently -well its nature. - -Like a couchant desert-lion it overlooked its prey; and would continue -to do so, as long as the planet lasted. - -Out of its inexhaustible bowels the tawny monster fed the cities of -seven countries--cities whose halls, churches, theatres, and markets, -mocked the caprices of rain and sun as obdurately as their earth-bound -parent herself. - -The sandstone of Leo’s Hill remains, so architects tell us, the only -rival of granite, as a means for the perpetuation of human monuments. -Even granite wears less well than this, in respect to the assaults of -rain and flood. The solitary mysterious monoliths of Stonehenge, with -their unknown, alien origin, alone seem to surpass it in their eternal -perdurance. - -As far as Nevilton itself is concerned everything in the place owes its -persuasive texture to this resistant yet soft material. From the lordly -Elizabethan mansion to the humblest pig-stye, they all proceed from the -entrails of Leo’s Hill; and they all still wear--these motley whelps -of the great dumb beast--its tawny skin, its malleable sturdiness, its -enduring consistence. - -Who can resist a momentary wonder at the strange mutability of the -fate that governs these things? The actual slabs, for example, out of -which the high shafts and slender pinnacles of the church-tower were -originally hewn, must once have lain in littered heaps for children -to scramble upon, and dogs to rub against. And now they are the windy -resting-places, and airy “coigns of vantage,” of all the feathered -tribes in their migrations! - -What especially separates the Stone of Leo’s Hill from its various -local rivals, is its chameleon-like power of taking tone and colour -from every element it touches. While Purbeck marble, for instance, -must always remain the same dark, opaque, slippery thing it was when -it left its Dorset coast; while Portland stone can do nothing but grow -gloomier and gloomier, in its ashen-grey moroseness, under the weight -of the London fogs; the tawny progeny of this tyrant of the western -vales becomes amber-streaked when it restricts the play of fountains, -orange-tinted when it protects herbacious borders, and rich as a -petrified sunset when it drinks the evening light from the mellow front -of a Cathedral Tower. - -Apart from any geological affinity, it might almost seem as though -this Leonian stone possessed some weird occult relation to those deep -alluvial deposits which render the lanes and fields about Nevilton so -thick with heavy earth. - -Though closer in its texture to sand than to clay, it is with clay -that its local usage is more generally associated, and it is into a -clay-bed that it crumbles at last, when the earth retakes her own. Its -prevailing colour is rather the colour of clay than of sand, and no -material that could be found could lend itself more congruously to the -clinging consistence of a clay floor. - -It would be impossible to conceive of a temple of marble or Portland -stone rising out of the embrace of the thick Nevilton soil. But Leonian -sandstone seems no more than a concentrated petrifaction of such -soil--its natural evocation, its organic expression. The soil calls -out upon it day and night with friendly recognition, and day and night -it answers the call. There is thus no escape for the human victims of -these two accomplices. In confederate reciprocity the stone receives -them from the clay, and the clay receives them from the stone. They -pass from homes built irretrievably of the one, into smaller and more -permanent houses, dug irretrievably out of the other. - -The character of the soil in that corner of Somersetshire is marked, -beyond everything else, by the clinging tenacity of its soft, damp, -treacherous earth. It is a spot loved by the west-wind, and by the -rains brought by the west-wind. Overshadowed by the lavish fertility -of its abounding foliage, it never seems to experience enough sunshine -to draw out of it the eternal presence of this oppressive dampness. -The lush pastures may thicken, the rich gardens blossom, the ancient -orchards ripen; but an enduring sense of something depressing and deep -and treacherous lurks ever in the background of these pleasant things. -Not a field but has its overshadowing trees; and not a tree but has its -roots loosely buried in that special kind of soft, heavy earth, which -an hour’s rain can change into clinging mud. - -It is in the Nevilton churchyard, when a new grave is being dug, that -this sinister peculiarity of the earth-floor is especially noticeable. -The sight of those raw, rough heaps of yellow clay, tossed out upon -grass and flowers, is enough to make the living shrink back in terror -from the oblong hole into which they have consigned their dead. All -human cemeteries smell, like the hands of the Shakespearean king, -of forlorn mortality; but such mortality seems more palpably, more -oppressively emphasized among the graves of Nevilton than in other -repositories of the dead. To be buried in many a burying-ground one -knows, would be no more than a negative terror; no more than to be -deprived, as Homer puts it, of the sweet privilege of the blessed -air. But to be buried in Nevilton clay has a positive element in its -dreadfulness. It is not so much to be buried, as to be sucked in, -drawn down, devoured, absorbed. Never in any place does the peculiar -congruity between the yellowness of the local clay and the yellowness -of the local stone show so luridly as among these patient hillocks. - -The tombstones here do not relieve the pressure of fate by appealing, -in marble whiteness, away from the anthropophagous earth, to the -free clouds of heaven. They are of the earth, and they conspire with -the earth. They yearn to the soil, and the soil yearns to them. They -weigh down upon the poor relics consigned to their care, in a hideous -partnership with the clay that is working its will upon them. - -And the rank vegetation of the place assists this treachery. -Orange-tinted lichen and rusty-red weather-stains alternate with the -encroachments of moss and weeds in reducing each separate protruding -slab into conformity with what is about it and beneath it. This -churchyard, whose stone and clay so cunningly intermingle, is in an -intimate sense the very navel and centre of the village. Above it rises -the tall perpendicular tower of St. Catharine’s church; and beyond -it, on the further side of a strip of pasture, a stagnant pond, and a -solitary sycamore, stands the farm that is locally named “the Priory.” -This house, the most imposing of all in the village except the Manor, -has as its immediate background the umbrageous conical eminence where -the Holy Rood was found. It is a place adapted to modern usage from a -noble fragment of monastic ruin. Here, in mediæval days, rose a rich -Cistercian abbey, to which, doubtless, the pyramidal mount, in the -background, offered a store of consecrated legends. - -North of the churchyard, beyond the main village street with its -formal town-like compactness, the ground slopes imperceptibly up, past -a few enclosed cottage-orchards, to where, embosomed in gracious trees -and Italianated gardens, stands the pride and glory of Nevilton, its -stately Elizabethan house. - -This house, founded in the reign of Henry VIII, synchronized in -its foundation with the overthrow of the Cistercian Order, and was -constructed entirely of Leonian stone, removed for the purpose of -building it from the scene of the Priory’s destruction. Twice over, -then, in their human history, since they left the entrails of that -brooding monster over which the Nevilton people see the sun set each -day, had these carved pieces of sandstone contributed to the pride of -the rulers of men. - -Their first use had not been attended with an altogether propitious -destiny. How far their present use will prove of happier omen remains a -secret of the adamantine Fates. The imaginary weaving of events, upon -which we are just now engaged, may perhaps serve, as certain liturgical -formulæ of propitiation served in former days, as a means of averting -the wrath of the Eumenides. For though made use of again and again for -fair and pious purposes, something of the old heathen malignity of the -Druid hill still seems to hang about the stone it yields; and over the -substance of that stone’s destiny the two Mythologies still struggle; -Power and Sacrifice dividing the living and the dead. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -NEVILTON - - -Until within some twenty years of the date with which we are now -concerned, the distinguished family who originally received the -monastic estates from the royal despot had held them intact and -unassailed. By an evil chance however, the property had extended -itself, during the eighteenth century, so as to include the larger -portion of Leo’s Hill; and since that day its possession had been -attended by misfortune. The ancient aboriginal fortress proved as fatal -to its modern invaders as it had proved in remoter times to Roman, -Saxon and Norman. - -A fanciful imagination might indeed have amused itself with the -curious dream, that some weird Druidic curse had been laid upon that -grass-grown island of yellow rock, bringing disaster and eclipse to -all who meddled with it. Such an imagination would have been able to -fortify its fancy by recalling the suggestive fact that at the bottom -of the large woodland pond, indicated in this narrative under the name -of Auber Lake, was discovered, not many years before, an immense slab -of Leonian stone, inscribed with symbols baffling interpretation, but -suggesting, to one antiquarian mind at least, a hint of prehistoric -Devil-Worship. However this may be, it is certain that the family -of Seldom found themselves finally faced with the alternative of -selling the place they loved or of seeing it lapse under their hands -into confusion and neglect. Of these evil alternatives they chose the -former; and thus the estates, properties, royalties, and appurtenances, -of the historic Manor of Nevilton fell into the hands of a clever -financier from Lombard Street. - -The family of Mr. Mortimer Romer had never at any time bowed its -knee in kings’ houses. Nor were its religious antecedents marked -by orthodox reputation. Mr. Romer was indeed in every sense of the -word a “self-made man.” But though neither Christian nor Jew,--for -his grandfather, the fish-monger of Soho, had been of the Unitarian -persuasion--it cannot be denied that he possessed the art of making -himself thoroughly respected by both the baptized and the circumcised. -He indeed pursued his main purpose, which was the acquiring of power, -with an unscrupulousness worthy of a Roman Emperor. Possibly it was -this Roman tenacity in him, combined with his heathen indifference -to current theology, which propitiated the avenging deities of Leo’s -Hill. So far at any rate he had been eminently successful in his -speculations. He had secured complete possession of every quarry on the -formidable eminence; and the company of which he was both director and -president was pursuing its activities in a hundred new directions. It -had, in the few last years, gone so far as to begin certain engineering -assaults upon those remote portions of the ancient escarpments that had -been left untouched since the legions of Claudius Cæsar encamped under -their protection. - -The bulk of Mr. Romer’s stone-works were on the Hill itself; but -others, intended for the more delicate finishing touches, were situated -in a convenient spot close to Nevilton Station. Out of these sheds -and yards, built along the railway-track, arose, from morning to -night, the monotonous, not unpleasing, murmur of wheels and saws and -grindstones. The contrast between these sounds and the sylvan quietness -of the vicarage garden, which sloped down towards them, was one of -the most significant indications of the clash of the Two Mythologies -in this place. The priest meditating among his roses upon the vanity -of all but “heavenly habitations” might have been in danger of being -too obtrusively reminded of the pride of the houses that are very -definitely “made with hands.” Perhaps this was one of the reasons why -the present incumbent of Nevilton had preferred a more undisturbed -retreat. - -The general manager of Mortimer Romer’s quarries was a certain Mr. -Lickwit, who served also as his confidential adviser in many other -spheres. - -The works at Nevilton Station were left to the superintendence of two -brothers named Andersen, skilled stone-cutters, sons of the famous -Gideon Andersen known to architects all over the kingdom for his -designs in Leonian stone. Both Gideon and his wife Naomi were buried -in Nevilton churchyard, and the brothers were condemned in the village -as persons of an almost scandalous piety because of their innocent -habit of lingering on warm summer evenings over their parents’ grave. -They lived together, these two, as lodgers with the station-master, in -a newly built cottage close to their work. Their social position in -the place was a curious and anomalous one. Their father’s reputation -as a sculptor had brought him into touch with every grade of society; -and the woman who became his wife was by birth what is usually termed -a lady. Gideon himself had been a rough and gross fellow; and after -his wife’s death had hastened to take his sons away from school -and apprentice them to his own trade. They were in many respects -a noteworthy pair, though scarcely favourites, either with their -fellow-workmen or their manager. - -James Andersen, the elder by some ten years, was of a morose, reserved -temper, and though a capable workman never seemed happy in the -work-shop. Luke, on the contrary, possessed a peculiarly sunny and -serene spirit. - -They were both striking in appearance. The younger approximated to that -conventional type of beauty which is popularly known as being “like a -Greek god.” The elder, tall, swarthy, and sinister, suggested rather -the image of some gloomy idol carved on the wall of an Assyrian temple. -What, however, was much more remarkable than their appearance was their -devoted attachment to one another. They lived, worked, ate, drank, -walked and slept together. It was impossible to separate them. Had Mr. -Lickwit dismissed James, Luke would immediately have thrown down his -tools. Had Luke been the banished one, James would have followed him -into exile. - -It had fallen to Mr. Romer, some seven years before our narrative -begins, to appoint a new vicar to Nevilton; and he had appointed one of -such fierce ascetic zeal and such pronounced socialistic sympathies, -that he had done nothing since but vehemently and bitterly repent his -choice. - -The Promoter of Companies had been betrayed into this blunder by the -impulse of revengeful caprice, the only impulse in his otherwise -well-balanced nature that might be termed dangerous to himself. - -He had quarrelled with the bishop over some matter connected with his -stone-works; and in order to cause this distinguished prelate grief and -annoyance he had looked about for someone to honour who was under the -episcopal ban. The bishop, however, was of so discreet a temper and so -popular in his diocese that the only rebel to his authority that could -be discovered was one of the curates of a church at Yeoborough who had -insisted upon preaching the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation. - -The matter would probably have lapsed into quiescence, save for -the crafty interference in the local newspaper of a group of -aggressive Nonconformists, who took this opportunity of sowing -desirable dissension between the higher and lower orders of the hated -Establishment. - -Mr. Romer, who, like Gallio, cared for none of these things, and was -at heart a good deal worse than a Nonconformist, seized upon the -chance offered by the death of Nevilton’s vicar; and installed as his -successor this rebel to ecclesiastical authority. - -Once installed, however, the Rev. Hugh Clavering speedily came to an -understanding with his bishop; compromised on the matter of preaching -Transubstantiation; and apparently was allowed to go on believing in -it. - -And it was then that the Promoter of Companies learned for the first -time how much easier it is to make a priest than to unmake him. For -situation after situation arose in which the master of the Leonian -quarries found himself confronted by an alien Power--a Power that -refused to worship Sandstone. Before this rupture, however, the -young Priest had persuaded Mr. Romer to let him live in the Old -Vicarage, a small but cheerful house just opposite the church door. -The orthodox vicarage, a rambling Early Victorian structure standing -in its own grounds at the end of the West Drive, was let--once more -at the Priest’s suggestion--to the last living representatives of the -dispossessed Seldoms. - -It indicated a good deal of spirit on the part of Valentia Seldom and -her daughter thus to return to the home of their ancestors. - -Mrs. Seldom was a cousin of the man who had sold the estate. Her -daughter Vennie, brought up in a school at Florence, had never seen -Nevilton, and it was with the idea of taking advantage for the girl’s -sake of their old prestige in that corner of England that Valentia -accepted Mr. Romer’s offer and became the vicarage tenant. - -The quarry-owner himself was influenced in carrying through this -affair, by his anxiety, for the sake of _his_ daughter, to secure a -firmer footing with the aristocracy of the neighborhood. Here again, -however, he was destined to disappointment: for once in possession of -her twenty years’ lease the old lady showed not the least intention of -letting herself be used as a social stepping-stone. - -She had, indeed, under her own roof, cause enough for preoccupation and -concern. - -Her daughter--a little ghost-moth of a girl, of fragile -delicacy--seemed entirely devoid of that mysterious magnetic attraction -which lures to the side of most virgins the devotion of the opposite -sex. She appeared perfectly content to remain forever in her tender -maidenhood, and refused to exert the slightest effort to be “nice” to -the charming young people her mother threw in her way. She belonged to -that class of young girls who seem to be set apart by nature for other -purposes than those of the propagation of the race. - -Her wistful spirit, shrinking into itself like the leaves of a -sensitive plant at the least approach of a rough hand, responded only -to one passionate impulse, the impulse of religion. - -She grew indeed so estranged from the normal world, that it was not -only Valentia who concealed the thought that when she left the earth -the ancient race of Seldoms would leave it with her. - -Nor was it only in regard to her child’s religious obsession that the -lady suffered. She had flatly refused to let her enter into anything -but the coldest relations with “those dreadful people at the House”; -and it was with a peculiar shock of dismay that she found that the -girl was not literally obeying her. It was not, however, to the Romers -themselves that Vennie made her shy overtures, but to a luckless little -relative of that family now domiciled with them as companion to Gladys -Romer. - -This young dependent, reputed in the village to be of Italian origin, -struck the gentle heart of the last of the Seldoms with indescribable -pity. She could not altogether define the impression the girl produced -upon her, but it was a singularly oppressive one, and it vexed and -troubled her. - -The situation was wretchedly complicated. It was extremely difficult -to get a word with the little companion without encountering Gladys; -and any approach to intimacy with “the Romer girl” would have meant -an impossible scene with Mrs. Seldom. Nor was it a light undertaking, -in such hurried interviews as she did manage to secure, to induce -the child to drop her reserve. She would fix her great brown foreign -eyes--her name was Lacrima Traffio--on Vennie’s face, and make curious -little helpless gestures with her hands when questions were asked her; -but speak of herself she would not. - -It was clear she was absolutely dependent on her cousins. Vennie -gathered as much as that, as she once talked with her under the church -wall, when Gladys was chatting with the vicar. A reference to her own -people had nearly resulted in an outburst of tears. Vennie had had to -be content with a broken whisper: “We come from Rapallo--they are all -dead.” There was nothing, it appeared, that could be added to this. - -It was perhaps a little inconsistent in the old lady to be so resolute -against her daughter’s overtures to Lacrima, as she herself had no -hesitation in making a sort of protégé of another of Mr. Romer’s tribe. - -This was an eccentric middle-aged bachelor who had drifted into the -place soon after the new-comer’s arrival and had established himself -in a dilapidated cottage on the outskirts of the Auber woods. - -Remotely related to Mrs. Romer, he had in some way become dependent on -her husband, whose financial advantage over him was not, it seemed, as -time went on, exerted in a very considerate manner. - -Maurice Quincunx, for such was his unusual name, was an illegitimate -descendant of one of the most historic houses in the neighborhood, -but both his poverty and his opinions caused him to live what was -practically the life of a hermit, and made him shrink away, even more -nervously than little Vennie Seldom, from any intercourse with his -equals. - -The present possessors of his queer ancient name were now the Lords -of Glastonbury, and had probably never so much as heard of Maurice’s -existence. - -He would come by stealth to pay Valentia visits, preferring the evening -hours when in the summer she used to sit with her work, on a terrace -overlooking a sloping orchard, and watch Vennie water her roses. - -The vicarage terrace was a place of extraordinary quiet and peace, -eminently adapted to the low-voiced, nervous ramblings of a recluse of -Maurice Quincunx’s timidity. - -The old lady by degrees quite won this eccentric’s heart; and the -queerly assorted friends would pace up and down for hours in the cool -of the evening talking of things in no way connected either with Mr. -Romer or the Church--the two subjects about which Mr. Quincunx held -dangerously strong views. - -Apart from this quaint outcast and the youthful parson, Mrs. Seldom’s -only other intimate in the place was a certain John Francis Taxater, -a gentleman of independent means, living by himself with an old -housekeeper in a cottage called The Gables, situated about half-way -between the vicarage and the village. - -Mr. Taxater was a Catholic and also a philosopher; these two -peculiarities affording the solution to what otherwise would have been -an insoluble psychic riddle. Even as it was, Mr. Taxater’s mind was of -so subtle and complicated an order, that he was at once the attraction -and the despair of all the religious thinkers of that epoch. For it -must be understood that though quietly resident under the shadow of -Nevilton Mount, the least essay from Mr. Taxater’s pen was eagerly -perused by persons interested in religious controversy in all the -countries of Europe. - -He wrote for philosophical journals in London, Paris, Rome and New -York; and there often appeared at The Gables most surprising visitors -from Germany and Italy and Spain. - -He had a powerful following among the more subtle-minded of the -Catholics of England; and was highly respected by important personages -in the social, as well as the literary circles, of Catholic society. - -The profundity of his mind may be gauged from the fact that he -was able to steer his way successfully through the perilous reefs -of “modernistic” discussion, without either committing himself to -heretical doctrine or being accused of reactionary ultramontanism. - -Mr. Taxater’s written works were, however, but a trifling portion of -his personality. His intellectual interests were as rich and varied -as those of some great humanist of the Italian Renaissance, and his -personal habits were as involved and original as his thoughts were -complicated and deep. - -He was perpetually engaged in converting the philosopher in him to -Catholicism, and the Catholic in him to philosophy--yet he never -permitted either of these obsessions to interfere with his enjoyment of -life. - -Luke Andersen, who was perhaps of all the inhabitants of Nevilton most -conscious of the drama played around him, used to maintain that it was -impossible to tell in the last resort whether Mr. Taxater’s place was -with the adherents of Christ or with the adherents of Anti-Christ. Like -his prototype, the evasive Erasmus, he seemed able to be on both sides -at the same time. - -Perhaps it was a secret consciousness of the singular position of -Nevilton, planted, as it were, between two streams of opposing legend, -that originally led Mr. Taxater to take up his abode in so secluded a -spot. - -It is impossible to tell. In this as in all other transactions of -his life he combined an unworldly simplicity with a Machiavellian -astuteness. If the Day of Judgment revealed him as being on the side -of the angels, it might also reveal him as having exercised, in the -microcosmic Nevilton drama, as well as in his wider sphere, one of the -most subtle influences against the Powers of Darkness that those Powers -ever encountered in their invisible activity. - -At the moment when the present narrative takes up the woven threads -of these various persons’ lives there seemed every prospect that -in external nature at least there was going to be an auspicious and -halcyon season. June had opened with abnormal pleasantness. Exquisite -odours were in the air, wafted from woods and fields and gardens. White -dust, alternating with tender spots of coolness where the shadows of -trees fell, lent the roads in the vicinity that leisured gala-day -expectancy which one notes in the roads of France and Spain, but which -is so rare in England. - -It seemed almost as though the damp sub-soil of the place had relaxed -its malign influence; as though the yellow clay in the churchyard had -ceased its calling for victims; and as though the brooding monster in -the sunset, from which every day half the men of the village returned -with their spades and picks, had put aside, as irrelevant to a new and -kindlier epoch, its ancient hostility to the Christian dwellers in that -quiet valley. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -OLYMPIAN CONSPIRACY - - -The depths of Mr. Romer’s mind, as he paced up and down the Leonian -pavement under the east front of his house on one of the early days of -this propitious June, were seething with predatory projects. The last -of the independent quarries on the Hill had just fallen into his hands -after a legal process of more than usual chicanery, conducted in person -by the invaluable Mr. Lickwit. - -He was now occupied in pushing through Parliament a bill for the -reduction of railway freight charges, so that the expense of carrying -his stone to its various destinations might be materially reduced. But -it was not only of financial power that he thought as the smell of the -roses from the sun-baked walls floated in upon him across the garden. - -The man’s commercial preoccupations had not by any means, as so often -happens, led to the atrophy of his more personal instincts. - -His erotic appetite, for instance, remained as insatiable as ever. -Age did not dull, nor finance wither, that primordial craving. The -aphrodisiac instincts in Mortimer Romer were, however, much less simple -than might be supposed. - -In this hyper-sensual region he had more claim to artistic subtlety -than his enemies realized. He rarely allowed himself the direct -expansion of frank and downright lasciviousness. His little pleasures -were indirect, elaborate, far-fetched. - -He afforded really the interesting spectacle of one whose mind was -normal, energetic, dynamic; but whose senses were slow, complicated, -fastidious. He was a formidable forward-marching machine, with a heart -of elaborate perversity. He was a thick-skinned philistine with the -sensuality of a sybarite. - -I do not mean to imply that there was any lack of rapacity in the -senses of Mr. Romer. His senses were indeed unfathomable in their -devouring depths. But they were liable to fantastic caprices. They -were not the simple animal senses of a Gothic barbarian. They assumed -imperial contortions. - -The main eccentricity of the erotic tendencies of this remarkable man -lay in the elaborate pleasure he derived from his sense of power. The -actual lure of the flesh had little attraction for him. What pleased -him was a slow tightening of his grip upon people--upon their wills, -their freedom, their personality. - -Any impression a person might make upon Mr. Romer’s senses was at once -transformed into a desire to have that person absolutely at his mercy. -The thought that he held such a one reduced to complete spiritual -helplessness alone satisfied him. - -The first time he had encountered Lacrima Traffio he had been struck by -her appealing eyes, her fragile figure, her frightened gestures. Deep -in his perverted heart he had desired her; but his desire, under the -psychic law I have endeavoured to explain, quickly resolved itself into -a resolution to take possession of her, not as his mistress, but as his -slave. - -Nor did the subtle elaboration of his perversity stop there. It were -easy and superficial to dominate in his own person so helpless a -dependent. What was less easy was to reduce her to submission to the -despotic caprices of his daughter, a girl only a few years older than -herself. - -The enjoyment of a sense of vicarious power was a satisfaction -curiously provocative to his predatory craving. Nor did subtlety of the -situation stop at that point. It was not only necessary that the girl -who attracted him should be at his daughter’s mercy; it was necessary -that his daughter should not be unconscious of the rôle she herself -played. It was necessary that they should be in a sense confederates in -this game of cat-and-mouse. - -As Mr. Romer paced the terrace of his imposing mansion a yet profounder -triumph presented itself in the recesses of his imperial nature. - -He had lately introduced into his “entourage” a certain brother-in-law -of his, the widower of his sister, a man named John Goring. This -individual was of a much simpler, grosser type than the recondite -quarry-owner. He was, indeed, no more than a narrow-minded, insolent, -avaricious animal. He lacked even the superficial gentility of his -formidable relation. Nor had his concentrated but unintelligent -avarice brought him, so far, any great wealth. He still remained, in -spite of Romer’s help, what he had been born, an English farmer of -unpropitiating manners and supernal greed. - -The Promoter of Companies was, however, not unaware, any more than -was Augustus Cæsar, of the advantage accruing to a despot from the -possession of devoted, if unattractive, tools; and contemptuously -risking the shock to his social prestige of such an apparition in the -neighborhood, he had secured Mr. Goring as a permanent tenant of the -largest farm on his estate. This was no other than the Priory Farm, -with its gentle monastic memories. What the last Prior of Nevilton -would have thought could he have left his grave under St. Catharine’s -altar and reappeared among his dove-cotes it is distressing to -surmise. He would doubtless have drawn from the sight of John Goring a -profoundly edifying moral as to the results of royal interference with -Christ’s Holy Church. Nor is it likely that an encounter with Mr. Romer -himself would have caused less astonishment to his mediæval spirit. He -would, indeed, have recognized that what is now called Progress is no -mere scientific phrase; but a most devastating reality. He would have -found that Nevilton had “progressed” very far. He would have believed -that the queer stone-devils that his monks had carved, half emerging -from the eaves of the church-roof, had got quite loose and gone abroad -among men. Had he probed, in the manner of clairvoyant saints, the -troubled recesses of Mr. Romer’s mind as that gentleman inhaled the -sweet noon air, he would have cried aloud his indignation and made the -sign of the cross as if over a mortuary of spiritual decomposition. - -For as the mid-day sun of that hot June morning culminated, and the -clear hard shadows fell, sharp and thin, upon the orange-tinted -pavement, it entered Mr. Romer’s head that he might make a more -personal use of his farmer-brother than had until now been possible. - -With this idea in his brain he entered the house and sought his wife in -her accustomed place at the corner of the large reception-hall. He sat -down forthright by the side of her mahogany table and lit a cigar. As -Mr. Romer was the species of male animal that might be written down in -the guidebook of some Martian visitor as “the cigar-smoking variety” -his wife would have taken her place among “the sedentary knitting ones.” - -She was a large, fair, plump, woman, as smooth and pallid as her -husband was grizzled and ruddy. Her obsequious deference to her -lord’s views was only surpassed by her lethargic animal indolence. -She was like a great, tame, overgrown, white-skinned Puma. Her eyes -had the greenish tint of feline eyes, and something of their daylight -contraction. Her use of spectacles did not modify this tendency, but -rather increased it; for the effect of the round glass orbs pushed up -upon her forehead was to enhance the malicious gleam of the little -narrow-lidded slits that peered out beneath them. - -It may be imagined with what weary and ironical detachment the solemn -historic portraits of the ancient Seldoms--for the pictures and -furniture had been sold with the house--looked out from their gilded -frames upon these ambiguous intruders. But neither husband nor wife -felt the least touch of “compunctuous visiting” as they made themselves -at ease under that immense contempt. - -“I have been thinking,” said Mr. Romer, puffing a thick cloud of -defiant smoke into the air, so that it went sailing up to the very -feet of a delicate Reynolds portrait; “I have been thinking that I am -really quite unjustified in going on with that allowance to Quincunx. -He ought to realize that he has completely exhausted the money your -aunt left him. He ought to face the situation, instead of quietly -accepting our gift as if it were his right. And they tell me he does -not even keep a civil tongue in his head. Lickwit was only complaining -the other day about his tampering with our workmen. He has been going -about for some time with those damned Andersen fellows, and no doubt -encouraging them in their confounded impertinence. - -“I don’t like the man, my dear;--that is the plain truth. I have never -liked him; and he has certainly never even attempted to conceal his -dislike of me.” - -“He is very polite to your face, Mortimer,” murmured the lady. - -“Exactly,” Mr. Romer rejoined, “to my face he is more than polite. -He is obsequious; he is cringing. But behind my back--damn him!--the -rascal is a rattlesnake.” - -“Well, dear, no doubt it has all worked out for the best”; purred the -plump woman, softly counting the threads of her knitting. “You were in -need of Aunt’s money at the time--in great need of it.” - -“I know I was,” replied the Promoter of Companies, “I know I was; and -he knows I was. That is why I have been giving him six per cent on what -he lent me. But the fellow has had more than that. He has had more by -this time than the whole original sum; and I tell you, Susan, it’s got -to end;--it’s got to end here, now, and forever!” - -Mr. Romer’s cigar-smoke had now floated up above the feet of the -Reynolds Portrait and was invading its gentle and melancholy face. It -was a portrait of a young girl in the court-dress of the time, but with -such pathetic nun-like features that it was clear that little Vennie -was not the only one of her race to have grown weary of this rough -world. - -“It is a providential thing, dear,” whispered the knitting female, -“that there were no horrid documents drawn up about that money. Maurice -cannot impose upon us in that way.” - -“He is doing worse,” answered her husband. “He is imposing upon us on -the strength of a disgusting sort of sickly sentiment. He has had all -his money back and more; and he knows he has. But he wants to go on -living on my money while he abuses me on every occasion. Do you know, -he even preaches in that confounded social meeting? I shall have that -affair put a stop to, one of these days. It is only an excuse for -spreading dissatisfaction in the village. Lickwit has complained to me -about it more than once. He says that Socialistic scoundrel Wone is -simply using the meeting to canvass for his election. You know he is -going to stand, in place of Sir Herbert Ratcliffe? What the Liberal -Party is doing I cannot conceive--pandering to these slimy windbags! -And your blessed relation backs him up. The thing is monstrous, -outrageous! Here am I, allowing this fellow a hundred a year to live in -idleness; and he is plotting against me at my very doorstep.” - -“Perhaps he does not know that the Conservative member is going to -retire in your favour,” insinuated the lady. - -“Know? Of course he knows! All the village knows. All the country -knows. You can never hide things of that kind. He knows, and he is -deliberately working against me.” - -“It would be nice if he could get a place as a clerk,” suggested Mr. -Quincunx’s relative, pensively. “It certainly does not seem fair that -you, who work so hard for the money you make, should support him in -complete idleness.” - -Mr. Romer looked at her thoughtfully, knocking the ashes from his -cigar. “I believe you have hit it there, my dear,” he said. Then he -smiled in a manner peculiarly malignant. “Yes, it would be very nice -if he could get a place as a clerk--a place where he would have plenty -of simple office work--a place where he would be kept to his desk, and -not allowed to roam the country corrupting honest workmen. Yes, you are -quite right, Susan; a clerk’s place is what this Quincunx wants. And, -by Heaven, what he shall have! I’ll bring the affair to a head at once. -I’ll put it to him that your aunt’s money is at an end, and that I have -already paid him back in full all that he lent me. I’ll put it to him -that he is now in my debt. In fact, that he is now entirely dependent -on me to the tune of a hundred a year. And I’ll explain to him that he -must either go out into the world and shift for himself, as better men -than he have had to do, or enter Lickwit’s office, either in Yeoborough -or on the Hill.” - -“He will enter the office, Mortimer,” murmured the lady; “he will enter -the office. Maurice is not the man to emigrate, or do anything of that -kind. Besides he has a reason”--here her voice became so extremely -mellifluous that it might almost be said to have liquefied--“to stay -in Nevilton.” - -“What’s this?” cried Romer, getting up and throwing his cigar out of -the window. “You don’t mean to tell me--eh?--that this scarecrow is in -love with Gladys?” - -The lady purred softly and replaced her spectacles. “Oh dear no! What -an idea! Oh certainly, certainly not! But Gladys, you know, is not the -only girl in Nevilton.” - -“Who the devil is it then? Not Vennie Seldom, surely?” - -“Look nearer, Mortimer, look nearer”; murmured the lady with sibilant -sweetness. - -“Not Lacrima! You don’t mean to say--” - -“Why, dear, you needn’t be so surprised. You look more angry than if -it had been Gladys herself. Yes, of course it is Lacrima. Hadn’t you -observed it? But you dear men are so stupid, aren’t you, in these -things?” - -Mrs. Romer rubbed one white hand over the other; and beamed upon her -husband through her spectacles. - -Mr. Romer frowned. “But the Traffio girl is so, so--you know what I -mean.” - -“So quiet and unimpressionable. Ah! my dear, it is just these quiet -girls who are the very ones to be enjoying themselves on the sly.” - -“How far has this thing gone, Susan?” - -“Oh you needn’t get excited, Mortimer. It has not really ‘gone’ -anywhere. It has hardly begun. In fact I have not the least authority -for saying that she cares for him at all. I think she does a little, -though. I _think_ she does. But one never can tell. I can, however, -give you my word that he cares for her. And that is what we were -talking about, weren’t we?” - -“I shall pack him off to my office in London,” said Mr. Romer. - -“He wouldn’t go, my dear. I tell you he wouldn’t go.” - -“But he can’t live on nothing.” - -“He can. He will. Sooner than leave Nevilton Maurice would eat grass. -He would become lay-reader or something. He would sponge on Mrs. -Seldom.” - -“Well, then he shall walk to Yeoborough and back every day. That will -cool his blood for him.” - -“That will do him a great deal of good, dear; a great deal of good. -Auntie always used to say that Maurice ought to take more exercise.” - -“Lickwit will exercise him! Make no mistake about that.” - -“How you do look round you, dear, in all these things! How impossible -it is for anyone to fool _you_, Mortimer!” - -As Mrs. Romer uttered these words she glanced up at the Reynolds -portrait above their heads, as if half-suspecting that such fawning -flattery would bring down the mockery of the little Lady-in-Waiting. - -“I can’t help thinking Lacrima would make a very good wife to some -hard-working sensible man,” Mr. Romer remarked. - -His lady looked a little puzzled. “It would be difficult to find so -suitable a companion for Gladys,” she said. - -“Oh, of course I don’t mean till Gladys is married,” said the -quarry-owner quickly. “By the way, when _is_ she going to accept that -young fool of an Ilminster?” - -“All in good time, my dear, all in good time,” purred his wife. “He has -not proposed to her yet.” - -“It’s very curious,” remarked Mr. Romer pensively, “that a young man of -such high connections should _wish_ to marry our daughter.” - -“What things you say, Mortimer! Isn’t Gladys going to inherit all this -property? Don’t you suppose that a younger son of Lord Tintinhull would -jump at the idea of being master of this house?” - -“He won’t be master of it while _I_ live,” said Mr. Romer grimly. - -“In my opinion he never will be”; added the lady. “I don’t think Gladys -really intends to accept him.” - -“She’ll marry somebody, I hope?” said the master sharply. - -“O yes she’ll marry, soon enough. Only it’ll be a cleverer man, and a -richer man, than young Ilminster.” - -“Have you any other pleasant little romance to fling at me?” - -“O no. But I know what our dear Gladys is. I know what she is looking -out for.” - -“When she does marry,” said Mr. Romer, “we shall have to think -seriously what is to become of Lacrima. Look here, my dear,”--it was -wonderful, the pleasant ejaculatory manner in which this flash of -inspiration was thrown out,--“why not marry her to John? She would be -just the person for a farmer’s wife.” - -Mrs. Romer, to do her justice, showed signs of being a little shocked -at this proposal. - -“But John,”--she stammered;--“John--is not--exactly--a marrying person, -is he?” - -“He is--what I wish him to be”; was her husband’s haughty answer. - -“Oh well, of course, dear, it’s as you think best. Certainly”--the good -woman could not resist this little thrust--“it’s John’s only chance of -marrying a lady. For Lacrima is _that_--with all her faults.” - -“I shall talk to John about it”; said the Promoter of Companies. Feline -thing though she was, Susan Romer could not refrain from certain inward -qualms when she thought of the fragile hyper-sensitive Italian in the -embraces of John Goring. What on earth set her husband dreaming of -such a thing? But he was subject to strange caprices now and then; and -it was more dangerous to balk him in these things than in his most -elaborate financial plots. She had found that out already. So, on the -present occasion, she made no further remark, than a reiterated--“How -you do look all round you, Mortimer! It is not easy for anyone to fool -_you_.” - -She rose from her seat and collected her knitting. “I must go and see -where Gladys is,” she said. - -Mr. Romer followed her to the door, and went out again upon the -terrace. The little nun-like Lady-in-Waiting looked steadily out across -the room, her pinched attenuated features expressing nothing but -patient weariness of all the ways of this mortal world. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -REPRISALS FROM BELOW - - -It was approaching the moment consecrated to the close of the day’s -labour in the stone-works by Nevilton railway-station. The sky was -cloudless; the air windless. It was one of those magical arrests of the -gliding feet of time, which afternoons in June sometimes bring with -them, holding back, as it were, all living processes of life, in sweet -and lingering suspense. The steel tracks of the railway-line glittered -in the sun. In the fields, that sloped away beyond them, the browsing -cattle wore that unruffled air of abysmal indifference, which seems to -make one day in their sight to be as a thousand years. To these placid -earth-children, drawing the centuries together in solemn continuity, -the tribes of men and their turbulent drama were but as vapours that -came and went. The high elms in the hedges had already assumed that -dark monotonous foliage which gives to their patient stillness on such -a day an atmosphere of monumental expectancy. A flock of newly-sheared -sheep, clean and shining in the hot sun, drifted in crowded procession -down the narrow road, leaving a cloud of white dust behind them that -remained stationary in the air long after they had passed. In the -open stone-yard close to the road the brothers Andersen were working -together, chipping and hammering with bare arms at an enormous Leonian -slab, carving its edges into delicate mouldings. The younger of the two -wore no hat, and his closely clipped fair curls and loose shirt open at -the throat, lent him, as he moved about his work with easy gestures, a -grace and charm well adapted to that auspicious hour. - -A more sombre form by his brother’s side, his broad brimmed hat low -down over his forehead, the elder Andersen went on with his carving, in -imperturbable morose absorption. - -Watching them with languid interest, their arms linked together, stood -the figures of two girls. The yellow dust from the sandstone rose -intermittently into the air, mingling with the white dust from the road -and settling, as it sank earthward, upon the leaves of the yet unbudded -knapweed and scabious which grew in the thin dusty grass. - -Between Gladys and her cousin--for the girls had wandered as far as -this in search of distraction after their lazy tea on the great lawn--a -curious contrast was now displayed. - -Gladys, with slow provocative interest, was intent on every movement of -Luke’s graceful figure. Lacrima’s attention wandered wistfully away, -to the cattle and the orchards, and then to the sheep, which now were -being penned in a low line of spacious railway trucks. - -Luke himself was by no means unaware of the condescending interest of -his master’s daughter. He paused in his work once or twice. He turned -up his shirt-sleeves still higher. He bent down, to blow away the dust -from the moulding he had made. Something very like a flash of amorous -admiration passed across his blue eyes as he permitted them slyly to -wander from Gladys’ head to her waist, and from her waist to her shoes. -She certainly was an alluring figure as she stood there in her thin -white dress. The hand which pulled her skirt away from the dust showed -as soft and warm as if it were pleading for a caress, and the rounded -contours of her bosom looked as if they had ripened with the early -peaches, under the walls of her stately garden. She presently unlinked -her arm from her companion’s, and sliding it softly round Lacrima’s -side drew the girl close against her. As she did this she permitted a -slow amorous glance of deliberate tantalization to play upon the young -carver. How well Luke Andersen knew that especial device of maidens -when they are together--that way they have of making their playful, -innocent caresses such a teasing incentive! And Luke knew well how to -answer all this. Nothing could have surpassed in subtle diplomacy the -manner in which he responded, without responding, to the amorous girl’s -overtures. He let her realize that he himself understood precisely the -limits of the situation; that she was perfectly at liberty to enter a -mock-flirtation with him, without the remotest risk of any “faux pas” -on his part spoiling the delicacy of their relations. - -What was indeed obvious to her, without the necessity of any such -unspoken protestation, was the fact that he found her eminently -desirable. Nor did her pride as “the girl up at the house” quarrel -with her vanity as the simple object of Luke’s admiration. She wanted -him to desire her as a girl;--to desire her to madness. And then she -wanted to flout him, with her pretensions as a lady. This particular -occasion was by no means the first time she had drifted casually down -the vicarage hill and lingered beside the stone-cutters. It was, -however, an epoch in their curious relations. For the first time since -she had been attracted to him, she deliberately moved close up to the -stone he worked at, and entered into conversation. While this occurred, -Lacrima, released from her rôle as the accomplice of amorous teasing, -wandered away, picking listlessly the first red poppies of the year, -which though less flaunting in their bold splendour than those of her -childhood’s memories, were at least the same immortal classical flowers. - -As she bent down in this assuaging pastime, letting her thoughts wander -so far from Nevilton and its tyrants, Lacrima became suddenly conscious -that James Andersen had laid down his tools, resumed his coat, and was -standing by her side. - -“A beautiful evening, Miss”; he said respectfully, holding his hat in -his hand and regarding her with grave gentleness. - -“Yes, isn’t it?” she answered at once; and then was silent; while a -sigh she could not suppress rose from the depths of her heart. For her -thoughts reverted to another fair evening, in the days when England was -no more than a name; and a sudden overpowering longing for kind voices, -and the shadows of olives on warm hill-sides, rushed, like a wave, over -her. - -“This must be near the Angelus-hour,” she thought; and somehow the dark -grave eyes of the man beside her and his swarthy complexion made her -think of those familiar forms that used to pass driving their goats -before them up the rocky paths of the Apennine range. - -“You are unhappy, Miss,” said James in a low voice; and these words, -the only ones of genuine personal tenderness, except for poor -Maurice’s, that had struck her sense for the last twelve months, -brought tears to her eyes. Vennie Seldom had spoken kindly to her; -but--God knows--there is a difference between the kindness even of the -gentlest saint and this direct spontaneous outflow of one heart to -another. She smiled; a little mournful smile. - -“Yes; I was thinking of my own country,” she murmured. - -“You are an Italian, Miss; I know it”; continued Andersen, -instinctively leading her further away from the two golden heads that -now were bending so close together over the Leonian stone. - -“I often think of Italy,” he went on; “I think I should be at home in -Italy. I love everything I hear of it, everything I read of it. It -comes from my mother, this feeling. She was a lady, you know Miss, as -well born as any and with a passionate love of books. She used to read -Dante in that little ‘Temple’ Series, which perhaps you have seen, with -the Italian on one side and the English on the other. I never look at -that book without thinking of her.” - -“You have many books yourself, I expect,--Mr.--Andersen. You see I know -your name.” And Lacrima smiled, the first perfectly happy smile she had -been betrayed into for many months. - -“It is not a very nice name,” said James, a little plaintively. “I -wish I had a name like yours Miss--Traffio.” - -“Why, I think yours is quite as nice,” she answered gravely. “It makes -me think of the man who wrote the fairy stories.” - -James Andersen frowned, “I don’t like fairy stories,” he said almost -gruffly. “They tease and fret me. I like Thomas Hardy’s books. Do -you know Thomas Hardy?” Lacrima made a little involuntary gesture of -depreciation. As a matter of fact her reading, until very lately, had -been as conventual as that of a young nun. Vennie Seldom or the demure -Reynolds girl could not have been more innocent of the darker side of -literature. Hardy’s books she had seen in the hands of Gladys, and -the association repelled her. Pathetically anxious to brush away this -little cloud, she began hurriedly talking to her new friend of Italy; -of its cities, its sea-coasts, its monasteries, its churches. James -Andersen listened with reverential attention, every now and then asking -a question which showed how deeply his mother’s love of the classical -country had sunk into his nature. - -By this time they had wandered along the road as far as a little stone -bridge with low parapets which crosses there a muddy Somersetshire -stream. From this point the road rises quite steeply to the beginning -of the vicarage garden. Leaning against the parapet of the little -bridge, and looking back, they saw to their surprise that Gladys and -Luke had not only not followed them but had completely disappeared. - -The last of the unskilled workmen from the sheds, trailing up the -road together laughing and chatting, turned when they passed, and -gazed back, as our two companions were doing, at the work-shops they -had left, acknowledging Lacrima’s gentle “good-night” with a rather -shifty salutation.--This girl was after all only a dependent like -themselves.--They had hardly gone many steps before they burst into a -loud rough guffaw of rustic impertinence. - -Lacrima struck the ground nervously with her parasol. “What has -happened?” she asked; “where has Gladys gone?” - -James Andersen shrugged his shoulders, “I expect they have wandered -into the shed,” he rejoined, “to look at my brother’s work there.” - -She glanced nervously up and down the road; gave a quaint little sigh -and made an expressive gesture with her hands as if disclaiming all -responsibility for her cousin’s doings. Then, quite suddenly, she -smiled at Andersen with a delicious childish smile that transfigured -her face. - -“Well, I am glad I am not left alone at any rate,” she said. - -“I have a presentiment,” the stone-cutter answered, “that this is not -the last time you will be thrown upon my poor company.” - -The girl blushed, and smiled confidingly. Her manner was the manner of -a child, who has at last found a safe protector. Then all of a sudden -she became very grave. “I hope,” she said, “that you are one of the -people who are kind to Mr. Quincunx. He is a _great_ friend of mine.” - -Never had the melancholy intimation, that one could not hope to hold -anything but the second place in a woman’s heart, been more tenderly or -more directly conveyed! - -James Andersen bowed his head. - -“Mr. Quincunx has always been very kind to _me_,” he said, “and -certainly, after what you say, I shall do all in my power to help him. -But I can do very little. I believe Mrs. Seldom understands him better -than anyone else.” - -He had hardly finished speaking when the figures of two men made -themselves visible opposite the back entrance of the vicarage. They -were leisurely strolling down the road, and every now and then they -would pause, as if the interest of their conversation was more than the -interest of the way. - -“Why! There _is_ Mr. Quincunx,” cried the Italian; and she made an -instinctive movement as if to put a little further space between -herself and her companion. “Who is that person with him?” she added. - -“It looks like George Wone,” answered the stone-cutter. “Yes, it is -George; and he is talking as usual at the top of his voice. You’d -suppose he wanted to be heard by all Nevilton.” - -Lacrima hesitated and looked very embarrassed. She evidently did not -know whether to advance in the direction of the new-comers or to remain -where she was. Andersen came to her rescue. - -“Perhaps,” said he, “it would be better if I went back and told Miss -Romer you are waiting for her.” Lacrima gave him a quick glance of -responsive gratitude. - -“O, that would be really kind of you, Mr. Andersen,” she said. - -The moment he had gone, however, she felt annoyed that she had let -him go. It looked so odd, she thought, his leaving her so suddenly, -directly Maurice came on the scene. Besides, what would Gladys say at -this interruption of her pleasure? She would suppose she had done -it out of pure spitefulness! The moments seemed very long to her as -she waited at the little bridge, tracing indecipherable hieroglyphics -in the dust with the end of her parasol. She kept her eyes steadily -fixed on the tall retreating figure of the stone-cutter as he slouched -with his long shambling stride towards the work-shop. The two men -were not, however, really long in approaching. Maurice had seen her -from the beginning, and his replies to Mr. Wone’s oratory had grown -proportionally brief. - -When they reached her, the girl shook hands with Maurice and bowed -rather coldly to Mr. Wone. That gentleman was not however in the least -quelled or suppressed. It was one of his most marked characteristics -to have absolutely no consciousness of season or situation. When less -clever people would have wished the earth to swallow them up, Mr. Wone -remained imperviously self-satisfied. Having exchanged greetings, -Lacrima hastened to explain that she was waiting at this spot till Miss -Romer should rejoin her. “Luke Andersen is showing her his work,” she -said, “and James has gone to tell her I am waiting.” - -Mr. Wone became voluble at this. “It is a shame to keep a young lady -like yourself waiting in the middle of the road.” He turned to Mr. -Quincunx. “We must not say all we think, must we? But begging this -young lady’s pardon, it is just like the family. No consideration! No -consideration for anyone! It is the same with his treatment of the -poor. I am talking of Mr. Romer, you know, Miss. I would say the same -thing to his face. Why is it that hard-working clever fellows, like -these Andersens for instance, should do all the labour, and he get -all the profits? It isn’t fair. It’s unjust. It’s an insult to God’s -beautiful earth, which is free to all.” He paused to take breath, and -looked to Maurice for confirmation of his words. - -“You are quite right, Wone; you are quite right,” muttered the recluse -in his beard, furtively glancing at Lacrima. - -Mr. Wone continued his discourse, making large and eloquent allusion -to the general relations in England between employer and employed, -and implying plainly enough his full knowledge that at least one -of his hearers belonged to the latter class. His air, as he spoke, -betrayed a certain disordered fanaticism, quite genuine and deeply -felt, but queerly mingled with an indescribable element of complacent -self-conceit. Lacrima, in spite of considerable sympathy with much -that he said, felt that there was, in the man himself, something so -slipshod, so limp, so vague, and so patently vulgar, that both her -respect for his sincerity and her interest in his opinions were reduced -to nothing. Not only was he narrow-minded and ignorant; but there was -also about him, in spite of the aggressive violence of his expressions, -an odd sort of deprecatory, apologetic air, as though he were -perpetually endeavouring to cajole his audience, by tacit references -to his deferential respect for them. There was indeed more than a -little in him of the sleek unction of the nonconformist preacher; -and one could well understand how he might combine, precisely as Mr. -Lickwit suspected, the divergent functions of the politician and the -evangelist. - -“I tell you,” he was saying, “the country will not long put up with -this sort of thing. There is a movement, a tendency, a volcanic -upheaval, a stirring of waters, which these plutocrats do not realize. -There is a surging up from the depths of--of--” He paused for a word. - -“Of mud,” murmured Mr. Quincunx. - -“--Of righteous revolt against these atrocious inequalities! The -working people are asleep no longer. They’re roused. The movement’s -begun. The thunder’s gathering on the horizon. The armies of the -exploited are feeling the impulse of their own strength, of that -noble, that splendid anger, which, when it is conceived, will bring -forth--will bring forth--” - -“Damnation,” murmured Mr. Quincunx. - -The three figures as they stood, thus consorted, on the little stone -bridge, made up a dramatic group. The sinking sun threw their shadows -in long wavering lines upon the white road, distorting them to so -grotesque a length that they nearly reached the open gates of the -station. - -Human shadows! What a queer half-mocking commentary they make upon the -vanity of our passionate excitements, roused by anything, quieted by -nothing, as the world moves round! - -Lacrima, in her shadow, was not beautiful at all. She was an elongated -wisp of darkness. The beard of Mr. Quincunx looked as if it belonged to -a mammoth goat, and the neck of Mr. Wone seemed to support, not a human -cranium at all, but a round, wagging mushroom. - -The hushed fields on each side of the way began to assume that magical -softness which renders them, at such an hour, insubstantial, unreal, -remote, transformed. One felt as though the earth might indeed be -worthy of better destinies than those that traced their fantastic -trails up and down its peaceful surface. Something deeply withheld, -seemed as though it only needed the coming of one god-like spirit to -set it free forever, and, with it, all the troubled hearts of men. -It was one of those moments which, whether the participants in them -recognize them or not, at the actual time, are bound to recur, long -afterwards, to their memory. - -Lacrima, half-listening to Mr. Wone, kept her head anxiously turned in -the direction of the sheds, into one of which she had observed James -Andersen enter. - -Maurice Quincunx, his mood clogged and clotted by jealousy, watched -her with great melancholy grey eyes, while with his nervous fingers he -plucked at his beard. - -“The time is coming--the time is coming”; cried Mr. Wone, striking -with the back of his fist, the parapet against which he leaned, “when -this exploitation of the poor by the rich will end once for all!” The -warmth of his feeling was so great, that large drops of sweat trickled -down his sallow cheeks, and hanging for a moment at the end of his -narrow chin, fell into the dust. The man was genuinely moved; though -in his watery blue eyes no trace of any fire was visible. He looked, -in his emotion, like an hypnotized sick person, talking in the stress -of a morbid fever. It was the revolt of one who carried the obsequious -slavery of generations in his blood, and could only rebel in galvanized -moribund spasms. The fellow was unpleasing, uninspiring: not the -savage leader of a race of stern revolutionary devotees fired by the -iron logic of their cause, but the inchoate inarticulate voice of -clumsy protest, apologizing and propitiating, even while it protested. -The vulgarity and meanness of the candidate’s tone made one wonder how -such a one as he could ever have been selected by the obscure working -of the Spirit of Sacrifice, to undertake this titanic struggle against -the Spirit of Power. One turned away instinctively from his febrile -rhetoric, to cast involuntary incense at the feet of the masterful -enemy he opposed. He had no reticence in his enthusiasm, no reserve, no -decency. - -“You may perhaps not know,” he blundered on; “that the General Election -is much nearer than people think. Mr. Romer will find this out; he will -find it out; he will find it out! I have good authority for what I say. -I speak of what I know, young lady.” This was said rather severely, for -Lacrima’s attention was so obviously wandering.--“Of course you will -not breathe a word of this, up there,”--he nodded in the direction of -the House. “It would not do. But the truth is, he is making a great -mistake. I am prepared for this campaign, and he is not. He is even -thinking of reducing the men’s wages still further. The fool--the -fool--the fool! For he _is_ a fool, you know, though he thinks he is so -clever.” - -Even Mr. Wone would scarcely have dared to utter these bold -asseverations in the ear of Gladys Romer’s cousin, if Maurice’s innate -indiscretion had not made it the gossip of the village that the Italian -was ill-treated “among those people.” To the pathetic man’s poor vulgar -turn of mind there was something soothing in this confidential abuse -of the lord of Nevilton Manor to his own relation. It had a squalid -piquancy. It was itself a sort of revenge. - -Once more he began his spasmodic enunciation of those sad economic -platitudes that are the refuge of the oppressed; but Mr. Quincunx had -crossed the road, in the pursuit of a decrepit tiger-moth, and was -listening no more. Lacrima’s attention was completely withdrawn. - -“Well, dear friends,” he concluded, “I must really be getting back to -my supper. Mrs. Wone will be unbearable if I am late.” He hesitated -a moment as if wondering whether the occasion called for any further -domestic jocosity, to let these high matters lightly down to earth; but -he contented himself with shaking hands with Mr. Quincunx and removing -his hat to Lacrima. - -“Good night, dear friends,” he repeated, drifting off, up the road, -humming a hymn tune. - -“Poor man!” whispered the girl, “he means well.” - -“He ought to be shot!” was the unexpected response of the hermit of -Dead Man’s Cottage, as he let the tiger-moth flutter down into the edge -of the field. “He is no better than the rest. He is an idiot. He ought -to learn Latin.” - -They moved together towards the station. - -“I don’t like the way you agree with people to their face,” said -Lacrima, “and abuse them behind their backs.” - -“I don’t like the way you hang about the roads with handsome -stone-cutters,” was Mr. Quincunx’s surly retort. - -Meanwhile, a quite interesting little drama had been unfolding itself -in the neighbourhood of the half-carved block of sandstone. Instructed, -by a swift flash of perception, into what the situation implied, Luke’s -quick magnetic fingers soon drew from his companion’s an electric -responsive clasp, as they leant together over the mouldings. The warmth -and pliable softness of the girl’s body seemed to challenge the man -with intimations of how quickly it would yield. He pointed to the -shed-door, wide open behind them. - -“I will show you my work, in there, in a moment,” he murmured, “as soon -as they have gone.” - -Her breast rose and fell under the increased excitement of her -breathing. Violent quivers ran up and down her frame and communicated -themselves to him. Their hearts beat fiercely in reciprocal agitation. -Luke’s voice, as he continued his conventional summary of the quality -and destination of the stone, shook a little, and sounded queer and -detached. - -“It is for Shaftesbury church,” he said, “for the base of the column -that supports the arch. This particular moulding is one which my father -designed. You must remember that upon it will rest a great deal of the -weight of the roof.” - -His fellow workmen had now collected their tools and were shuffling -nervously past them. It required all Gladys’ sang-froid to give them -the casual nod due from the daughter of the House to those who laboured -in its service. As soon as they were well upon their way, with a quick -glance at the distant figures of Lacrima and James, Gladys turned -rapidly to her companion. - -“Show me,” she said. - -He went before her and stood in the entrance of the work-shop. When -she had passed him into its interior, he casually closed behind them -one of the rough folding doors. The contrast from the horizontal sun -outside, turning the sandstone blocks into ruddy gold, to the shadowy -twilight within, was strangely emphatic. He began to speak; saying he -hardly knew what--some kind of stammered nonsense about the bases and -capitals and carved mouldings that lay around them. But Gladys, true to -her feminine prerogative, swept all this aside. With a bold audacity -she began at once. - -“How nice to be alone and free, for a little while!” - -Then, moving still further into the shadow, and standing, as if -absorbed in interest, before the rough beginnings of a fluted pillar -which reached as high as the roof-- - -“What kind of top are you going to put on to that thing?” - -As she spoke she leant against the pillar with a soft, weary relaxation -of her whole form. - -“Come near and tell me about it,” she whispered, as if her breath -caught in her throat. - -Luke recognized the tone--the tone that said, so much more distinctly -than words, “I am ready. Why are you so slow?” He came behind her, -and as gently and lightly as he could, though his arms trembled, let -his fingers slide caressingly round her flexible figure. Her breath -came in quick gasps, and one hot small hand met his own and pressed -it against her side. Encouraged by this response, he boldly drew her -towards him. She struggled a little; a shy girlish struggle, more than -half conventional--and then, sliding round in his arms with a quick -feline movement, she abandoned herself to her craving, and embraced -him shamelessly and passionately. When at last in sheer weariness her -arms relaxed and she sank down, with her hands pressed to her burning -cheeks, upon an unfinished font, Luke Andersen thought that never to -his dying day would he forget the serpentine clinging of that supple -form and the pressure of those insatiable lips. He turned, a little -foolishly, towards the door and kicked with his foot a fragment -of a carved reredos. Then he went back to her and half-playfully, -half-amorously, tried to remove her hands from her face. - -“Don’t touch me! I hate you!” she said. - -“Please,” he whispered, “please don’t be unkind now. I shall never, -never forget how sweet you’ve been.” - -“Tell me more about this work of yours,” she suddenly remarked, in a -completely changed voice, rising to her feet. “I have always understood -that you were one of our best workmen. I shall tell my father how -highly I think of what you’re doing--you and your brother. I am sure he -will be glad to know what artists he has among his men.” - -She gave her head a proud little toss and raised negligent deliberate -hands to her disarranged fair hair, smoothing it down and readjusting -her wide-brimmed hat. She had become the grand lady again and Luke -had become the ordinary young stone-mason. Superficially, and with -a charming grace, he adapted himself to this change, continuing his -conventional remarks about fonts, pillars, crosses, and capitals; and -calling her “Miss” or “Miss Gladys,” with scrupulous discretion. But -in his heart, all the while, he was registering a deep and vindictive -vow--a vow that, at whatever risk and at whatever cost, he would make -this fair young despot suffer for her caprice. Gladys had indeed, quite -unwittingly, entered into a struggle with a nature as remorseless and -unscrupulous as her own. She had dreamed, in her imperial way, of using -this boy for her amusement, and then throwing him aside. She did not -for a moment intend to get entangled in any sentimental relations with -him. A passing “amour,” leading to nothing, and in no way committing -her, was what she had instinctively counted on. For the rest, in -snatching fiercely at any pleasure her fervent senses craved, she was -as conscienceless and antinomian, as a young tiger out of the jungle. -Nor had she the remotest sense of danger in this exciting sport. -Corrupt and insensitive as any amorous courtezan of a pagan age, she -trusted to her freedom from innocence to assure her of freedom from -disaster. Vaguely enough in her own mind she had assumed, as these -masterful “blond beasts” are inclined to assume, that in pouncing on -this new prey she was only dealing once more with that malleable and -timorous humanity she had found so easy to mould to her purpose in -other quarters. She reckoned, with a pathetic simplicity, that Luke -would be clay in her hands. As a matter of fact this spoiled child of -the wealth produced by the Leonian stone had audaciously flung down -her challenge to one who had as much in him as herself of that stone’s -tenacity and imperviousness. The daughter of sandstone met the carver -of sandstone; and none, who knew the two, would have dared to predict -the issue of such an encounter. - -The young man was still urbanely and discreetly discoursing to his -lady-visitor upon the contents of the work-shop, when the tall figure -of James Andersen darkened the door. - -“Excuse me, Miss,” he said to Gladys, “but Miss Lacrima asked me to -tell you that she was waiting for you on the bridge.” - -“Thank you, James,” answered the girl simply, “I will come. I am afraid -my interest in all the things your brother has been so kindly showing -me has made you both late. I am sorry.” Here she actually went so far -as to fumble in her skirt for her purse. After an awkward pause, during -which the two men waited at either side of the door, she found what she -sought, and tripping lightly by, turned as she passed Luke and placed -in his hand, the hand that so recently had been clasped about her -person, the insolent recompense of a piece of silver. Bidding them both -good-night, she hurried away to rejoin Lacrima, who, having by this -time got rid of Mr. Quincunx, moved down the road to meet her. - -Luke closed and locked the door of the shed without a word. Then to -the astonishment of James Andersen he proceeded to dance a kind of -grotesque war-dance, ending it with a suppressed half-mocking howl, as -he leant exhausted against the wall of the building. - -“I’ve got her, I’ve got her, I’ve got her!” he repeated. “James, my -darling Daddy James, I’ve got this girl in the palm of my hand!” He -humorously proceeded to toss the coin she had given him high in the -air. “Heads or tails?” he cried, as the thing fell among the weeds. -“Heads! It’s heads, my boy! That means that Miss Gladys Romer will be -sorry she ever stepped inside this work-shop of ours. Come, let’s wash -and eat, my brother; for the gods have been good to us today.” - - - - -CHAPTER V - -FRANCIS TAXATER - - -The day following the one whose persuasive influence we have just -recorded was not less auspicious. The weather seemed to have effected -a transference of its accustomed quality, bringing to the banks of the -Yeo and the Parret the atmospheric conditions belonging to those of the -Loire or the Arno. - -Having finished her tea Valentia Seldom was strolling meditatively up -and down the vicarage terrace, alternately stopping to pick off the -petals of a dead flower, or to gaze, with a little gloomy frown, upon -the grass of the orchard. - -Her slender upright figure, in her black silk dress, made a fine -contrast to the rich green foliage about her, set on one side with -ruby-coloured roses and on the other with yellow buttercups. But the -old lady was in no peaceful frame of mind. Every now and then she -tapped the gravel impatiently with her ebony stick; and the hand that -toyed with the trinkets at her side mechanically closed and unclosed -its fingers under the wrist-band of Mechlin lace. It was with something -of an irritable start, that she turned round to greet Francis Taxater, -as led by the little servant he presented himself to her attention. -He moved to greet her with his usual imperturbable gravity, walking -sedately along the edge of the flowery border; with one shoulder a -little higher than the other and his eyes on the ground. - -His formidable prelatical chin seemed more than ever firmly set that -afternoon, and his grey waistcoat, under his shabby black coat, was -tightly drawn across his emphatic stomach. His coal-black eyes, -darkened yet further by the shadow of his hat, glanced furtively to -right and left of him as he advanced. In the manner peculiar to persons -disciplined by Catholic self-control, his head never followed, by the -least movement, the shrewd explorations of these diplomatic eyes. - -One would have taken him for a French bishop, of aristocratic race, -masquerading, for purposes of discretion, in the dress of a secular -scholar. - -Everything about Francis Taxater, from the noble intellectual contours -of his forehead, down to his small satyr-like feet, smacked of the -courtier and the priest; of the learned student, and the urbane -frequenter of sacred conclaves. His small white hand, plump and -exquisitely shaped, rested heavily on his cane. He carried with him -in every movement and gesture that curious air of dramatic weight and -importance which men of diplomatic experience are alone able to use -without letting it degenerate into mannerism. It was obvious that he, -at any rate, according to Mr. Quincunx’s favourite discrimination, -“knew Latin.” He seemed to have slid, as it were, into this commercial -modern world, from among the contemporaries of Bossuet. One felt that -his authors were not Ibsen or Tolstoy, but Horace and Cicero. - -One felt also, however, that in sheer psychological astuteness not even -Mr. Romer himself would be a match for him. Between those two, the -man of modern wisdom and the man of ancient wisdom, any struggle that -might chance to occur would be a singularly curious one. If Mr. Taxater -really was “on the side of the angels,” he was certainly there with -the full weight of organized hierarchies. If he did exert his strength -upon the side of “meekness,” it would be a strength of no feverish, -spasmodic eruption. - -If Satan threw a Borgia in Mr. Taxater’s path, that Borgia, it -appeared, would find his Machiavel. - -“Yes, it is a lovely day again,” said the old lady, leading her visitor -to a seat and placing herself by his side. “But what is our naughty -Monsignor doing, playing truant from his consistory? I thought you -would be in London this week--at the Eucharist Conference your people -are holding? Is it to the loveliness of the weather that we owe this -pleasant surprise?” - -One almost expected--so formal and old-fashioned were the two -interlocutors--that Mr. Taxater would have replied, in the tone of -Ivanhoe or the Talisman, “A truce to such jesting, Madam!” No doubt -if he had, the lady would hardly have discerned any anachronism. As a -matter of fact he did not answer her question at all, but substituted -one of his own. - -“I met Vennie in the village,” he said. “Do you think she is happier -now, in her new English circle?” - -“Ah! my friend,” cried the old lady, in a nervous voice, “it is of -Vennie that I have been thinking all this afternoon. No, I cannot say I -think she is happier. I wonder if it is one thing; and then I wonder if -it is another. I cannot get to the bottom of it and it worries me.” - -“I expect it is her nerves,” said the diplomatist. “Though the sun is -so warm, there has been a constant east wind lately; and, as you know, -I put down most of our agitations to the presence of east wind.” - -“It will not do, Mr. Taxater; it will not do! It may be the east wind -with you and me. It is not the east wind with Vennie. Something is -troubling her. I wish I could discern what it is?” - -“She isn’t by any chance being vexed by some theological dispute with -the Vicar, is she? I know how seriously she takes all his views. -And his views are, if I may say so, decidedly confusing. Don’t -misunderstand me, dear lady. I respect Mr. Clavering and admire him. -I like the shape of his head; especially when he wears his beretta. -But I cannot feel much confidence in his wisdom in dealing with a -sensitive child like your daughter. He is too impulsive. He is too -dogmatic. He lives too entirely in the world of doctrinal controversy. -It is dangerous”; here Mr. Taxater luxuriously stretched out his legs -and lit a cigarette; “it is dangerous to live only for theology. We -have to learn to live for Religion; and that is a much more elaborate -affair. _That_ extends very far, Mrs. Seldom.” The old lady let her -stick slide to the ground and clasped her hands together. “I want to -ask you one thing, Mr. Taxater. And I implore you to be quite direct -with me. You do not think, do you, that my girl is tending towards -_your_ church--towards Rome? I confess it would be a heavy blow to me, -one of the heaviest I have ever had, if anything of that kind happened. -I know you are tolerant enough to let me speak like this without -scruple. I like _you_, my dear friend--” Here a soft flush spread over -Valentia’s ivory-coloured cheeks and she made a little movement as if -to put her hand on her companion’s arm. “I like you yourself, and have -the utmost confidence in you. But Oh, it would be a terrible shock to -me if Vennie became a Roman Catholic. She would enter a convent; I -_know_ she would enter a convent and that would be more than I could -bear.” The accumulated distress of many years was in the old lady’s -voice and tears stood in her eyes. “I know it is silly,” she went on as -Mr. Taxater steadily regarded the landscape. “But I cannot help it. I -do so hope--Oh, I can’t tell you how much--that Vennie will marry and -have children. It is the secret burden of my life, the thought that, -with this frail little thing, our ancient race should disappear. I feel -it my deepest duty--my duty to the Past and my duty to the Future--to -arrange a happy marriage for her. If only that could be achieved, I -should be able to die content.” - -“You have no evidence, no authority for thinking,” said Mr. Taxater -gravely, “that she is meditating any approach to _my_ church, as you -call it, have you?” - -“Oh no!” cried the old lady, “quite the contrary. She seems absorbed -in the services here. She works with Mr. Clavering, she discusses -everything with Mr. Clavering, she helps Mr. Clavering with the poor. I -believe”--here Valentia lowered her voice; “I believe she confesses to -Mr. Clavering.” - -Francis Taxater smiled--the smile of the heir of Christendom’s classic -faith at these pathetic fumblings of heresy--and carefully knocked the -ashes from his cigarette against the handle of his cane. - -“You don’t think, dear lady,” he said, “that by any chance--girls are -curiously subtle in these little things--she is ‘in love,’ as they call -it, with our nice handsome Vicar?” - -Valentia gave an involuntary little start. In her heart there rose up -the shadow of a shadow of questioning, whether in this last remark the -great secular diplomatist had not lapsed into something approaching a -“faux pas.” - -“Certainly not,” she answered. “Vennie is not a girl to mix up her -religion with things of that sort.” - -Francis Taxater permitted the flicker of a smile to cross his face. He -slightly protruded his lower lip which gave his countenance a rather -sinister expression. His look said, more clearly than words, that in -his opinion there was no woman on earth who did not “mix up these -things” with her religion. - -“I have not yet made my request to you,” continued the old lady, with -a certain nervous hesitation. “I am so afraid lest you should think -it an evidence of a lack of confidence. It isn’t so! It really isn’t -so. I only do it to relieve my mind;--to make my food taste better, if -you understand?--and to stop this throbbing in my head.” She paused -for a moment, and picking up her stick, prodded the gravel with it, -with lowered face. The voices of not less than three wood-pigeons were -audible from the apple-orchard. And this soft accompaniment to her -words seemed to give her courage. Fate could not, surely, altogether -betray her prayers, in a place so brooded over by “the wings of the -dove.” In the exquisite hush of the afternoon the birds’ rich voices -seemed to take an almost liturgical tone--as though they were the -ministers of a great natural temple. To make a solemn request of -a dear friend under such conditions was almost as though one were -exacting a sacred vow under the very shadow of the altar. - -So at least Valentia felt, as she uttered her serious petition; though -it may well be that Mr. Taxater, skilled in the mental discipline of -Saint Ignatius, knew better how to keep the distracting influences of -mere “Nature,” in their proper secondary place. - -“I want you faithfully to promise me,” she said, “that you will in -no way--in no way at all--use your influence over Vennie to draw her -from her English faith.” The old lady’s voice became quite husky in -her emotion. “It would be dreadful to me to think,--I could not bear -to think”--she went on, “that you should in the smallest degree use -your great powers of mind to disturb the child’s present attitude. If -she is not happy, it is not--Oh, I assure you, it is not--in any sense -due to her being dissatisfied with her religion. It must be something -quite different. What it is, I cannot guess; but it must be something -quite different from _that_. Well, dear friend,” and she did now, quite -definitely, lay her hand on his arm, “will you promise this for me? You -will? I know you will.” - -Francis Taxater rose from his seat and stood over her very gravely, -leaning upon his cane. - -“You have done well to tell me this, Mrs. Seldom,” he said. “Most -certainly I shall make no attempt to influence Vennie. It would be -indeed contrary to all that I regard as wise and suitable in the -relations between us. I never convert people. I believe you will find -that very few of those who are born Catholics ever interfere in that -way. It is the impetuosity of new-comers into the church that gives -us this bad name. They often carry into their new faith the turbulent -theological zeal which distinguished them in their old one. I, at any -rate, am not like that. I leave people alone. I prefer to watch them -develop on their own lines. The last thing I should wish to do would -be to meddle with Vennie’s religious taste. It would be a blunder as -well as an impertinence. Vennie would be the first to resist any such -proceeding. It would destroy her respect for me. It might even destroy -her affection for me. It certainly would not move her. Indeed, dear -lady, if I wished to plant the child’s soul irrevocably in the soil -prepared by our good vicar I could not do anything more effective -than try to persuade her of its deficiencies. No, no! You may rely -upon me to stand completely aside in this matter. If Vennie _were_ -led to join us--which for your sake, dear Mrs. Seldom, I hope will -never happen,--you may accept my word of honour it will be from her -own spontaneous impulse. I shall make not the least movement in the -direction you fear. _That_ I can devoutly promise.” - -He turned away his head and regarded with calm, placid detachment the -rich, shadowy orchard and the golden buttercups. - -The contours of his profile were so noble, and the pose of his head so -majestic, that the agitated mother was soothed and awed into complete -confidence. - -“Thank God!” she exclaimed. “_That_ fear, at any rate, has passed. I -shall be grateful to you forever, dear friend, for what you have just -now said. It is a direct answer to my prayers.” - -“May I, in my turn,” said Mr. Taxater, resuming his seat by her side, -“ask you a bold and uncalled for question? What would you do, if in -the changes and chances of this life, Vennie _did_ come to regard Mr. -Clavering with favour? Would you for a moment consider their union as a -possible one?” - -Valentia looked not a little embarrassed. Once more, in her heart, she -accused the urbane scholar of a lack of delicacy and discretion. These -little questions are not the ones to put to a perturbed mother. - -However, she answered him plainly enough. “I should not like it, I -confess. It would disappoint me. I am not ambitious, but sometimes I -catch myself desiring, for my beloved child, a marriage that would give -her the position she deserves, the position--pardon a woman’s weakness, -sir!--that her ancestors held in this place. But then, again, I am only -anxious for her happiness. No, Mr. Taxater. If such a thing did occur -I should not oppose it, Mr. Clavering is a gentleman, though a poor -one and, in a sense, an eccentric one. But I have no prejudice against -the marriage of our clergy. In fact I think they ought to marry. It -is so suitable, you know, to have a sensible woman endowed with such -opportunities for making her influence felt. I would not wish Vennie to -marry beneath her, but sooner than not see her married--well!--That is -the kind of feeling I have about it, Mr. Taxater.” - -“Thank you--thank you. I fear my question was impertinent; but in -return for the solemn oath you exacted from me, I think I deserved some -reward, don’t you? But seriously, Mrs. Seldom, I do not think that any -of these less desirable fates will befall our dear child. I think she -will marry a pillar of the aristocracy, and remain herself a pillar of -the Anglican Church! I trust she will not, whatever happens, lose her -regard for her old Catholic friend.” - -He rose as he spoke and held out his hand. Mrs. Seldom took it in her -own and held it for a moment with some emotion. Had he been a real -Monsignor, he could not have looked more calm, more tolerant, more -kind, than he looked at that moment. He wore the expression that high -ecclesiastics must come to wear, when devoted but somewhat troublesome -daughters of the church press close to kiss the amethystine ring. - -A few minutes later he was passing out of the vicarage gate. The new -brood of warblers that flitted about the tall bushes at that spot -heard--with perfect unconcern--a mysterious Latin quotation issue -from that restrained mouth. They could hardly be blamed for not -understanding, even though they had migrated to these fields of heresy -from more classic places, that the plain English interpretation of the -dark saying was that all things are lawful to him whose motive is the -“Potestas Civitatis Dei!” - -He crossed the dusty road and was proceeding towards his own house, -which was hardly more than a hundred yards away, when he saw through -a wide gap in the hedge a pleasant and familiar sight. It was a -hay-field, in the final stage of its “making,” surrendering to a great -loose stack, built up beneath enormous elm-trees, the last windrows of -its sweet-scented harvest. - -Pausing for a moment to observe more closely this pleasant scene--for -hay-making in Dorsal Field amounted to a village ritual--Mr. Taxater -became aware that among the figures scattered in groups about the -meadow were the very two whose relation to one another he had just been -discussing. Vennie and the young clergyman were engaged in an animated -conversation with three of the farm-boys. - -Mr. Taxater at once climbed through the gap, and crossing the field -approached the group unobserved. It was not till he was quite close -that Vennie caught sight of him. Her pale, pinched little face, under -its large hat, flushed slightly as she held out her hand; but her great -steady grey eyes were full of friendly welcome. - -Mr. Clavering too was effusive and demonstrative in his greeting. -They chatted a little of indifferent matters, and the theologian was -introduced to the shy farm-boys, who stared at him in rustic wonder. - -Then Hugh Clavering said, “If you’ll pardon me for a moment, I think -I ought to go across and speak to John Goring,” and he indicated the -farmer’s figure bending over a new gleaning-machine, at the opposite -end of the field. “Don’t go away, please, Mr. Taxater, till I come -back. You will keep him, won’t you, Miss Seldom?” - -He strode off; and the boys drifted away after him, leaving Mr. Taxater -and the girl together, under the unfinished hay-stack. “I was so much -wanting to speak to you,” began Vennie at once. “I very nearly ran in -to the Gables; but I saw Mrs. Wotnot over the wall, and she told me you -were out. I am in serious need of advice upon a thing that is troubling -me, and you are the only person who can really help.” - -The expression of Mr. Taxater’s face at that moment was so sympathetic, -and yet so grave, that one would hardly have been surprised to hear -him utter the conventional formula of a priest awaiting confession. -Though unuttered, the sacred formula must have been telepathically -communicated, for Vennie continued without a pause, holding her hands -behind her back, and looking on the ground. “Ever since our last -serious conversation--do you remember?--after Easter, I have been -thinking so much about that phrase of yours, referring to the Pope, as -the eternal living defender of the idea of Love as the secret of the -universe. Mr. Clavering talks to me about love--you know what I mean,” -she smiled and blushed prettily, with a quick lifting of her head, “but -he never gives me the feeling of something real and actual which we can -approach on earth--something personal, I mean. And I have been feeling -so much lately that this is what I want. Mr. Clavering is very gentle -with me when I try to explain my difficulties to him; but I don’t think -he really understands. The way he talks is beautiful and inspiring--but -it somehow sounds like poetry. It does not give me anything to lay -hands on.” And she looked into Mr. Taxater’s face with a pathetic -wide-eyed appeal, as if he were able to call down angels from heaven. - -“Dear child,” said the diplomatist, “I know only too well what you -mean. Yes, that is the unfortunate and necessary limitation of a -heretical church. It can only offer mystic and poetic consolations. It -has lost touch with the one true Vine, and consequently the full stream -of life-giving sap cannot flow through its veins.” - -“But I have felt so strengthened,” said Vennie mournfully, “by the -sacrament in our Church; so strengthened and inspired! It seems -dreadful that it should all be a sort of mockery.” - -“Do not speak like that, dear child,” said Mr. Taxater. “God is good; -and in his knowledge of our weakness he permits us to taste of his -mystery even in forbidden cups. The motive in your heart, the faith -in your soul, have been pure; and God has given to them some measure, -though but an imperfect one, of what he will grant to your complete -obedience.” - -Vennie bent down and picking up a swathe of sweet-scented hay twisted -it thoughtfully in her fingers. “God has indeed been working miracles -on your behalf,” continued Mr. Taxater. “It must have been your -guardian angel that led me to speak to you as I did at that time. For -in future, I regret to say, I shall be less free. But the good work has -been done. The seed has been sown. What follows must be at your own -initiative.” - -Vennie looked at him, puzzled, and rather alarmed. “Why do you say you -will be less free? Are we going to have no more lovely conversations at -the bottom of our orchard? Are you going to be too busy to see me at -all?” - -Mr. Taxater smiled. “Oh no, it isn’t as bad as that,” he said. “It is -only that I have just faithfully promised your mother not to convert -you to Catholicism.” - -“Mother had no right to make you give any such promise,” cried the girl -indignantly. - -“No,” responded the diplomatist, “she had no such right. No one has -a right to demand promises of that kind. It is one of the worst and -subtlest forms of persecution.” - -“But you did not promise? You surely did not promise?” - -“There was no escaping it,” replied Mr. Taxater. “If I had not done so -she would have given you no peace, and your future movements would have -been mercilessly watched. However,” he went on, smilingly, “a promise -exacted under that kind of compulsion must be interpreted in a very -large and liberal way. Relatively I must avoid discussing these things -with you. In a higher and more absolute sense we will combine our -thoughts about them, day and night, until we worship at the same altar.” - -Vennie was silent. The noble and exalted sophistry of the subtle -scholar puzzled and bewildered her. “But I have no idea of what to do -next,” she protested. “I know no Catholics but you. I should feel very -nervous on going to the priest in Yeoborough. Besides, I don’t at all -like the look of him. And the people here say he is often drunk. You -wouldn’t send me to a man like that, would you? Oh, I feel so angry -with mother! She had no right to go to you behind my back.” - -Francis Taxater laid his hand gently on the girl’s shoulder. “There is -no reason for haste,” he said. “There is no cause to agitate yourself. -Just remain quietly as you are. Say nothing to your mother. It would -only cause her unnecessary distress. I never promised not to lend you -books. All my shelves are at your service. Read, my dear Vennie, read -and think. My books will supply the place of my words. Indeed, they -will serve the purpose much better. In this way we shall at once be -obeying your earthly mother, and not disobeying your heavenly mother, -who is now--Ave Maria gratiæ plena!--drawing you so strongly towards -her.” - -“Shall I say anything to Mr. Clavering?” - -“Not a word! not a word! And enter as little as possible into argument -with him. If he fancies, from your silence, that he has quelled your -doubts, let him fancy so. The mistake will be due to his own pride and -not to any deception. It is wrong to lie--but we are not called upon to -dispel illusions arising from the self-conceit of others.” - -“But you--will--think--of me?” pleaded little Vennie. “I may know that -you have not deserted me? That you are always ready--always there?” - -Mr. Taxater smiled benignly. “Of course I shall be ready, dear child. -And you must be ready. That is why I only ask you to read and think. -God will answer your prayers if you show patience. He has taught his -church never to clamour for hurried conversions. But to wait, with all -her reservoirs of mysteries, till they come to her of their own accord. -You will come, Vennie, you will come! But it will be in God’s hour and -not in ours.” - -Vennie Seldom thanked him with a timid glance of infinite gratitude and -confidence. A soft luminous happiness suffused her being, into which -the scents and sounds of that felicitous hour poured their offerings of -subtle contentment. In after years, in strange and remote places, she -never forgot the high thrilling exultation, calm, yet passionate as an -indrawn wave, of that unrecurring moment. - -The security that filled her passed, indeed, only too quickly away. -Her face clouded and a little anxious frown puckered her narrow white -forehead. - -“There is something else I wanted to ask you,” she said hurriedly, -“and I must say it quickly because I am afraid of Mr. Clavering coming -back. It has to do with Mr. Clavering. I do not think you realize what -influence you have over people, what powerful influence! Mr. Clavering -adores you. He would do anything for you. He respects you as a thinker. -He venerates you as a good man. Now, Mr. Taxater, please, please, -use your influence with him to save him--to save him--” She stopped -abruptly, and a flood of colour rushed to her cheeks. - -“To save him from what, dear child? I am afraid there is no hope of Mr. -Clavering coming to our way of thinking.” - -“It isn’t that, Mr. Taxater! It’s something else;--something to do with -his own happiness, with his own life. Oh, it is so hard for me to tell -you!” She clenched her hands tightly together and looked steadily away -from him as she spoke. “It is that that dreadful Gladys Romer has been -plaguing him so--tempting him to flirt with her, to be silly about -her, and all that sort of thing. He does not really like her at all. -That I _know_. But he is passionate and excitable, and easily led away -by a girl like that. Oh, it all sounds so absurd, as I say it,” cried -poor Vennie, with cheeks that were by this time flaming, “but it’s -much, much more serious than it sounds. You see, I know Mr. Clavering -very well. I know how simple and pure-minded he is. And I know how -desperately he prays against being led away--like this. Gladys does -not care for him really a bit. She only does it to amuse herself; to -satisfy her wicked, wicked nature! She would like to lead him as far as -she possibly could, and then to turn upon him and make him thoroughly -miserable. She is the kind of girl--Oh what am I saying to you, Mr. -Taxater?--that men always are attracted by. Some men I believe would -even call her beautiful. I don’t think she’s that at all. I think she -is gross, fleshly, and horrid! But I know what a danger she is to Mr. -Clavering. I know the dreadful struggle that goes on in his mind; and -the horrible temptation she is to him. I know that after seeing her -he always suffers the most cruel remorse. Now, Mr. Taxater, use your -influence to strengthen him against this girl’s treachery. She only -means him harm, I know she does! And if a person like you, whom he -loves and admires so much, talked to him seriously about it, it would -be such a help to him. He is so young. He is a mere boy, and absolutely -ignorant of the world. He does not even realize that the village has -already begun its horrid gossip about them. Do--do, do something, Mr. -Taxater. It is like that young Parsifal, in the play, being tempted by -the enchantress.” - -“But how do they meet?” asked the diplomatist, with unchanged gravity. -“I do not see how they are ever alone together.” - -“She has arranged it. She is so clever; the bad, bad girl! She goes -to him for confirmation lessons. He teaches her in his study twice a -week--separately from the others.” - -“But her father is a Unitarian.” - -“That does not interfere. She does what she likes with Mr. Romer. Her -game now is to want to be baptized into our church. She is going to be -baptized first, and then confirmed.” - -“And the preparation for baptism is as dangerous as the preparation for -confirmation,” remarked the scholar; straightening the muscles of his -mouth, after the discipline of St. Ignatius. - -“The whole thing is horrible--dreadful! It frets me every hour of the -day. He is so good and so innocent. He has no idea where she is leading -him.” - -“But I cannot prevent her wanting to be baptized,” said Mr. Taxater. - -“You can talk to him,” answered Vennie, with intense conviction. “You -can talk to him and he will listen to you. You can tell him the danger -he is in of being made miserable for life.” She drew her breath deeply. -“Oh the remorse he will feel; the horrible, horrible remorse!” - -Mr. Taxater glanced across the hay-field. The sun, a red globe of fire, -was resting on the extreme edge of Leo’s Hill, and seemed like a great -blood-shot eye regarding them with lurid interest. Long cool shadows, -thrown across the field by the elms in the hedge and by the stack -beside them, melted magically into one another, and made the hillocks -of still ungathered grass soft and intangible as fairy graves. - -“I will do my best,” said the scholar. “I will do my best.” And -indicating to Vennie, who was absorbed in her nervous gratitude, the -near approach of the object of their saintly conspiracy, he led her -forward to meet the young clergyman with an appropriate air of friendly -and casual nonchalance. - -“I am sorry to have to say it,” was Mr. Clavering’s greeting, “but -that farmer-fellow is the only person in my parish for whom I have a -complete detestation. I wish to goodness Mr. Romer had never brought -him into the place!” - -“I don’t like the look of his back, I must say,” answered the -theologian, following with his eyes the retreating figure of Mr. John -Goring. - -“He is,” said the young priest, “without exception the most repulsive -human being I have ever met in my life. Our worthy Romer is an angel of -light compared with him.” - -With Mr. Goring still as their topic, they strolled amicably together -towards the same gap in the hedge, through which the apologist of -the papacy had emerged an hour before. There they separated; Vennie -returning to the vicarage, and the young clergyman carrying off Mr. -Taxater to supper with him in his house by the church. - -Clavering’s establishment consisted of a middle-aged woman of -inordinate volubility, and the woman’s daughter, a girl of twelve. - -The supper offered by the priest to his guest was “light and -choice”--nor did it lack its mellow accompaniment of carefully -selected, if not “Attic,” wine. Of this wine Mr. Taxater did not -hesitate to partake freely, sitting, when the meal was over, opposite -his host at the open window, through which the pleasant murmurs of -the evening, and the voices of the village-street, soothingly and -harmoniously floated. - -The famous theologian was in an excellent temper. Rich recondite jests -pursued one another from his smiling lips, and his white hands folded -themselves complacently above the cross on his watch-chain. - -Lottie Fringe, the child of Clavering’s servant, tripped sportively -in and out of the room, encouraged in her girlish coquetries by the -amiable scholar. She was not yet too old to be the kittenish plaything -of the lighter moments of a wise and scholarly man, and it was pleasant -to watch the zest with which the vicar’s visitor entered into her -sportive audacities. Mr. Taxater made her fill and refill his glass, -and taking her playfully on his knee, kissed her and fondled her many -times. It was the vicar himself, who finally, a little embarrassed by -these levities, sent the girl off to the kitchen, apologizing to his -guest for the freedom she displayed. - -“Do not apologize, dear Mr. Clavering,” said the theologian. “I love -all children, especially when they are girls. There is something -about the kisses of a young girl--at once amorous and innocent--which -reconciles one to the universe, and keeps death at a distance. Could -one for a moment think of death, when holding a young thing, so full of -life and beauty, on one’s knee?” - -The young priest’s face clouded. “To be quite honest with you, Mr. -Taxater,” he murmured, in a troubled voice, “I cannot say that I -altogether agree. We are both unconventional people, so I may speak -freely. I do not think that one does a child any good by encouraging -her to be playful and forward, in that particular way. You live with -your books; but I live with my people, and I have known so many sad -cases of girls being completely ruined by getting a premature taste for -coquetry of that kind.” - -“I am afraid, my friend,” answered Mr. Taxater, “that the worst of all -heresies is lodged deep in your heart.” - -“Heresies? God knows,” sighed the priest, “I have enough evil in my -heart--but heresies? I am at a loss to catch your meaning.” - -In the absence of his playful Clerica--to use the Pantagruelian -allusion--the great Homenas of Nevilton was compelled to fill his -“tall-boy of extravagant wine” with his own hand. He did so, and -continued his explanation. - -“By the worst of all heresies I mean the dangerous Puritan idea that -pleasure itself is evil and a thing detestable to God. The Catholic -doctrine, as I understand it, is that all these things are entirely -relative to the persons concerned. Pleasure in itself is, in the -Aristotelian sense, a supreme good. Everyone has a right to it. -Everyone must have it. The whole thing is a matter of proportion and -expediency. If an innocent playful game, of the kind you have just -witnessed, was likely in this definite particular case to lead to harm, -then you would be justified in your anxiety. But there must be no -laying down of hard general rules. There must be no making a virtue of -the mere denying ourselves pleasure.” - -Mr. Clavering could hardly wait for his guest to finish. - -“Then, according to your theory,” he exclaimed, “it would be right for -you, or whoever you will,--pardon my making the thing so personal--to -indulge in casual levities with any pretty barmaid, as long as you -vaguely surmised that she was a sensible girl and would not be harmed?” - -“Certainly it would be right,” replied the papal apologist, sipping his -wine and inhaling the perfume of the garden, “and not only right, but -a plain duty. It is our duty, Mr. Clavering, to make the world happier -while we live in it; and the way to make girls happier, especially when -their occupations are laborious, is to kiss them; to give them innocent -and admiring embraces.” - -“I am afraid you are not quite serious, Mr. Taxater,” said the -clergyman. “I have an absurd way of being direct and literal in these -discussions.” - -“Certainly, I am serious. Do you not know--young puritan--that some -of the noblest spirits in history have not hesitated to increase -the pleasure of girls’ lives by giving them frequent kisses? In the -Greek days he who could give the most charming kiss was awarded -a public prize. In the Elizabethan days all the great and heroic -souls, whose exquisite wit and passionate imagination put us still to -shame, held large and liberal views on this matter. In the eighteenth -century the courtly and moral Joseph Addison used never to leave a -coffee-house, however humble and poor, without bestowing a friendly -embrace upon every woman in it. The religious Doctor Johnson--a man of -your own faith--was notoriously in the habit of taking his prettier -visitors upon his knee, and tenderly kissing them. It is no doubt -due to this fact, that the great lexicographer was so frequently -visited;--especially by young Quakers. When we come to our own age, it -is well known that the late Archbishop Taraton, the refuter of Darwin, -was never so happy as when romping round the raspberry-canes in his -garden with a crowd of playful girls. - -“These great and wise men have all recognized the fact that pleasure is -not an evil but a good. A good, however, that must be used discreetly -and according to the Christian self-control of which God has given his -Church the secret. The senses are not under a curse, Mr. Clavering. -They are not given us simply to tempt and perplex us. They are given -for our wise and moderate enjoyment.” - -Francis Taxater once more lifted his glass to his lips. - -“To the devil with this Protestant Puritanism of yours! It has darkened -the sun in heaven. It is the cause of all the squalid vice and gross -excesses of our forlorn England. It is the cause of the deplorable -perversities that one sees around one. It is the cause of that odious -hypocrisy that makes us the laughing-stock of the great civilized -nations of France, Italy and Spain.” The theologian drew a deep breath, -and continued. “I notice, Mr. Clavering, that you have by your side, -still unfinished, your second glass of wine. That is a mistake. That is -an insult to Providence. Whatever may be your attitude towards these -butterfly-wenches, it cannot, as a matter of poetic economy, be right -to leave a wine, as delicate, as delicious as this, to spoil in the -glass. - -“I suppose it has never occurred to you, Mr. Clavering, to go and sit, -with the more interesting of your flock, at the Seldom Arms? It never -has? So I imagined from my knowledge of your uncivilized English ways. - -“The European café, sir, is the universal school of refined and -intellectual pleasure. It was from his seat in a Roman café--a place -not unknown to me myself--that the great Gibbon was accustomed to -survey the summer moon, rising above the Pantheon. - -“It is the same in the matter of wine as in the other matter. It is -your hypocritical and puritanical fear of pleasure that leads to the -gross imbibing of villainous spirits and the subterranean slavery of -prostitution. If you allowed yourselves, freely, naturally, and with -Christian moderation, to enjoy the admirable gifts of the supreme -giver, there would no longer be any need for this deplorable plunging -into insane vice. As it is--in this appalling country of yours--one can -understand every form of debauchery.” - -At this point Mr. Clavering intervened with an eager and passionate -question. He had been listening intently to his visitor’s words, and -his clear-cut, mobile face had changed its expression more than once -during this long discourse. - -“You do not, then, think,” said he, in a tone of something like -supplication, “that there is anything wrong in giving ourselves up to -the intense emotion which the presence of beauty and charm is able to -excite?” - -“Wrong?” said Mr. Taxater. “It is wrong to suppress such feelings! It -is all a matter of proportion, my good sir, a matter of proportion and -common sense. A little psychological insight will soon make us aware -whether the emotion you speak of is likely to prove injurious to the -object of our admiration.” - -“But oneself--what about oneself?” cried the young priest. “Is there -not a terrible danger, in all these things, lest one’s spiritual ideal -should become blurred and blighted?” - -To this question Mr. Taxater returned an answer so formidable and -final, that the conversation was brought to an abrupt close. - -“What,” he said, “has God given us the Blessed Sacraments for?” - -Hugh Clavering escorted his visitor to the corner of the street and -bade him good-night there. As he re-entered his little garden, he -turned for a moment to look at the slender tower of St. Catharine’s -church, rising calm and still into the hot June sky. Between him and -it, flitted like the ghost of a dead Thaïs or Phryne, the pallid shadow -of an impassioned temptress holding out provocative arms. The form of -the figure seemed woven of all the vapours of unbridled poetic fantasy, -but the heavy yellow hair which most of all hid the tower from his view -was the hair of Gladys Romer. - -The apologist of the papacy strolled slowly and meditatively back to -his own house with the easy step of one who was in complete harmony -both with gods and men. Above him the early stars began, one by one, to -shine down upon the earth, but as he glanced up towards them, removing -his hat and passing his hand across his forehead, the great diplomatist -appeared quite untroubled by the ineffable littleness of all earthly -considerations, under the remoteness of those austere watchers. - -The barking of dogs, in distant unknown yards, the melancholy cry of -new-shorn lambs, somewhere far across the pastures, the soft, low, -intermittent breathing, full of whispers and odours, of the whole -mysterious night, seemed only to throw Mr. Taxater back more completely -and securely upon that firm ecclesiastical tradition which takes the -hearts of men in its hands and turns them away from the Outer Darkness. - -He let himself quietly into the Gables garden, by the little gate in -the wall, and entered his house. He was surprised to find the door -unlocked and a light burning in the kitchen. The careful Mrs. Wotnot -was accustomed to retire to rest at a much earlier hour. He found the -good woman extended at full length upon three hard chairs, her head -supported by a bundle of shawls. She was suffering from one of her -chronic rheumatic attacks, and was in considerable distress. - -To a less equable and humane spirit there might have been something -rather irritating than pathetic about this unexpected finale to a -harmonious day. But Mr. Taxater’s face expressed no sign of any feeling -but that of grave and gentle concern. - -With some difficulty, for the muscles of her body were twisted by -nervous spasms, the theologian supported the old woman up the stairs, -to her room under the eaves. Here he laid her upon the bed, and for the -rest of the night refused to leave her room, rubbing with his white -plump hands her thin old legs, and applying brandy to her lips at the -moments when the nervous contractions that assailed her seemed most -extreme. The delicate light of dawn showed its soft bluish pallour at -the small casemented window before the old lady fell asleep; but it -was not till relieved by a woman who appeared, several hours later, -with their morning’s milk, that the defender of the Catholic Faith in -Nevilton retired to his well-earned repose. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE PARIAHS - - -Mr. Quincunx was digging in his garden. The wind, a little stronger -than on the previous days and still blowing from the east, buffeted his -attenuated figure and ruffled his pointed beard, tinged with premature -grey. He dug up all manner of weeds, some large, some small, and -shaking them carefully free of the adhesive earth, flung them into a -wheel-barrow by his side. - -It was approaching noon, and in spite of the chilly gusts of wind, -the sun beat down hotly upon the exposed front of Dead Man’s Cottage. -Every now and then Mr. Quincunx would leave his work; and retiring -into his kitchen, proceed with elaborate nicety to stir a small pot of -broth which simmered over the fire. He was a queer mixture of epicurean -preciseness and ascetic indifference in these matters, but, on the -whole, the epicurean tendency predominated, owing to a subtle poetic -passion in the eccentric man, for the symbolic charm of all these -little necessities of life. The lighting of his fire in the morning, -the crackling of the burning sticks, and their fragrant smell, gave Mr. -Quincunx probably as much pleasure as anything else in the world. - -Every bowl of that fresh milk and brown bread, which, prepared with -meticulous care, formed his staple diet, was enjoyed by him with more -ceremonious concentration than most gourmands devote to their daintiest -meat and wine. - -The broiling of his chicken on Sunday was a function of solemn ritual. -Mr. Quincunx bent over the bird, basting it with butter, in the -absorbed manner of a priest preparing the sacrament. - -The digging up of onions or lettuces in his garden, and the stripping -them of their outer leaves, was a ceremony to be performed in no light -or casual haste, but with a prepared and concentrated spirit. - -No profane hand ever touched the little canister of tea from which Mr. -Quincunx, at the same precise hour every day, replenished his tea-pot. - -In all these material things his scrupulous and punctilious nicety -never suffered the smallest diminution. His mind might be agitated to a -point bordering upon despair, but he still, with mechanical foresight, -sawed the fagots in his wood-shed and drew the water from his well. - -As he pulled up weed after weed, on this particular morning, his mind -was in a state of extreme nervous agitation. Mr. Romer had called him -up the night before to the House, and had announced that his present -income--the sum regarded by the recluse as absolutely secure--was now -entirely to cease, and in the place of it he was destined to receive, -in return for horrible clerical work performed in Yeoborough, a -considerably smaller sum, as Mr. Romer’s paid dependent. - -The idea of working in an office was more distasteful to Mr. Quincunx -than it is possible to indicate to any person not actually acquainted -with him. His exquisitely characteristic hand, admirably adapted to -the meticulous diary he had kept for years, was entirely unsuited to -competing with type-writing machines and machine-like type-writers. The -walk to Yeoborough too,--a matter of some four or five miles--loomed -upon him as a hideous purgatory. Walking tired him much more than -working in his garden; and he had a nervous dread of those casual -encounters and salutations on the way, which the habitual use of the -same road to one’s work necessarily must imply. - -His mind anticipated with hideous minuteness every detail of his -future dreary life. He decided that even at the cost of the sacrifice -of the last of his little luxuries he would make a point of going one -way at least by train. That walk, twice a day, through the depressing -suburbs of Yeoborough was more than he could bear to contemplate. It -was characteristic of him that he never for a moment considered the -possibility of an appeal to law. Law and lawyers were for Mr. Quincunx, -with his instincts of an amiable anarchist, simply the engines through -which the rich and powerful worked their will upon the weak and -helpless. - -It was equally characteristic of him that it never entered his head to -throw up his cottage, pack his scanty possessions and seek his fortune -in another place. It was not only Lacrima that held him from such a -resolution. It was as impossible for him to think of striking out in a -new soil as it would have been for an aged frog to leave the pond of -its nativity and sally forth across the fields in search of new waters. -It was this inability to “strike out” and grapple with the world on -equal terms, that had led, in the beginning, to his curious relation to -the Romers. He clung to Susan Romer for no other reason than that she -supplied a link between his past and his present. - -His lips trembled with anger and his hand shook, as he recalled the -interview of the preceding night. The wife had annoyed him almost -more than the husband. His brutality had been gross and frank. The -lascivious joy of a strong nature, in deliberately outraging a weaker -one, had gleamed forth from his jeering eyes. - -But there had been an unction, an hypocritical sentimentality, about -Mrs. Romer’s tone, that had made him hate her the more bitterly of -the two. The fact that she also--stupid lump of fawning obesity as -she was!--was a victim of this imperial tyrant, did not in the least -assuage him. The helot who is under the lash hates the helot who -crouches by the master’s chair, more deeply than he hates the master. -It is because of this unhappy law of nature that there are so few -successful revolts among our social Pariahs. The well-constituted ruler -of men divides his serfs into those who hold the whip and those who are -whipped. Yes, he hated her the most. But how he hated them both! - -The heart of your true Pariah is a strange and dark place, concealing -depths of rancorous animosity, which those who over-ride and discount -such feelings rarely calculate upon. It is a mistake to assume that -this curious rôle--the rôle of being a Pariah upon our planet--is one -confined to the submerged, the outcast, the criminal. - -There are Pariahs in every village. It might be said that there are -Pariahs in every family. The Pariah is one who is born with an innate -inability to deal vigorously and effectively with his fellow animals. -One sees these unfortunates every day--on the street, in the office, at -the domestic hearth. One knows them by the queer look in their eyes; -the look of animals who have been crushed rather than tamed. - -It is not only that they are weaker than the rest and less effectual. -They are _different_. It is in their difference that the tragedy of -their fate lies. Commonplace weaklings, who are not born Pariahs, -have in their hearts the same standards, the same ambitions, the same -prejudices, as those who rule the world. Such weaklings venerate, -admire, and even _love_ the strong unscrupulous hands, the crafty -unscrupulous brains, who push them to and fro like pawns. - -But the Pariah does not venerate the Power that oppresses him. He -despises it and hates it. Long-accumulated loathing rankles in his -heart. He is crushed but not won. He is penned, like a shorn sheep; but -his thoughts “wander through Eternity.” - -And it is this difference, separating him from the rest, that excites -such fury in those who oppress him. The healthy-minded prosperous man -is irritated beyond endurance by this stranger within the gate--this -incorrigible, ineffectual critic, cumbering his road. The mob, too, -always ready, like spiteful, cawing rooks, to fall upon a wounded -comrade, howl remorselessly for his destruction. The Pariah is seldom -able to retain the sweetness of his natural affections. - -Buffeted by the unconscious brutality of those about him, he retorts -with conscious and unfathomable hatred. His soul festers and gangrenes -within him, and the loneliness of his place among his fellows leads him -to turn upon them all--like a rat in a gin. The pure-minded capable -man, perceiving the rancorous misanthropy of this sick spirit, longs to -trample him into the mud, to obliterate him, to forget him. But the man -whose strength and cunning is associated with lascivious perversity, -wishes to have him by his side, to humiliate, to degrade, to outrage. -A taste to be surrounded by Pariahs is an interesting peculiarity of a -certain successful class. Such companionship is to them a perpetual and -pleasing reminder of their own power. - -Mr. Quincunx was a true Pariah in his miserable combination of -inability to strike back at the people who injured him, and inability -to forget their injuries. He propitiated their tastes, bent to their -will, conciliated their pride, agreed with their opinions, and hated -them with demoniacal hatred. - -As he pulled up his weeds in the hot sun, this particular morning, -Maurice Quincunx fantastically consoled himself by imagining all -manner of disasters to his enemies. Every time he touched with his -hands the soft-crumbling earth, he uttered a kind of half-conscious -prayer that, in precisely such a way, the foundations of Nevilton House -should crumble and yield. Under his hat--for he was hypochondriacally -apprehensive about sunstrokes--flapped and waved in the wind a large -cabbage leaf, placed carefully at the back of his head to protect his -neck as he bent down. The shadow of this cabbage leaf, as it was -thrown across the dusty path, assumed singular and sinister shapes, -giving the impression sometimes that the head of Mr. Quincunx was -gnome-like or goblin-like in its proportions. - -Perhaps the most unfortunate characteristic of Pariahs is that though -they cling instinctively to one another they are irritated and provoked -by each other’s peculiarities. - -This unhappy tendency was now to receive sad confirmation in our -weed-puller’s case, for he was suddenly interrupted by the appearance -at his gate of Lacrima Traffio. - -He rose to meet her, and without inviting her to pass the entrance, for -he was extremely nervous of village gossip, and one never knew what a -casual passer-by might think, he leant over the low wall and talked -with her from that security. - -She seemed in a very depressed and pitiable mood and the large dark -eyes that fixed themselves upon her friend’s face were full of an -inarticulate appeal. - -“I cannot endure it much longer,” she said. “It gets worse and worse -every day.” - -Maurice Quincunx knew perfectly well what she meant, but the curious -irritation to which I have just referred drove him to rejoin: - -“What gets worse?” - -“Their unkindness,” answered the girl with a quick reproachful look, -“their perpetual unkindness.” - -“But they feed you well, don’t they?” said the hermit, removing his hat -and rearranging the cabbage-leaf so as to adapt it to the new angle of -the sun. “And they don’t beat you. You haven’t to scrub floors or mend -clothes. People, like you and I, must be thankful for being allowed to -eat and sleep at all on this badly-arranged earth.” - -“I keep thinking of Italy,” murmured Lacrima. “I think it is your -English ways that trouble me. I don’t believe--I can’t believe--they -always mean to be unkind. But English people are so heartless!” - -“You seemed to like that Andersen fellow well enough,” grumbled Mr. -Quincunx. - -“How can you be so silly, Maurice?” cried the girl, slipping through -the gate in spite of its owner’s furtive glances down the road. “How -can you be so silly?” - -She moved past him, up the path, and seated herself upon the edge of -the wheel-barrow. - -“You can go on with your weeding,” she said, “I can talk to you while -you work.” - -“Of course,” murmured Mr. Quincunx, making no effort to resume his -labour, “you naturally find a handsome fellow like that, a more -pleasant companion than me. I don’t blame you. I understand it very -well.” - -Lacrima impatiently took up a handful of groundsel and spurge from the -dusty heap by her side and flung them into the path. - -“You make me quite angry with you, Maurice,” she cried. “How can you -say such things after all that has happened between us?” - -“That’s the way,” jeered the man bitterly, plucking at his beard. -“That’s the way! Go on abusing me because you are not living at your -full pleasure, like a stall-fed upper-class lady!” - -“I shan’t stay with you another moment,” cried Lacrima, with tears in -her eyes, “if you are so unkind.” - -As soon as he had reduced her to this point, Mr. Quincunx -instantaneously became gentle and tender. This is one of the -profoundest laws of a Pariah’s being. He resents it when his companion -in helplessness shows a spirit beyond his own, but directly such a one -has been driven into reciprocal wretchedness, his own equanimity is -automatically regained. - -After only the briefest glance at the gate, he put his arms round the -girl and kissed her affectionately. She returned his embrace with -interest, disarranging as she did so the cabbage-leaf in his hat, and -causing it to flutter down upon the path. They leant together for a -while in silence, against the edge of the wheel-barrow, their hands -joined. - -Thus associated they would have appeared, to the dreaded passer-by, -in the light of a pair of extremely sentimental lovers, whose passion -had passed into the stage of delicious melancholia. The wind whirled -the dust in little eddies around them and the sun beat down upon their -heads. - -“You must be kind to me when I come to tell you how unhappy I am,” said -the Italian. “You are the only real friend I have in the world.” - -It is sad to have to relate that these tender words brought a certain -thrill of alarm into the heart of Mr. Quincunx. He felt a sudden -apprehension lest she might indicate that it was his duty to run away -with her, and face the world in remote regions. - -No one but a born Pariah could have endured the confiding clasp of that -little hand and the memory of so ardent a kiss without being roused to -an impetuosity of passion ready to dare anything to make her its own. - -Instead of pursuing any further the question of his friend’s troubles, -Mr. Quincunx brought the conversation round to his own. - -“The worst that could happen to me has happened,” he said, and he told -her of his interview with the Romers the day before. The girl flushed -with anger. - -“But this is abominable!” she cried, “simply abominable! You’d better -go at once and talk it over with Mrs. Seldom. Surely, surely, something -can be done! It is clear they have robbed you of your money. It is a -disgraceful thing! Santa Maria--what a country this is!” - -“It is no use,” sighed the man helplessly. “Mrs. Seldom can’t help me. -She is poor enough herself. And she will know as well as I do that in -the matter of law I am entirely in their hands. My aunt had absolute -confidence in Mr. Romer and no confidence in me. No doubt she arranged -it with them that they were to dole me out the money like a charity. -Mr. Romer did once talk about my _lending_ it to him, and his paying -interest on it, and so forth; but he managed all my aunt’s affairs, and -I don’t know what arrangement he made with her. My aunt never liked -me really. I think if she were alive now she would probably support -them in what they are doing. She would certainly say,--she always -used to say--that it would do me good to do a little honest work.” He -pronounced the words “honest work” with concentrated bitterness. - -“Probably,” he went on, “Mrs. Seldom would say the same. I know I -should be extremely unwilling to try and make her see how horrible to -me the idea of work of this kind is. She would never understand. She -would think it was only that I wanted to remain a “gentleman” and not -to lose caste. She would probably tell me that a great many gentlemen -have worked in offices before now. I daresay they have, and I hope -they enjoyed it! I know what these gentlemen-workers are, and how easy -things are made for them. They won’t be made easy for me. I can tell -you that, Lacrima!” - -The girl drew a deep sigh, and walked slowly a few paces down the path, -meditating, with her hands behind her. Presently she turned. - -“Perhaps after all,” she said, “it won’t be as bad as you fancy. I know -the head-clerk in Mr. Romer’s Yeoborough office and he is quite a nice -man--altogether different from that Lickwit.” - -Mr. Quincunx stroked his beard with a trembling hand. “Of course I knew -you’d say that, Lacrima. You are just like the rest. You women all -think, at the bottom of your hearts, that men are no good if they can’t -make money. I believe you have an idea that I ought to do what people -call ‘get on a bit in the world.’ If you think that, it only shows -how little you understand me. I have no intention of ‘getting on.’ I -_won’t_ ‘get on’! I would sooner walk into Auber Lake and end the whole -business!” - -The suddenness and injustice of this attack really did rouse the -Italian to anger. “Good-bye,” she said with a dark flash in her eyes. -“I see it’s no use talking to you when you are in this mood. You have -never, _never_ spoken to me in that tone before. Good-bye! I can open -the gate for myself, thank you.” - -She walked away from him and passed out into the lane. He stood -watching her with a queer haggard look on his face, his sorrowful grey -eyes staring in front of him, as if in the presence of an apparition. -Then, very slowly, he resumed his work, leaving however the fallen -cabbage-leaf unnoticed on the ground. - -The weeds in the wheel-barrow, the straight banked-up lines of potatoes -and lettuces, wore, as he returned to them, that curious air of forlorn -desertion which is one of nature’s bitterest commentaries upon the -folly of such scenes. - -A sickening sense of emptiness took possession of him, and in a moment -or two became unendurable. He flung a handful of weeds to the ground -and ran impetuously to the gate and out into the lane. It was too late. -A group of farm-labourers laughing and shouting, and driving before -them a herd of black pigs, blocked up the road. He could not bring -himself to pass them, thus hatless and in his shirt-sleeves. Besides, -they must have seen the girl, and they would know he was pursuing her. - -He returned slowly up the path to his house, and--to avoid being seen -by the men--entered his kitchen, and sat gloomily down upon a chair. -The clock on the mantelpiece ticked with contemptuous unconcern. The -room had that smell of mortuary dust which rooms in small houses often -acquire in the summer. He sat down once more on a chair, his hands -upon his knees, and stared vacantly in front of him. A thrush outside -the window was cracking a snail upon a stone. When the shouts of the -men died away, this was the only sound that came to him, except the -continual “tick--tick--tick--tick” of the clock, which seemed to be -occupied in driving nails into the heavy coffin-lid of every mortal joy -that time had ever brought forth. - -That same night in Nevilton House was a night of wretched hours for -Lacrima, but of hours of a wretchedness more active than that which -made the hermit of Dead Man’s Cottage pull the clothes over his head -and turn his face to the wall, long ere the twilight had vanished from -his garden. - -On leaving her friend thus abruptly, her heart full of angry revolt, -Lacrima had seen the crowd of men and animals approaching, and to -escape them had scrambled into a field on the border of the road. -Following a little path which led across it, and crossing two more -meadows, she flung herself down under the shadow of some great elms, in -a sort of grassy hollow beneath an overgrown hedge, and gave full vent -to her grief. The hollow in which she hid herself was a secluded and -lonely spot, and no sound reached her but the monotonous summer-murmur -of the flies and the rustle of the wind-troubled branches. Lying thus, -prone on her face, her broad-brimmed hat with its poppy-trimmings -thrown down at her side, and her limbs trembling with the violence of -her sobs, Lacrima seemed to insert into that alien landscape an element -of passionate feeling quite foreign to its sluggish fertility. Not -alien to the spot, however, was another human form, that at the same -hour had been led to wander among those lush meadows. - -The field behind the high bank and thick-set hedge which overshadowed -the unhappy girl, was a large and spacious one, “put up,” as country -people say, “for hay,” but as yet untouched by the mowers’ machines. -Here, in the heat of the noon, walked the acquisitive Mr. John Goring, -calculating the value of this crop of grass, and deciding upon the -appropriate date of its cutting. - -What curious irony is it, in the blind march of events, which so -frequently draws to the place of our exclusive sorrow the one -particular spectator that we would most avoid? One talks lightly -of coincidence and of chance; but who that has walked through life -observingly has not been driven to pause with sad questioning before -accidents and occurrences that seem as though some conscious malignity -in things had _arranged_ them? Are there, perhaps, actual telepathic -vibrations at work about us, drawing the hunter to his prey--the prey -to the hunter? Is the innocent object of persecution, hiding from its -persecutors, compelled by a fatal psychic law--the law of its own -terror--to call subconsciously upon the very power it is fleeing from; -to betray, against its will, the path of its own retreat? Lacrima in -any case, as she lay thus prostrate, her poppy-trimmed hat beside her, -and her brown curls flecked with spots of sun and shadow, brought into -that English landscape a strangely remote touch,--a touch of tragic -and passionate colour. A sweet bruised exile, she seemed, from another -region, flung down, among all this umbrageous rankness, to droop like -a transplanted flower. Certainly the sinister magic, whatever it -was, that had drawn Mr. Goring in that fatal direction, was a magic -compounded of the attraction of contrary elements. - -If Mr. Romer represented the occult power of the sandstone hill, his -brother-in-law was the very epitome and culmination of the valley’s -inert clay. The man breathed clay, looked clay, smelt clay, understood -clay, exploited clay, and in a literal sense _was_ clay. - -If there is any truth in the scientific formula about the “survival” -of those most “adapted” to their “environment,” Mr. Goring was sure -of a prolonged and triumphant sojourn on this mortal globe. For his -“environment” was certainly one of clay--and to clay he certainly was -most prosperously “adapted.” - -It was not long before the tragic sobs of the unhappy Lacrima, borne -across the field on the east-wind, arrested the farmer’s attention. He -stood still, and listened, snuffing the air, like a great jungle-boar. -Then with rapid but furtive steps he crossed over to where the sound -proceeded, and slipping down cautiously through a gap in the hedge, -made his way towards the secluded hollow, breathing heavily like an -animal on a trail. - -Her fit of crying having subsided, Lacrima turned round on her back, -and remained motionless, gazing up at the blue sky. Extended thus on -the ruffled grass, her little fingers nervously plucking at its roots -and her breast still heaving, the young girl offered a pitiful enough -picture to any casual intruder. Slight and fragile though she was, the -softness and charm of her figure witnessed to her Latin origin. With -her dusky curls and olive complexion, she might, but for her English -dress, have been taken for a strayed gipsy, recovering from some -passionate quarrel with her Romany lover. - -“What’s the matter, Miss Lacrima?” was the farmer’s greeting as his -gross form obtruded itself against the sky-line. - -The girl started violently, and scrambled rapidly to her feet. Mr. -Goring stepped awkwardly down the grassy slope and held out his hand. - -“Good morning,” he said without removing his hat. “I should have -thought ’twas time for you to be up at the House. ’Tis past a quarter -of one.” - -“I was just resting,” stammered the girl. “I hope I have not hurt your -grass.” She looked apprehensively down at the pathetic imprint on the -ground. - -“No, no! Missie,” said the man. “That’s nothing. ’Tis hard to cut, in a -place like this. May-be they’ll let it alone. Besides, this field ain’t -for hay. The cows will be in here tomorrow.” - -Lacrima looked at the watch on her wrist. - -“Yes, you are right,” she said. “I am late. I must be running back. -Your brother does not like our being out when he comes in to lunch.” -She picked up her hat and made as if she would pass him. But he barred -her way. - -“Not so quick, lassie, not so quick,” he said. “Those that come into -farmers’ fields must not be too proud to pass the time of day with the -farmer.” - -As he spoke he permitted his little voracious pig’s eyes to devour her -with an amorous leer. All manner of curious thoughts passed through his -head. It was only yesterday that his brother-in-law had been talking -to him of this girl. Certainly it would be extremely satisfactory to -be the complete master of that supple, shrinking figure, and of that -frightened little bosom, that rose and fell now, like the heart of a -panting hare. - -After all, she was only a sort of superior servant, and with servants -of every kind the manner of the rapacious Mr. Goring was alternately -brutal and endearing. Encouraged by the isolation of the spot and the -shrinking alarm of the girl, he advanced still nearer and laid a heavy -hand upon her shoulder. - -“Come, little wench,” he said, “I will answer for it if you’re late, up -at the House. Sit down a bit with me, and let’s make ourselves nice and -comfortable.” - -Lacrima trembled with terror. She was afraid to push him away, and try -to scramble out of the hollow, lest in doing so she should put herself -still further at his mercy. She wondered if anyone in the road would -hear if she screamed aloud. Her quick Latin brain resorted mechanically -to a diplomatic subterfuge. “What kind of field have you got over that -hedge?” she asked, with a quiver in her voice. - -“A very nice field for hay, my dear,” replied the farmer, removing his -hand from her shoulder and thinking in his heart that these foreign -girls were wonderfully easy to manage. - -“I’ll show it to you if you like. There’s a pretty little place for -people like you and me to have a chat in, up along over there.” He -pointed through the hedge to a small copse of larches that grew green -and thick at the corner of the hay-field. - -She let him give her his hand and pull her out of the hollow. Quite -passively, too, she followed him, as he sought the easiest spot through -which he might help her to surmount the difficulties of the intervening -hedge. - -When he had at last decided upon the place, “Go first, please, Mr. -Goring,” she murmured, “and then you can pull me up.” - -He turned his back upon her and began laboriously ascending the bank, -dragging himself forward by the aid of roots and ferns. It had been -easy enough to slide down this declivity. It was much less easy to -climb up. At length, however, stung by nettles and pricked by thorns, -and with earth in his mouth, he swung himself round at the top, ready -to help her to follow him. - -A vigorous oath escaped his lips. She was already a third of the way -across the field, running madly and desperately, towards the gate into -the lane. - -Mr. Goring shook his fist after her retreating figure. “All right, -Missie,” he muttered aloud, “all right! If you had been kind to the -poor farmer, he might have let you off. But now”--and he dug his stick -viciously into the earth--“There’ll be no dilly-dallying or nonsense -about this business. I’ll tell Romer I’m ready for this marriage-affair -as soon as he likes. I’ll teach you--my pretty darling!” - -That night the massive Leonian masonry of Nevilton House seemed -especially heavy and antipathetic to the child of the Apennines, as it -rose, somnolent and oppressive about her, in the hot midsummer air. - -In their spacious rooms, looking out upon the east court with its -dove-cotes and herbacious borders, the two girls were awake and -together. - -The wind had fallen, and the silence about the place was as oppressive -to Lacrima’s mind as the shadow of some colossal raven’s wing. - -The door which separated their chambers was ajar, and Gladys, her -yellow hair loose upon her shoulders, had flung herself negligently -down in a deep wicker-chair at the side of her companion’s bed. - -The luckless Pariah, her brown curls tied back from her pale forehead -by a dark ribbon, was lying supine upon her pillows with a look of -troubled terror in her wide-open eyes. One long thin arm lay upon the -coverlet, the fingers tightened upon an open book. - -At the beginning of her “visit” to Nevilton House she had clung -desperately to these precious night-hours, when the great establishment -was asleep; and she had even been so audacious as to draw the bolt of -the door which separated her from her cousin. But that wilful young -tyrant had pretended to her mother that she often “got frightened” in -the night, so orders had gone out that the offending bolt should be -removed. - -After this, Gladys had her associate quite at her mercy, and the -occasions were rare when the pleasure of being allowed to read herself -to sleep was permitted to the younger girl. - -It was curiously irritating to the yellow-haired despot to observe the -pleasure which Lacrima derived from these solitary readings. Gladys got -into the habit of chattering on, far into the night, so as to make sure -that, when she did retire, her cousin would be too weary to do anything -but fall asleep. - -As the two girls lay thus side by side, the one in her chair, and the -other in her bed, under the weight of the night’s sombre expectancy, -the contrast between them was emphasized to a fine dramatic point. The -large-winged bat that fluttered every now and then across the window -might have caught, if for a brief moment it could have been endowed -with human vision, a strange sense of the tragic power of one human -being over another, when the restriction of a common roof compels their -propinquity. - -One sometimes seeks to delude oneself in the fond belief that our -European domestic hearths are places of peace and freedom, compared -with the dark haunts of savagery in remoter lands. It is not true! The -long-evolved system that, with us, groups together, under one common -authority, beings as widely sundered as the poles, is a system that, -for all its external charm, conceals, more often than anyone could -suppose, subtle and gloomy secrets, as dark and heathen as any in those -less favoured spots. - -The nervous organization of many frail human animals is such that the -mere fact of being compelled, out of custom and usage and economic -helplessness, to live in close relation with others, is itself a tragic -purgatory. - -It is often airily assumed that the obstinate and terrible struggles -of life are encountered abroad--far from home--in desolate contention -with the elements or with enemies. It is not so! The most obstinate -and desperate struggles of all--struggles for the preservation of -one’s most sacred identity, of one’s inmost liberty of action and -feeling--take place, and have their advances and retreats, their -treacheries and their betrayals, under the hypocritical calm of the -domestic roof. Those who passionately resent any agitation, any -free thought, any legislative interference, which might cause these -fortresses of seclusion to enlarge their boundaries, forget, in their -poetic idealization of the Gods of the Hearth, that tragedies are often -enacted under that fair consecration which would dim the sinister -repute of Argos or of Thebes. The Platonic speculations which, all -through human history, have erected their fanciful protests against -these perils, may often be unscientific and ill-considered. But there -is a smouldering passion of heroic revolt behind such dreams, which it -is not always wise to overlook. - -As these two girls, the fair-haired and the dark-haired, let the -solemn burden of the night thus press unheeded upon them, they would -have needed no fantastic imagination, in an invisible observer, to be -aware of the tense vibration between them of some formidable spiritual -encounter. - -High up above the mass of Leonian stone which we have named Nevilton -House, the Milky Way trailed its mystery of far-off brightness across -the incredible gulfs. What to it was the fact that one human heart -should tremble like a captured bird in the remorseless power of another? - -It was not to this indifferent sky, stretched equally over all, that -hands could be lifted. And yet the scene between the girls must have -appeared, to such an invisible watcher, as linked to a dramatic contest -above and beyond their immediate human personalities. - -In this quiet room the “Two Mythologies” were grappling; each drawing -its strength from forces of an origin as baffling to reason as the very -immensity of those spaces above, so indifferent to both! - -The hatred that Gladys bore to Lacrima’s enjoyment of her midnight -readings was a characteristic indication of the relations between the -girls. It is always infuriating to a well-constituted nature to observe -these little pathetic devices of pleasure in a person who has no firm -grip upon life. It excites the same healthy annoyance as when one sees -some absurd animal that ought, properly speaking, not to be alive at -all, deriving ridiculous satisfaction from some fantastic movement -incredible to sound senses. - -The Pariah had, as a matter of fact, defeated her healthy-minded cousin -by using one of those sly tricks which Pariahs alone indulge in; and -had craftily acquired the habit of slipping away earlier to her room, -and snatching little oases of solitary happiness before the imperious -young woman came upstairs. It was in revenge for these evasions that -Gladys was even now announcing to her companion a new and calculated -outrage upon her slave’s peace of mind. - -Every Pariah has some especial and peculiar dread,--some nervous -mania. Lacrima had several innate terrors. The strongest of all was -a shuddering dread of the supernatural. Next to this, what she most -feared was the idea of deep cold water. Lakes, rivers, and chilly -inland streams, always rather alarmed than inspired her. The thought -of mill-ponds, as they eddied and gurgled in the darkness, often came -to her as a supreme fear, and the image of indrawn dark waters, sucked -down beneath weirs and dams, was a thing she could not contemplate -without trembling. It was no doubt the Genoese blood in her, crying -aloud for the warm blue waves of the Mediterranean and shrinking from -the chill of our English ditches, that accounted for this peculiarity. -The poor child had done her best to conceal her feeling, but Gladys, -alert as all healthy minded people are, to seize upon the silly terrors -of the ill-constituted, had not let it pass unobserved, and was now -serenely prepared to make good use of it, as a heaven-sent opportunity -for revenge. - -It must be noted, that in the centre of the north garden of Nevilton -House, surrounded by cypress-bordered lawns and encircled by a low -hedge of carefully clipped rosemary, was a deep round pond. - -This pond, built entirely of Leonian stone, lent itself to the playing -of a splendid fountain--a fountain which projected from an ornamental -island, covered with overhanging ferns. - -The fountain only played on state occasions, and the coolness and depth -of the water, combined with the fact that the pond had a stone bottom, -gave the place admirable possibilities for bathing. Gladys herself, -full of animal courage and buoyant energy, had made a custom during the -recent hot weather of rising from her bed early in the morning, before -the servants were up, and enjoying a matutinal plunge. - -She was a practised swimmer and had been lately learning to dive; -and the sensation of slipping out of the silent house, garbed in a -bathing-dress, with sandals on her feet, and an opera-cloak over her -shoulders, was thrilling to every nerve of her healthy young body. -Impervious animal as she was, she would hardly have been human if -those dew-drenched lawns and exquisite morning odours had not at -least crossed the margin of her consciousness. She had hitherto been -satisfied with a proud sense of superiority over her timid companion, -and Lacrima so far, had been undisturbed by these excursions, except -in the welcoming of her cousin on her return, dripping and laughing, -and full of whimsical stories of how she had peeped down over the -terrace-wall, and seen the milk-men, in the field below, driving in -their cattle. - -Looking about, however, in her deliberate feline way, for some method -of pleasant revenge, she had suddenly hit upon this bathing adventure -as a heaven-inspired opportunity. The thought of it when it first came -to her as she languidly sunned herself, like a great cat, on the hot -parapet of the pond, had made her positively laugh for joy. She would -compel her cousin to accompany her on these occasions! - -Lacrima was not only terrified of water, but was abnormally reluctant -and shy with regard to any risk of being observed in strange or unusual -garments. - -Gladys had stretched herself out on the Leonian margin of the pond with -a thrilling sense of delight at the prospect thus offered. She would be -able to gratify, at one and the same time, her profound need to excel -in the presence of an inferior, and her insatiable craving to outrage -that inferior’s reserve. - -The sun-warmed slabs of Leonian stone, upon which she had so often -basked in voluptuous contentment seemed dumbly to encourage and -stimulate her in this heathen design. How entirely they were the -accomplices of all that was dominant in her destiny--these yellow -blocks of stone that had so enriched her house! They answered to her -own blond beauty, to her own sluggish remorselessness. She loved their -tawny colour, their sandy texture, their enduring strength. She loved -to see them around and about her, built into walls, courts, terraces -and roofs. They gave support and weight to all her pretensions. - -Thus it had been with an almost mystical thrill of exultation that she -had felt the warmth of the Leonian slabs caress her limbs, as this new -and exciting scheme passed through her mind. - -And now, luxuriously seated in her low chair by her friend’s side she -was beginning to taste the reward of her inspiration. - -“Yes,” she said, crossing her hands negligently over her knees, “it is -so dull bathing alone. I really think you’ll have to do it with me, -dear! You’ll like it all right when once you begin. It is only the -effort of starting. The water isn’t so very cold, and where the sun -warms the parapet it is lovely.” - -“I can’t, Gladys,” pleaded the other, from her bed, “I can’t--I can’t!” - -“Nonsense, child. Don’t be so silly! I tell you, you’ll enjoy it. -Besides, there’s nothing like bathing to keep one healthy. Mother was -only saying last night to father how much she wished you would begin -it.” - -Lacrima’s fingers let her book slip through them. It slid down -unnoticed upon the floor and lay open there. - -She sat up and faced her cousin. - -“Gladys,” she said, with grave intensity, “if you make your mother -insist on my doing this, you are more wicked than I ever dreamed you -would be.” - -Gladys regarded her with indolent interest. - -“It’s only at first the water feels cold,” she said. “You get used to -it, after the first dip. I always race round the lawn afterwards, to -get warm. What’s the matter now, baby?” - -These final words were due to the fact that the Pariah had suddenly put -up her hands to her face and was shaking with sobs. Gladys rose and -bent over her. “Silly child,” she said, “must I kiss its tears away? -Must I pet it and cosset it?” - -She pulled impatiently at the resisting fingers, and loosening them, -after a struggle, did actually go so far as to touch the girl’s cheek -with her lips. Then sinking back into her chair she resumed her -interrupted discourse. - -The taste of salt tears had not, it seemed, softened her into any -weak compliance. Really strong and healthy natures learn the art, -by degrees, of proving adamant, to the insidious cunning of these -persuasions. - -“Girls of our class,” she announced sententiously, “must set the lower -orders in England an example of hardiness. Father says it is dreadful -how effeminate the labouring people are becoming. They are afraid of -work, afraid of fresh air, afraid of cold water, afraid of discipline. -They only think of getting more to eat and drink.” - -The Pariah turned her face to the wall and lay motionless, -contemplating the cracks and crevices in the oak panelling. - -Under the same indifferent stars the other Pariah of Nevilton was also -staring hopelessly at the wall. What secrets these impassive surfaces, -near the pillows of sleepers, could reveal, if they could only speak! - -“Father says that what we all want is more physical training,” Gladys -went on. “This next winter you and I must do some practising in the -Yeoborough Gymnasium. It is our superior physical training, father -says, which enables us to hold the mob in check. Just look at these -workmen and peasants, how clumsily they slouch about!” - -Lacrima turned round at this. “Your father and his friends are -shamefully hard on their workmen. I wish they would strike again!” - -Gladys smiled complacently. The scene was really beginning to surpass -even what she had hoped. - -“Why are you such a baby, Lacrima?” she said. “Stop a moment. I will -show you the things you shall wear.” - -She glided off into her own room, and presently returned with a child’s -bathing dress. - -“Look, dear! Isn’t it lucky? I’ve had these in my wardrobe ever since -we were at Eastbourne, years and years ago. They will not be a bit too -small for you. Or if they are--it doesn’t matter. No one will see us. -And I’ll lend you my mackintosh to go out in.” - -Lacrima’s head sank back upon her pillows and she stared at her cousin -with a look of helpless terror. - -“You needn’t look so horrified, you silly little thing. There’s -nothing to be afraid of. Besides, people oughtn’t to give way to their -feelings. They ought to be brave and show spirit. It’s lucky for you -you did come to us. There’s no knowing what a cowardly little thing -you’d have grown into, if you hadn’t. Mother is quite right. It will do -you ever so much good to bathe with me. You can’t be drowned, you know. -The water isn’t out of your depth anywhere. Father says every girl in -England ought to learn to swim, so as to be able to rescue people. He -says that this is the great new idea of the Empire--that we should all -join in making the race braver and stronger. You are English now, you -know--not Italian any more. I am going to take fencing lessons soon. -Father says you never can tell what may happen, and we ought all to be -prepared.” - -Lacrima did not speak. A vision of a fierce aggressive crowd of hard, -hostile, healthy young persons, drilling, riding, shooting, fencing, -and dragging such renegades as herself remorselessly along with them, -blocked every vista of her mind. - -“I hate the Empire!” she cried at last. Gladys had subsided once -more into her chair--the little bathing-suit, symbol of our natural -supremacy, clasped fondly in her lap. - -“I know,” she said, “where you get your socialistic nonsense from. Yes, -I do! You needn’t shake your head. You get it from Maurice Quincunx.” - -“I don’t get it from anybody,” protested the Pariah; and then, in a -weak murmur, “it grows up naturally, in my heart.” - -“What is that you’re saying?” cried Gladys. “Sometimes I think you are -really not right in your mind. You mutter so. You mutter, and talk to -yourself. It irritates me more than I can say. It would irritate a -saint.” - -“I am sorry if I annoy you, cousin.” - -“Annoy me? It would take more than a little coward like you to annoy -me! But I am not going to argue about it. Father says arguing is only -fit for feeble people. He says we Romers never argue. We think, and -then we _do_. I’m going to bed. So there’s your book! I hope you’ll -enjoy it Miss Socialism!” - -She picked up the volume from the floor and flung it into her cousin’s -lap. The gesture of contempt with which she did this would admirably -have suited some Roman Drusilla tossing aside the culture of slaves. - -An hour later the door between the two rooms was hesitatingly opened, -and a white figure stole to the head of Gladys’ couch. “You’re not -asleep, dear, are you? Oh Gladys, darling! Please, please, please, -don’t make me bathe with you! You don’t know how I dread it.” - -But the daughter of the Romers vouchsafed no reply to this appeal, -beyond a drowsy “Nonsense--nonsense--let’s only pray tomorrow will be -fine.” - -The night-owls, that swept, on heavy, flapping wings, over the village, -from the tower of St. Catharine’s Church to the pinnacles of the manor, -brought no miraculous intervention from the resting-place of the -Holy-Rood. What was St. Catharine doing that she had thus deserted the -sanctuary of her name? Perhaps the Alexandrian saint found the magic -of the heathen hill too strong for her; or perhaps because of its rank -heresy, she had blotted her former shrine altogether from her tender -memory. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -IDYLLIC PLEASURES - - -Mortimer Romer could not be called a many-sided man. His dominant lust -for power filled his life so completely that he had little room for -excursions into the worlds of art or literature. He was, however, by no -means narrow or stupid in these matters. He had at least the shrewdness -to recognize the depth of their influence over other people. Indeed, -as he was so constantly occupied with this very question of influence, -with the problem of what precise motives and impulses did actually stir -and drive the average mass of humanity, it was natural that he should, -sooner or later, have to assume some kind of definite attitude towards -these things. The attitude he finally hit upon, as most harmonious -with his temperament, was that of active and genial patronage combined -with a modest denial of the possession of any personal knowledge or -taste. He recognized that an occasion might easily arise, when some -association with the æsthetic world, even of this modest and external -kind, might prove extremely useful to him. He might find it advisable -to make use of these alien forces, just as Napoleon found it necessary -to make use of religion. The fact that he himself was devoid of ideal -emotions, whether religious or æsthetic, mattered nothing. Only fools -confined their psychological interest within the narrow limits of -their subjective tastes. Humanity was influenced by these things, -and Romer was concerned with influencing humanity. Not that these -deviations into artistic by-paths carried him very far. He would invite -“cultivated” people to stay with him in his noble House--at least they -would appreciate that!--and then hand them over to the care of his -charming daughter, a method of hospitality which, it must be confessed, -seemed to meet with complete approval on the part of those concerned. -Thus the name of the owner of Leo’s Hill came to be associated, in -many artistic and literary circles, with the names of such admirable -and friendly patrons of these pursuits, as could be counted upon for -practical and efficient, if not for intellectual aid, in the contest -with an unsympathetic and materialistic world. It was not perhaps -the more struggling and less prosperous artists who found him their -friend. To most of these his attitude, though kind and attentive, was -hardly cordial. He knew too little of the questions at issue, to risk -giving his support to the Pariahs and Anarchists of Art. It was among -the well-known and the successful that Mr. Romer’s patronage was most -evident. Success was a quality he admired in every field; and while, as -has been hinted, his personal taste remained quite untouched, he was -clever enough to pick up the more fashionable catch-words of current -criticism, and to use them, when occasion served, with effective -naturalness and apparent conviction. - -Among other celebrities or semi-celebrities, across whose track he -came, while on his periodic visits to London, was a certain Ralph -Dangelis, an American artist, whose masterly and audacious work -was just then coming into vogue. True to his imperial instinct of -surrounding himself with brilliant and prosperous clients, if such they -could be called, he promptly invited the famous Westerner to come down -and stay with him in Nevilton. - -The American, who knew nothing of English country life, and was an -impassioned and desperate pursuer of all new experiences, accepted -this invitation, and appeared, among the quiet Somersetshire orchards, -like a bolt from the blue; falling into the very centre of the small -quaintly involved drama, whose acts and scenes we are now recording. -Thus plunged into a completely new circle the distinguished adventurer -very soon made himself most felicitously at home. He was of a frank and -friendly disposition; at heart an obdurate and impenetrable egoist, -but on the surface affable and kind to a quite exceptional degree. He -had spent several years in both Paris and Rome, and hence it was in -his power to adapt himself easily and naturally to European, if not to -English ways. One result of his protracted visits to foreign cities was -the faculty of casting off at pleasure his native accent--the accent -of a citizen of Toledo, Ohio. He did not always do this. Sometimes it -was his humour, especially in intercourse with ladies, to revert to -most free and fearless provincialisms, and a certain boyish gaiety in -him made him mischievously addicted to use such expressions when they -seemed least of all acceptable, but under normal conditions it would -have been difficult to gather from the tone of his language that he -was anything but an extremely well-travelled gentleman of Anglo-Saxon -birth. He speedily made a fast friend of Gladys, who found his airy -persiflage and elaborate courtesy eminently to her liking; and as the -long summer days succeeded one another and brought the visitor into -more and more familiar relation with Nevilton ways and customs, it -seemed as though his sojourn in that peaceful retreat was likely to -be indefinitely prolonged. It may be well believed that their guest’s -attraction to Gladys did not escape the notice of the girl’s parents. -Mr. Romer took the trouble to make sundry investigations as to the -status of Mr. Dangelis in his native Ohio; and it was with unmixed -satisfaction that both he and his wife received the intelligence that -he was the son and the only son of one of Toledo’s most “prominent” -citizens, a gentleman actively and effectively engaged in furthering -the progress of civilization by the manufacturing of automobiles. -Dangelis was, indeed, a prospective, if not an actual, millionaire, -and, from all that could be learned, it appeared that the prominent -citizen of Toledo handed over to his son an annual allowance equal to -the income of many crowned heads. - -The Pariah of Nevilton House--the luckless child of the -Apennines--found little to admire in this energetic wanderer. His -oratorical manner, his abrupt, aggressive courtesies, his exuberant -high spirits, the sweep and swing of his vigorous personality, the -extraordinary mixture in him of pedantry and gaiety, jarred upon her -sensitive over-strung nerves. In his boyish desire to please her, -hearing that she came from Italy, the good-natured artist would -frequently turn the conversation round to the beauty and romance of -that “garden of the world,” as he was pleased to style her home; but -the tone of these discourses increased rather than diminished Lacrima’s -obstinate reserve. He had a habit of referring to her country as if -it were a place whose inhabitants only existed, by a considerate -dispensation of Providence, to furnish a charming background for -certain invaluable relics of antiquity. These precious fragments, -according to this easy view of things, appeared to survive, together -with their appropriate guardians, solely with the object of enlarging -and inspiring the voracious “mentality” of wayfarers from London and -New York. Grateful as Lacrima was for the respite the artist brought -her from the despotism of her cousin, she could not bring herself to -regard him, so far as she herself was concerned, with anything but -extreme reserve and caution. - -One peculiarity he displayed, filled her with shy dismay. Dangelis -had a trick of staring at the people with whom he associated, as if -with a kind of quizzical analysis. He threw her into a turmoil of -wretched embarrassment by some of his glances. She was troubled and -frightened, without being able to get at the secret of her agitation. -Sometimes she fancied that he was wondering what he could make of her -as a model. The idea that anything of this kind should be expected of -her filled her with nervous dread. At other times the wild idea passed -through her brain that he was making covert overtures to her, of an -amorous character. She thought she intercepted once or twice a look -upon his face of the particular kind which always filled her with -shrinking apprehension. This illusion--if it were an illusion--was far -more alarming than any tendency he might display to pounce on her for -æsthetic purposes; for the Pariah’s association with the inhabitants -of Nevilton House had not given her a pleasing impression of human -amorousness. - -Shortly after Dangelis’ arrival, Mr. Romer found it necessary to visit -London again for a few days; and the artist was rather relieved than -otherwise by his departure. He felt freer, and more at liberty to -express his ideas, when left alone with the three women. For himself, -however varied their attitude to him might be, he found them all, in -their different ways, full of stimulating interest. With Mrs. Romer -he soon became perfectly at home; and discovered a mischievous and -profane pleasure in the process of exciting and encouraging all her -least lady-like characteristics. He would follow her into the spacious -Nevilton kitchens, where the good lady was much more at home than in -her stately drawing room; and watch with unconventional interest her -rambling domestic colloquies with Mrs. Murphy the housekeeper, Jane the -cook, and Lily the house-maid. - -The men-servants, of whom Mr. Romer kept two, always avoided, with -scrupulous refinement, these unusual gatherings. They discoursed, in -the pantry, upon their mistress’ dubious behavior, and came to the -conclusion that she was no more of a “real lady” than her visitor from -America was a “real gentleman.” - -Dangelis made some new and amazing discovery in Susan Romer’s character -every day. In all his experiences from San Francisco to New York, and -from Paris to Vienna, he had never encountered anything in the least -resembling her. - -He could never make out how deep her apparent simplicity went, nor how -ingrained and innate was her lethargic submission to circumstances. -Nothing in the woman shocked him; neither her vulgarity nor her -grossness. And as for her sly, sleepy, feline malice, he loved to -excite and provoke it, as he would have loved to have excited a -slumbering animal in a cage. He delighted in the way she wrinkled up -her eyes. He delighted in the way she smacked her lips over her food. -He loved watching her settling herself to sleep in her high-backed -Sheraton chair in the kitchen, or in her more modern lounge in the -great entrance hall. He never grew tired of asking her questions about -the various personages of Nevilton, their relation to Mr. Romer, and -Mr. Romer’s relation to them. He used to watch her sometimes, as in -drowsy sensual enjoyment she would bask in the hot sunshine on the -terrace, or drift in her slow stealthy manner about the garden-paths, -as if she were a great fascinating tame puma. He made endless sketches -of her, in his little note-books, some of them of the most fantastic, -and even Rabelaisean character. He had certainly never anticipated -just this, when he accepted the shrewd financier’s invitation to his -Elizabethan home. And if Susan Romer delighted him, Gladys Romer -absolutely bewitched him. He treated her as if she were no grown-up -young lady, but a romping and quite unscrupulous child; and the wily -Gladys, quickly perceiving how greatly he was pleased by any naive -display of youthful malice, or greed, or sensuality, or vanity, -took good care to put no rein upon herself in the expression of her -primitive emotions. - -It was with Lacrima that Ralph Dangelis found himself on ground -that was less secure, but in the genial aplomb of his all-embracing -good-fellowships, it was only by degrees that he became conscious even -of this. He found the place not only extraordinarily harmonious to his -general temper, but extremely inspiring to his imaginative work. It -only needed the securing of a few mechanical contrivances, a studio, -for instance, with a north-light, to have made his sojourn at Nevilton -one of the most prolific summers, in regard to his art, that he had -experienced since his student days in Rome. He began vaguely to wish -in the depths of his mind that it were possible for these good Romers -to bestow upon him in perpetuity some pleasant airy chamber in their -great house, so that he might not have to lose, for many summers to -come, these agreeable and scandalous gossippings with the mother and -these still more agreeable flirtations with the delicious daughter. -This bold and fantastic idea was less a fabric of airy speculation -than might have been supposed; for if the American was enchanted with -his entertainers, his entertainers, at any rate the mother and the -daughter, were extremely well pleased with him. The free sweep of his -capacious sympathy, the absence in him of any punctilious gentility, -the large and benignant atmosphere he diffused round him, and the -mixture of cynical realism with considerate chivalry, were things so -different from anything they had been accustomed to, that they both of -them would willingly have offered him a suite of apartments in the -house, if he could have accepted such an offer. - -Dangelis was particularly lucky in arriving at Nevilton at this -especial moment. An abnormally retarded spring had led to the most -delicious overlapping in the varied flora of the place. Though June had -begun, there were still many flowers lingering in the shadier spots of -the woods and ditches, which properly belonged not only to May, but to -very early May. Certain, even, of April’s progeny had not completely -faded from the late-flowering lanes. - -The artist found himself surrounded by a riotous revel of leafy -exuberance. The year’s “primal burst” had occurred, not in reluctant -spasmodic fits and starts, as is usual in our intermittent fine -weather, but in a grand universal outpouring of the earth’s sap. His -imagination answered spontaneously to this appeal, and his note-books -were speedily filled with hurried passionate sketches, made at all -hours of the long bright days, and full of suggestive charm. One -particularly lovely afternoon the American found himself wandering -slowly up the hill from the little Nevilton station, after a brief -excursion to Yeoborough in search of pigments and canvas. He was hoping -to take advantage of this auspicious stirring of his imaginative -senses, by entering upon some more important and more continuous work. -The Nevilton ladies had assured him that it would be quite impossible -to find in the little town the kind of materials he needed; and he -was returning in high spirits to assure them that he had completely -falsified their prediction. He suspected Gladys of having invented -this difficulty with a view to confining his labours to such easily -shared sketching-trips as she might accompany him upon, but though the -fascination of the romping and toying girl still retained, and had -even increased, its power over him; he was, in this case, impelled -and driven by a force stronger and more dominant than any sensual -attraction. He was in a better mood for painting than he had ever been -in his life, and nothing could interfere with his resolution to exploit -this mood to its utmost limit. With the most precious of his newly -purchased materials under his arm and the more bulky ones promised him -that same evening, Dangelis, as he drifted slowly up the sunny road -chatting amicably with such rural marketers as overtook him, felt in a -peculiarly harmonious temper. - -He had recently, in the western cities of the States, won a certain -fiercely contested notoriety in the art of portrait-painting, an art -which he had come more and more to practise according to the very -latest of those daring modern theories, which are summed up sometimes -under the not very illuminative title of Post-impressionism, and he -had, during the last few days, indulged in a natural and irresistible -wish to associate this new departure with his personal experiences at -Nevilton. - -Gossiping nonchalantly with the village-wives, as he ascended the -dusty road, by the vicarage wall, his thoughts ran swiftly over the -motley-coloured map of his past life, and the deviating track across -the world which he had been led to follow. He congratulated himself in -his heart, as he indulged in easy persiflage with his fellow-wayfarers, -upon his consistent freedom from everything that might choke or -restrain the freedom of his will. - -How fortunate, how incredibly fortunate, that he should, in weather -like this, and in so abounding a mood of creative energy, be completely -his own master, except for the need of propitiating two naive and -amusing women! He entertained himself by the thought of how little they -really knew him,--these friendly Romers--how little they sounded his -real purposes, his essential feelings! To them no doubt, he was no more -than he was to these excellent villagers,--a tall, fair, slouching, -bony figure, with a face,--if they went as far as his face,--massively -heavy and irregular, with dreamy humorous eyes and a mouth addicted to -nervous twitching. - -A clump of dandelions, obtruding their golden indifference to human -drama, into the dust of the road at his feet, mixed oddly, at that -moment, in these obscure workings of his brain, with a sort of savage -caress of self-complacent congratulation which he suddenly bestowed -on his interior self; as, beneath his pleasant chatter with his -rural companions, he thought how imperturbable, how ferocious, his -secret egoism was, and how well he concealed it under his indolent -good-nature! He had passed now the entrance to the vicarage garden, and -in the adjoining field he observed with a curious thrill of psychic -sympathy the tenacious grip with which a viciously-knotted ash-tree -held to the earth with its sturdy roots. Out-walked at last by all -the other returned travellers, Dangelis glanced without pausing down -the long Italianated avenue, at the end of which shone red, in the -afternoon sun, the mullioned windows of the great house. He preferred -to prolong his stroll, by taking the circuitous way, round by the -village. He knew the expression of that famous west front too well now, -to linger in admiration over its picturesque repose in the afternoon -sunshine. As a matter of fact a slight chill of curious antipathy -crossed his consciousness as he quickened his steps. - -Happily situated though he was, in his pleasant lodging beneath that -capacious roof, the famous edifice itself had not altogether won his -affection. The thing suggested to his wayward and prairie-nurtured -soul, a stately product rather of convention than of life. He felt -oddly conscious of it as something symbolic of what would be always -intrinsically opposed to him, of what would willingly, if it were able, -suppress him and render him helpless. - -Dangelis belonged to quite a different type of trans-Atlantic visitor, -from the kind that hover with exuberant delight over everything that -is “old” or “English” or “European.” He was essentially rather an -artist than an antiquary, rather an energetic workman than an epicurean -sentimentalist. Once out of sight of the Elizabethan pile, the curious -chill passed from his mind, and as he approached the first cottages of -the village he looked round for more reassuring tokens. Such tokens -were not lacking. They crowded in upon him, indeed, from every side. -Stopping for a moment, ere the houses actually blocked his view, and -leaning over a gate which faced westward, Dangelis looked out across -the great Somersetshire plain, to which Leo’s Hill and Nevilton -Mount serve the office of watchful sentinels. Tall, closely-clipped -elm-trees, bordering every field, gave the country on this side of -the horizon, a queer artificial look, as if it had been one huge -landscape-garden, arranged according to the arbitrary pleasure of -some fantastic artist, whose perversion it was to reduce every natural -extravagance to the meticulous rhythm of his own formal taste. - -This impression, the impression of something willed and intentional in -the very formation of Nature, gave our eccentric onlooker a caressing -and delicate pleasure, a sense as of a thing peculiarly harmonious to -his own spirit. The formality of Nevilton House depressed and chilled -him, but the formality of age-trimmed trees and hedges liberated his -imagination, as some perverse work of a Picasso or a Matisse might -have done. He wondered vaguely to himself what was the precise cause -of the psychic antipathy which rendered him so cold to the grandeur -of Elizabethan architecture, while the other features of his present -dwelling remained so attractive, and he came to the temporary solution, -as he took his arms from the top of the gate, that it was because -that particular kind of magnificence expressed the pride of a class, -rather than of an individual, whereas he himself was all for individual -self-assertion in everything--in everything! The problem was still -teasing him, when, a few minutes later, he passed the graceful tower of -St. Catharine’s church. - -This strangely organic, this curiously anonymous Gothic art--was not -this also, the suppression of the individual, in the presence of -something larger and deeper, of something that demanded the sacrifice -of mere transient personality, as the very condition of its appearance? -At all events it was less humiliating, less of an insult, to the claims -of the individual will, when the thing was done in the interest of -religion, than when it was done in the interests of a class. The -impersonality of the former, resembled the impersonality of rocks and -flowers; that of the latter, the impersonality of fashions in dress. - -“But away with them both!” muttered Dangelis to himself, as he strode -viciously down the central street of Nevilton. The American was in very -truth, and he felt he was, for all his artistic receptivity, an alien -and a foreigner in the midst of these time-worn traditions. In spite of -their beauty he knew himself profoundly opposed to them. They excited -fibres of opposition and rebellion in him, that went down to the very -depths of his nature. If, allowing full scope to our speculative -fancy--and who knows upon what occult truths these wandering thoughts -sometimes stumble?--we image the opposing “streams of tendency,” -in Nevilton village, as focussed and summed up, in the form of the -Gothic church, guarded by the consecrated Mount, and the form of the -Elizabethan house, owned by the owner of Leo’s Hill, it is clear -that this wanderer, from the shores of the Great Lakes, was equally -antagonistic to both of them. He brought into the place a certain -large and elemental indifference. To the child of the winds and storms -of the Great Lakes, as, so one might think, to the high fixed stars -themselves, this local strife of opposed mythologies must needs appear -a matter of but trifling importance. - -The American was not permitted, on this occasion, to pursue his -meditations uninterrupted to the end of his walk. Half-way down the -south drive he was overtaken by Gladys, returning from the village -post-office. “Hullo! How have you got on?” she cried. “I suppose -you’ll believe me another time? You know now, I expect, how impossible -the Yeoborough shops are!” - -“On the contrary,” said the artist smiling, “I have found them -extremely good. Perhaps I am less exacting,” he added, “than some -artists.” - -“I am exacting in everything,” said Gladys, “especially in people. That -is why I get on so well with you. You are a new experience to me.” - -Dangelis made no reply to this and they paced in silence under the tall -exotic cedars until they reached the house. - -“There’s mother!” cried the girl, pushing open the door that led into -the kitchen premises, and pulling the American unceremoniously in -after her. They found Mrs. Romer before a large oak table, set in the -mullioned window of the housekeeper’s little room. She was arranging -flowers for the evening’s dinner-table. The plump lady welcomed -Dangelis effusively and made him sit down upon a Queen Anne settle of -polished mahogany which stood in the corner of the fire-place. Gladys -remained standing, a tall softly-moulded figure, appealingly girlish in -her light muslin frock. She swayed slightly, backwards and forwards, -pouting capriciously at her mother’s naive discourse, and loosening her -belt with both her hands. - -“Why should you ever go back to America?” Mrs. Romer was saying. -“Don’t go, dear Mr. Dangelis. Stay with us here till the end of the -summer. The Red room in the south passage was getting quite damp before -you came. Please, don’t go! Gladys and I are getting so fond of you, so -used to your ways and all that. Aren’t we Gladys? Why should you go? -There are plenty of lovely bits of scenery about here. And you can have -a studio built! Yes! Why not? Couldn’t he, Gladys? The lumber-room in -the south passage--opposite where Lily sleeps--would make a splendid -place for painting in hot weather. I suppose a north light, though, -would be impossible. But some kind of glass arrangement might be made. -I must talk to Mortimer about it. I suppose you rich Americans think -nothing of calling in builders and putting up studios. I suppose you -do it everywhere. America must be full of north light. But perhaps -something of the kind could be done. I really don’t understand -architecture, but Mortimer does. Mortimer understands everything. I -daresay it wouldn’t be very expensive. It would only mean buying the -glass.” - -The admirable woman, whose large fair face and double chin had grown -quite creased and shiny with excitement, turned at last to her daughter -who had been coquettishly and dreamily staring at the smiling artist. - -“Why don’t you say something, Gladys? You don’t want Mr. Dangelis to -go, any more than I do, do you?” - -The girl moved to the table and picking up a large peony stuck it -wantonly and capriciously into her dress. “I have my confirmation -lesson tonight,” she said. “I must be at Mr. Clavering’s by six. What’s -the time now?” She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Why, it’s -nearly half-past four! I wonder where Lacrima is. Never mind! We must -have tea without her. I’m sure Mr. Dangelis is dying for tea. Let’s -have it out on the terrace.” - -“At six?” repeated Mrs. Romer. “I thought the class was always at -seven. It was given out to be seven. I heard the notice on Sunday.” - -Gladys looked smilingly at the American as she answered her mother. -“Don’t be silly, dear. You know Mr. Clavering takes me separately from -the others. The others are all village people.” - -Mrs. Romer rose from her seat with something between a sigh and a -chuckle. “I hadn’t the least idea,” she said, “that he took you -separately. You’ve been going to these classes for three weeks and -you’ve never mentioned such a thing until this moment. Well--never -mind! I expect Mr. Dangelis will not object to strolling down the drive -with you. You’d better both get ready for tea now. I’ll go and tell -somebody we want it.” - -She had no sooner departed than Gladys began flicking the American, -in playful childish sport, with a spray of early roses. He entered -willingly into the game, and a pleasant tussle ensued between them as -he sought to snatch the flowers out of her hands. She resisted but he -pushed her backwards, and held her imprisoned against the edge of the -table, teasing her as if she were a romping child of twelve. - -“So you are going to these classes alone, are you?” he said. “I see -that your English clergymen are allowed extraordinary privileges. I -expect you cause him a good deal of agitation, poor dear man, if you -flirt with him as shamelessly as you do with me. Well, go ahead! I’m -not responsible for you. In fact I’m all for spurring you on. It’ll -amuse me to see what happens. But no doubt all sorts of things have -happened already! I suppose you’ve made Mr. Clavering desperately in -love with you. I expect you persecute him unmercifully. I know you. I -know your ways.” He playfully pinched her arm. “But go on. It’ll be an -amusement to me to watch the result of all this. I like being a sort of -sympathetic onlooker, in these things. I like the idea of hiding behind -the scenes, and watching the tricks of a naughty little flirt like you, -set upon troubling the mind of a poor harmless minister.” - -The reply made by the daughter of the House to this challenge was a -simple but effective one. Like a mischievous infant caught in some -unpardonable act, she flagrantly and shamelessly put out her tongue at -him. Long afterwards, with curious feelings, Dangelis recalled this -gesture. He associated it to the end of his life with the indefinable -smell of cut flowers, with their stalks in water, and the pungency of -peony-petals. - -Tea, when it reached our friends upon the stately east terrace, proved -a gay and festive meal. The absence of the reserved and nervous -Italian, and also of the master of Nevilton, rendered all three persons -more completely and freely at their ease, than they had ever been since -the American’s first appearance. The grass was being cut at that corner -of the park, and the fresh delicious smell, full of the very sap of the -earth, poured in upon them across the sunny flower beds. The chattering -of young starlings, the cawing of young rooks, blended pleasantly with -the swish of the scythes and the laughter of the hay-makers; and from -the distant village floated softly to their ears all those vague and -characteristic sounds which accompany the close of a hot day, and the -release from labour of men and beasts. As they devoured their bread -and butter with that naive greediness which is part of the natural -atmosphere of this privileged hour in an English home, the three -friends indicated by their playful temper and gay discourse that they -each had secret reasons for self-congratulation. - -Dangelis felt an exquisite sense of new possibilities in his art, drawn -from the seduction of these surroundings and the frank animalism of -his cheerful companions. He sat between them, watching their looks and -ways, very much as Rubens or Franz Hals might have watched the rounded -bosoms and spacious gestures of two admirable burgess-women in some -country house of Holland. - -Mrs. Romer, below her garrulous chatter, nourished fantastic and -rose-colored dreams, in which inestimable piles of dollars, and -limitless rows of golden haired grand-children, played the predominant -part. Gladys, flushed and excited, gave herself up to the imagined -exercise of every sort of wanton and wilful power, with the desire for -which the flowing sap of the year’s exuberance filled her responsive -veins. - -Tea over, Dangelis suggested that he should accompany the girl to Mr. -Clavering’s door. - -“You needn’t be there for three quarters of an hour,” he said, “let’s -go across to the mill copse first, and see if there are any blue-bells -left.” - -Gladys willingly consented, and Susan Romer, remaining pensive in her -low cane chair, watched their youthful figures retreating across the -sunlit park with a sigh of profound thankfulness addressed vaguely and -obscurely to Omnipotence. This was indeed the sort of son-in-law she -craved. How much more desirable than that reserved and haughty young -Ilminster! Gladys would be, three times over, a fool if she let him -escape. - -A few minutes later the artist and his girl-friend reached the mill -spinney. He helped her over the stream and the black thorn hedge -without too much damage to her frock and he was rewarded for his -efforts by the thrill of vibrating pleasure with which she plunged her -hands among the oozy stalks of those ineffable blue flowers. - -“No wonder young Hyacinth was too beautiful to live,” he remarked. - -“Shut up,” was the young woman’s reply, as she breathlessly stretched -herself along the length of a fallen branch, and endeavoured to reach -the damp moist stalks and cool leaves with her forehead and lips. - -“How silly it is, having one’s hair done up,” she cried presently, -raising herself on her hands from her prone position, and kicking the -branch viciously with her foot. - -“You’d have liked me with my hair down, Mr. Dangelis,” she continued. -“Lying like this,” and she once more embraced the fallen bough, “it -would have got mixed up with all those blue-bells and then you _would_ -have had something to paint!” - -“Bad girl!” cried the artist playfully, switching her lightly with a -willow wand from which he had been stripping the bark. “I would have -made you do your hair up, tight round your head, years and years ago.” - -He offered her his hand and lifted her up. Once in possession of those -ardent youthful fingers, he seemed to consider himself justified in -retaining them and, as the girl made no sign of dissent, they advanced -hand in hand through the thick undergrowth. - -The place was indeed a little epitome of the season’s prolific growth. -Above and about them, elder-bushes and hazels met in entangled -profusion; while at their feet the marshy soil was covered with a mass -of moss and cool-rooted leafy plants. Golden-green burdocks grew there, -and dark dog-mercury; while mixed with aromatic water-mint and ground -ivy, crowds of sturdy red campions lifted up their rose-coloured heads. -The undergrowth was so thick, and the roots of the willows and alders -so betraying, that over and over again he had to make a path for her, -and hold back with his hand some threatening withy-switch or prickly -thorn branch, that appeared likely to invade her face or body. - -The indescribable charm of the hour, as the broken sunlight, almost -horizontal now, threw red patches, like the blood of wounded satyrs, -upon tree-trunks and mossy stumps, and made the little marsh-pools -gleam as if filled with fairy wine, found its completest expression -in the long-drawn flute-music, at the same time frivolously gay and -exquisitely sad, of the blackbird’s song. An angry cuckoo, crying its -familiar cry as it flew, flapped away from some hidden perch, just -above their heads. - -Not many more blackbird’s notes and not many more cuckoo’s cries -would that diminutive jungle hear, before the great midsummer silence -descended upon it, to be broken only by the less magical sounds of -the later season. Nothing but the auspicious accident of the extreme -lateness of the spring had given to the visitor from Ohio these -revelations of enchantment. It was one of those unequalled moments when -the earth seems to breathe out from its most secret heart perfumes and -scents that seem to belong to a more felicitous planet than our planet, -murmurs and voices adapted to more responsive ears than our ears. - -It was doubtless, so Dangelis thought, on such an evening as this, that -the first notion of the presence in such places of beings of a finer -and yet a grosser texture than man’s, first entered the imagination of -humanity. In such a spot were the earth-gods born. - -Many feathered things, besides blackbirds and cuckoos abounded in the -mill spinney. - -They had scarcely reached the opposite end of the little wood, when -with a sudden cry of excitement and a quick sinking on her knees, the -girl turned to him with a young thrush in her hand. It was big enough -to be capable of flying and, as she held it in her soft white fingers, -it struggled desperately and uttered little cries. She held it tightly -in one hand, and with the other caressed its ruffled feathers, looking -sideways at her companion, as she did so, with dreamy, half-shut, -voluptuous eyes. - -“Little darling,” she whispered. And then, with a breathless gasp -in her voice,--“Kiss its head, Mr. Dangelis. It can’t get away.” He -stooped over her as she held the bird up to him, and if in obeying her -he brushed with his lips fingers as well as feathers, the accident was -not one he could bring himself to regret. - -“It can’t get away,” she repeated, in a low soft murmur. - -The bird did, however, get away, a moment afterwards, and went -fluttering off through the brushwood, with that delicious, awkward -violence, which young thrushes share with so many other youthful things. - -In the deep ditch which they now had to cross, the artist caught sight -of a solitary half-faded primrose, the very last, perhaps, of its -delicate tribe. He showed it to Gladys, gently smoothing away, as he -did so, the heavy leaves which seemed to be overshadowing its last days -of life. - -The girl pushed him aside impetuously, and plucking the faded flower -deliberately thrust it into her mouth. - -“I love eating them,” she cried, “I used to do it when I was ever so -little and I do it still when I am alone. You’ve no idea how nice they -taste!” - -At that moment they heard the sound of the church clock striking six. - -“Quick!” cried Gladys. “Mr. Clavering will be waiting. He’ll be cross -if I’m too dreadfully late.” - -They emerged from the wood and followed the grass-grown lane, round -by the small mill-pond. Crossing the park once more, they entered the -village by the Yeoborough road. - -“What a girl!” said Dangelis to himself, in a voice of unmitigated -admiration, as he held open for her, at last, the little gate of the -old vicarage garden, and waved his good-bye. - -“What a girl! Heaven help that unfortunate Mr. Clavering! If he’s as -susceptible as most of these young Englishmen, she’ll make havoc of his -poor heart. Will he read the ‘Imitation’ with her, I wonder?” - -He strolled slowly back, the way they had come, the personality of -the insidious Gladys pressing less and less heavily upon him as his -thought reverted to his painting. He resolved that he would throw all -these recent impressions together in some large and sumptuous picture, -that should give to these modern human figures something of the ample -suggestion and noble aplomb, the secret of which seemed to have been -lost to the world with the old Flemish and Venetian masters. - -What in his soul he vaguely imaged as his task, was an attempt to -eliminate all mystic and symbolic attitudes from his works, and to -catch, in their place, if the inspiration came to him, something of the -lavish prodigality, superbly material, and yet possessed of ineffable -vistas, of the large careless evocations of nature herself. - -His imaginative purpose, as it defined itself more and more clearly -in his mind, during his solitary return through the evening light, -seemed to imply an attempted reproduction of those aspects of the human -drama, in such a place as this, which carried upon their surface the -air of things that could not happen otherwise, and which, in their -large inevitableness, over-brimmed and over-flowed all traditional -distinctions. He would have liked to have given, in this way, to the -figures of Gladys and her mother, something of the superb non-moral -“insouciance,” springing, like the movements of animals and the -fragrance of plants, out of the bosom of an earth innocent of both -introspection and renunciation, which one observes in the forms of -Attic sculpture, or in the creations of Venetian colourists. Below the -high ornamental wall of Nevilton garden he paused a moment before -entering the little postern-gate, to admire the indescribable greenness -and luxuriousness of the heavy grass devoted in this place, not to -hay-makers but to cattle. There was a sort of poetry, he humorously -told himself, even about the great black heaps of cow-dung which -alternated here with the golden clumps of drowsy buttercups. They -also,--why not?--might be brought into the kind of picture he visioned, -just as Veronese brought his mongrels and curs to the very feet of the -Saviour! - -Dangelis lifted his eyes, to where, through a gap in the leafy uplands, -the more distant hills were visible. He could make out clearly, in -the rich purple light, the long curving lines of the Corton downs, as -they melted, little by little, in a floating lake of aerial blue-grey -vapour, the exhalation of the great valley’s day-long breathing. - -He could even mark, at the end of the Corton range--and the sight of -it gave him a thrilling sense of the invincible continuity of life in -these regions--the famous tree-crested circle of Cadbury Camp, the -authentic site of the Arthurian Camelot. - -What a lodging this Nevilton was, to pass one’s days in, to work in, -and to love and dream! What enchantments were all around him! What -memories! What dumb voices! - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE MYTHOLOGY OF SACRIFICE - - -June, in Nevilton, that summer, seemed debarred by some strange -interdiction from regaining its normal dampness and rainy discomfort. - -It continued unnaturally hot and dry--so dry, that though the -hay-harvest was still in full session, the farmers were growing -seriously anxious and impatient for the long-delayed showers. It had -been, as we have already noted, an unusual season. Not only were there -so many blue-bells lingering in the shadowy places in the woods, but -among the later flowers there were curious over-lappings. - -The little milk-wort blossoms, for instance, on Leo’s Hill, were -overtaken, before they perished, by premature out-croppings of yellow -trefoil and purple thyme. - -The walnut-trees had still something left of their spring freshness, -while in the hedges along the roads, covered, all of them, with a soft -coating of thin white dust, the wild-roses and the feathery grasses -suggested the heart of the year’s prime. - -It was about eight o’clock, in the evening of a day towards the end of -the second week in this unusual month, that Mr. Hugh Clavering emerged -from the entrance of the Old Vicarage with a concentrated and brooding -expression. His heart was indeed rent and torn within him by opposite -and contrary emotions. With one portion of his sensitive nature he -was craving desperately for the next day’s interview with Gladys; -with the other portion he was making firm and drastic resolutions to -avoid it and escape from it. She was due to come to his house in the -afternoon--less than twenty-four hours’ time from this actual moment! -But the more rigorous half of his being had formed the austere plan of -sending her a note in the morning begging her to appear, along with -the other candidates, at a later hour. He had written the note and it -still remained, propped up against the little Arundel print of the -Transfiguration, on the mantelpiece of his room. - -He went up the street with bowed, absorbed head, hardly noticing -the salutations of the easy loiterers gathered outside the door of -the Goat and Boy,--the one of Nevilton’s two taverns which just at -present attracted the most custom. Passing between the tavern and -the churchyard wall, he pushed open the gate leading into the priory -farm-yard, and striding hurriedly through it began the ascent of the -grassy slope at the base of Nevilton Mount. - -The wind had sunk with the sinking of the sun, and an immense quietness -lay like a catafalque of sacred interposition on the fields and roofs -and orchards of the valley. A delicious smell of new-mown grass blent -itself with the heavy perfume of the great white blossoms of the elder -bushes--held out, like so many consecrated chalices to catch the last -drops of soft-lingering light, before it faded away. - -Hugh Clavering went over the impending situation again and again; -first from one point of view, then from another. The devil whispered -to him--if it were the devil--that he had no right to sacrifice his -spiritual influence over this disconcerting pupil, out of a mere -personal embarrassment. If he gave her her lesson along with the rest, -all that special effort he had bestowed upon her thought, her reading, -her understanding, might so easily be thrown away! She was different, -obviously different, from the simple village maids, and to put her -now, at this late hour, with the confirmation only a few weeks off, -into the common class, would be to undo the work of several months. -He could not alter his method with the others for her sake, and she -would be forced to listen to teaching which to her would be elementary -and platitudinous. He would be throwing her back in her spiritual -development. He would be forcing her to return to the mere alphabet of -theology at the moment when she had just begun to grow interested in -its subtle and beautiful literature. She would no doubt be both bored -and teased. Her nerves would be ruffled, her interest diminished, her -curiosity dulled. She would be angry, too, at being treated exactly as -were these rustic maidens--and anger was not a desirable attribute in a -gentle catechumen. - -Besides, her case was different from theirs on quite technical grounds. -She was preparing for baptism as well as confirmation, and he, as her -priest, was bound to make this, the most essential of all Christian -sacraments, the head and front of his instruction. It was hardly to -the point to say that the other girls knew quite as little of the -importance of this sacred rite as she did. His explanations of it to -them, his emphasis upon the blessing it had already been to them, -would be necessarily too simple and childish for her quicker, maturer -understanding. - -As he reached the actual beginning of the woody eminence and turned -for a moment to inhale the magical softness of the invading twilight, -it occurred to him that from a logically ecclesiastical standpoint -it was a monstrous thing that he should be serenely and coldly -debating the cutting off of his spiritual assistance from this poor -thirsty flower of the heathen desert. She was unbaptized--and to be -unbaptized, according to true doctrine, meant, with all our Christian -opportunities, a definite peril, a grave and assured peril, to her -immortal soul. Who was he that he should play with such a formidable -risk--such a risk to such a lamb of the Great Shepherd? It was quite -probable--he knew it was probable--that, angry with him for deserting -her so causelessly and unreasonably, she would refuse to go further -in the sacred business. She would say, and say justly, that since the -affair seemed of so little importance to him she would make it of -little importance to herself. Suppose he were to call in some colleague -from Yeoborough, and make over this too exciting neophyte to some other -pastor of souls--would she agree to such a casual transference? He knew -well enough that she would not. - -How unfortunate it was that the peculiar constitution of his English -Church made these things so difficult! The individual personality of -the priest mattered so much in Anglican circles! The nobler self in -him envied bitterly at that moment the stricter and yet more malleable -organization of the Mother Church. How easy it would be were he a Roman -priest. A word to his superior in office, and all would arrange itself! -It was impossible to imagine himself speaking such a word to the Right -Reverend the Bishop of Glastonbury. The mere idea of such a thing, in -our England of discreet propriety, made him smile in the midst of his -distress. - -The thought of the Roman Church brought into his mind the plausible -figure of Mr. Taxater. How that profound and subtle humanist would -chuckle over his present dilemma! He would probably regard it as a -proper and ironical punishment upon him for his heretical assumption of -this traditional office. - -Tradition! That was the thing. Tradition and organization. After all, -it was only to Hugh Clavering, as a nameless impersonal priest of God, -that this lovely outcast lamb came begging to be enfolded. He had no -right to dally with the question at all. There _was_ no question. As -the priest of Nevilton it was his clear pastoral duty to give every -possible spiritual assistance to every person in his flock. What if the -pursuit of this duty did throw temptation--intolerable temptation--in -his way? His business was not to try and escape from such a struggle; -but to face it, to wrestle with it, to overcome it! He was like a -sentinel at his post in a great war. Was he to leave his post and -retreat to the rear because the shells were bursting so thickly round -him? - -He sat down on the grass with his back to an ancient thorn-tree and -gazed upon the tower of his beloved church. Would he not be false to -that Church--false to his vows of ordination--if he were now to draw -back from the firing-line of the battle and give up the struggle by -a cowardly retreat? Even supposing the temptation were more than he -could endure--even supposing that he fell--would not God prefer his -suffering such a fall with his face to the foe, sword in hand, rather -than that he should be saved, his consecrated weapon dropped from his -fingers, in squalid ignoble flight? - -So much for the arguments whispered in his ear by the angel of -darkness! But he had lately been visited by another angel--surely not -of darkness--and he recalled the plausible reasonings of the great -champion of the papacy, as he sat in that pleasant window sipping his -wine. Why should he agitate himself so furiously over this little -matter? After all, why not enjoy the pleasure of this exquisite being’s -society? He was in no danger of doing her any harm--he knew Gladys at -least well enough by now to know that!--and what harm could she do -him? There was no harm in being attracted irresistibly to something so -surpassingly attractive! Suppose he fell really in love with her? Well! -There was no religious rule--certainly none in the church he belonged -to--against falling in love with a lovable and desirable girl. But it -was not a matter of falling in love. He knew that well enough. There -was very little of the romantic or the sentimental about the feelings -she aroused in him. It was just a simple, sensuous, amorous attraction -to a provocative and alluring daughter of Eve. Just a simple sensuous -attraction--so simple, so natural, as to be almost “innocent,” as Mr. -Taxater would put it. - -So he argued with himself; but the Tower of the Church opposite seemed -to invade the mists of these subtle reasonings with a stern emphasis of -clear-cut protest. He knew well enough that his peculiar nature was -not of the kind that might be called “sensuous” or “amorous,” but of -quite a different sort. The feelings that had lately been excited in -him were as concentrated and passionate as his feelings for the altar -he served. They were indeed a sort of temporal inversion of this sacred -ardour; or, as the cynical Mr. Quincunx in his blunt manner would have -expressed it, this sacred fire itself was only a form taken by the more -earthly flame. But a “flame” it was,--not any gentle toying with soft -sensation,--a flame, a madness, a vice, an obsession. - -In no ideal sense could he be said to be “in love” with Gladys. He -was intoxicated with her. His senses craved for her as they might -have craved for some sort of maddening drug. In his heart of hearts -he knew well that the emotion he felt was closely allied to a curious -kind of antagonism. He thought of her with little tenderness, with no -gentle, responsible consideration. Her warm insidious charm maddened -and perturbed him. It did not diffuse itself through his senses like -a tender fragrance. It provoked, disturbed, and tantalized. She -was no Rose of Sharon, to be worshipped forever. She was a Rose of -Shiraz, to be seized, pressed against his face, and flung aside! The -appeal she made to him was an appeal to what was perverse, vicious, -dangerous devastating, in his nature. To call his attraction to her -beauty “innocent”--in Mr. Taxater’s phrase--was a mere hypercritical -white-washing of the brutal fact. - -His mind, in its whirling agitation, conjured up the image of himself -as married to her, as legally and absolutely possessed of her. The -image was like fuel to his flame, but it brought no solution of the -problem. Marriage, though permitted by his church, was as directly -contrary to his own interpretation of his duty as a priest, as any -mortal sin might be. To him it would have been a mortal sin--the -betrayal of his profoundest ideal. In the perversity--if you will--of -his ecclesiastical conscience, he felt towards such a solution the -feeling a man might have if the selling of his soul were to be a thing -transacted in cold blood, rather than in the tempest of the moment. To -marry Gladys would be to summon the very sacraments of his church to -bless with a blasphemous consecration his treachery to their appeal. - -Rent and torn by all these conflicting thoughts, the poor clergyman -scrambled once more to his feet, pushed his way recklessly through -the intervening fence, and began ascending the steep side of the -pyramidal hill. As he struggled upward, through burdocks, nettles, tall -grasses, red-campion, and newly planted firs, his soul felt within -him as if it were something fleeing from an invincible pursuer. The -rank aromatic smell of torn elder-boughs and the pungent odour of -trodden ground-ivy filled his nostrils. His clothes were sprinkled with -feathery seed-dust. Closely-sticking burs clung to his legs and arms. -Outstretched branches switched his face with their leaves. His feet -stumbled over young fern-fronds, bent earthwards in their elaborate -unsheathing. - -He vaguely associated with his thoughts, as he struggled on, -certain queer purple markings which he noticed on the stalks of the -thickly-grown hemlocks, and the bind-weed, which entwined itself round -many of the slenderer tree-stems, became a symbol of the power that -assailed him. To escape--to be free! This was the burden of his soul’s -crying as he plunged forward through all these dim leafy obstructions. - -Gradually, as he drew nearer the hill’s summit, there formed in his -mind the only real sanctuary of refuge, the only genuine deliverance. -He must obey his innate conscience; and let the result be as God -willed. At all costs he must shake himself clear of this hot, sweet, -luscious bind-weed, that was choking the growth of his soul. His own -soul--that, after all, was his first care, his predominant concern. -To keep _that_, pure and undefiled, and let all else go! Confused by -the subtle arguments of the serpent, he would cling only the more -passionately to the actual figure of the God-Man, and obey his profound -command in its literal simplicity. Ecclesiastical casuistry might -say what it pleased about the danger he plunged Gladys into, in thus -neglecting her. The matter had gone deeper than casuistry, deeper, -far deeper, than points of doctrine. It had become a direct personal -struggle between his own soul and Satan; a struggle in which, as he -well knew, the only victory lay in flight. On other fields he might be -commanded by his celestial Captain to hold his post to the last; but -in the arena of this temptation, to hold the field was to desert the -field; to escape from it, to win it. - -He paused breathlessly under a clump of larches, and stretching out -his arms, seized--like Samson in the temple of Dagon--two of the -slender-growing trunks. “Let all this insidious growth of Nature,” he -thought, “all this teeming and prolific exuberance of godless life, -be thrust into oblivion, as long as the great translunar Secret be -kept inviolable!” Exhausted by the struggle within him he sank down in -the green twilight of that leafy security, and crossed his hands over -his knees. Through a gap in the foliage he could perceive the valley -below; he could even perceive the outline of the roof of Nevilton -House. But against the magic of those carved pinnacles he had found a -counter-charm. In the hushed stillness about him, he seemed conscious -of the power of all these entangled growing things as a sinister -heathen influence pulling him earthward. - -Men differ curiously from one another in this respect. To some among -them the influences of what we call Nature are in harmony with all -that is good in them, and have a soothing and mystical effect. Others -seem to disentangle themselves from every natural surrounding, and to -stand out, against the background of their own spiritual horizons, -clear-edged, opaque, and resistant. - -Clavering was entirely of this latter type. Nature to him was always -full of hidden dangers and secret perils. He found her power a -magical, not a mystical, one. He resented the spell she cast over -him. It seemed to lend itself, all too willingly, to the vicious -demons that delighted to waylay his unguarded hours. His instinctive -attitude to these enchanting natural forces was that of a mediæval -monk. Their bewitching shapes, their lovely colours, their penetrating -odours, were all permeated for him by a subtle diffusion of something -evil there; something capable of leading one’s spirit desperately, -miserably far--if one allowed it the smallest welcome. Against all -these siren-voices rumouring and whispering so treacherously around -us, against all this shifting and flitting wizardry, one defence alone -availed;--the clear-cut, absolute authority, of Him who makes the -clouds his chariot and the earth his footstool. - -As Clavering sat crouching there under his tent of larches, the spirit -of the Christ he served seemed to pass surging through him like a -passionate flood. He drew deep breaths of exquisite relief and comfort. -The problem was solved,--was indeed no problem at all; for he had -nothing to do but to obey the absolute authority, the soul-piercing -word. Who was he to question results? The same God who commanded him -to flee from temptation was able--beyond the mystery of his own divine -method--to save her who tempted him, whether baptized or unbaptized! - -He leapt to his feet, and no more like one pursued, but rather like one -pursuing, pushed his way to the summit of the Mount. The space at the -top was flat and circular; not unlike, in its smooth level surface, the -top of the mountain in that very Transfiguration picture which was now -overshadowing his letter to his enchantress. In the centre of this open -space rose the thin Thyrsus-shaped tower. He advanced to the eastern -edge of the hill and looked down over the wide-spread landscape. - -The flat elm-fringed meadows of the great mid-Somerset plain stretched -softly away, till they lost themselves in a purple mist. Never had the -formidable outline of the Leonian promontory looked more emphatic and -sinister than it looked in this deepening twilight. The sky above it -was of a pale green tint, flecked here and there by feathery streaks -of carmine. The whole sky-dome was still lit by the pallid reflection -of the dead sunset; and on the far northern horizon, where the Mendip -hills rise above the plain, a livid whitish glimmer touched the rim of -an enormous range of sombre clouds. - -The priest stood, hushed, and motionless as a statue, contemplating -this suggestive panorama. But little of its transparent beauty passed -the surface of his consciousness. He was absorbed, rapt, intent. But -the cause of his abstraction was not the diaphanous air-spaces above -him or the dark earth beneath him; it was the pouring of the waves of -divine love through his inmost being; it was his fusion with that great -Spirit of the Beyond which renders its votaries independent of space -and time. - -After long exquisite moments of this high exultation, his mind -gradually resumed its normal functioning. A cynical interpreter of this -sublime experience would doubtless have attributed the whole phenomenon -to a natural reaction of the priest, back to his habitual moral temper, -from the turbulent perturbations of the recent days. Would such a one -have found it a mere coincidence that at the moment of regaining his -natural vision the clergyman’s attention was arrested by the slow -passage of a huge white cloud towards the Leonian promontory, a cloud -that assumed, as it moved, gigantic and almost human lineaments? - -Coincidence or not, Clavering’s attention was not allowed to remain -fixed upon this interesting spectacle. It seemed as though his return -to ordinary human consciousness was destined to be attended by the -reappearance of ordinary humanity. He perceived in the great sloping -field on the eastern side of the mount the white figure of a woman, -walking alone. For the moment his heart stood still; but a second -glance reassured him. He knew that figure, even in the dying light. It -was little Vennie Seldom. Simultaneously with this discovery he was -suddenly aware that he was no longer the only frequenter of the woody -solitudes of Nevilton Hill. On a sort of terrace, about a hundred -yards below him, there suddenly moved into sight a boy and a girl, -walking closely interlinked and whispering softly. Acting mechanically, -and as if impelled by an impulse from an external power, he sank -down upon his knees and spied upon them. They too slipped into a -semi-recumbent posture, apparently upon the branches of a fallen tree, -and proceeded, in blissful unconsciousness of any spectator, to indulge -in a long and passionate embrace. From where he crouched Clavering -could actually discern these innocents’ kisses, and catch the little -pathetic murmurings of their amorous happiness. His heart beat wildly -and strangely. In his fingers he clutched great handfuls of earth. His -thoughts played him satyrish and fantastic tricks. Suddenly he leapt to -his feet and stumbled away, like an animal that has been wounded. He -encountered the Thyrsus-shaped tower--that queer fancy of eighteenth -century leisure--and beat with his hands upon its hard smooth surface. -After a second or two, however, he recovered his self-control; and to -afford some excuse to his own mind for his mad behaviour, he walked -deliberately round the edifice, looking for its entrance. This he -presently found, and stood observing it, with scowling interest, in -the growing darkness. He had recognized the lovers down there. They -were both youngsters of his parish. He made a detached mental resolve -to talk tomorrow to the girl’s mother. These flirtations during the -hay-harvest often led to trouble. - -There was just enough light left for him to remark some obscure -lettering above the little locked door of this fanciful erection. -It annoyed him that he could not read it. With trembling hand he -fumbled in his pocket--produced a match-box and lit a match. There -was no difficulty now in reading what it had been the humour of some -eighteenth century Seldom to have carved on this site of the discovery -of the Holy Rood. “Carpe Diem” he spelt out, before the flutterings -of an agitated moth extinguished the light he held. This then was the -oracle he had climbed the sacred Mount to hear! - -With quick steps, steps over which his mind seemed no longer to have -control, he returned to his point of observation. The boy and girl -had disappeared, but Vennie Seldom was still visible in her white -dress, pacing up and down the meadow. What was she doing there?--he -wondered. Did she often slip away, after the little formal dinner -with her mother, and wander at large through the evening shadows? An -unaccountable rage against her besieged his heart. He felt he should -soon begin to hate her if he watched her much longer; so, with a more -collected and calm step and a sigh that rose from the depths of his -soul he moved away to where the path descended. - -As it happened, however, the path he had to follow now, for it was too -dark to return as he had come, emerged, after many windings round the -circle of the hill, precisely into the very field, in which Vennie was -walking. He moved straight towards her. She gave a little start when -she saw him, but waited passively, in that patient drooping pose so -natural to her, till he was by her side. - -“You too,” she said, touching his hand, “feel the necessity of being -alone a little while before the day ends. I always do. Mother sometimes -protests. But it is no good. There are certain little pleasures that we -have a right to enjoy--haven’t we?” - -They moved together along the base of the hill following its circuit -in the northerly direction. Clavering felt as though, after a backward -plunge into the Inferno, he had encountered a reproachful angel of -light. He half expected her to say to him, in the crushing austerity -of Beatrice, “Lift up your chin and answer me face to face.” The -gentle power of her pure spirit over him was so persuasive that in the -after-ebb of this second turbulent reaction he could not refrain from -striking the confessional note. - -“I wish I were as good as you, Miss Seldom,” he said. “I fear the power -of evil in me goes beyond anything you could possibly conceive.” - -“There are few things I cannot conceive, Mr. Clavering,” the girl -answered, with that helpless droop of her little head that had so -winning a pathos. “We people who live such secluded lives are not as -ignorant of the great storms as you may imagine.” - -Clavering’s voice shook as he responded to this. - -“I wish I could talk quite freely to you. This convention that forbids -friends such as we are from being frank with one another, seems to me -sometimes an invention of the devil.” - -The girl lifted her head. He could not see in the darkness that had now -fallen upon them, how her mouth quivered and her cheeks grew scarlet. - -“I think I can guess at what is worrying you, my friend,” she murmured -gently. - -He trembled from head to foot with a curious shame. “You think it is -about Gladys Romer,” he burst out. “Well it is! I find her one of the -greatest difficulties I have ever had in my life.” - -“I am afraid,” said Vennie timidly, “she intends to be a difficulty to -you. It is wrong to say so, but I have always been suspicious of her -motives in this desire to enter our church.” - -“God knows what her motives are!” sighed the priest, “I only know she -makes it as hard for me as she can.” - -As soon as he had uttered these words a queer observing sense of having -been treacherous to Gladys rose in his heart. Once more he had to -suppress an emotion of hatred for the little saint by his side. - -“I know,” murmured Vennie, “I know. She tries to play upon your -good-nature. She tries to make you over-fond of her. I suppose”--she -paused for a moment--“I suppose she is like that. It is not her fault. -It is her--her character. She has a mad craving for admiration and is -ready to play it off on anybody.” - -“It makes it very difficult to help her,” said the priest evasively. - -Vennie peered anxiously at his face. “It is not as though she really -was fond of _you_,” she boldly added. “I doubt whether she is fond of -anyone. She loves troubling people’s minds and making them unhappy.” - -“Don’t mistake me, Miss Seldom,” cried Clavering. “I am not in the -least sentimental about her--it is only--only”--Vennie smoothed his -path for him. - -“It is only that she makes it impossible for you to teach her,” she -hazarded, following his lead. “I know something of that difficulty -myself. These wayward pleasure-loving people make it very hard for us -all sometimes.” - -Mr. Clavering shook his stick defiantly into the darkness, whether as -a movement directed against the powers of evil or against the powers -of good, he would himself have found it hard to say. Queer thoughts -of a humourous frivolity passed through his mind. Something in the -girl’s grave tone had an irritating effect upon him. It is always a -little annoying, even to the best of men, to feel themselves being -guided and directed by women, unless they are in love with them. -Clavering was certainly not in love with Vennie; and though in his -emotional agitation he had gone so far in confiding in her, he was by -no means unconscious of something incongruous and even ridiculous in -the situation. This queer new frivolity in him, which now peered forth -from some twisted corner of his nature, like a rat out of a hole, -found this whole interview intolerably absurd. He suddenly experienced -the sensation of being led along at Vennie’s side like a convicted -school-boy. He found himself rebelling against all women in his heart, -both good and bad, and recalling, humorously and sadly, the old sweet -scandalous attitude of contempt for the whole sex, of his irresponsible -Cambridge days. Perhaps, dimly and unconsciously, he was reacting -now, after all this interval, to the subtle influence of Mr. Taxater. -He knew perfectly well that the very idea of a man--not to speak of a -priest--confiding his amorous weaknesses to a woman, would have excited -that epicurean sage to voluble fury. Everything that was mediæval and -monkish in him rose up too, in support of this interior outburst of -Rabelaisean spleen. - -It would be interesting to know if Vennie had any inkling, as she -walked in the darkness by his side, of this new and unexpected veering -of his mood. Certainly she refrained from pressing him for any further -confessions. Perhaps with the genuine clairvoyance of a saint she -was conscious of her danger. At any rate she began speaking to him -of herself, of her difficulties with her mother and her mother’s -friends, of her desire to be of more use to Lacrima Traffio, and of the -obstacles in the way of that. - -Conversing with friendly familiarity on these less poignant topics they -arrived at last at the gates of the Priory farm and the entrance to -the church. Mr. Clavering was proceeding to escort her home, when she -suddenly stopped in the road, and said in a quick hurried whisper, “I -should dearly love to walk once round the churchyard before I go back.” - -The cheerful light from the windows of the Goat and Boy showed, as -it shone upon his face, his surprise as well as his disinclination. -The truth is, that by a subtle reversion of logic he had now reached -the idea that it was at once absurd and unkind to send that letter to -Gladys. He was trembling to tear it in pieces, and burn the pieces in -his kitchen-fire! Vennie however, did not look at his face. She looked -at the solemn tower of St. Catharine’s church. - -“Please get the key,” she said, “and let us walk once round.” - -He was compelled to obey her, and knocking at the door of the clerk’s -cottage aroused that astonished and scandalized official into throwing -the object required out of his bedroom window. Once inside the -churchyard however, the strange and mystical power of the spot brought -his mood into nearer conformity with his companion’s. - -They stopped, as everyone who visits Nevilton churchyard is induced to -stop, before the extraordinary tomb of Gideon and Naomi Andersen. The -thing had been constructed from the eccentric old carver’s own design, -and had proved one of the keenest pleasures of his last hours. - -Like the whimsical poet Donne, he had derived a sardonic and not -altogether holy delight in contemplating before his end the actual -slab of earthly consistence that was to make his bodily resurrection -so emphatically miraculous. Clavering and Vennie stood for several -minutes in mute contemplation before this strange monument. It was -composed of a huge, solid block of Leonian stone, carved at the top -into the likeness of an enormous human skull, and ornamented, below the -skull, by a deeply cut cross surrounded by a circle. This last addition -gave to the sacred symbol within it a certain heathen and ungodly -look, making it seem as though it were no cross at all, but a pagan -hieroglyph from some remote unconsecrated antiquity. The girl laid her -fragile hand on the monstrous image of death, which the gloom around -them made all the more threatening. - -“It is wonderful,” she said, “how the power of Christ can change even -the darkest objects into beauty. I like to think of Him striking His -hand straight through the clumsy half-laws of Man and Nature, and -holding out to us the promise of things far beyond all this morbid -dissolution.” - -“You are right, my friend,” answered the priest. - -“I think the world is really a dark and dreadful place,” she went -on. “I cannot help saying so. I know there are people who only see -its beauty and joy. I cannot feel like that. If it wasn’t for Him I -should be utterly miserable. I think I should go mad. There is too much -unhappiness--too much to be borne! But this strong hand of His, struck -clean down to us from outside the whole wretched confusion,--I cling -to that; and it saves me. I know there are lots of happy people, but I -cannot forget the others! I think of them in the night. I think of them -always. They are so many--so many!” - -“Dear child!” murmured the priest, his interlude of casual frivolity -melting away like mist under the flame of her conviction. - -“Do you think,” she continued, “that if we were able to hear the -weeping of all those who suffer and have suffered since the beginning -of the world, we could endure the idea of going on living? It would be -too much! The burden of those tears would darken the sun and hide the -moon. It is only His presence in the midst of us,--His presence, coming -in from outside, that makes it possible for us to endure and have -patience.” - -“Yes, He must come in from _outside_,” murmured the priest, “or He -cannot help us. He must be able to break every law and custom and rule -of nature and man. He must strike at the whole miserable entanglement -from outside it--from outside it!” - -Clavering’s voice rose almost to a shout as he uttered these last -words. He felt as though he were refuting in one tremendous cry of -passionate certainty all those “modernistic” theories with which he -loved sometimes to play. He was completely under Vennie’s influence now. - -“And we must help Him,” said the girl, “by entering into His Sacrifice. -Only by sacrifice--by the sacrifice of everything--can we enable Him to -work the miracle which He would accomplish!” - -Clavering could do nothing but echo her words. - -“The sacrifice of everything,” he whispered, and abstractedly laid -_his_ hand upon the image of death carved by the old artist. Moved -apparently by an unexpected impulse, Vennie seized, with her own, the -hand thus extended. - -“I have thought,” she cried, “of a way out of your difficulty. Give her -her lessons in the church! That will not hurt her feelings, and it will -save you. It will prevent her from distracting your mind, and it will -concentrate her attention upon your teaching. It will save you both!” - -Clavering held the little hand, thus innocently given him, tenderly and -solemnly in both of his. - -“You are right, my friend,” he said, and then, gravely and emphatically -as if repeating a vow,--“I will take her in the church. That will -settle everything.” - -Vennie seemed thrilled with spiritual joy at his acquiescence in -her happy inspiration. She walked so rapidly as they recrossed the -churchyard that he could hardly keep pace with her. She seemed to -long to escape, to the solitude of her own home, of her own room, in -order to give full vent to her feelings. He locked the gate of the -porch behind them, and put the key in his pocket. Very quickly and in -complete silence they made their way up the road to the entrance of the -Vicarage garden. - -Here they separated, with one more significant and solemn hand-clasp. -It was as if the spirit of St. Catharine herself was in the girl, so -ethereal did she look, so transported by unearthly emotion, as the gate -swung behind her. - -As for the vicar of Nevilton, he strode back impetuously to his -own house, and there, from its place beneath the print of the -transfiguration, he took the letter, and tore it into many pieces; but -he tore it with a different intention from that which, an hour before, -had ruled his brain; and the sleep which awaited him, as soon as his -head touched his pillow, was the soundest and sweetest he had known -since first he came to the village. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE MYTHOLOGY OF POWER - - -It was late in the afternoon of the day following the events just -described. Mrs. Fringe was passing in and out of Clavering’s -sitting-room making the removal of his tea an opportunity for -interminable discourse. - -“They say Eliza Wotnot’s had a bad week of it with one thing and -another. They say she be as yellow as a lemon-pip in her body, as you -might call it, and grey as ash-heaps in her old face. I never cared for -the woman myself, and I don’t gather as she was desperate liked in the -village, but a Christian’s a Christian when they be laid low in the -Lord’s pleasure, though they be as surly-tongued as Satan.” - -“I know, I know,” said the clergyman impatiently. - -“They say Mr. Taxater sits up with her night after night as if he was -a trained nurse. Why he don’t have a nurse I can’t think, ’cept it be -some papist practice. The poor gentleman will be getting woeful thin, -if this goes on. He’s not one for losing his sleep and his regular -meals.” - -“Sally Birch is doing all that for him, Mrs. Fringe,” said Clavering. -“I have seen to it myself.” - -“Sally Birch knows as much about cooking a gentleman’s meals as my -Lottie, and that’s not saying a great deal.” - -“Thank you, Mrs. Fringe, thank you,” said Clavering. “You need not move -the table.” - -“Oh, of course, ’tis Miss Gladys’ lesson-day. They say she’s given -young Mr. Ilminster the go-by, sir. ’Tis strange and wonderful how some -people be made by the holy Lord to have their whole blessed pleasure in -this world. Providence do love the ones as loves themselves, and those -that seeks what they want shall find it! I expect, between ourselves, -sir, the young lady have got someone else in her eye. They tell me some -great thundering swell from London is staying in the House.” - -“That’ll do, Mrs. Fringe, that’ll do. You can leave those flowers a -little longer.” - -“I ought to let you know, sir, that old Jimmy Pringle has gone off -wandering again. I saw Witch-Bessie at his door when I went to the shop -this morning and she told me he was talking and talking, as badly as -ever he did. Far gone, poor old sinner, Witch-Bessie said he was.” - -“He is a religious minded man, I believe, at bottom,” said the -clergyman. - -“He be stark mad, sir, if that’s what you mean! As to the rest, they -say his carryings on with that harlotry down in Yeoborough was a -disgrace to a Christian country.” - -“I know,” said Clavering, “I know, but we all have our temptations, -Mrs. Fringe.” - -“Temptations, sir?” and the sandy complexioned female snorted with -contempt. “And is those as takes no drop of liquor, and looks at no -man edge-ways, though their own lawful partner be a stiff corpse of -seven years’ burying, to be put in the same class with them as goes -rampaging with harlotries?” - -“He has repented, Mrs. Fringe, he has repented. He told me so himself -when I met him last week.” - -“Repented!” groaned the indignant woman; “he repents well who repents -when he can’t sin no more. His talk, if you ask me, sir, is more -scandalous than religious. Witch-Bessie told me she heard him say that -he had seen the Lord Himself. I am not a learned scholar like you, sir, -but I know this, that when the Lord does go about the earth he doesn’t -visit hoary old villains like Jimmy Pringle--except to tell them they -be damned.” - -“Did he really say that?” asked the clergyman, feeling a growing -interest in Mr. Pringle’s revelations. - -“Yes, sir, he did, sir! Said he met God,--those were his very words, -and indecent enough words I call them!--out along by Captain Whiffley’s -drive-gate. You should have heard Witch-Bessie tell me. He frightened -her, he did, the wicked old man! God, he said, came to him, as I might -come to you, sir, quite ordinary and familiar-like. ‘Jimmy,’ said God, -all sudden, as if he were a person passing the time of day, ‘I have -come to see you, Jimmy.’ - -“‘And who may you be, Mister?’ said the wicked old man, just as though -the Lord above were a casual decent-dressed gentleman. - -“‘I am God, Jimmy,’ said the Vision. ‘And I be come to tell ’ee how -dearly I loves ’ee, spite of Satan and all his works.’ Witch-Bessie -told me,” Mrs. Fringe continued, “how as the old man said things to -her as she never thought to hear from human lips, so dreadful they -were.” - -“And what happened then?” asked Clavering eagerly. - -“What happened then? Why God went away, he said, in a great cloud of -roaring fire, and he was left alone, all dazed-like. Did you ever hear -such a scimble-scamble story in your life, sir? And all by Captain -Whiffley’s drive-gate!” - -“Well, Mrs. Fringe,” said the clergyman, “I think we must postpone the -rest of this interesting conversation till supper-time. I have several -things I want to do.” - -“I know you have, sir, I know you have. It isn’t easy to find out from -all them books ways and means of keeping young ladies like Miss Gladys -in the path of salvation. How does she get on, sir, if I might be so -bold? I fear she don’t learn her catechism as quiet and patient as I -used to learn mine, under old Mr. Ravelin, God forgive him!” - -“Oh, I think Miss Romer is quite as good a pupil as you used to be, -Mrs. Fringe,” said Clavering, rising and gently ushering her out of the -door. - -“She’s as good as some of these new-fangled village hussies, anyway,” -retorted the irrepressible lady, turning on the threshold. “They tell -me that Lucy Vare was off again last night with that rascally Tom -Mooring. She’ll be in trouble, that young girl, before she wants to be.” - -“I know, I know,” sighed the clergyman sadly, fumbling with the door -handle. - -“You don’t know all you _ought_ to know, sir, if you’ll pardon my -boldness,” returned the woman, making a step backwards. - -“I know, because I saw them!” shouted Clavering, closing the door with -irritable violence. - -“Goodness me!” muttered Mrs. Fringe, returning to her kitchen, “if the -poor young man knew what this parish was really like, he wouldn’t talk -so freely about ‘seeing’ people!” - -Left to himself, Clavering moved uneasily round his room, taking down -first one book and then another, and looking anxiously at his shelves -as if seeking something from them more efficient than eloquent words. - -“As soon as she comes,” he said to himself, “I shall take her across to -the church.” - -He had not long to wait. The door at the end of the garden-path -clicked. Light-tripping steps followed, and Gladys Romer’s well-known -figure made itself visible through the open window. He hastened out -to meet her, hoping to forestall the hospitable Mrs. Fringe. In this, -however, he was unsuccessful. His housekeeper was already in the porch, -taking from the girl her parasol and gloves. How these little things, -these chance-thrown little things, always intervene between our good -resolutions and their accomplishment! He ought to have been ready in -his garden, on the watch for her. Surely he had not intentionally -remained in his room? No, it was the fault of Mrs. Fringe; of Mrs. -Fringe and her stories about Jimmy Pringle and God. He wished that -“a roaring cloud of fire” would rise between him and this voluptuous -temptress. But probably, priest though he was, he lacked the faith of -that ancient reprobate. He stood aside to let her enter. The words -“I think it would be better if we went over to the church,” stuck, -unuttered, to the roof of his mouth. She held out her white ungloved -hand, and then, as soon as the door was closed, began very deliberately -removing her hat. - -He stood before her smiling, that rather inept smile, which indicates -the complete paralysis of every faculty, except the faculty of -admiration. He could hardly now suggest a move to the church. He could -not trouble her to re-assume that charming hat. Besides, what reason -could he give? He did, however, give a somewhat ambiguous reason for -following out Vennie’s heroic plan on another--a different--occasion. -In the tone we use when allaying the pricks of conscience by tacitly -treating that sacred monitor as if its intelligence were of an inferior -order: “One of these days,” he said, “we must have our lesson in the -church. It would be so nice and cool there, wouldn’t it?” - -There was a scent of burning weeds in the front-room of the old -Vicarage, when master and neophyte sat down together, at the round oak -table, before the extended works of Pusey and Newman. Sombre were the -bindings of these repositories of orthodoxy, but the pleasant afternoon -sun streamed wantonly over them and illumined their gloom. - -Gladys had seated herself so that the light fell caressingly upon her -yellow hair and deepened into exquisite attractiveness the soft shadows -of her throat and neck. Her arms were sleeveless; and as she leaned -them against the table, their whiteness and roundness were enhanced by -the warm glow. - -The priest spoke in a low monotonous voice, explaining doctrines, -elucidating mysteries, and emphasizing moral lessons. He spoke of -baptism. He described the manner in which the Church had appropriated -to her own purpose so many ancient pagan customs. He showed how the -immemorial heathen usages of “immersion” and “ablution” had become, -in her hands, wonderful and suggestive symbols of the purifying power -of the nobler elements. He used words that he had come, by frequent -repetition, to know by heart. In order that he might point out to -her passages in his authors which lent themselves to the subject, he -brought his chair round to her side. - -The sound of her gentle breathing, and the terrible attraction of her -whole figure, as she leant forward, in sweet girlish attention to what -he was saying, maddened the poor priest. - -In her secret heart Gladys hardly understood a single word. The phrase -“immersion,” whenever it occurred, gave her an irresistible desire to -laugh. She could not help thinking of her favourite round pond. The -pond set her thinking of Lacrima and how amusing it was to frighten -her. But this lesson with the young clergyman was even more amusing. -She felt instinctively that it was upon herself his attention rested, -whatever mysterious words might pass his lips. - -Once, as they were leaning together over the “Development of Christian -Doctrine,” and he was enlarging upon the gradual evolution of one -sacred implication after another, she let her arm slide lightly over -the back of his hand; and a savage thrill of triumph rose in her heart, -as she felt an answering magnetic shiver run through his whole frame. - -“The worship of the Body of our Saviour,” he said--using his own words -as a shield against her--“allows no subterfuges, no reserves. It -gathers to itself, as it sweeps down the ages, every emotion, every -ardour, every passion of man. It appropriates all that is noble in -these things to its own high purpose, and it makes even of the evil in -them a means to yet more subtle good.” - -As he spoke, with an imperceptible gesture of liberation he rose from -his seat by her side and set himself to pace the room. The struggle he -was making caused his fingers to clench and re-clench themselves in -the palms of his hands, as though he were squeezing the perfume from -handfuls of scented leaves. - -The high-spirited girl knew by instinct the suffering she was causing, -but she did not yield to any ridiculous pity. She only felt the -necessity of holding him yet more firmly. So she too rose from her -chair, and, slipping softly to the window, seated herself sideways upon -its ledge. Balanced charmingly here--like some wood-nymph stolen from -the forest to tease the solitude of some luckless hermit--she stretched -one arm out of the window, and pulling towards her a delicate branch of -yellow roses, pressed it against her breast. - -The pose of her figure, as she balanced herself thus, was one of -provoking attractiveness, and with a furtive look of feline patience in -her half-shut eyes she waited while it threw its spell over him. - -The scent of burning weeds floated into the room. Clavering’s thoughts -whirled to and fro in his head like whipped chaff. “I must go on -speaking,” he thought; “and I must not look at her. If I look at her -I am lost.” He paced the room like a caged animal. His soul cried out -within him to be liberated from the body of this death. He thought of -the strange tombstone of Gideon Andersen, and wished he too were buried -under it, and free forever! - -“Yet is it not my duty to look at her?” the devil in his heart -whispered. “How can I teach her, how can I influence her for good, if -I do not see the effect of my words? Is it not an insult to the Master -Himself, and His Divine power, to be thus cowardly and afraid?” - -His steps faltered and he leant against the table. - -“Christ,” he found his lips repeating, “is the explanation of all -mysteries. He is the secret root of all natural impulses in us. All -emerge from Him and all return to Him. He is to us what their ancient -god Pan was to the Greeks. He is in a true sense our _All_--for in -him is all we are, all we have, and all we hope. All our passions -are His. Touched by Him, their true originator, they lose their -dross, are purged of their evil, and give forth sweet-smelling, -sweet-breathing--yellow roses!” - -He had not intended to say “yellow roses.” The sentence had rounded -itself off so, apart from his conscious will. - -The girl gravely indicated that she heard him; and then smiled -dreamily, acquiescingly--the sort of smile that yields to a spiritual -idea, as if it were a physical caress. - -The scent of burning weeds continued to float in through the window. -“Oh, it has gone!” she cried suddenly, as, released from her fingers, -the branch swung back to its place against the sandstone wall. - -“I must have it again,” she added, bending her supple body backwards. -She made one or two ineffectual efforts and then gave up, panting. “I -can’t reach it,” she said. “But go on, Mr. Clavering. I can listen to -you like this. It is so nice out here.” - -Strange unfathomable thoughts surged up in the depths of Clavering’s -soul. He found himself wishing that he had authority over her, that -he might tame her wilful spirit, and lay her under the yoke of some -austere penance. Why was she free to provoke him thus, with her -merciless fragility? The madness she was arousing grew steadily upon -him. He stumbled awkwardly round the edge of the table and approached -her. The scent of burning weeds became yet more emphatic. To make his -nearness to her less obvious, and out of a queer mechanical instinct to -allay his own conscience, he continued his spiritual admonitions, even -when he was quite close--even when he could have touched her with his -hand. And it would be so easy to touch her! The playful perilousness of -her position in the window made such a movement natural, justifiable, -almost conventional. - -“The true doctrine of the Incarnation,” his lips repeated, “is not that -something contrary to nature has happened; it is that the innermost -secret of Nature has been revealed. And this secret,”--here his fingers -closed feverishly on the casement-latch--“is identical with the force -that swings the furthest star, and drives the sap through the veins of -all living things.” - -It would have been of considerable interest to a student of religious -psychology--like Mr. Taxater for example--to observe how the phrases -that mechanically passed Clavering’s lips at this juncture were all -phrases drawn from the works of rationalistic modernists. He had -recently been reading the charming and subtle essays of Father Mervyn; -and the soft and melodious harmonies of that clever theologian’s -thought had accumulated in some hidden corner of his brain. The -authentic religious emotion in him being superseded by a more powerful -impulse, his mind mechanically reverted to the large, dim regions of -mystical speculation. A certain instinct in him--the instinct of his -clamorous senses--made him careful to blur, confuse, and keep far -back, that lovely and terrible “Power from Outside,” the hem of Whose -garments he had clung to, the night before. “Christ,” he went on, “is, -as it were, the centre and pivot of the whole universe, and every -revelation granted to us of His nature is a revelation from the system -of things itself. I want you to understand that our true attitude -towards this great mystery, ought to be the attitude of scientific -explorers, who in searching for hidden causes have come upon the one, -the unique Cause.” - -The girl’s only indication that she embraced the significance of these -solemn words was to make a sudden gliding serpentine movement which -brought her into a position more easy to be retained, and yet one that -made it still more unnatural that he should refuse her some kind of -playful and affectionate support. - -The poor priest’s heart beat tumultuously. He began to lose all -consciousness of everything except his propinquity to his provoker. -He was aware with appalling distinctness of the precise texture of -the light frock that she wore. It was of a soft fawn colour, crossed -by wavy lines of a darker tint. He watched the way these wavy lines -followed the curves of her figure. They began at her side, and ended -where her skirt hung loose over her little swinging ankles. He -wished these lines had sloped upwards, instead of downwards; then it -would have been so much easier for him to follow the argument of the -“Development of Christian Doctrine.” - -Still that scent of burning weeds! Why must his neighbours set fire to -their rubbish, on this particular afternoon? - -With a fierce mental effort he tried to suppress the thought that -those voluptuous lips only waited for him to overcome his ridiculous -scruples. Why must she wait like this so pitilessly passive, laying all -the burden of the struggle upon him? If she would only make a little--a -very little--movement, his conscience would be able to recover its -equilibrium, whatever happened. He tried to unmagnetize her attraction, -by visualizing the fact that under this desirable form--so near his -touch--lurked nothing but that bleak, bare, last outline of mortality, -to which all flesh must come. He tried to see her forehead, her closed -eyes, her parted lips, as they would look if resting in a coffin. Like -his monkish predecessors in the world-old struggle against Satan, he -sought to save himself by clutching fast to the grinning skull. - -All this while his lips went on repeating their liturgical formula. -“We must learn to look upon the Redemption, as a natural, not a -supernatural fact. We must learn to see in it the motive-force of the -whole stream of evolution. We must remember that things _are_ what -they have it in them to _become_. It is the purpose, the end, which is -the true truth--not the process or the method. Christ is the end of -all things. He is therefore the beginning of all things. All things -find their meaning, their place, their explanation, only in relation -to Him. He is the reality of the illusion which we call Nature, and -of the illusion which we call Life. In Him the universe becomes real -and living--which else were a mere engine of destruction.” How much -longer he would have continued in this strain--conquered yet still -resisting--it were impossible to say. All these noble words, into the -rhythm of which so much passionate modern thought had been poured, fell -from his lips like sand out of a sieve. - -The girl herself interrupted him. With a quick movement she suddenly -jerked herself from her recumbent position; jumped, without his help, -lightly down upon the floor, and resumed her former place at the table. -The explanation of this virtuous retreat soon made itself known in -the person of a visitor advancing up the garden. Clavering, who had -stumbled foolishly aside as she changed her place, now opened the door -and went to meet the new-comer. - -It was Romer’s manager, Mr. Thomas Lickwit, discreet, obsequious, -fawning, as ever,--but with a covert malignity in his hurried words. -“Sorry to disturb you, sir. I see it is Miss Gladys’ lesson. I hope the -young lady is getting on nicely, sir. I won’t detain you for more than -a moment. I have just a little matter that couldn’t wait. Business is -business, you know.” - -Clavering felt as though he had heard this last observation repeated -“ad nauseam” by all the disgusting sycophants in all the sensational -novels he had ever read. It occurred to him how closely Mr. Lickwit -really did resemble all these monotonously unpleasant people. - -“Yes,” went on the amiable man, “business is business--even with -reverend gentlemen like yourself who have better things to attend to.” -Clavering forced himself to smile in genial appreciation of this airy -wit, and beckoned the manager into his study. He then returned to the -front room. “I am afraid our lesson must end for tonight, Miss Romer,” -he said. “You know enough of this lieutenant of your father’s to guess -that he will not be easy to get rid of. The worst of a parson’s life -are these interruptions.” - -There was no smile upon his face as he said this, but the girl laughed -merrily. She adjusted her hat with a deliciously coquettish glance at -him through the permissible medium of the gilt-framed mirror. Then she -turned and held out her hand. “Till next week, then, Mr. Clavering. -And I will read all those books you sent up for me--even the great big -black one!” - -He gravely opened the door for her, and with a sigh from a heart -“sorely charged,” returned to face Mr. Lickwit. - -He found that gentleman comfortably ensconced in the only arm-chair. -“It is like this, sir,” said the man, when Clavering had taken a seat -opposite him. “Mr. Romer thinks it would be a good thing if this -Social Meeting were put a stop to. There has been talk, sir. I will -not conceal it from you. There has been talk. The people say that you -have allied yourself with that troublesome agitator. You know the man I -refer to, sir, that wretched Wone. - -“Mr. Romer doesn’t approve of what he hears of these meetings. He -doesn’t see as how they serve any good purpose. He thinks they promote -discord in the place, and set one class against another. He does not -like the way, neither, that Mr. Quincunx has been going on down there; -nor to say the truth, sir, do _I_ like that gentleman’s doings very -well. He speaks too free, does Mr. Quincunx, much too free, considering -how he is situated as you might say.” - -Clavering leapt to his feet, trembling with anger. “I cannot understand -this,” he said, “Someone has been misleading Mr. Romer. The Social -Meeting is an old institution of this village; and though it is not -exactly a church affair, I believe it is almost entirely frequented by -church-goers. I have always felt that it served an invaluable purpose -in this place. It is indeed the only occasion when priest and people -can meet on equal terms and discuss these great questions man to man. -No--no, Lickwit, I cannot for a moment consent to the closing of the -Social Meeting. It would undo the work of years. It would be utterly -unwise. In fact it would be wrong. I cannot think how you can come to -me with such a proposal.” - -Mr. Lickwit made no movement beyond causing his hat to twirl round on -the top of the stick he held between his knees. - -“You will think better of it, sir. You will think better of it,” he -said. “The election is coming on, and Mr. Romer expects all supporters -of Church and State to help him in his campaign. You have heard he is -standing, sir, I suppose?” - -Mr. Lickwit uttered the word “standing” in a tone which suggested to -Clavering’s mind a grotesque image of the British Constitution resting -like an enormous cornucopia on the head of the owner of Leo’s Hill. He -nodded and resumed his seat. The manager continued. “That old Methodist -chapel where those meetings are held, belongs, as you know, to Mr. -Romer. He is thinking of having it pulled down--not only because of -Wone’s and Quincunx’s goings on there, but because he wants the ground. -He’s thinking of building an estate-office on that corner. We are -pressed for room, up at the Hill, sir.” - -Once more Clavering rose to his feet. “This is too much!” he cried. “I -wonder you have the impertinence to come here and tell me such things. -I am not to be bullied, Lickwit. Understand that! I am not to be -bullied.” - -“Then I may tell the master,” said the man sneeringly, rising in his -turn and making for the door, “that Mr. Parson won’t have nothing to do -with our little plan?” - -“You may tell him what you please, Lickwit. I shall go over myself at -once to the House and see Mr. Romer.” He glanced at his watch. “It is -not seven yet, and I know he does not dine till eight.” - -“By all means, sir, by all means! He’ll be extremely glad to see you. -You couldn’t do better, sir. You’ll excuse me if I don’t walk up with -you. I have to run across and speak to Mr. Goring.” - -He bowed himself out and hurried off. Clavering seized his hat and -followed him, turning, however, when once in the street, in the -direction of the south drive. It took him scarcely a couple of minutes -to reach the village square where the drive emerged. In the centre -of the square stood a solid erection of Leonian stone adapted to the -double purpose of a horse-trough and a drinking fountain. Here the -girls came to draw water, and here the lads came to chat and flirt -with the girls. Mr. Clavering could not help pausing in his determined -march to watch a group of young people engaged in animated and laughing -frivolity at this spot. It was a man and two girls. He recognized the -man at once by his slight figure and lively gestures. It was Luke -Andersen. “That fellow has a bad influence in this place,” he said to -himself. “He takes advantage of his superior education to unsettle -these children’s minds. I must stop this.” He moved slowly towards -the fountain. Luke Andersen looked indeed as reckless and engaging -as a young faun out of a heathen story. He was making a cup of his -two hands and whimsically holding up the water to the lips of the -younger of his companions, while the other one giggled and fluttered -round them. Had the priest been in a poetic humour at that moment, -he might have been reminded of those queer mediæval legends of the -wanderings of the old dispossessed divinities. The young stone-carver, -with his classic profile and fair curly hair, might have passed for -a disguised Dionysus seducing to his perilous service the women of -some rustic Thessalian hamlet. No pleasing image of this kind crossed -Hugh Clavering’s vision. All he saw, as he approached the fountain, -was another youthful incarnation of the dangerous Power he had been -wrestling with all the afternoon. He advanced towards the engaging -Luke, much as Christian might have advanced towards Apollyon. “Good -evening, Andersen,” he said, with a certain professional severity. -“Using the fountain, I see? We must be careful, though, not to waste -the water this hot summer.” - -The girl who was drinking rose up with a little start, and stood -blushing and embarrassed. Luke appeared entirely at his ease. He leant -negligently against the edge of the stone trough, and pushed his hat -to the back of his head. In this particular pose he resembled to an -extraordinary degree the famous Capitolian statue. - -“It is hardly wasting the water, Mr. Clavering,” he said with a smile, -“offering it to a beautiful mouth. Why don’t you curtsey to Mr. -Clavering, Annie? I thought all you girls curtsied when clergymen spoke -to you.” - -The priest frowned. The audacious aplomb of the young man unnerved and -disconcerted him. - -“Water in a stone fountain like this,” went on the shameless youth, -“has a peculiar charm these hot evenings. It makes you almost fancy you -are in Seville. Seville is a place in Spain, Annie. Mr. Clavering will -tell you all about it.” - -“I think Annie had better run in to her mother now,” said the priest -severely. - -“Oh, that’s all right,” replied the youth with unruffled urbanity. “Her -mother has gone shopping in Yeoborough and I have to see that Annie -behaves properly till she comes back.” - -Clavering looked reproachfully at the girl. Something about him--his -very inability perhaps to cope with this seductive Dionysus--struck -her simple intelligence as pathetic. She made a movement as if to join -her companion, who remained roguishly giggling a few paces off. But -Luke boldly restrained her. Putting his hand on her shoulder he said -laughingly to the priest, “She will be a heart-breaker one of these -days, Mr. Clavering, will our Annie here! You wouldn’t think she was -eighteen, would you, sir?” - -Under other circumstances the young clergyman would have unhesitatingly -commanded the girl to go home. But his recent experiences had loosened -the fibre of his moral courage. Besides, what was there to prevent this -incorrigible young man from walking off after her? One could hardly--at -least in Protestant England--make one’s flock moral by sheer force. - -“Well--good-night to you all,” he said, and moved away, thinking to -himself that at any rate there was safety in publicity. “But what a -dangerous person that Andersen is! One never knows how to deal with -these half-and-half people. If he were a village-boy it would be -different. And it would be different if he were a gentleman. But he is -neither one thing or the other. Seville! Who would have thought to have -heard Seville referred to, in the middle of Nevilton Square?” - -He reached the carved entrance of the House with its deeply-cut -armorial bearings--the Seldom falcon with the arrow in its beak. “No -more will _that_ bird fly,” he thought, as he waited for the door to -open. - -He was ushered into the spacious entrance hall, the usual place of -reception for Mr. Romer’s less favoured guests. The quarry-owner was -alone. He shook hands affably with his visitor and motioned him to a -seat. - -“I have come about that question of the Social Meeting--” he began. - -Mr. Romer cut him short. “It is no longer a question,” he said. “It is -a ‘fait accompli.’ I have given orders to have the place pulled down -next week. I want the space for building purposes.” - -Clavering turned white with anger. “We shall have to find another room -then,” he said. “I cannot have those meetings dropping out from our -village life. They keep the thoughtful people together as nothing else -can.” - -Mr. Romer smiled grimly. “You will find it difficult to discover -another place,” he remarked. - -“Then I shall have them in my own house,” said the vicar of Nevilton. - -Mr. Romer crossed his hands and threw back his head; looking, with the -air of one who watches the development of precisely foreseen events, -straight into the sad eyes of the little Royal Servant on the wall. - -“Pardon such a question, my friend,” said he, “but may I ask you what -your personal income is, at this moment?” - -“You know that well enough,” returned the other. “I have nothing beyond -the hundred and fifty pounds I receive as vicar of this place.” - -“And what,” pursued the Quarry-owner, “may your expenditure amount to?” - -“That, also, you know well,” replied Clavering. “I give away about -eighty pounds, every year, to the poor of this village.” - -“And where does this eighty pounds come from?” went on the Squire. The -priest was silent. - -“I will tell you where it comes from,” pronounced the other. “It comes -from me. It is my contribution, out of the tithes which I receive as -lay-rector. And it is the larger part of them.” - -The priest was still silent. - -“When I first came here,” his interlocutor continued, “I gave up these -tithes as an offering to our village necessities; and I have not yet -withdrawn them. If this Social Meeting, Mr. Clavering, is not brought -to an end, I shall withdraw them. And no one will be able to blame me.” - -Hugh jumped up on his feet with a gesture of fury. “I call this,” he -shouted, “nothing short of sacrilege! Yes, sacrilege and tyranny! I -shall proclaim it abroad. I shall write to the papers. I shall appeal -to the bishop--to the country!” - -“As you please,” said Mr. Romer quietly, “as you please. I should -only like to point out that any action of this kind will tie up my -purse-strings forever. You will not be popular with your flock, my -friend. I know something of our dear Nevilton people; and I shall have -only to make it plain to them that it is their vicar who has reduced -this charity; and you will not find yourself greatly loved!” - -Clavering fell back into his chair with a groan. He knew too well the -truth of the man’s words. He knew also the straits into which this lack -of money would plunge half his benevolent activities in the parish. He -hung his head gloomily and stared at the floor. What would he not have -given, at that moment, to have been able to meet this despot, man to -man, unencumbered by his duty to his people! - -“Let me assure you, my dear sir,” said Mr. Romer quietly, “that you -are not by any means fighting the cause of your church, in supporting -this wretched Meeting. If I were bidding you interrupt your services or -your sacraments, it would be another matter. This Social Meeting has -strong anti-clerical prejudices. You know that, as well as I. It is -conducted entirely on nonconformist lines. I happen to be aware,” he -added, “since you talk of appealing to the bishop, that the good man -has already, on more than one occasion, protested vigorously against -the association of his clergy with this kind of organization. I do not -know whether you ever glance at that excellent paper the Guardian; but -if so you will find, in this last week’s issue, a very interesting -case, quite parallel to ours, in which the bishop’s sympathies were by -no means on the side you are advocating.” - -The young priest rose and bowed. “There is, at any rate, no necessity -for me to trouble you any further,” he said. “So I will bid you -good-night.” - -He left the hall hastily, picked up his hat, and let himself out, -before his host had time to reply. All the way down the drive his -thoughts reverted to the seductive wiles of this despot’s daughter. -“The saints are deserting me,” he thought, “by reason of my sin.” - -He was not, even then, destined to escape his temptress. Gladys, who -doubtless had been expecting this sudden retreat, emerged from the -shadow of the trees and intercepted him. “I will walk to the gate -with you,” she said. The power of feminine attraction is never more -insidious than at the moment of bitter remorse. The mind reverts so -easily, so willingly, then, back to the dangerous way. The mere fact of -its having lost its pride of resistance, its vanity of virtue, makes it -yield to a new assault with terrible facility. She drew him into the -dusky twilight of the scented exotic cedars which bordered the way, on -the excuse of inhaling their fragrance more closely. - -She made him pull down a great perfumed cypress-bough, of some unusual -species, so that they might press their faces against it. They stood -so closely together that she could feel through her thin evening-gown -the furious trembling that seized him. She knew that he had completely -lost his self-control, and was quite at her mercy. But Gladys had not -the least intention of yielding herself to the emotion she had excited. -What she intended was that he should desire her to desperation, not -that, by the least touch, his desire should be gratified. In another -half-second, as she well knew, the poor priest would have seized her in -his arms. In place of permitting this, what she did was to imprint a -fleeting kiss with her warm lips upon the back of his hand, and then to -leap out of danger with a ringing laugh. “Good-bye!” she called back -at him, as she ran off. “I’ll come in good time next week.” - -It may be imagined in what a turbulence of miserable feelings Hugh -Clavering repassed the village square. He glanced quickly at the -fountain. Yes! Luke Andersen was still loitering in the same place, and -the little bursts of suppressed screams and laughter, and the little -fluttering struggles, of the group around him, indicated that he was -still, in his manner, corrupting the maidens of Nevilton. The priest -longed to put his hands to his ears and run down the street, even as -Christian ran from the city of Destruction. What was this power--this -invincible, all-pervasive power--against which he had committed himself -to contend? He felt as though he were trying, with his poor human -strength, to hold back the sea-tide, so that it should not cover the -sands. - -Could it be that, after all, the whole theory of the church was wrong, -and that the great Life-Force was against her, and punishing her, for -seeking, with her vain superstitions, to alter the stars in their -courses? - -Could it be that this fierce pleasure-lust, which he felt so fatally -in Gladys, and saw in Luke, and was seduced by in his own veins, was -after all the true secret of Nature, and, to contend against it, -madness and impossible folly? Was he, and not they, the really morbid -and infatuated one--morbid with the arbitrary pride of a desperate -tradition of perverted heroic souls? He moved along the pavement under -the church wall and looked up at its grand immovable tower. “Are you, -too,” he thought, “but the symbol of an insane caprice in the mad -human race, seeking, in fond recklessness, to alter the basic laws of -the great World?” - -The casuistical philosophy of Mr. Taxater returned to his mind. What -would the papal apologist say to him now, thus torn and tugged at by -all the forces of hell? He felt a curious doubt in his heart as to -the side on which, in this mad struggle, the astute theologian really -stood. Perhaps, for all his learning, the man was no more Christian in -his true soul, than had been many of those historic popes whose office -he defended. In his desperate mood Clavering longed to get as near as -possible to the altar of this God of his, who thus bade him confront -the whole power of nature and all the wisdom of the world. He looked up -and down the street. Two men were talking outside The Goat and Boy, but -their backs were turned. With a quick sudden movement he put his hands -on the top of the wall and scrambled hastily over, scraping his shins -as he did so on a sharp stone at the top. He moved rapidly to the place -where rose the strange tombstone designed by the atheist carver. It was -here that Vennie and he had entered into their heroic covenant only -twenty-four hours before. He looked at the enormous skull so powerfully -carved and at the encircled cross beneath it. He laid his hand upon the -skull, precisely as he had done the night before; only this time there -were no little cold fingers to instil pure devotion into him. Instead -of the touch of such fingers he felt the burning contact of Gladys’ -soft lips. - -No! it was an impossible task that his God had laid upon him. Why not -give up the struggle? Why not throw over this mad idol of purity he -had raised for his worship, and yield himself to the great stream? The -blood rushed to his head with the alluring images that this thought -evoked. Perhaps, after all, Gladys would marry him, and then--why, -then, he could revert to the humourous wisdom of Mr. Taxater, and -cultivate the sweet mystical speculations of modernism; reconciling, -pleasantly and easily, the natural pleasures of the senses, with the -natural exigencies of the soul! - -He left Gideon’s grave and walked back to the church-porch. It was now -nearly dark and without fear of being observed by any one through the -iron bars of the outer gate, he entered the porch and stood before the -closed door. He wished he had brought the key with him. How he longed, -at that moment, to fling himself down before the altar and cry aloud to -his God! - -By his side stood the wheeled parish bier, ornamented by a gilt -inscription, informing the casual intruder that it had been presented -to the place in honour of the accession of King George the Fifth. There -was not light enough to read these touching words, but the gilt plate -containing them gave forth a faint scintillating glimmer. - -Worn out by the day-long struggle in his heart, Clavering sat down -upon this grim “memento mori”; and then, after a minute or two, -finding that position uncomfortable, deliberately stretched himself -out at full length upon the thing’s bare surface. Lying here, with -the bats flitting in and out above his head, the struggle in his mind -continued. Supposing he did yield,--not altogether, of course; his -whole nature was against that, and his public position stood in the -way,--but just a little, just a hair’s breadth, could he not enjoy a -light playful flirtation with Gladys, such as she was so obviously -prepared for, even if it were impossible to marry her? The worst of -it was that his imagination so enlarged upon the pleasures of this -“playful flirtation,” that it very quickly became an obsessing desire. -He propped himself up upon his strange couch and looked forth into the -night. The stars were just beginning to appear, and he could see one -or two constellations whose names he knew. How indifferent they were, -those far-off lights! What did it matter to them whether he yielded or -did not yield? He had the curious sensation that the whole conflict -in which he was entangled belonged to a terrestrial sphere infinitely -below those heavenly luminaries. Not only the Power against which he -contended, but the Power on whose side he fought, seemed out-distanced -and derided by those calm watchers. - -He sank back again and gazed up at the carved stone roof above him. A -dull inert weariness stole over his brain; a sick disgust of the whole -mad business of a man’s life upon earth. Why was he born into the -world with passions that he must not satisfy and ideals that he could -not hold? Better not to have been born at all; or, being born, better -to lie quiet and untroubled, with all these placid churchyard people, -under the heavy clay! The mental weariness that assailed him gradually -changed into sheer physical drowsiness. His head sought instinctively -a more easy position and soon found what it sought. His eyes -closed; and there, upon the parish bier, worn out with his struggle -against Apollyon, the vicar of Nevilton slept. When he returned to -consciousness he found himself cramped, cold and miserable. Hurriedly -he scrambled to his feet, stretched his stiff limbs and listened. The -clock in the Tower above him began to strike. It struck one--two--and -then stopped. He had slept for nearly five hours. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -THE ORCHARD - - -Every natural locality has its hour of special self-assertion; its -hour, when the peculiar qualities and characteristics which belong -to it emphasize themselves, and attain a sort of temporary apogee or -culmination. It is then that such localities--be they forests or moors, -hill-sides or valleys--seem to gather themselves together and bring -themselves into focus, waiting expectantly, it might almost seem, for -some answering dramatic crisis in human affairs which should find in -them an inevitable background. - -One of the chief features of our English climate is that no two -successive days, even in a spell of the warmest weather, are exactly -alike. What one might call the culminant day of that summer, for the -orchards of Nevilton, arrived shortly after Mr. Clavering’s unfortunate -defeat. Every hour of this day seemed to add something more and more -expressive to their hushed and expectant solitudes. - -Though the hay had been cut, or was being cut, in the open fields, in -these shadowy recesses the grass was permitted to grow lush and long, -at its own unimpeded will. - -Between the ancient trunks of the moss-grown apple-trees hung a soft -blue vapour; and the flickering sunlight that pierced the denser -foliage, threw shadows upon the heavy grass that were as deeply purple -as the waves of the mid-atlantic. There was indeed something so remote -from the ordinary movements of the day about this underworld of dim, -rich seclusion, that the image of a sleepy wave-lulled land, long -sunken out of reach of human invasion, under the ebbing and flowing -tide, seemed borne in naturally upon the imagination. - -It was towards the close of the afternoon of this particular segment -of time that the drowsy languor of these orchards reached its richest -and most luxurious moment. Grass, moss, lichen, mistletoe, gnarled -trunks, and knotted roots, all seemed to cry aloud, at this privileged -hour, for some human recognition of their unique quality; some human -event which should give that quality its dramatic value, its planetary -proportion. Not since the Hesperidean Dragon guarded its sacred charge, -in the classic story, has a more responsive background offered itself -to what Catullus calls the “furtive loves” of mortal men. - -About six o’clock, on this day of the apogee of the orchards, Mr. -Romer, seated on the north terrace of his house, caught sight of his -daughter and her companion crossing the near corner of the park. He -got up at once, and walked across the garden to intercept them. The -sight of the Italian’s slender drooping figure, as she lingered a -little behind her cousin, roused into vivid consciousness all manner -of subterranean emotions in the quarry-owner’s mind. He felt as an -oriental pasha might feel, when under the stress of some political -or monetary transaction, he is compelled to hand over his favorite -girl-slave to an obsequious dependent. The worst of it was that he -could not be absolutely sure of Mr. Goring’s continued adherence. -It was within the bounds of possibility that once in possession of -Lacrima, the farmer might breathe against him gross Thersites-like -defiance, and carry off his captive to another county. He experienced, -at that moment, a sharp pang of inverted remorse at the thought of -having to relinquish his prey. - -As he strode along by the edge of the herbaceous borders, where the -blue spikes of the delphiniums were already in bud, his mind swung -rapidly from point to point in the confused arena of his various -contests and struggles. - -Mixed strangely enough with his direct Napoleonic pursuit of wealth -and power, there was latent in Mr. Romer, as we have already hinted, a -certain dark and perverse sensuality, which was capable of betraying -and distorting, in very curious ways, the massive force of his -intelligence. - -At this particular moment, as he emerged into the park, he found -himself beginning to regret his conversation with his brother-in-law. -But, after all, he thought, when Gladys married, it would be difficult -to find any reason for keeping Lacrima at his side. His feelings -towards the girl were a curious mixture of attraction and hatred. And -what could better gratify this mixed emotion than a plan which would -keep her within his reach and at the same time humiliate and degrade -her? To do the master of Nevilton justice, he was not, at that moment, -as he passed under a group of Spanish chestnuts and observed the -object of his conspiracy rendered gentler and more fragile than ever -by the loveliness of her surroundings, altogether devoid of a certain -remote feeling of compunction. He crushed it down, however, by his -usual thought of the brevity and futility of all these things, and the -folly of yielding to weak commiseration, when, in so short a time, -nothing, one way or the other, would matter in the least! He had long -ago trained himself to make use of these materialistic reasonings to -suppress any irrelevant prickings of conscience which might interfere -with the bias of his will. The whole world, looked at with the bold -cynical eye of one who was not afraid to face the truth, was, after -all, a mad, wild, unmeaning struggle; and, in the confused arena of -this struggle, one could be sure of nothing but the pleasure one -derived from the sensation of one’s own power. He tried, as he walked -towards the girls, to imagine to himself what his feelings would be, -supposing he yielded to these remote scruples, and let Lacrima go, -giving her money, for instance, to enable her to live independently in -her own country, or to marry whom she pleased. She would no doubt marry -that damned fool Quincunx! Lack of money was, assuredly, all that stood -in the way. And how could he contemplate an idea of that kind with -any pleasure? He wondered, in a grim humourous manner, what sort of -compensation these self-sacrificing ones really got? What satisfaction -would _he_ get, for instance, in the consciousness that he had thrown a -girl who attracted him, into the arms of an idiot who excited his hate? - -He looked long at Lacrima, as she stood with Gladys, under a sycamore, -waiting his approach. It was curious, he said to himself,--very -curious,--the sort of feelings she excited in him. It was not that -he wished to possess her. He was scornfully cynical of that sort -of gratification. He wished to do more than possess her. He wished -to humiliate her, to degrade her, to put her to shame in her inmost -spirit. He wished her to know that he knew that she was suffering this -shame, and that he was the cause of it. He wished her to feel herself -absolutely in his power, not bodily--that was nothing!--but morally, -and spiritually. - -The owner of Leo’s Hill had the faculty of detaching himself from -his own darkest thoughts, and of observing them with a humourous and -cynical eye. It struck him as not a little grotesque, that he, the -manipulater of far-flung financial intrigues, the ambitious politician, -the formidable captain of industry, should be thus scheming and -plotting to satisfy the caprice of a mere whim, upon the destiny of -a penniless dependent. It _was_ grotesque--grotesque and ridiculous. -Let it be! The whole business of living was grotesque and ridiculous. -One snatched fiercely at this thing or the other, as the world moved -round; and one was not bound always to present oneself in a dignified -mask before one’s own tribunal. It was enough that this or that fantasy -of the dominant power-instinct demanded a certain course of action. -Let it be as grotesque as it might! He, and none other, was the judge -of his pleasure, of what he pleased to do, or to refrain from doing. -It was his humour;--and that ended it! He lived to fulfil his humour. -There was nothing else to live for, in this fantastic chaotic world! -Meditating in this manner he approached the girls. - -“It occurred to me,” he said, breathing a little hard, and addressing -his daughter, “that you might be seeing Mr. Clavering again tonight. -If so, perhaps you would give him a message from me, or rather,--how -shall I put it?--a suggestion, a gentle hint.” - -“What are you driving at, father?” asked Gladys, pouting her lips and -swinging her parasol. - -“It is a message best delivered by mouth,” Mr. Romer went on, “and by -your mouth.” - -Then as if to turn this last remark into a delicate compliment, he -playfully lifted up the girl’s chin with his finger and made as if to -kiss her. Gladys, however, lightly evaded him, and tossing her head -mischievously, burst out laughing. “I know you, father, I know you,” -she cried. “You want me to do some intriguing for you. You never kiss -me like that, unless you do!” - -Lacrima glanced apprehensively at the two of them. Standing there, -in the midst of that charming English scene, they represented to her -mind all that was remorseless, pitiless and implacable in this island -of her enforced adoption. Swiftly, from those ruddy pinnacles of the -great house behind them, her mind reverted to the little white huts -in a certain Apennine valley and the tinkling bells of the goats led -back from pasture. Oh how she hated all this heavy foliage and these -eternally murmuring doves! - -“Well,” said Mr. Romer, as Gladys waited mockingly, “I do want you -to do something. I want you to hint to our dear clergyman that this -ceremony of your reception into his church is dependent upon his good -behaviour. Not _your_ good behavior,” he repeated smiling, “but _his_. -The truth is, dear child, if I may speak quite plainly, I know the -persuasive power of your pretty face over all these young men; and I -want you to make it plain to this worthy priest that if you are to -continue being nice to him, he must be very nice to _me_. Do you catch -my meaning, my plump little bird?” As he spoke he encircled her waist -with his arm. Lacrima, watching them, thought how singularly alike -father and daughter were, and was conscious of an instinctive desire to -run and warn this new victim of conspiracy. - -“Why, what has he been doing, father?” asked the fair girl, shaking -herself free, and opening her parasol. - -“He has been supporting that fellow Wone. And he has been talking -nonsense about Quincunx,--yes, about your friend Quincunx,” he added, -nodding ironically towards Lacrima. - -“And I am to punish him, am I?” laughed Gladys. “That is lovely! I love -punishing people, especially people like Mr. Clavering who think they -are so wonderfully good!” - -Mr. Romer smiled. “Not exactly punish him, dear, but lead him gently -into the right path. Lead him, in fact, to see that the party to belong -to in this village is the party of capacity--not the party of chatter.” - -Gladys looked at her father seriously. “You don’t mean that you are -actually afraid of losing this election?” she said. Mr. Romer stretched -out his arm and rested himself against the umbrageous sycamore, -pressing his large firm hand upon its trunk. - -“Losing it, child? No, I shan’t lose it. But these idiots do really -annoy me. They are all such cowards and such sentimental babies. It is -people like these who have to be ruled with a firm hand. They cringe -and whimper when you talk to them; and then the moment your back is -turned they grow voluble and impertinent. My workmen are no better. -They owe everything to me. If it wasn’t for me, half those quarries -would be shut down tomorrow and they’d be out of a job. But do you -think they are grateful? Not a bit of it!” His tone grew more angry. -He felt a need of venting the suppressed rage of many months. “Yes, -you needn’t put on that unconscious look, Lacrima. I know well enough -where _your_ sympathies lie. The fact is, in these rotten days, it -is the incapable and miserable who give the tone to everyone! No one -thinks for himself. No one goes to the bottom of things. It is all -talk--talk--talk; talk about equality, about liberty, about kindness to -the weak. I hate the weak; and I refuse to let them interfere with me! -Look at the faces of these people. Well,--you know, Gladys, what they -are like. They are all feeble, bloodless, sneaking, fawning idiots! I -hate the faces of these Nevilton fools. They are always making me think -of slugs and worms. This Wone is typical. His disgusting complexion -and flabby mouth is characteristic of them all. No one of them has -the spirit to hit one properly back, face to face. And their odious, -sentimental religion!--This Clavering of yours ought to know better. -He is not quite devoid of intelligence. He showed some spirit when I -talked with him. But he is besotted, too, with this silly nonsense -about humouring the people, and considering the people, and treating -the people in a Christian spirit! As though you could treat worms and -slugs in any other spirit than the spirit of trampling upon them. -They are born to be trampled upon--born for it--I tell you! You have -only to look at them!” He glared forth over the soft rich fields; and -continued, still more bitterly: - -“It’s no good your pretending not to hear me, Lacrima! I can read -your thoughts like an open book. You are quoting to yourself, no -doubt, at this very moment, some of the pretty speeches of your friend -Quincunx. A nice fellow, he is, for a girl’s teacher! A fellow with no -idea of his own in his head! A fellow afraid to raise his eyes above -one’s boot-laces! Why the other day, when I was out shooting and met -him in the lane, he turned straight round, and walked back on his -tracks--simply from fear of passing me. I hate these sneaking cowards! -I hate their cunning, miserable, little ways! I should like to trample -them all out of existence! That is the worst of being strong in this -world. One is worried to death by a lot of fools who are not worth the -effort spent on them.” - -Lacrima uttered no word, but looked sadly away, over the fair -landscape. In her heart, in spite of her detestation of the man, she -felt a strange fantastic sympathy with a good deal of what he said. -Women, especially women of Latin races, have no great respect for -democratic sentiments when they do not issue in definite deeds. Her -private idea of a revolutionary leader was something very far removed -from the voluble local candidate, and she had suffered too much herself -from the frail petulance of Maurice Quincunx not to feel a secret -longing that somewhere, somehow, this aggressive tyrant should be faced -by a strength as firm, as capable, as fearless, as his own. - -Mr. Romer, with his swarthy imperial face and powerful figure, seemed -to her, as he leant against the tree, so to impress himself upon -that yielding landscape, that there appeared reason enough for his -complaint that he could find no antagonist worthy of his steel. In the -true manner of a Pariah, who turns, with swift contempt, upon her own -class, the girl was conscious of a rising tide of revolt in her heart -against the incompetent weakness of her friend. What would she not give -to be able, even once, to see this man outfaced and outwitted! She -was impressed too, poor girl, as she shrank silently aside from his -sarcasm, by the horrible indifference of these charming sunlit fields -to the brutality of the man’s challenge. They cared nothing--nothing! -It was impossible to make them care. Hundreds of years ago they had -slumbered, just as dreamily, just as indifferently, as they did now. -If even at this moment she were to plunge a knife into the man’s -heart, so that he fell a mass of senseless clay at her feet, that -impervious wood-pigeon would go on murmuring its monotonous ditty, -just as peacefully, just as serenely! There was something really -terrifying to her in this callous indifference of Nature. It was -like living perpetually in close contact with a person who was deaf -and dumb and blind; and who, while the most tragic events were being -transacted, went on cheerfully and imperturbably humming some merry -tune. It would be almost better, thought the girl, if that tree-trunk -against which the quarry-owner pressed his heavy hand were really in -league with him. Anything were better than this smiling indifference -which seemed to keep on repeating in a voice as monotonous as the -pigeon’s--“Everything is permitted. Nothing is forbidden. Nothing is -forbidden. Everything is permitted.” like the silly reiterated whirring -of some monstrous placid shuttle. It was strange, the rebellious -inconsistent thoughts, which passed through her mind! She wondered -why Hugh Clavering was thus to be waylaid and persuaded. Had he dared -to rise in genuine opposition? No, she did not believe it. He had -probably talked religion, just as Maurice talked anarchy and Wone -talked socialism. It was all talk! Romer was quite right. They had -no spirit in them, these English people. She thought of the fierce -atheistic rebels of her own country. _They_, at any rate, understood -that evil had to be resisted by action, and not by vague protestations -of unctuous sentiment! - -When Mr. Romer left them and returned to his seat on the terrace, the -girls did not at once proceed on their way, but waited, hesitating; -and amused themselves by pulling down the lower branches of a lime and -trying to anticipate the sweetness of its yet unbudded fragrance. - -“Let’s stroll down the drive first,” said Gladys presently, “till we -are out of sight, and then we can cross the mill mead and get into the -orchard that way.” They followed this design with elaborate caution, -and only when quite concealed from the windows of the house, turned -quickly northward and left the park for the orchards. Between the wall, -of the north garden and the railway, lay some of the oldest and least -frequented of these shadowy places, completely out of the ordinary -paths of traffic, and only accessible by field-ways. Into the smallest -and most secluded of all these the girls wandered, gliding noiselessly -between the thick hedges and heavy grass, like two frail phantoms of -the upper world visiting some Elysian solitude. - -Gladys laid her hand on her companion’s arm. “We had better wait here,” -she said, “where we can see the whole orchard. They ought to know, by -now, where to come.” - -They seated themselves on the bowed trunk of an ancient apple-tree -that by long decline had at last reached a horizontal position. The -flowering season was practically over, though here and there a late -cider-tree, growing more in shadow than the rest, still carried its -delicate burden of clustered blossoms. - -“How many times is it that we have met them here?” whispered the fair -girl, snatching off her hat and tossing it on the grass. “This is the -fifth time, isn’t it? What dear things they are! I think it’s much more -exciting, this sort of thing,--don’t you?--than dull tennis parties -with silly idiots like young Ilminster.” - -The Italian nodded. “It is a good thing that James and I get on so -well,” she said. “It would be awkward if we were as afraid of one -another as when we first met.” - -Gladys put her hand caressingly on her companion’s knee and looked into -her face with a slow seductive smile. - -“You are forgetting your Mr. Quincunx a little, just a little, these -days, aren’t you, darling? Don’t be shy, now--or look cross. You know -you are! You can’t deny it. Your boy is almost as nice as mine. He -doesn’t like me, though. I can see that! But I like _him_. I like him -awfully! You’d better take care, child. If ever I get tired of my -Luke--” - -“James isn’t a boy,” protested Lacrima. - -“Silly!” cried Gladys. “Of course he is. Who cares about age? They are -all the same. I always call them boys when they attract me. I like the -word. I like to say it. It makes me feel as if I were one of those -girls in London. You know what I mean!” - -Lacrima looked at her gravely. “I always feel as if James Andersen were -much older than I,” she said. - -“But your Mr. Quincunx,” repeated the fair creature, slipping her soft -fingers into her friend’s hand, “your Mr. Quincunx is not quite what he -was to you, before we began these adventures?” - -“I wish you wouldn’t say that, Gladys!” rejoined the Italian, freeing -her hands and clasping them passionately together. “It is wicked of you -to say that! You know I only talk to James so that you can do what you -like. I shall always be Maurice’s friend. I shall be his friend to the -last!” - -Gladys laughed merrily. “That is what I wanted,” she retorted. “I -wanted to make you burst out. When people burst out, they are always -doubtful in their hearts. Ah, little puritan! so we are already in the -position of having two sweethearts, are we?--and not knowing which of -the two we really like best? That is a very pretty situation to be in. -It is where we all are! I hope you enjoy it!” - -Lacrima let her hands fall helplessly to her side, against the grey -bark of the apple-tree. “Why do you hate Mr. Quincunx so?” she asked, -looking gravely into her friend’s face. - -“Why do I hate him?” said Gladys. “Oh, I really don’t know! I didn’t -know I did. If I do, it’s because he’s such a weak wretched creature. -He has no more spirit than a sick dog. He talks such nonsense too! I -am glad he has to walk to Yeoborough every day and do a little work. -You ought to be glad too! He could never marry if he didn’t make some -money.” - -“He doesn’t want to marry,” murmured Lacrima. “He only wants to be left -alone.” - -“A nice friend he seems to be,” cried the other, “for a girl like you! -I suppose he kisses you and that sort of thing, doesn’t he? I shouldn’t -like to be kissed by a silly old man like that, with a great stupid -beard.” - -“You mustn’t say these things to me, Gladys, you mustn’t! I won’t hear -them. Mr. Quincunx isn’t an old man! He is younger than James Andersen. -He is not forty yet.” - -“He looks fifty, if he looks a day,” said Gladys, “and the colour of -his beard is disgusting! It’s like dirty water. Fancy having a horrid -thing like that pressed against your face! And I suppose he cries and -slobbers over you, doesn’t he? I have seen him cry. I hate a man who -cries. He cried the other night,--father told me so--when he found he -had spent all his money.” - -Lacrima got up and walked a few paces away. She loathed this placid -golden-haired creature, at that moment, so intensely, that it was all -she could do to refrain from leaping upon her and burying her teeth -in her soft neck. She leant against one of the trees and pressed her -head upon its grey lichen. Gladys slipped down into a more luxurious -position. She looked complacently around her. No spot could have been -better adapted for a romantic encounter. - -The gnarled and time-worn trunks of the old apple-trees, each looking -as if it had lingered there, full of remote memories, from an age -coeval with the age of those very druids whose sacred mistletoe still -clung in patches to their boughs, formed a strange fantastic array of -twisted and distorted natural pillars, upon which the foliage, meeting -everywhere above their heads, leaned in shadowy security, like the roof -of a heathen temple. The buttercups and cuckoo-flowers, which, here -and there, sprinkled the heavy grass, were different from those in the -open meadows. The golden hue of the one, and the lavender tint of the -other, took on, in this diurnal gloom, a chilly and tender pallour, -both colours approximating to white. The grey lichen hung down in loose -festoons from the higher portions of the knotted trunks, and crept, -thick and close, round the moss at their roots. There could hardly be -conceived a spot more suggestive of absolute and eternal security than -this Hesperidean enclosure. - -The very fact of the remote but constant presence of humanity there, as -a vague dreamy background of immemorial tending, increased this sense. -One felt that the easy invasions of grafting-time and gathering-time, -returning perennially in their seasons, only intensified the long -delicious solitudes of the intervals between, when, in rich, hushed -languor, the blossoms bud and bloom and fall; and the fruit ripens and -sweetens; and the leaves flutter down. That exquisite seductive charm, -the charm of places full of quietness, yet bordering on the edge of -the days’ labour, hung like a heavy atmosphere of contentment over -the shadowy aisles of this temple of peace. The wood-pigeons keep up -a perpetual murmur, all the summer long, in these untrodden spots. No -eyes see them. It is as though they never saw one another. But their -drowsy liturgical repetitions answer and answer again, as if from the -unfathomable depths of some dim green underworld, worshipping the gods -of silence with sounds that give silence itself a richer, a fuller -weight. - -“There they are!” cried Gladys suddenly, as the figures of the Andersen -brothers made themselves visible on the further side of the orchard. - -The girls advanced to meet them through the thick grass, swinging their -summer-hats in their hands and bending their heads, now and then, to -avoid the overhanging boughs. The meeting between these four persons -would have made a pleasant and appropriate subject for one of those -richly-coloured old-fashioned prints which one sometimes observes in -early Victorian parlours. Gladys grew quite pale with excitement, and -her voice assumed a vibrant tenderness when she accosted Luke, which -made Lacrima give a little start of surprise, as she shook hands with -the elder brother. Had her persecutor then, got, after all, some living -tissue in the place where the heart beat? - -Luke’s manner had materially altered since he had submitted so -urbanely to the fair girl’s insulting airs at the close of their -first encounter. His way of treating her now was casual, flippant, -abrupt--almost indifferent. Instead of following the pathetic pressure -of her arm and hand, which at once bade him hasten the separation of -the group, he deliberately lingered, chatting amicably with Lacrima -and asking her questions about Italy. It seemed that the plausible -Luke knew quite as much about Genoa and Florence and Venice as his -more taciturn brother, and all he knew he was well able to turn -into effective use. He was indeed a most engaging and irresistible -conversationalist; and Gladys grew paler and paler, as she watched the -animation of his face and listened to his pleasant and modulated voice. - -It caused sheer suffering to her fiercely impetuous nature, this -long-drawn out delay. Every moment that passed diminished the time they -would have together. Her nerves ached for the touch of his arms about -her, and a savage desire to press her mouth to his, and satiate herself -with kisses, throbbed in her every vein. Why would he not stop this -irrelevant stream of talk? What did she care about the narrow streets -of Genoa,--or the encrusted façade of San Marco? It had been their -custom to separate immediately on meeting, and for Luke to carry her -off to a charming hiding-place they had discovered. With the fierce -pantherish craving of a love-scorched animal her soul cried out to be -clasped close to her friend in this secluded spot, having her will of -those maddening youthful lips with their proud Grecian curve! Still he -must go on talking! - -James and Lacrima, lending themselves, naturally and easily, to the -mood of the moment, were already seated at the foot of a twisted and -ancestral apple-tree. Soon Luke, still absorbed in his conversation -with the Italian, shook off Gladys’ arm and settled himself beside -them, plucking a handful of grass, as he did so, and inhaling its -fragrance with sybarite pleasure. - -“St. Mark’s is the only church in the world for me,” Luke was saying. -“I have pictures of it from every conceivable angle. It is quite a -mania with me collecting such things. I have dozens of them; haven’t I, -James?” - -“Do you mean those post-cards father sent home when he went over -there to work?” answered the elder brother, one of whose special -peculiarities was a curious pleasure in emphasizing, in the presence of -the “upper classes,” the humility of his origin. - -Luke laughed. “Well--yes--those--and others,” he said. “_You_ haven’t -the least idea what I keep in my drawer of secret treasures; you know -you haven’t! I’ve got some lovely letters there among other things. -Letters that I wouldn’t let anyone see for the world!” He glanced -smilingly at Gladys, who was pacing up and down in front of them, like -a beautiful tigress. - -“Look here, my friends,” she said. “The time is slipping away -frightfully. We are not going to sit here all the while, are we, -talking nonsense, like people at a garden party?” - -“It’s so lovely here,” said Luke with a slow smile. “I really don’t -think that your favourite corner is so much nicer. I am in no hurry to -move. Are you, Miss Traffio?” - -Lacrima saw a look upon her cousin’s face that boded ill for their -future relations if she did not make some kind of effort. She rose to -her feet. - -“Come, Mr. Andersen,” she said, giving James a wistful look. “Let us -take a little stroll, and then return again to these young people.” - -James rose obediently, and they walked off together. They passed -from the orchards belonging to Mr. Romer’s tenant, and entered those -immediately at the foot of the vicarage garden. Here, through a gap -in the hedge they were attracted by the sight of a queer bed of weeds -growing at the edge of a potato-patch. They were very curious weeds, -rather resembling sea-plants than land-plants; in colour of a dull -glaucous green, and in shape grotesquely elongated. - -“What are those things?” said Lacrima. “I think I have never seen such -evil-looking plants. Why do they let them grow there?” - -James surveyed the objects. “They certainly have a queer look,” he -said, “but you know, in old days, there was a grave-yard here, of a -peculiar kind. It is only in the last fifty years that they have dug it -up and included it in this garden.” - -Lacrima shuddered. “I would not eat those potatoes for anything! You -know I think I come to dislike more and more the look of your English -vegetable gardens, with their horrid, heavy leaves, so damp and oozy -and disgusting!” - -“I agree with you there,” returned the wood-carver. “I have always -hated Nevilton, and every aspect of it; but I think I hate these -overgrown gardens most of all.” - -“They look as if they were fed from churchyards, don’t they?” went on -the girl. “Look at those heavy laurel bushes over there, and those -dreadful fir-trees! I should cut them all down if this place belonged -to me. Oh, how I long for olives and vine-yards! These orchards are all -very well, but they seem to me as if they were made to keep out the sun -and the wholesome air.” - -James Andersen smiled grimly. “Orchards and potato gardens!” he -muttered. “Yes, these are typical of this country of clay. And these -Vicarage shrubberies! I think a shrubbery is the last limit of -depression and desolation. I am sure all the murders committed in -this country are planned in shrubberies, and under the shade of damp -laurel-bushes.” - -“In our country we grow corn between the fruit-trees,” said Lacrima. - -“Yes, corn--” returned Andersen, “corn and wine and oil! Those are the -natural, the beautiful, products of the earth. Things that are fed upon -sun and air--not upon the bones of the dead! All these Nevilton places, -however luxuriant, seem to me to smell of death.” - -“But was this corner really a churchyard?” asked the Italian. “I hope -Mrs. Seldom won’t stroll down this way and see us!” - -“Mrs. Seldom is well suited to the place she lives in,” returned the -other. “She lives upon the Past, just as her garden does--just as her -potatoes do! These English vicarages are dreadful places. They have all -the melancholy of age without its historic glamour. And how morbid they -are! Any of your cheerful Latin curés would die in them, simply of damp -and despair.” - -“But do tell me about this spot,” repeated Lacrima, with a little -shiver. “Why did you say it was a peculiar churchyard?” - -“It was the place where they buried unbaptized children,” answered -Andersen, and added, in a lower tone, “how cold it is getting! It must -be the shadow we are in.” - -“But you haven’t yet,” murmured Lacrima, “you haven’t yet told me, what -those weeds are.” - -“Well--we call them ‘mares’-tails’ about here,” answered the -stone-carver, “I don’t know their proper name.” - -“But why don’t they dig them up? Look! They are growing all among the -potatoes.” - -“They can’t dig them up,” returned the man. “They can’t get at their -roots. They are the worst and most obstinate weed there is. They grow -in all the Nevilton gardens. They are the typical Nevilton flora. They -must have grown here in the days of the druids.” - -“But how absurd!” cried Lacrima. “I feel as if I could pull them up -with my hands. The earth looks so soft.” - -“The earth is soft enough,” replied Andersen, “but the roots of these -weeds adhere fast to the rock underneath. The rock, you know, the -sandstone rock, lies only a short distance beneath our feet.” - -“The same stone as Nevilton house is built of?” - -“Certainly the same. Our stone, Mr. Romer’s stone, the stone upon which -we all live here--except those who till the fields.” - -“I hate the thing!” cried Lacrima, in curious agitation. - -“You do? Well--to tell you the honest truth, so do I. I associate it -with my father.” - -“I associate it with Gladys,” whispered Lacrima. - -“I can believe it. We both associate it with houses of tyranny, of -wretched persecution. Perhaps I have never told you that my father was -directly the cause of my mother’s death?” - -“You have hinted it,” murmured the girl. “I suspected it. But Luke -loves the stone, doesn’t he? He always speaks as if the mere handling -of it, in his work-shop, gave him exquisite pleasure.” - -“A great many things give Luke exquisite pleasure,” returned the other -grimly. “Luke lives for exquisite pleasure.” - -A quick step on the grass behind them made them swing suddenly round. -It was Vennie Seldom, who, unobserved, had been watching them from the -vicarage terrace. A few paces behind her came Mr. Taxater, walking -cautiously and deliberately, with the air of a Lord Chesterfield -returning from an audience at St. James’. Mr. Taxater had already met -the Italian on one or two occasions. He had sat next to her once, when -dining at Nevilton House, and he was considerably interested in her. - -“What a lovely evening, Miss Traffio,” said Vennie shyly, but without -embarrassment. Vennie was always shy, but nothing ever interfered with -her self-possession. - -“I am glad you are showing Mr. Andersen these orchards of ours. I -always think they are the most secluded place in the whole village.” - -“Ha!” said Mr. Taxater, when he had greeted them with elaborate and -friendly courtesy, “I thought you two were bound to make friends -sooner or later! I call you my two companions in exile, among our dear -Anglo-Saxons. Miss Traffio I know is Latin, and you, sir, must have -some kind of foreign blood. I am right, am I not, Mr. Andersen?” - -James looked at him humorously, though a little grimly. He was always -pleased to be addressed by Mr. Taxater, as indeed was everybody who -knew him. The great scholar’s detached intellectualism gave him an air -of complete aloofness from all social distinctions. - -“Perhaps I may have,” he answered. “My mother used to hint at something -of the kind. She was always very fond of foreign books. I rather fancy -that I once heard her say something about a strain of Spanish blood.” - -“I thought so! I thought so!” cried Mr. Taxater, pulling his hat over -his eyes and protruding his chin and under-lip, in the manner peculiar -to him when especially pleased. - -“I thought there was something Spanish in you. How extraordinarily -interesting! Spain,--there is no country like it in the world! You must -go to Spain, Mr. Andersen. You would go there in a different spirit -from these wretched sight-seers who carry their own vulgarity with -them. You would go with that feeling of reverence for the great things -of civilization, which is inseparable from the least drop of Latin -blood.” - -“Would _you_ like to see Spain, Miss Traffio?” enquired Vennie. “Mr. -Taxater, I notice, always leaves out us women, when he makes his -attractive proposals. I think he thinks that we have no capacity for -understanding this civilization he talks of.” - -“I think you understand everything, better than any man could,” -murmured Lacrima, conscious of an extraordinary depth of sympathy -emanating from this frail figure. - -“Miss Seldom has been trying to make me appreciate the beauty of these -orchards,” went on Mr. Taxater, addressing James. “But I am afraid I -am not very easily converted. I have a prejudice against orchards. For -some reason or other, I associate them with dragons and serpents.” - -“Miss Seldom has every reason to love the beautiful aspects of our -Nevilton scenery,” said the stone-carver. “Her ancestors possessed all -these fields and orchards so long, that it would be strange if their -descendant did not have an instinctive passion for them.” He uttered -these words with that curious undertone of bitterness which marked all -his references to aristocratic pretension. - -Little Vennie brushed the sarcasm gently aside, as if it had been a -fluttering moth. - -“Yes, I do love them in a sense,” she said, “but you must remember -that I, too, was educated in a Latin country. So, you see, we four are -all outsiders and heretics! I fancy your brother, Mr. Andersen, is an -ingrained Neviltonian.” - -James smiled in a kindly, almost paternal manner, at the little -descendant of the Tudor courtiers. Her sweetness and artless goodness -made him feel ashamed of his furtive truculence. - -“I wish you would come in and see my mother and me, one of these -evenings,” said Vennie, looking rather wistfully at Lacrima and putting -a more tender solicitation into her tone than the mere words implied. - -Lacrima hesitated. “I am afraid I cannot promise,” she said nervously. -“My cousin generally wants me in the evening.” - -“Perhaps,” put in Mr. Taxater, with his most Talleyrand-like air, “a -similar occasion to the present one may arise again, when with Mr. -Andersen’s permission, we may all adjourn to the vicarage garden.” - -Lacrima, rather uncomfortably, looked down at the grass. - -“We four, being, as we have admitted, all outsiders here,” went on the -diplomatist, “ought to have no secrets from one another. I think”--he -looked at Vennie--“we may just as well confess to our friends that we -quite realize the little--charming--‘friendship,’ shall I say?--that -has sprung up between this gentleman’s brother and Miss Romer.” - -“I think,” said James Andersen hurriedly, in order to relieve Lacrima’s -embarrassment, “I think the real bond between Luke and Miss Gladys is -their mutual pleasure in all this luxuriant scenery. Somehow I feel as -if you, Sir, and Miss Seldom, were quite separate from it and outside -it.” - -“Yes,” cried Vennie eagerly, “and Lacrima is outside it, because she is -half-Italian, and you are outside it because you are half-Spanish.” - -“It is clear, then,” said Mr. Taxater, “that we four must form a -sort of secret alliance, an alliance based upon the fact that even -Miss Seldom’s lovely orchards do not altogether make us forget what -civilization means!” - -Neither of the two girls seemed quite to understand what the theologian -implied, but Andersen shot at him a gleam of appreciative gratitude. - -“I was telling Miss Traffio,” he said, “that under this grass, not very -many feet down, a remarkable layer of sandstone obtrudes itself.” - -“An orchard based on rock,” murmured Mr. Taxater, “that, I think, is -an admirable symbol of what this place represents. Clay at the top -and sandstone at the bottom! I wonder whether it is better, in this -world, to be clay or stone? We four poor foreigners have, I suspect, -a preference for a material very different from both of these. Our -element would be marble. Eh, Andersen? Marble that can resist all these -corrupting natural forces and throw them back, and hold them down. I -always think that marble is the appropriate medium of civilization’s -retort to instinct and savagery. The Latin races have always built in -marble. It was certainly of marble that our Lord was thinking when he -used his celebrated metaphor about the founding of the Church.” - -The stone-carver made no answer. He had noticed a quick supplicating -glance from Lacrima’s dark eyes. - -“Well,”--he said, “I think I must be looking for my brother, and I -expect our young lady is waiting for Miss Traffio.” - -They bade their friends good-night and moved off. - -“I am always at your service,” were Mr. Taxater’s last words, “if ever -either of you care to appeal to the free-masonry of the children of -marble against the children of clay.” - -As they retraced their steps Andersen remarked to his companion how -curious it was, that neither Vennie nor Mr. Taxater seemed in the least -aware of anything extraordinary or unconventional in this surreptitious -friendship between the girls from the House and their father’s workmen. - -“Yes, I wonder what Mrs. Seldom would think of us,” rejoined Lacrima, -“but she probably thinks Gladys is capable of anything and that I am -as bad as she is. But I do like that little Vennie! I believe she is a -real saint. She gives me such a queer feeling of being different from -everyone.” - -“Mr. Taxater no doubt is making a convert of her,” said the -stone-carver. “And I have a suspicion that he hopes to convert Gladys -too, probably through your influence.” - -“I don’t like to think that of him,” replied the girl. “He seems to -me to admire Vennie for herself and to be kind to us for ourselves. I -think he is a thoroughly good man.” - -“Possibly--possibly,” muttered James, “but I don’t trust him. I never -have trusted him.” - -They said no more, and threaded their way slowly through the orchard -to the place where they had left the others. The wind had dropped and -there was a dull, obstinate expectancy in the atmosphere. Every leaf -and grass blade seemed to be intently alert and listening. - -In her heart Lacrima was conscious of an unusual sense of foreboding -and apprehension. Surely there could be nothing worse in store for her -than what she already suffered. She wondered what Maurice Quincunx was -doing at that moment. Was he thinking of her, and were his thoughts the -cause of this strange oppression in the air? Poor Maurice! She longed -to be free to devote herself to him, to smooth his path, to distract -his mind. Would fate ever make such a thing possible? How unfair Gladys -was in her suspicions! - -She liked James Andersen and was very grateful to him, but he did not -need her as Maurice needed her! - -“I see them!” she cried suddenly. “But how odd they look! They’re not -speaking a word. Have they quarrelled, I wonder?” - -The two fair-haired amorists appeared indeed extremely gloomy and -melancholy, as they sat, with a little space between them, on the -fallen tree. They rose with an air of relief at the others’ approach. - -“I thought you were never coming,” said Gladys. “How long you have -been! We have been waiting for hours. Come along. We must go straight -back and dress or we shall be late for dinner. No time for good-byes! -Au revoir, you two! Come along, girl, quick! We’d better run.” - -She seized her cousin’s hand and dragged her off and they were quickly -out of sight. - -The two brothers watched them disappear and then turned and walked -away together. “Don’t let’s go home yet,” said Luke. “Let’s go to the -churchyard first. The sun will have set, but it won’t be dark for a -long time. And I love the churchyard in the twilight.” - -James nodded. “It is our garden, isn’t it,--and our orchard? It is the -only spot in Nevilton where no one can interfere with us.” - -“That, and the Seldom Arms,” added the younger brother. - -They paced side by side in silence till they reached the road. The -orchards, left to themselves, relapsed into their accustomed reserve. -Whatever secrets they concealed of the confused struggles of ephemeral -mortals, they concealed in inviolable discretion. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -ART AND NATURE - - -The early days of June, all of them of the same quality of golden -weather, were hardly over, before our wanderer from Ohio found himself -on terms of quite pleasant familiarity with the celibate vicar -of Nevilton, whose relations with his friend Gladys so immensely -interested him. - -The conscientious vicar had sought him out, on the very day after his -visit to the mill copse and the artist had found the priest more to his -fancy than he had imagined possible. - -The American’s painting had begun in serious earnest. A studio had been -constructed for him in one of the sheds near the conservatory, a place -much more full of light and air and pleasant garden smells, than would -have been the lumber-room referred to by Mrs. Romer, adjoining the -chaste slumbers of the laborious Lily. Here for several long mornings -he had worked at high pressure and in a vein of imaginative expansion. - -Something of the seething sap of these incomparable days seemed to -pass into his blood. He plunged into a bold and original series of -Dionysic “impressions,” seeking to represent, in accordance with his -new vision, those legendary episodes in the life of the divine Wanderer -which seemed most capable of lending themselves to a half-realistic, -half-fantastic transmutation, of the people and places immediately -around him. He sought to introduce into these pictures the very impetus -and pressure of the exuberant earth-force, as he felt it stirring and -fermenting in his own veins, and in those of the persons and animals -about him. He strove to clothe the shadowy poetic outline of the -classical story with fragments and morsels of actual experience as one -by one his imaginative intellect absorbed them. - -Here, too, under the sycamores and elms of Nevilton, the old -world-madness followed the alternations of sun and moon, with the same -tragic swiftness and the same ambiguous beauty, as when, with tossing -arms and bared throats, the virgins of Thessaly flung themselves into -the dew-starred thickets. - -Dangelis began by making cautious and tentative use of such village -children as he found it possible to lay hands upon, as models in his -work, but this method did not prove very satisfactory. - -The children, when their alarm and inquisitiveness wore off, grew tired -and turbulent; and on more than one occasion the artist had to submit -to astonishing visits from confused and angry parents who called him -a “foreigner” and a “Yankee,” and qualified these appellations with -epithets so astoundingly gross, that Dangelis was driven to wonder from -what simple city-bred fancy the illusion of rural innocence had first -proceeded. - -At length, as the days went on, the bold idea came into his head of -persuading Gladys herself to act as his model. - -His relations with her had firmly established themselves now on the -secure ground of playful camaraderie, and he knew enough of her to feel -tolerably certain that he had only to broach such a scheme, to have it -welcomed with enthusiastic ardour. - -He made the suggestion one evening as they walked home together after -her spiritual lesson. “I find that last picture of mine extremely -difficult to manage,” he said. - -“Why! I think it’s the best of them all!” cried Gladys. “You’ve got a -lovely look of longing in the eyes of your queer god; and the sail of -Theseus’ ship, as you see it against the blue sea, is wonderful. The -little bushes and things, too, you’ve put in; I like them particularly. -They remind me of that wood down by the mill, where I caught the -thrush. I suppose you’ve forgotten all about that day,” she added, -giving him a quick sidelong glance. - -The artist seized his opportunity. “They would remind you still more -of our wood,” he said eagerly, “if you let me put you in as Ariadne! -Do, Gladys,”--he had called her Gladys for some days--“you will make -a simply adorable Ariadne. As she is now, she is wooden, grotesque, -archaic--nothing but drapery and white ankles!” - -The girl had flushed with pleasure as soon as she caught the drift of -his request. Now she glanced mischievously and mockingly at him. - -“_My_ ankles,” she murmured laughing, “are not so very, very beautiful!” - -“Please be serious, Gladys,” he said, “I am really quite in earnest. It -will just make the difference between a masterpiece and a fiasco.” - -“You are very conceited,” she retorted teasingly, “but I suppose I -oughtn’t to say that, ought I, as my precious ankles are to be a part -of this masterpiece?” - -She ran in front of him down the drive, and, as if to give him an -exhibition of her goddess-like agility, caught at an overhanging bough -and swung herself backwards and forwards. - -“What fun!” she cried, as he approached. “Of course I’ll do it, Mr. -Dangelis.” Then, with a sudden change of tone and a very malign -expression, as she let the branch swing back and resumed her place -at his side, “Mr. Clavering must see me posing for you. He must say -whether he thinks I’m good enough for Ariadne.” - -The artist looked a shade disconcerted by this unexpected turn to the -project, but he was too anxious to make sure of his model to raise any -premature objections. “But you must please understand,” was all he -said, “that I am very much in earnest about this picture. If anybody -but myself _does_ see you, there must be no teasing and fooling.” - -“Oh, I long for him to see me!” cried the girl. “I can just imagine his -face, I can just imagine it!” - -The artist frowned. “This is not a joke, Gladys. Mind you, if I do let -Clavering into our secret, it’ll be only on condition that you promise -not to flirt with him. I shall want you to stay very still,--just as I -put you.” - -Dangelis had never indicated before quite so plainly his blunt and -unvarnished view of her relations with her spiritual adviser, and -he now looked rather nervously at her to see how she received this -intimation. - -“I _love_ teasing Mr. Clavering!” she cried savagely, “I should like -to tease him so much, that he never, never, would forget it!” - -This extreme expression of feeling was a surprise, and by no means a -pleasant one, to Ralph Dangelis. - -“Why do you want so much to upset our friend?” he enquired. - -“I suppose,” she answered, still instinctively playing up to his idea -of her naiveté and childishness, “it is because he thinks himself so -good and so perfectly safe from falling in love with anyone--and that -annoys me.” - -“Ha!” chuckled Dangelis, “so that’s it, is it?” and he paced in -thoughtful silence by her side until they reached the house. - -The morning that followed this conversation was as warm as the -preceding ones, but a strong southern wind had risen, with a remote -touch of the sea in its gusty violence. The trees in the park, as the -artist and his girl-friend watched them from the terrace, while Mr. -Romer, who had now returned from town worked in his study, and Lacrima -helped Mrs. Romer to “do the flowers,” swayed and rustled ominously in -the eddying gusts. - -Clouds of dust kept blowing across the gates from the surface of the -drive and the delphiniums bent low on their long stalks. The wind was -of that peculiar character which, though hot and full of balmy scents, -conveys a feeling of uneasiness and troubled expectation. It suggested -thunder and with and beyond that, something threatening, calamitous and -fatal. - -Gladys was preoccupied and gloomy that morning. She was growing a -little, just a little, tired of the American’s conversation. Even the -excitement of arranging about the purchase in Yeoborough of suitable -materials for her Ariadne costume did not serve to lift the shadow from -her brow. - -She was getting tired of her rôle as the naive, impetuous and childish -innocent; and though mentally still quite resolved upon following her -mother’s frequent and unblushing hints, and doing her best to “catch” -this æsthetic master of a million dollars, the burden of the task was -proving considerably irksome. - -Ralph’s growing tendency to take her into his confidence in the matter -of the philosophy of his art, she found peculiarly annoying. - -Philosophy of any kind was detestable to Gladys, and this particular -sort of philosophy especially depressed her, by reducing the attraction -of physical beauty to a kind of dispassionate analysis, against the -chilling virtue of which all her amorous wiles hopelessly collapsed. -It was becoming increasingly difficult, too, to secure her furtive -interviews with Luke--interviews in which her cynical sensuality, -suppressed in the society of the American, was allowed full swing. - -Her thoughts, at this very moment, turned passionately and vehemently -towards the young stone-carver, who had achieved, at last, the enviable -triumph of seriously ruffling and disturbing her egoistic self-reliance. - -Unused to suffering the least thwarting in what she desired, it fretted -and chafed her intolerably to be forced to go on playing her coquettish -part with this good-natured but inaccessible admirer, while all the -time her soul yearned so desperately for the shameless kisses that -made her forget everything in the world but the ecstacy of passion. - -It was all very well to plan this posing as Ariadne and to listen to -Dangelis discoursing on the beauty of pagan myths. The artist might -talk endlessly about dryads and fauns. The faun she longed to be -pursued by, this wind-swept morning, was now engaged in hammering -Leonian stone, in her father’s dusty work-shops. - -She knew, she told herself, far better than the cleverest citizen -of Ohio, what a real Greek god was like, both in his kindness and -his unkindness; and her nerves quivered with irritation, as the hot -southern wind blew upon her, to think that she would only be able, -and even then for a miserably few minutes, to steal off to her true -Dionysus, after submitting for a whole long day to this æsthetic -foolery. - -“It must have been a wind like this,” remarked Dangelis, quite -unobservant of his companion’s moroseness, “which rocked the doomed -palace of the blaspheming Pentheus and drove him forth to his fate.” He -paused a moment, pondering, and then added, “I shall paint a picture of -this, Gladys. I shall bring in Tiresias and the other old men, feeling -the madness coming upon them.” - -“I know all about that,” the girl felt compelled to answer. “They -danced, didn’t they? They couldn’t help dancing, though they were so -old and weak?” - -Dangelis hardly required this encouragement, to launch into a long -discourse upon the subject of Dionysian madness, its true symbolic -meaning, its religious significance, its survival in modern times. - -He quite forgot, as he gave himself up to this interesting topic, his -recent resolution to exclude drastically from his work all these more -definitely intellectualized symbols. - -His companion’s answers to this harangue became, by degrees, so -obviously forced and perfunctory, that even the good-tempered westerner -found himself a little relieved when the appearance of Lacrima upon the -scene gave him a different audience. - -When Lacrima appeared, Gladys slipped away and Dangelis was left to do -what he could to overcome the Italian’s habitual shyness. - -“One of these days,” he said, looking with a kindly smile into the -girl’s frightened eyes, “I’m going to ask you, Miss Traffio, to take me -to see your friend Mr. Quincunx.” - -Lacrima started violently. This was the last name she expected to hear -mentioned on the Nevilton terrace. - -“I--I--” she stammered, “I should be very glad to take you. I didn’t -know they had told you about him.” - -“Oh, they only told me--you can guess the kind of thing!--that he’s a -queer fellow who lives by himself in a cottage in Dead Man’s Lane, and -does nothing but dig in his garden and talk to old women over the wall. -He’s evidently one of these odd out-of-the-way characters, that your -English--Oh, I beg your pardon!--your European villages produce. Mr. -Clavering told me he is the only man in the place he never goes to see. -Apparently he once insulted the good vicar.” - -“He didn’t insult him!” cried Lacrima with flashing eyes. “He only -asked him not to walk on his potatoes. Mr. Clavering is too touchy.” - -“Well--anyway, do take me, sometime, to see this interesting person. -Why shouldn’t we go this afternoon? This wind seems to have driven -all the ideas out of my head, as well as made your cousin extremely -bad-tempered! So do take me to see your friend, Miss Traffio! We might -go now--this moment--why not?” - -Lacrima shook her head, but she looked grateful and not displeased. As -a matter of fact she was particularly anxious to introduce the American -to Mr. Quincunx. In that vague subtle way which is a peculiarity, -not only of the Pariah-type, but of human nature in general, she was -anxious that Dangelis should be given at least a passing glimpse of -another view of the Romer family from that which he seemed to have -imbibed. - -It was not that she was definitely plotting against her cousin or -trying to undermine her position with her artist-friend, but she felt a -natural human desire that this sympathetic and good-tempered man should -be put, to some extent at least, upon his guard. - -She was, at any rate, not at all unwilling to initiate him into the -mysteries of Mr. Quincunx’ mind, hoping, perhaps, in an obscure sort -of way, that such an initiation would throw her own position, in this -strange household, into a light more evocative of considerate interest. - -She had been so often made conscious of late that in his absorption -in Gladys he had swept her brusquely aside as a dull and tiresome -spoil-sport, that it was not without a certain feminine eagerness that -she embraced the thought of his being compelled to listen to what she -well knew Mr. Quincunx would have to say upon the matter. - -It was also an agreeable thought that in doing justice to the -originality and depth of the recluse’s intelligence, the American -would be driven to recognize the essentially unintellectual tone of -conversation at Nevilton House. - -She instinctively felt sure that the same generous and comprehensive -sympathy that led him to condone the vulgar lapses of these “new -people,” would lead him to embrace with more than toleration the -eccentricities and aberration of the forlorn relative of the Lords of -Glastonbury. - -With these thoughts passing rapidly through her brain, Lacrima found -herself, after a little further hesitation, agreeing demurely to the -American’s proposal to visit the tenant of Dead Man’s Lane before -the end of the day. She left it uncertain at what precise hour they -should go--probably between tea and dinner--because she was anxious, -for her own sake, dreading her cousin’s anger, to make the adventure -synchronize, if possible, with the latter’s assignation with Luke, -trusting that the good turn she thus did her, by removing her artistic -admirer at a critical juncture, would propitiate the fair-haired -tyrant’s wrath. - -This matter having been satisfactorily settled, the Italian began -to feel, as she observed the artist’s bold and challenging glance -embracing her from head to foot, while he continued to this new and -more attentive listener his interrupted monologue, that species of shy -and nervous restraint which invariably embarrassed her when left alone -in his society. - -Inexperienced at detecting the difference between æsthetic interest and -emotional interest, and associating the latter with nothing but what -was brutal and gross, Lacrima experienced a disconcerting sort of shame -when under the scrutiny of his eyes. - -Her timid comments upon his observations showed, however, so much more -subtle insight into his meaning than Gladys had ever displayed, that -it was with a genuine sense of regret that he accepted at last some -trifling excuse she offered and let her wander away. Feeling restless -and in need of distraction he returned to the house and sought the -society of Mrs. Romer. - -He discovered this good lady seated in the housekeeper’s room, perusing -an illustrated paper and commenting upon its contents to the portly -Mrs. Murphy. The latter discreetly withdrew on the appearance of the -guest of the house, and Dangelis entered into conversation with his -hostess. - -“Maurice Quincunx!” she cried, as soon as her visitor mentioned the -recluse’s queer name, “you don’t mean to say that Lacrima’s going to -take you to see _him_? Well--of all the nonsensical ideas I ever heard! -You’d better not tell Mortimer where you’re going. He’s just now very -angry with Maurice. It won’t please him at all, her taking you there. -Maurice is related to me, you know, not to Mr. Romer. Mr. Romer has -never liked him, and lately--but there! I needn’t go into all that. -We used to see quite a lot of him in the old days, when we first came -to Nevilton. I like to have someone about, you know, and Maurice was -somebody to talk to, when Mr. Romer was away; but lately things have -been quite different. It is all very sad and very tiresome, you know, -but what can a person do?” - -This was the nearest approach to a hint of divergence between the -master and mistress of Nevilton that Dangelis had ever been witness to, -and even this may have been misleading, for the shrewd little eyes, -out of which the lady peered at him, over her spectacles, were more -expressive of mild malignity than of moral indignation. - -“But what kind of person is this Mr. Quincunx?” enquired the American. -“I confess I can’t, so far, get any clear vision of his personality. -Won’t you tell me something more definite about him, something that -will ‘give me a line on him,’ as we say in the States?” - -Mrs. Romer looked a trifle bewildered. It seemed that the personality -of Mr. Quincunx was not a topic that excited her conversational powers. - -“I never really cared for him,” she finally remarked. “He used to talk -so unnaturally. He’d come over here, you know, almost every day--when -Gladys was a little girl,--and talk and talk and talk. I used to -think sometimes he wasn’t quite right here,”--the good lady tapped -her forehead with her fore-finger,--“but in some things he was very -sensible. I don’t mean that he spoke loud or shouted or was noisy. -Sometimes he didn’t say very much; but even when he didn’t speak, his -listening was like talking. Gladys used to be quite fond of him when -she was a little girl. He used to play hide-and-seek with her in the -garden. I think he helped me to keep her out of mischief more than -any of her governesses did. Once, you know, he beat Tom Raggles--the -miller’s son--because he followed her across the park--beat him over -the head, they say, with an iron pick. The lying wretch of a lad swore -that she had encouraged him, and we were driven to hush the matter up, -but I believe Mr. Quincunx had to see the inspector in Yeoborough.” - -Beyond this somewhat obscure incident, Dangelis found it impossible -to draw from Mrs. Romer any intelligible answer to his questions. The -figure of the evasive tenant of the cottage in Dead Man’s Lane remained -as misty as ever. - -A little irritated by the ill success of his psychological -investigations, the artist, conscious that he was wasting the morning, -began, out of sheer capricious wilfulness, to expound his æsthetic -ideas to this third interlocutor. - -His nerves were in a morbid and unbalanced state, due partly to a lapse -in his creative energy, and partly to the fact that in the depths of -his mind he was engaged in a half-conscious struggle to suppress and -keep in its proper place the insidious physical attraction which Gladys -had already begun to exert upon him. - -But the destiny of poor Dangelis, this inauspicious morning, was, it -seemed, to become a bore and a pedant to everyone he encountered; for -the lady had hardly listened for two minutes to his discourse when she -also left him, with some suitable apology, and went off to perform more -practical household duties. “What did this worthy Quincunx talk about, -that you used to find so tiresome?” the artist flung after her, as she -left the room. - -Mrs. Romer turned on the threshold. “He talked of nothing but the -bible,” she said. “The bible and our blessed Lord. You can’t blame me, -Mr. Dangelis, for objecting to that sort of thing, can you? I call it -blasphemy, nothing short of blasphemy!” - -Dangelis wondered, as he strolled out again into the air, intending to -seek solace for his irritable nerves in a solitary walk, whether, if it -were blasphemy in Nevilton House to refer to the Redeemer of men, and a -nuisance and a bore to refer to heathen idolatries, what kind of topic -it might be that the place’s mental atmosphere demanded. - -He came to the conclusion, as he proceeded down the west drive, that -the Romer family was more stimulating to watch, than edifying to -converse with. - -After tea that evening, as Lacrima had hoped, Gladys announced her -intention of going down to the mill to sketch. This--to Lacrima’s -initiated ears--meant an assignation with Luke, and she glanced quickly -at Dangelis, with a shy smile, to indicate that their projected visit -was possible. As soon as her cousin had departed they set out. Their -expedition seemed likely to prove a complete success. They found -Mr. Quincunx in one of his gayest moods. Had he been expecting the -appearance of the American he would probably have worked himself up -into a miserable state of nervous apprehension; but the introduction -thus suddenly thrust upon him, the genial simplicity of the Westerner’s -manners and his honest openness of speech disarmed him completely. In a -mood of this kind the recluse became a charming companion. - -Dangelis was immensely delighted with him. His original remarks, and -the quaint chuckling bursts of sardonic laughter which accompanied -his irresistible sallies, struck the artist as something completely -different from what he had expected. He had looked to see a listless -preoccupied mystic, ready to flood him with dreamy and wearisome -monologues upon “the simple life,” and in place of this he found -an entertaining and gracious gentleman, full of delicious malice, -and uttering quip after quip of sly, half-innocent, half-subtle, -Rabelaisean humour, in the most natural manner in the world. - -Not quite able to bring his affability to the point of inviting them -into his kitchen, Mr. Quincunx carried out, into a sheltered corner, -three rickety chairs and a small deal table. Here, protected from the -gusty wind, he offered them cups of exquisitely prepared cocoa and -little oatmeal biscuits. He asked the American question after question -about his life in the remote continent, putting into his enquiries such -naive and childlike eagerness, that Dangelis congratulated himself upon -having at last discovered an Englishman who was not superior to the -charming vice of curiosity. Had the artist possessed less of that large -and careless aplomb which makes the utmost of every situation and never -teases itself with criticism, he might have regarded the recluse’s -effusiveness as too deprecatory and propitiatory in its tone. This, -however, never occurred to him and he swallowed the solitary’s flattery -with joy and gratitude, especially as it followed so quickly upon the -conversational deficiencies of Nevilton House. - -“I live in the mud here,” said Mr. Quincunx, “and that makes it so -excellent of you two people from the upper world to slip down into the -mud with me.” - -“I think you live very happily and very sensibly, Maurice!” cried -Lacrima, looking with tender affection upon her friend. “I wish we -could all live as you do.” - -The recluse waved his hand. “There must be lions and antelopes in the -world,” he said, “as well as frogs and toads. I expect this friend of -yours, who has seen the great cities, is at this moment wishing he were -in a café in New York or Paris, rather than sitting on a shaky chair -drinking my bad cocoa.” - -“That’s not very complimentary to me, is it, Mr. Dangelis?” said -Lacrima. - -“Mr. Quincunx is much to be envied,” remarked the American. “He is -living the sort of life that every man of sense would wish to live. -It’s outrageous, the way we let ourselves become slave to objects and -circumstances and people.” - -Lacrima, anxious in the depths of her heart to give the American -the benefit of Mr. Quincunx’s insight into character, turned the -conversation in the direction of the rumored political contest between -Romer and Wone. She was not quite pleased with the result of this -manœuvre, however, as it at once diminished the solitary’s high spirits -and led to his adoption of the familiar querulous tone of peevish -carping. - -Mr. Quincunx spoke of his remoteness from the life around him. He -referred with bitter sarcasm to the obsequious worship of power from -which every inhabitant of the village of Nevilton suffered. - -“I laugh,” he said, “when our good socialist Wone gives vent to his -eloquent protestations. Really, in his heart, he is liable to just the -same cringing to power as all the rest. Let Romer make overtures to -him,--only he despises him too much to do that,--and you’d soon see how -quickly he’d swing round! Give him a position of power, Dangelis--I -expect you know from your experience in your own country how this works -out,--and you would soon find him just as tyrannical, just as obdurate.” - -“I think you’re quite wrong, Maurice,” cried Lacrima impetuously. “Mr. -Wone is not an educated man as you are, but he’s entirely sincere. -You’ve only to listen to him to understand his sincerity.” - -A grievous shadow of irritation and pique crossed the recluse’s face. -Nothing annoyed him more than this kind of direct opposition. He waved -the objection aside. Lacrima’s outburst of honest feeling had already -undone the subtle purpose with which she had brought the American. Her -evasive Balaam was, it appeared, inclined, out of pure wilfulness, to -bless rather than curse their grand enemy. - -“It’s all injured vanity,” Mr. Quincunx went on, throwing at his -luckless girl-friend a look of quite disproportioned anger. “It’s all -his outraged power-instinct that drives him to take up this pose. I -know what I’m talking about, for I often argue with him. Whenever -I dispute the smallest point of his theories, he bursts out like a -demon and despises me as a downright fool. He’d have got me turned -out of the Social Meetings, because I contradicted him there, if our -worthy clergyman hadn’t intervened. You’ve no idea how deep this -power-instinct goes. You must remember, Mr. Dangelis, you see a village -like ours entirely from the outside and you think it beautiful, and the -people charming and gentle. I tell you it’s a nest of rattlesnakes! -It’s a narrow, poisonous cage, full of deadly vindictiveness and -concentrated malice. Of course we know what human nature is, wherever -you find it, but if you want to find it at its very worst, come to -Nevilton!” - -“But you yourself,” protested the artist, “are you not one of these -same people? I understand that you--” - -Mr. Quincunx rose to his feet, his expressive nostrils quivering with -anger. “I don’t allow anyone to say that of me!” he cried “I may have -my faults, but I’m as different from all these rats, as a guillemot is -different from a cormorant!” - -He sat down again and his voice took almost a pleading tone. “You know -I’m different. You must know I’m different! How could I see all these -things as clearly as I do if it wasn’t so? I’ve undergone what that -German calls ‘the Great Renunciation.’ I’ve escaped the will to live. -I neither care to acquire myself this accursed power--or to revolt, in -jealous envy, against those who possess it.” - -He relapsed into silence and contemplated his garden and its enclosing -hedge, with a look of profound melancholy. Dangelis had been -considerably distracted during the latter part of this discourse by his -artistic interest in the delicate lines of Lacrima’s figure and the -wistful sadness of her expression. It was borne in upon him that he -had somewhat neglected this shy cousin of his exuberant young friend. -He promised himself to see more of the Italian, as occasion served. -Perhaps--if only Gladys would agree to it--he might make use of her, -also, in his Dionysian impressions. - -“Surely,” he remarked, speaking with the surface of his intelligence, -and pondering all the while upon the secret of Lacrima’s charm, -“whatever this man may be, he’s not a hypocrite,--is he? From all I -hear he’s pathetically in earnest.” - -“Of course we know he’s in earnest,” answered Maurice. “What I maintain -is, that it is his personal vindictiveness that creates his opinions. -I believe he would derive genuine pleasure from seeing Nevilton House -burnt to the ground, and every one of the people in it reduced to -ashes!” - -“That proves his sincerity,” answered the American, keeping his gaze -fixed so intently upon Lacrima that the girl began to be embarrassed. - -“He takes the view-point, no doubt, that if the present oligarchy in -England were entirely destroyed, a new and happier epoch would begin at -once.” - -“I’m sure Mr. Wone is opposed to every kind of violence,” threw in -Lacrima. - -“Nonsense!” cried Mr. Quincunx abruptly. “He may not like violence -because he’s afraid of it reacting on himself. But what he wants to do -is to humiliate everyone above him, to disturb them, to prod them, to -harass and distress them, and if possible to bring them down to his own -level. He’s got his thumb on Lacrima’s friends over there,”--he waved -his hand in the direction of Nevilton House,--“because they happen -to be at the top of the tree at this moment. But if you or I were -there, it would be just the same. It’s all jealousy. That’s what it -is,--jealousy and envy! He wants to make every one who’s prosperous and -eats meat, and drinks champagne, know what it is to live a dog’s life, -as he has known it himself! I understand his feelings very well. We -poor toads, who live in the mud, get extraordinary pleasure when any of -you grand gentlemen slip by accident into our dirty pond. He sees such -people enjoying themselves and being happy and he wants to stick a few -pins into them!” - -“But why not, my good sir?” answered the American. “Why shouldn’t Wone -use all his energy to crush Romer, just as Romer uses all his energy to -crush Wone?” - -Lacrima sighed. “I don’t think either of you make this world seem a -very nice place,” she observed. - -“A nice place?” cried Mr. Quincunx. “It’s a place poisoned at the -root--a place full of gall and wormwood!” - -“In my humble opinion,” said the American, “it’s a splendid world. I -love to see these little struggles and contests going on. I love to see -the delicious inconsistencies and self-deceptions that we’re all guilty -of. I play the game myself, and I love to see others play it. It’s the -only thing I do love, except--” he added after a pause--“except my -pictures.” - -“I loathe the game,” retorted the recluse, “and I find it impossible to -live with people who do not loathe it too.” - -“Well--all I can say, my friend,” observed Dangelis, “is that this -business of ‘renouncing,’ of which you talk, doesn’t appeal to me. It -strikes me as a backing down and scurrying away, from the splendid -adventure of being alive at all. What are you alive for,” he added, -“if you are going to condemn the natural combative instinct of men and -women as evil and horrible? They are the instincts by which we live. -They are the motives that propel the whole universe.” - -“Mr. Wone would say,” interposed Lacrima, “and I’m not sure that I -don’t agree with him, that the real secret of the universe is deeper -than all these unhappy struggles. I don’t like the unctuous way he puts -these things, but he may be right all the same.” - -“There’s no secret of the universe, Miss Traffio,” the American -threw in. “There are many things we don’t understand. But no one -principle,--not even the principle of love itself, can be allowed to -monopolize the whole field. Life, I always feel, is better interpreted -by Art than by anything else, and Art is equally interested in every -kind of energy.” - -Lacrima’s face clouded, and her hands fell wearily upon her lap. - -“Some sorts of energy,” she observed, in a low voice, “are brutal and -dreadful. If Art expresses that kind, I’m afraid I don’t care for Art.” - -The American gave her a quick, puzzled glance. There was a sorrowful -intensity about her tone which he found difficult to understand. - -“What I meant was,” he said, “that logically we can only do one of two -things,--either join in the game and fight fiercely and craftily for -our own hand, or take a convenient drop of poison and end the whole -affair.” - -The melancholy eyes of Mr. Quincunx opened very wide at this, and a -fluttering smile twitched the corners of his mouth. - -“We poor dogs,” he said, “who are not wanted in this world, and don’t -believe in any other, are just the people who are most unwilling to -finish ourselves off in the way you suggest. We can’t help a sort of -sneaking hope, that somehow or another, through no effort of our own, -things will become better for us. The same cowardice that makes us draw -back from life, makes us draw back from the thought of death. Can’t you -understand that,--you American citizen?” - -Dangelis looked from one to another of his companions. He could not -help thinking in his heart of the gay animated crowds, who, at that -very moment, in the streets of Toledo, Ohio, were pouring along the -side-walks and flooding the picture shows. These quaint Europeans, for -all their historic surroundings, were certainly lacking in the joy of -life. - -“I can’t conceive,” remarked Mr. Quincunx suddenly, and with that -amazing candour which distinguished him, “how a person as artistic and -sensitive as you are, can stay with those people over there. Anyone can -see that you’re as different from them as light from darkness.” - -“My dear sir,” replied the American, interrupting a feeble little -protest which Lacrima was beginning to make at the indiscretion of her -friend, “I may or may not understand your wonder. The point is, that -my whole principle of life is to deal boldly and freely with every kind -of person. Can’t you see that I like to look on at the spectacle of Mr. -Romer’s energy and prosperity, just as I like to look on at the revolt -against these things in the mind of our friend Wone. I tell you it -tickles my fancy to touch this human pantomime on every possible side. -The more unjust Romer is towards Wone, the more I am amused. And the -more unjust Wone is towards Romer, the more I am amused. It is out of -the clash of these opposite injustices that nature,--how shall I put -it?--that nature expands and grows.” - -Mr. Quincunx gazed at the utterer of these antinomian sentiments, with -humorous interest. Dangelis gathered, from the twitching of his heavy -moustache, that he was chuckling like a goblin. The queer fellow had -a way of emerging out of his melancholy, at certain moments, like a -badger out of his hole; and at such times he would bring the most ideal -or speculative conversation down with a jerk to the very bed-rock of -reality. - -“What’s amusing you so?” enquired the citizen of Ohio. - -“I was only thinking,” chuckled Mr. Quincunx, stroking his beard, -and glancing sardonically at Lacrima, “that the real reason of your -enjoying yourself at Nevilton House, is quite a different one from any -you have mentioned.” - -Dangelis was for the moment quite confused. “Confound the fellow!” he -muttered to himself, “I’m curst if I’m sorry he’s under the thumb of -our friend Romer!” - -His equanimity was soon restored, however, and he covered his confusion -by assuming a light and flippant air. - -“Ha! ha!” he exclaimed, “so you’re thinking I’ve been caught by -this young lady’s cousin? Well! I don’t mind confessing that we get -on beautifully together. But as for anything else, I think Miss -Traffio will bear witness that I am quite as devoted to the mother -as the daughter. But Gladys Romer must be admitted a very attractive -girl,--mustn’t she Miss Traffio? I suppose our friend here is not -so stern an ascetic as to refuse an artist like me the pleasure of -admiring such adorable suppleness as your cousin possesses; such -a--such a--” he waved his hand vaguely in the air, “such a free and -flexible sort of grace?” - -Mr. Quincunx picked up a rough ash stick which lay on the ground and -prodded the earth. His face showed signs of growing once more convulsed -with indecent merriment. - -“Why do you use all those long words?” he said. “We country dogs go -more straight to the point in these matters. Flexible grace! Can’t you -confess that you’re bitten by the old Satan, which we all have in us? -Adorable suppleness! Why can’t you say a buxom wench, a roguish wench, -a playful wanton wench? We country fellows don’t understand your subtle -artistic expressions. But we know what it is when an honest foreigner -like yourself goes walking and talking with a person like Madame -Gladys!” - -Glancing apprehensively at the American’s face Lacrima saw that her -friend’s rudeness had made him, this time, seriously angry. - -She rose from her chair. “We must be getting back,” she said, “or -we shall be late. I hope you and Mr. Dangelis will know more of one -another, before he has to leave Nevilton. I’m sure you’ll find that -you’ve quite a lot in common, when you really begin to understand each -other.” - -The gravity and earnestness with which she uttered these words made -both her companions feel a little ashamed. - -“After all,” thought the artist, “he is a typical Englishman.” - -“After all,” thought Mr. Quincunx, “I’ve always been told that -Americans treat women as if they were made of tissue-paper.” - -Their parting from the recluse at his garden gate was friendly and -natural. Mr. Quincunx reverted to his politest manner, and the artist’s -good temper seemed quite restored. - -In retrospect, after the passing of a couple of days, spent by Dangelis -in preparing the accessories of his Ariadne picture, and by Gladys in -unpacking certain mysterious parcels telegraphed for to London, the -American found himself recalling his visit to Dead Man’s Cottage with -none but amiable feelings. The third morning which followed this visit, -dawned upon Nevilton with peculiar propitiousness. The air was windless -and full of delicious fragrance. The bright clear sunshine seemed to -penetrate every portion of the spacious Elizabethan mansion and to turn -its corridors and halls, filled with freshly plucked flowers, into a -sort of colossal garden house. - -Dangelis rose that morning with a more than normal desire to plunge -into his work. He was considerably annoyed, however, to find that -Gladys had actually arranged to have Mr. Clavering invited to lunch and -had gone so far as to add a pencilled scrawl of her own--she herself -laughingly confessed as much--to her mother’s formal note, begging him -to appear in the middle of the forenoon, as she had a “surprise” in -store for him. - -The American’s anxiety to begin work as soon as possible with his -attractive model, made him suffer miseries of impatience, while Gladys -amused herself with her Ariadne draperies, making Lacrima dress and -undress her twenty times, behind the screens of the studio. - -She appeared at last, however, and the artist, looking up at her from -his canvas, was for the moment staggered by her beauty. The instinctive -taste of her cousin’s Latin fingers was shown in the exquisite skill -with which the classical folds of the dress she wore accentuated the -natural charm of her young form. - -The stuff of which her chief garment was made was of a deep gentian -blue and the contrast between this color and the dazzling whiteness of -her neck and arms was enough to ravish not only the æsthetic soul in -the man but his more human senses also. Her bare feet were encased in -white sandals, bound by slender leathern straps, which were twisted -round her legs almost as high as the knee. A thin metal band, of -burnished bronze, was clasped about her head and over and under this, -her magnificent sun-coloured hair flowed, in easy and natural waves, -to where it was caught up, in a Grecian knot, above the nape of her -neck. Save for this band round her head she wore no clasps or jewelry -of any kind, and the softness of her flesh was made more emphatic by -the somewhat rough and coarse texture of her loosely folded drapery. -Dangelis was so lost in admiration of this delicious apparition, that -he hardly noticed Lacrima’s timid farewell, as the Italian slipped away -into the garden and left them together. It was indeed not till Gladys -had descended from the little wooden platform and coyly approached the -side of his easel, that the artist recovered himself. - -“Upon my soul, but you look perfectly wonderful!” he cried -enthusiastically. “Quick! Let’s to business. I want to get well -started, before we have any interruption.” - -He led her back to the platform, and made her lean in a semi-recumbent -position upon a cushioned bench which he had prepared for the purpose. -He took a long time to satisfy himself as to her precise pose, but at -last, with a lucky flash of inspiration, and not without assistance -from Gladys herself, whose want of æsthetic feeling was compensated for -in this case by the profoundest of all feminine instincts, he found for -her the inevitable, the supremely effective, position. It was with a -thrill of exquisite sweetness, pervading both soul and senses, that he -began painting her. He felt as though this were one of the few flawless -and unalloyed moments of his life. Everything in him and about him -seemed to vibrate and quiver in response to the breath of beauty and -youth. Penetrated by the delicate glow of a passion which was free, at -present, from the sting of sensual craving, he felt as though all the -accumulative impressions, of a long procession of harmonious days, were -summed up and focussed in this fortunate hour. The loveliness of the -young girl, as he transferred it, curve by curve, shadow by shadow, to -his canvas, seemed expressive of a reserved secret of enchantment, -until this moment withheld and concealed from him. The ravishing -contours of her lithe figure seemed to open up, to his magnetized -imagination, vistas and corridors of emotion, such as he had never -even dreamed of experiencing. She was more than a supremely lovely -girl. She was the very epitome and incarnation of all those sunward -striving forces and impulses, which, rising from the creative heart -of the universe, struggle upwards through the resisting darkness. She -was a Sun-child, a creature of air and earth and fire, a daughter of -Circe and Dionysus; and as he drained the so frankly offered philtre of -her intoxicating beauty, and flung his whole soul’s response to it in -glowing color upon the canvas, he felt that he would never again thus -catch the fates asleep, or thus plunge his hands into the nectar of the -supreme gods. - -The world presented itself to him at that moment, while he swept his -brush with fierce passionate energy across the canvas, as bathed in -translucent and unclouded ether. Everything it contained, of weakness -and decadence, of gloom and misgiving, seemed to be transfigured, -illuminated, swallowed up. He felt as though, in thus touching the very -secret of divine joy, held in the lap of the abysmal mothers, nothing -but energy and beauty and creative force would ever concern or occupy -him again. All else,--all scruples, all questions, all problems, all -renunciations--seemed but irrelevant and negligible vapour, compared -with this glorious and sunlit stream of life. He worked on feverishly -at his task. By degrees, and in so incredibly a short time that -Gladys herself was astonished when he told her she could rest and -stretch herself a little, the figure of the Ariadne he had seen in his -imagination limned itself against the expectant background. He was -preparing to resume his labour, and Gladys, after a boyish scramble -into the neighbouring conservatory, and an eager return to the artist’s -side with a handful of early strawberries, was just re-mounting the -platform, when the door of the studio opened and Hugh Clavering entered. - -He had been almost inclined,--in so morbid a condition were -his nerves--to knock at the door before coming in, but a lucky -after-thought had reminded him that such an action would have been -scandalously inappropriate. - -Assuming an air of boyish familiarity, which harmonized better perhaps -with her leather-bound ankles than with her girlish figure, Gladys -jumped down at once from the little stage and ran gaily to welcome him. -She held out her hand, and then, raising both her arms to her head -and smoothing back her bright hair beneath its circlet of bronze, she -inquired of him, in a soft low murmur, whether he thought she looked -“nice.” - -Clavering was struck dumb. He had all those shivering sensations of -trembling agitation which are described with such realistic emphasis -in the fragmentary poem of Sappho. The playful girl, her fair cheeks -flushed with excitement and a treacherous light in her blue eyes, -swung herself upon the rough oak table that stood in the middle of -the room, and sat there, smiling coyly at him, dangling her sandalled -feet. She still held in her hand the strawberries she had picked; and -as, with childish gusto, she put one after another of these between -her lips, she looked at him with an indescribable air of mischievous, -challenging defiance. - -“So this is the pagan thing,” thought the poor priest, “that it is my -duty to initiate into the religion of sacrifice!” - -He could not prevent the passing through his brain of a grotesque and -fantastic vision in which he saw himself, like a second hermit of the -Thebaid, leading this equivocal modern Thaïs to the waters of Jordan. -Certainly the association of such a mocking white-armed darling of -errant gods with the ceremony of confirmation was an image somewhat -difficult to embrace! The impatient artist, apologizing profusely to -the embarrassed visitor, soon dragged off his model to her couch on the -platform, and it fell to the lot of the infatuated priest to subside in -paralyzed helplessness, on a modest seat at the back of the room. What -thoughts, what wild unpermitted thoughts, chased one another in strange -procession through his soul, as he stared at the beautiful heathen -figure thus presented to his gaze! - -The movements of the artist, the heavy stream of sunlight falling -aslant the room, the sweet exotic smells borne in from the window -opening on the conservatory, seemed all to float and waver about him, -as though they were things felt by a deep-sea diver beneath a weight -of humming waters. He gave himself up completely to what that moment -brought. - -Faith, piety, sacrifice, devotion, became for him mere words and -phrases--broken, fragmentary, unmeaning--sounds heard in the -shadow-land of sleep, vague and indistinct like the murmur of drowned -bells under a brimming tide. - -It may well be believed that the langourously reclining model was not -in the least oblivious to the effect she produced. This was, indeed, -one of Gladys’ supreme moments, and she let no single drop of its -honeyed distillation pass undrained. She permitted her heavy-lidded -blue eyes, suffused with a soft dreamy mist, to rest tenderly on her -impassioned lover; and as if in response to the desperate longing in -his look, a light-fluttering, half-wistful smile crossed her parted -lips, like a ripple upon a shadowy stream. - -The girl’s vivid consciousness of the ecstasy of power was indeed, -in spite of her apparent lethargic passivity, never more insanely -aroused. Lurking beneath the dreamy sweetness of the look with which -she responded to Clavering’s magnetized gaze, were furtive depths of -Circean remorselessness. Under her gentian-blue robe her youthful -breast trembled with exultant pleasure, and she felt as though, with -every delicious breath she drew, she were drinking to the dregs the -very wine of the immortals. - -“I must give Mr. Clavering some strawberries!” she suddenly cried, -jumping to her feet, and breaking both the emotional and the æsthetic -spell as if they were gossamer-threads. “He looks bored and tired.” - -In vain the disconcerted artist uttered an imploring groan of dismay, -as thus, at the critical moment, his model betrayed him. In vain the -bewildered priest professed his complete innocence of any wish for -strawberries. - -The wayward girl clambered once more through the conservatory window, -at the risk of spoiling her Olympian attire, and returning with a -handful of fruit, tripped coquettishly up to both of them in turn and -insisted on their dividing the spoil. - -Had either of the two men been in a mood for classical reminiscences, -the famous image of Circe feeding her transformed lovers might have -been irresistibly evoked. They were all three thus occupied,--the -girl in the highest spirits, and both men feeling a little sulky and -embarrassed, when, to the general consternation, the door began slowly -to open, and a withered female figure, clad in a ragged shawl and a -still more dilapidated skirt made its entry into the room. - -“Why, it’s Witch-Bessie!” cried Gladys, involuntarily clutching at -Clavering’s arm. “Wicked old thing! She gave me quite a start. Well, -Bessie, what do you want here? Don’t you know the way to the back door? -You mustn’t come round to the front like this. What do you want?” - -Each of the model’s companions made a characteristic movement. Dangelis -began feeling in his pocket for some suitable coin, and Clavering -raised his hand with an half-reproachful, half-conciliatory, and -altogether pastoral gesture, as if at the same time threatening and -welcoming a lost sheep of his flock. - -But Witch-Bessie had only eyes for Gladys. She stared in petrified -amazement at the gentian-blue robe and the boyish sandals. - -“Send her away!” whispered the girl to Mr. Clavering. “Tell her to go -to the back door. They’ll give her food and things there.” - -The cadaverous stare of the old woman relaxed at last. Fixing her -colourless eyes on the two men, and pointing at Gladys with her skinny -hand, she cried, in a shrill, querulous voice, that rang unpleasantly -through the studio, “What be she then, touzled up in like of this? -What be she then, with her Jezebel face and her shameless looks? Round -to back door, is it, ’ee ’d have me sent? I do know who you be, well -enough, Master Clavering, and I do guess this gentleman be him as they -say does bide here; but what be she, tricketed up in them outlandish -clothes, like a Gypoo from Roger-town Fair? Be she Miss Gladys Romer, -or baint she?” - -“Come, Bessie,” said Clavering in propitiatory tone. “Do as the young -lady says and go round to the back. I’ll go with you if you like. I -expect they’ll have plenty of scraps for you in that big kitchen.” - -He laid his hand on the old woman’s shoulder and tried to usher her -out. But she turned on him angrily. “Scraps!” she cried. “Scraps thee -own self! What does the like of a pair of gentlemen such as ye be, -flitter-mousing and flandering round, with a hussy like she?” - -She turned furiously upon Gladys, waving aside with a snort of contempt -the silver coin which Dangelis, with a vague notion that “typical -English beggars” should be cajoled with gifts, sought to press into her -hand. - -“’Twas to speak a bit of my mind to ’ee, not to beg at your blarsted -back door that I did come this fine morning! Us that do travel by -night and by day hears precious strange things sometimes. What for, my -fine lady, did ye go and swear to policeman Frank, down in Nevilton, -that ’twas I took your God-darned pigeons? Your dad may be a swinking -magistrate, what can send poor folks to gaol for snaring rabbities, -or putting a partridge in the pot to make the cabbage tasty, but what -right does that give a hussy like thee to send policeman Frank swearing -he’ll lock up old Bessie? It don’t suit wi’ I, this kind of flummery; -so I do tell ’ee plain and straight. It don’t suit wi’ I!” - -“Come, clear out of this, my good woman!” cried the indignant -clergyman, seizing the trembling old creature by the arm. - -“Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt her!” exclaimed Gladys. “She’ll put the -evil eye on me. She did it to Nance Purvis and she’s been mad ever -since.” - -“It’s a lie!” whimpered the old woman, struggling feebly as Clavering -pulled her towards the door. - -“It’s your own dad and Nance’s dad with their ugly ways what have -driven that poor lass moon-crazy. Mark Purvis do whip her with withy -sticks--all the country knows it. Darn ’ee, for a black devil’s spawn, -and no blessed minister, pulling and harrying an old woman!” - -This last ejaculation was addressed to the furious Mr. Clavering, who -was now thrusting her by bodily force through the open door. With -one final effort Witch-Bessie broke loose from him and turned on the -threshold. “Ye _shall_ have the evil eye, since ye’ve called for it,” -she shrieked, making a wild gesture in the air, in the direction of -the shrinking Ariadne. “And what if I let these two gentlemen know -with whom it was ye were out walking the other night? I did see ’ee, -and I do know what I did see! I’m a pigeon-stealer am I, ye flaunting -flandering Gypoo? Let me tell these dear gentlemen how as--” Her voice -died suddenly away in an incoherent splutter, as the vicar of Nevilton, -with his hand upon her mouth, swung her out of the door. - -Gladys sank down upon a chair pale and trembling. - -As soon, however, as the old woman’s departure seemed final, she began -to recover her equanimity. She gave vent to a rather forced and uneasy -laugh. “Silly old thing!” she exclaimed. “This comes of mother’s -getting rid of the dogs. She never used to come here when we had the -dogs. They scented her out in a minute. I wish we had them now to let -loose at her! They’d make her skip.” - -“I do hope, my dear child,” said Dangelis anxiously, “that she has not -really frightened you? What a terrible old creature! I’ve always longed -to see a typical English witch, but bless my heart if I want to see -another!” - -“She’s gone now,” announced Mr. Clavering, returning hot and -breathless. “I saw her half-way down the drive. She’ll be out of sight -directly. I expect you don’t want to see any more of her, else, if you -come out here a step or two, you can see her slinking away.” - -Gladys thanked him warmly for his energetic defence of her, but denied -having the least wish to witness her enemy’s retreat. - -“It must be getting near lunch time,” she said. “If you don’t mind -waiting a moment, I’ll change my dress.” And she tripped off behind the -screens. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -AUBER LAKE - - -The presence of Ralph Dangelis in Nevilton House had altered, in more -than one respect, the relations between Gladys and her cousin. - -The girls saw much less of each other, and Lacrima was left -comparatively at liberty to follow her own devices. - -On several occasions, however, when they were all three together, -it chanced that the American had made himself extremely agreeable -to the younger girl, even going so far as to take her part, quite -energetically, in certain lively discussions. These occasions were -not forgotten by Gladys, and she hated the Italian with a hatred more -deep-rooted than ever. - -As soon as her first interest in the American’s society began to pall -a little, she cast about in her mind for some further way of causing -discomfort and agitation to the object of her hatred. - -Only those who have taken the trouble to watch carefully what might be -called the “magnetic antagonism,” between feminine animals condemned -to live in close relations with one another, will understand the full -intensity of what this young person felt. It was not necessarily a sign -of any abnormal morbidity in our fair-haired friend. - -For a man in whom one is interested, even though such interest be -mild and casual, to show a definite tendency to take sides against -one, on behalf of one’s friend, is a sufficient justification,--at -least so nature seems to indicate--for the awakening in one’s heart -of an intense desire for revenge. Such desire is often aroused in -the most well-constituted temperaments among us, and in this case it -might be said that the sound physical nerves of the daughter of the -Romers craved the satisfaction of such an impulse with the same stolid -persistence as her flesh and blood craved for air and sun. But how -to achieve it? What new and elaborate humiliation to devise for this -irritating partner of her days? - -The bathing episode was beginning to lose its piquancy. Custom, with -its kindly obliviousness, had already considerably modified Lacrima’s -fears, and there had ceased to be for Gladys any further pleasure in -displaying her aquarian agility before a companion so occupied with the -beauty of lawn and garden at that magical hour. - -Fate, however, partial, as it often is, to such patient tenacity of -emotion, let fall at last, at her very feet, the opportunity she craved. - -She had just begun to experience that miserable sensation, so -sickeningly oppressive to a happy disposition, of hating where she -could not hurt, when, one evening, news was brought to the house by -Mark Purvis the game-keeper that a wandering flock of wild-geese had -taken up its temporary abode amid the reeds of Auber Lake. Mr. Romer -himself soon brought confirmation of this fact. - -The birds appeared to leave the place during the day and fly far -westward, possibly as far as the marshes of Sedgemoor, but they always -returned at night-fall to this new tarrying ground. - -The very evening of this exciting discovery, Gladys’ active mind -formulated a thrilling and absorbing project, which she positively -trembled with longing to communicate to Lacrima. She found the long -dinner that night, and the subsequent chatter with Dangelis on the -terrace, almost too tedious to be endured; and it was at an unusually -early hour that she surprised her cousin by joining her in her room. - -The Pariah was seated at her mirror, wearily reducing to order her -entangled curls, when Gladys entered. She looked very fragile in her -white bodice and the little uplifted arms, that the mirror reflected, -showed unnaturally long and thin. When one hates a person with the sort -of massive hatred such as, at that time, beat sullenly under Gladys’ -rounded bosom, every little physical characteristic in the object of -our emotion is an added incentive to our revengeful purpose. - -This Saturnian planetary law is unfortunately not confined to -antipathies between persons of the same sex. Sometimes the most -unhappy results have been known to spring from the manner in which -one or another, even of two lovers, has lifted chin or head, or moved -characteristically across a room. - -Thus it were almost impossible to exaggerate the loathing with which -this high-spirited girl contemplated the pale oval face and slender -swaying arms of her friend, as full of her new project she flung -herself into her favourite arm chair and met Lacrima’s frightened eyes -in the gilded Georgian mirror. She began her attack with elaborate -feline obliquity. - -“They say Mark Purvis’ crazy daughter has been giving trouble again. He -was up this morning, talking to father about it.” - -“Why don’t you send her away?” said the Italian, without turning round. - -“Send her away? She has to do all the house-work down there! Mark has -no one else, you know, and the poor man does not want the expense of -hiring a woman.” - -“Isn’t it rather a lonely place for a child like that?” - -“Lonely? I should think it is lonely! But what would you have? Somebody -must keep that cottage clean; and it’s just as well a wretched mad girl, -of no use to anyone, should do it, as that a sound person should lose -her wits in such a god-forsaken spot!” - -“What does she do at--at these times? Is she violent?” - -“Oh, she gets out in the night and roams about the woods. She was once -found up to her knees in the water. No, she isn’t exactly violent. But -she is a great nuisance.” - -“It must be terrible for her father!” - -“Well--in a way it does bother him. But he is not the man to stand much -nonsense.” - -“I hope he is kind to her.” - -Gladys laughed. “What a soft-hearted darling you are! I expect he -finds sometimes that you can’t manage mad people, any more than you can -manage children, without using the stick. But I fancy, on the whole, he -doesn’t treat her badly. He’s a fairly good-natured man.” - -The Pariah sighed. “I think Mr. Romer ought to send her away at once to -some kind of home, and pay someone to take her place.” - -“I daresay you do! If you had your way, father wouldn’t have a penny -left in the bank.” - -The Pariah rose from her seat, crossed over to the window, and looked -out into the sultry night. What a world this was! All the gentle and -troubled beings in it seemed over-ridden by gigantic merciless wheels! - -A little awed, in spite of herself, by the solemnity of her companion, -Gladys sought to bring her back out of this translunar mood by -capricious playfulness. She stretched herself out at full length in -her low chair, and calling the girl to her side, began caressing her, -pulling her down at last upon her lap. - -“Guess what has happened!” she murmured softly, as the quick beating of -the Pariah’s heart communicated itself to her, and made her own still -harder. - -“Oh, I know it’s something I shan’t like, something that I shall dread!” -cried the younger girl, making a feeble effort to escape. - -“Shall I tell you what it is?” Gladys went on, easily overcoming -this slight movement. “You know, don’t you, that there’s a flock of -wild-geese settled on the island in the middle of Auber Lake? Well! -I have got a lovely plan. I’ve never yet seen those birds, because -they don’t come back till the evening. What you and I are going to do, -darling, is to slip away out of the house, next time Mr. Dangelis goes -to see that friend of yours, and make straight to Auber Lake! I’ve -never been into those woods by night, and it’ll be extraordinarily -thrilling to see what Auber Lake looks like with the moon gleaming on -it. And then we may be able to make the wild-geese rise, by throwing -sticks or something, into the water. Oh, it’ll be simply lovely! Don’t -you think so, darling? Aren’t you quite thrilled by the idea?” - -The Pariah liberated herself by a sudden effort and stood erect on the -floor. - -“I think you are the wickedest girl that God ever made!” she said -solemnly. And then, as the full implication of the proposed adventure -grew upon her, she clasped her hands convulsively. “You cannot mean -it!” she cried. “You cannot mean it! You are teasing me, Gladys. You -are only saying it to tease me.” - -“Why, you’re not such a coward as all that!” her cousin replied. -“Think what it must be for Nance Purvis, who always lives down there! -I shouldn’t like to be more cowardly than a poor crazy labouring girl. -We really _ought_ to visit the place, once in a way, to see if these -stories are true about her escaping out of the house. One can never -tell from what Mark says. He may have been drinking and imagining it -all.” - -Lacrima turned away and began rapidly undressing. Without a word she -arranged the books on her table, moving about like a person in a -trance, and without a word she slipped into bed and turned her face to -the wall. - -Gladys smiled, stretched herself luxuriously, and continued speaking. - -“Auber Lake by moonlight would well be worth a night walk. You know -it’s supposed to be the most romantic spot in Somersetshire? They say -it’s incredibly old. Some people think it was used in prehistoric times -by the druids as a place of worship. The villagers never dare to go -near it after dark. They say that very curious noises are heard there. -But of course that may only be the mad--” - -She was not allowed to go on. The silent figure in the bed suddenly sat -straight up, with wide-staring eyes fixed upon her, and said slowly -and solemnly, “If I come with you to this place, will you faithfully -promise me that your father will send that girl into a home?” - -Gladys was so surprised by this unexpected utterance that she made an -inarticulate gasping noise in her throat. - -“Yes,” she answered, mesmerized by the Pariah’s fixed glance. -“Yes--most certainly. If you come with me to see those wild-geese, I’ll -make any promise you like about that girl!” - -Lacrima continued for a moment fixing her with wide-dilated pupils. - -Then, with a shiver that passed from head to foot, she slowly sank back -on her pillows and closed her eyes. - -Gladys rose a little uneasily from her chair. “But of course,” she -said, “you understand she may not _want_ to go away. She is quite -crazy, you know. And she may prefer wandering about freely among dark -woods to being locked up in a nice white-washed asylum, under the care -of fat motherly nurses!” - -With this parting shot she went off into her own room feeling in -a curious vague manner that somehow or another the edge of her -delectation had been taken off. In this unexpected resolution of the -Italian, the Mythology of Sacrifice had suddenly struck a staggering -blow at the Mythology of Power. Like the point of a bright silver -sword, this unforseen vein of heroism in the Pariah cleared the -sultry air of that hot night with a magical freshness and coolness. A -planetary onlooker might have been conscious at that moment of strange -spiritual vibrations passing to and fro over the sleeping roofs of -Nevilton. But perhaps such a one would also have been conscious of the -abysmal indifference to either stream of opposing influence, of the -high, cold galaxy of the Milky Way, stretched contemptuously above them -all! - -All we are able to be certain of is, that as the fair-haired daughter -of the house prepared for bed she muttered sullenly to herself. “I’ll -make her go anyway. It will be lovely to feel her shiver, when we pass -under those thick laurels! That mad girl won’t leave the place, unless -they drag her by force.” - -Left alone, Lacrima remained, for nearly two hours, motionless and -with closed eyes. She was not asleep, however. Strange and desperate -thoughts pursued one another through her brain. She wondered if she, -too, like the girl of Auber Lake, were destined to find relief from -this merciless world in the unhinging of her reason. She reverted again -and again in her mind to her cousin’s final malicious suggestion. That -would be indeed, she thought, a bitter example of life’s irony, if -after going through all this to save the poor wretch, such sacrifice -only meant worse misery for her. But no! God could not be as unkind as -that. - -She stretched out her arm for a book with which to still the -troublesome palpitation of her heart. - -The book she seized by chance turned out to be Andersen’s Fairy -Stories, and she read herself to sleep with the tale of the little -princess who wove coats of nettles for her enchanted brothers, and all -night long she dreamed of mad unhappy girls struggling amid entwining -branches, of bottomless lakes full of terrible drowned faces, and of -flocks of wild-geese that were all of them kings’ sons! - -The Saturday following this eventful colloquy between the cousins was -a day of concentrated gloom. There was thunder in the vicinity and, -although no rain had actually fallen in Nevilton, there was a brooding -presence of it in the heavy atmosphere. - -The night seemed to descend that evening more quickly than usual. By -eight o’clock a strange unnatural twilight spread itself over the -landscape. The trees in the park submitted forlornly to a burden of -sultry indistinction and seemed, in their pregnant stillness, to be -trying in vain to make mysterious signals to one another. - -Dinner in the gracious Elizabethan dining-room was an oppressive and -discomfortable meal to all concerned. Mrs. Romer was full of tremors -and apprehensions over the idea of a possible thunder-storm. - -The quarry-owner was silent and preoccupied, his mind reviewing all the -complicated issues of a new financial scheme. Dangelis kept looking at -his watch. He had promised to be at Dead Man’s Lane by nine o’clock, -and the meal seemed to drag itself out longer than he had anticipated. - -He was a little apprehensive, too, as to what reception he would -receive when he did arrive at Mr. Quincunx’s threshold. - -Their last encounter had been so extremely controversial, that he -feared lest the sensitive recluse might be harbouring one of his -obstinate psychic reactions at his expense. - -He was very unwilling to risk the loss of Mr. Quincunx’s society. There -was no one in Nevilton to whom he could discourse quite as freely -and philosophically as he could to the conscripted office-clerk, and -his American interest in a “representative type” found inexhaustible -satisfaction in listening to the cynical murmurings of this eccentric -being. - -Lacrima was calm and self-contained, but she ate hardly anything; and -the hand with which she raised her glass to her lips trembled in spite -of all her efforts. - -Gladys herself was exuberant with suppressed excitement. Every now and -then she glanced furtively at the window, and at other times, when -there was no reason for such an outburst, she gave vent to a low feline -laugh. She was of the type of animal that the approach of thunder, and -the presence of electricity in the air, fills with magnetic nervous -exaltation. - -The meal was over at last, and the various persons of the group -hastened to separate, each of them weighed upon, as if by an -atmospheric hand, with the burden of their own purposes and -apprehensions. - -The two girls retired to their rooms. Mrs. Romer retreated to her -favourite corner in the entrance hall, and then, uneasy even here, took -refuge in the assuaging society of her friend the housekeeper. - -Romer himself marched away gloomily to his study; and Dangelis, -snatching up his coat and hat, made off across the south garden. - -It did not take the American long to reach the low hedge which -separated Mr. Quincunx’s garden from the lane. The recluse was awaiting -him, and joined him at once at the gate, giving him no invitation to -enter, and taking for granted that their conversation was to be a -pedestrian one. - -Mr. Quincunx experienced a curious reluctance to allow any of his -friends to cross his threshold. The only one completely privileged -in this matter was young Luke Andersen, whose gay urbanity was so -insidious that it would have overcome the resistance of a Trappist monk. - -“Well, where are you proposing to take me tonight?” enquired Dangelis, -when they had advanced in silence some distance up the hill. - -“To a place that will interest you, if your damned artistic tastes -haven’t quite spoiled your pleasure in little things!” - -“Not to the Seven Ashes again?” protested the American. “I know this -lane leads up there.” - -“You wait a little. We shall turn off presently,” muttered his -companion. “The truth is I am taking you on a sort of scouting -expedition tonight.” - -“What on earth do you mean?” - -“Well--if you must know, you shall know! I saw Miss Traffio yesterday -and she asked me to keep an eye on Auber Lake tonight.” - -“What? That place they were talking of? Where the wild-geese are?” - -Mr. Quincunx nodded. “It may, for all I know, be a wild-goose -chase. But I find your friend Gladys is up to her little tricks -again--frightening people and upsetting their minds. And I promised -Lacrima that you and I would stroll round that way--just to see that -the girls don’t come to any harm. Only we mustn’t let them know we’re -there. Lacrima would never forgive me if Gladys saw us.” - -“Do you mean to say that those two children are going to wander about -these confounded damp woods of yours alone?” cried the American. - -“Look here, Mr. Dangelis, please understand this quite clearly. If you -ever say a word to your precious Miss Gladys about this little scouting -expedition, that’s an end of our talks, forever and a day!” - -The citizen of Ohio bowed with a mock heroic gesture, removing his hat -as he did so. - -“I submit to your conditions, Don Quixote. I am entirely at your -service. Is it the idea that we should track our friends on hands and -knees? I am quite ready even for that, but I know what these woods of -yours are like.” - -Mr. Quincunx vouchsafed no reply to this ill-timed jocosity. He was -anxiously surveying the tall hedge upon their right hand. “Here’s the -way,” he suddenly exclaimed. “Here’s the path. We can hit a short-cut -here that brings us straight through Camel’s Cover, up to Wild Pine. -Then we can slip down into Badger’s Bottom and so into the Auber -Woods.” - -“But I thought the Auber Woods were much nearer than that. You told me -the other day that you could get into the heart of them, in a quarter -of an hour from your own garden!” - -“And so I can, my friend,” replied Mr. Quincunx, scrambling up the bank -into the field, and turning to offer his hand to his companion. “But it -happens that this is the way those girls are coming. At any rate that -is what she said. They were going to avoid my lane but they were going -to enter the woods from the Seven Ashes side, just because it is so -much nearer.” - -“I submit, I submit,” muttered the artist blandly. “I only hope -this scouting business needn’t commence till we have got well -through Camel’s Cover and Badger’s Bottom! I must confess I am not -altogether in love with the sound of those places, though no doubt -they are harmless enough. But you people do certainly select the most -extraordinary names for your localities. Our own little lapses in these -things are classical compared with your Badgers and Camels and Ashes -and Dead Men!” - -Mr. Quincunx did not condescend to reply to this. He continued to -plough his way across the field, every now and then glancing nervously -at the sky, which grew more and more threatening. Walking behind him -and a little on one side, the American was singularly impressed by -the appearance he presented, especially when the faint light of the -pallid and cloud-flecked moon fell on his uplifted profile. With his -corrugated brow and his pointed beard, Mr. Quincunx was a noticeable -figure at any time, but under the present atmospheric conditions his -lean form and striking head made a picture of forlorn desolation worthy -of the sombre genius of a Bewick. - -Dangelis conceived the idea of a picture, which he himself might -be capable of evoking, with this melancholy, solitary figure as its -protagonist. - -He wondered vaguely what background he would select as worthy of the -resolute hopelessness in Mr. Quincunx’s forlorn mien. - -It was only after they had traversed the sloping recesses of Camel’s -Cover, and had arrived at the crest of the Wild Pine ridge, that he was -able to answer this question. Then he knew at once. The true pictorial -background for his eccentric companion could be nothing less than that -line of wind-shaken, rain-washed Scotch firs, which, visible from all -portions of Nevilton, had gathered to themselves the very essence of -its historic tragedy. - -These trees, like Mr. Quincunx, seemed to derive a grim satisfaction -from their submission to destiny. Like him, they submitted with a -definite volition of resolution. They took, as he took, the line of -least resistance with a sort of stark voluptuousness. They did not -simply bow to the winds and rains that oppressed them. They positively -welcomed them. And yet all the while, just as he did, they emitted a -low melancholy murmur of protest, a murmur as completely different from -the howling eloquence of the ashes and elms, as it was different from -the low querulous sob of the larches and elders. The rusty-red stain, -too, in the rough bark of their trunks, was also singularly congruous -with a certain reddish tinge, which often darkened the countenance of -the recluse, especially when his fits of goblin-humour shook him into -convulsive merriment. - -As they paused for a moment on this melancholy ridge, looking back -at the flickering lights of the village, and down into the darkness -in front of them, the painter made a mental vow that before he left -Nevilton he would sublimate his vision of Mr. Quincunx into a genuine -masterpiece. Plunging once more into the shadows, they followed a dark -lane which finally emerged into a wide-sloping valley. In the depths -of this was the secluded hollow, full of long grass and tufted reeds, -which was the place known as Badger’s Bottom. - -The entrance to Auber Wood was now at hand; and as they reached its -sinister outskirts, they both instinctively paused to take stock of -their surroundings. The night was more sultry than ever. The leaves and -grasses swayed with an almost imperceptible movement, as if stirred, -not by the wind, but by the actual heavy breathing of the Earth -herself, troubled and agitated in her planetary sleep. - -Sombre banks of clouds moved intermittently over the face of a blurred -moon, and, out of the soil at their feet, rose up damp exotic odours, -giving the whole valley the atmosphere of an enormous hot-house. - -It was one of those hushed, steamy nights, pregnant and listening, -which the peculiar conditions of our English climate do not often -produce, and which are for that very reason often quite startling in -their emotional appeal. The path which the two men took, after once -they had entered the wood, was one that led them through a gloomy -tunnel of gigantic, overhanging laurel-bushes. - -All the chief entrances to Auber Wood were edged with these exotics. -Some capricious eighteenth-century Seldom,--perhaps the one who raised -the Tower of Pleasure on the site of the resting-place of the Holy -Rood--had planted them there, and for more than a hundred years they -had grown and multiplied. - -Auber Lake itself was the centre of a circumference of thick -jungle-like brushwood which itself was overshadowed by high sloping -hills. These hills, also heavily wooded, formed a sort of gigantic cup -or basin, and the level expanse of undergrowth they enclosed was itself -the margin of a yet deeper concavity, in the middle of which was the -lake-bed. - -Mingling curiously with the more indigenous trees in this place were -several unusual and alien importations. Some of these, like the huge -laurels they were now passing under, belonged more properly to gardens -than to woods. Others were of a still stranger and more foreign nature, -and produced a very bizarre effect where they grew, as though one had -suddenly come upon the circle of some heathen grove, in the midst -of an English forest. Auber Lake was certainly a spot of an unusual -character. Once it had been drained, and a large monolith, of the same -stone as that produced by Leo’s Hill, had been discovered embedded in -the mud. Traces were said to have been discerned upon this of ancient -human carving, but local antiquarianism had contradicted this rumour. -At least it may be said that nowhere else on the Romer estate, except -perhaps in Nevilton churchyard, was the tawny-colored clay which bore -so close a symbolic, if not a geological, relation to the famous -yellow sandstone, more heavily and malignantly clinging, in its oozy -consistence. - -Dangelis and Mr. Quincunx advanced slowly, and in profound silence, -along their overshadowed path. - -An occasional wood-pigeon, disturbed in its roosting, flapped awkwardly -through the branches; and far away, in another part of the wood, -sounded at intervals the melancholy cry of a screech-owl. - -Great leather-winged bats flitted over their heads with queer unearthly -little cries; and every now and then some agitated moth, from the -under-bushes, fluttered heavily across their faces. Sometimes in the -darkness their feet stumbled upon a dead branch, but more often they -slipped uneasily in the deep ruts left in the mud by the woodmen’s -carts. - -All the various intermittent noises they heard only threw the palpable -stillness of the place into heavier relief. - -The artist from the wind-swept plains of Ohio felt as though he had -never plunged so deeply into the indrawn recesses of the earth-powers -as he was doing now. It seemed to him as though they were approaching -the guarded precincts of some dark and crouching idol. It was as if, by -some ill-omened mistake, they had stumbled unawares upon a spot that -through interminable ages had been forbidden to human tread. - -And yet the place seemed to expect them, to await them; to have in -reserve for them some laboured pregnancy of woeful significance. - -Once more, as he walked behind Mr. Quincunx, Dangelis was startled by -the extraordinary congruity of that forlorn figure with the occasion -and the scene. The form of the recluse seemed to exhale a reciprocity -of fearful brooding. Auber Wood seemed aware of him, and ready to -welcome him, in consentaneous sympathy. He might have been the -long-expected priest of some immemorial rites transacted there, the -priest of some old heathen worship, perhaps the worship of generations -of dead people, buried under those damp leaves. - -It seemed a long while to Ralph Dangelis, in spite of the breathless -quickening of his imagination, before the laurel-tunnel thinned away, -and the two men were able to walk side by side between the trunks of -the larger trees. Here again they encountered Scotch firs. - -What strange dream, of what fantastic possessor of this solitude, had -shaped itself into the planting of these moorland giants, among the -native-born oaks and beeches of this weird place? - -The open spaces at the foot of the tree-trunks were filled with an -obscure mass of oozy stalks and heavily drooping leaves. The obscurity -of the spot made it difficult to discern the differences between these -rank growths; but the ghostly flowers of enormous hemlocks stood forth -from among the rest. Fungoid excrescences, of some sort or another, -were certainly prolific here. Their charnel-house odour set Dangelis -thinking of a morgue he had once visited. - -At last--and with quite startling suddenness--the path they followed -emerged into a wide open expanse; and there,--under the diffused light -of the cloud-darkened moon--they saw stretched at their feet the dim -surface of Auber Lake. - -Mr. Quincunx stood for a moment motionless and silent, leaning upon his -stick. Then he turned to his companion; and the American noticed how -vague and shadowy his face looked, as if it were a face seen through -some more opaque medium than that of air. - -They sat down together upon a fallen log; and out of an instinctive -desire to break the tension of the spell that lay on him Dangelis lit a -cigarette. - -He had smoked in silence for some moments, when Mr. Quincunx, who had -been listening attentively, raised his hand. “Hark!” he said, “do you -hear anything?” - -Across the stillness of the water came a low blood-curdling wail. It -was hardly a human sound, and yet it was not like the voice of any bird -or beast. It seemed to unsettle the drowsy natives of the spot; for -a harsh twittering of sedge-birds answered it, and a great water-rat -splashed down into the lake. - -“God! they were right then,” whispered the American. “They spoke of -some mad girl living down here, but I did not believe them. It seemed -incredible that such a thing should be allowed. Quick, my friend!--we -ought to warn those girls at once and get them away. This is not the -sort of thing for them to hear.” - -They both rose and listened intently, but the sound was not repeated; -only a hot gust of wind coming, as it were, out of the lake itself, -went quivering through the reeds. - -“I don’t imagine,” said Mr. Quincunx calmly, “that _your_ young lady -will be much alarmed. I fancy she has less fear of this kind of thing -than that water-rat we heard just now. It’ll terrify Lacrima, though. -But I understand that your charming sweetheart gets a good deal of -amusement from causing people to feel terror!” - -Dangelis was so accustomed to the plain-spoken utterances of the hermit -of Dead Man’s Lane that he received this indictment of his enchantress -with complete equanimity. - -“All the same,” he remarked, “I think we’d better go and meet them, -if you know the direction they’re coming. It’s not a very pleasant -proposition, any way, to face escaped lunatics in a place like this.” - -“I tell you,” muttered Mr. Quincunx crossly, “your darling Gladys is -coming here for no other reason than to hear that girl’s cries. The -more they terrify Lacrima, the better she’ll be pleased.” - -“I don’t know about Lacrima,” answered Dangelis. “I know that devil of -a noise will scare _me_ if I hear it again.” - -Mr. Quincunx did not reply. With his hand on his companion’s arm he was -once more listening intently. At the back of his mind was gradually -forming a grim remote wish that some overt act and palpable revelation -of Gladys Romer’s interesting character might effect a change of heart -in the citizen of Ohio. - -Such a wish had been obscurely present in his brain ever since they -started on this expedition; and now that the situation was developing, -it took a more vivid shape. - -“I believe,” he remarked at last, “I hear them coming down the path. -Listen! It’s on the other side of the pond,--over there.” He pointed -across the water to the left-hand corner of the lake. It was from the -right-hand corner, where the keeper’s cottage stood, that the poor mad -girl’s voice had proceeded. - -“Yes; I am sure!” he whispered after a moment’s pause. “Come! quick! -get in here; then they won’t see us even if they walk round this way.” - -He pulled Dangelis beneath the overhanging boughs of a large -weeping willow. The droop of this tree’s delicate foliage made, in -the semi-darkness in which they were, a complete and impenetrable -hiding-place; and yet from between the trailing branches, when they -held them apart with their hands, they had a free and unimpeded view of -the whole surface of the lake. - -The sound of distant voices struck clearly now upon their ears; and -a moment after, nudging his companion, Mr. Quincunx pointed to two -cloaked figures advancing across the open space towards the water’s -edge. - -“Hush!” whispered the recluse. “They are bound to come this way now.” - -The two girls were, however, for the moment, apparently occupied -with another intention. The taller of the two stopped and picked up -something from the ground, and then approaching close to the lake’s -edge raised her arm and flung it far into the water. - -The object she threw must have been a stick or a stone of considerable -size, for the splash it produced was startling. - -The result was also startling. From a little island in the middle of -the lake, rose suddenly, with a tremendous flapping, several large and -broad-winged birds. They flew in heavy circles, at first, over the -island; and then, descending to the water’s level, went splashing and -flapping across its surface, uttering strange cries. - -The noise made by these birds had hardly subsided, as they settled down -in a thick bed of reeds, when, once more, that terrible inhuman wail -rang out upon the night. Both men peered forth anxiously from their -hiding-place, to see the effect of this sound upon their two friends. - -They could see that they both stood stone-still for a moment as if -petrified by terror. - -Then they noticed that the taller of the two drew her companion still -nearer to the water’s edge. - -“If that yell begins again,” whispered the American, “I shall go out -and speak to them.” - -Mr. Quincunx made no answer. He prayed in his heart that something -would occur to initiate this innocent Westerner a little more closely -into the workings of his inamorata’s mind. It seemed indeed quite -within the bounds of possibility that the recluse might be gratified in -this wish, for the girls began rapidly advancing towards them, skirting -the edge of the lake. - -The two men watched their approach in silence, the artist savouring -with a deep imaginative excitement the mystical glamour of the scene. - -He felt it would be indelibly and forever imprinted on his mind, -this hot heavily scented night, this pallid-glimmering lake, those -uneasy stirrings of the wild-geese in their obscure reed-bed, and -the frightful hush of the listening woods, as they seemed to await a -repetition of that unearthly cry. - -The girls had actually paused at the verge of the lake, just in front -of their hiding-place; so near, in fact, that by stretching out his -arm, from behind his willowy screen, Dangelis could have touched Gladys -on the shoulder, when the fearfully expected voice broke forth again -upon the night. - -The men could see the visible tremor of panic-fear quiver through -Lacrima’s slight frame. - -“Oh, let us go!--let us go!” she pleaded, pulling with feverish fingers -at her companion’s cloak. - -But Gladys folded her arms and flung back her head. - -“Little coward!” she murmured in a low unshaken voice. “I am not afraid -of a mad girl’s yelling. Look! there’s one of those birds going back to -the island!” - -Once more the inhuman wail trembled across the water. - -“Gladys! Gladys dear!” cried the panic-stricken girl, “I cannot endure -it! I shall go mad myself if we do not go! I’ll do anything you ask me! -I’ll go anywhere with you! Only--please--let us go away now!” - -The sound was repeated again, and this time it proceeded from a quarter -much nearer them. All four listeners held their breath. Presently the -Italian made a terrified gesture and pointed frantically to the right -bank of the lake. - -“I see her!” she cried, “I see her! She is coming towards us!” - -The frightened girl made a movement as if she would break away from her -companion and flee into the darkness of the trees. - -Gladys clasped her firmly in her arms. - -“No--no!” she said, “no running off! Remember our agreement! There’s -nothing really to be afraid of. I’m not afraid.” - -A slight quiver in her voice a little belied the calmness of this -statement. She was indeed torn at that moment between a very natural -desire to escape herself and an insatiable craving to prolong her -companion’s agitation. - -In her convulsive terror the Italian, unable to free herself from the -elder girl’s enfolding arms, buried her head in the other’s cloak. - -Thus linked, the two might have posed for a picture of heroic sisterly -solicitude, in the presence of extreme danger. - -Once more that ghastly cry resounded through the silence; and several -nocturnal birds, from distant portions of the wood, replied to it with -their melancholy hootings. - -The white-garbed figure of the mad girl, her arms tossed tragically -above her head, came swaying towards them. She moved unevenly, and -staggered in her advance, as if her volition had not complete power -over her movements. Gladys was evidently considerably alarmed herself -now. She clutched at a chance of combining escape with triumph. - -“Say you let me off that promise!” she whispered hoarsely, “and we’ll -run together! We’re quite close to the way out.” - -Who can read the obscure recesses of the human mind, or gauge the -supernatural strength that lurks amid the frailest nerves? - -This reference to her sublime contract was the one thing needed to -rouse the abandoned soul of the Pariah. For one brief second more the -powers of darkness struggled over her bowed head with the powers of -light. - -Then with a desperate movement the Italian rose erect, flung aside her -cousin’s arms, turned boldly towards the approaching maniac, and ran -straight to meet her. Her unexpected appearance produced an immediate -effect upon the unhappy girl. Her wildly-tossing arms fell to her side. -Her wailing died away in pathetic sobs, and these also quickly ceased. - -Lacrima seemed to act like one possessed of some invincible magic. One -might have dreamed that now for the first time for uncounted ages this -unholy shrine of heathen tradition was invaded by an emissary of the -true Faith. - -Gladys, who had reeled bewildered against the wood-work of an -ancient weir, that formed the outlet to the lake, leaned in complete -prostration of astonishment upon this support, and gazed helplessly -and dumbly at the two figures. She was too petrified with amazement -to notice the appearance of Ralph and Maurice, who, also absorbed -in watching this strange encounter, had half-emerged from their -concealment. - -The three onlookers saw the Italian lay her hands upon the girl’s -forehead, smooth back her hair, kiss her gently on the brow, and fling -her own cloak over her bare shoulders. They heard her murmuring again -and again some soft repetition of soothing words. Dangelis caught the -liquid syllables of the Tuscan tongue. Evidently in her excitement the -child of Genoa the Superb had reverted to the language of her fathers. - -The next thing they saw was the slow retreat of the two together, -towards the keeper’s cottage; the arm of the Italian clinging tenderly -round the maniac’s waist. - -At this point Dangelis stepped forward and made himself known to Gladys. - -The expression on the face of Mr. Romer’s daughter, when she recognized -the American, was a palimpsest of conflicting emotions. Her surprise -was still more intense when Mr. Quincunx stepped out from the shadow of -the drooping tree and raised his hat to her. Her eyes for the moment -looked positively scared; and her mouth opened, like the mouth of a -bewildered infant. The tone with which the citizen of Ohio addressed -the confused young lady made the heart of Mr. Quincunx leap for joy. - -“I am astonished at you,” he said. “I should not have believed such a -thing possible! Your only excuse is that this infernal jest of yours -has turned out so well for the people concerned, and so shamefully for -yourself. How could you treat that brave foreign child so brutally? -Why--I saw her trembling and trembling, and trying to get away; and -you were holding--actually holding her--while that poor mad thing came -nearer! It’s a good thing for you that the Catholic spirit in her burst -out at last. Do you know what spell she used to bring that girl to her -senses? A spell that you will never understand, my friend, for all this -baptism and confirmation business! Why--she quoted passages out of the -Litany of Our Lady! I heard her clearly, and I recognized the words. I -am a damned atheist myself, but if ever I felt religion to be justified -it was when your cousin stopped that girl’s crying. It was like real -magic. You ought to be thoroughly proud of her! I shall tell her when I -see her what I feel about her.” - -Gladys rose from her seat on the weir and faced them haughtily. Her -surprise once over, and the rebuke having fallen, she became mistress -of herself again. - -“I suppose,” she said, completely ignoring Mr. Quincunx, “we’d better -follow those two, and see if Lacrima gets her safely into the house. I -fancy she’ll have no difficulty about it. Of course if she had not done -this I should have had to do it myself. But not knowing Italian”--she -added this with a sneer--“I am not so suitable a mad-house nurse.” - -“It was her good heart, Gladys,” responded the American; “not her -Italian, nor her Litany, that soothed that girl’s mind. I wish your -heart, my friend, were half as good.” - -“Well,” returned the fair girl quite cheerfully, “we’ll leave my heart -for the present, and see how Lacrima has got on.” - -She took the arm which Dangelis had not offered, but which his chivalry -forbade him to refuse, and together they proceeded to follow the heroic -Genoese. - -Mr. Quincunx shuffled unregarded behind them. - -They had hardly reached the keeper’s cottage, a desolate and ancient -erection, of the usual stone material, darkened with damp and -overshadowed by a moss-grown oak, when Lacrima herself came towards -them. - -She started with surprise at seeing, in the shadowy obscurity, the -figures of the two men. - -Her surprise changed to pleasure when she recognized their identity. - -“Ah!” she said. “You come too late. Gladys and I have had quite an -adventure, haven’t we, cousin?” - -Mr. Quincunx glanced at the American to see if he embraced the full -generosity of the turn she gave to the situation. - -Gladys took advantage of it in a moment. “You see I was right after -all,” she remarked. “I knew you would lose your alarm directly you -saw that girl! When it came to the point you were braver than I. You -dear thing!” She kissed the Italian ostentatiously, and then retook -possession of her admirer’s arm. - -“I got her up to her room without waking her father,” said Lacrima. -“She had left the door wide open. Gladys is going to ask Mr. Romer to -have her sent away to some sort of home. I believe they’ll be able to -cure her. She talked quite sensibly to me. I am sure she only wants to -be treated gently. I’m afraid her father’s unkind to her. You are going -to arrange for her being sent away, aren’t you, Gladys?” - -The elder girl turned. “Of course, my dear, of course. I don’t go back -on my word.” - -The four friends proceeded to take the nearest path through the wood. -One by one the frightened wild-geese returned to their roosting-place -on the island. The water-rats resumed uninterrupted their night-prowls -along the reedy edge of the lake, and the wood-pigeons settled down in -peace upon their high branches. - -Long before Dead Man’s Lane was reached the two couples had drifted -conveniently apart in their lingering return. - -Mr. Quincunx had seldom been more tender towards his little friend than -he was that night; and Lacrima, still strangely happy in the after-ebb -of her supernatural exultation, nestled closely to his side as they -drifted leisurely across the fields. - -In what precise manner the deeply-betrayed Gladys regained the -confidence of her lover need not be related. The artist from Ohio would -have been adamantine indeed, could he have resisted the appeal which -the amorous telepathy of this magnetic young person gave her the power -of expressing. - -Meanwhile, in her low-pitched room, with the shadow of the oak-tree -coming and going across her face, as the moonlight shone out or faded, -Nance Purvis lay placidly asleep, dreaming no more of strange phantoms -or of stinging whips, but of gentle spirits from some translunar -region, who caressed her forehead with hands softer than moth’s wings -and spoke to her in a tongue that was like the moonlight itself made -audible. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -LACRIMA - - -Mr. John Goring was feeding his rabbits. In the gross texture of his -clayish nature there were one or two curious layers of a pleasanter -material. One of these, for instance, was now shown in the friendly -equanimity with which he permitted a round-headed awkward youth, more -than half idiotic, to assist him at this innocent task. - -Between Mr. Goring and Bert Leerd there existed one of those -inexplicable friendships, which so often, to the bewilderment of moral -philosophers, bring a twilight of humanity into the most sinister -mental caves. The farmer had saved this youth from a conspiracy of -Poor-Law officials who were on the point of consigning him to an -asylum. He had assumed responsibility for his good-behaviour and had -given him a lodging--his parents being both dead--in the Priory itself. - -Not a few young servant-girls, selected by Mr. Goring rather for -their appearance than their disposition, had been dismissed from his -service, after violent and wrathful scenes, for being caught teasing -this unfortunate; and even the cook, a female of the most taciturn -and sombre temper, was compelled to treat him with comparative -consideration. The gossips of Nevilton swore, as one may believe, that -the farmer, in being kind to this boy, was only obeying the mandate of -nature; but no one who had ever beheld Bert’s mother, gave the least -credence to such a story. - -Another of Mr. Goring’s softer aspects was his mania for tame rabbits. -These he kept in commodious and spacious hutches at the back of his -house, and every year wonderful and interesting additions were added to -their number. - -On this particular morning both the farmer and his idiot were absorbed -and rapt in contemplation before the gambols of two large new -pets--great silky lop-eared things--who had arrived the night before. -Mr. Goring was feeding them with fresh lettuces, carefully handed to -him by his assistant, who divested these plants of their rough outer -leaves and dried them on the palms of his hands. - -“The little ’un do lap ’em up fastest, master,” remarked the boy. “I -mind how those others, with them girt ears, did love a fresh lettuce.” - -Mr. Goring watched with mute satisfaction the quivering nostrils and -nibbling mouth of the dainty voracious creature. - -“Mustn’t let them have more than three at a time, Bert,” he remarked. -“But they do love them, as you say.” - -“What be going to call this little ’un, master?” asked the boy. - -Mr. Goring straightened his back and drew a deep breath. - -“What do you think, Bert, my boy?” he cried, in a husky excited tone, -prodding his assistant jocosely with the handle of his riding-whip; -“What do you think? What would you call her?” - -“Ah! I knew she were a she, master!” chuckled the idiot. “I knew that, -afore she were out of the packer-case! Call ’er?” and the boy leered an -indescribable leer. “By gum! I can tell ’ee that fast enough. Call ’er -Missy Lacrima, pretty little Missy Lacrima, wot lives up at the House, -and wot is going to be missus ’ere afore long.” - -Mr. Goring surveyed his protégé for a moment with sublime contentment, -and then humorously flicked at his ears with his whip. - -“Right! my imp of Satan. Right! my spawn of Belial. That is just what I -_was_ thinking.” - -“She be silky and soft to handle,” went on the idiot, “and her, up at -the House, be no contrary, or I’m darned mistaken.” - -Mr. Goring expressed his satisfaction at his friend’s intelligence by -giving him a push that nearly threw him backwards. - -“And I’ll tell you this, my boy,” he remarked confidentially, surveying -the long line of well-filled hutches, “we’ve never yet bought such -a rabbit, as this foreign one will turn out, or you and I be damned -fools.” - -“The young lady’ll get mighty fond of these ’ere long-ears, looks so -to me,” observed the youth. “Hope she won’t be a feeding ’em with wet -cabbage, same as maids most often do.” - -The farmer grew even more confidential, drawing close to his assistant -and addressing him in the tone customary with him on market-days, when -feeling the ribs of fatted cattle. - -“That same young lady is coming up here this morning, Bert,” he -remarked significantly. “The squire’s giving her a note to bring along.” - -“And you be going to bring matters to a head, master,” rejoined the -boy. “That’s wise and thoughtful of ’ee, choosing time, like, and -season, as the Book says. Maids be wonderful sly when the sun’s down, -while of mornings they be meek as guinea-fowls.” - -The appearance of the Priory servant--no very demure figure--put a -sudden stop to these touching confidences. - -“Miss Lacrima, with a note, in the front Parlour!” the damsel shouted. - -“You needn’t call so loud, girl,” grumbled the farmer. “And how often -must I tell you to say ‘Miss Traffio,’ not ‘Miss Lacrima’?” - -The girl tossed her head and pouted her lips. - -“A person isn’t used to waiting on foreigners,” she muttered. - -Mr. Goring’s only reply to this remark was to pinch her arm -unmercifully. He then pushed her aside, and entering the kitchen, -walked rapidly through to the front of the house. The front parlour in -the Priory was nothing more or less than the old entrance-gate of the -Cistercian Monastery, preserved through four centuries, with hardly a -change. - -The roof was high and vaulted. In the centre of the vault a great -many-petalled rose, carved in Leonian stone, seemed to gather all the -curves and lines of the masonry together, and hold them in religious -concentration. - -The fire-place--a thing of more recent, but still sufficiently ancient -date--displayed the delicate and gracious fantasy of some local -Jacobean artist, who had lavished upon its ornate mouldings a more -personal feeling than one is usually aware of in these things. In -place of a fire the wide grate was, at this moment, full of new-grown -bracken fronds, evidently recently picked, for they were still fresh -and green. - -In front of the fire-place stood Lacrima with the letter in her hand. -Had Mr. Goring been a little less persuaded of the “meekness” of -this young person, he would have recognized something not altogether -friendly to himself and his plans in the strained white face she raised -to him and the stiff gloved hand she extended. - -He begged her to be seated. She waved aside the chair he offered, and -handed him the letter. He tore this open and glanced carelessly at its -contents. - -The letter was indeed brief enough, containing nothing but the -following gnomic words: “Refusal or no refusal,” signed with an -imperial flourish. - -He flung it down on the table, and came to business at once. - -“You mustn’t let that little mistake of Auber Great Meadow mean -anything, missie,” he said. “You were too hasty with a fellow that -time--too hasty and coy-like. Those be queer maids’ tricks, that crying -and running! But, bless my heart! I don’t bear you any grudge for it. -You needn’t think it.” - -He advanced a step--while she retreated, very pale and very calm, her -little fingers clasped nervously together. She managed to keep the -table between them, so that, barring a grotesque and obvious pursuit of -her, she was well out of his reach. - -“I have a plain and simple offer to make to you, my dear,” he -continued, “and it is one that can do you no hurt or shame. I am -not one of those who waste words in courting a girl, least of all a -young lady of education like yourself. The fact is, I am a lonely -man--without wife or child--and as far as I know no relations on -earth, except brother Mortimer. And I have a pretty tidy sum laid up -in Yeoborough Bank, and the farm is a good farm. I do not say that the -house is all that could be wished; but ’tis a pretty house, too, and -one that could stand improvement. In plain words, dearie, what I want -you to say now is ‘yes,’ and no nonsense,--for what I am doing,” his -voice became quite husky at this point, as if her propinquity really -did cause him some emotion, “is asking you, point-blank, and no beating -about the bush, whether you will marry me!” - -Lacrima’s face during this long harangue would have formed a strange -picture for any old Cistercian monk shadowing that ancient room. At -first she had kept unmoved her strained and tensely-strung impassivity. -But by degrees, as the astounding character of the man’s communication -began to dawn upon her, her look changed into one of sheer blind -terror. When the final fatal word crossed the farmer’s lips, she put -her hand to her throat as though to suppress an actual cry. She had -never looked for this;--not in her wildest dreams of what destiny, in -this curst place, could inflict upon her. This surpassed the worst of -possible imagination! It was a deep below the deep. She found herself -at first completely unable to utter a word. She could only make a vague -helpless gesture with her hand as though dumbly waving the whole world -away. - -Then at last with a terrible effort she broke the silence. - -“What you say is utterly--utterly impossible! It is--it is too--” - -She could not go on. But she had said enough to carry, even to a brain -composed of pure clay, the conviction that the acquiescence he demanded -was not a thing to be easily won. He thought of his brother-in-law’s -enigmatic note. Possibly the owner of Leo’s Hill had ways of persuading -recalcitrant foreign girls that were quite hidden from him. The -psychological irony of the thing lay in the fact that in proportion -as her terror increased, his desire for her increased proportionally. -Had she been willing,--had she been even passive and indifferent,--the -curious temperament of Mr. Goring would have been scarcely stirred. He -might have gone on pursuing her, out of spite or out of obstinacy; but -the pursuit would have been no more than an interlude, a distraction, -among his other affairs. - -But that look of absolute terror on her face--the look of a -hunted animal under the hot breath of the hounds--appealed to -something profoundly deep in his nature. Oddly enough--such are the -eccentricities of the human mind--the very craving to possess her which -her terror excited, was accompanied by a rush of extraordinary pity for -himself as the object of her distaste. - -He let her pass--making no movement to interrupt her escape. He let her -hurry out of the garden and into the road--without a word; but as soon -as she was gone, he sat down on the wooden seat under the front of the -house and resting his head upon his chin began blubbering like a great -baby. Big salt tears fell from his small pig’s eyes, rolled down his -tanned cheeks, and falling upon the dust caked it into little curious -globules. - -Two wandering ants of a yellowish species, dragging prisoner after -them one of a black kind, encountered these minute globes of sand and -sorrow, and explored them with interrogatory feelers. - -Mingled with this feeling of pity for himself under the girl’s disdain -was a remarkable wave of immense tenderness and consideration for her. -Short of letting her escape him, how delicately he would cherish, how -tenderly he would pet and fondle her, how assiduously he would care -for her! The consciousness of this emotion of soft tenderness towards -the girl increased his pity for himself under the weight of the girl’s -contempt. How ungrateful she was! And yet that very look of terror, -that stifled cry of the hunted hare, which made him so resolved to win -her, produced in him an exquisite feeling of melting regard for her -youth, her softness, her fragility. When she did belong to him, oh -how tenderly he would treat her! How he would humour her and give her -everything she could want! - -The shadowy Cistercian monks would no doubt, from their clairvoyant -catholic knowledge of the subtleties of the human soul, have quite -understood the cause of those absurd tears caking the dust under that -wooden seat. But the yellowish ants continued to be very perplexed and -confused by their presence. Thunder-drops tasting of salt were no doubt -as strange to them as hail-stones tasting of wine would have been to -Mr. Goring. But the ants were not the only creatures amazed at this -new development in the psychology of the man of clay. From one corner -of the house peeped the servant-girl, full of tremulous curiosity, and -from another the idiot Bert shuffled and spied, full of most anxious -and perturbed concern. - -Meanwhile the innocent cause of this little drama was making her way -with drooping head and dragging steps down the south drive. When she -reached the house she was immediately informed by one of the servants -that Mr. Romer wished to see her in the study. - -She was so dazed and broken, so forlorn and indifferent, that she made -her way straight to this room without pause or question. - -She found Mr. Romer in a most lively and affable mood. He made her -sit down opposite him, and handed her chocolates out of a decorative -Parisian box which lay on the table. - -“Well, young lady,” he said, “I know, without your telling me, that an -important event has occurred! Indeed, to confess the truth, I have, -for a long time, foreseen its occurrence. And what did you answer to -my worthy brother’s flattering proposal? It isn’t every girl, in your -peculiar position, who is as lucky as this. Come--don’t be shy! There -is no need for shyness with me. What did you say to him?” - -Lacrima looked straight in front of her out of the window. She saw the -waving branches of a great dark yew-tree and above it the white clouds. -She felt like one whose guardian-angel has deserted her, leaving her -the prey of blind elemental forces. She thought vaguely in her mind -that she would make a desperate appeal to Vennie Seldom. Something in -Vennie gave her a consciousness of strength. To this strength, at the -worst, she would cling for help. She was thus in a measure fortified in -advance against any outburst in which her employer might indulge. But -Mr. Romer indulged in no outburst. - -“I suppose,” he said calmly, “that I may take for granted that you have -refused my good brother’s offer?” - -Lacrima nodded, without speaking. - -“That is quite what I expected. You would not be yourself if you -had not done so. And since you have done so it is of course quite -impossible for me to put any pressure upon you.” - -He paused and carefully selecting the special kind of chocolate that -appealed to him put it deliberately in his mouth. - -Lacrima was so amazed at the mild tone he used and at the drift of his -words, that she turned full upon him her large liquid eyes with an -expression in them of something almost like gratitude. The corners of -her mouth twitched. The reaction was too great. She felt she could not -keep back her tears. - -Mr. Romer quietly continued. - -“In all these things, my dear young lady, the world presents itself -as a series of bargains and compromises. My brother has made you his -offer--a flattering and suitable one. In the girlish excitement of the -first shock you have totally refused to listen to him. But the world -moves round. Such natural moods do not last forever. They often do not -last beyond the next day! In order to help you--to make it easier for -you--to bring such a mood to an end, I also, in my turn, have a little -proposal to make.” - -Lacrima’s expression changed with terrible rapidity; she stared at him -panic-stricken. - -“My proposal is this,” said Mr. Romer, quietly handing her the box -of chocolates, and smiling as she waved it away. “As I said just -now, the world is a place of bargains and compromises. Nothing ever -occurs between human beings which is not the result of some unuttered -transaction of occult diplomacy. Led by your instincts you reject -my brother’s offer. Led by my instincts I offer you the following -persuasion to overcome your refusal.” - -He placed another chocolate in his mouth. - -“I know well,” he went on, “your regard and fondness--I might use even -stronger words--for our friend Maurice Quincunx. Now what I propose -is this. I will settle upon Maurice,--you shall see the draft itself -and my signature upon it,--an income sufficient to enable him to live -comfortably and happily, wherever he pleases, without doing a stroke -of work, and without the least anxiety. I will arrange it so that he -cannot touch the capital of the sum I make over to him, and has nothing -to do but to sign receipts for each quarter’s dividend, as the bank -makes them over to him. - -“The sum I will give him will be so considerable, that the income -from it will amount to not less than three hundred pounds a year. -With this at his disposal he will be able to live wherever he likes, -either here or elsewhere. And what is more,”--here Mr. Romer looked -intently and significantly at the trembling girl--“what is more, he -will be in a position to _marry_ whenever he may desire to do so. I -believe”--he could not refrain from a tone of sardonic irony as he -added this--“that you have found him not particularly well able to look -after himself. I shall sign this document, rendering your friend free -from financial anxiety for the rest of his life, on the day when you -are married to Mr. Goring.” - -When he had finished speaking Lacrima continued to stare at him with a -wide horror-struck gaze. - -Mechanically she noticed the peculiar way in which his eyebrows met -one another across a scar on his forehead. This scar and the little -grey bristles that crossed it remained in her mind long afterwards, -indelibly associated with the thoughts that then passed through her -brain. Chief among these thoughts was a deep-lurking, heart-clutching -dread of her own conscience, and a terrible shapeless fear that this -subterranean conscience might debar her from the _right_ to make her -appeal to Vennie. From Mr. Romer’s persecution she could appeal; but -how could she appeal against his benevolence to her friend, even though -the path of that benevolence lay over her own body? - -She rose from her seat, too troubled and confused even to hate the man -who thus played the part of an ironic Providence. - -“Let me go,” she said, waving aside once more the bright-coloured box -of chocolates which he had the diabolical effrontery to offer her -again. “Let me go. I want to be alone. I want to think.” - -He opened the door for her, and she passed out. Once out of his -presence she rushed madly upstairs to her own room, flung herself on -the bed, and remained, for what seemed to her like centuries of horror, -without movement and without tears, staring up at the ceiling. - -The luncheon bell sounded, but she did not heed it. From the open -window floated in the smell of the white cluster-roses, scented like -old wine, which encircled the terrace pillars. Blending with this -fragrance came the interminable voice of the wood-pigeons, and every -now and then a sharp wild cry, from the peacocks on the east lawn. -Two--three hours passed thus, and still she did not move. A certain -queer-shaped crack above the door occupied her superficial attention, -very much in the same way as the scar on Mr. Romer’s forehead. Any very -precise formulation of her thoughts during this long period would be -difficult to state. - -Her mind had fallen into that confused and feverish bewilderment -that comes to us in hours between sleeping and waking. The clearest -image that shaped itself to her consciousness during these hours was -the image of herself as dead, and, by means of her death, of Maurice -Quincunx being freed from his hated office-work, and enabled to live -according to his pleasure. She saw him walking to and fro among -rows of evening primroses--his favourite flowers--and in place of a -cabbage-leaf--so fantastic were her dreams--she saw his heavy head -ornamented with a broad, new Panama-hat, purchased with the price of -her death. - -Her mind gave no definite shape or form to this image of herself -dying. The thought of it followed so naturally from the idea of a -union with the Priory-tenant, that there seemed no need to separate -the two things. To marry Mr. John Goring was just a simple sentence of -death. The only thing to make sure of, was that before she actually -died, this precious document, liberating her friend forever, should -be signed and sealed. Oddly enough she never for a moment doubted Mr. -Romer’s intention of carrying out his part of the contract if she -carried out hers. As he had said, the world was designed and arranged -for bargains between men and women; and if her great bargain meant the -putting of life itself into the scale--well! she was ready. - -Strangely enough, the final issue of her feverish self-communings was a -sense of deep and indescribable peace. It was more of a relief to her -than anyone not acquainted with the peculiar texture of a Pariah’s mind -could realize, to be spared that desperate appeal to Vennie Seldom. In -a dumb inarticulate way she felt that, without making such an appeal, -the spirit of the Nevilton nun was supporting and strengthening her. -Did Vennie know of her dilemma, she would be compelled to resort to -some drastic step to stop the sacrifice, just as one would be compelled -to hold out a hand of rescue to some determined suicide. But she felt -in the depths of her heart that if Vennie were in her position she -would make the same choice. - -The long afternoon was still only half over, when--comforted and at -peace with herself, as a devoted patriot might be at peace, when the -throw of the dice has appointed him as his country’s liberator--she -rose from her recumbent position, and sitting on the edge of her bed -turned over the pages of her tiny edition of St. Thomas à Kempis. - -It had been long since she had opened this volume. Indeed, isolated -from contact with any Catholic influence except that of the -philosophical Mr. Taxater, Lacrima had been recently drifting rather -far away from the church of her fathers. This complete upheaval of her -whole life threw her back upon her old faith. - -Like so many other women of suppressed romantic emotions, when the -moment came for some heroic sacrifice for the sake of her friend, she -at once threw into the troubled waters the consecrated oil that had -anointed the half-forgotten piety of her childhood. - -One curious and interesting psychological fact in connection with this -new trend of feeling in her, was the fact that the actual realistic -horror of being, in a literal and material sense, at the mercy of -Mr. John Goring never presented itself to her mind at all. Its very -dreadfulness, being a thing that amounted to sheer death, blurred and -softened its tangible and palpable image. - -Yet it must not be supposed that she meditated definitely upon any -special line of action. She formulated no plan of self-destruction. For -some strange reason, it was much less the bodily terror of the idea -that rose up awful and threatening before her, than its spiritual and -moral counterpart. - -Had Lacrima been compelled, like poor Sonia in the Russian novel, to -become a harlot for the sake of those she loved, it would have been the -mental rather than the physical outrage that would have weighed upon -her. - -She was of that curious human type which separates the body from -the soul, in all these things. She had always approached life -rather through her mind than through her senses, and it was in the -imagination that she found both her catastrophes and recoveries. In -this particular case, the obsessing image of death had for the moment -quite obliterated the more purely realistic aspect of what she was -contemplating. Her feeling may perhaps be best described by saying that -whenever she imaged the farmer’s possession of her, it was always as -if what he possessed was no more than a dead inert corpse, about whose -fate none, least of all herself, could have any further care. - -She had just counted the strokes of the church clock striking four, -when she heard Gladys’ steps in the adjoining room. She hurriedly -concealed the little purple-covered volume, and lay back once more -upon her pillows. She fervently prayed in her heart that Gladys might -be ignorant of what had occurred, but her knowledge of the relations -between father and daughter made this a very forlorn hope. - -Such as it was, it was entirely dispelled as soon as the fair-haired -creature glided in and sat down at the foot of her bed. - -Gladys looked at her cousin with intent and luxurious interest; her -expression being very much what one might suppose the countenance of a -young pagan priestess to have worn, as she gazed, dreamily and sweetly, -in a pause of the sacrificial procession, at some doomed heifer “lowing -at the skies, and all her silken flanks with garlands dressed.” - -“So I hear that you are going to be married,” she began at once, -speaking in a slow, liquid voice, and toying indolently with her -friend’s shoe-strings. - -“Please--please don’t talk about it,” murmured the Italian. “Nothing -is settled yet. I would so much rather not think of it now.” - -“But, how silly!” cried the other, with a melodious little laugh. “Of -course we must talk about it. It is so extremely exciting! I shall -be seeing uncle John today and I must congratulate him. I am sure he -doesn’t half know how lucky he is.” - -Lacrima jumped up from where she lay and stepping to the window looked -out over the sunlit park. - -Gladys rose too, and standing behind her cousin, put her arms round her -waist. - -“No, I am sure he doesn’t realize how sweet you are,” she whispered. -“You darling little thing,--you little, shy, frightened thing--you -must tell me all about it! I’ll try not to tease you--I really will! -What a clever, naughty little girl, it has been, peeping and glancing -at a poor elderly farmer and inflaming his simple heart! But all your -friends are rather well advanced in age, aren’t they, dear? I expect -uncle John is really no older than Mr. Quincunx or James Andersen. What -tricks do you use, darling, to attract all these people? - -“I’ll tell you what it is! It’s the way you clasp your fingers, and -keep groping with your hands in the air in front of you, as if you -were blind. I’ve noticed that trick of yours for a long time. I expect -it attracts them awfully! I expect they all long to take those little -wrists and hold them tight! And the drooping, dragging way you walk, -too; that no doubt they find quite enthralling. It has often irritated -_me_, but I can quite see now why you do it. It must make them long to -support you in their strong arms! What a crafty little puss she is! And -I have sometimes taken her for no better than a little simpleton! I see -I shall not for long be the only person allowed to kiss our charming -Lacrima! So I must make the best of my opportunities, mustn’t I?” - -Suiting her action to her words she turned the girl towards her with a -vigorous movement, and overcoming her reluctance, embraced her softly, -whispering, as she kissed her averted mouth,-- - -“Uncle John won’t do this half so prettily as I do, will he? But oh, -how you must have played your tricks upon him--cunning, cunning little -thing!” - -Lacrima had by this time reached the end of her endurance. With a -sudden flash of genuine Italian anger she flung her cousin back, with -such unexpected violence, that the elder girl would actually have -fallen to the floor, if she had not encountered in her collapse the arm -of the wicker chair which stood behind her. - -She rose silent and malignant. - -“So that’s what we gentle, wily ones do, is it, when we lose our little -tempers! All right, my friend, all right! I shall remember.” - -She walked haughtily to the door that divided their rooms. - -“The sooner I am married,” she cried, as a final hit, “the sooner _you_ -will be--and I shall be married soon--soon--soon; perhaps before this -summer is out!” - -Lacrima stood for some moments rigid and unmoving. Then there came over -her an irresistible longing to escape from this house, and flee far -off, anywhere, anyhow, so long as she could be alone with her misery, -alone with her tragic resolution. - -The invasion of Gladys had made this resolution a very different -thing from what it had seemed an hour ago. But she must recover -herself! She must see things again in the clearer, larger light of -sublime sacrifice. She must purge the baseness of her cousin’s sensual -magnetism out of her brain and her heart! - -She hurriedly fastened on her hat, took her faded parasol, slipped the -tiny St. Thomas into her dress, and ran down the great oak staircase. -She hurried past the entrance without turning aside to greet the -impassive Mrs. Romer, seated as usual in her accustomed place, and -skirting the east lawns emerged from the little postern-gate into the -park. Crossing a half-cut hay-field and responding gravely and gently -to the friendly greetings of the hay-makers, she entered the Yeoborough -road just below the steep ascent, between high overshadowing hedges, of -Dead Man’s Lane. - -Whether from her first exit from the house, she had intended to follow -this path, she could hardly herself have told. It was the instinct of -a woman at bay, seeking out, not the strong that could help her, but -the weak that she herself could help. It was also perhaps the true -Pariah impulse, which drives these victims of the powerful and the -well-constituted, to find rehabilitation in the society of one another. - -As she ascended the shadowy lane with its crumbling banks of sandy soil -and its overhanging trees, she felt once again how persistently this -heavy luxuriant landscape dragged her earthwards and clogged the wings -of her spirit. The tall grasses growing thick by the way-side enlaced -themselves with the elder-bushes and dog-wood, which in their turn -blended indissolubly with the lower branches of the elms. The lane -itself was but a deep shadowy path dividing a flowing sea of foliage, -which seemed to pour, in a tidal wave of suffocating fertility, over -the whole valley. - -The Italian struggled in vain against the depressing influence of all -these rank and umbrageous growths, spreading out leafy arms to catch -her and groping towards her with moist adhesive tendrils. The lane was -full of a warm steamy vapour, like that of a hot-house, to the heavy -odour of which, every sort of verdurous growing thing offered its -contribution. - -There was a vague smell of funguses in the air, though none were -visible; and the idea of them may only have been due to the presence -of decaying wood or the moist drooping stalks of the dead flowers -of the earlier season. Now and again the girl caught, wafted upon a -sudden stir of wind, the indescribably sweet scent of honey-suckle--a -sweetness almost overpowering in its penetrating voluptuous approach. -Once, high up above her head, she saw a spray of this fragrant -parasite; not golden yellow, as it is where the sun shines full upon -it, but pallid and ivory-white. In a curious way it seemed as if this -Nevilton scenery offered her no escape from the insidious sensuality -she fled. - -The indolent luxuriousness of Gladys seemed to breathe from every mossy -spore and to over-hang every unclosing frond. And if Gladys was in the -leaves and grass, the remoter terror of Mr. Goring was in the earth and -clay. Between the two they monopolized this whole corner of the planet, -and made everything between zenith and nadir their privileged pasture. - -As she drew nearer to where Mr. Quincunx lived, her burdened mind -sought relief in focussing itself upon him. She would be sure to find -him in his garden. That she knew, because the day was Saturday. Should -she tell him what had happened to her? - -Ah! that was indeed the crucial question! Was it necessary that she -should sacrifice herself for him without his even knowing what she did? - -But he would have to know, sooner or later, of this marriage. Everyone -would be talking of it. It would be bound to come to his ears. - -And what would he think of her if she said nothing? What would he think -of her, in any case, having accepted such a degradation? - -Not to tell him at all, would throw a completely false light upon -the whole transaction. It would make her appear treacherous, fickle, -worldly-minded, shameless--wickedly false to her unwritten covenant -with himself. - -To tell him, without giving him the true motive of her sacrifice, would -be, she felt sure, to bring down his bitterest reproaches on her head. - -For a passing second she felt a wave of indignation against him surge -up in her heart. This, however, she passionately suppressed, with the -instinctive desire of a woman who is sacrificing herself to feel the -object of such sacrifice worthy of what is offered. - -It was not long before she reached the gate of Mr. Quincunx’s garden. -Yes,--there he was--with his wheel-barrow and his hoe--bending over his -potatoes. She opened the gate and walked quite close up to him before -he observed her. He greeted her in his usual manner, with a smile of -half-cynical, half-affectionate welcome, and taking her by the hand as -he might have taken a child, he led her to the one shady spot in his -garden, where, under a weeping ash, he had constructed a rough bench. - -“I didn’t expect you,” he said, when they were seated. “I never do -expect you. People like me who have only Saturday afternoons to enjoy -themselves in don’t expect visitors. They count the hours which are -left to them before the night comes.” - -“But you have Sunday, my friend,” she said, laying her hand upon his. - -“Sunday!” Mr. Quincunx muttered. “Do you call Sunday a day? I regard -Sunday as a sort of prison-exercise, when all the convicts go walking -up and down and showing off their best clothes. I can neither work nor -read nor think on Sunday. I have to put on my best clothes like the -rest, and stand at my gate, staring at the weather and wondering what -the hay-crop will be. The only interesting moments I have on Sunday are -when that silly-faced Wone, or one of the Andersens, drifts this way, -and we lean over my wall and abuse the gentry.” - -“Poor dear!” said the girl pityingly. “I expect the real truth is that -you are so tired with your work all the week, that you are glad enough -to rest and do nothing.” - -Mr. Quincunx’s nostrils dilated, and his drooping moustache quivered. A -smile of delicious and sardonic humour wavered over the lower portion -of his face, while his grey eyes lost their sadness and gleamed with a -goblin-like merriment. - -“I am getting quite popular at the office,” he said. “I have learnt -the secret of it now.” - -“And what is the secret?” asked Lacrima, suppressing a queer little -gasp in her throat. - -“Sucking up,” Mr. Quincunx answered, his face flickering with -subterranean amusement, “sucking up to everyone in the place, from the -manager to the office boy.” - -Lacrima returned to him a very wan little smile. - -“I suppose you mean ingratiating yourself,” she said; “you English have -such funny expressions.” - -“Yes, ingratiating myself, pandering to them, flattering them, agreeing -with them, anticipating their wishes, doing their work for them, -telling lies for them, abusing God to make them laugh, introducing them -to Guy de Maupassant, and even making a few light references, now and -again, to what Shakespeare calls ‘country-matters.’” - -“I don’t believe a word you say,” protested Lacrima in rather a -quavering voice. “I believe you hate them all and that they are all -unkind to you. But I can quite imagine you have to do more work than -your own.” - -Mr. Quincunx’s countenance lost its merriment instantaneously. - -“I believe you are as annoyed as Mr. Romer,” he said, “that I should -get on in the office. But I am past being affected by that. I know what -human nature is! We are all really pleased when other people get on -badly, and are sorry when they do well.” - -Lacrima felt as though the trees in the field opposite had suddenly -reversed themselves and were waving their roots in the air. - -She gave a little shiver and pressed her hand to her side. - -Mr. Quincunx continued. - -“Of course you don’t like it when I tell you the truth. Nobody likes -to hear the truth. Human beings lap up lies as pigs lap up milk. And -women are worst of all in that! No woman really can love a person--not, -at any rate, for long--who tells her the truth! That is why women love -clergymen, because clergymen are brought up to lie. I saw you laughing -and amusing yourself the other evening with Mr. Clavering--you and your -friend Gladys. I went the other way, so as not to interrupt such a -merry conversation.” - -Lacrima turned upon him at this. - -“I cannot understand how you can say such things of me!” she cried. “It -is too much. I won’t--I won’t listen to it!” - -Her over-strained nerves broke down at last, and covering her face with -her hands, she burst into a fit of convulsive sobs. - -Mr. Quincunx rose and stood gazing at her, gloomily plucking at his -beard. - -“And such are women!” he thought to himself. “One can never tell them -the least truth but they burst into tears.” - -He waited thus in silence for one or two moments, and then an -expression of exquisite tenderness and sympathy came into his face. His -patient grey eyes looked at her bowed head with the look of a sorrowful -god. Gently he sat down beside her and laid his hand on her shoulder. - -“Lacrima--dear--I am sorry--I oughtn’t to have said that. I didn’t mean -it. On my solemn oath I didn’t mean it! Lacrima, please don’t cry. I -can’t bear it when you cry. It was all absolute nonsense what I said -just now. It is the devil that gets into me and makes me say those -things! Lacrima--darling Lacrima--we won’t tease one another any more.” - -Her sobs diminished under the obvious sincerity of his words. She -lifted up a tear-stained face and threw her arms passionately round his -neck. - -“I’ve no one but you,” she cried, “no one, no one!” - -For several minutes they embraced each other in silence--the girl’s -breast quivering with the after-sighs of her emotion and their tears -mingling together and falling on Mr. Quincunx’s beard. Had Gladys Romer -beheld them at that moment she would certainly have been strengthened -in her healthy-minded mocking contempt for sentimental “slobbering.” - -When they had resumed a more normal mood their conversation continued -gently and quietly. - -“Of course you are right,” said Mr. Quincunx. “I am not really happy -at the office. Who _could_ be happy in a place of that kind? But it -is my life--and one has to do what one can with one’s life! I have to -pretend to myself that they like me there, and that I am making myself -useful--otherwise I simply could not go on. I have to pretend. That’s -what it is! It is my pet illusion, my little fairy-story. It was that -that made me get angry with you--that and the devil. One doesn’t like -to have one’s fairy-stories broken into by the brutal truth.” - -“Poor dear!” said Lacrima softly, stroking his hand with a gesture of -maternal tenderness. - -“If there was any hope of this wretched business coming to an end,” -Maurice went on, “it would be different. Then I would curse all these -people to hell and have done with it. But what can I do? I am already -past middle age. I shouldn’t be able to get anything else if I gave it -up. And I don’t want to leave Nevilton while you are here.” - -The girl looked intently at him. Then she folded her hands on her lap -and began gravely. - -“I have something to tell you, Maurice dear. Something very important. -What would you say if I told you that it was in my power to set you -free from all this and make you happy and comfortable for the rest of -your life?” - -An invisible watcher from some more clairvoyant planet than ours would -have been interested at that moment in reading the double weakness of -two poor Pariah hearts. Lacrima, brought back from the half-insane -attitudes of her heroic resolution by the intermission of natural human -emotion, found herself on the brink of half-hoping that her friend -would completely and indignantly refuse this shameful sacrifice. - -“Surely,” her heart whispered, “some other path of escape must offer -itself for them both. Perhaps, after all, Vennie Seldom might discover -some way.” - -Mr. Quincunx, on the other hand, was most thoroughly alarmed by her -opening words. He feared that she was going to propose some desperate -scheme by which, fleeing from Nevilton together, she was to help him -earn money enough for their mutual support. - -“What should I say?” he answered aloud, to the girl’s question. -“It would depend upon the manner in which you worked this wonderful -miracle. But I warn you I am not hopeful. Things might be worse. After -all I have a house to return to. I have food. I have my books. I have -you to come and pay me visits. I have my garden. In this world, when -a person has a roof over his head, and someone to talk to every other -day, he had better remain still and not attract the attention of the -gods.” - -Silence followed his words. Instead of speaking, Lacrima took off her -hat, and smoothed her hair away from her forehead, keeping her eyes -fixed upon the ground. An immense temptation seized her to let the -moment pass without revealing her secret. She could easily substitute -any imaginary suggestion in place of the terrible reality. Her friend’s -morbid nerves would help her deception. The matter would be glossed -over and be as if it had never been: be, in fact, no more than it was, -a hideous nightmare of her own insane and diseased conscience. - -But could the thing be so suppressed? Would it be like Nevilton to let -even the possible image of such a drama pass unsnatched at by voluble -tongues, unenlarged upon by malicious gossip? - -He would be bound to hear of Mr. Goring’s offer. That, at least, could -not be concealed. And what assurance had she that Mr. Romer would not -himself communicate to him the full nature of the hideous bargain? The -quarry-owner might think it diplomatic to trade upon Maurice’s weakness. - -No--there was no help for it. She must tell him;--only praying now, in -the profound depths of her poor heart, that he would not consider such -an infamy even for a second. So she told him the whole story, in a low -monotonous voice, keeping her head lowered and watching the progress of -a minute snail laboriously ascending a stalk of grass. - -Maurice Quincunx had never twiddled the point of his Elizabethan beard -with more detached absorption than while listening to this astounding -narration. When she had quite finished, he regarded her from head to -foot with a very curious expression. - -The girl breathed hard. What was he thinking? He did not at once, in a -burst of righteous indignation, fling the monstrous suggestion to the -winds. What was he thinking? As a matter of fact the thoughts of Mr. -Quincunx had taken an extraordinary turn. - -Being in his personal relation to feminine charm, of a somewhat cold -temper, he had never, for all his imaginative sentiment towards his -little friend, been at all swayed by any violent sensuous attraction. -But the idea of such attraction having seized so strongly upon another -person reacted upon him, and he looked at her, perhaps for the first -time since they had met, with eyes of something more than purely -sentimental regard. - -This new element in his attitude towards her did not, however, issue -in any excess of physical jealousy. What it did lead to, unluckily -for Lacrima, was a certain queer diminution of his ideal respect for -her personality. In place of focussing his attention upon the sublime -sacrifice she contemplated for his sake, the events she narrated -concentrated his mind upon the mere brutal and accidental fact that -Mr. Goring had so desperately desired her. The mere fact of her having -been so desired by such a man, changed her in his eyes. His cynical -distrust of all women led him to conceive the monstrous and grotesque -idea that she must in her heart be gratified by having aroused this -passion in the farmer. It did not carry him quite so far as to make him -believe that she had consciously excited such emotion; but it led him -to the very brink of that outrageous fantasy. Had Lacrima come to him -with a shame-faced confession that she had let herself be seduced by -the Priory-tenant he could hardly have gazed at her with more changed -and troubled eyes. He felt the same curious mixture of sorrowful pity -and remote unlawful attraction to the object of his pity, that he -would have felt in a casual conversation with some luckless child of -the streets. By being the occasion of Mr. Goring’s passion, she became -for him no less than such an unfortunate; the purer sentiment he had -hitherto cherished changing into quite a different mood. - -He lifted her up by the wrists and pressed her closely to him, kissing -her again and again. The girl’s heart went on anxiously beating. She -could hardly restrain her impatience for him to speak. Why did he not -speak? - -Disentangling herself from his embrace with a quick feminine instinct -that something was wrong, she pulled him down upon the bench by her -side and taking his hand in hers looked with pitiful bewilderment into -his face. - -“So when this thing happens,” she said, “all your troubles will be -over. You will be free forever from that horrid office.” - -“And you,” said Mr. Quincunx--his mood changing again, and his -goblin-like smile twitching his nostrils,--“You will be the mistress -of the Priory. Well! I suppose you will not desert me altogether when -that happens!” - -So that was the tone he adopted! He could afford to turn the thing into -a jest--into God knows what! She let his hand drop and stared into -empty space, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, understanding nothing. - -This time Maurice realized that he had disappointed her; that his -cynicism had carried him too far. Unfortunately the same instinct that -told him he had made a fool of himself pushed him on to seek an issue -from the situation by wading still further into it. - -“Come--come,” he said. “You and I must face this matter like people who -are really free spirits, and not slaves to any ridiculous superstition. -It is noble, it is sweet of you to think of marrying that brute so -as to set me free. Of course if I _was_ free, and you were up at the -Priory, we should see a great deal more of each other than we do now. I -could take one of those vacant cottages close to the church. - -“Don’t think--Lacrima dear,” he went on, possessing himself of one of -her cold hands and trying to recall her attention, “don’t think that I -don’t realize what it is to you to have to submit to such a frightful -thing. Of course we know how outrageous it is that such a marriage -should be forced on you. But, after all, you and I are above these -absurd popular superstitions about all these things. Every girl sooner -or later hates the man she marries. It is human nature to hate the -people we have to live with; and when it comes down to actual reality, -all human beings are much the same. If you were forced to marry me, you -would probably hate me just as much as you’ll hate this poor devil. -After all, what is this business of being married to people and bearing -them children? It doesn’t touch your mind. It doesn’t affect your -soul. As old Marcus Aurelius says, our bodies are nothing! They are -wretched corpses, anyway, dragged hither and thither by our imprisoned -souls. It is these damned clergymen, with their lies about ‘sin’ and -so forth, that upset women’s minds. For you to be married to a man you -hate, would only be like my having to go to this Yeoborough office with -people I hate. You will always have, as that honest fellow Epictetus -says, your own soul to retire into, whatever happens. Heavens! it -strikes me as a bit of humorous revenge,”--here his nostrils twitched -again and the hobgoblin look reappeared--“this thought of you and -me living peacefully at our ease, so near one another, and at these -confounded rascals’ expense!” - -Lacrima staggered to her feet. “Let me go,” she said. “I want to go -back--away--anywhere.” - -Her look, her gesture, her broken words gave Mr. Quincunx a poignant -shock. In one sudden illuminating flash he saw himself as he was, -and his recent remarks in their true light. We all have sometimes -these psychic search-light flashes of introspection; but the more -healthy-minded and well-balanced among us know how to keep them in -their place and how to expel them promptly and effectively. - -Mr. Quincunx was not healthy-minded. He had the morbid sensitive mind -of a neurotic Pariah. Hence, in place of suppressing this spiritual -illumination, he allowed it to irradiate the gloomiest caverns of his -being. He rose with a look of abject and miserable concern. - -“Stop,” he cried huskily. - -She looked at him wondering, the blood returning a little to her cheeks. - -“It is the Devil!” he exclaimed. “I must have the Devil in me, to say -such things and to treat you like this. You are the bravest, sweetest -girl in the world, and I am a brutal idiot--worse than Mr. Romer!” - -He struck himself several blows upon the forehead, knocking off his -hat. Lacrima could not help noticing that in place of the usual -protection, some small rhubarb-leaves ornamented the interior of this -appendage. - -She smiled at him, through a rain of happy tears,--the first smile that -day had seen upon her face. - -“We are both of us absurd people, I suppose,” she said, laying her -hands upon his shoulders. “We ought to have some friend with a clear -solid head to keep us straight.” - -Mr. Quincunx kissed her on the forehead and stooped down for his hat. - -“Yes,” he said. “We are a queer pair. I suppose we are really both a -little mad. I wish there was someone we could go to.” - -“Couldn’t you--perhaps--” said Lacrima, “say something to Mrs. Seldom? -And yet I would much rather she didn’t know. I would much rather no one -knew!” - -“I might,” murmured Maurice thoughtfully; “I might tell her. But the -unlucky thing is, she is so narrow-minded that she can’t separate you -in her thoughts from those frightful people.” - -“Shall I try Vennie?” whispered the girl, “or shall we--” here she -looked him boldly in the face with eager, brightening eyes--“shall we -run away to London, and be married, and risk the future?” - -Poor little Italian! She had never made a greater tactical blunder than -when she uttered these words. Maurice Quincunx’s mystic illumination -had made it possible for him to exorcise his evil spirit. It could -not put into his nature an energy he had not been born with. His -countenance clouded. - -“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he remarked. “You don’t know what -a sour-tempered devil I am, and how I am sure to make any girl who -lives with me miserable. You would hate me in a month more than you -hate Mr. Romer, and in a year I should have either worried you into -your grave or you would have run away from me. No--no--no! I should be -a criminal fool to let you subject yourself to such a risk as that.” - -“But,” pleaded the girl, with flushed cheeks, “we should be sure to -find something! I could teach Italian,--and you could--oh, I am sure -there are endless things you could do! Please, please, Maurice dear, -let us go. Anything is better than this misery. I have got quite enough -money for the journey. Look!” - -She pulled out from beneath her dress a little chain purse, that -hung, by a small silver chain, round her slender neck. She opened it -and shook three sovereigns into the palm of her hand. “Enough for -the journey,” she said, “and enough to keep us for a week if we are -economical. We should be sure to find something by that time.” - -Mr. Quincunx shook his head. It was an ironical piece of psychic -malice that the very illumination which had made him remorseful -and sympathetic should have also reduced to the old level of tender -sentiment the momentary passion he had felt. It was the absence in him -of this sensual impulse which made the scheme she proposed seem so -impossible. Had he been of a more animal nature, or had she possessed -the power of arousing his senses to a more violent craving, instead -of brooding, as he did, upon the mere material difficulties of such a -plan, he would have plunged desperately into it and carried her off -without further argument. The very purity of his temperament was her -worst enemy. - -Poor Lacrima! Her hands dropped once more helplessly to her side, -and the old hopeless depression began to invade her heart. It seemed -impossible to make her friend realize that if she refused the farmer -and things went on as before, her position in Mr. Romer’s establishment -would become more impossible than ever. What--for instance--would -become of her when this long-discussed marriage of Gladys with young -Ilminster took place? Could she conceive herself going on living -under that roof, with Mr. Romer continually harassing her, and his -brother-in-law haunting every field she wandered into? - -“It was noble of you,” began her bearded friend again, resuming his -work at the weeds, while she, as on a former occasion, leant against -his wheel-barrow, “to think of enduring this wretched marriage for -my sake. But I cannot let you do it. I should not be happy in letting -you do it. I have some conscience--though you may not think so--and -it would worry me to feel you were putting up with that fool’s -companionship just to make me comfortable. It would spoil my enjoyment -of my freedom, to know that you were not equally free. Of course it -would be paradise to me to have the money you speak of. I should be -able to live exactly as I like, and these damned villagers would treat -me with proper respect then. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take -my pleasure at the expense of such a strain on you. It would spoil -everything! - -“I don’t deny, however,” he went on, evidently deriving more and -more virtuous satisfaction from his somewhat indecisive rejection of -her sacrifice, “that it is a temptation to me. I hate that office so -profoundly! You were quite right there, Lacrima. All I said about -getting on with those people was damned bluff. I loathe them and they -loathe me. It is simply like a kind of death, my life in that place. -Yes, what you suggest is a temptation to me. I can’t help feeling -rather like that poor brother of the girl in ‘Measure for Measure’ -when she comes to say that she could save his life by the loss of her -virtue, and he talks about his feelings on the subject of death. She -put him down fiercely enough, poor dog! She evidently thought her -virtue was much more important than his life. I am glad you are just -the opposite of that puritanical young woman. I shouldn’t like you very -much if you took her line! - -“But just because you don’t do that, my dear,” Mr. Quincunx went on, -tugging at the obstinate roots of a great dock, “I couldn’t think -of letting you sacrifice yourself. If you _were_ like that woman in -the play, and made all that damned silly fuss about your confounded -virtue, I should be inclined to wish that Mr. Goring had got his hands -upon you. Women who think as much of themselves as that, _ought_ to -be given over to honest fellows like Mr. Goring. It’s the sort of -punishment they deserve for their superstitious selfishness. For it’s -all selfishness, of course. We know that well enough!” - -He flung the defeated weed so vindictively upon his barrow that some -of the earth from its roots was sprinkled into Lacrima’s lap. He -came to help her brush it away, and took the opportunity to kiss her -again,--this time a shade more amorously. - -“All this business of ‘love,’” he went on, returning to his potatoes, -“is nothing but the old eternal wickedness of man’s nature. The only -kind of love which is worth anything is the love that gets rid of sex -altogether, and becomes calm and quiet and distant--like the love of a -planetary spirit. Apart from this love, which is not like human love at -all, everything in us is selfish. Even a mother’s care for its child is -selfish.” - -“I shall never have a child,” said Lacrima in a low voice. - -“I wonder what your friend James Andersen would say to all this,” -continued Mr. Quincunx. “Why, by the way, don’t you get _him_ to marry -you? He would do it, no doubt, like a shot, if you gave him a little -encouragement; and then make you work all day in his kitchen, as his -father made his mother, so they say.” - -Lacrima made a hopeless gesture, and looked at the watch upon her -wrist. She began to feel dizzy and sick for want of food. She had had -nothing since breakfast, and the shadows were beginning to grow long. - -“I know what Luke Andersen would say if we asked him,” added Mr. -Quincunx. “He would advise you to marry this damned farmer, wheedle his -money out of him, and then sheer off with some fine youth and never see -Nevilton again! Luke Andersen’s the fellow for giving a person advice -in these little matters. He has a head upon his shoulders, that boy! -I tell you what it is, my dear, your precious Miss Gladys had better -be careful! She’ll be getting herself into trouble with that honest -youth if she doesn’t look out. I know him. He cares for no mortal soul -in the world, or above the world. He’s a master in the art of life! We -are all infants compared with him. If you do need anyone to help you, -or to help me either, I tell you Luke Andersen’s the one to go to. He -has more influence in this village than any living person except Romer -himself, and I should be sorry for Romer if his selfishness clashed -with the selfishness of that young Machiavel!” - -“Do you mind,” said Lacrima suddenly, “if I go into your kitchen and -make myself a cup of tea? I feel rather exhausted. I expect it is the -heat.” - -Mr. Quincunx looked intently at her, leaning upon his hoe. He had only -once before--on an exceptionally cold winter’s day--allowed the girl to -enter the cottage. - -He had a vague feeling that if he did so he would in some way commit -himself, and be betrayed into a false position. He almost felt as -though, if she were once comfortably established there, he would never -be able to get her out again! He was nervous, too, about her seeing -all his little household peculiarities. If she saw, for instance, how -cheaply, how very cheaply, he managed to live, eating no meat and -economizing in sugar and butter, she might be encouraged still further -in her attempts to persuade him to run away. - -He was also strangely reluctant that she should get upon the track of -his queer little lonely epicurean pleasures, such as his carefully -guarded bottle of Scotch whiskey; his favourite shelf of mystical and -Rabelaisian books; his jar of tobacco, with a piece of bread under its -lid, to keep the contents moist and cool; his elaborate arrangements -for holding draughts out; his polished pewter; his dainty writing-desk -with its piled-up, vellum-bound journals, all labelled and laid in -order; his queer-coloured oriental slippers; his array of scrupulously -scrubbed pots and pans. Mr. Quincunx was extremely unwilling that his -lady-love should poke her pretty fingers into all these mysteries. - -What he liked, was to live in two distinct worlds: his world of -sentiment with Lacrima as its solitary centre, and his world of -sacramental epicurism with his kitchen-fire as its solitary centre. -He was extremely unwilling that the several circumferences of these -centres should intersect one another. Both were equally necessary -to him. When days passed without a visit from his friend he became -miserably depressed. But he saw no reason for any inartistic attempt -to unite these two spheres of interest. A psychologist who defined Mr. -Quincunx’s temper as the temper of a hermit would have been far astray. -He was profoundly dependent on human sympathy. But he liked human -sympathy that kept its place. He did not like human _society_. Perhaps -of all well-known psychological types, the type of the philosopher -Rousseau was the one to which he most nearly approximated. And yet, -had he possessed children, Mr. Quincunx would certainly never have -been persuaded to leave them at the foundling hospital. He would have -lived apart from them, but he would never have parted with them. He was -really a domestic sentimentalist, who loved the exquisite sensation of -being alone with his own thoughts. - -With all this in mind, one need feel no particular surprise that the -response he gave to Lacrima’s sudden request was a somewhat reluctant -one. However, he did respond; and opening the cottage-doors for her, -ushered her into the kitchen and put the kettle on the fire. - -It puzzled him a little that she should feel no embarrassment at being -alone with him in this secluded place! In the depths of his heart--like -many philosophers--Mr. Quincunx, in spite of his anarchistic theories, -possessed no slight vein of conventional timidity. He did not realize -this in the least. Women, according to his cynical code, were the -sole props of conventionality. Without women, there would be no such -thing in the world. But now, brought face to face with the reckless -detachment of a woman fighting for her living soul, he felt confused, -uncomfortable, and disconcerted. - -Lacrima waited in patient passivity, too exhausted to make any further -mental or moral effort, while her friend made the tea and cut the -bread-and-butter. - -As soon as she had partaken of these things, her exhaustion gave place -to a delicious sense--the first she had known for many weeks--of -peaceful and happy security. She put far away, into the remote -background of her mind, all melancholy and tragic thoughts, and -gave herself up to the peacefulness of the moment. The hands of Mr. -Quincunx’s clock pointed to half-past six. She had therefore a clear -thirty minutes left, before she need set out on her return walk, in -order to have time to dress for dinner. - -“I wonder if your Miss Gladys,” remarked Lacrima’s host, lighting -a cigarette as he sipped his tea, “will marry the Honourable Mr. -Ilminster after all, or whistle him down the wind, and make up to -our American friend? I notice that Dangelis is already considerably -absorbed in her.” - -“Please, dear, don’t let us talk any more about these people,” begged -Lacrima softly. “Let me be happy for a little while.” - -Mr. Quincunx stroked his beard. “You are a queer little girl,” he said. -“But what I should do if the gods took you away from me I have not the -least idea. I should not care then whether I worked in an office or in -a factory. I should not care what I did.” - -The girl jumped up impulsively from her seat and went over to him. Mr. -Quincunx took her upon his knees as he might have taken a child and -fondled her gravely and gently. The smoke of his cigarette ascended in -a thin blue column above their two heads. - -At that moment there was a mocking laugh at the window. Lacrima slid -out of his arms and they both rose to their feet and turned indignantly. - -The laughing face of Gladys Romer peered in upon them, her eyes -shining with delighted malevolence. “I saw you,” she cried. “But -you needn’t look so cross! I like to see these things. I have been -watching you for quite a long time! It has been such fun! I only hoped -I could keep quiet for longer still, till one of you began to cry, or -something. But you looked so funny that I couldn’t help laughing. And -that spoilt it all. Mr. Dangelis is at the gate. Shall I call him up? -He came with me across the park. He tried to stop me from pouncing on -you, but I wouldn’t listen to him. He said it was a ‘low-down stunt.’ -You know the way he talks, Lacrima!” - -The two friends stood staring at the intruder in petrified horror. Then -without a word they quickly issued from the cottage and crossed the -garden. Neither of them spoke to Gladys; and Mr. Quincunx immediately -returned to his house as soon as he saw the American advance to greet -Lacrima with his usual friendly nonchalance. - -The three went off down the lane together; and the poor philosopher, -staring disconsolately at the empty tea-cups of his profaned sanctuary, -cursed himself, his friend, his fate, and the Powers that had appointed -that fate from the beginning of the world. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -UNDER-CURRENTS - - -June was drawing to an end, and the days, though still free from rain, -grew less and less bright. A thin veil of greyish vapour, which never -became thick enough or sank low enough to resolve itself into definite -clouds, offered a perpetual hindrance to the shining of the sun. The -sun was present. Its influence was felt in the warmth of the air; but -when it became visible, it was only in the form of a large misty disc, -at which the weakest eyes might gaze without distress or discomfort. - -On a certain evening when this vaporous obscurity made it impossible to -ascertain the exact moment of the sun’s descent and when it might be -said that afternoon became twilight before men or cattle realized that -the day was over, Mr. Wone was assisting his son Philip in planting -geraniums in his back garden. - -The Wone house was neither a cottage nor a villa. It was one of those -nondescript and modest residences, which, erected in the mid-epoch -of Victoria’s reign, when money was circulating freely among the -middle-classes, win a kind of gentle secondary mellowness in the -twentieth century by reason of something solid and liberal in their -original construction. It stood at the corner of the upper end of -Nevilton, where, beyond the fountain-square, the road from Yeoborough -takes a certain angular turn to the north. The garden at the back of -it, as with many of the cottages of the place, was larger than might -have been expected, and over the low hedge which separated it from the -meadows behind, the long ridge of wooded upland, with its emphatic -lines of tall Scotch firs that made the southern boundary of the -valley, was pleasantly and reassuringly visible. - -Philip Wone worked in Yeoborough. He was a kind of junior partner in -a small local firm of tombstone makers--the very firm, in fact, which -under the direction of the famous Gideon, had constructed the most -remarkable monument in Nevilton churchyard. It was doubtful whether he -would ever attain the position of full partner in this concern, for his -manner of life was eccentric, and neither his ways nor his appearance -were those of a youth who succeeds in business. He was a tall pallid -creature. His dark coarse hair fell in a heavy wave over his white -forehead, and his hands were thin and delicate as the hands of an -invalid. - -He was an omnivorous reader and made incessant use of every -subscription library that Yeoborough offered. His reading was of -two kinds. He read romantic novels of every sort--good, bad, and -indifferent--and he read the history of revolutions. There can hardly -have been, in any portion of the earth’s surface, a revolution with -whose characters and incidents Philip was unacquainted. His chief -passion was for the great French Revolution, the personalities of which -were more real to him than the majority of his own friends. - -Philip was by temperament and conviction an ardent anarchist; not an -anarchist of Mr. Quincunx’s mild and speculative type, but of a much -more formidable brand. He had also long ago consigned the idea of any -Providential interference with the sequence of events upon earth, into -the limbo of outworn superstitions. - -It was Philip’s notion, this, of planting geraniums in the back-garden. -Dressed nearly always in black, and wearing a crimson tie, it was his -one luxurious sensuality to place in his button-hole, as long as they -were possibly available, some specimen or other of the geranium tribe, -with a preference for the most flaming varieties. - -The Christian Candidate regarded his son with a mixture of contempt -and apprehension. He despised his lack of business ability, and he -viewed his intellectual opinions as the wilful caprices of a sulky and -disagreeable temper. - -It was as a sort of pitying concession to the whim of a lunatic that -Mr. Wone was now assisting Philip in planting these absurd geraniums. -His own idea was that flower-gardens ought to be abolished altogether. -He associated them with gentility and toryism and private property in -land. Under the régime he would have liked to have established, all -decent householders would have had liberal small holdings, where they -would grow nothing but vegetables. Mr. Wone liked vegetables and ate of -them very freely in their season. Flowers he regarded as the invention -of the upper classes, so that their privately owned world might be -decorated with exclusive festoons. - -“I shall go round presently,” he said to his son, “and visit all these -people. I see no reason why Taxater and Clavering, as well as the two -Andersens, should not make themselves of considerable use to me. I am -tired of talking to these Leo’s Hill labourers. One day they _will_ -strike, and the next they _won’t_. All they think of is their own -quarrel with Lickwit. They have no thought of the general interest of -the country.” - -“No thought of your interests, you mean,” put in the son. - -“With these others it is different,” went on Mr. Wone, oblivious of -the interruption. “It would be a real help to me if the more educated -people of the place came out definitely on my side. They ought to do -it. They know what this Romer is. They are thinking men. They must see -that what the country wants is a real representative of the people.” - -“What the country wants is a little more honesty and a little less -hypocrisy,” remarked the son. - -“It is abominable, this suppression of our Social Meeting. You have -heard about that, I suppose?” pursued the candidate. - -“Putting an end to your appeals to Providence, eh?” said Philip, -pressing the earth down round the roots of a brilliant flower. - -“I forbid you to talk like that,” cried his father. “I might at least -expect that _you_ would do something for me. You have done nothing, -since my campaign opened, but make these silly remarks.” - -“Why don’t you pray about it?” jeered the irrepressible young man. -“Mr Romer has not suppressed prayer, has he, as well as Political -Prayer-Meetings?” - -“They were not political!” protested the aggrieved parent. “They were -profoundly religious. What you young people do not seem to realize -nowadays is that the soul of this country is still God-fearing and -religious-minded. I should myself have no hope at all for the success -of this election, if I were not sure that God was intending to make His -hand felt.” - -“Why don’t you canvass God, then?” muttered the profane boy. - -“I cannot allow you to talk to me in this way, Philip!” cried Mr. Wone, -flinging down his trowel. “You know perfectly well that you believe as -firmly as I do, in your heart. It is only that you think it impressive -and original to make these silly jokes.” - -“Thank you, father,” replied Philip. “You certainly remove my doubts -with an invincible argument! But I assure you I am quite serious. -Nobody with any brain believes in God in these days. God died about the -same time as Mr. Gladstone.” - -The Christian Candidate lost his temper. “I must beg you,” he said, “to -keep your infidel nonsense to yourself. Your mother and I are sick of -it! You had better stay in Yeoborough, and not come home at all, if you -can’t behave like an ordinary person and keep a civil tongue.” - -Philip made no answer to this ultimatum, but smiled sardonically and -went on planting geraniums. - -But his father was loath to let the matter drop. - -“What would the state of the country be like, I wonder,” he continued, -“if people lost their faith in the love of a merciful Father? It is -only because we feel, in spite of all appearances, the love of God -must triumph in the end, that we can go on with our great movement. -The love of God, young man, whatever you foolish infidels may say, is -at the bottom of all attempts to raise the people to better things. -Do you think I would labour as I do in this excellent cause if I did -not feel that I had the loving power of a great Heavenly Father behind -me? Why do I trouble myself with politics? Because His love constrains -me. Why have I brought you up so carefully--though to little profit it -seems!--and have been so considerate to your mother--who, as you know, -isn’t always very cheerful? Because His love constrains me. Without the -knowledge that His love is at the bottom of everything that happens, do -you think I could endure to live at all?” - -Philip Wone lifted up his head from the flower-border. - -“Let me just tell you this, father, it is not the love of God, or -of anyone else, that’s at the bottom of our grotesque world. There -is nothing at the bottom! The world goes back--without limit or -boundary--upwards and downwards, and everywhere. It has no bottom, and -no top either! It is all quite mad and we are all quite mad. Love? Who -knows anything of love, except lovers and madmen? If these Romers and -Lickwits are to be crushed, they must be crushed by force. By force, -I tell you! This love of an imaginary Heavenly Father has never done -anything for the revolution and never will!” - -Mr. Wone, catching at a verbal triumph, regained his placable -equanimity. - -“Because, dear boy,” he remarked, “it is not revolution that we want, -but reconstruction. Force may destroy. It is only love that can -rebuild.” - -No words can describe the self-satisfied unction with which the -Christian Candidate pronounced this oracular saying. - -“Well, boy,” he added, “I must be off. I want to see Taxater and -Clavering and both the Andersens tonight. I might see Quincunx too. Not -that I think _he_ can do very much.” - -“There’s only one way you’ll get James Andersen to help you,” remarked -Philip, “and I doubt whether you’ll bring yourself to use that.” - -“I suppose you mean,” returned his father, “that Traffio girl, up -at the House. I have heard that they have been seen together. But I -thought she was going to marry John Goring.” - -“No, I don’t mean her,” said the son. “She’s all right. She’s a fine -girl, and I am sorry for her, whether she marries Goring or not. The -person I mean is little Ninsy Lintot, up at Wild Pine. She’s the only -one in this place who can get a civil word out of Jim Andersen.” - -“Ninsy?” echoed his father, “but I thought Ninsy was dead and buried. -There was some one died up at Wild Pine last spring, and I made sure -’twas her.” - -“That was her sister Glory,” affirmed Philip. “But Ninsy is delicate, -too. A bad heart, they say--too bad for any thoughts of marrying. But -she and Jim Andersen have been what you might call sweethearts ever -since she was in short frocks.” - -“I have never heard of this,” said Mr. Wone. - -“Nor have many other people here,” returned Philip, “but ’tis true, -none the less. And anyone who wants to get at friend James must go to -him through Ninsy Lintot.” - -“I am extremely surprised at what you tell me,” said Mr. Wone. “Do you -really mean that if I got this sick child to promise me Andersen’s -help, he really would give it?” - -“Certainly I do,” replied Philip. “And what is more, he would bring his -brother with him.” - -“But his brother is thick with Miss Romer. All the village is talking -about them.” - -“Never mind the village--father! You think too much of the village and -its talk. I tell you--Miss Romer or no Miss Romer--if you get James to -help you, you get Luke. I know something of the ways of those two.” - -A look of foxy cunning crossed the countenance of the Christian -Candidate. - -“Do _you_ happen to have any influence with this poor Ninsy?” he asked -abruptly, peering into his son’s face. - -Philip’s pale cheeks betrayed no embarrassment. - -“I know her,” he said. “I like her. I lend her books. She will die -before Christmas.” - -“I wish you would go up and see her for me then,” said Mr. Wone -eagerly. “It would be an excellent thing if we _could_ secure the -Andersens. They must have a lot of influence with the men they work -with.” - -Philip glanced across the rich sloping meadows which led up to the base -of the wooded ridge. From where they stood he could see the gloomy -clump of firs and beeches which surrounded the little group of cottages -known as Wild Pine. - -“Very well,” he said. “I don’t mind. But no more of this nonsense about -my not coming home! I prefer for the present”--and he gave vent to -rather an ominous laugh--“to live with my dear parents. But, mind--I -can’t promise anything. These Andersens are queer fellows. One never -knows how things will strike them. However, we shall see. If anyone -could persuade our friend James, it would be Ninsy.” - -The affair being thus settled, the geraniums were abandoned; and while -the father proceeded down the village towards the Gables, the son -mounted the slope of the hill in the direction of Wild Pine. - -The path Philip followed soon became a narrow lane running between two -high sandy banks, overtopped by enormous beeches. At all hours, and on -every kind of day, this miniature gorge between the wooded fields was a -dark and forlorn spot. On an evening of a day like the present one, it -was nothing less than sinister. The sky being doubly dark above, dark -with the coming on of night, and dark with the persistent cloud-veil, -the accumulated shadows of this sombre road intensified the gloom to a -pitch of darkness capable of exciting, in agitated nerves, an emotion -bordering upon terror. Though the sun had barely sunk over Leo’s Hill, -between these ivy-hung banks it was as obscure as if night had already -fallen. - -But the obscurity of Root-Thatch Lane was nothing to the sombreness -that awaited him when, arrived at the hill-top, he entered Nevil’s -Gully. This was a hollow basin of close-growing beech-trees, -surrounded on both sides by impenetrable thickets of bramble and -elder, and crossed by the path that led to Wild Pine cottages. Every -geographical district has its typical and representative centre,--some -characteristic spot which sums up, as it were, and focuses, in -limited bounds, qualities and attributes that are diffused in diverse -proportions through the larger area. Such a centre of the Nevilton -district was the place through which Philip Wone now hurried. - -Nevil’s Gully, however dry the weather, was never free from an -overpowering sense of dampness. The soil under foot was now no longer -sand but clay, and clay of a particularly adhesive kind. The beech -roots, according to their habit, had created an empty space about -them--a sort of blackened floor, spotted with green moss and pallid -fungi. Out of this, their cold, smooth trunks emerged, like silent -pillars in the crypt of a mausoleum. - -The most characteristic thing, as we have noted, in the scenery of -Nevilton, is its prevalent weight of heavy oppressive moisture. -For some climatic or geographical reason the foliage of the place -seems chillier, damper, and more filled with oozy sap, than in other -localities of the West of England. Though there may have been no rain -for weeks--as there had been none this particular June--the woods in -this district always give one the impression of retaining an inordinate -reserve of atmospheric moisture. It is this moisture, this ubiquitous -dampness, that to a certain type of sun-loving nature makes the region -so antipathetic, so disintegrating. Such persons have constantly the -feeling of being dragged earthward by some steady centripedal pull, -against which they struggle in vain. Earthward they are pulled, and the -earth, that seems waiting to receive them, breathes heavy damp breaths -of in-drawing voracity, like the mouth of some monster of the slime. - -And if this is true of the general conditions of Nevilton geography, -it is especially and accumulatively true of Nevil’s Gully, which, for -some reason or other, is a very epitome of such sinister gravitation. -If one’s latent mortality feels the drag of its clayish affinity in -all quarters of this district, in Nevil’s Gully it becomes conscious -of such oppression as a definite demonic presence. For above the Gully -and above the cottages to which the Gully leads, the umbrageous mass of -entangled leafiness hangs, fold upon fold, as if it had not known the -woodman’s axe since the foot of man first penetrated these recesses. -The beeches, to which reference has been made, are overtopped on the -higher ground by ashes and sycamores, and these, in their turn, are -surmounted, on the highest level of all, by colossal Scotch firs, whose -forlorn grandeur gives the cottages their name. - -Philip hurried, in the growing darkness, across the sepulchral gully, -and pushed open the gate of the secluded cattle-yard which was the -original cause of this human hamlet. The houses of men in rural -districts follow the habitations of beasts. Where cattle and the stacks -that supply their food can conveniently be located, there must the -dwelling be of those whose business it is to tend them. The convenience -of Wild Pine as a site for a spacious and protected farm-yard was -sufficient reason for the erection of a human shelter for the hands by -whose labour such places are maintained. - -He crossed the yard with quick steps. A light burned in one of the -sheds, throwing a fitful flicker upon the heaps of straw and the pools -of dung-coloured water. Some animal, there--a horse or a cow or a -pig--was probably giving birth to young. - -From the farm-yard he emerged into the cottage-garden, and stumbling -across this, he knocked at the first door he reached. There was not the -least sound in answer. Dead unbroken stillness reigned, except for an -intermittent shuffling and stamping from the watcher or the watched in -the farm-yard behind. - -He knocked again, and even the sounds in the yard ceased. Only, high up -among the trees above him, some large nocturnal bird fluttered heavily -from bough to bough. - -For the third time he knocked and then the door of the next house -opened suddenly, emitting a long stream of light into which several -startled moths instantly flew. Following the light came a woman’s -figure. - -“If thee wants Lintot,” said the voice of this figure, “thee can’t see -’im till along of most an hour. He be tending a terrible sick beast.” - -“I want to see Ninsy,” shouted Philip, knocking again on the closed -door. - -“Then thee must walk in and have done with it,” returned the woman. -“The maid be laid up with heart-spasms again and can open no doors this -night, not if the Lord his own self were hammering.” - -Philip boldly followed her advice and entered the cottage, closing the -door behind him. A faint voice from a room at the back asked him what -he wanted and who he was. - -“It is Philip,” he answered, “may I come in and see you, Ninsy? It is -Philip--Philip Wone.” - -He gathered from the girl’s low-voiced murmur that he was welcome, and -crossing the kitchen he opened the door of the further room. - -He found Ninsy dressed and smiling, but lying in complete prostration -upon a low horse-hair sofa. He closed the door, and moving a chair to -her side, sat down in silence, gazing upon her wistfully with his great -melancholy eyes. - -“Don’t look so peaked and pining, Philip-boy,” she said, laying her -white hand upon his and smiling into his face. “’Tis only the old -trouble. ’Tis nothing more than what I expect. I shall be about again -tomorrow or the day after. But I be real glad to see ’ee here! Father’s -biding down in the yard, and ’tis a lonesome place to be laid-up in, -this poor old house.” - -Ninsy looked exquisitely fragile and slender, lying back in this tender -helplessness, her chestnut-coloured hair all loose over her pillow. -Philip was filled with a flood of romantic emotion. The girl had always -attracted him but never so much as now. It was one of his ingrained -peculiarities to find hurt and unhappy people more engaging than -healthy and contented ones. He almost wished Ninsy would stop smiling -and chattering so pleasantly. It only needed that she should shed -tears, to turn the young man’s commiseration into passion. - -But Ninsy did not shed tears. She continued chatting to him in the most -cheerful vein. It was only by the faintest shadow that crossed her face -at intervals, that one could have known that anything serious was the -matter with her. She spoke of the books he had lent her. She spoke of -the probable break-up of the weather. She talked of Lacrima Traffio. - -“I think,” she said, speaking with extreme earnestness, “the young -foreign lady is lovely to look at. I hope she’ll be happy in this -marriage. They do say, poor dear, she is being driven to it. But with -the gentry you never know. They aren’t like us. Father says they have -all their marriages thought out for them, same as royalty. I wonder -who Miss Gladys will marry after all! Father has met her several times -lately, walking with that American gentleman.” - -“Has Jim Andersen been up to see you, Ninsy,” put in Mr. Wone’s -emissary, “since this last attack of yours?” - -The fact that this question left his lips simultaneously with a rising -current of emotion in his heart towards her is a proof of the fantastic -complication of feeling in the young anarchist. - -He fretted and chafed under the stream of her gentle impersonal talk. -He longed to rouse in her some definite agitation, even though it meant -the introduction of his rival’s image. The fact that such agitation -was likely to be a shock to her did not weigh with him. Objective -consideration for people’s bodily health was not one of Philip’s -weaknesses. His experiment met with complete success. At the mention of -James Andersen’s name a scarlet flush came into the girl’s cheeks. - -“No--yes--no!” she answered stammering. “That is--I mean--not since I -have been ill. But before--several times--lately. Why do you look at me -like that, Philip? You’re not angry with me, are you?” - -Philip’s mind was a confused arena of contradictory emotions. Among -the rest, two stood out and asserted themselves--this unpardonable and -remorseless desire to trouble her, to embarrass her, to make her blush -yet more deeply--and a strange wild longing to be himself as ill as she -was, and of the same disease, so that they might die together! - -“My father wanted me to ask you,” he blurted out, “whether you would -use your influence over Jim to get him to help in this election -business. I told my father Jim would do anything you asked him.” - -The girl’s poor cheeks burned more deeply than ever at this. - -“I wish you hadn’t told him that, Philip,” she said. “I wish you -hadn’t! You know very well I have no more influence over James than -anyone else has. It was unkind of you to tell him that! Now I am afraid -he’ll be disappointed. For I shall never dare to worry Jim about a -thing like that. _You_ don’t take any interest in this election, -Philip, do you?” - -From the tone of this last remark the young anarchist gathered the -intimation that Andersen had been talking about the affair to his -little friend and had been expressing opinions derogatory to Mr. Wone’s -campaign. She would hardly have spoken of so lively a local event in -such a tone of weary disparagement, if some masculine philosopher had -not been “putting ideas into her head.” - -“You ought to make him join in,” continued Philip. “He has such -influence down at the works. It would be a great help to father. We -labouring people ought to stand by one another, you know.” - -“But I thought--I thought--,” stammered poor Ninsy, pushing back her -hair from her forehead, “that you had quite different opinions from Mr. -Wone.” - -“Damn my opinions!” cried the excited youth. “What do my opinions -matter? We are talking of Jim Andersen. Why doesn’t he join in with the -other men and help father in getting up the strike?” - -“He--he doesn’t believe in strikes,” murmured the girl feebly. - -“Why doesn’t he!” cried the youth. “Does he think himself different, -then, from the rest of us, because old Gideon married the daughter of -a vicar? He ought to be told that he is a traitor to his class. Yes--a -traitor--a turn-coat--a black-leg! That’s what he is--if he won’t come -in. A black-leg!” - -They were interrupted by a sharp knock at the outer door. The girl -raised herself on her elbow and became distressingly agitated. - -“Oh, I believe that _is_ Jim,” she cried. “What shall I do? He won’t -like to find you here alone with me like this. What a dreadful -accident!” - -Philip without a moment’s delay went to the door and opened it. Yes, -the visitor was James Andersen. The two men looked at one another in -silence. James was the first to speak. - -“So _you_ are looking after our invalid?” he said. “I only heard this -afternoon that she was bad again.” - -He did not wait for the other’s response, but pushing past him went -straight into Ninsy’s room. - -“Poor child!” he said, “Poor dear little girl! Why didn’t you send a -message to me? I saw your father in the yard and he told me to come on -in. How are you? Why aren’t you in bed? I’m sure you ought to be in -bed, and not talking to such an exciting person as our friend Philip.” - -“She won’t be talking to me much longer,” threw in that youth, -following his rival to the side of the girl’s sofa. “I only came to ask -her to do something for us in this election. She will tell you what I -mean. Ask her to tell you. Don’t forget! Good-bye Ninsy,” and he held -out his hand with a searching look into the girl’s face, a look at once -wistfully entreating and fiercely reproachful. - -She took his hand. “Good night, Philip,” she said. “Think kindly of me, -and think--” this was said in a voice so low that only the young man -could hear--“think kindly of Jim. Good night!” - -He nodded to Andersen and went off, a sombre dangerous expression -clouding the glance he threw upon the clock in the corner. - -“You pay late visits, James Andersen,” he called back, as he let -himself out of the cottage-door. - -Left alone with Ninsy, the stone-carver possessed himself of the seat -vacated by the angry youth. The girl remained quiet and motionless, her -hands crossed on her lap and her eyes closed. - -“Poor child!” he murmured, in a voice of tender and affectionate pity. -“I cannot bear to see you like this. It almost gives me a sense of -shame--my being so strong and well--and you so delicate. But you will -be better soon, won’t you? And we will go for some of our old walks -together.” - -Ninsy’s mouth twitched a little, and big tears forced their way through -her tightly shut eyelids. - -“When your father comes in,” he went on, “you must let me help him -carry you upstairs. And I am sure you had better have the doctor -tomorrow if you are not better. Won’t you let me go to Yeoborough for -him tonight?” - -Ninsy suddenly struck the side of her sofa with her clenched hand. “I -don’t want the doctor!” she burst out, “and I don’t want to get better. -I want to end it all--that’s what I want! I want to end it all.” - -Andersen made a movement as if to caress her, but she turned her head -away. - -“I am sick and tired of it all,” she moaned. “I wish I were dead. Oh, I -wish I were dead!” - -The stone-carver knelt down by her side. “Ninsy,” he murmured, “Ninsy, -my child, my friend, what is it? Tell me what it is.” - -But the girl only went on, in a low soft wail, “I knew it would come to -this. I knew it. I knew it. Oh, why was I ever born! Why wasn’t it me, -and not Glory, who died! I _shall_ die. I _want_ to die!” - -Andersen rose to his feet. “Ninsy!” he said in a stern altered voice. -“Stop this at once--or I shall go straight away and call your father!” - -He assumed an air and tone as if quieting a petulant infant. It had its -effect upon her. She swallowed down her rising fit of sobs and looked -up at him with great frightened tearful eyes. - -“Now, child,” he said, once more seating himself, and this time -successfully taking possession of a submissive little hand, “tell me -what all this is about. Tell me everything.” He bent down and imprinted -a kiss upon her cold wet cheek. - -“It is--” she stammered, “it is that I think you are fond of that -Italian girl.” She hid her face in a fold of her rich auburn hair and -went on. “They do tell me you walk with her when your brother goes with -Miss Gladys. Don’t be angry with me, Jim. I know I have no right to say -these things. I know I have no claim, no power over you. But we did -keep company once, Jim, didn’t us? And it do stab my heart,--to hear -them tell of you and she!” - -James Andersen looked frowningly at the window. - -The curtains were not drawn; and a dark ash-branch stretched itself -across the casement like an extended threatening arm. Its form was -made visible by a gap in the surrounding trees, through which a little -cluster of stars faintly twinkled. The cloud veil had melted. - -“What a world this is!” the stone-carver thought to himself. His tone -when he spoke was irritable and aggrieved. - -“How silly you are, Ninsy--with your fancies! A man can’t be civil to a -poor lonesome foreign wench, without your girding at him as if he had -done something wrong! Of course I speak to Miss Traffio and walk with -her too. What else do you expect when the poor thing is left lonesome -on my hands, with Luke and Miss Gladys amusing themselves? But you -needn’t worry,” he added, with a certain unrestrained bitterness. “It’s -only when Luke and his young lady are together that she and I ever -meet, and I don’t think they’ll often be together now.” - -Ninsy looked at him with questioning eyes. - -“He and she have quarrelled,” he said curtly. - -“Over the American?” asked the girl. - -“Over the American.” - -“And you won’t be walking with that foreigner any more?” - -“I shan’t be walking with her any more.” - -Ninsy sank back on her pillow with a sigh of ineffable relief. Had she -been a Catholic she would have crossed herself devoutly. As it was she -turned her head smilingly towards him and extended her arms. “Kiss me,” -she pleaded. He bent down, and she embraced him with passionate warmth. - -“Then we belong to each other again, just the same as before,” she said. - -“Just the same as before.” - -“Oh, I wish that cruel doctor hadn’t told me I mustn’t marry. He told -father it would kill me, and the other one who came said the same -thing. But wouldn’t it be lovely if you and I, Jim--” - -She stopped suddenly, catching a glimpse of his face. Her happiness was -gone in a moment. - -“You don’t love me. Oh, you don’t love me! I know it. I have known it -for many weeks! That girl has poisoned you against me--the wicked, -wicked thing! It’s no use denying it. I know it. I feel it,--oh, how -can I bear it! How can I bear it!” - -She shut her eyes once more and lay miserable and silent. The -wood-carver looked gloomily out of the window. The cluster of stars now -assumed a shape well-known to him. It was Orion’s Belt. His thoughts -swept sadly over the field of destiny. - -“What a world it is!” he said to himself. “There is that boy Philip -gone with a tragic heart because his girl loves me. And I--I have -to wait and wait in helplessness, and see the other--the one I care -for--driven into madness. And she cares not a straw for me, who could -help her, and only cares for that poor fool who cannot lift a finger. -And meanwhile, Orion’s Belt looks contemptuously down upon us all! -Ninsy is pretty well right. The lucky people are the people who are -safe out of it--the people that Orion’s Belt cannot vex any more!” - -He rose to his feet. “Well, child,” he said, “I think I’ll be going. -It’s no use our plaguing one another any further tonight. Things will -right themselves, little one. Things will right themselves! It’s a -crazy world--but the story isn’t finished yet. - -“Don’t you worry about it,” he added gently, bending over her and -pushing the hair back from her forehead. “Your old James hasn’t -deserted you yet. He loves you better than you think--better than he -knows himself perhaps!” - -The girl seized the hand that caressed her and pressed it against her -lips. Her breast rose and fell in quick troubled breathing. - -“Come again soon,” she said, and then, with a wan smile, “if you care -to.” - -Their eyes met in a long perplexed clinging farewell. He was the first -to break the tension. - -“Good-night, child,” he said, and turning away, left the room without -looking back. - -While these events were occurring at Wild Pine, in the diplomatist’s -study at the Gables Mr. Wone was expounding to Mr. Taxater the objects -and purposes of his political campaign. - -Mrs. Wotnot, leaner and more taciturn than ever, had just produced for -the refreshment of the visitor a bottle of moderately good burgundy. -Mr. Taxater had demanded “a little wine,” in the large general manner -which his housekeeper always interpreted as a request for something -short of the very best. It was clear that for the treasures of -innermost wine-cellars Mr. Wone was not among the privileged. - -The defender of the papacy had placed his visitor so that the light of -the lamp fell upon his perspiring brow, upon his watery blue eyes, and -upon his drooping, sandy-coloured moustache. Mr. Taxater himself was -protected by a carefully arranged screen, out of the shadow of which -the Mephistophelian sanctity of his patient profile loomed forth, vague -and indistinct. - -Mr. Wone’s mission was in his own mind tending rapidly to a -satisfactory conclusion. The theologian had heard him with so much -attention, had asked such searching and practical questions, had shown -such sympathetic interest in all the convolutions and entanglements of -the political situation, that Mr. Wone began to reproach himself for -not having made use of such a capable ally earlier in the day. - -“It is,” he was saying, “on the general grounds of common Christian -duty that I ask your help. We who recognize the importance of religion -would be false to our belief if we did not join together to defeat so -ungodly and worldly a candidate as this Romer turns out to be.” - -It must be confessed that in his heart of hearts Mr. Wone regarded -Roman Catholics as far more dangerous to the community than anarchists -or infidels, but he prided himself upon a discretion worthy of -apostolic inspiration in thus seeking to divide and set asunder the -enemies of evangelical truth. He found the papist so intelligent a -listener,--that hardly one secret of his political designs remained -unshared between them. - -“The socialism,” he finally remarked, “which you and I are interested -in, is Christian Socialism. You may be sure that in nothing I do or -say there will be found the least tincture of this deplorable modern -materialism. My own feeling is that the closer our efforts for the -uplifting of the people are founded upon biblical doctrines the more -triumphant their success will be. It is the ethical aspect of this -great struggle for popular rights which I hold most near my heart. -I wish to take my place in Parliament as representing not merely -the intelligence of this constituency but its moral and spiritual -needs--its soul, in fact, Mr. Taxater. There is no animosity in my -campaign. I am scrupulous about that. I am ready, always ready, to -do our opponents justice. But when they appeal to the material needs -of the country, I appeal to its higher requirements--to its soul, in -other words. It is for this reason that I am so glad to welcome really -intelligent and highly educated men, like yourself. We who take this -loftier view must of course make use of many less admirable methods. -I do so myself. But it is for us to keep the higher, the more ethical -considerations, always in sight. - -“As I was saying to my son, this very evening, the grand thing for us -all to remember is that it is only on the assumption of Divine Love -being at the bottom of every confusion that we can go to work at all. -The Tory party refuse to make this assumption. They refuse to recognize -the ethical substratum of the world. They treat politics as if they -were a matter of merely imperial or patriotic importance. In my view -politics and religion should go hand in hand. In the true democracy -which I aim at establishing, all these secular theories--evidently -due to the direct action of the Devil--such as Free Love and the -destruction of the family--will not be tolerated for a moment. - -“Let no one think,”--and Mr. Wone swallowed a mouthful of wine with a -gurgling sound,--“that because we attack capitalism and large estates, -we have any wish to interfere with the sacredness of the home. There -are, I regret to say, among some of our artizans, wild and dangerous -theories of this kind, but I have always firmly discountenanced them -and I always will. That is why, if I may say so, I am so well adapted -to represent this district. I have the support of the large number -of Liberal-minded tradesmen who would deeply regret the introduction -of such immoral theories into our movement. They hold, as I hold, -that this unhappy tendency to atheistic speculation among our -working-classes is one of the gravest dangers to the country. They -hold, as I hold, that the cynical free thought of the Tory party is -best encountered, not by the equally deplorable cynicism of certain -labor-leaders, but by the high Christian standards of men like--like -ourselves, Mr. Taxater.” - -He paused for a moment and drew his hand, which certainly resembled the -hand of an ethical-minded dispenser of sugar rather than that of an -immoral manual labourer, across his damp forehead. Then he began again. - -“Another reason which seems to point to me, in quite a providential -manner, as the candidate for this district, is the fact that I was born -in Nevilton and that my father was born here before me. - -“‘Wone’ is one of the oldest names in the church Register. There were -Wones in Nevilton in the days of the Norman Conquest. I love the -place--Mr. Taxater--and I believe I may say that the place loves me. I -am in harmony with it, you know. I understand its people. I understand -their little weaknesses. Some of these, though you may not believe it, -I even may say I share. - -“I love this beautiful scenery, these luscious fields, these admirable -woods. I love to think of them as belonging to us--to the people who -live among them--I love the voice of the doves in our dear trees, Mr. -Taxater. I love the cattle in the meadows. I love the vegetables in the -gardens. And I love to think”--here Mr. Wone finished his glass, and -drew the back of his hand across his mouth--“I love to think of these -good gifts of the Heavenly Father as being the expression of His divine -bounty. Yes, if anywhere in our revered country atheism and immorality -are condemned by nature herself, it is in Nevilton. The fields of -Nevilton are like the fields of Canaan, they are full of the goodness -of the Lord!” - -“Your emotions,” said the Papal Apologist at last, as his companion -paused breathless, “do you credit, my dear Sir. I certainly hold with -you that it is important to counteract the influence of Free-Thinkers.” - -“But the love of God, Mr. Taxater!” cried the other, leaning forward -and crossing his hands over his knees. “We must not only refute, we -must construct.” Mr. Wone had never felt in higher feather. Here was a -man capable of really doing him justice. He wished his recalcitrant son -were present! - -“Construct--that is what I always say,” he repeated. “We must be -creative and constructive in our movement, and fix it firmly upon the -Only Foundation.” - -He surveyed through the window the expansive heavens; and his glance -encountered the same prominent constellation, which, at that very -moment, but with different emotions, the agitated stone-carver was -contemplating from the cottage at Wild Pine. - -“You are undoubtedly correct, Mr. Wone,” said his host gravely, using a -tone he might have used if his interlocutor had been recommending him -to buy cheese. “You are undoubtedly correct in finding the basis of -the system of things in love. It is no more than what the Saints have -always taught. I am also profoundly at one with you in your objection -to Free Love. Love and Free Love are contradictory categories. They -might even be called antinomies. There is no synthesis which reconciles -them.” - -Mr. Wone had not the remotest idea what any of these words meant, but -he felt flattered to the depths of his being. It was clear that he -had been led to utter some profound philosophical maxim. He once more -wished from his heart that his son could hear this conversation! - -“Well, Mr. Taxater,” he said, “I must now leave you. I have other -distinguished gentlemen to call upon before I retire. But I thank you -for your promised support. - -“It would be better, perhaps”--here he lowered his voice and looked -jocose and crafty--“not to refer to our little conversation. -It might be misunderstood. There is a certain prejudice, you -know--unjustifiable, of course, but unfortunately, very prevalent, -which makes it wiser--but I need say no more. Good-bye, Mr. -Taxater--good night, sir, good night!” - -And he bowed himself off and proceeded up the street to find the next -victim of his evangelical discretion. - -As soon as he had gone, Mr. Taxater summoned his housekeeper. - -“The next time that person comes,” he said, “will you explain to -him, very politely, that I have been called to London? If this seems -improbable, or if he has caught a glimpse of me through the window, -will you please explain to him that I am engaged upon a very absorbing -literary work.” - -Mrs. Wotnot nodded. “I kept my eyes open yesterday,” the old woman -remarked, in the manner of some veteran conspirator in the service of a -Privy Counsellor. - -“As you happened to be looking for laurel-leaves, I suppose?” said -Mr. Taxater, drawing the red curtains across the window, with his -expressive episcopal hand. “For laurel-leaves, Mrs. Wotnot, to flavour -that excellent custard?” - -The old woman nodded. “And you saw?” pursued her master. - -“I saw Mr. Luke Andersen and Miss Gladys Romer.” - -“Were they as happy as usual--these young people,” asked the theologian -mildly, “or were they--otherwise?” - -“They were very much what you are pleased to call otherwise,” answered -the old lady. - -“Quarrelling in fact?” suggested the diplomat, seating himself -deliberately in his arm-chair. - -“Miss Gladys was crying and Mr. Luke was laughing.” - -The Papal Apologist waved his hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Wotnot, thank -you. These things will happen, won’t they--even in Nevilton? Mr. Luke -laughing, and Miss Gladys crying? Your laurel-leaves were very well -chosen, my friend. Let me have the rest of that custard tonight! I hope -you have not brought back your rheumatism, Mrs. Wotnot, by going so -far?” - -The housekeeper shook her head and retired to prepare supper. - -Mr. Taxater took up the book by his side and opened it thoughtfully. It -was the final volume of the collected works of Joseph de Maistre. - -Mr. Wone had not advanced far in the direction of the church, when he -overtook Vennie Seldom walking slowly, with down-cast head, in the same -direction. - -Vennie had just passed an uncomfortable hour with her mother, who -had been growing, during the recent days, more and more fretful and -suspicious. It was partly to allay these suspicions and partly to -escape from the maternal atmosphere that she had decided to be present -that evening at the weekly choir-practice, a function that she had -found herself lately beginning to neglect. Mr. Wone had forgotten the -choir-practice. It would interfere, he was afraid, with his desired -interview with Mr. Clavering. Vennie assured him that the clergyman’s -presence was not essential at these times. - -“He is not musical, you know. He only walks up and down the aisle and -confuses things. Everybody will be glad if you take him away.” - -She was a little surprised at herself, even as she spoke. To depreciate -her best friend in this flippant way, and to such a person, showed that -her nerves were abnormally strained. - -Mr. Wone did not miss the unusual tone. He had never been on anything -but very distant terms with Miss Seldom, and his vanity was hugely -delighted by this new manner. - -“I am coming into my own,” he thought to himself. “My abilities are -being recognized at last, by all these exclusive people.” - -“I hope,” he said, tentatively, “that you and your dear mother are on -our side in this great national struggle. I have just been to see Mr. -Taxater, and he has promised me his energetic support.” - -“Has he?” said Vennie in rather a startled voice. “That surprises me--a -little. I know he does not admire Mr. Romer; but I thought----” - -“O he is with us--heart and soul with us!” repeated the triumphant -Nonconformist. “I am glad I went to him. Many of us would have been too -narrow-minded to enter his house, seeing he is a papist. But I am free -from such bigotry.” - -“And you hope to convert Mr. Clavering, too?” - -“Certainly; that is what I intend. But I believe our excellent vicar -needs no conversion. I have often heard him speak--at the Social -Meeting, you know--and I assure you he is a true friend of the -working-classes. I only wish more of his kind were like him.” - -“Mr. Clavering is too changeable,” remarked Vennie, hardly knowing what -she said. “His moods alter from day to day.” - -“But you yourself, dear Miss Seldom,” the candidate went on. “You -yourself are, I think, entirely with us?” - -“I really don’t know,” she answered. “My interests do not lie in these -directions. I sometimes doubt whether it greatly matters, one way or -the other.” - -“Whether it matters?” cried Mr. Wone, inhaling the night-air with a -sigh of protestation. “Surely, you do not take that indifferent and -thoughtless attitude? A young lady of your education--of your religious -feeling! Surely, you must feel that it matters profoundly! As we walk -here together, through this embalmed air, full of so many agreeable -scents, surely you must feel that a good and great God is making his -power known at last, known and respected, through the poor means of -our consecrated efforts? Forgive my speaking so freely to one of your -position; but it seems to me that you must--you at least--be on our -side, simply because what we are aiming at is in such complete harmony -with this wonderful Love of God, diffused through all things.” - -It is impossible to describe the shrinking aversion which these -words produced upon the agitated nerves of Vennie. Something about -the Christian candidate seemed to affect her with an actual sense of -physical nausea. She could have screamed, to feel the man so near -her--the dragging sound of his feet on the road, the way he breathed -and cleared his throat, the manner in which his hat was tilted, all -combined to irritate her unendurably. She found herself fantastically -thinking how much sooner she would have married even the egregious John -Goring--as Lacrima was going to do--than such a one as this. What a -pass Nevilton had brought itself to--when the choice lay between a Mr. -Romer and a Mr. Wone! - -An overpowering wave of disgust with the whole human race swept over -her--what wretched creatures they all were--every one of them! She -mentally resolved that nothing--nothing on earth--should stop her -entering a convent. The man talked of agreeable odours on the air. The -air was poisoned, tainted, infected! It choked her to breathe it. - -“I am so glad--so deeply glad,” Mr. Wone continued, “to have enjoyed -the privilege of this little quiet conversation. I shall never forget -it. I feel as though it had brought us wonderfully, beautifully, -near each other. It is on such occasions as this, that one feels how -closely, how entirely, in harmony, all earnest-minded people are! Here -are you, my dear young lady, the descendant of such a noble and ancient -house, expressing in mute and tender silence, your sympathy with one -who represents the aspirations of the poorest of the people! This is a -symbolic moment. I cannot help saying so. A symbolic and consecrated -moment!” - -“We had better walk a little faster,” remarked Miss Seldom. - -“We will. We will walk faster,” agreed Mr. Wone. “But you must let me -put on record what this conversation has meant to me! It has made me -more certain, more absolutely certain than ever, that without a deep -ethical basis our great movement is doomed to hopeless failure.” - -The tone in which he used the word “ethical” was so irritating to -Vennie, that she felt an insane longing to utter some frightful -blasphemy, or even indecency, in his ears, and to rush away with a peal -of hysterical laughter. - -They were now at the entrance to a narrow little alley or lane which, -passing a solitary cottage and an unfrequented spring, led by a short -approach directly into the village-square. Half way down this lane a -curious block of Leonian stone stood in the middle of the path. What -the original purpose of this stone had been it were not easy to tell. -The upper portion of it had apparently supported a chain, but this -had long ago disappeared. At the moment when Mr. Wone and Miss Seldom -reached the lane’s entrance, a soft little scream came from the spot -where the stone stood; and dimly, in the shadowy darkness, two forms -became visible, engaged in some obscure struggle. The scream was -repeated, followed by a series of little gasps and whisperings. - -Mr. Wone glanced apprehensively in the direction of these sounds and -increased his pace. He was confounded with amazement when he found that -Vennie had stopped as if to investigate further. The truth is, he had -reduced the girl to such a pitch of unnatural revolt that, for one -moment in her life, she felt glad that there were flagrant and lawless -pleasures in the world. - -Led by an unaccountable impulse she made several steps up the lane. -The figures separated as she approached, one of them boldly advancing -to meet her, while the other retreated into the shadows. The one who -advanced, finding himself alone, turned and called to his companion, -“Annie! Where are you? Come on, you silly girl! It’s all right.” - -Vennie recognized the voice of Luke Andersen. She greeted him with -hysterical gratitude. “I thought it was you, Mr. Andersen; but you did -frighten me! I took you for a ghost. Who is that with you?” - -The young stone-carver raised his hat politely. “Only our little friend -Annie,” he said. “I am escorting her home from Yeoborough. We have been -on an errand for her mother. She’s such a baby, you know, Miss Seldom, -our little Annie. I love teasing her.” - -“I am afraid you love teasing a great many people, Mr. Andersen,” said -Vennie, recovering her equanimity and beginning to feel ashamed. “Here -is Mr. Wone. No doubt, he will be anxious to talk politics to you. Mr. -Wone!” She raised her voice as the astonished Methodist came towards -them. “It is only Mr. Andersen. You had better talk to _him_ of your -plans. I am afraid I shall be late if I don’t go on.” She slipped aside -as she spoke, leaving the two men together, and hurried off towards the -church. - -Luke Andersen shook hands with the Christian Candidate. “How goes the -campaign, the great campaign?” he said. “I wonder you haven’t talked -to James about it. James is a hopeless idealist. James is an admirable -listener. You really ought to talk to James. I wish you _would_ talk to -him; and put a little of your shrewd common-sense into him! He takes -the populace seriously--a thing you and I would never be such fools as -to do, eh, Mr. Wone?” - -“I am afraid we disturbed you,” remarked the Nonconformist, “Miss -Seldom and I--I think you had someone with you. Miss Seldom was quite -interested. We heard sounds, and she stopped.” - -“Oh, only Annie”--returned the young man lightly, “only little Annie. -We are old friends you know. Don’t worry about Annie!” - -“It is a beautiful night, is it not?” remarked the Methodist, peering -down the lane. Luke Andersen laughed. - -“Are you by any chance, Mr. Wone, interested in astronomy? If so, -perhaps you can tell me the name of that star, over there, between -Perseus and Andromeda? No, no; that one--that greenish-coloured one! Do -you know what that is?” - -“I haven’t the least idea,” confessed the representative of the People. -“But I am a great admirer of Nature. My admiration for Nature is one of -the chief motives of my life.” - -“I believe you,” said Luke. “It is one of my own, too. I admire -everything in it, without any exception.” - -“I hope,” said Mr. Wone, reverting to the purpose that, with Nature, -shared just now his dominant interest, “I hope you are also with us -in our struggle against oppression? Mr. Taxater and Miss Seldom are -certainly on our side. I sometimes feel as though Nature herself, were -on our side, especially on a lovely night like this, full of such balmy -odours.” - -“I am delighted to see the struggle going on,” returned the young man, -emphatically. “And I am thoroughly glad to see a person like yourself -at the head of it.” - -“Then you, too, will take a part,” cried the candidate, joyfully. -“This, indeed, has been a successful evening! I feel sure now that in -Nevilton, at any rate, the tide will flow strongly in my favour. Next -week, I have to begin a tour of the whole district. I may not be able -to return for quite a long time. How happy I shall be to know that I -leave the cause in such good hands! The strike is the important thing, -Andersen. You and your brother must work hard to bring about the -strike. It is coming. I know it is coming. But I want it soon. I want -it immediately.” - -The stone-carver nodded and hummed a tune. He seemed to intimate with -the whole air of his elegant quiescence that the moment had arrived for -Mr. Wone’s departure. - -The Nonconformist felt the telepathic pressure of this polite -dismissal. He waved his arm. “Good night, then; good night! I am afraid -I must postpone my talk with Mr. Clavering till another occasion. -Remember the strike, Andersen! That is what I leave in your hands. -Remember the strike!” - -The noise of Mr. Wone’s retreating steps was still audible when Luke -returned to the stone in the middle of Splash Lane. The sky was clear -now and a faint whitish glimmer, shining on the worn surface of the -stone, revealed the two deep holes in it, where the fastenings of the -chain had hung. The young man tapped the stone with his stick and gave -a low whistle. An amorphous heap of clothes, huddled in the hedge, -stirred, and emitted a reproachful sound. - -“Oh, you’re there, are you?” he said. “What silly nonsense is this? Get -up! Let’s see your face!” He stooped and pulled at the object. After a -moment’s struggle the flexible form of a young girl emerged into the -light. She held down her head and appeared sulky and angry. - -“What’s the matter, Annie?” whispered the youth encircling her with his -arms. - -The girl shook him away. “How could you tell Miss Seldom who I was!” -she murmured. “How could you do it, Luke? If it had been anybody -else--but for her to know----” - -The stone-carver laughed. “Really, child, you are too ridiculous! Why, -on earth, shouldn’t she know, more than anyone else?” - -The girl looked fiercely at him. “Because she is good,” she said. -“Because she is the only good person in this blasted place!” - -The young man showed no astonishment at this outburst. “Come on, -darling,” he rejoined. “We must be getting you home. I daresay, -Miss Seldom is all you think. It seemed to me, though, that she was -different from usual tonight. But I expect that fool had upset her.” - -He let the young girl lean for a moment against the shadowy stone while -he fumbled for his cigarettes and matches. He observed her make a -quick movement with her hands. - -“What are you up to now?” he asked. - -She gave a fierce little laugh. “There!” she cried. “I have done it!” - -“What have you done?” he enquired, emitting a puff of smoke, and -throwing the lighted match into the hedge. - -She pressed her hands against the stone and looked up at him -mischievously and triumphantly. “Look!” she said, holding out her -fingers in the darkness. He surveyed her closely. “What is it? Have you -scratched yourself?” - -“Light a match and see!” she cried. He lit a match and examined the -hand she held towards him. - -“You have thrown away that ring!” - -“Not _thrown_ it away, Luke; not thrown it away! I have pressed it down -into this hole. You can’t get it out now! Nobody never can!” - -He held the flickering match closely against the stone’s surface. In -the narrow darkness of the aperture she indicated, something bright -glittered. - -“But this is really annoying of you, Annie,” said the stone-carver. “I -told you that ring was only lent to me. She’ll be asking for it back -tomorrow.” - -“Well, you can tell her to come here and get it!” - -“But this is really serious,” protested Luke, trying in vain to reach -the object with his outstretched fingers. - -“And I have twisted my hair round it!” the girl went on, in exulting -excitement, “I have twisted it tight around. It will be hard to get it -off!” - -Luke continued making ineffectual dives into the hole, while she -watched him gleefully. He went to the hedge and breaking off a dusty -sprig of woundwort prodded the ring with its stalk. - -“You can’t do it” she cried, “you can’t do it! You’ll only push it -further in!” - -“Damn you, Annie!” he muttered. “This is a horrible kind of joke. I -tell you, Gladys will want this confounded thing back tomorrow. She’s -already asked me twice for it. She only gave it to me for fun.” - -The girl leaned across the stone towards him, propping herself on the -palms of her hands, and laughing mischievously. “No one in this village -can get that ring out of there!” she cried; “no one! And when they -does, they’ll find it all twisted up with my hair!” She tossed back her -black locks defiantly. - -Luke Andersen’s thoughts ran upon scissors, pincers, willow-wands, -bramble-thorns, and children’s arms. - -“Leave it then!” he said. “After all, I can swear I lost it. Come on, -you little demon!” - -They moved away; and St. Catharine’s church was only striking the hour -of nine, when they separated at her mother’s door. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -MORTIMER ROMER - - -The incredibly halcyon June which had filled the lanes and meadows of -Nevilton that summer with such golden weather, gave place at last to -July; and with July came tokens of a change. - -The more slow-growing hay-fields were still strewn with their little -lines of brown mown grass waiting its hour of “carrying,” but the -larger number of the pastures wore now that freshly verdant and -yet curiously sad look, which fields in summer wear when they have -been shorn of their first harvest. The corn in the arable-lands was -beginning to stand high; wheat and barley varying their alternate -ripening tints, from the rich gold of the one, to the diaphanous -glaucous green, so tender and pallid, of the other. In the hedges, -rag-wort, knapweed and scabious had completely replaced wild-rose -and elder-blossom; and in the ditches and by the margins of ponds, -loosestrife and willow-herb were beginning to bud. Even the -latest-sprouting among the trees carried now the full heavy burden, -dark and monotonous, of the summer’s prime; and the sharp, dry -intermittent chirping of warblers, finches and buntings, had long -since replaced, in the garden-bushes, the more flute-like cries of the -earlier-nesting birds. - -The shadowy woods of the Nevilton valleys, with their thick entangled -undergrowth, were less pleasant to walk in than they had been. Tall -rank growths choked the wan remnants of the season’s first prime; and -beneath sombre, indistinguishable foliage, the dry, hard-trodden paths -lost their furtive enchantment. Dog-mercury, that delicate child of the -under-shadows, was no more now than a gross mass of tarnished leaves. -Enchanter’s night-shade took the place of pink-campion; only to yield, -in its turn, to viper’s bugloss and flea-bane. - -As the shy gods of the year’s tender birth receded before these ranker -maturings, humanity became more prominent. Print-frocked maidens -assisted the sheep in treading the slopes of Leo’s Hill into earthy -grassless patches. Bits of dirty paper and the litter of careless -picnickers strewed the most shadowy recesses. Smart youths flicked -town-bought canes in places where, a few weeks before, the squirrel had -gambolled undisturbed, and the wood-pecker had deepened the magical -silence by his patent labour. Where recently, amid shadowy moss “soft -as sleep,” the delicate petals of the fragile wood-sorrel had breathed -untroubled in their enchanted aisles of leafy twilight, one found -oneself reading, upon torn card-board boxes, highly-coloured messages -to the Human Race from energetic Tradesmen. July had replaced June. The -gods of Humanity had replaced the gods of Nature; and the interlude -between hay-harvest and wheat-harvest had brought the dog-star Sirius -into his diurnal ascendance. - -The project of Lacrima’s union with Mr. John Goring remained, so -to speak, “in the air.” The village assumed it as a certainty; Mr. -Quincunx regarded it as a probability; and Mr. Goring himself, -enjoying his yearly session of agreeable leisure, meditated upon it day -and night. - -Lacrima had fallen into a curious lassitude with regard to the whole -matter. In these July days, especially now that the sky was overcast by -clouds and heavy rains seemed imminent, she appeared to lose all care -or interest in her own life. Her mood followed the mood of the weather. -If some desperate deluge of disaster was brooding in the distance, she -felt tempted to cry out, “Let it fall!” - -Mr. Quincunx’s feelings on the subject remained a mystery to her. He -neither seemed definitely to accept her sacrifice, nor to reject it. He -did not really--so she could not help telling herself--visualize the -horror of the thing, as it affected her, in any substantial degree. -He often made a joke of it; and kept quoting cynical and worldly -suggestions, from the lips of Luke Andersen. - -On the other hand, both from Mr. Romer and the farmer, she received -quiet, persistent and inexorable pressure; though to do the latter -justice, he made no further attempts to treat her roughly or familiarly. - -She had gone so far once--in a mood of panic-stricken aversion, -following upon a conversation with Gladys--as actually to walk to the -vicarage gate, with the definite idea of appealing to Vennie; but it -chanced that in place of Vennie she had observed Mrs. Seldom moving -among her flower-beds, and the grave austerity of the aristocratic old -lady had taken all resolution from her and made her retrace her steps. - -It must also be confessed that her dislike and fear of Gladys had -grown to dimensions bordering upon monomania. The elder girl at once -hypnotized and paralyzed her. Her sensuality, her feline caprices, her -elaborately cherished hatred, reduced the Italian to such helpless -misery, that any change--even the horror of this marriage--assumed the -likeness of a desirable relief. - -It is also true that by gradual degrees,--for women, however little -prone to abstract thought, are quick to turn the theories of those they -love into living practice,--she had come to regard the mere physical -terror of this momentous plunge as a less insurmountable barrier than -she had felt at first. Without precisely intending it, Mr. Quincunx -had really, in a measure--particularly since he himself had come -to frequent the society of Luke Andersen--achieved what might have -conventionally been called the “corruption” of Lacrima’s mind. She -found herself on several occasions imagining what she would really -feel, if, escaped for an afternoon from her Priory duties, she were -slipping off to meet her friend in Camel’s Cover or Badger’s Bottom. - -When the suggestion had been first made to her of this monstrous -marriage, it had seemed nothing short of a sentence of death, and -beyond the actual consummation of it, she had never dreamed of looking. -But all this had now imperceptibly changed. Many an evening as she sat -with her work by Mrs. Romer’s side, watching Gladys and her father -play cards, the thought came over her that she might just as well -enjoy the comparative independence of having her own house and her own -associations--even though the price of them _were_ the society of such -a lump of clay--as live this wretched half-life without hope or aim. - -Other moods arrived when the thought of having children of her own -came to her with something more than a mere sense of escape; came -to her with the enlargement of an opening horizon. She recalled the -many meandering discourses which Mr. Quincunx had addressed to her -upon this subject. They had not affected her woman’s instincts; but -they had lodged in her mind. A girl’s children, so her friend had -often maintained, do not belong to the father at all. The father -is nothing--a mere irrelevant incident, a mere chance. The mother -alone--the mother always--has the rights and pleasures, as she has the -responsibilities and pains of the parental relation. She even recalled -one occasion of twilight philosophizing in the potato-bed, when Mr. -Quincunx had gone so far as to maintain the unscientific thesis that -children, born where there is no love, inherit character, appearance, -tastes, everything--from the mother. - -Lacrima had a dim suspicion that some of these less pious theories were -due to the perverse Luke, who, as the cloudier July days overcast his -evening rambles, had acquired the habit of strolling at night-fall into -Mr. Quincunx’s kitchen. Once indeed she was certain she discerned the -trail of this plausible heathen in her friend’s words. Mr. Quincunx, -with one of his peculiarly goblin-like leers, had intimated--in jest -indeed, but with a searching look into her face that it would be no -very difficult task to deceive,--in shrewd Panurgian roguery, this -clumsy clown. His words at the time had hurt and shocked her; and her -reaction from them had led to the spoiling of a pleasant conversation; -but they invaded afterwards, more deeply than she would have cared to -confess, her hours of dreamy solitude. - -Her southern imagination, free from both the grossness and the -hypocrisy of the Nevilton mind, was much readier to wander upon an -antinomian path--at least in its wayward fancies--than it would have -been, had circumstances not led her away from her inherited faith. - -While the sensuality of Gladys left her absolutely untouched, the -anarchistic theories of her friend--especially now they had been -fortified and directed by the insidious Luke--gave her intelligence -many queer and lawless topics of solitary brooding. Her senses, her -instincts, were as pure and unsophisticated as ever; but her conscience -was besieged and threatened. It was indeed a queer rôle--this, which -fate laid upon Mr. Quincunx--the rôle of undermining the reluctance -of his own sweetheart to make a loveless marriage--but it was one for -which his curious lack of physical passion singularly fitted him. - -Had Vennie Seldom or Hugh Clavering been aware of the condition of -affairs they would have condemned Mr. Quincunx in the most wholesale -manner. Clavering would probably have been tempted to apply to him some -of the most abusive language in the dictionary. But it is extremely -questionable whether this judgment of theirs would have been justified. - -A more enlightened planetary observer, initiated into the labyrinthine -hearts of men, might well have pointed out that Mr. Quincunx’s theories -were largely a matter of pure speculation, humorously remote from any -contact with reality. He might also have reminded these indignant ones -that Mr. Quincunx quite genuinely laboured under the illusion--if it -were an illusion--that for his friend to be mistress of the Priory and -free of her dependence on the Romers was a thing eminently desirable, -and worth the price she paid for it. Such an invisible clairvoyant -might even have surmised, what no one in Nevilton who knew of Mr. -Romer’s offer would for one second have believed; namely, that he would -have given her the same advice had there been no such offer, simply on -the general ground of binding her permanently to the place. - -The fact, however, remained, that by adopting this ambiguous and -evasive attitude Mr. Quincunx reduced the more heroic and romantic -aspect of the girl’s sacrifice to the lowest possible level, and flung -her into a mood of reckless and spiritless indifference. She was -brought to the point of losing all interest in her own fate and of -simply relapsing upon the tide of events. - -It was precisely to this condition that Mr. Romer had desired to -bring her. When she had first attracted him, and had fallen into his -hands, there had been certain psychological contests between them, -in which the quarry-owner had by no means emerged victorious. It was -the rankling memory of these contests--contests spiritual rather than -material--which had issued in his gloomy hatred of her and his longing -to corrupt her mind and humiliate her soul. This corruption, this -humiliation had been long in coming. It had seemed out of his own power -and out of the power of his feline daughter to bring it about; but this -felicitous plan of using the girl’s own friend to assist her moral -disintegration appeared to have changed the issue very completely. - -Mr. Romer, watching her from day to day, became more and more certain -that her integral soul, the inmost fortress of her self-respect, was -yielding inch by inch. She had flung the rudder down; and was drifting -upon the tide. - -It might have been a matter of surprise to some ill-judging -psychologists that a Napoleonic intriguer, of the quarry-owner’s -type, should ever have entered upon a struggle apparently so unequal -and unimportant as that for the mere integrity of a solitary girl’s -spirit. Such a judgment would display little knowledge of the darker -possibilities of human character. Resistance is resistance, from -whatever quarter it comes; and the fragile soul of a helpless Pariah -may be just as capable of provoking the aggressive instincts of a born -master of men as the most obdurate of commercial rivals. - -There are certain psychic oppositions to our will, which, when once -they have been encountered, remain indelibly in the memory as a -challenge and a defiance, until their provocation has been wiped out in -their defeat. It matters nothing that such oppositions should spring -from weak or trifling quarters. We have been baffled, thwarted, fooled; -and we cannot recover the feeling of identity with ourselves, until, -like a satisfied tidal wave, our will has drowned completely the -barricades that defied it. It matters nothing if at the beginning, what -we were thwarted by was a mere trifle, a straw upon the wind, a feather -in the breeze. The point is that our will, in flowing outwards, at its -capricious pleasure, met with opposition--met with resistance. We do -not really recover our self-esteem until every memory of such an event -has been obliterated by a complete revenge. - -It is useless to object that a powerful ambitious man of the Romer -mould, contending Atlas-like under a weight of enormous schemes, was -not one to harbour such long-lingering rancour against a mere Pariah. -There was more in the thing than appears on the surface. The brains of -mortal men are queer crucibles, and the smouldering fires that heat -them are driven by capricious and wanton guests. Lacrima’s old defeat -of the owner of Leo’s Hill--a defeat into which there is no need to -descend now, for its “terrain” was remote from our present stage--had -been a defeat upon what might be called a subliminal or interior plane. - -It was almost as if he had encountered her and she had encountered him, -not only in the past of this particular life, but a remoter past--in -a past of some pre-natal incarnation. There are--as is well-known, -many instances of this unfathomable conflict between certain human -types--types that seem to _find_ one another, that seem to be drawn to -one another, by some preordained necessity in the occult influences -of mortal fate. It matters nothing in regard to such a conflict, that -on one side should be strength, power and position, and on the other -weakness and helplessness. The soul is the soul, and has its own laws. - -It is a case of what a true initiate into the secrets of our -terrestrial drama might entitle Planetary Opposition. By some hidden -law of planetary opposition, this frail child of the Apennine ridges -was destined to provoke, to an apparently quite unequal struggle, this -formidable schemer from the money-markets of London. - -In these strange pre-natal attractions and repulsions between men and -women, the mere conventional differences of rank and social importance -are as nothing and less than nothing. - -Vast unfathomable tides of cosmic conflict drive us all backwards and -forwards; and if under the ascendance of Sirius in the track of the -Sun, the master of Nevilton found himself devoting more energy to -the humiliation of his daughter’s companion than to his election to -the British Parliament, one can only remember that both of them--the -strong and the weak--were merely puppets and pawns of elemental forces, -compared with which he, as well as she, was as the chaff before the -wind. - -It was one of the peculiarities of this Nevilton valley to draw to -itself, as we have already hinted, and focus strangely in itself, these -airy and elemental oppositions. To rise above the clash of the Two -Mythologies on this spot, with all their planetary “auxiliar gods,” -one would have had to ascend incredibly high into that star-sown space -above--perhaps so high, that the whole solar system, rushing madly -through the ether towards the constellation of Hercules, would have -shown itself as less than a cluster of wayward fireflies. From a -height as supreme as this, the difference between Mortimer Romer and -Lacrima Traffio would have been less than the difference between two -summer-midges transacting their affairs on the edge of a reed in Auber -Lake. - -Important or unimportant, however, the struggle went on; and, as July -advanced, seemed to tend more and more to Mr. Romer’s advantage. -Precisely what he desired to happen was indeed happening--Lacrima’s -soul was disintegrating; her powers of resistance were diminishing; and -a reckless carelessness about her personal fate was taking the place of -her old sensitive apprehensions. - -Another important matter went well at this time for Mr. Romer. His -daughter became formally engaged to the wealthy American. Dangelis had -been pressing her, for many weeks, to come to some definite decision, -between himself and Lord Tintinhull’s heir, and she had at last made up -her mind and given him her promise. - -The Romers were enchanted at this new development. Mrs. Romer had -always disliked the thought of having to enter into closer relations -with the aristocracy--relations for which she was so obviously -unsuited; and Ralph Dangelis fitted in exactly with her idea of what -her son-in-law should be. - -Mr. Romer, too, found in Dangelis just the sort of son he had always -longed for. He had quite recognized, by this time, that the “artistic” -tastes of the American and his unusual talent interfered in no way with -the possession of a very shrewd intellectual capacity. Dangelis had -indeed all the qualities that Mr. Romer most admired. He was strong. -He was clever. He was an entertaining companion. He was at once very -formidable and very good-tempered. And he was immensely rich. - -It would have annoyed him to see Gladys dominate a man of this sort -with her capricious ways. But he had not the remotest fear that she -would dominate this citizen of Ohio. Dangelis would pet her and spoil -her and deluge her with money, but keep a firm and untroubled hand -over her; and that exactly suited Mr. Romer’s wishes. The man’s wealth -would also be an immense help to himself in his financial undertakings. -Together they would be able to engineer colossal and world-shaking -schemes. - -It was a satisfaction, too, to think that, when he died, his loved -quarries on Leo’s Hill and his historic Leonian House should -fall into the hands, not of these Ilchesters and Ilminsters and -Evershots--families whose pretensions he hated and derided--but of an -honest descendant of plain business men of his own class. - -It was Mrs. Romer, and not her husband, who uttered a lament that the -House after their death should no longer be the property of one of -their own name. She proposed that Gladys’ American should be induced -to change his name. But Mr. Romer would hear nothing of this. His -system was the old imperial Roman system, of succession by adoption. -The man who could deal with the Legions, the man who was strong -enough to suppress strikes on Leo’s Hill, and cope successfully with -such rascals as this voluble Wone, was the man to inherit Nevilton! -Be his patronymic what you please, such a man was Cæsar. Himself, -a new-comer, risen from nothing, and contemptuous of all tradition, -it had constantly been a matter of serious annoyance to him that -the wealth he had amassed should only go to swell the pride of -these fatuous landed gentry. It delighted him to think that Gladys’ -children--the future inheritors of his labour--should be, on their -father’s side also, from new and untraditional stock. It gave him -immense satisfaction to think of disappointing Lord Tintinhull, who no -doubt had long ago told his friends how sad it was that his son had got -entangled with that girl at Nevilton; but how nice it was that Nevilton -House should in the future take its proper place in the county. - -There was one cloud on Mr. Romer’s horizon at this moment, and that -cloud was composed of vapours spun from the brain of his parliamentary -rival, the eloquent Methodist. - -Mr. Wone had long been at work among the Leo’s Hill quarry-men, -encouraging them to strike. Until the second week in July his efforts -had been fruitless; but with the change in the weather to which we have -referred, the strike came. It had already lasted some seven or eight -days, when a Saturday arrived which had been selected, several months -before, for a great political gathering on the summit of Leo’s Hill. -This was a meeting of radicals and socialists to further the cause of -Mr. Wone’s campaign. - -Leo’s Hill had been, for many generations, the site of such local -gatherings. These gatherings were not confined to political -demonstrators. They were usually attended by circus-men and other -caterers to proletarian amusement; and were often quite as lively, in -their accompaniments of feasting and festivity, as any country fair. - -The actual speaking took place at the extreme northern end of the hill, -where there was a singular and convenient feature, lending itself to -such assemblies, in the formation of the ground. This was the grassy -outline, still emphasizing quite distinctly its ancient form, of the -military Roman amphitheatre attached to the camp. Locally the place was -known as “the Frying-pan”, from its marked and grotesque resemblance to -that utensil; but no base culinary appellation, issue of Anglo-Saxon -unimaginativeness, could conceal the formidable classic moulding of its -well-known shape--the shape of the imperial colisseum. - -Between the Frying-pan and the southern side of the hill, where the -bulk of the quarries were, rose a solitary stone building. One hardly -expected the presence of such a building in such a place, for it was -a considerable-sized inn; but the suitableness of the grassy expanses -of the ancient camp for all manner of tourist-jaunts accounted for its -erection; and doubtless it served a good purpose in softening with -interludes of refreshment the labours of the quarry-men. - -It was the presence of this admirable tavern so near the voice of the -orator, that led Mr. Romer, himself, to stroll, on that Saturday, -in the direction of his rival’s demonstration. Though the more -considerable of his quarries were at the southern end of the hill, -certain new excavations, in the success of which he took exceptional -interest, had been latterly made in its very centre, and within a -stone’s throw of the tavern-door. The great cranes, used in this -new invasion, stood out against the sky from the highest part of the -hill, and assumed, especially at sunset, when their shape was rendered -most emphatic, the form of enormous compasses, planted there by some -gigantic architectural hand. - -It was in relation to these new works that Mr. Romer, towards the close -of the afternoon, found himself advancing along the narrow path that -led, between clumps of bracken and furze-bushes, from the most westward -of his woods to the hill’s base. Mr. Lickwit had informed him that -there was talk, among some of the more intransigent of the Yeoborough -socialists, about destroying these cranes. Objections had been brought -against them, in recent newspaper articles, on purely æsthetic grounds. -It was said they disfigured the classic outline of the hill, and -interfered with a landmark which had been a delight to every eye for -unnumbered ages. - -It was hardly to be supposed that the more official of the supporters -of Mr. Wone would condone any such outbreak. It was unlikely that -Wone himself would do so. The “Christian Candidate,” as his Methodist -friends called him, was in no way a man of violence. But the fact -that there had been this pseudo-public criticism of the works from an -unpolitical point of view might lend colour to any sort of scandal. -There were plenty of bold spirits among the by-streets of Yeoborough -who would have loved nothing better than to send Mr. Romer’s cranes -toppling over into a pit, and indeed it was the sort of adventure which -would draw all the more restless portion of the meeting’s audience. -The possibility was the more threatening because the presence of this -kind of general fair attracted to the hill all manner of heterogeneous -persons quite unconnected with the locality. - -But what really influenced Mr. Romer in making his own approach to the -spot, was the neighbourhood of the Half Moon. Where there was drink, he -argued, people would get drunk; and where people got drunk, anything -might happen. He had instituted Mr. Lickwit to remain on guard at the -eastern works; and he had written to the superintendent of police -suggesting the advisability of special precautions. But he felt nervous -and ill at ease as he listened, from his Nevilton terrace, to the -distant shouts and clamour carried to him on the west wind; and true to -his Napoleonic instincts, he proceeded, without informing anyone of his -intention, straight to the zone of danger. - -The afternoon was very hot, though there was no sun. The wind blew -in threatening gusts, and the quarry-owner noticed that the distant -Quantock Moors were overhung with a dark bank of lowering clouds. -It was one of those sinister days that have the power of taking all -colour and all interest out of the earth’s surface. The time of the -year lent itself gloomily to this sombre unmasking. The furze-bushes -looked like dead things. Many of them had actually been burnt in -some wanton conflagration; and their prickly branches carried warped -and blighted seeds. The bracken, near the path, had been dragged and -trodden. Here and there its stalks protruded like thin amputated arms. -The elder-bushes, caught in the wind, showed white and metallic, as -if all their leaves had been dipped in some brackish water. All the -trees seemed to have something of this dull, whitish glare, which did -not prevent them from remaining, in the recesses of their foliage, as -drearily dark as the dark dull soil beneath them. The grass of the -fields had a look congruous with the rest of the scene; a look as if it -had been one large velvety pall, drawn over the whole valley. - -In the valley itself, along the edges of this grassy hall, the tall -clipped elm-trees stood like mourning sentinels bowing towards their -dead. Drifting butterflies, principally of the species known as the -“Lesser Heath” and the “Meadow-Brown,” whirled past his feet as -he walked, in troubled and tarnished helplessness. Here and there -a weak dilapidated currant-moth, the very epitome of surrender to -circumstance, tried in vain to arrest its enforced flight among the -swaying stalks of grey melancholy thistles, the only living things who -seemed to find the temper of the day congenial with their own. - -When he reached the base of the hill, Mr. Romer was amazed at the crowd -of people which the festivity had attracted to the place. He had heard -them passing down the roads all day from the seclusion of his garden, -and to judge by such vehicles as he had secured a glimpse of from the -entrance to his drive, many of them must have come from miles away. But -he had never expected a crowd like this. It seemed to cover the whole -northern side of the hill, swaying to and fro, like some great stream -of voracious maggots, in the body of a dead animal. - -Round the cranes, in the centre of the hill, the crowd seemed -especially thick. He made out the presence there of several large -caravans, and he heard the music of a merry-go-round from that -direction. This latter sound, in its metallic and ferocious gaiety, -seemed especially adapted to the character of the scene. It seemed -like the very voice of some savage Dionysian helot-feast, celebrated -in defiance of all constituted authority. It was such music as Caliban -would have loved. - -Unwilling to arouse unnecessary anger by making his presence known, -while there was no cause, Mr. Romer left the Half Moon on his right, -and crossing the brow of the hill diagonally, by a winding path that -encircled the grassy hollows of innumerable ancient quarries, arrived -at the foot of an immense circular tumulus which dominated the whole -scene. This indeed was the highest point of Leo’s Hill, and from -its summit one looked far away towards the Bristol Channel in one -direction, and far away towards the English Channel in another. It was, -as it were, the very navel and pivot of that historic region. From this -spot one obtained a sort of birds-eye view of the whole surface of -Leo’s Hill. - -Here Mr. Romer found himself quite alone, and from here, with hands -clasped behind him, he surveyed the scene with a grave satiric smile. -He could see his new works with the immense cranes reaching into the -sky above them. He could see the swaying crowd round the amphitheatre -at the extreme corner of the promontory; and he could see, embosomed in -trees to the left of Nevilton’s Mount, a portion of his own Elizabethan -dwelling. - -Mr. Romer felt strong and confident as he looked down on all these -things. He always seemed to renew the forces of his being when he -visited this grass-covered repository of his wealth and influence. -Leo’s Hill suited his temper, and he felt as though he suited the -temper of Leo’s Hill. Between the man who exploited the stone, and the -great reservoir of the stone he exploited, there seemed an illimitable -affinity. - -He looked down with grim and humorous contempt at the noisy crowd -thus invading his sacred domain. They might harangue their hearts -out,--those besotted sentimentalists,--he could well afford to let them -talk! They might howl and dance and feast and drink, till they were as -dazed as Comus’ rabble,--he could afford to let them shout! Probably -Mr. Wone, the “Christian Candidate,” was even at that moment, making -his great final appeal for election at the hands of the noble, the -free, the enlightened constituency of Mid-Wessex. - -Romer felt an immense wave of contempt surge through his veins for this -stream of fatuous humanity as it swarmed before his eyes like an army -of disturbed ants. How little their anger or their affection mattered -to him--or mattered to the world at large! He would have liked to have -seized in his hands some vast celestial torch and suffocated them all -in its smoke, as one would choke out a wasp’s nest. Their miserable -little pains and pleasures were not worth the trouble Nature had taken -in giving them the gift of life. Dead or alive--happy or unhappy--they -were not deserving of any more consideration than a cloud of gnats that -one brushed away from one’s face. - -The master of Leo’s Hill drew a deep breath and listened to the screams -of the merry-go-round. Something in the strident machine made him -think of hymn-singing and mob-religion. This Religion of Sentiment -and Self-Pity with which they cloak their weakness and their petty -rancour--what is it, he thought, but an excuse of escaping from the -necessity of being strong and fearless and hard and formidable? It is -easier--so much easier--to draw back, and go aside, and deal in paltry -subterfuges and sneaking jealousies, veneered over with hypocritical -unction, than to strike out and pursue one’s own way drastically and -boldly. - -He folded his arms and frowned. What is it, he muttered to himself, -this hidden Force, this Power, this God, to which they raise their -vague appeals against the proud, clear, actual domination of natural -law and unscrupulous strength? Is there really some other element -in the world, some other fact, from which they can draw support and -encouragement? There cannot be! He looked at the lowering sky above -him, and at the grey thistles and little patches of thyme under his -feet. All was solid, real, unyielding. There was no gap, no open door, -in the stark surface of things, through which such a mystery might -enter. - -He found himself vaguely wondering whose grave this had originally -been, this great flat tumulus, upon which he stood and hated the mob -of men. There was a burnt circle in the centre of it, with blackened -cinders. The place had been used for some recent national rejoicing, -and they had raised a bonfire here. He supposed that there must have -been a much more tremendous bonfire in the days when--perhaps before -the Romans--this mound was raised to celebrate some savage chieftain. -He wondered whether, in his life-time, this long-buried, long-forgotten -one had stood, even as he stood now, and cried aloud to the Earth and -the Sky in sick loathing of his wretched fellow-animals. - -He humorously speculated whether this man also, this ancient challenger -of popular futility, had been driven to strange excesses by the -provocative resistance of some feeble girl, making her mute appeals to -the suppressed conscience in him, and calling in the help of tender -compassionate gods? Had they softened this buried chieftain’s heart, -these gods of slavish souls and weak wills, before he went down -into darkness? Or had he defied them to the last and died lonely, -implacable, contemptuous? - -The quarry-owner’s ears began to grow irritated at last by these -raucous metallic sounds and by the laughter and the shouting. It was -so precisely as if this foolish crowd were celebrating, in drunken -ecstasy, a victory won over him, and over all that was clear-edged, -self-possessed, and effectual, in this confused world. He struck off -the heads of some of the grey thistles with his cane, and wished they -had been the heads of the Christian Candidate and his oratorical -associates. - -Presently his attention was excited by a tremendous hubbub at the -northern extremity of the hill. The crowd seemed to have gone mad. -They cheered again and again, and seemed vociferating some popular air -or some marching-song. He could almost catch the words of this. The -curious thing was that he could not help in his heart dallying with -the strange wish that in place of being the man at the top, he had -been one of these men at the bottom. How differently he would have -conducted the affair. He knew, from his dealings with the country -families, how deep this revolutionary rage with established tradition -could sink. He sympathized with it himself. He would have loved to have -flung the whole sleek structure of society into disorder, and to have -shaken these feeble rulers out of their snug seats. But this Wone had -not the spirit of a wood-louse! Had he--Romer--been at this moment the -arch-revolutionary, in place of the arch-tyrant, what a difference in -method and result! Did they think, these idiots, that eloquent words -and appeals to Justice and Charity would change the orbits of the -planets? - -He strode impatiently to the edge of the tumulus. Yes, there was -certainly something unusual going forward. The crowd was swaying -outwards, was scattering and wavering. Men were running to and fro, -tossing their hats in the air and shouting. At last there really was -a definite event. The whole mass of the crowd seemed to be seized -simultaneously with a single impulse. It began to move. It began to -move in the direction of his new quarries. The thrill of battle seized -the heart of the master of Nevilton with an exultant glow. So they were -really going to attempt something--the incapable sheep! This was the -sort of situation he had long cried out for. To have an excuse to meet -them, face to face, in a genuine insurrection, this was worthier of a -man’s energy than quarrelling with wretched Social Meetings. - -He ran down the side of the tumulus and hastened to meet the -approaching mob. By leaving the path and skirting the edge of several -disused quarries he should, he thought, easily be able to reach his -new works long before they did. The tall cranes served as a guide. To -his astonishment he found, on approaching his objective, that the mob -had swerved, and were now streaming forward in a long wavering line, -between the Half Moon tavern and the lower slopes, towards the southern -end of the hill. - -“Ah!” he muttered under his breath, “this is more serious! They are -going to attack the offices.” - -By this time, the bulk of the crowd had got so far that it would have -been impossible for him to intercept or anticipate them. - -Among the more cautious sight-seers who, mixed with women and children, -were trailing slowly in the rear, he was quite certain he made out -the figures of Wone and his fellow-politicians. “Just like him,” he -thought. “He has stirred them up with his speeches and now he is hiding -behind them! I expect he will be sneaking off home presently.” The -figure he supposed to be that of the Christian Candidate did, as a -matter of fact, shortly after this, detach himself from the rest of his -group and retire quietly and discreetly towards the path leading to -Nevilton. - -Romer retraced his steps as rapidly as he could. He repassed the -tumulus, crossed a somewhat precipitous bank between two quarries, and -emerged upon the road that skirts the western brow of the hill. This -road he followed at an impetuous pace, listening, as he advanced, for -any sound of destruction and violence. When he arrived at the open -level between the two largest of his quarries he found himself at the -edge of a surging and howling mob. He could see over their heads the -low slate roofs of his works, and he could see that someone, mounted -on a large slab of stone, was haranguing the people near him, but more -than this it was impossible to make out and it was extremely difficult -to get any closer. The persons on the outskirts of the crowd were -evidently strangers, and with no interest in the affair at all beyond -excited curiosity, for he heard them asking one another the most vague -and confused questions. - -Presently he observed the figure of a policeman rise behind the man -upon the stone and jerk him to the ground. This was followed by a -bewildering uproar. Clenched hands were raised in the air, and wild -cries were audible. He fancied he caught the sound of the syllable -“fire.” - -Romer was seized with a mad lust of contest. He struggled desperately -to force his way through to the front, but the entangled mass of -agitated, perspiring people proved an impassable barrier. - -He began hastily summing up in his mind what kind of destruction they -could achieve that would cause him any serious annoyance. He remembered -with relief that all the more delicate pieces of carved work were down -at Nevilton Station. They could do little damage to solid blocks of -stone, which were all they would find inside those wooden sheds. They -might injure the machinery and the more fragile of the tools, but they -could hardly do even that, unless they were aided by some of his own -men. He wondered if his own men--the men on strike--were among them, -or if the rioters were only roughs from Yeoborough. Let them burn -the sheds down! He did not value the sheds. They could be replaced -tomorrow. Their utmost worth was hardly the price of a dozen bottles of -champagne. It gave him a thrill of grim satisfaction to think of the -ineffectualness of this horde of gesticulating two-legged creatures, -making vain assaults upon slabs of impervious rock. Man against Stone! -It was a pleasant and symbolic struggle. And it could only have one -issue. - -Finding it impossible to move forward, and not caring to be observed by -anyone who knew him hemmed in in this ridiculous manner among staring -females and jocose youths, Romer edged himself backwards, and, hot and -breathless, got clear of the crowd. - -The physical exhaustion of this effort--for only a man of considerable -strength could have advanced an inch through such a dense mass--had -materially diminished his thirst for a personal encounter. He smiled -to himself to think how humorous it would be if he could, even now, -overtake the escaping Mr. Wone, and offer his rival restorative -refreshment, in the cool shades of his garden! For the prime originals -of this absurd riot to be drinking claret-cup upon a grassy lawn, while -the misled and deluded populace were battering their heads against the -stony heart of Leo’s Hill, struck Mr. Romer as a curiously suitable -climax to the days’ entertainment. Hardly thinking of what he did, -he clambered up the side of a steep bank, where a group of children -were playing, and looked across the valley. Surely that solitary black -figure retreating so furtively, so innocently, along the path towards -the wood, could be no one but the Christian Candidate! - -Mr. Romer burst out laughing. The discreet fugitive looked so absurdly -characteristic in his shuffling retirement, that he felt for the moment -as if the whole incident were a colossal musical-comedy farce. A puff -of smoke above the heads of the crowd, and a smell of burning, made -him serious again. “Damn them!” he muttered. “They shall not get off -without anything being done.” - -From his present position he was able to discern how he could get -round to the sheds. On their remoter side he saw that the crowd had -considerably thinned away. He made out the figures of some policemen -there, bending, it appeared, over something upon the ground. - -It did not take him long to descend from his post, to skirt the -western side of the quarries, and to reach the spot. He found that the -object upon the ground was no other than his manager Lickwit, gasping -and pallid, with a streak of blood running down his face. From the -policemen he learnt that an entrance had been forced into the sheds, -and the more violent of the rioters--the ones who had laid Mr. Lickwit -low--were now regaling themselves in that shelter upon the contents of -a barrel of cider, whose hiding-place someone had unearthed. The fire -was already trampled upon and extinguished. He learnt further that a -messenger had been sent to summon more police to the spot, and that it -was to be hoped that the revellers within the shed would continue their -opportune tippling until their arrival. This, however, was not what -fate intended. Reeling and shouting, the half-a-dozen joyous Calibans -emerged from their retreat and proceeded to address the people, all -vociferating at the same time, and each interrupting the other. The -more official and respectable among the politicians had either retired -altogether from the scene or were cautiously watching it, from the -safe obscurity of the general crowd, and the situation around the -stone-works was completely in the hands of the rioters. - -Mr. Romer, having done what he could for the comfort of his manager, -who was really more frightened than hurt, turned fiercely upon the -aggressors. He commanded the two remaining policemen--the third was -helping Lickwit from the scene--to arrest on the spot these turbulent -ruffians, who were now engaged in laying level with the ground a -tool-shed adjoining the one they had entered. They were striking at the -corner-beams of this erection with picks and crow-bars. Others among -the crowd, pushing their less courageous neighbours forward, began -throwing stones at the policemen, uttering, as they did so, yells and -threats and abusive insults. - -The mass of the people behind, hearing these yells, and yielding to a -steady pressure from the rear, where more and more inquisitive persons -kept arriving, began to sway ominously onward, crowding more and more -thickly around the open space, where Mr. Romer stood, angrily regarding -them. - -The policemen kept looking anxiously towards the Half Moon where -the road across the hill terminated. They were evidently very -nervous and extremely desirous of the arrival of re-enforcements. -No re-enforcements coming, however, and the destruction of property -continuing, they were forced to act; and drawing their staves, they -made a determined rush upon the men attacking the shed. Had these -persons not been already half-drunk, the emissaries of the law would -have come off badly. As it was, they only succeeded in flinging the -rioters back a few paces. The whole crowd moved forward and a volley of -stones and sticks compelled the officials to retreat. In their retreat -they endeavoured to carry Mr. Romer with them, assuring him, in hurried -gasps, that his life itself was in danger. “They’ll knock your head -off, sir--the scoundrels! Phil Wone has seen you.” - -The pale son of Mr. Wone had indeed pushed his way to the front. He at -once began an impassioned oration. - -“There he is--the devil himself!” he shouted, panting with excitement. -“Do for him, friends! Throw him into one of his own pits--the -bloodsucker, the assassin, the murderer of the people!” - -Wild memories of historic passages rushed through the young anarchist’s -brain. He waved his arms savagely, goading on his companions. His face -was livid. Mr. Romer moved towards him, his head thrown back and a -contemptuous smile upon his face. - -The drunken ring leaders, recognizing their hereditary terror--the -local magistrate--reeled backwards in sudden panic. Others in the front -line of the crowd, knowing Mr. Romer by sight, stood stock still and -gaped foolishly or tried to shuffle off unobserved. A few strangers who -were there, perceiving the presence of a formidable-looking gentleman, -assumed at once that he was Lord Tintinhull or the Earl of Glastonbury -and made frantic efforts to escape. The crowd at the back, conscious -that a reverse movement had begun, became alarmed. Cries were raised -that the “military” had come. “They are going to fire!” shouted one -voice, and several women screamed. - -Philip Wone lifted up his voice again, pointing with outstretched arm -at his enemy, and calling upon the crowd to advance. - -“The serpent!--the devil-fish!--the bread-stealer!--the money-eater!” -he yelled. “Cast him into his own pit, bury him in his own quarries!” - -It was perhaps fortunate for Mr. Romer at that moment that his -adversary was this honest youth in place of a more hypocritical -leader. An English crowd, even though sprinkled with a leaven of angry -strikers, only grows puzzled and bewildered when it hears its enemy -referred to as “devil-fish” and “assassin.” - -The enemy at this moment took full advantage of their bewilderment. He -deliberately drew out his cigarette-case and lighting a cigarette, made -a gesture as if driving back a flock of sheep. The crowd showed further -signs of panic. But the young anarchist was not to be silenced. - -“Look round you, friends,” he shouted. “Here is this man defying you -on the very spot where you work for him day and night, where your -descendants will work for his descendants day and night! What are you -afraid of? This man did not make this hill bring forth stone, though it -is stone, instead of bread, that he would willingly give your children!” - -Mr. Romer gave a sign to the policemen and approached a step nearer. -The cider-drinkers had already moved off. The crowd began to melt away. - -“The very earth,” went on the young man, “cries aloud to you to put an -end to this tyranny! Do you realize that this is the actual place where -in one grand revolt the men of Mid Wessex rose against the--” - -He was interrupted by a man behind him--a poacher from an outlying -hamlet. “Chuck it, Phil Wone! Us knows all about this ’ere job.” - -Mr. Romer raised his hand. The policemen seized the young man by the -arms, one on either side. He seemed hardly to notice them, and went on -in a loud resonant voice that rang across the valley. - -“It will end! It will end, this evil day! Already the new age is -beginning. These robbers of the people had better make haste with their -plundering, for the hour is approaching! Where is your priest?”--he -struggled violently with his captors, turning towards the rapidly -retreating crowd, “where is your vicar,--your curer of souls? He talks -to you of submission, and love, and obedience, and duty. What does this -man care for these things? It is under this talk of “love” that you are -betrayed! It is under this talk of “duty,” that your children have the -bread taken from their mouths! But the hour will come;--yes, you may -smile,” he addressed himself directly to Mr. Romer now, “but you will -not smile for long. _Your_ fate is already written down! It is as sure -as this rain,--as sure as this storm!” - -He was silent, and making no further resistance, let himself be carried -off by the two officials. - -The rain he spoke of was indeed beginning. Heavy drops, precursors -of what seemed likely to be a tropical deluge, fell upon the broken -wood-work, upon the half-burnt bracken, upon the slabs of Leonian -stone, and upon the trampled grass. They also fell upon Mr. Romer’s -silver match-box as he selected another cigarette of his favourite -brand, and walked slowly and smilingly away in the direction of -Nevilton. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -HULLAWAY - - -“I see,” said Luke Andersen to his brother, as they sat at breakfast in -the station-master’s kitchen, about a fortnight after the riot on Leo’s -Hill, “I see that Romer has withdrawn his charge against young Wone. -It seems that the magistrates set him free yesterday, on Romer’s own -responsibility. So the case will not come up at all. What do you make -of that?” - -“He is a wiser man than I imagined,” said James. - -“And that’s not all!” cried his brother blowing the cigarette ashes -from the open paper in front of him. “It appears the strike is in a -good way of being settled by those damned delegates. We were idiots -to trust them. I knew it. I told the men so. But they are all such -hopeless fools. No doubt Romer has found some way of getting round -them! The talk is now of arbitration, and a commissioner from the -government. You mark my words, Daddy Jim, we shall be back working -again by Monday.” - -“But we shall get the chief thing we wanted, after all--if Lickwit is -removed,” said James, rising from the table and going to the window, “I -know I shall be quite satisfied myself, if I don’t see that rascal’s -face any more.” - -“The poor wretch has collapsed altogether, so they said down at the -inn last night,” Luke put in. “My belief is that Romer has now staked -everything on getting into Parliament and is ready to do anything to -propitiate the neighbourhood. If that’s his line, he’ll succeed. He’ll -out-manœuvre our friend Wone at every step. When a man of his type -once tries the conciliatory game be becomes irresistible. That is what -these stupid employers so rarely realize. No doubt that’s his policy -in stopping the process against Philip. He’s a shrewd fellow this -Romer--and I shouldn’t wonder if, when the strike is settled, he became -the most popular landlord in the country. Wone did for himself by -sneaking off home that day, when things looked threatening. They were -talking about that in Yeoborough. I shouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t -lose him the election.” - -“I hope not,” said James Andersen gazing out of the window at the -gathering clouds. “I should be sorry to see that happen.” - -“I should be damned glad!” cried his brother, pushing back his chair -and luxuriously sipping his final cup of tea. “My sympathies are all -with Romer in this business. He has acted magnanimously. He has acted -shrewdly. I would sooner, any day, be under the control of a man like -him, than see a sentimental charlatan like Wone get into Parliament.” - -“You are unfair, my friend,” said the elder brother, opening the lower -sash of the window and letting in such a draught of rainy wind that he -was immediately compelled to re-close it, “you are thoroughly unfair. -Wone is not in the least a charlatan. He believes every word he says, -and he says a great many things that are profoundly true. I cannot -see,” he went on, turning round and confronting his equable relative -with a perturbed and troubled face, “why you have got your knife into -Wone in this extreme manner. Of course he is conceited and long-winded, -but the man is genuinely sincere. I call him rather a pathetic figure.” - -“He looked pathetic enough when he sneaked off after that riot, leaving -Philip in the hands of the police.” - -“It annoys me the way you speak,” returned the elder brother, in -growing irritation. “What right have you to call the one man’s -discretion cowardice, and the other’s wise diplomacy? I don’t see that -it was any more cowardice for Wone to protest against a riot, than for -Romer to back down before public opinion as he seems now to have done. -Besides, who can blame a fellow for wanting to avoid a scene like that? -I know _you_ wouldn’t have cared to encounter those Yeoborough roughs.” - -“Old Romer encountered them,” retorted Luke. “They say he smoked a -cigarette in their faces, and just waved them away, as if they were a -cloud of gnats. I love a man who can do that sort of thing!” - -“That’s right!” cried the elder brother growing thoroughly angry. -“That’s the true Yellow Press attitude! Here we have one of your -‘still, strong men,’ afraid of no mob on earth! I know them--these -strong men! It’s easy enough to be calm and strong when you have a -banking-account like Romer’s, and all the police in the county on your -side!” - -“Brother Lickwit will not forget that afternoon,” remarked Luke, taking -a rose from a vase on the table and putting it into his button-hole. - -“Yes, Lickwit is the scape-goat,” rejoined the other. “Lickwit will -have to leave the place, broken in his nerves, and ruined in his -reputation, while his master gets universal praise for magnanimity and -generosity! That is the ancient trick of these crafty oppressors.” - -“Why do you use such grand words, Daddy Jim?” said Luke smiling and -stretching out his legs. “It’s all nonsense, this talk about oppressors -and oppressed. The world only contains two sorts of people--the capable -ones and the incapable ones. I am all on the side of the capable ones!” - -“I suppose that is why you are treating little Annie Bristow so -abominably!” cried James, losing all command of his temper. - -Luke made an indescribable grimace which converted his countenance in a -moment from that of a gentle faun to that of an ugly Satyr. - -“Ho! ho!” he exclaimed, “so we are on that tack are we? And please tell -me, most virtuous moralist, why I am any worse in my attitude to Annie, -than you in your attitude to Ninsy? It seems to me we are in the same -box over these little jobs.” - -“Damn you!” cried James Andersen, walking fiercely up to his brother -and trembling with rage. - -But Luke sipped his tea with perfect equanimity. - -“It’s no good damning me,” he said quietly. “That will not alter the -situation. The fact remains, that both of us have found our little -village-girls rather a nuisance. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame -myself. These things are inevitable. They are part of the system of the -universe. Little girls have to learn--as the world moves round--that -they can’t have everything they want. I don’t know whether you intend -to marry Ninsy? I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying Annie.” - -“But you’ve been making love to her for the last two months! You told -me so yourself when we met her at Hullaway!” - -“And you weren’t so very severe then, were you, Daddy Jim? It’s only -because I have annoyed you this morning that you bring all this up. -As a matter of fact, Annie is far less mad about me than Ninsy is -about you. She’s already flirting with Bob Granger. Anyone can see -she’s perfectly happy. She’s been happy ever since she made a fool -of me over Gladys’ ring. As long as a girl knows she’s put you in a -ridiculous position, she’ll very soon console herself. No doubt she’ll -make Granger marry her before the summer’s over. Ninsy is quite a -different person. Annie and I take our little affair in precisely the -same spirit. I am no more to blame than she is. But Ninsy’s case is -different. Ninsy is seriously and desperately in love with you. And her -invalid state makes the situation a much more embarrassing one. I think -my position is infinitely less complicated than yours, brother Jim!” - -James Andersen’s face became convulsed with fury. He stretched out his -arm towards his brother, and extended a threatening fore-finger. - -“Young man,” he cried, “I will _never_ forgive you for this!” - -Having uttered these words he rushed incontinently out of the room, -and, bare-headed as he was, proceeded to stride across the fields, in a -direction opposite from that which led to Nevilton. - -The younger brother shrugged his shoulders, drained his tea-cup, and -meditatively lit another cigarette. The stone-works being closed, -he had all the day before him in which to consider this unfortunate -rupture. At the present moment, however, all he did was to call their -landlady--the station-master’s buxom wife--and affably help her in the -removal and washing up of the breakfast things. - -Luke was an adept in all household matters. His supple fingers and -light feminine movements were equal to almost any task, and while -occupied in such things his gay and humorous conversation made any -companion of his labour an enviable person. Mrs. Round, their landlady, -adored him. There was nothing she would not have done at his request; -and Lizzie, Betty, and Polly, her three little daughters, loved him -more than they loved their own father. Having concerned himself for -more than an hour with these agreeable people, Luke took his hat and -stick, and strolling lazily along the railroad-line railings, surveyed -with inquisitive interest the motley group of persons who were waiting, -on the further side, for the approach of a train. - -A little apart from the rest, seated on a bench beside a large empty -basket, he observed the redoubtable Mrs. Fringe. Between this lady and -himself there had existed for the last two years a sort of conspiracy -of gossip. Like many other middle-aged women in Nevilton, Mrs. Fringe -had made a pet and confidant of this attractive young man, who played, -in spite of his mixed birth, a part almost analogous to that of an -affable and ingratiating cadet of some noble family. - -He passed through the turn-stile, crossed the track, and advanced -slowly up the platform. His plump Gossip, observing him afar off, -rose and moved to meet him, her basket swinging in her hand and a -radiant smile upon her face. It was like an encounter between some -Pantagruelian courtier and some colossal Gargamelle. They stood -together, in the wind, at the extreme edge of the platform. Luke, who -was dressed so well that it would have been impossible to distinguish -him from any golden youth from Oxford or Cambridge, whispered -shameless scandal into the lady’s ears, from beneath the shadow of his -panama-hat. She on her side was equally confidential. - -“There was a pretty scene down our way last night,” she said. “Miss -Seldom came in with some books for my young Reverend and, Lord! they -did have an ado. I heard ’un shouting at one another as though them -were rampin’ mad. My master ’ee were hollerin’ Holy Scripture like as -he were dazed, and the young lady she were answerin’ ’im with God knows -what. From all I could gather of it, that girl had got some devil’s -tale on Miss Gladys. ’Tweren’t as though she did actually name her by -name, as you might say, but she pulled her hair and scratched her like -any crazy cat, sideways-like and cross-wise. It seems she’d got hold -of some story about that foreign young woman and Miss Gladys having -her knife into ’er, but I saw well enough what was at the bottom of it -and I won’t conceal it from ’ee, my dear. She do want ’im for herself. -That’s the long and short. She do want ’im for herself!” - -“What were they disputing about?” asked Luke eagerly. “Did you hear -their words?” - -“’Tis no good arstin’ me about their words,” replied Mrs. Fringe. -“Those long-windy dilly-dallies do sound to me no more than the -burbering of blowflies. God save us from such words! I’m not a reading -woman and I don’t care who knows it. But I know when a wench is -moon-daft on a fellow. I knows that, my dear, and I knows when she’s -got a tale on another girl!” - -“Did she talk about Catholicism to him?” enquired Luke. - -“I won’t say as she didn’t bring something of that sort in,” replied -his friend. “But ’twas Miss Gladys wot worried ’er. Any fool could see -that. ’Tis my experience that when a girl and a fellow get hot on any -of these dilly-dally argimints, there’s always some other maid biding -round the corner.” - -“I’ve just had a row with James,” remarked the stone-carver. “He’s gone -off in a fury over towards Hullaway.” - -Mrs Fringe put down her basket and glanced up and down the platform. -Then she laid her hand on the young man’s arm. - -“I wouldn’t say what I do now say, to anyone, but thee own self, -dearie. And I wouldn’t say it to thee if it hadn’t been worriting me -for some merciful long while. And what’s more I wouldn’t say it, if -I didn’t know what you and your Jim are to one another. ‘More than -brothers,’ is what the whole village do say of ye!” - -“Go on--go on--Mrs. Fringe!” cried Luke. “That curst signal’s down, and -I can hear the train.” - -“There be other trains than wot run on them irons,” pronounced Mrs. -Fringe sententiously, “and if you aren’t careful, one such God -Almighty’s train will run over that brother of yours, sooner or later.” - -Luke looked apprehensively up the long converging steel track. The -gloom of the day and the ominous tone of his old gossip affected him -very unpleasantly. He began to wish that there was not a deep muddy -pond under the Hullaway elms. - -“What on earth do you mean?” he cried, adding impatiently, “Oh damn -that train!” as a cloud of smoke made itself visible in the distance. - -“Only this, dearie,” said the woman picking up her basket, “only this. -If you listen to me you’d sooner dig your own grave than have words -with brother. Brother be not one wot can stand these fimble-fambles -same as you and I. I know wot I do say, cos I was privileged, under -Almighty God, to see the end of your dear mother.” - -“I know--I know--” cried the young man, “but what do you mean?” - -Mrs. Fringe thrust her arm through the handle of her basket and turned -to meet the incoming train. - -“’Twas when I lived with my dear husband down at Willow-Grove,” she -said. “’Twas a stone’s throw there from where you and Jim were born. I -always feared he would go, same as she went, sooner or later. He talks -like her. He looks like her. He treats a person in the way she treated -a person, poor moon-struck darling! ’Twas all along of your father. She -couldn’t bide him along-side of her in the last days. And he knew it as -well as you and I know it. But do ’ee think it made any difference to -him? Not a bit, dearie! Not one little bit!” - -The train had now stopped, and with various humorous observations, -addressed to porters and passengers indiscriminately, Mrs. Fringe took -her place in a carriage. - -Heedless of being overheard, Luke addressed her through the window of -the compartment. “But what about James? What were you saying about -James?” - -“’Tis too long a tale to tell ’ee, dearie,” murmured the woman -breathlessly. “There be need now of all my blessed wits to do business -for the Reverend. There, look at that!” She waved at him a crumpled -piece of paper. “Beyond all thinking I’ve got to fetch him books from -Slitly’s. Books, by the Lord! As if he hadn’t too many of the darned -things for his poor brain already!” - -The engine emitted a portentous puff of smoke, and the train began to -move. Luke walked by the side of his friend’s window, his hand on the -sash. - -“You think it is inadvisable to thwart my brother, then,” he said, -“in any way at all. You think I must humour him. You are afraid if I -don’t--” His walk was of necessity quickened into a run. - -“It’s a long story, dearie, a long story. But I had the privilege under -God Almighty of knowing your blessed mother when she was called, and I -tell you it makes my heart ache to see James going along the same road -as--” - -Her voice was extinguished by the noise of wheels and steam. Luke, -exhausted, was compelled to relax his hold. The rest of the carriages -passed him with accumulated speed and he watched the train disappear. -In his excitement he had advanced far beyond the limits of the -platform. He found himself standing in a clump of yellow rag-wort, -just behind his own stone-cutter’s shed. - -He gazed up the track, along which the tantalizing lady had been -so inexorably snatched away. The rails had a dull whitish glitter -but their look was bleak and grim. They suggested, in their narrow -merciless perspective, cutting the pastures in twain, the presence -of some remorseless mechanical Will carving its purpose, blindly and -pitilessly, out of the innocent waywardness of thoughtless living -things. - -An immense and indefinable foreboding passed, like the insertion of -a cold, dead finger, through the heart of the young man. Fantastic -and terrible images pursued one another through his agitated brain. -He saw his brother lying submerged in Hullaway Pond, while a group -of frightened children stood, in white pinafores, stared at him with -gaping mouths. He saw himself arriving upon this scene. He even went -so far as to repeat to himself the sort of cry that such a sight might -naturally draw from his lips, his insatiable dramatic sense making -use, in this way, of his very panic, to project its irrepressible -puppet-show. His brother’s words, “Young man, I will never forgive -you for this,” rose luridly before him. He saw them written along -the edge of a certain dark cloud which hung threateningly over the -Hullaway horizon. He felt precisely what he would feel when he saw -them--luminously phosphorescent--in the indescribable mud and greenish -weeds that surrounded his brother’s dead face. A sickening sense of -loss and emptiness went shivering through him. He felt as though -nothing in the world was of the least importance except the life of -James Andersen. - -With hurried steps he recrossed the line, repassed the turn-stile, -and began following the direction taken by his brother just two hours -before. Never had the road to Hullaway seemed so long! - -Half-way there, where the road took a devious turn, he left it, and -entering the fields again, followed a vaguely outlined foot-path. This -also betraying him, or seeming to betray him, by its departure from the -straight route, he began crossing the meadows with feverish directness, -climbing over hedges and ditches with the desperate preoccupation of -one pursued by invisible pursuers. The expression upon his face, as he -hurried forward in this manner, was the expression of a man who has -everything he values at stake. A casual acquaintance would never have -supposed that the equable countenance of Luke Andersen had the power -to look so haggard, so drawn, so troubled. He struck the road again -less than half a mile from his destination. Why he was so certain that -Hullaway was the spot he sought, he could hardly have explained. It -was, however, one of his own favourite walks on rainless evenings and -Sunday afternoons, and quite recently he had several times persuaded -his brother to accompany him. He himself was wont to haunt the place -and its surroundings, because of the fact that, about a mile to the -west of it, there stood an isolated glove-factory to which certain -of the Nevilton girls were accustomed to make their way across the -field-paths. - -Hullaway village was a very small place, considerably more remote from -the world than Nevilton, and attainable only by narrow lanes. The -centre of it was the great muddy stagnant pond which now so dominated -Luke’s alarmed imagination. Near the pond was a group of elms, of -immense antiquity,--many of them mere stumps of trees,--but all of them -possessed of wide-spreading prominent roots, and deeply indented hollow -trunks worn as smooth as ancient household furniture, by the constant -fumbling and scrambling of generations of Hullaway children. - -The only other objects of interest in the place, were a small, -unobtrusive church, built, like everything else in the neighborhood, of -Leonian stone, and an ancient farm-house surrounded by a high manorial -wall. Beneath one of the Hullaway Elms stood an interesting relic of -a ruder age, in the shape of some well-worn stocks, now as pleasant a -seat for rural gossips as they were formerly an unpleasant pillory for -rural malefactors. - -As Luke Andersen approached this familiar spot he observed with a -certain vague irritation the well-known figure of one of his most -recent Nevilton enchantresses. The girl was no other, in fact, than -that shy companion of Annie Bristow who had been amusing herself -with them in the Fountain Square on the occasion of Mr. Clavering’s -ill-timed intervention. At this moment she was sauntering negligently -along, on a high-raised path of narrow paved flag-stones, such paths -being a peculiarity of Hullaway, due to the prevalence of heavy autumn -floods. - -The girl was evidently bound for the glove-factory, for she swung a -large bundle as she walked, resting it idly every now and then, on any -available wall or rail or close-cut hedge, along which she passed. -She was an attractive figure, tall, willowy, and lithe, and she walked -in that lingering, swaying voluptuous manner which gives to the -movements of maidens of her type a sort of provocative challenge. Luke, -advancing along the road behind her, caught himself admiring, in spite -of his intense preoccupation, the alluring swing of her walk and the -captivating lines of her graceful person. - -The moment was approaching that he had so fantastically dreaded, the -moment of his first glance at Hullaway Great Pond. He was already -relieved to see no signs of anything unusual in the air of the -place,--but the imaged vision of his brother’s drowned body still -hovered before him, and that fatal “I’ll never forgive you for this!” -still rang in his ears. - -His mind all this while was working with extraordinary rapidity and he -was fully conscious of the grotesque irrelevance of this lapse into the -ingrained habit of wanton admiration. Quickly, in a flash of lightning, -he reviewed all his amorous adventures and his frivolous philanderings. -How empty, how bleak, how impossible, all such pleasures seemed, -without the dark stooping figure of this companion of his soul as their -taciturn background! He looked at Phyllis Santon with a sudden savage -resolution, and made a quaint sort of vow in the depths of his heart. - -“I’ll never speak to the wench again or look at her again,” he said to -himself, “if I find Daddy Jim safe and sound, and if he forgives me!” - -He hurried past her, almost at a run, and arrived at the centre of -Hullaway. There was the Great Pond, with its low white-washed stone -parapet. There were the ancient elm-trees and the stocks. There also -were the white-pinafored infants playing in the hollow aperture of the -oldest among the trees. But the slimy surface of the water was utterly -undisturbed save by two or three assiduous ducks who at intervals -plunged beneath it. - -He drew an immense sigh of relief and glanced casually round. Phyllis -had not failed to perceive him. With a shy little friendly smile she -advanced towards him. His vow was already in some danger. He waved her -a hasty greeting but did not take her hand. - -“You’d better put yourself into the stocks,” he said, covering with a -smile the brutality of his neglect, “until I come back! I have to find -James.” - -Leaving her standing in mute consternation, he rushed off to the -churchyard on the further side of the little common. There was a -certain spot here, under the shelter of the Manor wall, where Luke and -his brother had spent several delicious afternoons, moralizing upon the -quaint epitaphs around them, and smoking cigarettes. Luke felt as if he -were almost sure to find James stretched out at length before a certain -old tombstone whose queer appeal to the casual intruder had always -especially attracted him. Both brothers had a philosophical mania for -these sepulchral places, and the Hullaway grave-yard was even more -congenial to their spirit than the Nevilton one, perhaps because this -latter was so dominatingly possessed by their own dead. - -Luke entered the enclosure through a wide-open wooden gate and glanced -quickly round him. There was the Manor wall, as mellow and sheltering -as ever, even on such a day of clouds. There was their favourite -tombstone, with its long inscription to the defunct seignorial house. -But of James Andersen there was not the remotest sign. - -Where the devil had his angry brother gone? Luke’s passionate anxiety -began to give place to a certain indignant reaction. Why were people -so ridiculous? These volcanic outbursts of ungoverned emotion on -trifling occasions were just the things that spoiled the harmony and -serenity of life. Where, on earth, could James have slipped off to? He -remembered that they had more than once gone together to the King’s -Arms--the unpretentious Hullaway tavern. It was just within the bounds -of possibility that the wanderer, finding their other haunts chill and -unappealing, had taken refuge there. - -He recrossed the common, waved his hand to Phyllis, who seemed to -have taken his speech quite seriously and was patiently seated on the -stocks, and made his way hurriedly to the little inn. - -Yes--there, ensconced in a corner of the high settle, with a -half-finished tankard of ale by his side, was his errant brother. - -James rose at once to greet him, showing complete friendliness, and -very small surprise. He seemed to have been drinking more than his -wont, however, for he immediately sank back again into his corner, and -regarded his brother with a queer absent-minded look. - -Luke ordered a glass of cider and sat down close to him on the settle. - -“I am sorry,” he whispered, laying his hand on his brother’s knee. “I -didn’t mean to annoy you. What you said was quite true. I treated Annie -very badly. And Ninsy is altogether different. You’ll forgive me, won’t -you, Daddy Jim?” - -James Andersen pressed his hand. “It’s nothing,” he said in rather a -thick voice. “It’s like everything else, it’s nothing. I was a fool. I -am still a fool. But it’s better to be a fool than to be dead, isn’t -it? Or am I talking nonsense?” - -“As long as you’re not angry with me any longer,” answered Luke -eagerly, “I don’t care how you talk!” - -“I went to the churchyard--to our old place--you know,” went on his -brother. “I stayed nearly an hour there--or was it more? Perhaps it was -more. I stayed so long, anyway, that I nearly went to sleep. I think I -must have gone to sleep!” he added, after a moment’s pause. - -“I expect you were tired,” remarked Luke rather weakly, feeling for -some reason or other, a strange sense of disquietude. - -“Tired?” exclaimed the recumbent man, “why should I be tired?” He -raised himself up with a jerk, and finishing his glass, set it down -with meticulous care upon the ground beside him. - -Luke noticed, with an uncomfortable sense of something not quite usual -in his manner, that every movement he made and every word he spoke -seemed the result of a laborious and conscious effort--like the effort -of one in incomplete control of his sensory nerves. - -“What shall we do now?” said Luke with an air of ease and -indifference. “Do you feel like strolling back to Nevilton, or shall -we make a day of it and go on to Roger-Town Ferry and have dinner -there?” - -James gave vent to a curiously unpleasant laugh. “You go, my dear,” he -said, “and leave me where I am.” - -Luke began to feel thoroughly uncomfortable. He once more laid his hand -caressingly on his brother’s knee. “You have really forgiven me?” he -pleaded. “Really and truly?” - -James Andersen had again sunk back into a semi-comatose state in -his corner. “Forgive?” he muttered, as though he found difficulty -in understanding the meaning of the word, “forgive? I tell you it’s -nothing.” - -He was silent, and then, in a still more drowsy murmur, he uttered the -word “Nothing” three or four times. Soon after this he closed his eyes -and relapsed into a deep slumber. - -“Better leave ’un as ’un be,” remarked the landlord to Luke. “I’ve had -my eye on ’un for this last ’arf hour. ’A do seem mazed-like, looks so. -Let ’un bide where ’un be, master. These be wonderful rumbly days for a -man’s head. ’Taint what ’ee’s ’ad, you understand; to my thinking, ’tis -these thunder-shocks wot ’ave worrited ’im.” - -Luke nodded at the man, and standing up surveyed his brother gravely. -It certainly looked as if James was settled in his corner for the rest -of the morning. Luke wondered if it would be best to let him remain -where he was, and sleep off his coma, or to rouse him and try and -persuade him to return home. He decided to take the landlord’s advice. - -“Very well,” he said. “I’ll just leave him for a while to recover -himself. You’ll keep an eye to him, won’t you, Mr. Titley? I’ll just -wander round a bit, and come back. May-be if he doesn’t want to go home -to dinner, we’ll have a bite of something here with you.” - -Mr. Titley promised not to let his guest out of his sight. “I know what -these thunder-shocks be,” he said. “Don’t you worry, mister. You’ll -find ’un wonderful reasonable along of an hour or so. ’Tis the weather -wot ’ave him floored ’im. The liquor ’ee’s put down wouldn’t hurt a -cat.” - -Luke threw an affectionate glance at his brother’s reclining figure and -went out. The reaction from his exaggerated anxiety left him listless -and unnerved. He walked slowly across the green, towards the group of -elms. - -It was now past noon and the small children who had been loitering -under the trees had been carried off to their mid-day meal. The place -seemed entirely deserted, except for the voracious ducks in the mud of -the Great Pond. He fancied at first that Phyllis Santon had disappeared -with the children, and a queer feeling of disappointment descended -upon him. He would have liked at least to have had the opportunity of -_refusing_ himself the pleasure of talking to her! He approached the -enormous elm under which stood the stocks. Ah! She was still there -then, his little Nevilton acquaintance. He had not seen her sooner, -because she was seated on the lowest roots of the tree, her knees -against the stocks themselves. - -“Hullo, child!” he found himself saying, while his inner consciousness -told itself that he would just say one word to her, so that her -feelings should not be hurt, and then stroll off to the churchyard. -“Why, you have fixed yourself in the very place where they used to make -people sit, when they put them in the stocks!” - -“Have I?” said the girl looking up at him without moving. “’Tis curious -to think of them days! They do say folks never tasted meat nor butter -in them old times. I guess it’s better to be living as we be.” - -Luke’s habitual tone of sentimental moralizing had evidently set the -fashion among the maids of Nevilton. Girls are incredibly quick at -acquiring the mental atmosphere of a philosopher who attracts them. The -simple flattery of her adoption of his colour of thought made it still -more difficult for Luke to keep his vow to the Spinners of Destiny. - -“Yes,” he remarked pensively, seating himself on the stocks above -her. “It is extraordinary, isn’t it, to think how many generations of -people, like you and me, have talked to one another here, in fine days -and cloudy days, in winter and summer--and the same old pond and the -same old elms listening to all they say?” - -“Don’t say that, Luke dear,” protested the girl, with a little -apprehensive movement of her shoulders, and a tightened clasp of her -hands round her knees. “I don’t like to think of that! ’Tis lonesome -enough in this place, mid-day, without thinking of them ghost-stories.” - -“Why do you say ghost-stories?” inquired Luke. “There’s nothing -ghostly about that dirty old pond and there’s nothing ghostly about -these hollow trees--not now, any way.” - -“’Tis what you said about their listening, that seems ghostly-like to -me,” replied the girl. “I am always like that, you know. Sometimes, -down home, I gets a grip of the terrors from staring at old Mr. -Pratty’s barn. ’Tis funny, isn’t it? I suppose I was born along of -Christmas. They say children born then are wonderful ones for fancying -things.” - -Luke prodded the ground with his cane and looked at her in silence. -Conscious of a certain admiration in his look, for the awkwardness of -her pose only enhanced the magnetic charm of her person, she proceeded -to remove her hat and lean her head with a wistful abandonment against -the rough bark of the tree. - -The clouds hung heavily over them, and it seemed that at any moment the -rain might descend in torrents; but so far not a drop had fallen. Queer -and mysterious emotions passed through Luke’s mind. - -He felt in some odd way that he was at a turning-point in the tide of -his existence. It almost seemed to him as though, silent and unmoving, -under the roof of the little inn which he could see from where he -sat, his brother was lying in the crisis of some dangerous fever. A -movement, or gesture, or word, from himself might precipitate this -crisis, in one direction or the other. - -The girl crouched at his feet became to him, as he gazed at her, -something more than a mere amorous acquaintance. She became a type, -a symbol--an incarnation of the formidable writing of that Moving -Finger, to which all flesh must bow. Her half-coquettish, half-serious -apprehensions, about the ghostliness of the things that are always -_listening_, as the human drama works itself out in their dumb -presence, affected him in spite of himself. The village of Hullaway -seemed at that moment to have disappeared into space, and he and his -companion to be isolated and suspended--remote from all terrestrial -activities, and yet aware of some confused struggle between invisible -antagonists. - -From the splashing ducks in the pond who, every now and then, so -ridiculously turned up their squat tails to the cloudy heavens, his -eye wandered to the impenetrable expectancy of the stone path which -bordered the muddy edge of the water. With the quick sense of one whose -daily occupation was concerned with this particular stone, he began -calculating how long that time-worn pavement had remained there, and -how many generations of human feet, hurrying or loitering, had passed -along it since it was first laid down. What actual men, he wondered, -had brought it there, from its resting-place, æons-old in the distant -hill, and laid it where it now lay, slab by slab? - -From where he sat he could just observe, between a gap in the trees of -the Manor-Farm garden, the extreme edge of that Leonian promontory. It -seemed to him as though the hill were at that moment being swept by a -storm of rain. He shivered a little at the idea of how such a sweeping -storm, borne on a northern wind, would invade those bare trenches and -unprotected escarpments. He felt glad that his brother had selected -Hullaway rather than that particular spot for his angry retreat. - -With a sense of relief he turned his eyes once more to the girl -reclining below him in such a charming attitude. - -How absurd it was, he thought, to let these vague superstitions -overmaster him! Surely it was really an indication of cowardice, in the -presence of a hypothetical Fate, to make such fantastic vows as that -which he had recently made. It was all part of the atavistic survival -in him of that unhappy “conscience,” which had done so much to darken -the history of the tribes of men. It was like “touching wood” in honour -of infernal deities! What was the use of being a philosopher--of being -so deeply conscious of the illusive and subjective nature of all -these scruples--if, at a crisis, one only fell back into such absurd -morbidity? The vow he had registered in his mind an hour before, seemed -to him now a piece of grotesque irrelevance--a lapse, a concession to -weakness, a reversion to primitive inhibition. If it had been cowardice -to make such a vow, it were a still greater cowardice to keep it. - -He rose from his seat on the stocks, and began idly lifting up and -down the heavy wooden bar which surmounted this queer old pillory. He -finally left the thing open and gaping; its semi-circular cavities -ready for any offender. Moved by a sudden impulse, the girl leant back -still further against the tree, and whimsically raising one of her -little feet, inserted it into the aperture. Amused at her companion’s -interest in this levity, and actuated by a profound girlish instinct -to ruffle the situation by some startling caprice, she had no sooner -got one ankle into the cavity thus prepared for it, than with a sudden -effort she placed the other by its side, and coyly straightening her -skirts with her hands, looked up smiling into Luke’s face. - -Thus challenged, as it were, by this wilful little would-be malefactor, -Luke was mechanically compelled to complete her imprisonment. With a -sudden vicious snap he let down the enclosing bar. - -She was now completely powerless; for the most drastic laws of balance -made it quite impossible that she could release herself. It thus became -inevitable that he should slip down on the ground by her side, and -begin teasing her, indulging himself in sundry innocent caresses which -her helpless position made it difficult to resist. - -It was not long, however, before Phyllis, fearful of the appearance -upon the scene of some of Hullaway’s inhabitants, implored him to -release her. - -Luke rose and with his hand upon the bar contemplated smilingly his -fair prisoner. - -“Please be quick!” the girl cried impatiently. “I’m getting so stiff.” - -“Shall I, or shan’t I?” said Luke provokingly. - -The corner of the girl’s mouth fell and her under-lip quivered. It only -needed a moment’s further delay to reduce her to tears. - -At that moment two interruptions occurred simultaneously. From the door -of the King’s Arms emerged the landlord, and began making vehement -signals to Luke; while from the corner of the road to Nevilton appeared -the figures of two young ladies, walking briskly towards them, absorbed -in earnest conversation. These simultaneous events were observed -in varying ratio by the captive and her captor. Luke was vaguely -conscious of the two ladies and profoundly agitated by the appearance -of the landlord. Phyllis was vaguely conscious of the landlord and -was profoundly agitated by the appearance of the ladies. The young -stone-carver gave a quick thoughtless jerk to the bar; and without -waiting to see the result, rushed off towards the inn. The heavy block -of wood, impelled by the impetus he had given it, swung upwards, until -it almost reached the perpendicular. Then it descended with a crash. -The girl had just time to withdraw one of her ankles. The other was -imprisoned as hopeless as before. - -Phyllis was overwhelmed with shame and embarrassment. She had in -a moment recognized Gladys, and she felt as those Apocalyptic -unfortunates in Holy Scripture are reported as feeling when they call -upon the hills to cover them. - -It had happened that Ralph Dangelis had been compelled to pay a flying -visit to London on business connected with his proposed marriage. The -two cousins, preoccupied, each of them, with their separate anxieties, -had wandered thus far from home to escape the teasing fussiness of Mrs. -Romer, who with her preparations for the double wedding gave neither of -them any peace. - -They approached quite near to the group of elms before either of them -observed the unfortunate Phyllis. - -“Why!” cried Gladys suddenly to her companion. “There’s somebody in the -stocks!” - -She went forward hastily, followed at a slower pace by the Italian. -Poor Phyllis, her bundle by her side, and her cheeks tear-stained, -presented a woeful enough appearance. Her first inclination was to -hide her face in her hands; but making a brave effort, she turned her -head towards the new-comers with a gasping little laugh. - -“I put my foot in here for a joke,” she stammered, “and it got caught. -Please let me out, Miss Romer.” - -Gladys came quite near and laid her gloved hand upon the wooden bar. - -“It just lifts up, Miss,” pleaded Phyllis, with tears in her voice. “It -isn’t at all heavy.” - -Gladys stared at her with a growing sense of interest. The girl’s -embarrassment under her scrutiny awoke her Romer malice. - -“I really don’t know that I want to let you out in such a hurry,” she -said. “If it’s a game you are playing, it would be a pity to spoil -it. Who put you in? You must tell me that, before I set you free! You -couldn’t have done it yourself.” - -By this time Lacrima had arrived on the scene. - -The shame-faced Phyllis turned to her. “Please, Miss Traffio, please, -lift that thing up! It’s quite easy to move.” - -The Italian at once laid her hands upon the block of wood and struggled -to raise it; but Gladys had no difficulty in keeping the bar immoveable. - -“What are you doing?” cried the younger girl indignantly. “Take your -arm away!” - -“She must tell us first who put her where she is,” reiterated Miss -Romer. “I won’t have her let out ’till she tells us that!” - -Phyllis looked piteously from one to the other. Then she grew desperate. - -“It was Luke Andersen,” she whispered. - -“What!” cried Gladys. “Luke? Then he’s been out walking with you? Has -he? Has he? Has he?” - -She repeated these words with such concentrated fury that Phyllis -began to cry. But the shock of this information gave Lacrima her -chance. Using all her strength she lifted the heavy bar and released -the prisoner. Phyllis staggered to her feet and picked up her bundle. -Lacrima handed the girl her hat and helped her to brush the dust from -her clothes. - -“So _you_ are Luke’s latest fancy are you?” Gladys said scowling -fiercely at the glove-maker. - -The pent-up feelings of the young woman broke forth at once. Moving a -step or two away from them and glancing at a group of farm-men who were -crossing the green, she gave full scope to her revenge. - -“I’m only Annie Bristow’s friend,” she retorted. “Annie Bristow is -going to marry Luke. They are right down mad on one another.” - -“It’s a lie!” cried Gladys, completely forgetting herself and looking -as if she could have struck the mocking villager. - -“A lie, eh?” returned the other. “Tisn’t for me to tell the tale to -a young lady, the likes of you. But we be all guessing down in Mr. -North’s factory, who ’twas that gave Luke the pretty lady-like ring wot -he lent to Annie!” - -Gladys became livid with anger. “What ring?” she cried. “Why are you -talking about a ring?” - -“Annie, she stuck it, for devilry, into that hole in Splash-Lane stone. -She pushed it in, tight as ’twere a sham diamint. And there it do bide, -the lady’s pretty ring, all glittery and shiny, at bottom of that there -hole! We maids do go to see ’un glinsying and gleaming. It be the talk -of the place, that ring be! Scarce one of the childer but ’as ’ad its -try to hook ’un out. But ’tis no good. I guess Annie must have rammed -it down with her mother’s girt skewer. ’Tis fast in that stone anyway, -for all the world to see. Folks, may-be, ’ll be coming from Yeoborough, -long as a few days be over, to see the lady’s ring, wot Annie threw’d -away, ’afore she said ‘yes’ to her young man!” - -These final words were positively shouted by the enraged Phyllis, as -she tripped away, swinging her bundle triumphantly. - -It seemed for a moment as though Gladys meditated a desperate pursuit, -and the infliction of physical violence upon her enemy. But Lacrima -held her fast by the hand. “For heaven’s sake, cousin,” she whispered, -“let her go. Look at those men watching us!” - -Gladys turned; but it was not at the farm-men she looked. - -Across the green towards them came the two Andersens, Luke looking -nervous and worried, and his brother gesticulating strangely. The -girls remained motionless, neither advancing to meet them nor making -any attempt to evade them. Gladys seemed to lose her defiant air, and -waited their approach, rather with the look of one expecting to be -chidden than of one prepared to chide. On all recent occasions this had -been her manner, when in the presence of the young stone-carver. - -The sight of Lacrima seemed to exercise a magical effect upon James -Andersen. He ceased at once his excited talk, and advancing towards -her, greeted her in his normal tone--a tone of almost paternal -gentleness. - -“It is nearly a quarter to one,” said Gladys, addressing both the men. -“Lacrima and I’ll have all we can do to get back in time for lunch. -Let’s walk back together!” - -Luke looked at his brother who gave him a friendly smile. He also -looked sharply at the Hullaway labourers, who were shuffling off -towards the barton of the Manor-Farm. - -“I don’t mind,” he said; “though it is a dangerous time of day! But we -can go by the fields, and you can leave us at Roandyke Barn.” - -They moved off along the edge of the pond together. - -“It was Lacrima, not I, Luke,” said Gladys presently, “who let that -girl out.” - -Luke flicked a clump of dock-weeds with his cane. “It was her own -fault,” he said carelessly. “I thought I’d opened the thing. I was -called away suddenly.” - -Gladys bowed her head submissively. In the company of the young -stone-carver her whole nature seemed to change. A shrewd observer might -even have marked a subtle difference in her physical appearance. She -appeared to wilt and droop, like a tropical flower transplanted into a -northern zone. - -They remained all together until they reached the fields. Then Gladys -and Luke dropped behind. - -“I have something I want to tell you,” said the fair girl, as soon as -the others were out of hearing. “Something very important.” - -“I have something to tell you too,” answered Luke, “and I think I will -tell it first. It is hardly likely that your piece of news can be as -serious as mine.” - -They paused at a stile; and the girl made him take her in his arms and -kiss her, before she consented to hear what he had to say. - -It would have been noticeable to any observer that in the caresses they -exchanged, Luke played the perfunctory, and she the passionate part. -She kissed him thirstily, insatiably, with clinging lips that seemed -avid of his very soul. When at last they moved on through grass that -was still wet with the rain of the night before, Luke drew his hand -away from hers, as if to emphasize the seriousness of his words. - -“I am terribly anxious, dearest, about James,” he said. “We had an -absurd quarrel this morning, and he rushed off to Hullaway in a rage. I -found him in the inn. He had been drinking, but it was not that which -upset him. He had not taken enough to affect him in that way. I am -very, very anxious about him. I forget whether I’ve ever told you about -my mother? Her mind--poor darling--was horribly upset before she died. -She suffered from more than one distressing mania. And my fear is that -James may go the same way.” - -Gladys hung her head. In a strange and subtle way she felt as though -the responsibility of this new catastrophe rested upon her. Her -desperate passion for Luke had so unnerved her, that she had become -liable to be victimized by any sort of superstitious apprehension. - -“How dreadful!” she whispered, “but he seemed to me perfectly natural -just now.” - -“That was Lacrima’s doing,” said Luke. “Lacrima is at the bottom of it -all. I wish, oh, I wish, she was going to marry James, instead of that -uncle of yours.” - -“Father would never allow that,” said Gladys, raising her head. “He is -set upon making her take uncle John. It has become a kind of passion -with him. Father is funny in these things.” - -“Still--it might be managed,” muttered Luke thoughtfully, “if we -carried it through with a high hand. We might arrange it; the world is -malleable, after all. If you and I, my dear, put our heads together, -Mr. John Goring might whistle for his bride.” - -“I _hate_ Lacrima!” cried Gladys, with a sudden access of her normal -spirit. - -“I don’t care two pence about Lacrima,” returned Luke. “It is of James -I am thinking.” - -“But she would be happy with James, and I don’t want her to be happy.” - -“What a little devil you are!” exclaimed the stone-carver, slipping his -arm round her waist. - -“Yes, I know I am,” she answered shamelessly. “I suppose I inherit it -from father. He hates people just like that. But I am not a devil with -you, Luke, am I? I wish I were!” she added, after a little pause. - -“We must think over this business from every point of view,” said -Luke solemnly. “I cannot help thinking that if you and I resolve to -do it, we can twist the fates round, somehow or another. I am sure -Lacrima could save James if she liked. If you could only have seen the -difference between what he was when I was called back to him just now, -and what he became as soon as he set eyes upon her, you would know what -I mean. He is mad about her, and if he doesn’t get her, he’ll go really -mad. He _was_ a madman just now. He nearly frightened that fool Titley -into a fit.” - -“I don’t _want_ Lacrima to marry James,” burst out Gladys. Luke in a -moment drew his arm away, and quickened his pace. - -“As you please,” he said. “But I can promise you this, my friend, that -if anything does happen to my brother, it’ll be the end of everything -between _us_.” - -“Why--what--how can you say such dreadful things?” stammered the girl. - -Luke airily swung his stick. “It all rests with you, child. Though -_we_ can’t marry, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t go on seeing each -other, as we do now, forever and ever,--as long as you help me in -this affair. But if you’re going to sulk and talk this nonsense about -‘hating’--it is probable that it will be a case of good-bye!” - -The fair girl’s face was distorted by a spasmodic convulsion of -conflicting emotions. She bit her lip and hung her head. Presently she -looked up again and flung her arms round his neck. “I’ll do anything -you ask me, Luke, anything, as long as you don’t turn against me.” - -They walked along for some time in silence, hand in hand, taking care -not to lose sight of their two companions who seemed as engrossed -as themselves in one another’s society. James Andersen was showing -sufficient discretion in avoiding the more frequented foot-paths. - -“Luke,” began the girl at last, “did you really give my ring to Annie -Santon?” - -Luke’s brow clouded in a moment. “Damn your ring!” he cried harshly. -“I’ve got other things to think about now than your confounded rings. -When people give me presents of that kind,” he added “I take for -granted I can do what I like with them.” - -Gladys trembled and looked pitifully into his face. - -“But that girl said,” she murmured--“that factory girl, I mean--that it -had been lost in some way; hidden, she said, in some hole in a stone. I -can’t believe that you would let me be made a laughing-stock of, Luke -dear?” - -“Oh, don’t worry me about that,” replied the stone-carver. “May-be it -is so, may-be it isn’t so; anyway it doesn’t matter a hang.” - -“She said too,” pleaded Gladys in a hesitating voice, “that you and -Annie were going to be married.” - -“Ho! ho!” laughed Luke, fumbling with some tightly tied hurdles that -barred their way; “so she said that, did she? She _must_ have had her -knife into you, our little Phyllis. Well, and what’s to stop me if I -did decide to marry Annie?” - -Gladys gasped and looked at him with a drawn and haggard face. Her -beauty was of the kind that required the flush of buoyant spirits -to illuminate it. The more her heart ached, the less attractive she -became. She was anything but beautiful now; and, as he looked at -her, Luke noticed for the first time, how low her hair grew upon her -forehead. - -“You wouldn’t think of doing that?” she whispered, in a tone of -supplication. He laughed lightly and lifting up her chin made as though -he were going to kiss her, but drew back without doing so. - -“Are you going to be good,” he said, “and help me to get Lacrima for -James?” - -She threw her arms round him. “I’ll do anything you like--anything,” -she repeated, “if you’ll only let me love you!” - -While this conversation was proceeding between these two, a not less -interesting clash of divergent emotions was occurring between their -friends. The Italian may easily be pardoned if she never for one second -dreamed of the agitation in her companion’s mind that had so frightened -Luke. James’ manner was in no way different from usual, and though -he expressed his feelings in a more unreserved fashion than he had -ever done before, Lacrima had been for many weeks expecting some such -outbreak. - -“Don’t be angry with me,” he was saying, as he strode by her side. “I -had meant never to have told you of this. I had meant to let it die -with me, without your ever knowing, but somehow--today--I could not -help it.” - -He had confessed to her point blank, and in simple, unbroken words, the -secret of his heart, and Lacrima had for some moments walked along with -head averted making no response. - -It would not be true to say that this revelation surprised her. It -would be completely untrue to say it offended her. It did not even -enter her mind that it might have been kinder to have been less -friendly, less responsive, than she had been, to this queer taciturn -admirer. But circumstances had really given her very little choice -in the matter. She had been, as it were, flung perforce upon his -society, and she had accepted, as a providential qualification of her -loneliness, the fact that he was attracted towards her rather than -repelled by her. - -It is quite possible that had he remained untouched by the evasive -appeal of her timid grace; had he, for instance, remained a provocative -and impenetrable mystery at her side, she might have been led to share -his feelings. But, unluckily for poor Andersen, the very fact that his -feelings had been disclosed only too clearly, militated hopelessly -against such an event. He was no remote, shadowy, romantic possibility -to her--a closed casket of wonders, difficult and dangerous to open. He -was simply a passionate and assiduous lover. The fact that he _could_ -love her, lowered him a little in Lacrima’s esteem. True to her Pariah -instincts she felt that such passion was a sign of weakness in him; -and if she did not actually despise him for it, it materially lessened -the interest she took in the workings of his mind. Maurice Quincunx -drew her to him for the very reason that he was so sexless, so cold, -so wayward, so full of whimsical caprices. Maurice, a Pariah himself, -excited at the same time her maternal tenderness and her imaginative -affection. If she did not feel the passion for him that she might have -felt for Andersen, had Andersen remained inaccessible; that was only -because there was something in Maurice’s peculiar egoism which chilled -such feelings at their root. - -Another almost equally effective cause of her lack of response to the -stone-carver’s emotion was the cynical and world-deep weariness that -had fallen upon her, since this dreadful marriage with Goring had -become a settled event. Face to face with this, she felt as though -nothing mattered very much, and as though any feeling she herself might -excite in another person must needs be like the passing of a shadow -across a mirror--something vague, unreal, insubstantial--something -removed to a remote distance, like the voice of a person at the end -of a long tunnel, or as the dream of someone who is himself a figure -in a dream. If anyone, she felt, broke into the enchanted circle that -surrounded her, it was as if they sought to make overtures to a person -dead and buried. - -It was almost with the coldness and detachment of the dead that she now -answered him, and her voice went sighing across the wet fields with a -desolation that would have struck a more normal mind than Andersen’s as -the incarnation of tragedy. He was himself, however, strung up to such -a tragic note, that the despair in her tone affected him less than it -would have affected another. - -“I have come to feel,” said she, “that I have no heart, and I feel as -though this country of yours had no heart. It ought to be always cloudy -and dark in this place. Sunshine here is a kind of bitter mockery.” - -“You do not know--you do not know what you say,” cried the poor -stone-carver, quickening his pace in his excitement so that it became -difficult for her to keep up with him. “I have loved you, since I -first saw you--that day--down at our works--when the hawthorn was out. -_My_ heart at any rate is deep enough, deep enough to be hurt more -than you would believe, Lacrima. Oh, if things were only different! If -you could only bring yourself to care for me a little--just a little! -Lacrima, listen to me.” - -He stopped abruptly in the middle of a field and made her turn and face -him. He laid his hand solemnly and imploringly upon her wrist. “Why -need you put yourself under this frightful yoke? I know something of -what you have had to go through. I know something, though it may be -only a little, of what this horrible marriage means to you. Lacrima, -for your own sake--as well as mine--for the sake of everyone who has -ever cared for you--don’t let them drag you into this atrocious trap. - -“Trust me, give yourself boldly into my care. Let’s go away together -and try our fortune in some new place! All places are not like -Nevilton. I am a strong man, I know my trade, I could earn money easily -to keep us both. Lacrima, don’t turn away, don’t look so helpless! -After all, things might be worse, you might be already married to that -man, and be buried alive forever! It is not yet too late. You are still -free. I beg and implore you, by everything you hold sacred, to stop and -escape before it is too late. It doesn’t matter that you don’t love me -now. As long as you don’t utterly hate me all can be put right. I don’t -ask you to return what I feel for you. I won’t ask it if you agree to -marry me. I’ll make any contract with you you please, and swear any -vow. I won’t come near you when we are together. We can live under one -roof as brother and sister. The wedding-ring will be nothing between -us. It will only protect you from the rest of the world. I won’t -interfere with your life at all, when once I have freed you from this -devil’s hole. It will only be a marriage in form, in name; everything -else will be just as you please. I will obey your least wish, your -least fancy. If you want to go back to your own country and to go -alone, I will save up money enough to make that possible. In fact, I -have now got money enough to pay your journey and I would send out more -to you. Lacrima, let me help you to break away from all this. You must, -Lacrima, you must and you shall! If you prefer it, we needn’t ever be -married. I don’t want to take advantage of you. I’ll give you every -penny I have and help you out of the country and then send you more as -I earn it. It is madness, this devilish marriage they are driving you -into. It is madness and folly to submit to it. It is monstrous. It is -ridiculous. You are free to go, they have no hold upon you. Lacrima, -Lacrima! why are you so cruel to yourself, to me, to everyone who cares -for you?” - -He drew breath at last, but continued to clutch her wrist with a -trembling hand, glancing anxiously, as he waited, at the lessening -distance that separated them from the others. - -Lacrima looked at him with a pale troubled face, but her large eyes -were full of tears and when she spoke her voice quivered. - -“I was wrong, my friend, to say that none of you here had any heart. -Your heart is large and noble. I shall never--never forget what you -have now said to me. But James--but James, dear,” and her voice shook -still more, “I cannot, I cannot do it. There are more reasons than I -can explain to you, why this thing must happen. It _has_ to happen, and -we must bow our heads and submit. After all, life is not very long, -or very happy, at the best. Probably,”--and she smiled a sad little -smile,--“I should disappoint you frightfully if we did go together. I -am not such a nice person as you suppose. I have queer moods--oh, such -strange, strange moods!--and I know for certain that I should not make -you happy. - -“Shall I tell you a horrible secret, James?” Here her voice sank into a -curious whisper and she laughed a low distressing laugh. “I have really -got the soul, the _soul_ I say, not the nerves or sense, of a girl who -has lost everything,--I wish I could make you understand--who has lost -self-respect and everything,--I have thought myself into this state. I -don’t care now--I really don’t--_what_ happens to me. James, dear--you -wouldn’t want to marry a person like that, a person who feels herself -already dead and buried? Yes, and worse than dead! A person who has -lost all pity, all feeling, even for herself. A person who is past even -caring for the difference between right and wrong! You wouldn’t want to -be kind to a person like that, James, would you?” - -She stopped and gazed into his face, smiling a woeful little smile. -Andersen mechanically noticed that their companions had observed their -long pause, and had delayed to advance, resting beneath the shelter -of a wind-tossed ash-tree. The stone-carver began to realize the -extraordinary and terrible loneliness of every human soul. Here he was, -face to face with the one being of all beings whose least look or word -thrilled him with intolerable excitement, and yet he could not as much -as touch the outer margin of her real consciousness. - -He had not the least idea, even at that fatal moment, what her inner -spirit was feeling; what thoughts, what sensations, were passing -through her soul. Nor could he ever have. They might stand together -thus, isolated from all the world, through an eternity of physical -contact, and he would never attain such knowledge. She would always -remain aloof, mysterious, evasive. He resolved that at all events as -far as he himself was concerned, there should be no barrier between -them. He would lay open to her the deepest recesses of his heart. - -He began a hurried incoherent history of his passion, of its growth, -its subtleties, its intensity. He tried to make her realize what she -had become for him, how she filled every hour of every day with her -image. He explained to her how clearly and fully he understood the -difficulty, the impossibility, of his ever bringing her to care for him -as he cared for her. - -He even went so far as to allude to Mr. Quincunx, and implored her -to believe that he would be well content if she would let him earn -money enough to support both her and Maurice, either in Nevilton or -elsewhere, if it would cut the tragic knot of her fate to join her -destiny to that of the forlorn recluse. - -It almost seemed as though this final stroke of self-abnegation excited -more eloquence in him than all the rest. He begged and conjured her to -cut boldly loose from the Romer bonds, and marry her queer friend, -if he, rather than any other, were the choice she made. His language -became so vehement, his tone so impassioned and exalted, that the girl -began to look apprehensively at him. Even this apprehension, however, -was a thing strangely removed from reality. His reckless words rose and -fell upon the air and mixed with the rising wind as if they were words -remembered from some previous existence. The man’s whole figure, his -gaunt frame, his stooping shoulders, his long arms and lean fingers, -seemed to her like something only half-tangible, something felt and -seen through a dim medium of obscuring mist. - -Lacrima felt vaguely as though all this were happening to someone -else, to someone she had read about in a book, or had known in remote -childhood. The overhanging clouds, the damp grass, the distant ash-tree -with the forms of their friends beneath it, all these things seemed to -group themselves in her mind, as if answering to some strange dramatic -story, which was not the story of her life at all, but of some other -harassed and troubled spirit. - -In the depths of her mind she shrank away half-frightened and -half-indifferent from this man’s impassioned pleading and heroic -proposals. The humorously cynical image of the hermit of Dead Man’s -Lane crossed her mental vision as a sort of wavering Pharos light in -the dreamy twilight of her consciousness. How well she knew with what -goblin-like quiver of his nostrils, with what sardonic gleam of his -eyes, he would have listened to his rival’s exalted rhetoric. - -In some strange way she felt almost angry with this bolder, less -cautious lover, for being what her poor nervous Maurice never could be. -She caught herself shuddering at the thought of the drastic effort, the -stern focussing of will-power which the acceptance of any one of his -daring suggestions would imply. Perhaps, who can say, there had come to -be a sort of voluptuous pleasure in thus lying back upon her destiny -and letting herself be carried forward, at the caprice of other wills -than her own. - -Mingled with these other complex reactions, there was borne in upon -her, as she listened to him, a queer sense of the absolute unimportance -of the whole matter. The long strain upon her nerves, of her sojourn -in Nevilton House, had left her physically so weary that she lacked -the life-energy to supply the life-illusion. The ardour and passion -of Andersen’s suggestions seemed, for all their dramatic pathos, to -belong to a world she had left--a world from which she had risen or -sunk so completely, that all return was impossible. Her nature was so -hopelessly the true Pariah-nature, that the idea of the effort implied -in any struggle to escape her doom, seemed worse than the doom itself. - -This inhibition of any movement of effective resistance in the -Pariah-type is the thing that normal temperaments find most difficult -of all to understand. It would seem almost incredible to a healthy -minded person that Lacrima should deliberately let herself be driven -into such a fate without some last desperate struggle. Those who find -it so, however, under-estimate that curious passion of submission from -which these victims of circumstance suffer, a passion of submission -which is itself, in a profoundly subtle way, a sort of narcotic or -drug to the wretchedness they pass through. - -“I cannot do it,” she repeated in a low tired voice, “though I think -it’s generous, beyond description, what you want to do for me. But I -cannot do it. It’s difficult somehow to tell you why, James dear; there -are certain things that are hard to say, even to people that we love as -much as I love you. For I do love you, in spite of everything. I hope -you realize that. And I know that you have a deep noble heart.” - -She looked at him with wistful and appealing tenderness, and let her -little fingers slip into his feverish hand. - -When she said the words, “I do love you,” a shivering ecstasy shot -through the stone-carver’s veins, followed by a ghastly chilliness, -like the hand of death, as he grasped their complete meaning. The most -devastating tone, perhaps, of all, for an impassioned lover to hear, -is that particular tone of calm tender affection. It has the power of -closing up vistas of hope more effectively than the expression of the -most vigorous repulsion. There was a ring of weary finality in her -voice that echoed through his mind, like the tread of coffin-bearers -through a darkened passage. Things had reached their hopeless point, -and the two were standing mute and silent, in the attitude of persons -taking a final farewell of one another, when a noisy group of village -maids, on their dilatory road to the glove-factory, made their voices -audible from the further side of the nearest hedge. - -They both turned instantaneously to see how this danger of discovery -affected their friends, and neither of them was surprised to note that -the younger Andersen had left his companion and was strolling casually -in the direction of the voices. As soon as he saw that they had -observed this manœuvre he began beckoning to James. - -“We’d better separate, my friend,” whispered Lacrima hastily. “I’ll go -back to Gladys. She and I must take the lane way and you and Luke the -path by the barn. We’ll meet again before--before anything happens.” - -They separated accordingly and as the two girls passed through the gate -that led into the Nevilton road, they could distinctly hear, across the -fields, the ringing laughter of the high-spirited glove-makers as they -chaffed and rallied the two stone-carvers through the thick bramble -hedge which intervened between them. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -SAGITTARIUS - - -The summer of the year whose events, in so far as they affected a -certain little group of Nevilton people we are attempting to describe, -seemed, to all concerned, to pass more and more rapidly, as the days -began again to shorten. July gave place to August, and Mr. Goring’s men -were already at work upon the wheat-harvest. In the hedges appeared all -those peculiar signals of the culmination of the season’s glory, which -are, by one of nature’s most emphatic ironies, the signals also of its -imminent decline. - -Old-man’s-beard, for instance, hung its feathery clusters on -every bush; and, in shadier places, white and black briony twined -their decorative leaves and delicate flowers. The blossom of the -blackberry bushes was already giving place to unripe fruit, and the -berries of traveller’s-joy were beginning to turn red. Hips and -haws still remained in that vague colourless state which renders -them indistinguishable to all eyes save those of the birds, but -the juicy clusters of the common night-shade--“green grapes of -Proserpine”--greeted the wanderer with their poisonous Circe-like -attraction, from their thrones of dog-wood and maple, and whispered of -the autumn’s approach. In dry deserted places the scarlet splendour of -poppies was rapidly yielding ground to all those queer herbal plants, -purplish or whitish in hue--the wild hyssop, or marjoram, being the -most noticeable of them--which more than anything else denote the -coming on of the equinox. From dusty heaps of rubbish the aromatic -daisy-like camomile gave forth its pungent fragrance, and in damper -spots the tall purple heads of hemp-agrimony flouted the dying valerian. - -An appropriate date at the end of the month had been fixed for the -episcopal visit to Nevilton; and the candidates for confirmation were -already beginning, according to their various natures and temperaments, -to experience that excited anticipation, which, even in the dullest -intelligence, such an event arouses. - -The interesting ceremony of Gladys Romer’s baptism had been fixed for -a week earlier than this, a fanciful sentiment in the agitated mind of -Mr. Clavering having led to the selection of this particular day on -the strange ground of its exact coincidence with the anniversary of a -certain famous saint. - -The marriage of Gladys with Dangelis, and of Lacrima with John Goring, -was to take place early in September, Mrs. Romer having stipulated for -reasons of domestic economy that the two events should be simultaneous. - -Another project of some importance to at least three persons in -Nevilton, was now, as one might say, in the air; though this was by no -means a matter of public knowledge. I refer to Vennie Seldom’s fixed -resolution to be received into the Catholic Church and to become a nun. - -Ever since her encounter in the village street with the loquacious -Mr. Wone, Vennie had been oppressed by an invincible distaste for -the things and people that surrounded her. Her longing to give the -world the slip and devote herself completely to the religious life -had been incalculably deepened by her disgust at what she considered -the blasphemous introduction of the Holy Name into the Christian -Candidate’s political canvassing. The arguments of Mr. Taxater and -the conventional anglicanism of her mother, were, compared with this, -only mild incentives to the step she meditated. The whole fabric of -her piety and her taste had been shocked to their foundations by the -unctuous complacency of Mr. Romer’s evangelical rival. - -Vennie felt, as she stood aside, in her retired routine, and watched -the political struggle sway to and fro in the village, as though the -champions of both causes were odiously and repulsively in the wrong. -The sly conservatism of the quarry-owner becoming, since the settlement -of the strike, almost fulsome in its flattery of the working classes, -struck her as the most unscrupulous bid for power that she had ever -encountered; and when, combined with his new pose as the ideal employer -and landlord, Mr. Romer introduced the imperial note, and talked -lavishly of the economic benefits of the Empire, Vennie felt as though -all that was beautiful and sacred in her feeling for the country of her -birth, was blighted and poisoned at the root. - -But Mr. Wone’s attitude of mind struck her as even more revolting. The -quarry-owner was at least frankly and flagrantly cynical. He made no -attempt--unless Gladys’ confirmation was to be regarded as such--to -conciliate religious sentiment. He never went to church, and in -private conversation he expressed his atheistic opinions with humorous -and careless shamelessness. But Mr. Wone’s intermingling of Protestant -unction with political chicanery struck the passionate soul of the -young girl as something very nearly approaching the “unpardonable sin.” -Her incisive intelligence, fortified of late by conversations with -Mr. Taxater, revolted, too, against the vague ethical verbiage and -loose democratic sentiment with which Mr. Wone garnished his lightest -talk. Since Philip’s release from prison and his reappearance in the -village, she had taken the opportunity of having several interviews -with the Christian Candidate’s son, and these interviews, though they -saddened and perplexed her, increased her respect for the young man in -proportion as they diminished it for his father. With true feminine -instinct Vennie found the anarchist more attractive than the socialist, -and the atheist less repugnant than the missionary. - -One afternoon, towards the end of the first week in August, Vennie -persuaded Mr. Taxater to accompany her on a long walk. They made their -way through the wood which separates the fields around Nevilton Mount -from the fields around Leo’s Hill. Issuing from this wood, along the -path followed by every visitor to the hill who wishes to avoid its -steeper slopes, they strolled leisurely between the patches of high -bracken-fern and looked down upon the little church of Athelston. - -Athelston was a long, rambling village, encircling the northern end of -the Leonian promontory and offering shelter, in many small cottages all -heavily built of the same material, to those of the workmen in the -quarries who were not domiciled in Nevilton. - -“It would be rather nice,” said Vennie to the theologian, “if it -wouldn’t spoil our walk, to go and look at that carving in the porch, -down there. They say it has been cleaned lately, and the figures show -up more clearly.” - -The papal champion gravely surveyed the outline of the little cruciform -church, as it shimmered, warm and mellow, in the misty sunshine at -their feet. - -“Yes, I know,” he remarked. “I met our friend Andersen there the other -day. He told me he had been doing the work quite alone. He said it was -one of the most interesting things he had ever done. By the way, I am -confident that that rumour we heard, of his getting unsettled in his -mind, is absolutely untrue. I have never found him more sensible--you -know how silent he is as a rule? When I met him he was quite eloquent -on the subject of mediæval carving.” - -Vennie looked down and smiled--a sad little smile. “I’m afraid,” she -said; “that his talking so freely is not quite a good sign. But do -let’s go. I have never looked at those queer figures with anyone but my -mother; and you know the way she has of making everything seem as if it -were an ornament on her own mantelpiece.” - -They began descending the hill, Mr. Taxater displaying more agility -than might have been expected of him, as they scrambled down between -furze-bushes, rabbit-holes, and beds of yellow trefoil. - -“How dreadfully I shall miss you, dear child,” he said. “No one could -accuse me of selfishness in furthering your wish for the religious -life. Half the pleasant discoveries I’ve made in this charming country -have been due to you.” - -The young girl turned and regarded him affectionately. “You have been -more than a father to me,” she murmured. - -“Ah, Vennie, Vennie!” he protested, “you mustn’t talk like that. After -all, the greatest discovery we have made, is the discovery of your -calling for religion. I have much to be thankful for. It is not often -that I have been permitted such a privilege. If we had not been thrown -together, who knows but that the influence of our good Clavering----” - -Vennie blushed scarlet at the mention of the priest’s name, and to hide -her confusion, buried her head in a great clump of rag-wort, pressing -its yellow clusters vehemently against her cheeks, with agitated -trembling hands. - -When she lifted up her face, the fair hair under her hat was sprinkled -with dewy moisture. “The turn of the year has come,” she said. “There’s -mist on everything today.” She smiled, with a quick embarrassed glance -at her companion. - -“The turn of the year has come,” repeated the champion of the papacy. - -They descended the slope of yet another field, and then paused again, -leaning upon a gate. - -“Have you ever thought how strange it is,” remarked the girl, as they -turned to survey the scene around them, “that those two hills should -still, in a way, represent the struggle between good and evil? I always -wish that my ancestors had built a chapel on Nevilton Mount instead of -that silly little tower.” - -The theologian fixed his eyes on the two eminences which, from the -point where they stood, showed so emphatically against the smouldering -August sky. - -“Why do you call Leo’s Hill evil?” he asked. - -Vennie frowned. “I always have felt like that about it,” she answered. -“It’s an odd fancy I’ve got. I can’t quite explain it. Perhaps it’s -because I know something of the hard life of the quarry-men. Perhaps -it’s because of Mr. Romer. I really can’t tell you. But that’s the -feeling I have!” - -“Our worthy Mr. Wone would thank you, if you lent him your idea for use -in his speeches,” remarked the theologian with a chuckle. - -“That’s just it!” cried Vennie. “It teases me, more than I can say, -that the cause of the poor should be in his hands. I can’t associate -_him_ with anything good or sacred. His being the one to oppose Mr. -Romer makes me feel as though God had left us completely, left us at -the mercy of the false prophets!” - -“Child, child!” expostulated Mr. Taxater--“_Custodit Dominus animas -sanctorum suorum; de manu peccatoris liberabit eos_.” - -“But it is so strange,” continued Vennie. “It is one of the things I -cannot understand. Why should God have to use other means than those -His church offers to defeat the designs of wicked people? I wish -miracles happened more often! Sometimes I dream of them happening. -I dreamt the other night that an angel, with a great silver sword, -stood on the top of Nevilton Mount, and cried aloud to all the dead in -the churchyard. Why can’t God send real angels to fight His battles, -instead of using wolves in sheep’s clothing like that wretched Mr. -Wone?” - -The champion of the papacy smiled. “You are too hard on our poor -Candidate, Vennie. There’s more of the sheep than the wolf about our -worthy Wone, after all. But you touch upon a large question, my dear; -a large question. That great circle, whose centre is everywhere and -its circumference nowhere, as St. Thomas says, must needs include many -ways to the fulfilment of His ends, which are mysterious to us. God is -sometimes pleased to use the machinations of the most evil men, even -their sensual passions, and their abominable vices, to bring about the -fulfilment of His will. And we, dear child,” he added after a pause, -“must follow God’s methods. That is why the church has always condemned -as a dangerous heresy that Tolstoyan doctrine of submission to evil. -We must never submit to evil! Our duty is to use against it every -weapon the world offers. Weapons that in themselves are unholy, become -holy--nay! even sacred--when used in the cause of God and His church.” - -Vennie remained puzzled and silent. She felt a vague, remote -dissatisfaction with her friend’s argument; but she found it difficult -to answer. She glanced sadly up at the cone-shaped mount above them, -and wished that in place of that heathen-looking tower, she could see -her angel with the silver sword. - -“It is all very confusing,” she murmured at last, “and I shall be glad -when I am out of it.” - -The theologian laid his hand--the hand that ought to have belonged to a -prince of the church--upon his companion’s. - -“You will be out of it soon, child,” he said, “and then you will help -us by your prayers. We who are the temporal monks of the great struggle -are bound to soil our hands in the dust of the arena. But your prayers, -and the prayers of many like you, cleanse them continually from such -unhappy stains.” - -Even at the moment he was uttering these profound words, Mr. Taxater -was wondering in his heart how far his friend’s inclination to a -convent depended upon an impulse much more natural and feminine than -the desire to avoid the Mr. Romers and Mr. Wones of this poor world. He -made a second rather brutal experiment. - -“We must renounce,” he said, “all these plausible poetic attempts to be -wiser than God’s Holy Church. That is one of the faults into which our -worthy Clavering falls.” - -Once more the tell-tale scarlet rushed into the cheeks of Nevilton’s -little nun. - -“Yes,” she answered, stooping to pluck a spray of wild basil, “I know.” - -They opened the gate, and very soon found themselves at the entrance -to Athelston church. Late summer flowers, planted in rows on each -side of the path, met them with a ravishing fragrance. Stocks and -sweet-williams grew freely among the graves; and tall standard roses -held up the wealth of their second blossoming, like chalices full of -red and white wine. Heavy-winged brown butterflies fluttered over the -grass, like the earth-drawn spirits, Vennie thought, of such among -the dead as were loath to leave the scene of their earthly pleasures. -Mounted upon a step-ladder in the porch was the figure of James -Andersen, absorbed in removing the moss and lichen from the carving in -the central arch. - -He came down at once when he perceived their approach. “Look!” he said, -with a wave of his hand, “you can see what it is now.” - -Obedient to his words they both gazed curiously at the quaint early -Norman relief. It represented a centaur, with a drawn bow and arrow, -aiming at a retreating lion, which was sneaking off in humorously -depicted terror. - -“That is King Stephen,” said the stone-carver, pointing to the -centaur. “And the beast he is aiming at is Queen Maud. Stephen’s -zodiacal sign was Sagittarius, and the woman’s was Leo. Hence the arrow -he is aiming.” - -Vennie’s mind, reverting to her fanciful distinction between the -two eminences, and woman-like, associating everything she saw with -the persons of her own drama, at once began to discern, between the -retreating animal and the fair-haired daughter of the owner of Leo’s -Hill, a queer and grotesque resemblance. - -She heaved a deep sigh. What would she not give to see her poor -priest-centaur aim such an arrow of triumph at the heart of his -insidious temptress! - -“I think you have made them stand out wonderfully clear,” she said -gently. “Hasn’t he, Mr. Taxater?” - -The stone-carver threw down the instrument he was using, and folded -his arms. His dark, foreign-looking countenance wore a very curious -expression. - -“I wanted to finish this job,” he remarked, in a slow deep voice, -“before I turn into stone myself.” - -“Come, come, my friend,” said Mr. Taxater, while Vennie stared in -speechless alarm at the carver’s face. “You mustn’t talk like that! You -people get a wrong perspective in things. Remember, this is no longer -the Stone Age. The power of stone was broken once for all, when certain -women of Palestine found that stone, which we’ve all heard of, lifted -out of its place! Since then it is to wood--the wood out of which His -cross was made--not to stone, that we must look.” - -The carver raised his long arm and pointed in the direction of Leo’s -Hill. “Twenty years,” he said, “have I been working on this stone. I -used to despise such work. Then I grew to care for it. Then there came -a change. I loved the work! It was the only thing I loved. I loved to -feel the stone under my hands, and to watch it yielding to my tools. -I think the soul of it must have passed into my soul. It seemed to -know me; to respond to me. We became like lovers, the stone and I!” He -laughed an uneasy, disconcerting laugh; and went on. - -“But that is not all. Another change came. _She_ came into my life. I -needn’t tell you, Miss Seldom, who I mean. You know well enough. These -things cannot be hidden. Nothing can be hidden that happens here! She -came and was kind to me. She is kind to me still. But they have got -hold of her. She can’t resist them. Why she can’t, I cannot say; but -it seems impossible. She talks to me like a person in a dream. They’re -going to marry her to that brute Goring. You’ve heard that I suppose? -But of course it’s nothing to you! Why should it be?” - -He paused, and Vennie interrupted him sharply. “It is a great deal -to us, Mr. Andersen! Every cruel thing that is done in a place -affects everyone who lives in the place. If Mr. Taxater and--and -Mr. Clavering--thought that Miss Traffio was being driven into -this marriage, I’m sure they would not allow it! They would do -something--everything--to stop such an outrage. Wouldn’t you, Mr. -Taxater?” - -“But surely, Vennie,” said the theologian, “you have heard something -of this? You can’t be quite so oblivious, as all that, to the village -scandal?” - -He spoke with a certain annoyance as people are apt to do, when some -disagreeable abuse, which they have sought to forget, is brought -vividly before them. - -Vennie, too, became irritable. The question of Lacrima’s marriage had -more than once given her conscience a sharp stab. “I think it is a -shame to us all,” she cried vehemently, “that this should be allowed. -It is only lately that I’ve heard rumours of it, and I took them for -mere gossip. It’s been on my mind.” She looked almost sternly at the -theologian. “I meant to talk to you about it. But other things came -between. I haven’t seen Lacrima for several weeks. Surely, if it is -as Mr. Andersen says, something ought to be done! It is a horrible, -perfectly horrible idea!” She covered her face with her hands as if to -shut out some unbearable vision. - -James Andersen watched them both intently, leaning against the -wood-work of the church-door. - -“I thought you all knew of this,” he said presently. “Perhaps you did; -but the devil prompted you to say nothing. There are a great many -things in this world which are done while people--good people--look -on--and nothing said. Do you wonder now that the end of this business -will be a curious one; I mean for me? For you know, of course, what -is going to happen? You know why I have been chosen to work at this -particular piece of carving? And why, ever since I quarrelled with Luke -and drank in Hullaway Inn, I have heard voices in my head? The reason -of that is, that Leo’s Hill is angry because I have deserted it. Every -stone I touch is angry, and keeps talking to me and upbraiding me. The -voices I hear are the voices of all the stones I have ever worked with -in my life. But they needn’t fret themselves. The end will surprise -even them. _They_ do not know,”--here his voice took a lower tone, and -he assumed that ghastly air of imparting a piece of surprising, but -quite natural, information, which is one of the most sinister tokens -of monomania,--“that I shall very soon be, even as they are! Isn’t it -funny they don’t know that, Miss Seldom? Isn’t it a curious thing, Mr. -Taxater? I thought of that, just now, as I chipped the dirt from King -Stephen. Even _he_ didn’t know, the foolish centaur! And yet he has -been up there, seeing this sort of thing done, for seven hundred years! -I expect he has seen so many girls dragged under this arch, with sick -terror in their hearts, that he has grown callous to it. A callous -king! A knavish-smiling king! It makes me laugh to think how little he -cares!” - -The unfortunate man did indeed proceed to laugh; but the sound of it -was so ghastly, even to himself, that he quickly became grave. - -“Luke will be here soon,” he said. “Luke has always come for me, these -last few days, when his work is over. It’ll be over soon now, I think. -He may be here any moment; so I’d better finish the job. Don’t you -worry about Lacrima, ladies and gentlemen! She’ll fly away with the -rooks. This centaur-king will never reach _her_ with his arrows. It’ll -be me, not her, he’ll turn into stone!” - -He became silent and continued his labour upon the carving. The wonder -was that with his head full of such mad fancies he could manage so -delicate a piece of work. Mr. Taxater and Vennie watched him in -amazement. - -“I think,” whispered the latter presently, “we’d better wait in the -churchyard till his brother comes. I don’t like leaving him in this -state.” - -Mr. Taxater nodded, and retreating to the further end of the path, they -sat down together upon a flat tombstone. - -“I am sorry,” said Mr. Taxater, after a minute or two’s silence, -“that I spoke rather crossly to you just now. The truth is, the man’s -reference to that Italian girl made me feel ashamed of myself. I -have not your excuse of being ignorant of what was going on. I have, -in fact, been meaning to talk to you about it for some weeks; but I -hesitated, wishing to be quite sure of my ground first. - -“Even now, you must remember, we have no certain authority to go upon. -But I’m afraid--I’m very much afraid--what Andersen says is true. It is -evidently his own certain knowledge of it that has upset his brain. -And I’m inclined to take his word for it. I fear the girl must have -told him herself; and it was the shock of hearing it from her that had -this effect. - -“There’s no doubt he’s seriously ill. But if I know anything of these -things, it’s rather a case of extreme nervous agitation than actual -insanity. In any event, it’s a relief to remember that this kind of -mania is, of all forms of brain-trouble, the easiest cured.” - -Vennie made an imperious little gesture. “We _must_ cure him!” she -cried. “We must! We must! And the only way to do it, as far as I can -see, is to stop this abominable marriage. Lacrima can’t be doing it -willingly. No girl would marry a man like that, of her own accord.” - -Mr. Taxater shook his head. “I’m afraid there are few people,” he -remarked, “that some girl or other wouldn’t marry if the motive were -strong enough! The question is, What is the motive in this instance?” - -“What can Mr. Quincunx be thinking of?” said Vennie. “He hasn’t been up -to see mother lately. In fact, I don’t think he has been in our house -since he began working in Yeoborough. That’s another abominable shame! -It seems to me more and more clear that there’s an evil destiny hanging -over this place, driving people on to do wicked things!” - -“I’m afraid we shall get small assistance from Mr. Quincunx,” said the -theologian. “The relations between him and Lacrima are altogether -beyond my power of unravelling. But I cannot imagine his taking any -sort of initiative in any kind of difficulty.” - -“Then what are we to do?” pleaded Vennie, looking anxiously into the -diplomatist’s face. - -Mr. Taxater rested his chin upon the handle of his cane and made no -reply. - -At this moment the gate clicked behind them, and Luke Andersen -appeared. He glanced hastily towards the porch; but his brother was -absorbed in his work and apparently had heard nothing. Stepping softly -along the edge of the path he approached the two friends. He looked -very anxious and troubled. - -Raising his hat to Vennie, he made a gesture with his hand in his -brother’s direction. “Have you seen him?” he enquired. “Has he talked -to you?” - -The theologian nodded. - -“Oh, I think all this is dreadful!” whispered Vennie. “I’m more -distressed than I can tell you. I’m afraid he’s very, very ill. And he -keeps talking about Miss Traffio. Surely something can be done, Mr. -Andersen, to stop that marriage before it’s too late?” - -Luke turned upon her with an expression completely different from any -she had ever seen him wear before. He seemed to have suddenly grown -much older. His mouth was drawn, and a little open; and his cheeks were -pale and indented by deep lines. - -“I would give my soul,” he said with intense emphasis, “to have this -thing otherwise. I have already been to Lacrima--to Miss Traffio, I -mean--but she will do nothing. She is mad, too, I think. I hoped to get -her to marry my brother, off-hand, anyhow; and leave the place with -him. But she won’t hear of it. I can’t understand her! It almost seems -as if she _wanted_ to marry that clown. But she can’t really; it’s -impossible. I’m afraid that fool Quincunx is at the bottom of it.” - -“Something must be done! Something must be done!” wailed Vennie. - -“_Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus!_” muttered Mr. Taxater. “_Speravit -anima mea in Domino._” - -“I shouldn’t mind so much the state he’s in,” continued Luke, “if I -didn’t remember how my mother went. She got just like this before she -died. It’s true my father was a brute to her. But this different kind -of blow seems to have just the same effect upon James. Fool that I -am, I must needs start a miserable quarrel with him when he was most -worried. If anything happens, I tell you I shall feel I’m responsible -for the whole thing, and no one else!” - -All this while Mr. Taxater had remained silent, his chin on the handle -of his cane. At last he lifted up his head. - -“I think,” he began softly, “I should rather like a word alone with Mr. -Luke, Vennie. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind wandering down the lane a step -or two? Then I can follow you; and we’ll leave this young man to get -his brother home.” - -The girl rose obediently and pressed the youth’s hand. “If anyone can -help you,” she said with a look of tender sympathy, “it is Mr. Taxater. -He has helped me in my trouble.” - -As soon as Vennie was out of hearing the theologian looked straight -into Luke’s face. - -“I have an idea,” he said, “that if any two people can find a way out -of this wretched business, it is you and I together.” - -“Well, sir,” said Luke, seating himself by Mr. Taxater’s side and -glancing apprehensively towards the church-porch; “I have tried what I -can do with Miss Romer, but she maintains that nothing she can say will -make any difference to Miss Traffio.” - -“I fancy there is one thing, however, that would make a difference to -Mr. Quincunx,” remarked the theologian significantly. “I am taking for -granted,” he added, “that it is this particular marriage which weighs -so heavily on your brother. He would not suffer if he saw her wedded to -a man she loved?” - -“Ah!” exclaimed Luke, “your idea is to appeal to Quincunx. I’ve thought -of that, too. But I’m afraid it’s hopeless. He’s such an inconceivably -helpless person. Besides, he’s got no money.” - -“Suppose we secured him the money?” said Mr. Taxater. - -Luke’s countenance momentarily brightened; but the cloud soon settled -on it again. - -“We couldn’t get enough,” he said with a sigh. “Unless,” he added, with -a glimmer of humour, “you or some other noble person have more cash to -dispose of than I fancy is at all likely! To persuade Quincunx into any -bold activity we should have to guarantee him a comfortable annuity for -the rest of his life, and an assurance of his absolute security from -Romer’s vengeance. It would have to be enough for Lacrima, too, you -understand!” - -The theologian shook the dew-drops from a large crimson rose which hung -within his reach. - -“What precise sum would you suggest,” he asked, “as likely to be a -sufficient inducement?” - -The stone-carver meditated. “Those two could live quite happily,” he -remarked at last, “on two hundred a year.” - -“It is a large amount to raise,” said Mr. Taxater. “I fear it is quite -beyond my power and the power of the Seldoms, even if we combined our -efforts. How right Napoleon was, when he said that in any campaign, the -first, second, and third requisite was money! - -“It only shows how foolish those critics of the Catholic Church are, -who blame her for laying stress upon the temporal side of our great -struggle against evil. In this world, as things go, one always strikes -sooner or later against the barrier of money. The money-question lies -at the bottom of every subterranean abuse and every hidden iniquity -that we unmask. It’s a wretched thing that it should be so, but we -have to accept it; until one of Vennie’s angels”--he added in an -undertone--“descends to help us! Your poor brother began talking just -now about the power of stone. I referred him to the Cross of our -Lord--which is made of another material! - -“But unfortunately in the stress of this actual struggle, you and I, -my dear Andersen, find ourselves, as you see, compelled to call in the -help, not of wood, but of gold. Gold, and gold alone, can furnish us -with the means of undermining these evil powers!” - -The texture of Mr. Taxater’s mind was so nicely inter-threaded with the -opposite strands of metaphysical and Machiavellian wisdom, that this -discourse, fantastic as it may sound to us, fell from him as naturally -as rain from a heavy cloud. Luke Andersen’s face settled into an -expression of hopeless gloom. - -“The thing is beyond us, then,” he said. “I certainly can’t provide an -enormous sum like that. James’ and my savings together only amount to a -few hundreds. And if no quixotic person can be discovered to help us, -we are bound hand and foot. - -“Oh I should like,” he cried, “to make this place ring and ting with -our triumph over that damned Romer!” - -“_Quis est iste Rex gloriæ?_” muttered the Theologian. “_Dominus fortis -et potens; Dominus potens in prœlio._” - -“I shall never dare,” went on the stone-carver, “to get my brother -away into a home. The least thought of such a thing would drive him -absolutely out of his mind. He’ll have to be left to drift about like -this, talking madly to everyone he meets, till something terrible -happens to him. God! I could howl with rage, to think how it all might -be saved if only that ass Quincunx had a little gall!” - -Mr. Taxater tapped the young man’s wrist with his white fingers. “I -think we can put gall into him between us,” he said. “I think so, -Andersen.” - -“You’ve got some idea, sir!” cried Luke, looking at the theologian. -“For Heaven’s sake, let’s have it! I am completely at the end of my -tether.” - -“This American who is engaged to Gladys is immensely rich, isn’t he?” -enquired Mr. Taxater. - -“Rich?” answered Luke. “That’s not the word for it! The fellow could -buy the whole of Leo’s Hill and not know the difference.” - -Mr. Taxater was silent, fingering the gold cross upon his watch-chain. - -“It remains with yourself then,” he remarked at last. - -“What!” cried the astonished Luke. - -“I happen to be aware,” continued the diplomatist, calmly, “that there -is a certain fact which our friend from Ohio would give half his -fortune to know. He certainly would very willingly sign the little -document for it, that would put Mr. Quincunx and Miss Traffio into a -position of complete security. It is only a question of ‘the terrain of -negotiation,’ as we say in our ecclesiastical circles.” - -Luke Andersen’s eyes opened very widely, and the amazement of his -surprise made him look more like an astounded faun than ever--a faun -that has come bolt upon some incredible triumph of civilization. - -“I will be quite plain with you, young man,” said the theologian. -“It has come to my knowledge that you and Gladys Romer are more than -friends; have been more than friends, for a good while past. - -“Do not wave your hand in that way! I am not speaking without evidence. -I happen to know as a positive fact that this girl is neither more nor -less than your mistress. I am also inclined to believe--though of this, -of course, I cannot be sure--that, as a result of this intrigue, she -is likely, before the autumn is over, to find herself in a position of -considerable embarrassment. It is no doubt, with a view to covering -such embarrassment--you understand what I mean, Mr. Andersen?--that she -is making preparations to have her marriage performed earlier than was -at first intended.” - -“God!” cried the astounded youth, losing all self-possession, “how, -under the sun, did you get to know this?” - -Mr. Taxater smiled. “We poor controversialists,” he said, “have to -learn, in self-defence, certain innocent arts of observation. I -don’t think that you and your mistress,” he added, “have been so -extraordinarily discreet, that it needed a miracle to discover your -secret.” - -Luke Andersen recovered his equanimity with a vigorous effort. “Well?” -he said, rising from his seat and looking anxiously at his brother, -“what then?” - -As he uttered these words the young stone-carver’s mind wrestled in -grim austerity with the ghastly hint thrown out by his companion. He -divined with an icy shock of horror the astounding proposal that this -amazing champion of the Faith was about to unfold. He mentally laid -hold of this proposal as a man might lay hold upon a red-hot bar of -iron. The interior fibres of his being hardened themselves to grasp -without shrinking its appalling treachery. - -Luke had it in him, below his urbane exterior, to rend and tear away -every natural, every human scruple. He had it in him to be able -to envisage, with a shamelessness worthy of some lost soul of the -Florentine’s Inferno, the fire-scorched walls of such a stark dilemma. -The palpable suggestion which now hung, as it were, suspended in the -air between them, was a suggestion he was ready to grasp by the throat. - -The sight of his brother’s gaunt figure, every line of which he knew -and loved so well, turned his conscience to adamant. Sinking into the -depths of his soul, as a diver might sink into an ice-cold sea, he felt -that there was literally _nothing_ he would not do, if his dear Daddy -James could be restored to sanity and happiness. - -Gladys? He would walk over the bodies of a hundred Gladyses, if that -way, and that alone, led to his brother’s restoration! - -“What then?” he repeated, turning a bleak but resolute face upon Mr. -Taxater. - -The theologian continued: “Why, it remains for you, or for someone -deputed by you, to reveal to our unsuspecting American exactly how his -betrothed has betrayed him. I have no doubt that in the disturbance -this will cause him we shall have no difficulty in securing his aid in -this other matter. It would be a natural, an inevitable revenge for him -to take. Himself a victim of these Romers, what more appropriate, what -more suitable, than that he should help us in liberating their other -victims? If he is as wealthy as you say, it would be a mere bagatelle -for him to set our good Quincunx upon his feet forever, and Lacrima -with him! It is the kind of thing it would naturally occur to him to -do. It would be a revenge; but a noble revenge. He would leave Nevilton -then, feeling that he had left his mark; that he had made himself felt. -Americans like to make themselves felt.” - -Luke’s countenance, in spite of his interior acquiescence, stiffened -into a haggard mask of dismay. - -“But this is beyond anything one has ever heard of!” he protested, -trying in vain to assume an air of levity. “It is beyond everything. -Actually to convey, to the very man one’s girl is going to marry, the -news of her seduction! Actually to ‘coin her for drachmas,’ as it says -somewhere! It’s a monstrous thing, an incredible thing!” - -“Not a bit more monstrous than your original sin in seducing the girl,” -said Mr. Taxater. - -“That is the usual trick,” he went on sternly, “of you English people! -You snatch at your little pleasures, without any scruple, and feel -yourselves quite honourable. And then, directly it becomes a question -of paying for them, by any form of public confession, you become -fastidiously scrupulous.” - -“But to give one’s girl away, to betray her in this shameless manner -oneself! It seems to me the ultimate limit of scurvy meanness!” - -“It only seems to you so, because the illusion of chivalry enters into -it; in other words, because public opinion would condemn you! This -honourable shielding of the woman we have sinned with, at every kind -of cost to others, has been the cause of endless misery. Do you think -you are preparing a happy marriage for your Gladys in your ‘honourable’ -reticence? By saving her from this union with Mr. Dangelis--whom, -by the way, she surely cannot love, if she loves you--you will be -doing her the best service possible. Even if she refuses to make -you her husband in his place--and I suppose her infatuation would -stop at that!--there are other ways, besides marriage, of hiding her -embarrassed condition. Let her travel for a year till her trouble is -well over!” - -Luke Andersen reflected in silence, his drooping figure indicating a -striking collapse of his normal urbanity. - -At last he spoke. “There may be something in what you suggest,” he -remarked slowly. “Obviously, _I_ can’t be the one,” he added, after a -further pause, “to strike this astounding bargain with the American.” - -“I don’t see why not,” said the theologian, with a certain -maliciousness in his tone, “I don’t see why not. You have been the one -to commit the sin; you ought naturally to be the one to perform the -penance.” - -The luckless youth distorted his countenance into such a wry grimace, -that he caused it to resemble the stone gargoyles which protruded their -lewd tongues from the church roof above them. - -“It’s a scurvy thing to do, all the same,” he muttered. - -“It is only relatively--‘scurvy,’ as you call it,” replied Mr. Taxater. -“In an absolute sense, the ‘scurviness’ would be to let your Gladys -deceive an honest man and make herself unhappy for life, simply to -save you two from any sort of exposure. But as a matter of fact, I am -_not_ inclined to place this very delicate piece of negotiation in your -hands. It would be so fatally easy for you--under the circumstances--to -make some precipitate blunder that would spoil it all. - -“Don’t think,” he went on, observing the face of his interlocutor -relapsing into sudden cheerfulness, “that I let you off this penance -because of its unchivalrous character. You break the laws of chivalry -quite as completely by putting me into the possession of the facts. - -“I shall, of course,” he added, “require from you some kind of written -statement. The thing must be put upon an unimpeachable ground.” - -Luke Andersen’s relief was not materially modified by this demand. He -began to fumble in his pocket for his cigarette-case. - -“The great point to be certain of,” continued Mr. Taxater, “is that -Quincunx and Lacrima will accept the situation, when it is thus -presented to them. But I don’t think we need anticipate any difficulty. -In case of Dangelis’ saying anything to Mr. Romer, though I do not for -a moment imagine he will, it would be well if you and your brother were -prepared to move, if need were, to some other scene of action. There is -plenty of demand for skilled workmen like yourselves, and you have no -ties here.” - -The young man made a deprecatory movement with his hands. - -“We neither of us should like that, very much, sir. James and I are -fonder of Nevilton than you might imagine.” - -“Well, well,” responded the theologian, “we can discuss that another -time. Such a thing may not be necessary. I am glad to see, my friend,” -he added, “that whatever wrong you have done, you are willing to atone -for it. So I trust our little plan will work out successfully. Perhaps -you will look in, tomorrow night? I shall be at leisure then, and -we can make our arrangements. Well, Heaven protect you, ‘_a sagitta -volante in die, a negotio perambulante in tenebris_.’” - -He crossed himself devoutly as he spoke, and giving the young man a -friendly wave of the hand, and an encouraging smile, let himself out -through the gate and proceeded to follow the patient Vennie. - -He overtook his little friend somewhere not far from the lodge of -that admirable captain, whose neatly-cut laurel hedge had witnessed, -according to the loquacious Mrs. Fringe, the strange encounter between -Jimmy Pringle and his Maker. Vennie was straying slowly along by the -hedge-side, trailing her hand through the tall dead grasses. Hearing -Mr. Taxater’s footsteps, she turned eagerly to meet him. - -“Well,” she asked, “what does Luke say about his brother? Is it as bad -as we feared?” - -“He doesn’t think,” responded the theologian, “any more than I do, that -the thing has gone further than common hallucination.” - -“And Lacrima--poor little Lacrima!--have you decided what we must do to -intervene in her case?” - -“I think it may be said,” responded the scholar gravely, “that we -have hit upon an effective way of stopping that marriage. But perhaps -it would be pleasanter and easier for you to remain at present in -ignorance of our precise plan. I know,” he added, smiling, “you do not -care for hidden conspiracies.” - -Vennie frowned. “I don’t see why,” she said, “there should be anything -hidden about it! It seems to me, the thing is so abominable, that one -would only have to make it public, to put an end to it completely. - -“I hope”--she clasped her hands--“I do hope, you are not fighting the -evil one with the weapons of the evil one? If you are, I am sure it -will end unhappily. I am sure and certain of it!” - -She spoke with a fervour that seemed almost prophetic; and as she -did so, she unconsciously waved--with a pathetic little gesture of -protest--the bunch of dead grasses which she held in her hand. - -Mr. Taxater walked gravely by her side; his profile, in its -imperturbable immobility, resembling the mask of some great mediæval -ecclesiastic. The only reply he made to her appeal was to quote the -famous Psalmodic invocation: “_Nisi Dominus ædificaverit domum, in -vanum laboraverunt qui ædificant eam._” - -It would have been clear to anyone who had overheard his recent -conversation with Luke, and now watched his reception of Vennie’s -instinctive protest, that whatever the actions of this remarkable man -were, they rested upon a massive foundation of unshakable philosophy. - -There was little further conversation between them; and at the -vicarage gate, they separated with a certain air of estrangement. With -undeviating feminine clairvoyance, Vennie was persuaded in the depths -of her mind that whatever plan had been hit upon by the combined wits -of the theologian and Luke, it was one whose nature, had she known -it, would have aroused her most vehement condemnation. Nor in this -persuasion will the reader of our curious narrative regard her as far -astray from the truth. - -Meanwhile the two brothers were also returning slowly along the -road to Nevilton. Had Mr. Clavering, whose opinion of the younger -stone-carver was probably lower than that of any of his other critics, -seen Luke during this time, he might have formed a kindlier judgment -of him. Nothing could have exceeded the tact and solicitude with which -he guided the conversation into safe channels. Nothing could have -surpassed, in affectionate tenderness, the quick, anxious glances he -every now and then cast upon his brother. There are certain human -expressions which flit suddenly across the faces of men and women, -which reveal, with the seal of absolute authenticity, the depth of -the emotion they betray. Such a flitting expression, of a love almost -maternal in its passionate depth, crossed the face of Luke Andersen at -more than one stage of their homeward walk. - -James seemed, on the whole, rather better than earlier in the day. The -most ominous thing he did was to begin a long incoherent discourse -about the rooks which kept circling over their heads on their way to -the tall trees of Wild Pine. But this particular event of the rooks’ -return to their Nevilton roosting-place was a phase of the local -life of that spot calculated to impress even perfectly sane minds -with romantic suggestion. It was always a sign of the breaking up of -the year’s pristine bloom when they came, a token of the not distant -approach of the shorter equinoctial days. They flew hither, these -funereal wayfarers, from far distant feeding-grounds. They did not -nest in the Nevilton woods. Nevilton was to them simply a habitation -of sleep. Many of them never even saw it, except in its morning -and evening twilight. The place drew them to it at night-fall, and -rejected them at sunrise. In the interval they remained passive and -unconscious--huddled groups of black obscure shapes, tossed to and -fro in their high branches, their glossy heads full of dreams beyond -the reach of the profoundest sage. Before settling down to rest, -however, it was their custom, even on the stormiest evenings, to -sweep round, above the roofs of the village, in wide airy circles of -restless flight, uttering their harsh familiar cries. Sailing quietly -on a peaceful air or roughly buffeted by rainy gusts of wind--those -westerly winds that are so wild and intermittent in this corner of -England--these black tribes of the twilight give a character to their -places of favourite resort which resembles nothing else in the world. -The cawing of rooks is like the crying of sea-gulls. It is a sound -that more than anything flings the minds of men back to “old unhappy -far-off things.” - -The troubled soul of the luckless stone-carver went tossing forth on -this particular night of embalmed stillness, driven in the track of -those calmly circling birds, on the gust of a thought-tempest more -formidable than any that the fall of the leaves could bring. But the -devoted passion of the younger brother followed patiently every flight -it took; and by the time they had reached the vicarage-gate, and turned -down the station-hill towards their lodging, the wild thoughts had -fallen into rest, and like the birds in the dusk of their sheltering -branches, were soothed into blessed forgetfulness. - -Luke had recourse, before they reached their dwelling, to the magic of -old memories; and the end of that unforgettable day was spent by the -two brothers in summoning up childish recollections, and in evoking the -images and associations of their earliest compacts of friendship. - -When he left his brother asleep and stood for a while at the open -window, Luke prayed a vague heathen prayer to the planetary spaces -above his head. A falling star happened to sweep downward at that -moment behind the dark pyramid of Nevilton Mount, and this natural -phenomenon seemed to his excited nerves a sort of elemental answer to -his invocation; as if it had been the very bolt of Sagittarius, the -Archer, aimed at all the demons that darkened his brother’s soul! - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -VOICES BY THE WAY - - -The morning which followed James Andersen’s completion of his work -in Athelston church-porch, was one of the loveliest of the season. -The sun rose into a perfectly cloudless sky. Every vestige of mist -had vanished, and the half-cut corn-fields lay golden and unshadowed -in the translucent air. Over the surface of every upland path, the -little waves of palpable ether vibrated and quivered. The white -roads gleamed between their tangled hedges as if they had been paved -with mother-of-pearl. The heat was neither oppressive nor sultry. It -penetrated without burdening, and seemed to flow forth upon the earth, -as much from the general expanse of the blue depths as from the limited -circle of the solar luminary. - -James Andersen seemed more restored than his brother had dared to hope. -They went to their work as usual; and from the manner in which the -elder stone-carver spoke to his mates and handled his tools, none would -have guessed at the mad fancies which had so possessed him during the -previous days. - -Luke was filled with profound happiness and relief. It is true that, -like a tiny cloud upon the surface of this clear horizon, the thought -of his projected betrayal of his mistress remained present with him. -But in the depths of his heart he knew that he would have betrayed -twenty mistresses, if by that means the brother of his soul could be -restored to sanity. - -He had already grown completely weary of Gladys. The clinging and -submissive passion with which the proud girl had pursued him of late -had begun to irritate his nerves. More than once--especially when her -importunities interrupted his newer pleasures--he had found himself -on the point of hating her. He was absolutely cynical--and always -had been--with regard to the ideal of faithfulness in these matters. -Even the startling vision of the indignant Dangelis putting into her -hands--as he supposed the American might naturally do--the actual -written words with which he betrayed her, only ruffled his equanimity -in a remote and even half-humorous manner. He recalled her contemptuous -treatment of him on the occasion of their first amorous encounter -and it was not without a certain malicious thrill of triumph that he -realized how thoroughly he had been revenged. - -He had divined without difficulty on the occasion of their return from -Hullaway that Gladys was on the point of revealing to him the fact that -she was likely to have a child; and since that day he had taken care to -give her little opportunity for such revelations. Absorbed in anxiety -for James, he had been anxious to postpone this particular crisis -between them till a later occasion. - -The situation, nevertheless, whenever he had thought of it, had -given him, in spite of its complicated issues, an undeniable throb -of satisfaction. It was such a complete, such a triumphant victory, -over Mr. Romer. Luke in his heart had an unblushing admiration for -the quarry-owner, whose masterly attitude towards life was not so -very different from his own. But this latent respect for his employer -rather increased than diminished his complacency in thus striking him -down. The remote idea that, in the whirligig of time, an offspring of -his own should come to rule in Nevilton house--as seemed by no means -impossible, if matters were discreetly managed--was an idea that gave -him a most delicate pleasure. - -As they strolled back to breakfast together, across the intervening -field, and admired the early dahlias in the station-master’s garden, -Luke took the risk of testing his brother on the matter of Mr. -Quincunx. He was anxious to be quite certain of his ground here, before -he had his interview with the tenant of the Gables. - -“I wish,” he remarked casually, “that Maurice Quincunx would show a -little spirit and carry Lacrima off straight away.” - -James looked closely at him. “If he would,” he said, “I’d give him -every penny I possess and I’d work day and night to help them! O -Luke--Luke!” he stretched out his arm towards Leo’s Hill and pronounced -what seemed like a vow before the Eumenides themselves; “if I could -make her happy, if I could only make her happy, I would be buried -tomorrow in the deepest of those pits.” - -Luke registered his own little resolution in the presence of this -appeal to the gods. “Gladys? What is Gladys to me compared with James? -All girls are the same. They all get over these things.” - -Meanwhile James Andersen was repeating in a low voice to himself the -quaint name of his rival. - -“He is an ash-root, a tough ash-root,” he muttered. “And that’s the -reason he has been chosen. There’s nothing in the world but the roots -of trees that can undermine the power of Stone! The trees can do it. -The trees will do it. What did that Catholic say? He said it was Wood -against Stone. That’s the reason I can’t help her. I have worked too -long at Stone. I am too near Stone. That’s the reason Quincunx has been -chosen. She and I are under the power of Stone, and we can’t resist it, -any more than the earth can! But ash-tree roots can undermine anything. -If only she would take my money, if only she would.” - -This last aspiration was uttered in a voice loud enough for Luke to -hear; and it may be well believed that it fortified him all the more -strongly in his dishonourable resolution. - -During breakfast James continued to show signs of improvement. He -talked of his mother, and though his conversation was sprinkled with -somewhat fantastic imagery, on the whole it was rational enough. - -While the meal was still in progress, the younger brother observed -through the window the figure of a woman, moving oddly backwards and -forwards along their garden-hedge, as if anxious at the same time to -attract and avoid attention. He recognized her in a moment as the -notorious waif of the neighborhood, the somewhat sinister Witch-Bessie. -He made an excuse to his brother and slipped out to speak to her. - -Witch-Bessie had grown, if possible, still more dehumanized since -when two months ago she had cursed Gladys Romer. Her skin was pallid -and livid as parchment. The eyes which stared forth from her wrinkled -expressionless face were of a dull glaucous blue, like the inside of -certain sun-bleached sea-shells. She was dressed in a rough sack-cloth -petticoat, out of which protruded her stockingless feet, only half -concealed by heavy labourer’s boots, unlaced and in large holes. Over -her thin shoulders she wore a ragged woolen shawl which served the -office not only of a garment, but also of a wallet; for, in the folds -of it, were even now observable certain half-eaten pieces of bread, -and bits of ancient cheese, which she had begged in her wanderings. In -one of her withered hands she held a large bunch of magenta-coloured, -nettle-like flowers, of the particular species known to botanists as -marsh-wound-wort. As soon as Luke appeared she thrust these flowers -into his arms. - -“Gathered ’un for ’ee,” she whispered, in a thin whistling voice, -like the soughing of wind in a bed of rushes. “They be capital weeds -for them as be moon-smitten. Gathered ’un, up by Seven Ashes, where -them girt main roads do cross. Take ’un, mister; take ’un and thank -an old woman wot loves both of ’ee, as heretofore she did love your -long-sufferin’ mother. I were bidin’ down by Minister’s back gate, -expectin’ me bit of oddments, when they did tell I, all sudden-like, as -how he’d been taken, same as _she_ was.” - -“It’s most kind of you, Bessie,” said Luke graciously. “You and I have -always been good friends.” - -The old woman nodded. “So we be, mister, and let none say the contrary! -I’ve a dangled ’ee, afore-now, in these very arms. Dost mind how ’ee -drove that ramping girt dog out of Long-Load Barton when the blarsted -thing were for laying hold of I?” - -“But what must I do with these?” asked the stone-carver, holding the -bunch of pungent scented flowers to his face. - -“That’s wot I was just a-going to tell ’ee,” whispered the old woman -solemnly. “I suppose _he’s_ in there now, eh? Let ’un be, poor man. -Let ’un be. May-be the Lord’s only waitin’ for these ’ere weeds to -mend ’is poor swimey wits. You do as I do tell ’ee, mister, and ’twill -be all smoothed out, as clean as church floor. You take these blessed -weeds,--‘viviny-lobs’ my old mother did call ’em--and hang ’em to dry -till they be dead and brown. Then doddy a sprinkle o’ good salt on ’em, -and dip ’em in clear water. Be you followin’ me, mister Luke?” - -The young man nodded. - -“Then wot you got to do, is for to strike ’em against door-post, and -as you strikes ’em, you says, same as I says now.” And Witch-Bessie -repeated the following archaic enchantment. - - Marshy hollow woundy-wort, - Growing on the holy dirt, - In the Mount of Calvary - There was thou found. - In the name of sweet Jesus - I take thee from the ground. - O Lord, effect the same, - That I do now go about. - -Luke listened devoutly to these mysterious words, and repeated them -twice, after the old woman. Their two figures, thus concerted in -magical tutelage, might, for all the youth’s modern attire, have -suggested to a scholarly observer some fantastic heathen scene out of -Apuleius. The spacious August sunshine lay splendid upon the fields -about them, and light-winged swallows skimmed the surface of the -glittering railway-line as though it had been a flowing river. - -When she was made assured in her mind that her pupil fully understood -the healing incantation, Witch-Bessie shuffled off without further -words. Her face, as she resumed her march in the direction of Hullaway, -relapsed into such corpse-like rigidity, that, but for her mechanical -movement, one might have expected the shameless flocks of starlings who -hovered about her, to settle without apprehension upon her head. - -The two brothers labored harmoniously side by side in their work-shop -all that forenoon. It was Saturday, and their companions were anxious -to throw down their tools and clear out of the place on the very stroke -of the one o’clock bell. - -James and Luke were both engaged upon a new stone font, the former -meticulously chipping out its angle-mouldings, and the latter rounding, -with chisel and file, the capacious lip of its deep basin. It was a -cathedral font, intended for use in a large northern city. - -Luke could not resist commenting to his brother, in his half-humorous -half-sentimental way, upon the queer fact that they two--their heads -full of their own anxieties and troubles--should be thus working -upon a sacred font which for countless generations, perhaps as long -as Christianity lasted, would be associated with so many strange and -mingled feelings of perturbation and hope. - -“It’s a comical idea,” he found himself saying, though the allusion was -sufficiently unwise, “this idea of Gladys’ baptism.” - -He regretted his words the moment they were out of his mouth; but James -received them calmly. - -“I once heard,” he answered, “I think it was on the sands at Weymouth, -two old men discussing quite reverently and gravely whether an infant, -baptized before it was born, would be brought under the blessing of the -Church. I thought, as I listened to them, how vulgar and gross-minded -our age had become, that I should have to tremble with alarm lest any -flippant passer-by should hear their curious speculation. It seemed -to me a much more important matter to discuss, than the merits of the -black-faced Pierrots who were fooling and howling just beyond. This -sort of seriousness, in regard to the strange borderland of the Faith, -has always seemed to me a sign of pathetic piety, and the very reverse -of anything blasphemous.” - -Luke had made an involuntary movement when his brother’s anecdote -commenced. The calmness and reasonableness with which James had -spoken was balm and honey to the anxious youth; but he could not help -speculating in his heart whether his brother was covertly girding at -him. Did he, he wondered, realize how far things had gone between him -and the fair-haired girl? - -“It’s the sort of question, at any rate,” he remarked rather feebly, -“that would interest our friend Sir Thomas Browne. Do you remember how -we read together that amazing passage in the Urn Burial?” - -“‘But the iniquity of oblivion,’” quoted James in answer, “‘blindly -scattereth her Poppy, and deals with the memory of men without -distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of -the Pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana; he is -almost lost that built it. Time has spared the epitaph of Hadrian’s -Horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities -by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations; -and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon without the favour -of the everlasting register.… Darkness and light divide the course of -time, and oblivion shares with memory a great part even of our living -beings; we slightly remember our felicities and the smartest strokes -of affliction leave but short smart upon us. To weep into Stones are -fables.’” - -He pronounced these last words with a slow and emphatic intonation. - -“Fables?” he repeated, resting his hand upon the rim of the font, and -lowering his voice, so as not to be heard by the men outside. “He -calls them fables because he has never worked as we do--day in and day -out--among nothing else. The reason he says that to weep into Stones -are fables is that his own life, down at that pleasant Norwich, was -such a happy one. To weep into Stones! He means, of course, that when -you have endured more than you can bear, you become a Stone. But that -is no fable! Or if it was once, it isn’t so today. Mr. Taxater said -the Stone-Age was over. In my opinion, Luke, the Stone-Age is only now -beginning. The reason of that is, that whereas, in former times, Stone -was moulded by men; now, men are moulded by Stone. We have receded, -instead of advancing; and the iniquity of Time which turned animals -into men, is now turning men back into the elements!” - -Luke cursed bitterly in his heart the rhythmic incantations of the old -Norwich doctor. He had been thinking of a very different passage from -that which his brother recalled. To change the conversation he asked -how James wished to spend their free afternoon. - -Andersen’s tone changed in a moment, and he grew rational and direct. -“I am going for a walk,” he said, “and I think perhaps, if you don’t -mind, I’ll go alone. My brain feels clouded and oppressed. A long walk -ought to clear it. I think it will clear it; don’t you?” This final -question was added rather wistfully. - -“I’m sure it will. Oh, it certainly will! I expect the sun has hit -you a bit; or perhaps, as Mr. Taxater would say, your headache is a -relative one, due to my dragging in such things as Urn Burial. But I -don’t quite like your going alone, Daddy James.” - -The elder brother smiled affectionately at him, but went on quietly -with his work without replying. - -When they had finished their mid-day meal they both loitered out into -the field together, smoking and chatting. The afternoon promised to be -as clear and beautiful as the morning, and Luke’s spirits rose high. -He hoped his brother, at the last moment, would not have the heart to -reject his company. - -The fineness of the weather, combined with the Saturday half-holiday, -was attracting abroad all manner of Nevilton folk. Lads and maids, in -merry noisy groups, passed and repassed. The platform of the little -station was crowded with expectant passengers waiting for the train to -Yeoborough. - -As the brothers stood together, carelessly turning over with their -sticks the fetid heads of a patch of meadow fungi, they observed two -separate couples issuing, one after another, from the little swing-gate -that opened on the level-crossing. They recognized both couples almost -simultaneously. The first pair consisted of Annie Bristow and Phyllis -Santon; the second of Vennie Seldom and Mr. Clavering. - -The two girls proceeded, arm-in-arm, up the sloping path that led in -the direction of Hullaway. Vennie and Mr. Clavering advanced straight -towards the brothers. Luke had time to wonder vaguely whether this -conjunction of Vennie and her Anglican pastor had any connection with -last night’s happenings. - -He was too closely associated with that Gargantuan gossip, Mrs. Fringe, -not to be aware that for many weeks past Miss Seldom and the young -clergyman had studiously avoided one another. That they should now -be walking together, indicated, to his astute mind, either a quarrel -between the young lady and Mr. Taxater, or an estrangement between -the vicar and Gladys. Luke was the sort of philosopher who takes for -granted that in all these situations it is love for love, or hate for -hate, which propels irresistibly the human mechanism and decides the -most trifling incidents. - -James looked angry and embarrassed at the appearance of the pair; but -they were too close upon them for any escape to be possible. - -“How are you today, Andersen?” began Mr. Clavering, with his usual -well-meaning but indiscreet impulsiveness. “Miss Seldom tells me she -was nervous about you last night. She was afraid you were working too -hard.” - -Vennie gave him a quick reproachful glance, and made a deprecatory -movement with her hands. “Are all men,” she thought, “either without -scruple or without common-sense?” - -“I’m glad to see that I was quite mistaken,” she hastened to add. “You -don’t look at all tired today, Mr. Andersen. And no wonder, with such a -perfectly lovely afternoon! And how are you, Mr. Luke? I haven’t been -down to see how that Liverpool font is getting on, for ever so long. I -believe you’ll end by being quite as famous as your father.” - -Luke received this compliment in his most courtly manner. He was always -particularly anxious to impress persons who belonged to the “real” -upper classes with his social sang-froid. - -He was at this precise moment, however, a little agitated by the -conduct of the two young people who had just passed up the meadow. -Instead of disappearing into the lane beyond, they continued to loiter -at the gate, and finally, after an interlude of audible laughter and -lively discussion, they proceeded to stretch themselves upon the grass. -The sight of two amiable young women, both so extremely well known to -him, and both in evident high spirits, thus enjoying the sunshine, -filled our faun-like friend’s mind with the familiar craving for -frivolity. He caught Mr. Clavering’s glance fixed gravely upon him. He -also, it appeared, was not oblivious of the loitering villagers. - -“I think there are other members of your flock, sir,” said James -Andersen to the young vicar, “who are at the present moment more in -need of your help than I am. What I need at this moment is air--air. -I should like to be able to wander over the Quantocks this afternoon. -Or better still, by the edge of the sea! We all need more air than -we get here. It is too shut-in here--too shut-in and oppressive. -There’s too much stone about; and too much clay. Yes, and the trees -grow too close together. Do you know, Miss Seldom, what I should like -to do? I should like to pull down all the houses--I mean all the big -houses--and cut down all the trees, and then perhaps the wind would be -free to blow. It’s wind we want--all of us--wind and air to clear our -brains! Do you realize”--his voice once more took that alarming tone of -confidential secretiveness, which had struck them so disagreeably the -preceding evening;--“do you realize that there are evil spirits abroad -in Nevilton, and that they come from the Hill over there?” He pointed -towards the Leonian escarpments which could be plainly seen from where -they stood, slumbering in the splendid sunshine. - -“It looks more like a sphinx than a lion today, doesn’t it, Miss -Seldom? Oh, I should like to tear it up, bodily, from where it lies, -and fling it into the sea! It blocks the horizon. It blocks the path of -the west-wind. I tell you it is the burden that weighs upon us all! But -I shall conquer it yet; I shall be master of it yet!” He was silent a -few seconds, while a look of supreme disappointment clouded the face -of his brother; and the two new-comers gazed at him in alarm. - -“I must start at once,” he exclaimed abruptly. “I must get far, -far off. It is air I need, air and the west-wind! No,” he cried -imperiously, when Luke made a movement, as if to take leave of their -companions. “I must go alone. Alone! That is what I must be today: -alone--and on the hills!” - -He turned impatiently as he spoke; and without another word strode off -towards the level-crossing. - -“Surely you will not let him go like that, Mr. Andersen?” cried Vennie, -in great distress. - -“It would do no good,” replied Luke, watching his brother pass through -the gate and cross the track. “I should only make him much worse if I -tried to follow him. Besides, he wouldn’t let me. I don’t think he’ll -come to any harm. I should have a different instinct about it if there -were real danger. Perhaps, as he says, a good long walk may really -clear his brain.” - -“I do pray your instinct is to be relied on,” said Vennie, anxiously -watching the tall figure of the stone-carver, as he ascended the -vicarage hill. - -“Well, if you’re not going to do your duty, Andersen, I’m going to do -mine!” exclaimed the vicar of Nevilton, setting off, without further -parley, in pursuit of the fugitive. - -“Stop! Mr. Clavering, I’ll come with you,” cried Vennie. And she -followed her impulsive friend towards the gate. - -As they ascended the hill together, keeping Andersen in sight, -Clavering remarked to his companion, “I believe that dissolute young -reprobate refused to look after his brother simply because he wanted to -talk to those two girls.” - -“What two girls?” enquired Vennie. - -“Didn’t you see them?” muttered the clergyman crossly. “The Bristow -girl and little Phyllis Santon. They were hanging about, waiting for -him.” - -“I’m sure you are quite wrong,” replied Vennie. “Luke may have his -faults, but he is devoted--madly devoted--to his brother.” - -“Not at all,” cried Clavering almost rudely. “I know the man better -than you do. He is entirely selfish. He is a selfish, sensual -pleasure-seeker! He may be fond of his brother in his fashion, just -because he _is_ his brother, and they have the same tastes; but his one -great aim is his own pleasure. He has been the worst influence I have -had to contend with, in this whole village, for some time back!” - -His voice trembled with rage as he spoke. It was impossible, even for -the guileless Vennie, not to help wondering in her mind whether the -violence of her friend’s reprobation was not impelled by an emotion -more personal than public. Her unlucky knowledge of what the nature -of such an emotion might be did not induce her to yield meekly to his -argument. - -“I don’t believe he saw the people you speak of any more than I did,” -she said. - -“Saw them?” cried the priest wrathfully, quickening his pace, as -Andersen disappeared round the corner of the road, so that Vennie had -to trot by his side like a submissive child. “I saw the look he fixed -on them. I know that look of his! I tell you he is the kind of man that -does harm wherever he goes. He’s a lazy, sensual, young scoundrel. He -ought to be kicked out of the place.” - -Vennie sighed deeply. Life in the world of men was indeed a complicated -and entangled matter. She had turned, in her agitation about the -stone-carver, and in her reaction from Mr. Taxater’s reserve, straight -to the person she loved best of all; and this was her reward,--a mere -crude outburst of masculine jealousy! - -They rounded the corner by her own gate, where the road to Athelston -deviates at right angles. James Andersen was no longer in sight. - -“Where the devil has the man got to?” cried the astonished clergyman, -raging at himself for his ill-temper, and raging at Vennie for having -been the witness of it. - -The girl glanced up the Athelston road; and hastening forward a few -paces, scanned the stately slope of the Nevilton west drive. The -unfortunate man was nowhere to be seen. - -From where they now stood, the whole length of the village street -was visible, almost as far as the Goat and Boy. It was full of -holiday-making young people, but there was no sign of Andersen’s tall -and unmistakable figure. - -“Oh, this is dreadful!” cried Vennie. “What are we to do? Where can he -have gone?” - -Hugh Clavering looked angrily round. He was experiencing that curious -sense, which comes to the best of men sometimes, of being the special -and selected object of providential mockery. - -“There are only two ways,” he said. “Either he’s slipped down through -the orchards, along your wall, or he’s made off to Nevilton Mount! If -that’s what he’s done, he must be now behind that hedge, over there. We -should see him otherwise.” - -Vennie gazed anxiously in the direction indicated. “He can’t have gone -into our garden?” she said. “No, he’d never do that! He talked about -air and hills. I expect he’s where you say. Shall we go on?” - -They hurried down the road until they reached a gate, on the further -side of the hedge which ran to the base of Nevilton Mount. Here they -entered the field. There was no sign of the fugitive; but owing to -certain inequalities in the ground, and the intervention of some large -elm-trees, it was still quite possible that he was only a few hundred -yards in front of them. They followed the line of the hedge with all -the haste they could; trusting, at every turn it made, that they would -discover him. In this manner they very soon arrived at the base of the -hill. - -“I feel sure he’s somewhere in front of us!” muttered Clavering. “How -annoying it is! It was outrageous of that young scoundrel to let him go -like this;--wandering about the country in that mad state! If he comes -to any harm, I shall see to it that that young man is held responsible.” - -“Quick!” sighed Vennie breathlessly, “we’d better climb straight to the -top. We _must_ find him there!” - -They scrambled over the bank and proceeded to make their way as -hurriedly as they could through the entangled undergrowth. Hot and -exhausted they emerged at last upon the level summit. Here, the -grotesque little tower mocked at them with its impassive grey surface. -There was no sign of the man they sought; but seated on the grass with -their backs to the edifice were the figures of the complacent Mr. Wone -and one of his younger children, engaged in the agreeable occupation of -devouring a water-melon. The mouth and chin of the Christian Candidate -were bespattered with the luscious juice of this delectable fruit, -and laid out carefully upon a magazine on his knees, was a pleasing -arrangement of rind-peelings and well-sucked pips. - -Mr. Wone waved his hand in polite acknowledgment of Clavering’s salute. -He removed his hat to Vennie, but apologized for not rising. “Taking a -little holiday, you observe!” he remarked with a satisfied smile. “I -see you also are inclined to make the most of this lovely summer day.” - -“You haven’t by any chance seen the elder Andersen, have you?” enquired -Clavering. - -“Not a bit of it,” replied the recumbent man. “I suppose I cannot offer -you a piece of melon, Miss Seldom?” - -The two baffled pursuers looked at one another in hopeless -disappointment. - -“We’ve lost him,” muttered the priest. “He must have gone through your -orchard after all.” - -Mr. Wone did not miss this remark. “You were looking for our good -James? No. We haven’t seen anything of him. No doubt he is with his -brother somewhere. I believe they usually spend their Saturdays out at -Hullaway.” - -“When does the election come off, Mr. Wone?” enquired Vennie, hastily, -extremely unwilling that her tactless companion should disclose the -purpose of their search. - -“In a week’s time from next Monday,” replied the Candidate. “This will -be my last free day till then. I have to make thirty speeches during -the next seven days. Our cause goes well. I believe, with God’s great -help, we are practically certain of victory. It will be a great event, -Miss Seldom, a great event.” - -Mr. Clavering made a hopeless sign to Vennie, indicative of the -uselessness of any further steps to retake the runaway. - -“I think your side will win in the country generally,” he remarked. “As -to this district, I cannot tell. Mr. Romer has strengthened himself -considerably by his action after the strike.” - -The candidate placed a carefully selected piece of fruit in his mouth, -and called to his little boy, who was scratching his initials with a -knife upon the base of the tower. - -“He will be beaten all the same,” he said. “He is bound to be beaten. -The stars in their courses must fight against a man like that. I feel -it in the air; in the earth; in these beautiful trees. I feel it -everywhere. He has challenged stronger powers than you or me. He has -challenged the majesty of God Himself. I’ll give you the right”--he -went on in a voice that mechanically assumed a preacher’s tone--“to -call me a liar and a false prophet, if by this time, in ten days, the -oppressor of the poor does not find himself crushed and beaten!” - -“I am afraid right and wrong are more strangely mixed in this world -than all that, Mr. Wone,” Vennie found herself saying, with a little -weary glance over the wide sun-bathed valleys extended at their feet. - -“Pardon me, pardon me, young lady,” cried the Candidate. “In this -great cause there can be no doubt, no question, no ambiguity. The -evolution of the human race has reached a point when the will of God -must reveal itself in the triumph of love and liberty. Nothing else -matters. All turns upon this. That is why I feel that my campaign is -more than a political struggle. It is a religious struggle, and on our -side are the great moral forces that uphold the world!” - -Vennie’s exhausted nerves completely broke down upon this. - -“Shall we go?” she said, touching her companion on the sleeve. - -Clavering nodded, and bade the melon-eater “good afternoon,” with a -brusque gesture. - -As they went off, he turned on his heel. “The will of God, Mr. Wone, is -only to be found in the obedient reception of His sacraments.” - -The Christian candidate opened his mouth with amazement. “Those young -people,” he thought to himself, “are up to no good. They’ll end by -becoming papists, if they go on like this. It’s extraordinary that the -human mind should actually _prefer_ slavery to freedom!” - -Meanwhile the man whose mysterious evasion of his pursuers had resulted -in this disconcerting encounter was already well-advanced on his way -towards the Wild Pine ridge. He had, as a matter of fact, crossed the -field between the West drive and the Vicarage-garden, and skirting the -orchards below Nevilton House, had plunged into the park. - -A vague hope of meeting Lacrima--an instinctive rather than a conscious -feeling--had led him in this direction. Once in the park, the high -opposing ridge, crowned with its sentinel-line of tall Scotch-firs, -arrested his attention and drew him towards it. He crossed the -Yeoborough road and ascended the incline of Dead Man’s Lane. - -As he passed the cottage of his rival, he observed Mr. Quincunx -energetically at work in his garden. On this occasion the recluse was -digging up, not weeds, but young potatoes. He was in his shirt-sleeves -and looked hot and tired. - -Andersen leaned upon the little gate and observed him with curious -interest. “Why isn’t she here?” he muttered to himself. Then, after a -pause: “He is an ash-root. Let him drag that house down! Why doesn’t he -drag it down, with all its heavy stones? And the Priory too? And the -Church;--yes; and the Church too! He burrows like a root. He looks like -a root. I must tell him all these things. I must tell him why he has -been chosen, and I have been rejected!” He opened the gate forthwith -and advanced towards the potato-digger. - -Mr. Quincunx might have struck the imagination of a much less troubled -spirit than that of the poor stone-carver as having a resemblance to -a root. His form was at once knotted and lean, fibrous and delicate. -His face, by reason of his stooping position, was suffused with a rich -reddish tint, and his beard was dusty and unkempt. He rose hastily, on -observing his visitor. - -“People like you and me, James, are best by ourselves at these -holiday-times,” was his inhospitable greeting. “You can help me with -my potatoes if you like. Or you can tell me your news as I work. Or do -you want to ask me any question?” - -He uttered these final words in such a tone as the Delphic oracle might -have used, when addressing some harassed refugee. - -“Has _she_ been up here today?” said the stone-carver. - -“I like the way you talk,” replied the other. “Why should we mention -their names? When I say people, I mean girls. When I say persons, I -mean girls. When I say young ladies, I mean girls. And when you say -‘she’ you mean our girl.” - -“Yours!” cried the demented man; “she is yours--not ours. She is -weighed down by this evil Stone,--weighed down into the deep clay. What -has she to do with me, who have worked at the thing so long?” - -Mr. Quincunx leant upon his hoe and surveyed the speaker. It occurred -to him at once that something was amiss. “Good Lord!” he thought to -himself, “the fellow has been drinking. I must get him out of this -garden as quickly as possible.” - -“She loves you,” Andersen went on, “because you are like a root. You go -deep into the earth and no stone can resist you. You twine and twine -and twine, and pull them all down. They are all haunted places, these -houses and churches; all haunted and evil! They make a man’s head ache -to live in them. They put voices into a man’s ears. They are as full of -voices as the sea is full of waves.” - -“You are right there, my friend,” replied Mr. Quincunx. “It’s only -what I’ve always said. Until people give up building great houses and -great churches, no one will ever be happy. We ought to live in bushes -and thickets, or in tents. My cottage is no better than a bush. I creep -into it at night, and out again in the morning. If its thatch fell on -my head I should hardly feel it.” - -“You wouldn’t feel it, you wouldn’t!” cried the stone-carver. “And the -reason of that is, that you can burrow like a root. I shouldn’t feel it -either, but for a different reason.” - -“I expect you’d better continue your walk,” remarked Mr. Quincunx. “I -never fuss myself about people who come to see me. If they come, they -come. And when they go, they go.” - -The stone-carver sighed and looked round him. The sun gleamed -graciously upon the warm earth, danced and sparkled upon the windows of -the cottage, and made the beads of sweat on Mr. Quincunx’s brow shine -like diamonds. - -“Do you think,” he said, while the potato-digger turned to his -occupation, “that happiness or unhappiness predominates in this world?” - -“Unhappiness!” cried the bearded man, glaring at his acquaintance with -the scowl of a goblin. “Unhappiness! Unhappiness! Unhappiness! That -is why the only wise way to live is to avoid everything. That’s what -I always do. I avoid people, I avoid possessions, I avoid quarrels, I -avoid lust, and I avoid love! My life consists in the art of avoiding -things.” - -“She doesn’t want happiness,” pleaded the obsessed stone-carver. “And -_her_ love is enough. She only wants to escape.” - -“Why do you keep bringing Lacrima in?” cried the recluse. “She is going -to marry John Goring. She is going to be mistress of the Priory.” - -A convulsive shock of fury flashed across the face of Andersen. -He made a movement that caused his interlocutor to step hurriedly -backwards. But the emotion passed as rapidly as it had come. - -“You would avoid everything,” he said cunningly. “You would avoid -everything you hate, if someone--myself for instance--or Luke--made it -easy for you to save her from these houses and these churches! Luke -will arrange it. He is not like us. He is wise. He knows the world. And -you will only have to go on just as before, to burrow and twine! But -you’ll have done it. You’ll have saved her from them. And then it will -not matter how deep they bury me in the quarries of Leo’s Hill!” - -“Is he drunk? Or is he not drunk?” Mr. Quincunx wondered. The news -of Andersen’s derangement, though it had already run like wild-fire -through the village, had not yet reached his ears. For the last few -days he had walked both to and from his office, and had talked to no -one. - -A remarkable peculiarity in this curious potato-digger was, however, -his absolute and unvarying candour. Mr. Quincunx was prepared to -discuss his most private concerns with any mortal or immortal visitor -who stepped into his garden. He would have entered into a calm -philosophical debate upon his love-affairs with a tramp, with a sailor, -with the post-man, with the chimney-sweep, with the devil; or, as in -this case, with his very rival in his sweetheart’s affection! There -was really something touching and sublime about this tendency of his. -It indicated the presence, in Mr. Quincunx, of a certain mystical -reverence for simple humanity, which completely contradicted his -misanthropic cynicism. - -“Certainly,” he remarked, on this occasion, forgetting, in his -interest in the subject, the recent strange outburst of his companion. -“Certainly, if Lacrima and I had sufficient money to live upon, I would -be inclined to risk marrying. You would advise me to, then; wouldn’t -you, Andersen? Anyone would advise me to, then. It would be absurd not -to do it. Though, all the same, there are always great risks in two -people living together, particularly nervous people,--such as we are. -But what do you think, Andersen? Suppose some fairy god-mother did give -us this money, would you advise us to risk it? Of course, we know, -girls like a large house and a lot of servants! She wouldn’t get that -with me, because I hate those things, and wouldn’t have them, even if -I could afford it. What would you advise, Andersen, if some mad chance -did make such a thing possible? Would it be worth the risk?” - -An additional motive, in the queerly constituted mind of the recluse, -for making this extraordinary request, was the Pariah-like motive of -wishing to propitiate the stone-carver. Parallel with his humorous -love of shocking people, ran, through Mr. Quincunx’s nature, the -naive and innocent wish to win them over to his side; and his method -of realizing this wish was to put himself completely at their mercy, -laying his meanest thoughts bare, and abandoning his will to their -will, so that for very shame they could not find it in them to injure -him, but were softened, thrown off their guard, and disarmed. Mr. -Quincunx knew no restraint in these confessions by the way, in these -appeals to the voices and omens of casual encounter. He grew voluble, -and even shameless. In quiet reaction afterwards, in the loneliness of -his cottage, he was often led to regret with gloomy remorse the manner -in which he had betrayed himself. It was then that he found himself -hating, with the long-brooding hatred of a true solitary, the persons -to whom he had exposed the recesses of his soul. At the moment of -communicativeness, however, he was never able to draw rein or come to -a pause. If he grew conscious that he was making a fool of himself, a -curious demonic impulse in him only pressed him on to humiliate himself -further. - -He derived a queer inverted pleasure from thus offering himself, -stripped and naked, to the smiter. It was only afterwards, in the long -hours of his loneliness, that the poison of his outraged pride festered -and fermented, and a deadly malice possessed him towards the recipients -of his confidences. There was something admirable about the manner in -which this quaint man made, out of his very lack of resistant power, a -sort of sanctity of dependence. But this triumph of weakness in him, -this dissolution of the very citadel of his being, in so beautiful and -mystical an abandonment to the sympathy of our common humanity, was -attended by lamentable issues in its resultant hatred and malice. Had -Mr. Quincunx been able to give himself up to this touching candour -without these melancholy and misanthropic reactions, his temper would -have been very nearly the temper of a saint; but the gall and wormwood -of the hours that followed, the corroding energy of the goblin of -malice that was born of such unnatural humiliations, put a grievous -gulf between him and the heavenly condition. - -It must also be remembered, in qualification of the outrageousness, one -might almost say the indecency, of his appeal to Andersen, that he had -not in the remotest degree realized the extent of the stone-carver’s -infatuation with the Italian. Neither physical passion, nor ideal -passion, were things that entered into his view of the relations -between the sexes. Desire with him was of a strange and complicated -subtlety, generally diffused into a mild and brooding sentiment. He was -abnormally faithful, but at the same time abnormally cold; and though, -very often, jealousy bit him like a viper, it was a jealousy of the -mind, not a jealousy of the senses. - -What in other people would have been gross and astounding cynicism, -was in Mr. Quincunx a perfectly simple and even childlike recognition -of elemental facts. He could sweep aside every conventional mask -and plunge into the very earth-mould of reality, but he was quite -unconscious of any shame, or any merit, in so doing. He simply -envisaged facts, and stated the facts he envisaged, without the -conventional unction of worldly discretion. This being so, it was in no -ironic extravagance that he appealed to Andersen, but quite innocently, -and without consciousness of anything unusual. - -Of the two men, some might have supposed, considering the -circumstances, that it was Mr. Quincunx who was mad, and his -interlocutor who was sane. On the other hand, it might be said that -only a madman would have received the recluse’s appeal in the calm -and serious manner in which Andersen received it. The abysmal cunning -of those who have only one object in life, and are in sight of its -attainment, actuated the unfortunate stone-carver in his attitude to -his rival at this moment. - -“If some fairy or some god,” he said, “did lift the stone from her -sepulchre and you from your sepulchre, my advice to you and to her -would be to go away, to escape, to be free. You would be happy--you -would both be happy! And the reason of your happiness would be that -you would know the Devil had been conquered. And you would know that, -because, by gathering all the stones in the world upon my own head, and -being buried beneath them, I should have made a rampart higher than -Leo’s Hill to protect you from the Evil One!” - -Andersen’s words were eager and hurried, and when he had finished -speaking, he surveyed Mr. Quincunx with wild and feverish eyes. It was -now borne in for the first time upon that worthy philosopher, that he -was engaged in conversation with one whose wits were turned, and a -great terror took possession of him. If the cunning of madmen is deep -and subtle, it is sometimes surpassed by the cunning of those who are -afraid of madmen. - -“The most evil heap of stones I know in Nevilton,” remarked Mr. -Quincunx, moving towards his gate, and making a slight dismissing -gesture with his hand, “is the heap in the Methodist cemetery. You -know the one I mean, Andersen? The one up by Seven Ashes, where the -four roads meet. It is just inside the entrance, on the left hand. They -throw upon it all the larger stones they find when they dig the graves. -I have often picked up bits of bones there, and pieces of skulls. -It is an interesting place, a very curious place, and quite easy to -find. There haven’t been many burials there lately, because most of -the Methodists nowadays prefer the churchyard. But there was one last -spring. That was the burial of Glory Lintot. I was there myself, and -saw her put in. It’s an extraordinary place. Anyone who likes to look -at what people can write on tombstones would be delighted with it.” - -By this time, by means of a series of vague ushering movements, such as -he might have used to get rid of an admirable but dangerous dog, Mr. -Quincunx had got his visitor as far as the gate. This he opened, with -as easy and natural an air as he could assume, and stood ostentatiously -aside, to let the unfortunate man pass out. - -James Andersen moved slowly into the road. “Remember!” he said. “You -will avoid everything you hate! There’s more in the west-wind than you -imagine, these strange days. That’s why the rooks are calling. Listen -to them!” - -He waved his hand and strode rapidly up the lane. - -Mr. Quincunx gazed after the retreating figure till it disappeared, -and then returned wearily to his work. He picked up his hoe and leaned -heavily upon it, buried in thought. Thus he remained for the space of -several minutes. - -“He is right,” he muttered, raising his head at last. “The rooks are -beginning to gather. That means another summer is over,--and a good -thing, too! I suppose I ought to have taken him back to Nevilton. But -he is right about the rooks.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -PLANETARY INTERVENTION - - -The long summer afternoon was nearly over by the time James Andersen -reached the Seven Ashes. The declining sun had sunk so low that it was -invisible from the spot where he stood, but its last horizontal rays -cast a warm ruddy light over the tree-tops in the valley. The high -and exposed intersection of sandy lanes, which for time immemorial -had borne this title, was, at the epoch which concerns us, no longer -faithful to its name. - -The ash-trees which Andersen now surveyed, with the feverish glance -of mental obsession, were not seven in number. They were indeed only -three; and, of these three, one was no more than a time-worn stump, and -the others but newly-planted saplings. Such as they were, however, they -served well enough to continue the tradition of the place, and their -presence enhanced with a note of added melancholy the gloomy character -of the scene. - -Seven Ashes, with its cross-roads, formed indeed the extreme northern -angle of the high winding ridge which terminated at Wild Pine. -Approached from the road leading to this latter spot,--a road darkened -on either hand by wind-swept Scotch-firs--it was the sort of place -where, in less civilized times, one might have expected to encounter -a threatening highwayman, or at least to have stumbled upon some -sinister witch-figure stooping over an unholy task or groping among the -weeds. Even in modern times and in bright sunshine the spot was not -one where a traveller was induced to linger upon his way or to rest -himself. When overcast, as it was at the moment of Andersen’s approach, -by the coming on of twilight, it was a place from which a normal-minded -person would naturally be in haste to turn. There was something ominous -in its bleak exposure to the four quarters of the sky, and something -full of ghostly suggestiveness in the gaping mouths of the narrow lanes -that led away from it. - -There was, however, another and a much more definite justification -for the quickening, at this point, of any wayfarer’s steps who knew -the locality. A stranger to the place, glancing across an empty -field, would have observed with no particular interest the presence -of a moderately high stone wall protecting a small square enclosure. -Were such a one acquainted with the survivals of old usage in English -villages, he might have supposed these walls to shut in the now unused -space of what was formerly the local “pound,” or repository for stray -animals. Such travellers as were familiar with Nevilton knew, however, -that sequestered within this citadel of desolation were no living -horses nor cattle, but very different and much quieter prisoners. -The Methodist cemetery there, dates back, it is said, to the days of -religious persecution, to the days of Whitfield and Wesley, if not even -further. - -Our fugitive from the society of those who regard their minds as -normally constituted, cast an excited and recognizant eye upon -this forlorn enclosure. Plucking a handful of leaves from one -of the ash-trees and thrusting them into his pocket, some queer -legend--half-remembered in his agitated state--impelling him to this -quaint action, he left the roadway, crossed the field, and pushing open -the rusty iron gate of the little burying-ground, burst hurriedly in -among its weather-stained memorials of the dead. - -Though not of any great height, the enclosing walls of the place were -sufficient to intensify by several degrees the gathering shadows. -Outside, in the open field, one would have anticipated a clear hour of -twilight before the darkness fell; but here, among the graves of these -humble recalcitrants against spiritual authority, it seemed as though -the plunge of the planet into its diurnal obscuring was likely to be -retarded for only a few brief moments. - -James Andersen sat down upon a nameless mound, and fixed his gaze upon -the heap of stones referred to by Mr. Quincunx. The evening was warm -and still, and though the sky yet retained much of its lightness of -colour, the invading darkness--like a beast on padded feet--was felt as -a palpable presence moving slowly among the tombs. - -The stone-carver began muttering in a low voice scattered and -incoherent repetitions of his conversation with the potato-digger. But -his voice suddenly died away under a startling interruption. He became -aware that the heavy cemetery gate was being pushed open from outside. - -Such is the curious law regulating the action of human nerves, and -making them dependent upon the mood of the mind to which they are -attached, that an event which to a normal consciousness is fraught -with ghostly terror, to a consciousness already strained beyond the -breaking point, appears as something natural and ordinary. It is one of -the privileges of mania, that those thus afflicted should be freed from -the normal oppression of human terror. A madman would take a ghost into -his arms. - -On this occasion, however, the most normal nerves would have suffered -no shock from the figure that presented itself in the entrance when -the door was fully opened. A young girl, pale and breathless, rushed -impulsively into the cemetery, and catching sight of Andersen at once, -hastened straight to him across the grave-mounds. - -“I was coming back from the village,” she gasped, preventing him with a -trembling pressure of her hand from rising from his seat, and casting -herself down beside him, “and I met Mr. Clavering. He told me you had -gone off somewhere and I guessed at once it was to Dead Man’s Lane. I -said nothing to him, but as soon as he had left me, I ran nearly all -the way to the cottage. The gentleman there told me to follow you. -He said it was on his conscience that he had advised you to come up -here. He said he was just making up his mind to come on after you, but -he thought it was better for me to come. So here I am! James--dear -James--you are not really ill are you? They frightened me, those -two, by what they said. They seemed to be afraid that you would hurt -yourself if you went off alone. But you wouldn’t James dear, would you? -You would think of me a little?” - -She knelt at his side and tenderly pushed back the hair from his brow. -“Oh I love you so!” she murmured, “I love you so! It would kill me if -anything dreadful happened to you.” She pressed his head passionately -against her breast, hardly conscious in her emotion of the burning heat -of his forehead as it touched her skin. - -“You will think of me a little!” she pleaded, “you will take care of -yourself for my sake, Jim?” - -She held him thus, pressed tightly against her, for several seconds, -while her bosom rose and fell in quick spasms of convulsive pity. She -had torn off her hat in her agitation, and flung it heedlessly down -at her feet, and a heavy tress of her thick auburn hair--colourless -now as the night itself--fell loosely upon her bowed neck. The fading -light from the sky above them seemed to concentrate itself upon the -ivory pallor of her clasped fingers and the dead-white glimmer of her -impassioned face. She might have risen out of one of the graves that -surrounded them, so ghostly in the gloom did her figure look. - -The stone-carver freed himself at length, and took her hands in his -own. The shock of the girl’s emotion had quieted his own fever. From -the touch of her flesh he seemed to have derived a new and rational -calm. - -“Little Ninsy!” he whispered. “Little Ninsy! It is not I, but you, who -are ill. Have you been up, and about, many days? I didn’t know it! I’ve -had troubles of my own.” He passed his hand across his forehead. “I’ve -had dreams, dreams and fancies! I’m afraid I’ve made a fool of myself, -and frightened all sorts of people. I think I must have been saying a -lot of silly things today. My head feels still queer. It’s hurt me so -much lately, my head! And I’ve heard voices, voices that wouldn’t stop.” - -“Oh James, my darling, my darling!” cried the girl, in a great passion -of relief. “I knew what they said wasn’t true. I knew you would speak -gently to me, and be your old self. Love me, James! Love me as you used -to in the old days.” - -She rose to her feet and pulled him up upon his. Then with a passionate -abandonment she flung her arms round him and pressed him to her, -clinging to him with all her force and trembling as she clung. - -James yielded to her emotion more spontaneously than he had ever done -in his life. Their lips met in a long in-drawing kiss which seemed to -merge their separate identities, and blend them indissolubly together. -She clung to him as a bind-weed, with its frail white flowers, might -cling to a stalk of swaying corn, and not unlike such an entwined -stalk, he swayed to and fro under the clinging of her limbs. The -passion which possessed her communicated itself to him, and in a -strange ecstasy of oblivion he embraced her as desperately as her wild -love could wish. - -From sheer exhaustion their lips parted at last, and they sank down, -side by side, upon the dew-drenched grass, making the grave-mount their -pillow. Obscurely, through the clouded chamber of his brain, passed the -image of her poppy-scarlet mouth burning against the whiteness of her -skin. All that he could now actually see of her face, in the darkness, -was its glimmering pallor, but the feeling of her kiss remained and -merged itself in this impression. He lay on his back with closed eyes, -and she bent over him as he lay, and began kissing him again, as if -her soul would never be satisfied. In the intervals of her kisses, she -pressed her fingers against his forehead, and uttered incoherent and -tender whispers. It seemed to her as though, by the very magnetism of -her devotion, she _must_ be able to restore his shattered wits. - -Nor did her efforts seem in vain. After a while the stone-carver lifted -himself up and looked round him. He smiled affectionately at Ninsy and -patted her, almost playfully, upon the knee. - -“You have done me good, child,” he said. “You have done me more good -than you know. I don’t think I shall say any more silly things tonight.” - -He stood up on his feet, heaved a deep, natural sigh, and stretched -himself, as one roused from a long sleep. - -“What have you managed to do to me, Ninsy?” he asked. “I feel -completely different. Those voices in my head have stopped.” He turned -tenderly towards her. “I believe you’ve driven the evil spirit out of -me, child,” he said. - -She flung her arms round him with a gasping cry. “You do like me a -little, Jim? Oh my darling, I love you so much! I love you! I love -you!” She clung to him with frenzied passion, her breast convulsed with -sobs, and the salt tears mingling with her kisses. - -Suddenly, as he held her body in his arms, he felt a shuddering tremor -run through her, from head to foot. Her head fell back, helpless and -heavy, and her whole frame hung limp and passive upon his arm. It -almost seemed as though, in exorcising, by the magnetic power of her -love, the demon that possessed him, she had broken her own heart. - -Andersen was overwhelmed with alarm and remorse. He laid her gently -upon the ground, and chafed the palms of her hands whispering her -name and uttering savage appeals to Providence. His appeals, however, -remained unanswered, and she lay deadly still, her coils of dusky hair -spread loose over the wet grass. - -He rose in mute dismay, and stared angrily round the cemetery, as if -demanding assistance from its silent population. Then with a glance at -her motionless form, he ran quickly to the open gate and shouted loudly -for help. His voice echoed hollowly through the walled enclosure, and -a startled flutter of wings rose from the distant fir-trees. Somewhere -down in the valley, a dog began to bark, but no other answer to his -repeated cry reached his ears. He returned to the girl’s side. - -Frantically he rent open her dress at the throat and tore with -trembling fingers at the laces of her bodice. He pressed his hand -against her heart. A faint, scarcely discernible tremor under her soft -breast reassured him. She was not dead, then! He had not killed her -with his madness. - -He bent down and made an effort to lift her in his arms, but his limbs -trembled beneath him and his muscles collapsed helplessly. The reaction -from the tempest in his brain had left him weak as an infant. In this -wretched inability to do anything to restore her he burst into a fit of -piteous tears, and struck his forehead with his clenched hand. - -Once more he tried desperately to lift her, and once more, fragile as -she was, the effort proved hopelessly beyond his strength. Suddenly, -out of the darkness beyond the cemetery gate, he heard the sound of -voices. - -He shouted as loudly as he could and then listened intently, with -beating heart. An answering shout responded, in Luke’s well-known -voice. A moment or two later, and Luke himself, followed by Mr. -Quincunx, hurried into the cemetery. - -Immediately after Ninsy’s departure the recluse had been seized with -uncontrollable remorse. Mixed with his remorse was the disturbing -consciousness that since Ninsy knew he had advised Andersen to make -his way to Seven Ashes, the knowledge was ultimately sure to reach the -younger brother’s ears. Luke was one of the few intimates Mr. Quincunx -possessed in Nevilton. The recluse held him in curious respect as a -formidable and effective man of the world. He had an exaggerated notion -of his power. He had grown accustomed to his evening visits. He was -fond of him and a little afraid of him. - -It was therefore an extremely disagreeable thought to his mind, to -conceive of Luke as turning upon him with contempt and indignation. -Thus impelled, the perturbed solitary had summoned up all his courage -and gone boldly down into the village to find the younger Andersen. He -had met him at the gate of Mr. Taxater’s house. - -Left behind in the station field by James and his pursuers, Luke had -reverted for a while with the conscious purpose of distracting his -mind, to his old preoccupation, and had spent the afternoon in a manner -eminently congenial, making love to two damsels at the same time, and -parrying with evasive urbanity their combined recriminations. - -At the close of the afternoon, having chatted for an hour with the -station-master’s wife, and shared their family tea, he had made his -way according to his promise, into Mr. Taxater’s book-lined study, and -there, closely closeted with the papal champion, had smoothed out the -final threads of the conspiracy that was to betray Gladys and liberate -Lacrima. - -Luke had been informed by Mr. Quincunx of every detail of James’ -movements and of Ninsy’s appearance on the scene. The recluse, as -the reader may believe, did not spare himself in any point. He even -exaggerated his fear of the agitated stone-carver, and as they hastened -together towards Seven Ashes, he narrated, down to the smallest -particular, the strange conversation they had had in his potato-garden. - -“Why do you suppose,” he enquired of Luke, as they ascended the final -slope of the hill, “he talked so much of someone giving me money? Who, -on earth, is likely to give me money? People don’t as a rule throw -money about, like that, do they? And if they did, I am the last person -they would throw it to. I am the sort of person that kind and good -people naturally hate. It’s because they know I know the deep little -vanities and cunning selfishness in their blessed deeds. - -“No one in this world really acts from pure motives. We are all -grasping after our own gain. We are all pleased when other people come -to grief, and sorry when things go well with them. It’s human nature, -that’s what it is! Human nature is always vicious. It was human nature -in me that made me send your brother up this hill, instead of taking -him back to the village. It was human nature in you that made you curse -me as you did, when I first told you.” - -Luke did his best to draw Mr. Quincunx back from these general -considerations to his conversation with James. - -“What did you say,” he enquired, “when he asked you about marrying -Lacrima, supposing this imaginary kind person were available? Did you -tell him you would do it?” - -“You mean, was he really jealous?” replied the other, with one of his -goblin-like laughs. - -“It was a strange question to ask,” pursued Luke. “I can’t imagine how -you answered it.” - -“Of course,” said Mr. Quincunx, “we know very well what he was driving -at. He wanted to sound me. Whatever may be wrong with him he was clever -enough to want to sound me. We are all like that! We are all going -about the world trying to find out each other’s weakest points, with -the idea that it may be useful to us to know them, so as to be able to -stick knives into them when we want to.” - -“It was certainly rather a strange question considering that he is a -bit attracted to Lacrima himself,” remarked Luke. “I should think you -were very cautious how you answered.” - -“Cautious?” replied Mr. Quincunx. “I don’t believe in caution. Caution -is a thing for well-to-do people who have something to lose. I answered -him exactly as I would answer anyone. I said I should be a fool not to -agree. And so I should. Don’t you think so, Andersen? I should be a -fool not to marry, under such circumstances?” - -“It depends what your feelings are towards Lacrima,” answered the wily -stone-carver. - -“Why do you say that, in that tone?” said the recluse sharply. “You -know very well what I feel towards Lacrima. Everyone knows. She is the -one little streak of romance that the gods have allowed to cross my -path. She is my only girl-friend in Nevilton.” - -At that moment the two men reached Seven Ashes and the sound of their -voices was carried to the cemetery, with the result already narrated. - -It will be remarked as an interesting exception to the voluble candour -of Mr. Quincunx, that in his conversation with Luke he avoided all -mention of Lacrima’s fatal contract with Mr. Romer. He had indeed, on -an earlier occasion, approached the outskirts of this affair, in an -indirect manner and with much manœuvring. From what he had hinted then, -Luke had formed certain shrewd surmises, in the direction of the truth, -but of the precise facts he remained totally ignorant. - -The shout for help which interrupted this discussion gave the two men -a shock of complete surprise. They were still more surprised, when on -entering the cemetery they found James standing over the apparently -lifeless form of Ninsy Lintot, her clothes torn and her hair loose and -dishevelled. Their astonishment reached its climax when they noticed -the sane and rational way in which the stone-carver addressed them. He -was in a state of pitiful agitation, but he was no longer mad. - -By dint of their united efforts they carried the girl across the field, -and laid her down beneath the ash-trees. The fresher air of this more -exposed spot had an immediate effect upon her. She breathed heavily, -and her fingers, under the caress of James’ hands, lost their rigidity. -Across her shadowy white face a quiver passed, and her head moved a -little. - -“Ninsy! Ninsy, dear!” murmured Andersen as he knelt by her side. By -the light of the clear stars, which now filled the sky with an almost -tropical splendour, the three men gazing anxiously at her face saw her -eyes slowly open and her lips part in a tender recognitory smile. - -“Thank God!” cried James, “You are better now, Ninsy, aren’t you? Here -is Luke and Mr. Quincunx. They came to find us. They’ll help me to get -you safe home.” - -The girl murmured some indistinct and broken phrase. She smiled again, -but a pathetic attempt she made to lift her hand to her throat proved -her helpless weakness. Tenderly, as a mother might, James anticipated -her movement, and restored to as natural order as he could her torn and -ruffled dress. - -At that moment to the immense relief of the three watchers the sound -of cart-wheels became audible. The vehicle proved to be a large empty -wagon driven by one of Mr. Goring’s men on the way back from an -outlying hamlet. They all knew the driver, who pulled up at once at -their appeal. - -On an extemporized couch at the bottom of the wagon, made of the men’s -coats,--Mr. Quincunx being the first to offer his,--they arranged the -girl’s passive form as comfortably as the rough vehicle allowed. And -then, keeping the horses at a walking-pace, they proceeded along the -lane towards Wild Pine. - -For some while, as he walked by the cart’s side, his hand upon its -well-worn edge, James experienced extreme weariness and lassitude. His -legs shook under him and his heart palpitated. The demon which had -been driven out of him, had left him, it seemed, like his biblical -prototype, exhausted and half-dead. By the time, however, that they -reached the corner, where Root-Thatch Lane descends to the village, -and Nevil’s Gully commences, the cool air of the night and the slow -monotonous movement had restored a considerable portion of his strength. - -None of the men, as they went along, had felt in a mood for -conversation. Luke had spent his time, naming to himself, with -his accustomed interest in such phenomena, the various familiar -constellations which shone down upon them between the dark boughs of -the Scotch-firs. - -The thoughts of Mr. Quincunx were confused and strange. He had fallen -into one of his self-condemnatory moods, and like a solemn ghost moving -by his side, a grim projection of his inmost identity kept rebuking and -threatening him. As with most retired persons, whose lives are passed -in an uninterrupted routine, the shock of any unusual or unforseen -accident fell upon him with a double weight. - -He had been much more impressed by the wild agitation of James, and by -the sight of Ninsy’s unconscious and prostrate figure, than anyone who -knew only the cynical side of him would have supposed possible. The -cynicism of Mr. Quincunx was indeed strictly confined to philosophical -conversation. In practical life he was wont to encounter any sudden or -tragic occurrence with the unsophisticated sensitiveness of a child. -As with many other sages, whose philosophical proclivities are rather -instinctive than rational, Mr. Quincunx was liable to curious lapses -into the most simple and superstitious misgivings. - -The influence of their slow and mute advance, under the majestic -heavens, may have had something to do with this reaction, but it is -certain that this other Mr. Quincunx--this shadowy companion with -no cabbage-leaf under his hat--pointed a most accusing finger at -him. Before they reached Nevil’s Gully, the perturbed recluse had -made up his mind that, at all costs, he would intervene to prevent -this scandalous union of his friend with John Goring. Contract or no -contract, he must exert himself in some definite and overt manner to -stave off this outrage. - -To his startled conscience the sinister figure of Mr. Romer seemed to -extend itself, Colossus-like, from the outstretched neck of Cygnus, the -heavenly Swan, to the low-hung brilliance of the “lord-star” Jupiter, -and accompanying this Satanic shadow across his vision, was a horrible -and most realistic image of the frail Italian, struggling in vain -against the brutal advances of Mr. Goring. He seemed to see Lacrima, -lying helpless, as Ninsy had been lying, but with no protecting forms -grouped reassuringly around her. - -The sense of the pitiful helplessness of these girlish beings, thrust -by an indifferent fate into the midst of life’s brute forces, had -pierced his conscience with an indelible stab when first he had seen -her prostrate in the cemetery. For a vague transitory moment, he had -wondered then, whether his sending her in pursuit of a madman had -resulted in a most lamentable tragedy; and though Andersen’s manner -had quickly reassured him as it had simultaneously reassured Luke, the -original impression of the shock remained. - -At that moment, as he helped to lift Ninsy out of the wagon, and carry -her through the farm-yard to her father’s cottage, the cynical recluse -felt an almost quixotic yearning to put himself to any inconvenience -and sacrifice any comfort, if only one such soft feminine creature as -he supported now in his arms, might be spared the contact of gross and -violating hands. - -James Andersen, as well as Mr. Quincunx, remained silent during their -return towards the village. In vain Luke strove to lift off from them -this oppression of pensive and gentle melancholy. Neither his stray -bits of astronomical pedantry, nor his Rabelaisean jests at the expense -of a couple of rural amorists they stumbled upon in the overshadowed -descent, proved arresting enough to break his companion’s silence. - -At the bottom of Root-Thatch Lane Mr. Quincunx separated from the -brothers. His way led directly through the upper portion of the village -to the Yeoborough road, while that of the Andersens passed between the -priory and the church. - -The clock in St. Catharine’s tower was striking ten as the two brothers -moved along under the churchyard wall. With the departure of Mr. -Quincunx James seemed to recover his normal spirits. This recovery was -manifested in a way that rejoiced the heart of Luke, so congruous -was it with all their old habits and associations; but to a stranger -overhearing the words, it would have seemed the reverse of promising. - -“Shall we take a glance at the grave?” the elder brother suggested, -leaning his elbows on the moss-grown wall. Luke assented with alacrity, -and the ancient stones of the wall lending themselves easily to such a -proceeding, they both clambered over into the place of tombs. - -Thus within the space of forty-eight hours the brothers Andersen had -been together in no less than three sepulchral enclosures. One might -have supposed that the same destiny that made of their father a kind of -modern Old Mortality--less pious, it is true, than his prototype, but -not less addicted to invasions of the unprotesting dead--had made it -inevitable that the most critical moments of his sons’ lives should be -passed in the presence of these mute witnesses. - -They crossed over to where the head-stone of their parents’ grave -rose, gigantic and imposing in the clear star light, as much larger -than the other monuments as the beaver, into which Pau-Puk-Keewis -changed himself, was larger than the other beavers. They sat down on -a neighbouring mound and contemplated in silence their father’s work. -The dark dome of the sky above them, strewn with innumerable points -of glittering light, attracted Luke once more to his old astronomical -speculations. - -“I have an idea,” he said, “that there is more in the influence of -these constellations than even the astrologers have guessed. Their -method claims to be a scientific one, mathematical in the exactness -of its inferences. My feeling about the matter is, that there is -something much more arbitrary, much more living and wayward, in the -manner in which they work their will upon us. I said ‘constellations,’ -but I don’t believe, as a matter of fact, that it is from them at all -that the influences come. The natural and obvious thing is that the -_planets_ should affect us, and affect us very much in the same way as -we affect one another. The ancient races recognized this difference. -The fixed stars are named after animals, or inanimate objects, or -after powerful, but not more than human, heroes. The planets are all -named from immortal gods, and it is as gods,--as wilful and arbitrary -gods--that they influence our destinies.” - -James Andersen surveyed the large and brilliant star which at that -moment hung, like an enormous glow-worm, against the southern slope of -Nevilton Mount. - -“Some extremely evil planet must have been very active during these -last weeks with Lacrima and with me,” he remarked. “Don’t get alarmed, -my dear,” he added, noticing the look of apprehension which his brother -turned upon him. “I shan’t worry you with any more silly talk. Those -voices in my head have quite ceased. But that does not help Lacrima.” -He laughed a sad little laugh. - -“I suppose,” he added, “no one can help her in this devilish -situation,--except that queer fellow who’s just left us. I would let -him step over my dead body, if he would only carry her off and fool -them all!” - -Luke’s mind plunged into a difficult problem. His brother’s wits were -certainly restored, and he seemed calm and clear-headed. But was -he clear-headed enough to learn the details of the curious little -conspiracy which Mr. Taxater’s diplomatic brain had evolved? How would -this somewhat ambiguous transaction strike so romantic a nature as his? - -Luke hesitated and pondered, the tall dark tower of St. Catharine’s -Church affording him but scant inspiration, as it rose above them into -the starlit sky. Should he tell him or should he keep the matter to -himself, and enter into some new pretended scheme with his brother, to -occupy his mind and distract it, for the time being? - -So long did he remain silent, pondering this question, that James, -observing his absorbed state and concluding that his subtle -intelligence was occupied in devising some way out of their imbroglio, -gave up all thought of receiving an answer, and moving to a less -dew-drenched resting-place, leaned his head against an upright monument -and closed his eyes. The feeling that his admired brother was taking -Lacrima’s plight so seriously in hand filled him with a reassuring -calm, and he had not long remained in his new position before his -exhausted senses found relief in sleep. - -Left to himself, Luke weighed in his mind every conceivable aspect of -the question at stake. Less grave and assured than the metaphysical Mr. -Taxater in this matter of striking at evil persons with evil weapons, -Luke was not a whit less unscrupulous. - -No Quincunx-like visitings of compunction had followed, with him, -their rescue of Ninsy. If the scene at Seven Ashes had printed any -impression at all upon his volatile mind, it was merely a vague and -agreeable sense of how beautiful the girl’s dead-white skin had looked, -contrasted with the disturbed masses of her dusky hair. Beyond this, -except for a pleasant memory of how lightly and softly she had lain -upon his arm, as he helped to carry her across the Wild Pine barton, -the occurrence had left him unaffected. - -His conscience did not trouble him in the smallest degree with regard -to Gladys. According to Luke’s philosophy of life, things in this -world resolved themselves into a reckless hand-to-hand struggle -between opposing personalities, every one of them seeking, with all -the faculties at his disposal, to get the better of the others. It was -absurd to stop and consider such illusive impediments as sentiment or -honour, when the great, casual, indifferent universe which surrounds us -knows nothing of these things! - -Out of the depths of this chaotic universe he, Luke Andersen, had been -flung. It must be his first concern to sweep aside, as irrelevant and -meaningless, any mere human fancies, ill-based and adventitious, upon -which his free foot might stumble. To strike craftily and boldly in -defence of the person he loved best in the world seemed to him not only -natural but commendable. How should he be content to indulge in vague -sentimental shilly-shallying, when the whole happiness of his beloved -Daddy James was at stake? - -The difference between Luke’s attitude to their mutual conspiracy, -and that of Mr. Taxater, lay in the fact that to the latter the whole -event was merely part of an elaborate, deeply-involved campaign, whose -ramifications extended indefinitely on every side; while to the former -the affair was only one of those innumerable chaotic struggles that a -whimsical world delighted to evoke. - -An inquisitive observer might have wondered what purpose Mr. Taxater -had in mixing himself up in the affair at all. This question of his -fellow-conspirator’s motive crossed, as a matter of fact, Luke’s own -mind, as his gaze wandered negligently from the Greater to the Lesser -Bear, and from Orion to the Pleiades. He came to the characteristic -conclusion that it was no quixotic impulse that had impelled this -excellent man, but a completely conscious and definite desire--the -desire to add yet one more wanderer to his list of converts to the -Faith. - -Lacrima was an Italian and a Catholic. United to Mr. Quincunx, might -she not easily win over that dreamy infidel to the religion of her -fathers? Luke smiled to himself as he thought how little the papal -champion could have known the real character of the solitary of Dead -Man’s Lane. Sooner might the sea at Weymouth flow inland, and wash with -its waves the foot of Leo’s Hill, than this ingrained mystic bow his -head under the yoke of dogmatic truth! - -After long cogitation with himself, Luke came to the conclusion that it -would be wiser, on the whole, to say nothing to his brother of his plan -to work out Lacrima’s release by means of her cousin’s betrayal. Having -arrived at this conclusion he rose and stretched himself, and glanced -at the sleeping James. - -The night was warm and windless, but Luke began to feel anxious lest -the cold touch of the stone, upon which his brother rested, should -strike a chill into his blood. At the same time he was extremely loth -to disturb so placid and wholesome a slumber. He laid his hand upon -the portentous symbol of mortality which crowned so aggressively his -parents’ monument, and looked round him. His vigil had already been -interrupted more than once by the voices of late revellers leaving the -Goat and Boy. Such voices still recurred, at intermittent moments, -followed by stumbling drunken footsteps, but in the intervals the -silence only fell the deeper. - -Suddenly he observed, or fancied he observed, the aspect of a figure -extremely familiar to him, standing patiently outside the inn door. He -hurried across the churchyard and looked over the wall. No, he had not -been mistaken. There, running her hands idly through the leaves of the -great wistaria which clung to the side of the house, stood his little -friend Phyllis. She had evidently been sent by her mother,--as younger -maids than she were often sent--to assist, upon their homeward journey, -the unsteady steps of Bill Santon the carter. - -Luke turned and glanced at his brother. He could distinguish his -motionless form, lying as still as ever, beyond the dark shape of his -father’s formidable tombstone. There was no need to disturb him yet. -The morrow was Sunday, and they could therefore be as late as they -pleased. - -He called softly to the patient watcher. She started violently at -hearing his voice, and turning round, peered into the darkness. By -degrees she made out his form, and waved her hand to him. - -He beckoned her to approach. She shook her head, and indicated by a -gesture that she was expecting the appearance of her father. Once more -he called her, making what seemed to her, in the obscurity, a sign that -he had something important to communicate. Curiosity overcame piety in -the heart of the daughter of Bill Santon and she ran across the road. - -“Why, you silly thing!” whispered the crafty Luke, “your father’s been -gone this half hour! He went a bit of the way home with Sam Lintot. Old -Sam will find a nice little surprise waiting for him when he gets back. -I reckon he’ll send your father home-along sharp enough.” - -It was Luke’s habit, in conversation with the villagers, to drop -lightly into many of their provincial phrases, though both he and his -brother used, thanks to their mother’s training, as good English as any -of the gentlefolk of Nevilton. - -The influence of association in the matter of language might have -afforded endless interesting matter to the student of words, supposing -such a one had been able to overhear the conversations of these -brothers with their various acquaintances. Poor Ninsy, for instance, -fell naturally into the local dialect when she talked to James in -her own house; and assumed, with equal facility, her loved one’s -more colourless manner of speech, when addressing him on ground less -familiar to her. - -As a matter of fact the universal spread of board-school education -in that corner of the country had begun to sap the foundations of -the old local peculiarities. Where these survived, in the younger -generation, they survived side by side with the newer tricks of speech. -The Andersens’ girl-friends were, all of them, in reality, expert -bilinguists. They spoke the King’s English, and they spoke the Nevilton -English, with equal ease, if with unequal expressiveness. - -The shrewd fillip to her curiosity, which Luke’s reference to Lintot’s -home-coming had given, allured Phyllis into accepting without protest -his audacious invention about her father. The probability of such an -occurrence seemed sealed with certainty, when turning, at a sign from -her friend, she saw, against the lighted window the burly form of the -landlord engaged in closing his shutters. It was not the custom, as -Phyllis well knew, of this methodical dispenser of Dionysian joys to -“shutter up house,” as he called it, until every guest had departed. -How could she guess--little deluded maid!--that, stretched upon the -floor in the front parlor, stared at by the landlord’s three small -sons, was the comatose body of her worthy parent breathing like one of -Mr. Goring’s pigs? - -“Tain’t no good my waiting here then,” she whispered. “What do ’ee -mean by Sam Lintot’s being surprised-like? Be Ninsy taken with her -heart again?” - -“Let me help you over here,” answered the stone-carver, “that Priory -wench was talking, just now, just across yon wall. She’ll be hearing -what we say if we don’t move on a bit.” - -“Us don’t mind what a maid like her do hear, do us, Luke dear?” -whispered the girl in answer. “Give me a kiss, sonny, and let me be -getting home-along!” - -She stood on tiptoe and raised her hands over the top of the wall. Luke -seized her wrists, and retained them in a vicious clutch. - -“Put your foot into one of those holes,” he said, “and we’ll soon have -you across.” - -Unwilling to risk a struggle in such a spot, and not really at all -disinclined for an adventure, the girl obeyed him, and after being -hoisted up upon the wall, was lifted quickly down on the other side, -and enclosed in Luke’s gratified arms. The amorous stone-carver -remembered long afterwards the peculiar thrill of almost chaste -pleasure which the first touch of her cold cheeks gave him, as she -yielded to his embrace. - -“_Is_ Nin Lintot bad again?” she enquired, drawing herself away at last. - -Luke nodded. “You won’t see her about, this week--or next week--or the -week after,” he said. “She’s pretty far gone, this time, I’m afraid.” - -Phyllis rendered to her acquaintance’s misfortune the tribute of a -conventional murmur. - -“Oh, let’s go and look at where they be burying Jimmy Pringle!” she -suddenly whispered, in an awe-struck, excited tone. - -“What!” cried Luke, “you don’t mean to say he’s dead,--the old man?” - -“Where’s ’t been to, then, these last days?” she enquired. “He died -yesterday morning and they be going to bury him on Monday. ’Twill be -a monstrous large funeral. Can’t be but you’ve heard tell of Jimmy’s -being done for.” She added, in an amazed and bewildered tone. - -“I’ve been very busy this last week,” said Luke. - -“You didn’t seem very busy this afternoon, when you were with Annie -and me up at station-field,” she exclaimed, with a mischievous little -laugh. Then in a changed voice, “Let’s go and see where they’re going -to put him. It’s somewhere over there, under South Wall.” - -They moved cautiously hand in hand between the dark grassy mounds, the -heavy dew soaking their shoes. - -Suddenly Phyllis stopped, her fingers tightening, and a delicious -thrill of excitement quivering through her. “There it is. Look!” she -whispered. - -They advanced a step or two, and found themselves confronted by a -gloomy oblong hole, and an ugly heap of ejected earth. - -“Oh, how awful it do look, doesn’t it, Luke darling?” she murmured, -clinging closely to him. - -He put his arm round the girl’s waist, and together, under the vast -dome of the starlit sky, the two warm-blooded youthful creatures -contemplated the resting-place of the generations. - -“It’s queer to think,” remarked Luke pensively, “that just as we stand -looking on this, so, when we’re dead, other people will stand over our -graves, and we know nothing and care nothing!” - -“They dug this out this morning,” said Phyllis, more concerned with the -immediate drama than with general meditations of mortality. “Old Ben -Fursling’s son did it, and my father helped him in his dinner-hour. -They said another hot day like this would make the earth too hard.” - -Luke moved forward, stepping cautiously over the dark upturned soil. He -paused at the extreme edge of the gaping recess. - -“What’ll you give me,” he remarked turning to his companion, “if I -climb down into it?” - -“Don’t talk like that, Luke,” protested the girl. “’Tisn’t lucky to say -them things. I wouldn’t give you nothing. I’d run straight away and -leave you.” - -The young man knelt down at the edge of the hole, and with the elegant -cane he had carried in his hand all that afternoon, fumbled profanely -in its dusky depths. Suddenly, to the girl’s absolute horror, he -scrambled round, and deliberately let himself down into the pit. She -breathed a sigh of unutterable relief, when she observed his head and -shoulders still above the level of the ground. - -“It’s all right,” he whispered, “they’ve left it half-finished. I -suppose they’ll do the rest on Monday.” - -“Please get out of it, Luke,” the girl pleaded. “I don’t like to see -you there. It make me think you’re standing on Jimmy Pringle.” - -Luke obeyed her and emerged from the earth almost as rapidly as he had -descended. - -When he was once more by her side, Phyllis gave a little -half-deliberate shudder of exquisite terror. “Fancy,” she whispered, -clinging tightly to him, “if you was to drag me to that hole, and put -me down there! I think I should die of fright.” - -This conscious playing with her own girlish fears was a very -interesting characteristic in Phyllis Santon. Luke had recognized -something of the sort in her before, and now he wondered vaguely, as -he glanced from the obscurity of Nevilton Churchyard to the brilliant -galaxy of luminous splendour surrounding the constellation Pegasus, -whether she really wanted him to take her at her word. - -His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices at the inn-door. -They both held their breath, listening intently. - -“There’s father!” murmured the girl. “He must have come back from -Lintot’s and be trying to get into the public again! Come and help me -over the wall, Luke darling. Only don’t let anybody see us.” - -As they hurried across the enclosure, Phyllis whispered in his ears -a remark that seemed to him either curiously irrelevant, or inspired -in an occult manner by psychic telepathy. She had lately refrained -from any reference to Lacrima. The Italian’s friendliness to her under -the Hullaway elms had made her reticent upon this subject. On this -occasion, however, though quite ignorant of James’ presence in the -churchyard, she suddenly felt compelled to say to Luke, in an intensely -serious voice: - -“If some of you clever ones don’t stop that marriage of Master Goring, -there’ll be some more holes dug in this place! There be some things -what them above never will allow.” - -He helped her over the wall, and watched her overtake her staggering -parent, who had already reeled some distance down the road. Then he -returned to his brother and roused him from his sleep. James was sulky -and irritable at being so brusquely restored to consciousness, but the -temperature of his mind appeared as normal and natural as ever. - -They quitted the place without further conversation, and strode off in -silence up the village street. The perpendicular slabs of the crowded -head stones, and the yet more numerous mounds that had neither name -nor memory, resumed their taciturn and lonely watch. - -To no human eyes could be made visible the poor thin shade that was -once Jimmy Pringle, as it swept, bat-like, backwards and forwards, -across the dew-drenched grass. But the shade itself, endowed with more -perception than had been permitted to it while imprisoned in the “muddy -vesture” of our flesh and blood, became aware, in its troubled flight, -of a singular spiritual occurrence. - -Rising from the base of that skull-crowned monument, two strange and -mournful phantoms flitted waveringly, like huge ghost-moths, along the -protruding edge of the church-roof. Two desolate and querulous voices, -like the voices of conflicting winds through the reeds of some forlorn -salt-marsh, quivered across the listening fields. - -“It is strong and unconquered--the great heart of my Hill,” one voice -wailed out. “It draws them. It drives them. The earth is with it; the -planets are for it, and all their enchantments cannot prevail against -it!” - -“The leaves may fall and the trees decay,” moaned the second voice, -“but where the sap has once flowed, Love must triumph.” - -The fluttering shadow of Jimmy Pringle fled in terror from these -strange sounds, and took refuge among the owls in the great sycamore of -the Priory meadow. A falling meteorite swept downwards from the upper -spaces of the sky and lost itself behind the Wild Pine ridge. - -“Strength and cunning,” the first voice wailed forth again, “alone -possess their heart’s desire. All else is vain and empty.” - -“Love and Sacrifice,” retorted the other, “outlast all victories. -Beyond the circle of life they rule the darkness, and death is dust -beneath their feet.” - -Crouched on a branch of his protecting sycamore, the thin wraith of -Jimmy Pringle trembled and shook like an aspen-leaf. A dumb surprise -possessed the poor transmuted thing to find itself even less assured of -palpable and familiar salvation, than when, after drinking cider at the -Boar’s Head in Athelston, he had dreamed dreams at Captain Whiffley’s -gate. - -“The Sun is lord and god of the earth,” wailed the first voice once -more. “The Sun alone is master in the end. Lust and Power go forth with -him, and all flesh obeys his command.” - -“The Moon draws more than the tides,” answered the second voice. “In -the places of silence where Love waits, only the Moon can pass; and -only the Moon can hear the voice of the watchers.” - -From the red planet, high up against the church-tower, to the silver -planet low down among the shadowy trees, the starlit spaces listened -mutely to these antiphonal invocations. Only the distant expanse -of the Milky Way, too remote in its translunar gulfs to heed these -planetary conflicts, shimmered haughtily down upon the Wood and Stone -of Nevilton--impassive, indifferent, unconcerned. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -VOX POPULI - - -James Andersen’s mental state did not fall away from the restored -equilibrium into which the unexpected intervention of Ninsy Lintot -had magnetized and medicined him. He went about his work as usual, -gloomier and more taciturn, perhaps, than before, but otherwise with no -deviation from his normal condition. - -Luke noticed that he avoided all mention of Lacrima, and, as far as the -younger brother knew, made no effort to see her. Luke himself received, -two days after the incident in the Methodist cemetery, a somewhat -enigmatic letter from Mr. Taxater. This letter bore a London post-mark -and informed the stone-carver that after a careful consideration of the -whole matter, and an interview with Lacrima, the writer had come to the -conclusion that no good purpose would be served by carrying their plan -into execution. Mr. Taxater had, accordingly, so the missive declared, -destroyed the incriminating document which he had induced Luke to sign, -and had relinquished all thought of an interview with Mr. Dangelis. - -The letter concluded by congratulating Luke on his brother’s -recovery--of which, it appeared, the diplomatist had been informed by -the omniscient Mrs. Wotnot--and assuring him that if ever, in any way, -he, the writer, could be of service to either of the two brothers, -they could count on his unfailing regard. An obscure post-script, -added in pencil in a very minute and delicate hand, indicated that the -interview with Lacrima, referred to above, had confirmed the theologian -in a suspicion that hitherto he had scrupulously concealed, namely, -that their concern with regard to the Italian’s position was less -called for than appearances had led them to suppose. - -After reading and weighing this last intimation, before he tore up the -letter into small fragments, the cynical Luke came to the conclusion -that the devoted champion of the papacy had found out that his -co-religionist had fallen from grace; in other words, that Lacrima -Traffio was no longer a Catholic. It could hardly be expected, the -astute youth argued, that Mr. Taxater should throw himself into a -difficult and troublesome intrigue in order that an apostate from the -inviolable Faith, once for all delivered to the Saints, should escape -what might reasonably be regarded as a punishment for her apostacy. - -The theologian’s post-script appeared to hint that the girl was not, -after all, so very unwilling, in this matter of her approaching -marriage. Luke, in so far as he gave such an aspect of the affair any -particular thought, discounted this plausible suggestion as a mere -conscience-quieting salve, introduced by the writer to smooth over the -true cause of his reaction. - -For his own part it had been always of James and not of Lacrima he had -thought, and since James had now been restored to his normal state, the -question of the Italian’s moods and feelings affected him very little. -He was still prepared to discuss with his brother any new chance of -intervention that might offer itself at the last moment. He desired -James’ peace of mind before everything else, but in his heart of hearts -he had considerable doubt whether the mood of self-effacing magnanimity -which had led his brother to contemplate Lacrima’s elopement with Mr. -Quincunx, would long survive the return of his more normal temper. Were -he in James’ position, he told himself grimly, he should have much -preferred that the girl should marry a man she hated rather than one -she loved, as in such a case the field would be left more open for any -future “rapprochement.” - -Thus it came about that the luckless Pariah, by the simple accident of -her inability to hold fast to her religion, lost at the critical moment -in her life the support of the one friendly power, that seemed capable, -in that confusion of opposed forces, of bringing to her aid temporal as -well as spiritual, pressure. She was indeed a prisoner by the waters -of Babylon, but her forgetfulness of Sion had cut her off from the -assistance of the armies of the Lord. - -The days passed on rapidly now, over the heads of the various persons -involved in our narrative. For James and Lacrima, and in a measure -for Mr. Quincunx, too,--since it must be confessed that the shock of -Ninsy’s collapse had not resulted in any permanent tightening of the -recluse’s moral fibre,--they passed with that treacherous and oblivious -smoothness which dangerous waters are only too apt to wear, when on the -very verge of the cataract. - -In the stir and excitement of the great political struggle which -now swept furiously from one end of the country to the other, the -personal fortunes of a group of tragically involved individuals, in a -small Somersetshire village, seemed to lose, for all except those most -immediately concerned, every sort of emphasis and interest. - -The polling day at last arrived, and a considerable proportion of the -inhabitants of Nevilton, both men and women, found themselves, as the -end of the fatal hours approached, wedged and hustled, in a state of -distressing and exhausted suspense, in the densely crowded High Street -in front of the Yeoborough Town Hall. - -Mr. Clavering himself was there, and in no very amiable temper. -Perverse destiny had caused him to be helplessly surrounded by a noisy -high-spirited crew of Yeoborough factory-girls, to whom the event in -progress was chiefly interesting, in so far as it afforded them an -opportunity to indulge in uproarious chaff and to throw insulting or -amorous challenges to various dandified youths of their acquaintance, -whom they caught sight of in the confusion. Mr. Clavering’s ill-temper -reached its climax when he became aware that a good deal of the free -and indiscreet badinage of his companions was addressed to none other -than his troublesome parishioner, Luke Andersen, whose curly head, -surmounted by an aggressively new straw hat, made itself visible not -far off. - -The mood of the vicar of Nevilton during the last few weeks had been -one of accumulative annoyance. Everything had gone wrong with him, and -it was only by an immense effort of his will that he had succeeded in -getting through his ordinary pastoral labour, without betraying the -unsettled state of his mind and soul. - -He could not, do what he might, get Gladys out of his thoughts for one -single hour of the day. She had been especially soft and caressing, of -late, in her manner towards him. More submissive than of old to his -spiritual admonitions, she had dropped her light and teasing ways, -and had assumed, in her recent lessons with him, an air of pliable -wistfulness, composed of long, timidly interrupted glances from her -languid blue eyes, and little low-voiced murmurs of assent from her -sweetly-parted lips. - -It was in vain that the poor priest struggled against this obsession. -The girl was as merciless as she was subtle in the devices she employed -to make sure of her hold upon him. She would lead him on, by hesitating -and innocent questions, to expound some difficult matter of faith; and -then, just as he was launched out upon a high, pure stream of mystical -interpretation, she would bring his thoughts back to herself and her -deadly beauty, by some irresistible feminine trick, which reduced all -his noble speculations to so much empty air. - -Ever since that night when he had trembled so helplessly under the -touch of her soft fingers beneath the cedars of the South Drive, she -had sought opportunities for evoking similar situations. She would -prolong the clasp of her hand when they bade one another good night, -knowing well how this apparently natural and unconscious act would -recur in throbs of adder’s poison through the priest’s veins, long -after the sun had set behind St. Catharine’s tower. - -She loved sometimes to tantalize and trouble him by relating incidents -which brought herself and her American fiancé into close association -in his mind. She would wistfully confide to him, for example, how -sometimes she grew weary of love-making, begging him to tell her -whether, after all, she were wise in risking the adventure of marriage. - -By these arts, and others that it were tedious to enumerate, the girl -gradually reduced the unfortunate clergyman to a condition of abject -slavery. The worst of it was that, though his release from her constant -presence was rapidly approaching--with the near date of the ceremonies -for which he was preparing her--instead of being able to rejoice in -this, he found himself dreading it with every nerve of his harassed -senses. - -Clavering had felt himself compelled, on more than one occasion, to -allude to the project of Lacrima’s marriage, but his knowledge of the -Italian’s character was so slight that Gladys had little difficulty in -making him believe, or at least persuade himself he believed, that no -undue pressure was being put upon her. - -It was of Lacrima that he suddenly found himself thinking as, hustled -and squeezed between two obstreperous factory-girls, he watched the -serene and self-possessed Luke enjoying with detached amusement the -vivid confusion round him. The fantastic idea came into his head, -that in some sort of way Luke was responsible for those sinister -rumours regarding the Italian’s position in Nevilton, which had thrust -themselves upon his ears as he moved to and fro among the villagers. - -He had learnt of the elder Andersen’s recovery from Mrs. Fringe, but -even that wise lady had not been able to associate this event with the -serious illness of Ninsy Lintot, to whose bed-side the young clergyman -had been summoned more than once during the last week. - -Clavering felt an impulse of unmitigated hatred for the equable -stone-carver as he watched him bandying jests with this or the other -person in the crowd, and yet so obviously holding himself apart from -it all, and regarding the whole scene as if it only existed for his -amusement. - -A sudden rush of some extreme partisans of the popular cause, making -a furious attempt to over-power the persistent taunts of a group of -young farmers who stood above them on a raised portion of the pavement, -drove a wedge of struggling humanity into the midst of the crowd who -surrounded the irritable priest. Clavering was pushed, in spite of his -efforts to extricate himself, nearer and nearer to his detested rival, -and at last, in the most grotesque and annoying manner possible, he -found himself driven point-blank into the stone-carver’s very arms. -Luke smiled, with what seemed to the heated and flustered priest the -last limit of deliberate impertinence. - -But there was no help for it. Clavering was forced to accept his -proffered hand, and return, with a measure of courtesy, his nonchalant -greeting. Squeezed close together--for the crowd had concentrated -itself now into an immoveable mass--the fortunate and the unfortunate -lover of Gladys Romer listened, side by side, to the deafening shouts, -which, first from one party and then from the other, heralded the -appearance of the opposing candidates upon the balcony above. - -“I really hardly know,” said Luke, in a loud whisper, “which side -you are on. I suppose on the Conservative? These radicals are all -Nonconformists, and only waiting for a chance of pulling the Church -down.” - -“Thank you,” retorted the priest raising his voice so as to contend -against the hubbub about them. “I happen to be a radical myself. My own -hope is that the Church _will_ be pulled down. The Church I believe in -cannot be touched. Its foundations are too deep.” - -“Three cheers for Romer and the Empire!” roared a voice behind them. - -“Wone and the People! Wone and the working-man!” vociferated another. - -“You’ll be holding your confirmation soon, I understand,” murmured Luke -in his companion’s ear, as a swaying movement in the crowd squeezed -them even more closely together. - -Hugh Clavering realized for the first time in his life what murderers -feel the second before they strike their blow. He could have willingly -planted his heel at that moment upon the stone-carver’s face. Surely -the man was intentionally provoking him. He must know--he could not -help knowing--the agitation in his nerves. - -“Romer and Order! Romer and Sound Finance!” roared one portion of the -mob. - -“Wone and Liberty! Wone and Justice!” yelled the opposing section. - -“I love a scene like this,” whispered Luke. “Doesn’t it make you -beautifully aware of the contemptible littleness of the human race?” - -“I am not only a radical,” retorted Clavering, “but I happen also to be -a human being, and one who can’t take so airy a view of an occasion of -this kind. The enthusiasm of these people doesn’t at all amuse me. I -sympathize with it.” - -The stone-carver was not abashed by this rebuke. “A matter of taste,” -he said, “a matter of taste.” Then, freeing his arm which had got -uncomfortably wedged against his side, and pushing back his hat, “I -love to associate these outbursts of popular feeling with the movements -of the planets. Tonight, you know, one ought to be able to see--” - -Clavering could no longer contain himself. “Damn your planets!” he -cried, in a tone so loud, that an old lady in their neighbourhood -ejaculated, “Hush! hush!” and looked round indignantly. - -“I beg your pardon,” muttered the priest, a little ashamed. “What I -mean is, I am most seriously concerned about this contest. I pray -devoutly Wone will win. It’ll be a genuine triumph for the working -classes if he does.” - -“Romer and the Empire!” interpolated the thunderous voice behind them. - -“I don’t care much for the man himself,” he went on, “but this thing -goes beyond personalities.” - -“I’m all for Romer myself,” said Luke. “I have the best of reasons for -being grateful to him, though he is my employer.” - -“What do you mean? What reasons?” cried Clavering sharply, once more -beginning to feel the most unchristian hatred for this urbane youth. - -“Oh, I’m sure I needn’t tell you that, sir,” responded Luke; “I’m sure -you know well enough how much I admire our Nevilton beauty.” - -Gladys’ unhappy lover choked with rage. He had never in his life -loathed anything so much as he loathed the way Luke’s yellow curls grew -on his forehead. His fingers clutched convulsively the palms of his -hands. He would like to have seized that crop of hair and beaten the -man’s head against the pavement. - -“I think it’s abominable,” he cried, “this forcing of Miss Traffio to -marry Goring. For a very little, I’d write to the bishop about it and -refuse to marry them.” - -The causes that led to this unexpected and irrelevant outburst -were of profound subtlety. Clavering forgot, in his desire to make -his rival responsible for every tragedy in the place, that he had -himself resolved to discount, as mere village gossip, all the dark -rumours he had heard. The blind anger which plunged him into this -particular outcry, sprang, in reality, from the bitterness of his own -conscience-stricken misgivings. - -“I don’t think you will,” remarked Luke, lowering his voice to a -whisper, though the uproar about them rendered such a precaution quite -unnecessary. “It is not as a rule a good thing to interfere in these -matters. Miss Gladys has told me herself that the whole thing is an -invention of Romer’s enemies, probably of this fellow Wone.” - -“She’s told me the same story,” burst out the priest, “but how am I to -believe her?” - -A person unacquainted with the labyrinthine convolutions of the human -mind would have been staggered at hearing the infatuated slave thus -betray his suspicion of his enchantress, and to his own rival; but the -man’s long-troubled conscience, driven by blind anger, rendered him -almost beside himself. - -“To tell you the truth,” said Luke, “I think neither you nor I have -anything to do with this affair. You might as well agitate yourself -about Miss Romer’s marriage with Dangelis! Girls must manage these -little problems for themselves. After all, it doesn’t really matter -much, one way or the other. What they want, is to be married. The -person they choose is quite a secondary thing. We have to learn to -regard all these little incidents as of but small importance, my good -sir, as our world sweeps round the sun!” - -“The sun--the sun!” cried Clavering, with difficulty restraining -himself. “What has the sun to do with it? You are too fond of bringing -in your suns and your planets, Andersen. This trick of yours of -shelving the difficulties of life, by pretending you’re somehow -superior to them all, is a habit I advise you to give up! It’s cheap. -It’s vulgar. It grows tiresome after a time.” - -Luke’s only reply to this was a sweet smile; and the two were wedged so -closely together that the priest was compelled to notice the abnormal -whiteness and regularity of the young man’s teeth. - -“I confess to you,” continued Luke, with an air of unruffled -detachment, as if they had been discussing the tint of a flower or -the marks upon a butterfly’s wing, “I have often wondered what the -relations really are between Mr. Romer and Miss Traffio; but that is -the sort of question which, as Sir Thomas Browne would say, lends -itself to a wide solution.” - -“Romer and Prosperity!” “Wone and Justice!” yelled the opposing -factions. - -“Our pretty Gladys’ dear parent,” continued the incorrigible youth, -completely disregarding the fact that his companion, speechless with -indignation, was desperately endeavouring to extricate himself from -the press, “seems born under a particularly lucky star. I notice that -every attempt which people make to thwart him comes to nothing. That’s -what I admire about him: he seems to move forward to his end like an -inexorable fate.” - -“Rubbish!” ejaculated the priest, turning his angry face once more -towards his provoking rival. “Fiddlesticks and rubbish! The man is a -man, like the rest of us. I only pray Heaven he’s going to lose this -election!” - -“Under a lucky star,” reiterated the stone-carver. “I wish I knew,” he -added pensively, “what his star is. Probably Jupiter!” - -“Wone and Liberty!” “Wone and the Rights of the People!” roared the -crowd. - -“Wone and God’s Vengeance!” answered, in an indescribably bitter tone, -a new and different voice. Luke pressed his companion’s arm. - -“Did you hear that?” he whispered eagerly. “That’s Philip. Who would -have thought he’d have been here? He’s an anarchist, you know.” - -Clavering, who was taller than his companion, caught sight of the -candidate’s son. Philip’s countenance was livid with excitement, and -his arms were raised as if actually invoking the Heavens. - -“Silly fool!” muttered Luke. “He talks of God as glibly as any of his -father’s idiotic friends. But perhaps he was mocking! I thought I -detected a tang of irony in his tone.” - -“Most of you unbelievers cry upon God when the real crisis comes,” -remarked the priest. “But I like Philip Wone. I respect him. He, at -least, takes his convictions seriously.” - -“I believe you fancy in your heart that some miracle is going to be -worked, to punish my worthy employer,” observed Luke. “But I assure -you, you’re mistaken. In this world the only way our Mr. Romers are -brought low is by being out-matched on their own ground. He has a lucky -star; but other people”--this was added in a low, significant tone-- -“other people may possibly have stars still more lucky.” - -At this moment the cheering and shouting became deafening. Some new and -important event had evidently occurred. Both men turned and glanced up -at the stucco-fronted edifice that served Yeoborough as a city-hall. -The balcony had become so crowded that it was difficult to distinguish -individual figures; but there was a general movement there, and people -were talking and gesticulating eagerly. Presently all these excited -persons fell simultaneously into silence, and an attitude of intense -expectation. The crowd below caught the thrill of their expectancy, -and with upturned faces and eager eyes, waited the event. There was a -most formidable hush over the whole sea of human heads; and even the -detached Luke felt his heart beating in tune to the general tension. - -In the midst of this impressive silence the burly figure of the sheriff -of the parliamentary district made his way slowly to the front of the -balcony. With him came the two candidates, each accompanied by a lady, -and grouped themselves on either side of him. The sheriff standing -erect, with a sheet of paper in his hand, saluted the assembled people, -and proceeded to announce, in simple stentorian words, the result of -the poll. - -Clavering had been stricken dumb with amazement to observe that the -lady by Mr. Romer’s side was not Mrs. Romer, as he had thoughtlessly -assumed it would be, but Gladys herself, exquisitely dressed, and -looking, in her high spirits and excitement, more lovely than he had -ever seen her. - -Her fair hair, drawn back from her head beneath a shady Gainsborough -hat, shone like gold in the sunshine. Her cheeks were flushed, and -their delicate rose-bloom threw into beautiful relief the pallor of -her brow and neck. Her tall girlish figure looked soft and arresting -amid the black-coated politicians who surrounded her. Her eyes were -brilliant. - -Contrasted with this splendid apparition at Mr. Romer’s side, the faded -primness of the good spouse of the Christian Candidate seemed pathetic -and grotesque. Mrs. Wone, in her stiff black dress and old-fashioned -hat, looked as though she were attending a funeral. Nor was the -appearance of her husband much more impressive or imposing. - -Mr. Romer, with his beautiful daughter’s hand upon his arm, looked as -noble a specimen of sage authority and massive triumph, as any of that -assembled crowd were likely to see in a life-time. A spasmodic burst of -cheering was interrupted by vigorous hisses and cries of “Hush! hush! -Let the gentleman speak!” - -Lifting his hand with an appropriate air of grave solemnity, -the sheriff proceeded to read: “Result of the Election in this -Parliamentary Division--Mr. George Wone, seven thousand one hundred -and fifty nine! Mr. Mortimer Romer, nine thousand eight hundred and -sixty-one! I therefore declare Mr. Mortimer Romer duly elected.” - -A burst of incredible cheering followed this proclamation, in the midst -of which the groans and hisses of the defeated section were completely -drowned. The cheering was so tremendous and the noisy reaction after -the hours of expectancy so immense, that it was difficult to catch a -word of what either the successful or the unsuccessful candidate said, -as they made their accustomed valedictory speeches. - -Clavering and Luke were swept far apart from one another in the mad -confusion; and it was well for them both, perhaps, that they were; -for before the speeches were over, or the persons on the balcony had -disappeared into the building, a very strange and disconcerting event -took place. - -The unfortunate young Philip, who had received the announcement of -his father’s defeat as a man might receive a death-sentence, burst -into a piercing and resounding cry, which was clearly audible, not -only to those immediately about him, but to every one of the ladies -and gentlemen assembled on the balcony. There is no need to repeat in -this place the words which the unhappy young man hurled at Mr. Romer -and his daughter. Suffice it to say that they were astounding in their -brutality and grossness. - -As soon as he had uttered them, Philip sank down upon the ground, in -the miserable convulsions of some species of epileptic fit. The tragic -anxiety of poor Mrs. Wone, who had not only heard his words, but seen -his collapse, broke up the balcony party in disorder. - -Such is human nature, that though not one of the aristocratic -personages there assembled, believed for a moment that Philip was -anything but a madman; still, the mere weight of such ominous words, -though flung at random and by one out of his senses, had an appreciable -effect upon them. It was noticed that one after another they drew -away from the two persons thus challenged; and this, combined with -the movement about the agitated Mrs. Wone, soon left the father and -daughter, the girl clinging to her parent’s arm, completely isolated. - -Before he led Gladys away, however, Mr. Romer turned a calm and -apparently unruffled face upon the scene below. Luke, who, it may -be well believed, had missed nothing of the subtler aspects of the -situation, was so moved by the man’s imperturbable serenity that he -caught himself on the point of raising an admiring and congratulatory -shout. He stopped himself in time, however; and in place of acclaiming -the father, did all he could to catch the eye of the daughter. - -In this he was unsuccessful; for the attention of Gladys, during the -brief moment in which she followed Mr. Romer’s glance over the heads -of the people, was fixed upon the group of persons who surrounded -the prostrate Philip. Among these persons Luke now recognized, and -doubtless the girl had recognized too, the figure of the vicar of -Nevilton. - -Luke apostrophized his rival with an ejaculation of mild contempt. “A -good man, that poor priest,” he muttered, “but a most unmitigated -fool! As to Romer, I commend him! But I think I’ve put a spoke in -the wheel of his good fortune, all the same, in spite of the planet -Jupiter!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -CAESAR’S QUARRY - - -Mr. Romer’s victory in the election was attended by a complete lull -in the political world of Nevilton. Nothing but an unavoidable and -drastic crisis, among the ruling circles of the country, could -have precipitated this formidable struggle in the middle of the -holiday-time; and as soon as the contest was over, the general -relaxation of the season made itself doubly felt. - -This lull in the political arena seemed to extend itself into the -sphere of private and individual emotion, in so far as the persons of -our drama were concerned. The triumphant quarry-owner rested from his -labors under the pleasant warmth of the drowsy August skies; and as, -in the old Homeric Olympus, a relapse into lethargy of the wielder of -thunder-bolts was attended by a cessation of earthly strife, so in the -Nevilton world, the elements of discord and opposition fell, during -this siesta of the master of Leo’s Hill, into a state of quiescent -inertia. - -But though the gods might sleep, and the people might relax and play, -the watchful unwearied fates spun on, steadily and in silence, their -ineluctable threads. - -The long process of “carrying the corn” was over at last, and night by -night the magic-burdened moon grew larger and redder above the misty -stubble-fields. - -The time drew near for the reception of the successful candidate’s -daughter into the historic church of the country over which he was now -one of the accredited rulers. A few more drowsy sunshine-drugged days -remained to pass, and the baptism of Gladys--followed, a week later, by -the formal imposition of episcopal hands--would be the signal for the -departure of August and the beginning of the fall of the leaves. - -The end of the second week in September had been selected for the -double marriage, partly because it synchronized with the annual parish -feast-day, and partly because it supplied Ralph Dangelis with an excuse -for carrying off his bride incontinently to New York by one of his -favourite boats. - -Under the quiet surface of this steadily flowing flood of destiny, -which seemed, just then, to be casting a drowning narcotic spell upon -all concerned, certain deep and terrible misgivings troubled not a few -hearts. - -It may be frequently noticed by those whose interest it is to watch the -strange occult harmonies between the smallest human dramas and their -elemental accomplices, that at these peculiar seasons when Nature seems -to pause and draw in her breath, men and women find it hard to use or -assert their normal powers of resistance. The planetary influences -seem nearer earth than usual;--nearer, with the apparent nearness of -the full tide-drawing moon and the heavy scorching sun;--and for those -more sensitive souls, whose nerves are easily played upon, there is -produced a certain curious sense of lying back upon fate, with arms -helplessly outspread, and wills benumbed and passive. - -But though some such condition as this had narcotized all overt -resistance to the destiny in store for her in the heart of Lacrima, -it cannot be said that the Italian’s mind was free from an appalling -shadow. Whether by reason of a remote spark of humanity in him, or -out of subtle fear lest by any false move he should lose his prey, -or because of some diplomatic and sagacious advice received from -his brother-in-law, Mr. John Goring had, so far, conducted himself -extremely wisely towards his prospective wife, leaving her entirely -untroubled by any molestations, and never even seeing her except in the -presence of other people. How far this unwonted restraint was agreeable -to the nature of the farmer, was a secret concealed from all, except -perhaps from his idiot protégé, the only human being in Nevilton to -whom the unattractive man ever confided his thoughts. - -Lacrima had one small and incidental consolation in feeling that she -had been instrumental in sending to a home for the feeble-minded, the -unfortunate child of the game-keeper of Auber Lake. In this single -particular, Gladys had behaved exceptionally well, and the news that -came of the girl’s steady progress in the direction of sanity and -happiness afforded some fitful gleam of light in the obscurity that -surrounded the Pariah’s soul. - -The nature of this intermittent gleam, its deep mysterious strength -drawn from spiritual sources, helped to throw a certain sad and -pallid twilight over her ordained sacrifice. This also she felt was -undertaken, like her visit to Auber Lake, for the sake of an imprisoned -and fettered spirit. If by means of such self-immolation her friend -of Dead Man’s Lane would be liberated from his servitude and set -permanently upon his feet, her submission would not be in vain. - -She had come once more to feel as though the impending event were, as -far as she was concerned, a sort of final death-sentence. The passing -fantasy, that in a momentary distortion of her mind had swept over her -of the new life it might mean to have children of her own, even though -born of this unnatural union, had not approached again the troubled -margin of her spirit. - -Even the idea of escaping the Romers was only vaguely present. She -would escape more than the Romers; she would escape the whole miserable -coil of this wretched existence, if the death she anticipated fell upon -her; for death, and nothing less than death, seemed the inevitable -circumference of the iron circle that was narrowing in upon her. - -Had those two strange phantoms that we have seen hovering over Nevilton -churchyard, representing in their opposite ways the spiritual powers -of the place, been able to survey--as who could deny they might be -able?--the fatal stream which was now bearing the Pariah forward to the -precipice, they would have been, in their divers tempers, struck with -delight and consternation at the spectacle presented to them. There -was more in this spectacle, it must be admitted, to bring joy into the -heart of a goblin than into that of an angel. Coincidence, casualty, -destiny--all seemed working together to effect the unfortunate girl’s -destruction. - -The fact that, by the recovery of his brother, the astute Luke -Andersen, the only one of all the Nevilton circle capable of striking -an effective blow in her defence, had been deprived of all but a -very shadowy interest in what befell, seemed an especially sinister -accident. Equally unfortunate was the luckless chance that at this -critical moment had led the diplomatic Mr. Taxater to see fit to -prolong his stay in London. Mr. Quincunx was characteristically -helpless. James Andersen seemed, since the recovery of his normal mind, -to have subsided like a person under some restraining vow. Lacrima was -a little surprised that he made no attempt to see her or to communicate -with her. She could only suppose she had indelibly hurt him, by her -rejection of his quixotic offers, on their way back from Hullaway. - -Thus to any ordinary glance, cast upon the field of events as they were -now arranging themselves, it would have looked as though the Italian’s -escape from the fate hanging over her were as improbable as it would be -for a miracle to intervene to save her. - -In spite of the wild threat flung out by Mr. Clavering in his sudden -anger as he waited with Luke in the Yeoborough street, the vicar of -Nevilton made no attempt to interfere. Whether he really managed to -persuade his conscience that all was well, or whether he came to the -conclusion that without some initiative from the Italian it would be -useless to meddle, not the most subtle psychologist could say. The -fact remained that the only step he took in the matter was to assure -himself that the girl’s nominal Catholicism had so far lapsed into -indifference, that she was likely to raise no objection to a ceremony -according to Anglican ritual. - -The whole pitiful situation, indeed, offered only one more terrible -and branding indictment, against the supine passivity of average human -nature in the presence of unspeakable wrongs. The power and authority -of the domestic system, according to which the real battle-field of -wills takes place out of sight of the public eye, renders it possible -for this inertia of the ordinary human crowd to cloak itself under a -moral dread of scandal, and under the fear of any drastic breach of the -uniformity of social usage. - -A visitor from Mars or Saturn might have supposed, that in -circumstances of this kind, every decent-thinking person in the village -would have rushed headlong to the episcopal throne, and called loudly -for spiritual mandates to stop the outrage. Where was the delegated -Power of God--so the forlorn shadows of the long-evicted Cistercians -might be imagined crying--whose absolute authority could be appealed -to in face of every worldly force? What was the tender-souled St. -Catharine doing, in her Paradisiac rest, that she could remain so -passively indifferent to such monstrous and sacrilegious use of her -sacred building? Was it that such transactions as this, should be -carried through, under its very shelter, that the gentle spirits -who guarded the Holy Rood had made of Nevilton Mount their sacred -resting-place? Must the whole fair tradition of the spot remain dull, -dormant, dumb, while the devotees of tyranny worked their arbitrary -will--“and nothing said”? - -Such imaginary appeals, so fantastic in the utterance, were indeed, as -that large August-moon rose night by night upon the stubble-fields, far -too remote from Nevilton’s common routine to enter the heads of any of -that simple flock. The morning mists that diffused themselves, like -filmy dream-figures, over the watchful promontory of Leo’s Hill, were -as capable as any of these villagers of crying aloud that wrong was -being done. - -The loneliness in the midst of which Lacrima moved on her way--groping, -as her enemy had taunted her with doing, so helplessly with her wistful -hands--was a loneliness so absolute that it sometimes seemed to her -as if she were already literally dead and buried. Now and then, with -a pallid phosphorescent glimmer like the gleam of a corpse-light, the -mortal dissolution of all the ties that bound her to earthly interests, -itself threw a fitful illumination over her consciousness. - -But Mr. Romer had over-reached himself in his main purpose. The moral -disintegration which he looked for, and which the cynical apathy of Mr. -Quincunx encouraged, had, by extending itself to every nerve of her -spirit, rounded itself off, as it were, full circle, and left her in a -mental state rather beyond both good and evil, than delivered up to the -latter as opposed to the former. The infernal power might be said to -have triumphed; but it could scarcely be said to have triumphed over a -living soul. It had rather driven her soul far off, far away from all -these contests, into some mysterious translunar region, where all these -distinctions lapsed and merged. - -Leo’s Hill itself had never crouched in more taciturn intentness than -it did under that sweltering August sunshine, which seemed to desire, -in the gradual scorching of the green slopes, to reduce even the -outward skin of the monster to an approximate conformity with its tawny -entrails. - -Mr. Taxater’s departure from the scene at this juncture was not only, -little as she knew it, a loss of support to Lacrima, it was also a very -serious blow to Vennie Seldom. - -The priest in Yeoborough, who at her repeated request had already -begun to give her surreptitious lessons in the Faith, was not in any -sense fitted to be a young neophyte’s spiritual adviser. He was fat. -He was gross. He was lethargic. He was indifferent. He also absolutely -refused to receive her into the Church without her mother’s sanction. -This refusal was especially troublesome to Vennie. She knew enough -of her mother to know that while it was her nature to resist blindly -and obstinately any deviation from her will, when once a revolt was -an established fact she would resign herself to it with a surprising -equanimity. To ask Valentia for permission to be received into the -Church would mean a most violent and distressing scene. To announce to -her that she had been so received, would mean nothing but melancholy -and weary acquiescence. - -She felt deeply hurt at Mr. Taxater’s desertion of her at this moment -of all moments. It was incredible that it was really necessary for -him to be so long in town. As a rule he never left the Gables during -the month of August. His conduct puzzled and troubled her. Did he -care nothing whether she became a Catholic or not? Were his lessons -mere casual by-play, to fill up his spare hours in an interesting -and pleasant diversion? Was he really the faithful friend he called -himself? Not only had he absented himself, but he had done so without -sending her a single word. - -As a matter of fact it was extremely rare for Mr. Taxater to write -a letter, even to his nearest friends, except under the stress of -theological controversy. But Vennie knew nothing of this. She simply -felt hurt and injured; as though the one human being, upon whom she -had reposed her trust, had deserted and betrayed her. He had spoken -so tenderly, so affectionately to her, too, during their last walk -together, before the unfortunate encounter with James Andersen in the -Athelston porch! - -It is true that his attitude over that matter of Andersen’s insanity, -and also in the affair of Lacrima’s marriage, had a little shocked -and disconcerted her. He had bluntly refused to take her into his -confidence, and she felt instinctively that the conversation with Luke, -from which she had been so curtly dismissed, was of a kind that would -have hurt and surprised her. - -It seemed unworthy of him to absent himself from Nevilton, just at the -moment when, as she felt certain in her heart, some grievous outrage -was being committed. She had learned quickly enough of Andersen’s -recovery; but nothing she could learn either lessened her terrible -apprehension about Lacrima, or gave her the least hint of a path she -could follow to do anything on the Italian’s behalf. - -She made a struggle once to see the girl and to talk to her. But she -came away from the hurried interview as perplexed and troubled in her -mind as ever. Lacrima had maintained an obstinate and impenetrable -reserve. Vennie made up her mind that she would postpone for the -present her own religious revolt, and devote herself to keeping a close -and careful watch upon events in Nevilton. - -Mr. Clavering’s present attitude rendered her profoundly unhappy. The -pathetic overtures she had made to him recently, with a desperate hope -of renewing their friendship on a basis that would be unaffected even -by her change of creed, had seemed entirely unremarked by the absorbed -clergyman. She could not help brooding sometimes, with a feeling -of wretched humiliation, over the brusqueness and rudeness which -characterized his manner towards her. - -She recalled, more often than the priest would have cared to have -known, that pursuit of theirs, of the demented Andersen, and how in his -annoyance and confusion he had behaved to her in a fashion not only -rough but positively unkind. - -It was clear that he was growing more and more slavishly infatuated -with Gladys; and Vennie could only pray that the days might pass -quickly and the grotesque blasphemy of the confirmation service be -carried through and done with, so that the evil spell of her presence -should be lifted and broken. - -Prayer indeed--poor little forlorn saint!--was all that was left to -her, outside her mother’s exacting affection, and she made a constant -and desperate use of it. Only the little painted wooden image, in her -white-washed room, a pathetic reproduction of the famous Nuremburg -Madonna, could have betrayed how long were the hours in which she gave -herself up to these passionate appeals. She prayed for Clavering in -that shy heart-breaking manner--never whispering his name, even to the -ears of Our Lady, but always calling him “He” and “Him”--in which girls -are inclined to pray for the man to whom they have sacrificed their -peace. She prayed desperately for Lacrima, that at the last moment, -contrary to all hope, some intervention might arrive. - -Thus it came about, that beneath the roofs of Nevilton--for neither -James Andersen nor Mr. Quincunx were “praying men”--only one voice was -lifted up, the voice of the last of the old race of the place’s rulers, -to protest against the flowing forward to its fatal end, of this evil -tide. - -Nevertheless, things moved steadily and irresistibly on; and it seemed -as though it were as improbable that those shimmering mists which every -evening crept up the sides of Leo’s Hill should endure the heat of the -August noons, as that the prayers of this frail child should change the -course of ordained destiny. - -If none but her little painted Madonna knew how passionate were -Vennie’s spiritual struggles; not even that other Vennie, of the -long-buried royal court, whose mournful nun’s eyes looked out upon -the great entrance-hall, knew what turbulent thoughts and anxieties -possessed the soul of Gladys Romer. - -Was Mr. Taxater right in the formidable hint he had given the young -stone-carver, as to the result of his amour with his employer’s -daughter? Was Gladys not only the actual mistress of Luke, but the -prospective mother of a child of their strange love? - -Whatever were the fair-haired girl’s thoughts and apprehensions, she -kept them rigidly to herself; and not even Lacrima, in her wildest -imagination, ever dreamed that things had gone as far as that. If it -had chanced to be, as Mr. Taxater supposed, and as Luke seemed willing -to admit, Gladys was apparently relying upon some vague accident in -the course of events, or upon some hidden scheme of her own, to escape -the exposure which the truth of such a supposition seemed to render -inevitable. - -The fact remained that she let matters drift on, and continued to -prepare--in her own fashion--not only for her reception into the Church -of England, but for her marriage to the wealthy American. - -Dangelis was continually engaged now in running backwards and forwards -to town on business connected with his marriage; and with a view to -making these trips more pleasantly and conveniently he had acquired a -smart touring-car of his own, which he soon found himself able to drive -without assistance. The pleasure of these excursions, leading him, in -delicious solitude, through so many unvisited country places and along -such historic roads, had for the moment distracted his attention from -his art. - -He rarely took Gladys with him; partly because he regarded himself as -still but a learner in the science of driving, but more because he -felt, at this critical moment of his life, an extraordinary desire to -be alone with his own thoughts. Most of these thoughts, it is true, -were such as it would not have hurt the feelings of his fiancée to have -surprised in their passage through his mind; but not quite all of them. -Ever since the incident of Auber Lake, an incident which threw the -character of his betrothed into no very charming light, Dangelis had -had his moments of uneasiness and misgiving. He could not altogether -conceal from himself that his attraction to Gladys was rather of a -physical than of a spiritual, or even of a psychic nature. - -Once or twice, while the noble expanses of Salisbury Plain or the New -Forest thrilled him with a pure dilation of soul, as he swept along -in the clear air, he was on the verge of turning his car straight to -the harbour of Southampton and taking the first boat that offered -itself, bound East, West, North or South--it mattered nothing the -direction!--so that an impassable gulf of free sea-water should -separate him forever from the hot fields and woods of Nevilton. - -Once, when reaching a cross-road point, where the name of the famous -harbour stared at him from a sign-post, he had even gone so far as to -deviate to the extent of several miles from his normal road. But that -intolerable craving for the girl’s soft-clinging arms and supple body, -with which she had at last succeeded in poisoning the freedom of his -mind, drew him back with the force of a magnet. - -The day at length approached, when, on the festival of his favorite -saint, Mr. Clavering was to perform the ceremony, to which he had -looked forward so long and with such varied feelings. It was Saturday, -and on the following morning, in a service especially arranged to take -place privately, between early celebration and ordinary matins, Gladys -was to be baptized. - -Dangelis had suddenly declared his intention of making his escape from -a proceeding which to his American mind seemed entirely uncalled for, -and to his pagan humour seemed not a little grotesque. He had decided -to start, immediately after breakfast, and motor to London, this time -by way of Trowbridge and Westbury. - -The confirmation ceremony, for reasons connected with the convenience -of the Lord Bishop, had been finally fixed for the ensuing Wednesday, -so that only two days were destined to elapse between the girl’s -reception into the Church, and her admission to its most sacred -rites. Dangelis was sufficiently a heathen to desire to be absent -from this event also, though he had promised Mr. Clavering to support -his betrothed on the occasion of her first Communion on the following -Sunday, which would be their last Sunday together as unwedded lovers. - -On this occasion, Gladys persuaded him to let her ride by his side a -few miles along the Yeoborough road. They had just reached the bridge -across the railway-line, about a mile and a half from the village, when -they caught sight of Mr. John Goring, returning from an early visit to -the local market. - -Gladys made the artist stop the car, and she got out to speak to her -uncle. After a minute or two’s conversation, she informed Dangelis that -she would return with Mr. Goring by the field-path, which left the road -at that point and followed the track of the railway. The American, -obedient to her wish, set his car in motion, and waving her a gay -good-bye, disappeared swiftly round an adjacent corner. - -Gladys and her uncle proceeded to walk slowly homeward, across the -meadows; neither of them, however, paying much attention to the charm -of the way. In vain from the marshy hollows between their path and the -metal track, certain brilliant clumps of ragged robin and red rattle -signalled to them to pause and admire. Gladys and Mr. Goring strolled -forward, past these allurements, with a superb absorption in their own -interests. - -“I can’t think, uncle,” Gladys was saying, “how it is that you can go -on in the way you’re doing; you, a properly engaged person, and not -seeing anything of your young lady?” - -The farmer laughed. “Ah! my dear, but what matter? I shall see her soon -enough; all I want to, may-be.” - -“But most engaged people like to see a little of one another before -they’re married, don’t they, uncle? I know Ralph would be quite mad if -he couldn’t see _me_.” - -“But, my pretty, this is quite a different case. When Bert and I”--he -spoke of the idiot as if they had been comrades, instead of master and -servant--“have bought a new load of lop-ears, we never tease ’em or -fret ’em before we get ’em home.” - -“But Lacrima isn’t a rabbit!” cried Gladys impatiently; “she’s a girl -like me, and wants what all girls want, to be petted and spoilt a -little before she’s plunged into marriage.” - -“She didn’t strike me as wanting anything of that kind, when I made up -to her in our parlour,” replied Mr. Goring. - -“Oh you dear old stupid!” cried his niece, “can’t you understand -that’s what we’re all like? We all put on airs, and have fancies, and -look cross; but we want to be petted all the same. We want it all the -more!” - -“I reckon I’d better leave well alone all the same, just at present,” -observed the farmer. “If I was to go stroking her and making up to her, -while she’s on the road, may-be when we got her into the hutch she’d -bite like a weasel.” - -“She’d never really bite!” retorted his companion. “You don’t know her -as well as I do. I tell you, uncle, she’s got no more spirit than a -tame pigeon.” - -“I’m not so sure of that,” said the farmer. - -Gladys flicked the grass impatiently with the end of her parasol. - -“You may take my word for it, uncle,” she continued. “The whole thing’s -put on. It’s all affectation and nonsense. Do you think she’d have -agreed to marry you if she wasn’t ready for a little fun? Of course -she’s ready! She’s only waiting for you to begin. It makes it more -exciting for her, when she cries out and looks injured. That’s the only -reason why she does it. Lots of girls are like that, you know!” - -“Are they, my pretty, are they? ’Tis difficult to tell that kind, -may-be, from the other kind. But I’m not a man for too much of these -fancy ways.” - -“You’re not drawing back, uncle, are you?” cried Gladys, in -considerable alarm. - -“God darn me, no!” replied the farmer. “I’m going to carry this -business through. Don’t you fuss yourself. Only I like doing these -things in my own way--dost understand me, my dear?--in my own way; and -then, if so be they go wrong, I can’t put the blame on no one else.” - -“I wonder you aren’t more keen, uncle,” began Gladys insinuatingly, -following another track, “to see more of a pretty girl you’re just -going to marry. I don’t believe you half know how pretty she is! I wish -you could see her doing her hair in the morning.” - -“I shall see her, soon enough, my lass; don’t worry,” replied the -farmer. - -“I should so love to see you give her one kiss,” murmured Gladys. “Of -course, she’d struggle and make a fuss, but she’d really be enjoying it -all the time.” - -“May-be she would, my pretty, and may-be she wouldn’t. I’m not one that -likes hearing either rabbits or maidens start the squealing game. It -fair gives me the shivers. Bert, he can stand it, but I never could. -It’s nature, I suppose. A man can’t change his nature no more than a -cow nor a horse.” - -“I can’t understand you, uncle,” observed Gladys. “If I were in your -place, I’m sure I shouldn’t be satisfied without at least kissing -the girl I was going to marry. I’d find some way of getting round -her, however sulky she was. Oh, I’m sure you don’t half know how nice -Lacrima is to kiss!” - -“I suppose she isn’t so mighty different, come to that,” replied the -farmer, “than any other maid. I don’t mind if I give _you_ a kiss, my -beauty!” he added, encircling his niece with an affectionate embrace -and kissing her flushed cheek. “There--there! Best let well alone, -sweetheart, and leave your old uncle to manage his own little affairs -according to his own fashion!” - -But Gladys was not so easily put off. She had recourse to her fertile -imagination. - -“You should have heard what she said to me the other night, uncle. You -know the way girls talk? or you ought to, anyhow! She said she hoped -you’d go on being the same simple fool, after you were married. She -said she’d find it mighty easy to twist you round her finger. ‘Why,’ -she said, ‘I can do what I like with him now. He treats me as if I -were a high-born lady and he were a mere common man. I believe he’s -downright afraid of me!’ That’s the sort of things she says about -you, uncle. She thinks in her heart that you’re just a fool, a simple -frightened fool!” - -“Darn her! she does, does she?” cried Mr. Goring, touched at last by -the serpent’s tongue. “She thinks I’m a fool, does she? Well! Let her -have her laugh. Them laughs best as laughs last, in my thinking!” - -“Yes, she thinks you’re a great big silly fool, uncle. Of course it’s -all pretence, her talk about wanting you to be like that; but that’s -what she thinks you are. What she’d really like--only she doesn’t say -so, even to me--would be for you to catch her suddenly round the waist -and kiss her on the mouth, and laugh at her pretendings. I expect she’s -waiting to give you a chance to do something of that sort; only you -don’t come near her. Oh, she must think you’re a monstrous fool! She -must chuckle to herself to think what a fool you are.” - -“I’ll teach her what kind of a fool I am,” muttered Mr. Goring, “when -I’ve got her to myself, up at the farm. This business of dangling after -a maid’s apron strings, this kissing and cuddling, don’t suit somehow -with my nature. I’m not one of your fancy-courting ones and never was!” - -“Listen, uncle!” said Gladys eagerly, laying her hand on his arm. -“Suppose I was to take her up to Cæsar’s Quarry this afternoon? That -would be a lovely chance! You could come strolling round about four -o’clock. I’d be on the watch; and before she knew you were there, I’d -scramble out, and you could climb down. She couldn’t get away from you, -and you’d have quite a nice little bit of love-making.” - -Mr. Goring paused, and prodded the ground with the end of his stick. - -“What a little devil you are!” he exclaimed. “Darn me if this here job -isn’t a queer business! Here are you, putting yourself out and fussing -around, only for a fellow to have what’s due to him. You leave us -alone, sweetheart, my young lady and me! I reckon we know what’s best -for ourselves, without you thrusting your hand in.” - -“But you might just walk up that way, uncle; it isn’t far over the -hill. I’d give--oh, I don’t know what!--to see you two together. She -wants to be teased a little, you know! She’s getting too proud and -self-satisfied for anything. It would do her ever so much good to be -taught a lesson. It isn’t much to do, is it? Just to give the girl -you’re going to marry one little kiss?” - -“But how do I know you two wenches aren’t fooling me, even now?” -protested the cautious farmer. “’Tis just the sort of maids’ trick ye -might set out to play upon a man. How do I know ye haven’t put your two -darned little heads together over this job?” - -Gladys looked round. They were approaching the Mill Copse. - -“Please, uncle,” she cried, “don’t say such things to me. You know I -wouldn’t join with anyone against you. Least of all with her! Just do -as I tell you, and stroll up to Cæsar’s Quarry about four o’clock. I -promise you faithfully I haven’t said a word to her about it. Please, -uncle, be nice and kind over this.” - -She threw her arms round Mr. Goring’s neck. “You haven’t done anything -for me for a long time,” she murmured in her most persuasive tone. -“Do you remember how I used to give you butterfly-kisses when I was a -little girl, and you kept apples for me in the big loft?” - -Mr. Goring’s nature may, or may not have been, as he described it; it -is certain that the caresses and cajoleries of his lovely niece had -an instantaneous effect upon him. His slow-witted suspicions melted -completely under the spell of her touch. - -“Well, my pretty,” he said, as they moved on, under the shadowy trees -of the park, “may-be, if I’ve nothing else to do and things seem quiet, -I’ll take a bit of a walk this afternoon. But you mustn’t count on it. -If I do catch sight of ’ee, ’round Cæsar’s way, I’ll let ’ee -know. But ’tisn’t a downright promise, mind!” - -Gladys clapped her hands. “You’re a perfect love, uncle!” she cried -jubilantly. “I wish I were Lacrima; I’d be ever, ever so nice to you!” - -“Ye can be nice to me, as ’tis, sweetheart,” replied the farmer. “You -and me have always been kind of fond of each other, haven’t us? But I -reckon ye’d best be slipping off now, up to your house. I never care -greatly for meeting your father by accident-like. He’s one of these sly -ones that always makes a fellow feel squeamy and leery.” - -That afternoon it happened that the adventurous Luke had planned a trip -down to Weymouth, with a new flame of his, a certain Polly Shadow, -whose parents kept a tobacco-shop in Yeoborough. - -He had endeavoured to persuade his brother to accompany them on this -little excursion, in the hope that a breath of sea-air might distract -and refresh him; but James had expressed his intention of paying a -visit to his gentle restorer, up at Wild Pine, who was now sufficiently -recovered to enable her to sit out in the shade of the great trees. - -The church clock had just struck three, when James Andersen approached -the entrance to Nevil’s Gully. - -He had not advanced far into the shadow of the beeches, when he heard -the sound of voices. He paused, and listened. The clear tones of Ninsy -Lintot were unmistakable, and he thought he detected--though of this -he was not sure--the nervous high-pitched voice of Philip Wone. From -the direction of the sounds, he gathered that the two young people were -seated somewhere on the bracken-covered slope above the barton, where, -as he well knew, there were several shady terraces overlooking the -valley. - -Unwilling to plunge suddenly into a conversation that appeared, as -far as he could catch its purport, to be of considerable emotional -tension, Andersen cautiously ascended the moss-grown bank on his left, -and continued his climb, until he had reached the crest of the hill. He -then followed, as silently as he could, the little grassy path between -the stubble-field and the thickets, until he came to the open space -immediately above these fern-covered terraces. - -Yes, his conjecture had been right. Seated side by side beneath the -tall-waving bracken, the auburn-haired Ninsy and her anarchist friend -were engaged in an absorbing and passionate discussion. Both of them -were bare-headed, and the young man’s hand rested upon the motionless -fingers of his companion, which were clasped demurely upon her lap. -Philip’s voice was raised in intense and pitiful supplication. - -“I’d care for you day and night,” Andersen heard him cry. “I’d nurse -you when you were ill, and keep you from every kind of annoyance.” - -“But, Philip dear,” the girl’s voice answered, “you know what the -doctor said. He said I mustn’t marry on any account. So even if I had -nothing against it, it wouldn’t be possible for us to do this.” - -“Ninsy, Ninsy!” cried the youth pathetically, “don’t you understand -what I mean? I can’t bear having to say these things, but you force me -to, when you talk like that. The doctor meant that it would be wrong -for you to have children, and he took it for granted that you’d never -find anyone ready to live with you as I’d live with you. It would only -be a marriage in name. I mean it would only be a marriage in name in -regard to children. It would be a real marriage to me, it would be -heaven to me, to live side by side with you, and no one able any more -to come between us! I can’t realize such happiness. It makes me feel -dizzy even to think of it!” - -Ninsy unclasped her hands, and gently repulsing him, remained buried in -deep thought. Standing erect above them, like a sentry upon a palisade, -James Andersen stared gloomily down upon this little drama. In some -strange way,--perhaps because of some sudden recurrence of his mental -trouble,--he seemed quite unconscious of anything dishonourable or base -in thus withholding from these two people the knowledge that he was -overhearing them. - -“I’ll take care of you to the end of my life!” the young man repeated. -“I’m doing quite well now with my work. You’ll be able to have all you -want. You’ll be better off than you are here, and you know perfectly -well that as soon as your father’s free he’ll marry that friend of his -in Yeoborough. I saw him with her last Sunday. I’m sure it’s only for -your sake that he stays single. She’s got three children, and that’s -what holds him back--that, and the thought that you two mightn’t get on -together. You’d be doing your father a kindness if you said yes to me, -Ninsy. Please, please, my darling, say it, and make me grateful to you -forever!” - -“I can’t say it,--Philip, dear, I can’t, I can’t”; murmured the girl, -in a voice so low that the sentinel above them could only just catch -her words. “I do care for you, and I do value your goodness to me, but -I can’t say the words, Philip. Something seems to stop me, something in -my throat.” - -It was not to her throat however, that the agitated Ninsy raised her -thin hands. As she pressed them against her breast a look of tragic -sorrow came into her face. Philip regarded her wistfully. - -“You’re thinking you don’t love me, dear,--and never can love me. I -know that, well enough! I know you don’t love me as I love you. But -what does that matter? I’ve known that, all the time. The thing is, you -won’t find anyone who loves you as I do,--ready to live with you as -I’ve said I will, ready to nurse you and look after you. Other people’s -love will be always asking and demanding from you. Mine--oh, it’s true, -my darling, it’s true!--mine only wants to give up everything to make -you happy.” - -Ninsy was evidently more than a little moved by the boy’s appeal. There -was a ring of passionate sincerity in his tone which went straight to -her heart. She bent down and covered her face with her hands. When at -length she lifted up her head and answered him, there were tears on her -cheeks, and the watchful listener above them did not miss the quiver in -her tone. - -“I’m sorry, Philip boy, more sorry than I can say, that I can’t be -nicer to you, that I can’t show my gratitude to you, in the way -you wish. But though I do care for you, and--and value your dear -love--something stops me, something makes it impossible that this -should happen.” - -“I believe it’s because you love that fellow Andersen!” cried the -excited youth, leaping to his feet in his agitation. - -In making this movement, the figure of the stone-carver, silhouetted -with terrible distinctness against the sky-line, became visible to him. -Instinctively he uttered a cry of surprise and anger. - -“What do you want here? You’ve been listening! You’ve been spying on -us! Get away, can’t you! Get back to your pretty young lady--her that’s -going to marry John Goring for the sake of his money! Clear out of -this, do you hear? Ninsy’s sick of you and your ways. Clear off! or -I’ll make you--eavesdropper!” - -By this time Ninsy had also risen, and stood facing the figure above -them. Every vestige of colour had left her cheeks, and her hand was -pressed against her side. Andersen made a curious incoherent sound and -took a step towards them. - -“Get away, can’t you!” reiterated the furious youth. “You’ve caused -enough trouble here already. Look at her,--can’t you see how ill she -is? Get back--damn you!--unless you want to kill her.” - -Ninsy certainly looked as though in another moment she were going -to fall. She made a piteous little gesture, as if to ward off from -Andersen the boy’s savage words, but Philip caught her passionately -round the waist. - -“Get away!” he cried once more. “She belongs to me now. You might have -had her, you coward--you turn-coat!--but you let her go for your newer -prey. Oh, you’re a fine gentleman, James Andersen, a fine faithful -gentleman! _You_ don’t hold with strikes. _You_ don’t hold with workmen -rising against masters. _You_ hold with keeping in with those that are -in power. Clear off--eavesdropper! Get back to Mistress John Goring and -your nice brother! He’s as pretty a gentleman as you are, with his dear -Miss Gladys!” - -Ninsy’s feet staggered beneath her and she began to hang limp upon his -arm. She opened her mouth to speak, but could only gasp helplessly. Her -wide-open eyes--staring from her pallid face--never left Andersen for a -moment. Of Philip she seemed absolutely unconscious. The stone-carver -made another step down the hill. His eyes, too, were fixed intently on -the girl, and of his rival’s angry speeches he seemed utterly oblivious. - -“Get away!” the boy reiterated, beside himself with fury, supporting -the drooping form of his companion as if its weight were nothing. -“We’ve had enough of your shilly-shallying and trickery! We’ve had -enough of your fine manners! A damned cowardly spy--that’s what I call -you, you well-behaved gentleman! Get back--can’t you!” - -The drooping girl uttered some incoherent words and made a helpless -gesture with her hand. Andersen seemed to read her meaning in her eyes, -for he paused abruptly in his approach and stretched out his arms. - -“Good-bye, Ninsy!” he murmured in a low voice. He said no more, and -turning on his heel, scrambled swiftly back over the crest of the ridge -and disappeared from view. - -Philip flung a parting taunt after him, and then, lifting the girl -bodily off her feet, staggered down the slope to the cottage, holding -her in his arms. - -Meanwhile James Andersen walked swiftly across the stubble-field in the -direction of Leo’s Hill. At the pace he moved it only took him some -brief minutes to reach the long stone wall that separates, in this -quarter, the quarried levels of the promontory from the high arable -lands which abut upon it. - -He climbed over this barrier and strode blindly and recklessly forward -among the slippery grassy paths that crossed one another along the -edges of the deeper pits. - -The stone-carver was approaching, though quite unconsciously, the scene -of a very remarkable drama. Some fifteen minutes before his approach, -the two girls from Nevilton House had reached the precipitous edge of -what was known in that locality as Cæsar’s Quarry. Cæsar’s Quarry was -a large disused pit, deeper and more extensive than most of the old -excavations on the Hill, and surrounded, on all but one side, by blank -precipitous walls of weather-stained sandstone. These walls of smooth -stone remained always dark and damp, whatever the temperature might be -of the air above them; and the floor of the Quarry was composed of a -soft verdant carpet of cool moist moss, interspersed by stray heaps of -discoloured rubble, on which flourished, at this particular season of -the year, masses of that sombre-foliaged weed known as wormwood. - -On the northern side of Cæsar’s Quarry rose a high narrow ridge of -rock, divided, at uneven spaces, by deeply cut fissures or chasms, -some broad and some narrow, but all overgrown to the very edge by -short slippery grass. This ridge, known locally as Claudy’s Leap, was -a favourite venture-place of the more daring among the children of the -neighbourhood, who would challenge one another to feats of courage and -agility, along its perilous edge. - -On the side of Claudy’s Leap, opposite from Cæsar’s Quarry, was a -second pit, of even deeper descent than the other, but of much smaller -expanse. This second quarry, also disused for several generations, -remained so far nameless, destiny having, it might seem, withheld the -baptismal honour, until the place had earned a right to it by becoming -the scene of some tragic, or otherwise noteworthy, event. - -Gladys and Lacrima approached Cæsar’s Quarry from the western side, -from whose slope a little winding path--the only entrance or exit -attainable--led down into its shadowy depths. The Italian glanced with -a certain degree of apprehension into the gulf beneath her, but Gladys -seemed to take the thing so much for granted, and appeared so perfectly -at her ease, that she was ashamed to confess her tremors. The elder -girl, indeed, continued chatting cheerfully to her companion about -indifferent matters, and as she clambered down the little path in front -of her, she turned once or twice, in her fluent discourse, to make -sure that Lacrima was following. The two cousins stood for awhile in -silence, side by side, when they reached the bottom. - -“How nice and cool it is!” cried Gladys, after a pause. “I was getting -scorched up there! Let’s sit down a little, shall we,--before we start -back? I love these old quarries.” - -They sat down, accordingly, upon a heap of stones, and Gladys serenely -continued her chatter, glancing up, however, now and again, to the -frowning ridges of the precipices above them. - -They had not waited long in this way, when the quarry-owner’s daughter -gave a perceptible start, and raised her hand quickly to her lips. - -Her observant eye had caught sight of the figure of Mr. John Goring -peering down upon them from the opposite ridge. Had Lacrima observed -this movement and lifted her eyes too, she would have received a -most invaluable warning, but the Powers whoever they may have been, -who governed the sequence of events upon Leo’s Hill, impelled her -to keep her head lowered, and her interest concentrated upon a tuft -of curiously feathered moss. Gladys remained motionless for several -moments, while the figure on the opposite side vanished as suddenly as -it had appeared. Then she slowly rose. - -“Oh, how silly I am,” she cried; “I’ve dropped that bunch of marjoram. -Stop a minute, dear. Don’t move! I’ll just run up and get it. It was in -the path. I know exactly where!” - -“I’ll come with you if you like,” said Lacrima listlessly, “then you -won’t have to come back. Or why not leave it for a moment?” - -“It’s on the path, I tell you!” cried her cousin, already some way up -the slope; “I’m scared of someone taking it. Marjoram isn’t common -about here. Oh no! Stay where you are. I’ll be back in a second.” - -The Italian relapsed into her former dreamy unconcern. She listlessly -began stripping the leaves from a spray of wormwood which grew by her -side. The place where she sat was in deep shadow, though upon the -summit of the opposite ridge the sun lay hot. Her thoughts hovered -about her friend in Dead Man’s Lane. She had vaguely hoped to get -a glimpse of him this afternoon, but the absence of Dangelis had -interfered with this. - -She began building fantastic castles in the air, trying to call up the -image of a rejuvenated Mr. Quincunx, freed from all cares and worries, -living the placid epicurean life his heart craved. Would he, she -wondered, recognize then, what her sacrifice meant? Or would he remain -still obsessed by this or the other cynical fantasy, as far from the -real truth of things as a madman’s dream? She smiled gently to herself -as she thought of her friend’s peculiarities. Her love for him, as she -felt it now, across a quivering gulf of misty space, was a thing as -humorously tolerant and tender as it might have been had they been man -and wife of many years’ standing. In these things Lacrima’s Latin blood -gave her a certain maturity of feeling, and emphasized the maternal -element in her attachment. - -She contemplated dreamily the smooth bare walls of the cavernous arena -in which she sat. Their coolness and dampness was not unpleasant after -the heat of the upper air, but there was something sepulchral about -them, something that gave the girl the queer impression of a colossal -tomb--a tomb whose scattered bones might even now be lying, washed by -centuries of rain, under the rank weeds of these heaps of rubble. - -She heard the sound of someone descending the path behind her but, -taking for granted that it was her cousin, she did not turn her head. -It was only when the steps were quite close that she recognized that -they were too heavy to be those of a girl. - -Then she leapt to her feet, and swung round,--to find herself -confronted by the sturdy figure of Mr. John Goring. She gave a wild cry -of panic and fled blindly across the smooth floor of the great quarry. -Mr. Goring followed her at his leisure. - -The girl’s terror was so great, that, hardly conscious of what she did, -she ran desperately towards the remotest corner of the excavation, -where some ancient blasting-process had torn a narrow crevice out of -the solid rock. This direction of her flight made the farmer’s pursuit -of her a fatally easy undertaking, for the great smooth walls closed -in, at a sharp angle, at that point, and the crevice, where the two -walls met, only sank a few feet into the rock. - -Mr. Goring, observing the complete hopelessness of the girl’s mad -attempt to escape him, proceeded to advance towards her as calmly and -leisurely as if she had been some hare or rabbit he had just shot. The -fact that Lacrima had chosen this particular cul-de-sac, on the eastern -side of the quarry, was a most felicitous accident for Gladys, for it -enabled her to watch the event with as much ease as if she had been a -Drusilla or a Livia, seated in the Roman amphitheatre. The fair-haired -girl crept to the extreme brink of the steep descent and there, lying -prone on the thyme-scented grass, her chin propped upon her hands, she -followed with absorbed interest the farmer’s movements as he approached -his recalcitrant fiancée. - -The terrified girl soon found out the treachery of the panic-instinct -which had led her into this trap. Had she remained in the open, it is -quite possible that by a little manœuvring she could have escaped; but -now her only exit was blocked by her advancing pursuer. - -Turning to face him, and leaning back against the massive wall of -stone, she stretched out her arms on either side of her, seizing -convulsively in her fingers some tufts of knot-grass which grew on the -surface of the rock. Here, with panting bosom and pallid cheeks, she -awaited his approach. Her tense figure and terror-stricken gaze only -needed the imprisoning fetters to have made of her an exact modern -image of the unfortunate Andromeda. She neither moved nor uttered the -least cry, as Mr. Goring drew near her. - -At that moment a wild and unearthly shout reverberated through the -quarry. The sound of it--caught up by repeated echoes--went rolling -away across Leo’s Hill, frightening the sheep and startling the -cider-drinkers in the lonely Inn. Gladys leapt to her feet, ran round -to where the path descended, and began hastily scrambling down. Mr. -Goring retreated hurriedly into the centre of the arena, and with his -hand shading his eyes gazed up at the intruder. - -It was no light-footed Perseus, who on behalf of this forlorn child of -classic shores, appeared as if from the sky. It was, indeed, only the -excited figure of James Andersen that Mr. Goring’s gaze, and Lacrima’s -bewildered glance, encountered simultaneously. The stone-carver seemed -to be possessed by a legion of devils. His first thundering shout was -followed by several others, each more terrifying than the last, and -Gladys, rushing past the astonished farmer, seized Lacrima by the arm. - -“Come!” she cried. “Uncle was a brute to frighten you. But, for -heaven’s sake, let’s get out of this, before that madman collects a -crowd! They’ll all be down here from the inn in another moment. Quick, -dear, quick! Our only chance is to get away now.” - -Lacrima permitted her cousin to hurry her across the quarry and up the -path. As they neared the summit of the slope the Italian turned and -looked back. Mr. Goring was still standing where they had left him, -gazing with petrified interest at the wild gestures of the man above -him. - -Andersen seemed beside himself. He kept frantically waving his arms, -and seemed engaged in some incoherent defiance of the invisible Powers -of the air. Lacrima, as she looked at him, became convinced that he was -out of his mind. She could not even be quite clear if he recognized -her. She was certain that it was not against her assailant that his -wild cries and defiances were hurled. It did not appear that he was -even aware of the presence of the farmer. Whether or not he had seen -her and known her when he uttered his first cry, she could not tell. It -was certainly against no earthly enemies that the man was struggling -now. - -Vennie Seldom might have hazarded the superstitious suggestion that -his fit was not madness at all but a sudden illumination, vouchsafed -to his long silence, of the real conditions of the airy warfare that -is being constantly waged around us. At that moment, Vennie might have -said, James Andersen was the only perfectly sane person among them, -for to his eyes alone, the real nature of that heathen place and its -dark hosts was laid manifestly bare. The man, according to this strange -view, was wrestling to the death, in his supreme hour, against the -Forces that had not only darkened his own days and those of Lacrima, -but had made the end of his mother’s life so tragic and miserable. - -Gladys dragged Lacrima away as soon as they reached the top of the -ascent but the Pariah had time to mark the last desperate gesture of -her deliverer before he vanished from her sight over the ridge. - -Mr. Goring overtook them before they had gone far, and walked on with -them, talking to Gladys about Andersen’s evident insanity. - -“It’s no good my trying to do anything,” he remarked. “But I’ll send -Bert round for Luke as soon as I get home. Luke’ll bring him to his -senses. They say he’s been taken like this before, and has come round. -He hears voices, you know, and fancies things.” - -They walked in silence along the high upland road that leads from the -principal quarries of the Hill to the Wild Pine hamlet and Nevil’s -Gully. When they reached the latter place, the two girls went on, down -Root-Thatch Lane, and Mr. Goring took the field-path to the Priory. - -Before they separated, the farmer turned to his future bride, who had -been careful to keep Gladys between herself and him, and addressed her -in the most gentle voice he knew how to assume. - -“Don’t be angry with me, lass,” he said. “I was only teasing, just now. -’Twas a poor jest may-be, and ye’ve cause to look glowering. But when -we two be man and wife ye’ll find I’m a sight better to live with than -many a fair-spoken one. These be queer times, and like enough I seem a -queer fellow, but things’ll settle themselves. You take my word for it!” - -Lacrima could only murmur a faint assent in reply to these words, but -as she entered with Gladys the shadow of the tunnel-like lane, she -could not help thinking that her repulsion to this man, dreadful though -it was, was nothing in comparison with the fear and loathing with which -she regarded Mr. Romer. Contrasted with his sinister relative, Mr. -John Goring was, after all, no more than a rough simpleton. - -Meanwhile, on Leo’s Hill, an event of tragic significance had occurred. -It will be remembered that the last Lacrima had seen of James Andersen -was the wild final gesticulation he made,--a sort of mad appeal to the -Heavens against the assault of invisible enemies,--before he vanished -from sight on the further side of Claudy’s Leap. This vanishing, just -at that point, meant no more to Lacrima than that he had probably taken -a lower path, but had Gladys or Mr. Goring witnessed it,--or any other -person who knew the topography of the place,--a much more startling -conclusion would have been inevitable. Nor would such a conclusion have -been incorrect. - -The unfortunate man, forgetting, in his excitement, the existence of -the other quarry, the nameless one; forgetting in fact that Claudy’s -Leap was a razor’s edge between two precipices, had stepped heedlessly -backwards, after his final appeal to Heaven, and fallen, without a cry, -straight into the gulf. - -The height of his fall would, in any case, have probably killed him, -but as it was “he dashed his head,” in the language of the Bible, -“against a stone”; and in less than a second after his last cry, his -soul, to use the expression of a more pagan scripture, “was driven, -murmuring, into the Shades.” - -It fell to the lot, therefore, not of Luke, who did not return from -Weymouth till late that evening, but of a motley band of holiday-makers -from the hill-top Inn, to discover the madman’s fate. Arriving -at the spot almost immediately after the girls’ departure, these -honest revellers--strangers to the locality--had quickly found the -explanation of the unearthly cries they had heard. - -The eve of the baptism of Mr. Romer’s daughter was celebrated, -therefore, by the baptism of the nameless quarry. Henceforth, in the -neighbourhood of Nevilton, the place was never known by any other -appellation than that of “Jimmy’s Drop”; and by that name any future -visitors, curious to observe the site of so singular an occurrence, -will have to enquire for it, as they drink their pint of cider in the -Half-Moon Tavern. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -A ROYAL WATERING-PLACE - - -Luke Andersen’s trip to Weymouth proved most charming and eventful. He -had scarcely emerged from the crowded station, with its row of antique -omnibuses and its lethargic phalanx of expectant out-porters and -bath-chair men,--each one of whom was a crusted epitome of ingrained -quaintness,--when he caught sight of Phyllis Santon and Annie Bristow -strolling laughingly towards the sea-front. They must have walked to -Yeoborough and entered the train there, for he had seen nothing of them -at Nevilton Station. - -The vivacious Polly, a lively little curly-haired child, of some -seventeen summers, was far too happy and thrilled by the adventure of -the excursion and the holiday air of the sea-side, to indulge in any -jealous fits. She was the first of the two, indeed, to greet the elder -girls, both of them quite well known to her, running rapidly after -them, in her white stiffly-starched print frock, and hailing them with -a shout of joyous recognition. - -The girls turned quickly and they all three awaited, in perfect good -temper, the stone-carver’s deliberate approach. Never had the spirits -of this latter been higher, or his surroundings more congenial to his -mood. - -Anxious not to lose any single one of the exquisite sounds, sights, -smells, and intimations, which came pouring in upon him, as he -leisurely drifted out upon the sunny street, he let his little -companion run after his two friends as fast as she wished, and watched -with serene satisfaction the airy flight of her light figure, with the -deep blue patch of sea-line at the end of the street as its welcome -background. - -The smell of sea-weed, the sound of the waves on the beach, the -cries of the fish-mongers, and the coming and going of the whole -heterogeneous crowd, filled Luke’s senses with the same familiar -thrill of indescribable pleasure as he had known, on such an occasion, -from his earliest childhood. The gayly piled fruit heaped up on the -open stalls, the little tobacco-shops with their windows full of -half-sentimental half-vulgar picture-cards, the weather-worn fronts of -the numerous public-houses, the wood-work of whose hospitable doors -always seemed to him endowed with a peculiar mellowness of their -own,--all these things, as they struck his attentive senses, revived -the most deeply-felt stirrings of old associations. - -Especially did he love the sun-bathed atmosphere, so languid -with holiday ease, which seemed to float in and out of the open -lodging-house entrances, where hung those sun-dried sea-weeds and -wooden spades and buckets, which ever-fresh installments of bare-legged -children carried off and replaced. Luke always maintained that of all -mortal odours he loved best the indescribable smell of the hall-way -of a sea-side lodging-house, where the very oil-cloth on the floor, -and the dead bull-rushes in the corner, seemed impregnated with long -seasons of salt-burdened sun-filled air. - -The fish-shops, the green-grocer’s shops, the second-hand book-shops, -and most of all, those delicious repositories of sea-treasures--foreign -importations all glittering with mother-of-pearl, dried sea-horses, -sea-sponges, sea-coral, and wonderful little boxes all pasted over with -shimmering shells--filled him with a delight as vivid and new as when -he had first encountered them in remote infancy. - -This first drifting down to the sea’s edge, after emerging from the -train, always seemed to Luke the very supremacy of human happiness. -The bare legs of the children, little and big, who ran laughing or -crying past him and the tangled curls of the elder damsels, tossed so -coquettishly back from their sun-burnt faces, the general feeling of -irresponsibility in the air, the tang of adventure in it all, of the -unexpected, the chance-born, always wrapped him about in an epicurean -dream of pleasure. - -That monotonous splash of the waves against the pebbles,--how he -associated it with endless exquisite flirtations,--flirtations -conducted with adorable shamelessness between the blue sky and the -blue sea! The memory of these, the vague memory of enchanting forms -prone or supine upon the glittering sands, with the passing and -re-passing of the same plump bathing-woman,--he had known her since -his childhood!--and the same donkeys with their laughing burdens, and -the same sweet-sellers with their trays, almost made him cry aloud -with delight, as emerging at length upon the Front, and overtaking his -friends at the Jubilee Clock-Tower, he saw the curved expanse of the -bay lying magically spread out before him. How well he knew it all, and -how inexpressibly he loved it! - -The tide was on its outward ebb when the four happy companions jumped -down, hand in hand, from the esplanade to the shingle. The long dark -windrow of broken shells and sea-weed drew a pleasant dividing line -between the dry and the wet sand. Luke always associated the stranded -star-fish and jelly-fish and bits of scattered drift-wood which that -windrow offered, with those other casually tossed-up treasures with -which an apparently pagan-minded providence had bestrewn his way! - -Once well out upon the sands, and while the girls, with little shrieks -and bursts of merriment, were pushing one another into the reach of -the tide, Luke turned to survey with a deep sigh of satisfaction, the -general appearance of the animated scene. - -The incomparable watering-place,--with its charming “after-glow,” as -Mr. Hardy so beautifully puts it, “of Georgian gaiety,”--had never -looked so fascinating as it looked this August afternoon. - -The queer old-fashioned bathing-machines, one of them still actually -carrying the Lion and Unicorn upon its pointed roof, glittered in the -sunshine with an air of welcoming encouragement. The noble sweep of the -houses behind the crescent-shaped esplanade, with the names of their -terraces--Brunswick, Regent, Gloucester, Adelaide--so suggestive of the -same historic epoch, gleamed with reciprocal hospitality; nor did the -tall spire of St. John’s Church, a landmark for miles round, detract -from the harmony of the picture. - -On Luke’s left, as he turned once more and faced the sea, the vibrating -summer air, free at present from any trace of mist, permitted a wide -and lovely view of the distant cliffs enclosing the bay. The great -White Horse, traced upon the chalk hills, seemed within an hour’s walk -of where he stood, and the majestic promontory of the White Nore drew -the eye onward to where, at the end of the visible coast-line, St. -Alban’s Head sank into the sea. - -On Luke’s right the immediate horizon was blocked by the grassy -eminence known to dwellers in Weymouth as “the Nothe”; but beyond this, -and beyond the break-water which formed an extension of it, the huge -bulk of Portland--Mr. Hardy’s Isle of the Slingers--rose massive and -shadowy against the west. - -As he gazed with familiar pleasure at this unequalled view, Luke could -not help thinking to himself how strangely the pervading charm of -scenes of this kind is enhanced by personal and literary association. -He recalled the opening chapters of “The Well-Beloved,” that curiously -characteristic fantasy-sketch of the great Wessex novelist; and he also -recalled those amazing descriptions in Victor Hugo’s “L’Homme qui Rit,” -which deal with these same localities. - -Shouts of girlish laughter distracted him at last from his exquisite -reverie, and flinging himself down on the hot sand he gave himself up -to enjoyment. Holding her tight by either hand, the two elder girls, -their skirts already drenched with salt-water, were dragging their -struggling companion across the foamy sea-verge. The white surf flowed -beneath their feet and their screams and laughter rang out across the -bay. - -Luke called to them that he was going to paddle, and implored them to -do the same. He preferred to entice them thus into the deeper water, -rather than to anticipate for them a return home with ruined petticoats -and wet sand-filled shoes. Seeing him leisurely engaged in removing -his boots and socks and turning up his trousers, the three exuberant -young people hurried back to his side and proceeded with their own -preparations. - -Soon, all four of them, laughing and splashing one another with water, -were blissfully wading along the shore, interspersing their playful -teasing with alternate complimentary and disparaging remarks, relative -to the various bathers whose isolation they invaded. - -Luke’s spirits rose higher and higher. No youthful Triton, with his -attendant Nereids, could have expressed more vividly in his radiant -aplomb, the elemental energy of air and sea. His ecstatic delight -seemed to reach its culmination as a group of extraordinarily beautiful -children came wading towards them, their sunny hair and pearl-bright -limbs gleaming against the blue water. - -At the supreme moment of this ecstasy, however, came a sudden pang of -contrary emotion,--of dark fear and gloomy foreboding. For a sudden -passing second, there rose before him,--it was now about half-past four -in the afternoon,--the image of his brother, melancholy and taciturn, -his heart broken by Lacrima’s trouble. And then, like a full dark tide -rolling in upon him, came that ominous reaction, spoken of by the old -pagan writers, and regarded by them as the shadow of the jealousy of -the Immortal Gods, envious of human pleasure--the reaction to the fare -of the Eumenides. - -His companions remained as gay and charming as ever. Nothing could -have been prettier than to watch the mixture of audacity and coyness -with which they twisted their frocks round them, nothing more amusing -than to note the differences of character between the three, as they -betrayed their naive souls in their childish abandonment to the joy of -the hour. - -Both Phyllis and Annie were tall and slender and dark. But there the -likeness between them ceased. Annie had red pouting lips, the lower -one of which protruded a little beyond its fellow, giving her face in -repose a quite deceptive look of sullenness and petulance. Her features -were irregular and a little heavy, the beauty of her countenance -residing in the shadowy coils of dusky hair which surmounted it, and -in the velvet softness of her large dark eyes. For all the heaviness -of her face, Annie’s expression was one of childlike innocence and -purity; and when she flirted or made love, she did so with a clinging -affectionateness and serious gravity which had much of the charm of -extreme youth. - -Phyllis, on the contrary, had softly outlined features of the most -delicate regularity, while from her hazel eyes and laughing parted lips -perpetual defiant provocations of alluring mischief challenged everyone -she approached. Annie was the more loving of the two, Phyllis the more -lively and amorous. Both of them made constant fun of their little -curly-headed companion, whose direct boyish ways and whimsical speeches -kept them in continual peals of merriment. - -Tired at last of paddling, they all waded to the shore, and crossing -the warm powdery sand, which is one of the chief attractions of the -place, they sat down on the edge of the shingle and dried their feet -in the sun. - -Reassuming their shoes and stockings, and demurely shaking down their -skirts, the three girls followed the now rather silent Luke to the -little tea-house opposite the Clock-Tower, in an upper room of which, -looking out on the sea, were several pleasant window-seats furnished -with convenient tables. - -The fragrant tea, the daintiness of its accessories, the fresh taste of -the bread and butter, not to speak of the inexhaustible spirits of his -companions, soon succeeded in dispelling the stone-carver’s momentary -depression. - -When the meal was over, as their train was not due to leave till nearly -seven, and it was now hardly five, Luke decided to convey his little -party across the harbour-ferry. They strolled out of the shop into the -sunshine, not before the stone-carver had bestowed so lavish a tip upon -the little waitress that his companions exchanged glances of feminine -dismay. - -They took the road through the old town to reach the ferry, following -the southern of the two parallel streets that debouch from the Front at -the point where stands the old-fashioned equestrian statue of George -the Third. Luke nourished in his heart a sentimental tenderness for -this simple monarch, vaguely and quite erroneously associating the -royal interest in the place with his own dreamy attachment to it. - -When they reached the harbour they found it in a stir of excitement -owing to the arrival of the passenger-boat from the Channel Islands, -one of the red-funneled modern successors to those antique -paddle-steamers whose first excursions must have been witnessed from -his Guernsey refuge by the author of the “Toilers of the Deep.” Side by -side with the smartly painted ship, were numerous schooners and brigs, -hailing from more northern regions, whose cargoes were being unloaded -by a motley crowd of clamorous dock-hands. - -Luke and his three companions turned to the left when they reached the -water’s edge and strolled along between the warehouses and the wharves -until they arrived at the massive bridge which crosses the harbour. -Leaning upon the parapet, whose whitish-grey fabric indicated that the -dominion of Leo’s Hill gave place here to the noble Portland Stone, -they surveyed with absorbed interest the busy scene beneath them. - -The dark greenish-colored water swirled rapidly seaward in the -increasing ebb of the tide. White-winged sea-gulls kept swooping down -to its surface and rising again in swift air-cutting curves, balancing -their glittering bodies against the slanting sunlight. Every now -and then a boat-load of excursionists would shoot out from beneath -the shadow of the wharves and shipping, and cross obliquely the -swift-flowing tide to the landing steps on the further shore. - -The four friends moved to the northern parapet of the bridge, and the -girls gave little cries of delight, to see, at no great distance, where -the broad expanse of the back-water began to widen, a group of stately -swans, rocking serenely on the shining waves. They remained for some -while, trying to attract these birds by flinging into the water bits -of broken cake, saved by the economic-minded Annie from the recent -repast. But these offerings only added new spoil to the plunder of the -greedy sea-gulls, from whose rapid movements the more aristocratic -inland creatures kept haughtily aloof. - -Preferring to use the ferry for their crossing rather than the bridge, -Luke led his friends back, along the wharves, till they reached the -line of slippery steps about which loitered the lethargic owners of -the ferry-boats. With engaging alarm, and pretty gasps and murmurs of -half-simulated panic, the three young damsels were helped down into -one of these rough receptacles, and the bare-necked, affable oarsman -proceeded, with ponderous leisureliness, to row them across. - -As the heavy oars rattled in their rowlocks, and the swirling tide -gurgled about the keels, Luke, seated in the stern, between Annie -and Phyllis, felt once more a thrilling sense of his former emotion. -With one hand round Phyllis’ waist, and the other caressing Annie’s -gloveless fingers, he permitted his gaze to wander first up, then down, -the flowing tide. - -Far out to sea, he perceived a large war-ship, like a great drowsy -sea-monster, lying motionless between sky and wave; and sweeping in, -round the little pier’s point, came a light full-sailed skiff, with the -water foaming across its bows. - -With the same engaging trepidation in his country-bred comrades, they -clambered up the landing-steps, the lower ones of which were covered -with green sea-weed, and the upper ones worn smooth as marble by long -use, and thence emerged upon the little narrow jetty, bordering upon -the harbour’s edge. - -Here were a row of the most enchanting eighteenth century -lodging-houses, interspersed, at incredibly frequent spaces, by small -antique inns, bearing quaint names drawn from British naval history. - -Skirting the grassy slopes of the Nothe, with its old-fashioned fort, -they rounded the small promontory and climbed down among the rocks and -rock-pools which lay at its feet. It was pretty to observe the various -flutterings and agitations, and to hear the shouts of laughter and -delight with which the young girls followed Luke over these perilous -and romantic obstacles, and finally paused at his side upon a great -sun-scorched shell-covered rock, surrounded by foamy water. - -The wind was cool in this exposed spot, and holding their hats in their -hands the little party gave themselves up to the freedom and freshness -of air and sea. - -But the wandering interest of high-spirited youth is as restless as the -waves. Very soon Phyllis and Polly had drifted away from the others, -and were climbing along the base of the cliff above, filling their -hands with sea-pinks and sea-lavender, which attracted them by their -glaucous foliage. - -Left to themselves, Luke removed his shoes and stockings, and dangled -his feet over the rock’s edge, while Annie, prone upon her face, the -sunshine caressing her white neck and luxuriant hair, stretched her -long bare arms into the cool water. - -Leaning across the prostrate form of his companion, and gazing down -into the deep recesses of the tidal pool which separated the rock -they reclined on from the one behind it, the stone-carver was able to -make out the ineffably coloured tendrils and soft translucent shapes -of several large sea-anemones, submerged beneath the greenish water. -He pointed these out to his companion, who moving round a little, and -tucking up her sleeves still higher, endeavoured to reach them with her -hand. In this she was defeated, for the deceptive water was much deeper -than either of them supposed. - -“What are those darling little shells, down there at the bottom, Luke?” -she whispered. Luke, with his arm round her neck, and his head close to -hers, peered down into the shadowy depths. - -“They’re some kind of cowries,” he said at last, “shells that in -Africa, I believe, they use as money.” - -“I wish they were money here,” murmured the girl, “I’d buy mother one -of those silver brushes we saw in the shop.” - -“Listen!” cried Luke, and taking a penny from his pocket he let it fall -into the water. They both fancied they heard a little metallic sound -when it struck the bottom. - -Suddenly Annie gave a queer excited laugh, shook herself free from her -companion’s arm, and scrambled up on her knees. Luke lay back on the -rock and gazed in wonder at her flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. - -“What’s the matter, child?” he enquired. - -She fumbled at her bosom, and Luke noticed for the first time that -she was wearing round her neck a little thin metal chain. At last -with an impatient movement of her fingers she snapped the resisting -cord and flung it into the tide. Then she held out to Luke a small -golden object, which glittered in the palm of her hand. It was a -weather-stained ring, twisted and bent out of all shape. - -“It’s _her_ ring!” she cried exultantly. “Crazy Bert got it out of that -hole, with a bit of bent wire, and Phyllis squirmed it away from him -by letting him give her a lift in the wagon. He squeezed her dreadful -hard, she do say, and tickled her awful with straws and things, but -before evening she had the ring away from him. You can bet I kissed her -and thanked her, when I got it! Us two be real friends, as you might -call it! Phyllis cried, in the night, dreaming the idiot was pinching -her, and she not able to slap ’im back. But I got the ring, and there’t -be, Luke, glittering-gold as ever, though ’tis sad bended and battered.” - -Luke made a movement to take the object, but the girl closed her -fingers tightly upon it and held it high above his head. With her arm -thus raised and the glitter of sea and sun upon her form, she resembled -some sweetly-carved figure-head on the bows of a ship. The wind fanned -her hot cheeks and caressed, with cool touch, her splendid coils of -hair. Luke was quite overcome by her beauty, and could only stare at -her in dazed amazement, while she repeated, in clear ringing tones, the -words of the old country game. - - “My lady’s lost her golden ring; - Her golden ring, her golden ring; - My lady’s lost her golden ring; - I pitch upon you to find it!” - -The song’s refrain died away over the waves, and was answered by the -scream of an astonished cormorant, and by a mocking shout from a group -of idle soldiers on the grassy terrace above the cliff. - -“Shall us throw her ring out to sea?” cried Annie. “They say a ring -lost so, means sorrow for her that owns it. Say ‘yes,’ and it’s gone, -Luke!” - -While the girl’s arm swung backwards and forwards above him, the -stone-carver’s thoughts whirled even more rapidly through his brain. A -drastic and bold idea, that had often before crossed the threshold of -his consciousness, now assumed a most dominant shape. Why not ask Annie -to marry him? - -He was growing a little weary of his bachelor-life. The wayward track -of his days had more than once, of late, seemed to have reached a sort -of climax. Why not, at one reckless stroke, end this epoch of his -history, and launch out upon another? His close association with James -had hitherto stood in the way of any such step, but his brother had -fallen recently into such fits of gloomy reticence, that he had found -himself wondering more than once whether such a drastic troubling of -the waters, as the introduction of a girl into their ménage, would not -ease the situation a little. It was not for a moment to be supposed -that he and James could separate. If Annie did marry him, she must do -so on the understanding of his brother’s living with them. - -Luke began to review in his mind the various cottages in Nevilton which -might prove available for this adventure. It tickled his fancy a great -deal, the thought of having a house and garden of his own, and he was -shrewd enough to surmise that of all his feminine friends, Annie was -by far the best fitted to perform the functions of the good-tempered -companion of a philosophical sentimentalist. The gentle creature had -troubled him so little by jealous fits in her rôle of sweetheart, that -it did not present itself as probable that she would prove a shrewish -wife. Glancing across the blue water to the great Rock-Island opposite -them, Luke came rapidly to the conclusion that he would take the risk -and make the eventful plunge. He knew enough of himself to have full -confidence in his power of dealing with the delicate art of matrimony, -and the very difficulties of the situation, implied in the number -of his contemporary amours, only added a tang and piquancy to the -enterprise. - -“Well,” cried Annie. “Shall us throw the pretty lady’s ring into the -deep sea? It’ll mean trouble for her, trouble and tears, Luke! Be ’ee -of a mind to do it, or be ’ee not? ’Tis your hand must fling it, and -with the flinging of it, her heart’ll drop, splash--splash--into deep -sorrow. She’ll cry her eyes out, for this ’ere job, and that’s the -truth of it, Luke darling. Be ’ee ready to fling it, or be ’ee not -ready? There’ll be no getting it back, once us have throwed it in.” - -She held out her arm towards him as she spoke, and with her other -hand pushed back her hair from her forehead. For so soft and tender a -creature as the girl was, it was strange, the wild Maenad-like look, -which she wore at that moment. She might have been an incarnation of -the avenging deities of sea and air, threatening disaster to some -unwitting Olympian. - -Luke scrambled to his feet, and seizing her wrist with both his hands, -forced her fingers apart, and possessed himself of the equivocal -trinket. - -“If I throw it,” he cried, in an excited tone, “will you be my wife, -Annie?” - -At this unexpected word a complete collapse overtook the girl. All -trace of colour left her cheeks and a sudden trembling passed through -her limbs. She staggered, and would have fallen, if Luke had not seized -her in his arms. - -In the shock of saving her, the stone-carver’s hand involuntarily -unclosed, and the piece of gold, slipping from his fingers, fell down -upon the slope of the rock, and sliding over its edge, sank into the -deep water. - -“Annie! Annie! What is it, dear?” murmured Luke, making the trembling -girl sit down by his side, and supporting her tenderly. - -For her only answer she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him -passionately again and again. It was not only of kisses that Luke -became conscious, for, as she pressed him to her, her breast heaved -pitifully under her print frock, and when she let him go, the taste of -her tears was in his mouth. For the first time in his life the queer -wish entered the stone-carver’s mind that he had not, in his day, made -love quite so often. - -There was something so pure, so confiding, and yet so passionately -tender, about little Annie’s abandonment, that it produced, in the -epicurean youth’s soul, a most quaint sense of shame and embarrassment. -It was deliciously sweet to him, all the same, to find how, beyond -expectation, he had made so shrewd a choice. But he wished some -humorous demon at the back of his mind wouldn’t call up before him at -that moment the memory of other clinging arms and lips. - -With an inward grin of sardonic commentary upon his melting mood, the -cynical thought passed through his mind, how strange it was, in this -mortal world, that human kisses should all so lamentably resemble one -another, and that human tears should all leave behind them the same -salt taste! Life was indeed a matter of “eternal recurrence,” and -whether with Portland and its war-ships as the background, or with -Nevilton Mount and its shady woods, the same emotions and the same -reactions must needs come and go, with the same inexorable monotony! - -He glanced down furtively into the foam-flecked water, but there was -no sign of the lost ring. The tide seemed to have turned now, and -the sea appeared less calm. Little flukes of white spray surged up -intermittently on the in-rolling waves, and a strong breath of wind, -rising with the sinking of the sun, blew cool and fresh upon their -foreheads. - -“Her ring’s gone,” whispered Annie, pulling down her sleeves over her -soft arms, and holding out her wrists, for him to fasten the bands, -“and you do belong to none but I now, Luke. When shall us be married, -dear?” she added, pressing her cool cheek against his, and running her -fingers through his hair. - -The words, as well as the gesture that accompanied them, jarred upon -Luke’s susceptibilities. - -“Why is it,” he thought, “that girls are so extraordinarily stupid in -these things? Why do they always seem only waiting for an opportunity -to drop their piquancy and provocation, and become confident, assured, -possessive, complacent? Have I,” he said to himself, “made a horrible -blunder? Shall I regret this day forever, and be ready to give anything -for those fatal words not to have been uttered?” - -He glanced down once more upon the brimming, in-rushing tide that -covered Gladys’ ring. Then with a jerk he pulled out his watch. - -“Go and call the others,” he commanded, “I’m going to have a dip before -we start.” - -Annie glanced quickly into his face, but reassured by his friendly -smile, proceeded to obey him, with only the least little sigh. - -“Don’t drown yourself, dear,” she called back to him, as she made her -way cautiously across the rocks. - -Luke hurriedly undressed, and standing for a moment, a slim golden -figure, in the horizontal sunlight, swung himself lightly down over the -rock’s edge and struck out boldly for the open sea. - -With vigorous strokes he wrestled with the inflowing tide. Wave after -wave splashed against his face. Pieces of floating sea-weed and -wisps of surf clung to his arms and hair. But he held resolutely on, -breathing deep breaths of liberty and exultation, and drinking in, as -if from a vast wide-brimmed cup, the thrilling spaciousness of air and -sky. - -Girls, love-making, marriage,--the whole complication of the cloying -erotic world,--fell away from him, like the too-soft petals of some -great stifling velvet-bosomed flower; and naked of desire, as he was -naked of human clothes, he gave himself up to the free, pure elements. -In later hours, when once more the old reiterated tune was beating time -in his brain, he recalled with regret the large emancipation of that -moment. - -As he splashed and spluttered, and turned over deliciously in the -water, like some exultant human-limbed merman, returning, after a long -inland exile, to his natural home, he found his thoughts fantastically -reverting to those queer, mad ideas, about the evil power of the stone -they both worked upon, to which James Andersen had given expression -when his wits were astray. Here at any rate, in the solid earth’s -eternal antagonist, was a power capable of destroying every sinister -spell. - -He remorsefully blamed himself that he had not compelled his brother to -come down with them to the sea. He recalled the half-hearted invitation -he had extended to James, not altogether sorry to have it refused, -and not repeating it. He had been a selfish fool, he thought. Were -James swimming now by his side, his pleasure in that violet-coloured -coast-line and that titanic rock-monster, would have been doubled by -the revival of indescribably appealing memories. - -He made a vigorous resolution that never again--whatever mood his -brother might be in--would he allow the perilous lure of exquisite -femininity, to come between him and the nobler classic bond, of the -love that “passeth the love of women.” - -Conscious that he must return without a moment’s further delay if they -were to catch their train, he swung round in the water and let the full -tide bear him shoreward. - -On the way back he was momentarily assailed by a slight touch of -cramp in his legs. It quickly passed, but it was enough to give the -life-enamoured youth a shock of cold panic. Death? _That_, after all, -he thought, was the only intolerable thing. As long as one breathed -and moved, in this mad world, nothing that could happen greatly -mattered! One was conscious,--one could note the acts and scenes of -the incredible drama; and in this mere fact of consciousness, one -could endure anything. But to be dead,--to be deprived of the sweet -air,--that remained, that must always remain, the one absolute Terror! - -Reaching his starting-place, Luke was amused to observe that the tide -was already splashing over their rock, and in another minute or two -would have drenched his clothes. He chuckled to himself as he noted -how this very practical possibility jerked his mind into a completely -different vein. Love, philosophy, friendship, all tend to recede to the -very depths of one’s invaluable consciousness, when there appears a -risk of returning to a railway station in a drenched shirt. - -He collected his possessions with extreme rapidity, and holding them -in a bundle at arm’s length from his dripping body, clambered hastily -up the shore, and humorously waving back his modest companions, who -were now being chaffed by quite a considerable group of soldiers on the -cliff above, he settled himself down on a bank of sea-weed and began -hurriedly to dry, using his waistcoat as a towel. - -He was soon completely dressed, and, all four of them a little -agitated, began a hasty rush for the train. - -Phyllis and Polly scolded him all the way without mercy. Had he brought -them out here, to keep them in the place all night? What would their -mothers say, and their fathers, and their brothers, and their aunts? - -Annie, alone of the party, remained silent, her full rich lips closed -like a sleepy peony, and her heavy-lidded velvety eyes casting little -timid affectionate glances at her so unexpectedly committed lover. - -The crossness of the two younger girls grew in intensity when, -the ferry safely crossed, Luke dragged them at remorseless speed -through the crowded town. Pitiful longing eyes were cast back at the -glittering shops and the magical picture-shows. Why had he taken them -to those horrid rocks? Why hadn’t he given them time to look at the -shop-windows? They’d promised faithfully to bring back something for -Dad and Betty and Queenie and Dick. - -Phyllis had ostentatiously flung into the harbour her elaborately -selected bunch of sea-flora, and the poor ill-used plants, hot from -the girl’s hand, were now tossing up and down amid the tarry keels and -swaying hawsers. The girl regretted this action now,--regretted it more -and more vividly as the station drew near. Mummy always loved a bunch -o’ flowers, and they were so pretty! She was sure it was Luke who had -made her lose them. He had pushed her so roughly up those nasty steps. - -Tears were in Polly’s eyes as, bedraggled and panting, they emerged -on the open square where the gentle monarch looks down from his -stone horse. There were sailors now, mixed with the crowd on the -esplanade,--such handsome boys! It was cruel, it was wicked, that they -had to go, just when the real sport began. - -The wretched Jubilee Clock--how they all hated its trim -appearance!--had a merciless finger pointing at the very minute their -train was due to start, as Luke hurried them round the street-corner. -Polly fairly began to cry, as they dragged her from the alluring -scene. She was certain that the Funny Men were just going to begin. She -was sure that that distant drum meant Punch and Judy! - -Breathlessly they rushed upon the platform. Wildly, with anxious -eyes and gasping tones, they enquired of the first official they -encountered, whether the Yeoborough train had gone. - -Observing the beauty of the three troubled girls, this placid authority -proceeded to tantalize them, asking “what the hurry was,” and whether -they wanted a “special,” and other maddening questions. It was only -when Luke, who had rushed furiously to the platform’s remote end, -was observed to be cheerfully and serenely returning, that Phyllis -recovered herself sufficiently to give their disconcerted insulter what -she afterwards referred to as “a bit of lip in return for his blarsted -sauce.” - -No,--the train would not be starting for another ten minutes. Fortunate -indeed was this accident of a chance delay on the Great Western -Railroad,--the most punctual of all railroads in the world,--for it -landed Luke with three happy, completely recovered damsels, and in -a compartment all to themselves, when the train did move at last. -Abundantly fortified with ginger-pop and sponge-cake,--how closely Luke -associated the savour of both these refreshments with such an excursion -as this!--and further cheered by the secure possession of chocolates, -bananas, “Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday,” and the “Illustrated London -News,”--the girls romped, and sang, and teased each other and Luke, and -whispered endearing mockeries out of the window to sedately unconscious -gentlemen, at every station where they stopped until the aged guard’s -paternal benevolence changed to irritable crossness, and Luke himself -was not altogether sorry when the familiar landscape of Yeoborough, -dusky and shadowy in the twilight, hove in sight. - -Little Polly left them at the second of the two Yeoborough stations, -and the others, crowding at the window to wave their good-byes, were -carried on in the same train to Nevilton. - -During this final five minutes, Annie slipped softly down upon her -lover’s knees and seemed to wish to indicate to Phyllis, without the -use of words, that her relations with their common friend were now on a -new plane,--at once more innocent and less reserved. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -AVE ATQUE VALE! - - -James Andersen lay dead in the brothers’ little bedroom at the -station-master’s cottage. It could not be maintained that his face -wore the unruffled calm conventionally attributed to mortality’s last -repose. On the other hand, his expression was not that of one who has -gone down in hopeless despair. - -What his look really conveyed to his grief-worn brother, as he hung -over him all that August night, was the feeling that he had been struck -in mid-contest, with equal chance of victory or defeat, and with the -indelible imprint upon his visage of the stress and strain of the -terrific struggle. - -It was a long and strange vigil that Luke found himself thus bound -to keep, when the first paroxysm of his grief had subsided and his -sympathetic landlady had left him alone with his dead. - -He laughed aloud,--a merciless little laugh,--at one point in the -night, to note how even this blow, rending as it did the very ground -beneath his feet, had yet left quite untouched and untamed his -irresistible instinct towards self-analysis. Not a single one of the -innumerable, and in many cases astounding, thoughts that passed through -his mind, but he watched it, and isolated it, and played with it,--just -in the old way. - -Luke was not by any means struck dumb or paralyzed by this event. His -intelligence had never been more acute, or his senses more responsive, -than they remained through those long hours of watching. - -It is true he could neither eat nor sleep. The influence of the -motionless figure beside him seemed to lie in a vivid and abnormal -stimulation of all his intellectual faculties. - -Not a sound arose from the sleeping house, from the darkened fields, -from the distant village, but he noted it and made a mental record of -its cause. He kept two candles alight at his brother’s head, three -times refilling the candlesticks, as though the guttering and hissing -of the dwindling flames would tease and disturb the dead. - -He had been careful to push the two windows of the room wide open; -but the night was so still that not a breath of wind entered to make -the candles flicker, or to lift the edge of the white sheet stretched -beneath his brother’s bandaged chin. This horrible bandage,--one of the -little incidents that Luke marked as unexpectedly ghastly,--seemed to -slip its knot at a certain moment, causing the dead man’s mouth to fall -open, in a manner that made the watcher shudder, so suggestive did it -seem of one about to utter a cry for help. - -Luke noted, as another factor in the phenomena of death, the peculiar -nature of the coldness of his brother’s skin, as he bent down once -and again to touch his forehead. It was different from the coldness -of water or ice or marble. It was a clammy coldness; the coldness -of a substance that was neither--in the words of the children’s -game--“animal, vegetable, nor mineral.” - -Luke remembered the story of that play of Webster’s, in which the -unhappy heroine, in the blank darkness of her dungeon, is presented -with a dead hand to caress. The abominably wicked wish crossed his -mind once, as he unclosed those stark fingers, that he could cause -the gentle Lacrima, whom he regarded,--not altogether fairly,--as -responsible for his brother’s death, to feel the touch of such a hand. - -There came over him, at other times, as he inhaled the cool, hushed air -from the slumbering fields, and surveyed the great regal planet,--Mr. -Romer’s star, he thought grimly,--as it hung so formidably close to the -silvery pallid moon, a queer dreamy feeling that the whole thing were a -scene in a play or a story, absolutely unreal; and that he would only -have to rouse himself and shake off the unnatural spell, to have his -brother with him again, alive and in full consciousness. - -The odd thing about it was that he found himself refusing to believe -that this was his brother at all,--this mask beneath the white -sheet,--and even fancying that at any moment the familiar voice might -call to him from the garden, and he have to descend to unlock the door. - -That thought of his brother’s voice sent a pang through him of sick -misgiving. Surely it couldn’t be possible, that never, not through the -whole of eternity, would he hear that voice again? - -He moved to the window and listened. Owls were hooting somewhere up at -Wild Pine, and from the pastures towards Hullaway came the harsh cry of -a night-jar. - -He gazed up at the glittering heavens, sprinkled with those proud -constellations whose identity it was one of his pastimes to recognize. -How little they cared! How appallingly little they cared! What a farce, -what an obscene, unpardonable farce, the whole business was! - -He caught the sound of an angry bark in some distant yard. - -Luke cursed the irrelevant intrusive noise. “Ah! thou vile Larva!” he -muttered. “What! Shall a dog, a cat, a rat, have life; and thou no -breath at all?” - -He leant far out of the window, breathing the perfumes of the night. -He noticed, as an interesting fact, that it was neither the phloxes -nor the late roses whose scent filled the air, but that new exotic -tobacco-plant,--a thing whose sticky, quickly-fading, trumpet-shaped -petals were one of his brother’s especial aversions. - -The immense spaces of the night, as they carried his gaze onward from -one vast translunar sign to another, filled him with a strange feeling -of the utter unimportance of any earthly event. The Mythology of Power -and the Mythology of Sacrifice might wrestle in desperate contention -for the mastery; but what mattered, in view of this great dome which -overshadowed them, the victory or the defeat of either? Mythologies -were they both; both woven out of the stuff of dreams, and both -vanishing like dreams, in the presence of this stark image upon the bed! - -He returned to his brother’s side, and rocked himself up and down on -his creaking bedroom chair. “Dead and gone!” he muttered, “dead and -gone!” - -It was easy to deal in vague mystic speculation. But what relief could -he derive, he who wanted his brother back as he was, with his actual -tones, and ways and looks, from any problematic chance that some thin -“spiritual principle,” or ideal wraith, of the man were now wandering -through remote, unearthly regions? The darling of his soul--the heart -of his heart--had become forever this appalling waxen image, this thing -that weighed upon him with its presence! - -Luke bent over the dead man. What a personality, what a dominant and -oppressive personality, a corpse has! It is not the personality of the -living man, but another--a quite different one--masquerading in his -place. - -Luke felt almost sure that this husk, this shell, this mockery of the -real James, was possessed of some detestable consciousness of its own, -a consciousness as remote from that of the man he loved as that pallid -forehead with the deep purple gash across it, was remote from the dear -head whose form he knew so well. How crafty, how malignant, a corpse -was! - -He returned to his uncomfortable chair and pondered upon what this loss -meant to him. It was like the burying alive of half his being. How -could he have thoughts, sensations, feelings, fancies; how could he -have loves and hates, without James to tell them to? A cold sick terror -of life passed through him, of life without this companion of his soul. -He felt like a child lost in some great forest. - -“Daddy James! Daddy James!” he cried, “I want you;--I want you!” - -He found himself repeating this infantile conjuration over and over -again. He battered with clenched hand upon the adamantine wall of -silence. But there was neither sign nor voice nor token nor “any that -regarded.” There was only the beating of his own heart and the ticking -of the watch upon the table. And all the while, with its malignant -cunning, the corpse regarded him, mute, derisive, contemptuous. - -He thought, lightly and casually, as one who at the grave of all he -loves plucks a handful of flowers, of the girls he had just parted -from, and of Gladys and all his other infatuations. How impossible it -seemed to him that a woman--a girl--that any one of these charming, -distracting creatures--should strike a man down by their loss, as he -was now stricken down. - -He tried to imagine what he would feel if it were Annie lying there, -under the sheet, in place of James. He would be sorry; he would be -bitterly sad; he would be angry with the callous heavens; but as long -as James were near, as long as James were by his side,--his life would -still be his life. He would suffer, and the piteous tragedy of the -thing would smite and sicken him; but it would not be the same. It -would not be like this! - -What was there in the love of a man that made the loss of it--for him -at least--so different a thing? Was it that with women, however much -one loved them, there was something equivocal, evasive, intangible; -something made up of illusion and sorcery, of magic and moonbeams; -that since it could never be grasped as firmly as the other, could -never be as missed as the other, when the grasp had to relax? Or was -it that, for all their clear heads,--heads so much clearer than poor -James’!--and for all their spiritual purity,--there was lacking -in them a certain indescribable mellowness of sympathy, a certain -imaginative generosity and tolerance, which meant the true secret of -the life lived in common? - -From the thought of his girls, Luke’s mind wandered back to the thought -of what the constant presence of his brother as a background to his -life had really meant. Even as he sat there, gazing so hopelessly at -the image on the bed, he found himself on the point of resolving to -explain all these matters to James and hear his opinion upon them. - -By degrees, as the dawn approached, the two blank holes into cavernous -darkness which the windows of the chamber had become, changed their -character. A faint whitish-blue transparency grew visible within their -enclosing frames, and something ghostly and phantom-like, the stealthy -invasion of a new presence, glided into the room. - -This palpable presence, the frail embryo of a new day, gave to the -yellow candle-flames a queer sickly pallor and intensified to a chalky -opacity the dead whiteness of the sheet, and of the folded hands -resting upon it. It was with the sound of the first twittering birds, -and the first cock-crow, that the ice-cold spear of desolation pierced -deepest of all into Luke’s heart. He shivered, and blew out the candles. - -A curious feeling possessed him that, in a sudden ghastly withdrawal, -that other James, the James he had been turning to all night in tacit -familiar appeal, had receded far out of his reach. From indistinct -horizons his muffled voice moaned for a while, like the wind in the -willows of Lethe, and then died away in a thin long-drawn whisper. -Luke was alone; alone with his loss and alone with the image of death. - -He moved to the window and looked out. Streaks of watery gold were -already visible above the eastern uplands, and a filmy sea of white -mist swayed and fluttered over the fields. - -All these things together, the white mist, the white walls of the room, -the white light, the white covering on the body, seemed to fall upon -the worn-out watcher with a weight of irresistible finality. James was -dead--“gone to his death-bed;--he never would come again!” - -Turning his back wearily upon those golden sky-streaks, that on any -other occasion would have thrilled him with their magical promise, -Luke observed the dead bodies of no less than five large moths grouped -around the extinct candles. Two of them were “currant-moths,” one a -“yellow under-wing,” and the others beyond his entomological knowledge. -This was the only holocaust, then, allowed to the dead man. Five moths! -And the Milky Way had looked down upon their destruction with the same -placidity as upon the cause of the vigil that slew them. - -Luke felt a sudden desire to escape from this room, every object of -which bore now, in dimly obscure letters, the appalling handwriting of -the ministers of fate. He crept on tiptoe to the door and opened it -stealthily. Making a mute valedictory gesture towards the bed, he shut -the door behind him and slipped down the little creaking stairs. - -He entered his landlady’s kitchen, and as silently as he could -collected a bundle of sticks and lit the fire. The crackling flames -produced an infinitesimal lifting of the cloud which weighed upon his -spirit. He warmed his hands before the blaze. From some remote depth -within him, there began to awake once more the old inexpugnable zest -for life. - -Piling some pieces of coal upon the burning wood and drawing the kettle -to the edge of the hob, he left the kitchen; and crossing the little -hall, impregnated with a thin sickly odor of lamp-oil, he shot back the -bolts of the house-door, and let himself out into the morning air. - -A flock of starlings fluttered away over the meadow, and from the -mist-wreathed recesses of Nevilton House gardens came the weird defiant -scream of a peacock. - -He glanced furtively, as if such a glance were almost sacrilegious, -at the open windows of his brother’s room; and then pushing open the -garden-gate emerged into the dew-drenched field. He could not bring -himself to leave the neighbourhood of the house, but began pacing up -and down the length of the meadow, from the hedge adjacent to the -railway, to that elm-shadowed corner, where not so many weeks ago -he had distracted himself with Annie and Phyllis. He continued this -reiterated pacing,--his tired brain giving itself up to the monotony -of a heart-easing movement,--until the sun had risen quite high above -the horizon. The great fiery orb pleased him well, in its strong -indifference, as with its lavish beams it dissipated the mist and -touched the tree-trunks with ruddy colour. - -“Ha!” he cried aloud, “the sun is the only God! To the sun must all -flesh turn, if it would live and not die!” - -Half ashamed of this revival of his spirits he obeyed the beckoning -gestures of the station-master’s wife, who now appeared at the door. - -The good woman’s sympathy, though not of the silent or tactful order, -was well adapted to prevent the immediate return of any hopeless grief. - -“’Tis good it were a Saturday when the Lord took him,” she said, -pouring out for her lodger a steaming cup of excellent tea, and -buttering a slice of bread; “he’ll have Sunday to lie up in. It be best -of all luck for these poor stiff ones, to have church bells rung over -’em.” - -“I pray Heaven I shan’t have any visitors today,” remarked Luke, -sipping his tea and stretching out his feet to the friendly blaze. - -“That ye’ll be sure to have!” answered the woman; “and the sooner ye -puts on a decent black coat, and washes and brushes up a bit, the -better ’twill be for all concerned. I always tells my old man that when -he do fall stiff, like what your brother be, I shall put on my black -silk gown and sit in the front parlour with a bottle of elder wine, -ready for all sorts and conditions.” - -Luke rose, with a piece of bread-and-butter in his hand, and surveyed -himself in the mirror. - -“Yes, I do need a bit of tidying,” he said. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind -my shaving down here?” - -Even as he spoke the young stone-carver could not help recalling those -sinister stories of dead men whose beards have grown in their coffins. -The landlady nodded. - -“I’ll make ’ee up a bed for these ’ere days,” she said, “in Betty’s -room. As for shaving and such like, please yourself, Master Luke. This -house be thy house with him lying up there.” - -Between nine and ten o’clock Luke’s first visitor made his appearance. -This was Mr. Clavering, who showed himself neither surprised nor -greatly pleased to find the bereft brother romping with the children -under the station-master’s apple-trees. - -“I cannot express to you the sympathy I feel,” said the clergyman, -“with your grief under this great blow. Words on these occasions are of -little avail. But I trust you know where to turn for true consolation.” - -“Thank you, sir,” replied Luke, who, though carefully shaved and -washed, still wore the light grey flannel suit of his Saturday’s -excursion. - -“Give Mr. Clavering an apple, Lizzie!” he added. - -“I wouldn’t for a moment,” continued the Reverend Hugh, “intrude upon -you with any impertinent questions. But I could not help wondering as I -walked through the village how this tragedy would affect you. I prayed -it might,”--here he laid a grave and pastoral hand on the young man’s -arm,--“I prayed it might give you a different attitude to those high -matters which we have at various times discussed together. Am I right -in my hope, Luke?” - -Never had the superb tactlessness of Nevilton’s vicar betrayed him more -deplorably. - -“Death is death, Mr. Clavering,” replied the stone-carver, lifting -up the youngest of the children and placing her astride on an -apple-branch. “It’s about the worst blow fate’s ever dealt me. But -when it comes to any change in my ideas,--no! I can’t say that I’ve -altered.” - -“I understand you weren’t with him when this terrible thing happened,” -said the clergyman. “They tell me he was picked up by strangers. -There’ll be no need, I trust, for an inquest, or anything of that kind?” - -Luke shook his head. “The doctor was up here last night. The thing’s -clear enough. His mind must have given way again. He’s had those curst -quarries on his nerves for a long while past. I wish to the devil--I -beg your pardon, sir!--I wish I’d taken him to Weymouth with me. I was -a fool not to insist on that.” - -“Yes, I heard you were away,” remarked Hugh, with a certain caustic -significance in his tone. “One or two of our young friends were with -you, I believe?” - -Luke did not fail to miss the implication, and he hit back vindictively. - -“I understand you’ve had an interesting little service this morning, -sir, or perhaps it’s yet to come off? I can’t help being a bit amused -when I think of it!” - -An electric shock of anger thrilled through Clavering’s frame. -Controlling himself with a heroic effort, he repelled the malignant -taunt. - -“I didn’t know you concerned yourself with these observances, -Andersen,” he remarked. “But you’re quite right. I’ve just this minute -come from receiving Miss Romer into our church. Miss Traffio was -with her. Both young ladies were greatly agitated over this unhappy -occurrence. In fact it cast quite a gloom over what otherwise is one of -the most beautiful incidents of all, in our ancient ritual.” - -Luke swung the little girl on the bough backwards and forwards. The -other children, retired to a discreet distance, stared at the colloquy -with wide-open eyes. - -“This baptizing of adults,” continued Luke,--“you call ’em adults, -don’t you, on these occasions?--is really a little funny, isn’t it?” - -“Funny!” roared the angry priest. “No, sir, it isn’t funny! The saving -of an immortal soul by God’s most sacred sacrament may not appeal to -you infidels as an essential ceremony,--but only a thoroughly vulgar -and philistine mind could call it funny!” - -“I’m afraid we shall never agree on these topics, Mr. Clavering,” -replied Luke calmly. “But it was most kind of you to come up and see -me. I really appreciate it. Would it be possible,”--his voice took a -lower and graver tone,--“for my brother’s funeral to be performed on -Wednesday? I should be very grateful to you, sir, if that could be -arranged.” - -The young vicar frowned and looked slightly disconcerted. “What time -would you wish it to be, Andersen?” he enquired. “I ask you this, -because Wednesday is--er--unfortunately--the date fixed for another of -these ceremonies that you scoff at. The Lord Bishop comes to Nevilton -then. It is his own wish. I should myself have preferred a later date.” - -“Ha! the confirmation!” ejaculated Luke, with a bitter little laugh. -“You’re certainly bent on striking while the iron’s hot, Mr. Clavering. -May I ask what hour has been fixed for _this_ beautiful ceremony?” - -“Eleven o’clock in the morning,” replied the priest, ignoring with a -dignified wave of his hand the stone-carver’s jeering taunt. - -“Well then--if that suits you--and does not interfere with the Lord -Bishop--” said Luke, “I should be most grateful if you could make the -hour for James’ funeral, ten o’clock in the morning? _That_ service I -happen to be more familiar with than the others,--and I know it doesn’t -take very long.” - -Mr. Clavering bent his head in assent. - -“It shall certainly be as you wish,” he said. “If unforeseen -difficulties arise, I will let you know. But I have no doubt it can be -managed. - -“I am right in assuming,” he added, a little uneasily, “that your -brother was a baptized member of our church?” - -Luke lifted the child from the bough and made her run off to play with -the others. The glance he then turned upon the vicar of Nevilton was -not one of admiration. - -“James was the noblest spirit I’ve ever known,” he said sternly. -“If there is such a thing as another world, he is certain to reach -it--church or no church. As a matter of fact, if it is at all important -to you, he was baptized in Nevilton. You’ll find his name in the -register--and mine too!” he added with a laugh. - -Mr. Clavering kept silence, and moved towards the gate. Luke followed -him, and at the gate they shook hands. Perhaps the same thought passed -through the minds of both of them, as they went through this ceremony; -for a very queer look, almost identical in its expression on either -face, was exchanged between them. - -Before the morning was over Luke had a second visit of condolence. -This was from Mr. Quincunx, and never had the quaint recluse been more -warmly received. Luke was conscious at once that here was a man who -could enter into every one of his feelings, and be neither horrified -nor scandalized by the most fantastic inconsistency. - -The two friends walked up and down the sunny field in front of the -house, Luke pouring into the solitary’s attentive ears every one of his -recent impressions and sensations. - -Mr. Quincunx was evidently profoundly moved by James’ death. He refused -Luke’s offer to let him visit the room upstairs, but his refusal -was expressed in such a natural and characteristic manner that the -stone-carver accepted it in perfect good part. - -After a while they sat down together under the shady hedge at the -top of the meadow. Here they discoursed and philosophized at large, -listening to the sound of the church-bells and watching the slow-moving -cattle. It was one of those unruffled Sunday mornings, when, in such -places as this, the drowsiness of the sun-warmed leaves and grasses -seems endowed with a kind of consecrated calm, the movements of the -horses and oxen grow solemn and ritualistic, the languor of the -heavy-winged butterflies appears holy, and the stiff sabbatical dresses -of the men and women who shuffle so demurely to and fro, seem part of a -patient liturgical observance. - -Luke loved Mr. Quincunx that morning. The recluse was indeed precisely -in his element. Living habitually himself in thoughts of death, -pleased--in that incomparable sunshine--to find himself still alive, -cynical and yet considerate, mystical and yet humorous, he exactly -supplied what the wounded heart of the pagan mourner required for its -comfort. - -“Idiots! asses! fools!” the stone-carver ejaculated, apostrophizing in -his inmost spirit the various persons, clever or otherwise, to whom -this nervous and eccentric creature was a mere type of failure and -superannuation. None of these others,--not one of them,--not Romer nor -Dangelis nor Clavering nor Taxater--could for a moment have entered -into the peculiar feelings which oppressed him. As for Gladys or -Phyllis or Annie or Polly,--he would have as soon thought of relating -his emotions to a row of swallows upon a telegraph-wire as to any of -those dainty epitomes of life’s evasiveness! - -A man’s brain, a man’s imagination, a man’s scepticism, was what he -wanted; but he wanted it touched with just that flavour of fanciful -sentiment of which the Nevilton hermit was a master. A hundred quaint -little episodes, the import of which none but Mr. Quincunx could -have appreciated, were evoked by the stone-carver. Nothing was too -blasphemous, nothing too outrageous, nothing too bizarre, for the -solitary’s taste. On the other hand, he entered with tender and perfect -clairvoyance into the sick misery of loss which remained the background -of all Luke’s sensations. - -The younger man’s impetuous confidences ebbed and dwindled at last; and -with the silence of the church-bells and the receding to the opposite -corner of the field of the browsing cattle, a deep and melancholy hush -settled upon them both. - -Then it was that Mr. Quincunx began speaking of himself and his own -anxieties. In the tension of the moment he even went so far as to -disclose to Luke, under a promise of absolute secrecy, the sinister -story of that contract into which Lacrima had entered with their -employer. - -Luke was all attention at once. This was indeed a piece of astounding -news! He couldn’t have said whether he wondered more at the quixotic -devotion of Lacrima for this quaint person, or at the solitary’s -unprecedented candour in putting him “en rapport” with such an amazing -situation. - -“Of course we know,” murmured Mr. Quincunx, in his deep subterranean -voice, “that she wouldn’t have promised such a thing, unless in her -heart she had been keen, at all costs, to escape from those people. It -isn’t human nature to give up everything for nothing. Probably, as a -matter of fact, she rather likes the idea of having a house of her own. -I expect she thinks she could twist that fool Goring round her finger; -and I daresay she could! But the thing is, what do you advise _me_ to -do? Of course I’m glad enough to agree to anything that saves me from -this damnable office. But what worries me about it is that devil Romer -put it into her head. I don’t trust him, Luke; I don’t trust him!” - -“I should think you don’t!” exclaimed his companion, looking with -astonishment and wonder into the solemn grey eyes fixed sorrowfully and -intently upon his own. What a strange thing, he thought to himself, -that this subtle-minded intelligence should be so hopelessly devoid of -the least push of practical impetus. - -“Of course,” Mr. Quincunx continued, “neither you nor I would fuss -ourselves much over the idea of a girl being married to a fool like -this, if there weren’t something different from the rest about her. -This nonsense about their having to ‘love,’ as the little simpletons -call it, the man they agree to live with, is of course all tommy-rot. -No one ‘loves’ the person they live with. She wouldn’t love me,--she’d -probably hate me like poison,--after the first week or so! The romantic -idiots who make so much of ‘love,’ and are so horrified when these -little creatures are married without it, don’t understand what this -planet is made of. They don’t understand the feelings of the girls -either. - -“I tell you a girl _likes_ being made a victim of in this particular -kind of way. They’re much less fastidious, when it comes to the point, -than we are. As a matter of fact what does trouble them is being -married to a man they really have a passion for. Then, jealousy bites -through their soft flesh like Cleopatra’s serpent, and all sorts of -wild ideas get into their heads. It’s not natural, Luke, it’s not -natural, for girls to marry a person they love! That’s why we country -dogs treat the whole thing as a lewd jest. - -“Do you think these honest couples who stand giggling and smirking -before our dear clergyman every quarter, don’t hate one another in -their hearts? Of course they do; it wouldn’t be nature if they didn’t! -But that doesn’t say they don’t get their pleasure out of it. And -Lacrima’ll get her pleasure, in some mad roundabout fashion, from -marrying Goring,--you may take my word for that!” - -“It seems to me,” remarked Luke slowly, “that you’re trying all this -time to quiet your conscience. I believe you’ve really got far more -conscience, Maurice, than I have. It’s your conscience that makes you -speak so loud, at this very moment!” - -Mr. Quincunx got up on his feet and stroked his beard. “I’m afraid I’ve -annoyed you somehow,” he remarked. “No person ever speaks of another -person’s conscience unless he’s in a rage with him.” - -The stone-carver stretched out his legs and lit a cigarette. “Sit down -again, you old fool,” he said, “and let’s talk this business over -sensibly.” - -The recluse sighed deeply, and, subsiding into his former position, -fixed a look of hopeless melancholy upon the sunlit landscape. - -“The point is this, Maurice,” began the young man. “The first thing in -these complicated situations is to be absolutely certain what one wants -oneself. It seems to me that a good deal of your agitation comes from -the fact that you haven’t made up your mind what you want. You asked my -advice, you know, so you won’t be angry if I’m quite plain with you?” - -“Go on,” said Mr. Quincunx, a remote flicker of his goblin-smile -twitching his nostrils, “I see I’m in for a few little hits.” - -Luke waved his hand. “No hits, my friend, no hits. All I want to do, -is to find out from you what you really feel. One philosophizes, -naturally, about girls marrying, and so on; but the point is,--do you -want this particular young lady for yourself, or don’t you?” - -Mr. Quincunx stroked his beard. “Well,”--he said meditatively, “if it -comes to that, I suppose I do want her. We’re all fools in some way or -other, I fancy. Yes, I do want her, Luke, and that’s the honest truth. -But I don’t want to have to work twice as hard as I’m doing now, and -under still more unpleasant conditions, to keep her!” - -Luke emitted a puff of smoke and knocked the ashes from his cigarette -upon the purple head of a tall knapweed. - -“Ah!” he ejaculated. “Now we’ve got something to go upon.” - -Mr. Quincunx surveyed the faun-like profile of his friend with some -apprehension. He mentally resolved that nothing,--nothing in heaven nor -earth,--should put him to the agitation of making any drastic change in -his life. - -“We get back then,” continued Luke, “to the point we reached on our -walk to Seven Ashes.” - -As he said the words “Seven Ashes” the ice-cold finger of memory -pierced him with that sudden stab which is like a physical blow. What -did it matter, after all, he thought, what happened to any of these -people, now Daddy James was dead? - -“You remember,” he went on, while the sorrowful grey eyes of his -companion regarded him with wistful anxiety, “you told me, in that -walk, that if some imaginary person were to leave you money enough to -live comfortably, you would marry Lacrima without any hesitation?” - -Mr. Quincunx nodded. - -“Well,”--Luke continued--“in return for your confession about that -contract, I’ll confess to you that Mr. Taxater and I formed a plan -together, when my brother first got ill, to secure you this money.” - -Mr. Quincunx made a grimace of astonishment. - -“The plan has lapsed now,” went on Luke, “owing to Mr. Taxater’s being -away; but I can’t help feeling that something of that kind might be -done. I feel in a queer sort of fashion,” he added, “though I can’t -quite tell you why, that, after all, things’ll so work themselves out, -that you _will_ get both the girl and the money!” - -Mr. Quincunx burst into a fit of hilarious merriment, and rubbed his -hands together. But a moment later his face clouded. - -“It’s impossible,” he murmured with a deep sigh; “it’s impossible, -Luke. Girls and gold go together like butterflies and sunshine. I’m as -far from either, as the sea-weed under the arch of Weymouth Bridge.” - -Luke pondered for a moment in silence. - -“It’s an absurd superstition,” he finally remarked, “but I can’t help a -sort of feeling that James’ spirit is actively exerting itself on your -side. He was a romantic old truepenny, and his last thoughts were all -fixed--of that I’m sure--upon Lacrima’s escaping this marriage with -Goring.” - -Mr. Quincunx sighed. He had vaguely imagined the possibility of some -grand diplomatic stroke on his behalf, from the astute Luke; and this -relapse into mysticism, on the part of that sworn materialist, did not -strike him as reassuring. - -The silence that fell between them was broken by the sudden appearance -of a figure familiar to them both, crossing the field towards them. It -was Witch-Bessie, who, in a bright new shawl, and with a mysterious -packet clutched in her hand, was beckoning to attract their attention. -The men rose and advanced to meet her. - -“I’ll sit down a bit with ’ee,” cried the old woman, waving to them to -return to their former position. - -When they were seated once more beneath the bank,--the old lady, like -some strange Peruvian idol, resting cross-legged at their feet,--she -began, without further delay, to explain the cause of her visit. - -“I know’d how ’twould be with ’ee,” she said, addressing Luke, but -turning a not unfriendly eye upon his companion. “I did know well how -’twould be. I hear’d tell of brother’s being laid out, from Bert Leerd, -as I traipsed through Wild Pine this morning. - -“Ninsy Lintot was a-cryin’ enough to break her poor heart. I hear’d ’un -as I doddered down yon lane. She were all lonesome-like, under them -girt trees, shakin’ and sobbin’ terrible. She took on so, when I arst -what ailed ’un, that I dursn’t lay finger on the lass. - -“She did right down scare I, Master Luke, and that’s God’s holy truth! -‘Let me bide, Bessie,’ says she, ‘let me bide.’ I telled her ’twas a -sin to He she loved best, to carry on so hopeless; and with that she -up and says,--‘I be the cause of it all, Bessie,’ says she, ‘I be the -cause he throw’d ’isself away.’ And with that she set herself cryin’ -again, like as ’twas pitiful to hear. ‘My darlin’, my darlin’,’ she -kept callin’ out. ‘I love no soul ’cept thee--no soul ’cept thee!’ - -“’Twas then I recollected wot my old Mother used to say, ’bout maids -who be cryin’ like pantin’ hares. ‘Listen to me, Ninsy Lintot,’ I says, -solemn and slow, like as us were in church. ‘One above’s been talking -wi’ I, this blessed morn, and He do say as Master James be in Abram’s -Bosom, with them shining ones, and it be shame and sin for mortals like -we to wish ’un back.’ - -“That quieted the lass a bit, and I did tell she then, wot be God’s -truth, that ’tweren’t her at all turned brother’s head, but the -pleasure of the Almighty. ‘’Tis for folks like us,’ I says to her, ‘to -take wot His will do send, and bide quiet and still, same as cows, -drove to barton.’ - -“’Twere a blessing of providence I’d met crazy Bert afore I seed the -lass, else I’d a been struck dazed-like by wot she did tell. But as -’twas, thanks be to recollectin’ mother’s trick wi’ such wendy maids, I -dried her poor eyes and got her back home along. And she gave I summat -to put in brother’s coffin afore they do nail ’un down.” - -Before either Luke or Mr. Quincunx had time to utter any comment upon -this narration, Witch-Bessie unfastened the packet she was carrying, -and produced from a card-board box a large roughly-moulded bracelet, or -bangle, of heavy silver, such as may be bought in the bazaars of Tunis -or Algiers. - -“There,” cried the old woman, holding the thing up, and flashing it -in the sun, “that’s wot she gave I, to bury long wi’ brother! Be -pretty enough, baint ’un? Though, may-be, not fittin’ for a quiet -home-keeping lass like she. She had ’un off some Gipoo, she said; and -to my thinkin’ it be a kind of heathen ornimint, same as folks do buy -at Roger-town Fair. But such as ’tis, that be wot ’tis bestowed for, to -put i’ the earth long wi’ brother. Seems somethin’ of a pity, may-be, -but maid’s whimsies be maids’ whimsies, and God Almighty’ll plague the -hard-hearted folk as won’t perform wot they do cry out for.” - -Luke took the bangle from the old woman’s hand. - -“Of course I’ll do what she wants, Bessie,” he said. “Poor little -Ninsy, I never knew how much she cared.” - -He permitted Mr. Quincunx to handle the silver object, and then -carefully placed it in his pocket. - -“Hullo!” he cried, “what else have you got, Bessie?” This exclamation -was caused by the fact that Witch-Bessie, after fumbling in her shawl -had produced a second mysterious packet, smaller than the first and -tightly tied round with the stalks of some sort of hedge-weed. - -“Cards, by Heaven!” exclaimed Luke. “Oh Bessie, Bessie,” he added, “why -didn’t you bring these round here twenty-four hours ago? You might have -made me take him with me to Weymouth!” - -Untying the packet, which contained as the stone-carver had -anticipated, a pack of incredibly dirty cards, the old woman without -a word to either of them, shuffled and sifted them, according to some -secret rule, and laid aside all but nine. These, almost, but not -entirely, consisting of court cards, she spread out in a carefully -concerted manner on the grass at her feet. - -Muttering over them some extraordinary gibberish, out of which the two -men could only catch the following words, - - “Higgory, diggory, digg’d - My sow has pigg’d. - There’s a good card for thee. - There’s a still better than he! - There is the best of all three, - And there is Niddy-noddee!”-- - -Witch-Bessie picked up these nine cards, and shuffled them long and -fast. - -She then handed them to Luke, face-downward, and bade him draw seven -out of the nine. These she once more arranged, according to some occult -plan, upon the grass, and pondered over them with wrinkled brow. - -“’Tis as ’twould be!” she muttered at last. “Cards be wonderful crafty, -though toads and efties, to my thinkin’, be better, and a viper’s -innards be God’s very truth.” - -Making, to Luke’s great disappointment, no further allusion to the -result of her investigations, the old woman picked up the cards and -went through the whole process again, in honour of Mr. Quincunx. - -This time, after bending for several minutes over the solitary’s -choice, she became more voluble. - -“Thy heart’s wish be thine, dearie,” she said. “But there be thwartings -and blastings. Three tears--three kisses--and a terrible journey. Us -shan’t have ’ee long wi’ we, in these ’ere parts. Thee be marked and -signed, master, by fallin’ stars and flyin’ birds. There’s good sound -wood gone to ship’s keel wot’ll carry thee fast and far. Blastings and -thwartings! But thy heart’s wish be thine, dearie.” - -The humourous nostrils of Mr. Quincunx and the expressive curves of his -bearded chin had twitched and quivered as this sorcery began, but the -old woman’s reference to a “terrible journey” clouded his countenance -with blank dismay. - -Luke pressed the sybil to be equally communicative with regard to his -own fate, but the old woman gathered up her cards, twisted the same -faded stalks round the packet, and returned it to the folds of her -shawl. Then she struggled up upon her feet. - -“Don’t leave us yet, Bessie,” said Luke. “I’ll bring you out something -to eat presently.” - -Witch-Bessie’s only reply to this hospitable invitation was confounding -in its irrelevance. She picked up her draggled skirt with her two -hands, displaying her unlaced boots and rumpled stockings, and then, -throwing back her wizened head, with its rusty weather-bleached bonnet, -and emitting a pallid laugh from her toothless gums, she proceeded to -tread a sort of jerky measure, moving her old feet to the tune of a -shrill ditty. - - “Now we dance looby, looby, looby, - Now we dance looby, looby, light; - Shake your right hand a little, - Shake your left hand a little, - And turn you round about.” - -“Ye’ll both see I again, present,” she panted, when this performance -was over, “but bide where ’ee be, bide where ’ee be now. Old Bessie’s -said her say, and she be due long of Hullaway Cross, come noon.” - -As she hobbled off to the neighbouring stile, Luke saw her kiss the -tips of her fingers in the direction of the station-master’s house. - -“She’s bidding Daddy James good-bye,” he thought. “What a world! -‘Looby, looby, looby!’ A proper Dance of Death for a son of my mother!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -THE GRANARY - - -Luke persuaded Mr. Quincunx to stay with him for the station-master’s -Sunday dinner, and to stroll with him down to the churchyard in the -afternoon to decide, in consultation with the sexton, upon the most -suitable spot for his brother’s interment. The stone-carver was -resolved that this spot should be removed as far as possible from -the grave of their parents, and the impiety of this resolution was -justified by the fact that Gideon’s tomb was crowded on both sides by -less aggressive sleepers. - -They finally selected a remote place under the southern wall, at the -point where the long shadow of the tower, in the late afternoon, flung -its clear-outlined battlements on the waving grass. - -Luke continued to be entirely pleased with Mr. Quincunx’s tact and -sympathy. He felt he could not have secured a better companion for this -task of selecting the final resting-place of the brother of his soul. -“Curse these fools,” he thought, “who rail against this excellent man!” -What mattered it, after all, that the fellow hated what the world calls -“work,” and loved a peaceful life removed from distraction? - -The noble attributes of humour, of imagination, of intelligence,--how -much more important they were, and conducive to the general human -happiness, than the mere power of making money! Compared with -the delicious twists and diverting convolutions in Mr. Quincunx’s -extraordinary brain, how dull, how insipid, seemed such worldly -cleverness! - -The death of his brother had had the effect of throwing these things -into a new perspective. The Machiavellian astuteness, which, in -himself, in Romer, in Mr. Taxater, and in many others, he had, until -now, regarded as of supreme value in the conduct of life, seemed to -him, as he regretfully bade the recluse farewell and retraced his -steps, far less essential, far less important, than this imaginative -sensitiveness to the astounding spectacle of the world. - -He fancied he discerned in front of him, as he left the churchyard, -the well-known figure of his newly affianced Annie, and he made -a detour through the lane, to avoid her. He felt at that moment -as though nothing in the universe were interesting or important -except the sympathetic conversation of the friends of one’s natural -choice--persons of that small, that fatally small circle, from which -just now the centre seemed to have dropped out! - -Girls were a distraction, a pastime, a lure, an intoxication; but a -shock like this, casting one back upon life’s essential verities, threw -even lust itself into the limbo of irrelevant things. All his recent -preoccupation with the love of women seemed to him now, as though, in -place of dreaming over the mystery of the great tide of life, hand -in hand with initiated comrades, he were called upon to go launching -little paper-boats on its surface, full of fretful anxiety as to -whether they sank or floated. - -Weighed down by the hopeless misery of his loss, he made his way -slowly back to the station-master’s house, too absorbed in his grief to -speak to anyone. - -After tea he became so wretched and lonely, that he decided to -walk over to Hullaway on the chance of getting another glimpse of -Witch-Bessie. Even the sympathy of the station-master’s wife got on his -nerves and the romping of the children fretted and chafed him. - -He walked fast, swinging his stick and keeping his eyes on the ground, -his heart empty and desolate. He followed the very path by which Gladys -and he, some few short weeks before, had returned in the track of their -two friends, from the Hullaway stocks. - -Arriving at the village green, with its pond, its elms, its raised -pavement, and its groups of Sunday loiterers, he turned into the -churchyard. As we have noted many times ere now, the appealing silence -of these places of the dead had an invincible charm for him. It was -perhaps a morbid tendency inherited from his mother, or, on the other -hand, it may have been a pure æsthetic whim of his own, that led him, -with so magnetic an attraction, towards these oases of mute patience, -in the midst of the diurnal activities; but whatever the spell was, -Luke had never found more relief in obeying it than he did at this -present hour. - -He sat down in their favourite corner and looked with interest at the -various newly-blown wild-flowers, which a few weeks’ lapse had brought -to light. How well he loved the pungent stringy stalks, the grey -leaves, the flat sturdy flowers of the “achillea” or “yarrow”! Perhaps, -above all the late summer blooms, he preferred these--finding, in -their very coarseness of texture and toughness of stem, something that -reassured and fortified. They were so bitter in their herbal fragrance, -so astringent in the tang of their pungent taste, that they suggested -to him the kind of tonic cynicism, the sort of humorous courage and gay -disdain, with which it was his constant hope to come at last to accept -life. - -It pleased him, above all when he found these plants tinged with a -delicious pink, as though the juice of raspberries had been squeezed -over them, and it was precisely this tint he noticed now in a large -clump of them, growing on the sun-warmed grave of a certain Hugh and -Constance Foley, former occupants of the old Manor House behind him. - -He wondered if this long-buried Hugh--a mysterious and shadowy figure, -about whom James and he had often woven fantastic histories--had -felt as forlorn as he felt now, when he lost his Constance. Could a -Constance, or an Annie, or a Phyllis, ever leave quite the void behind -them such as now ached and throbbed within him? Yes, he supposed so. -Men planted their heart’s loves in many various soils, and when the -hand of fate tugged them away, it mattered little whether it was chalk, -or sand, or loam, that clung about the roots! - -He looked long and long at the sunlit mounds, over which the tombstones -leaned at every conceivable angle and upon which some had actually -fallen prostrate. These neglected monuments, and these tall uncut -grasses and flowers, had always seemed to him preferable to the trim -neatness of an enclosure like that of Athelston, which resembled the -lawn of a gentleman’s house. - -James had often disputed with him on this point, arguing, in a -spirit of surly contradiction, in favour of the wondrous effect of -those red Athelston roses hanging over clear-mown turf. The diverse -suggestiveness of graveyards was one of the brothers’ best-loved -topics, and innumerable cigarettes had they both consumed, weighing -this subject, on this very spot. - -Once more the hideous finality of the thing pierced the heart of Luke -with a devastating pang. On Wednesday next,--that is, after the lapse -of two brief days,--he would bid farewell, for ever and ever and ever, -to the human companion with whom he had shared all he cared for in life! - -He remembered a little quarrel he once had with James, long ago, in -this very place, and how it had been the elder and not the younger -who had made the first overtures of reconciliation, and how James had -given him an old pair of silver links,--he was wearing them at that -moment!--as a kind of peace-offering. He recollected what a happy -evening they had spent together after that event, and how they had read -“Thus spake Zarathustra” in the old formidable English translation--the -mere largeness of the volume answering to the largeness of the -philosopher’s thought. - -Never again would they two “take on them,” in the sweet Shakespearean -phrase, “the mystery of things, as though they were God’s spies.” - -Luke set himself to recall, one by one, innumerable little incidents of -their life together. He remembered various occasions in which, partly -out of pure contrariness, but partly also out of a certain instinctive -bias in his blood, he had defended their father against his brother’s -attacks. He recalled one strange conversation they had had, under the -withy-stumps of Badger’s Bottom, as they returned through the dusk of -a November day, from a long walk over the southern hills. It had to -do with the appearance of a cloud-swept crescent moon above the Auber -woods. - -James had maintained that were he a pagan of the extinct polytheistic -faith, he would have worshipped the moon, and willingly offered -her, night by night,--he used the pious syllables of the great -hedonist,--her glittering wax tapers upon the sacred wheaten cake. -Luke, on the contrary, had sworn that the sun, and no lesser power, -was the god of his idolatry, and he imagined himself in place of his -brother’s wax candles, pouring forth, morning by morning, a rich -libation of gold wine to that bright lord of life. - -This instinctive division of taste between the two, had led, over and -over again, to all manner of friendly dissension. - -Luke recalled how often he had rallied James upon his habit of drifting -into what the younger brother pertinently described as a “translunar -mood.” He was “translunar” enough now, at any rate; but now it was in -honour of that other “lady of the night,” of that dreadful “double” of -his moon-goddess--the dark pomegranate-bearer--that the candles must be -lit! - -Luke revived in his mind, as he watched the slow-shifting shadows move -from grave to grave, all those indescribable “little things” of their -every-day life together, the loss of which seemed perhaps worst of all. -He recalled how on gusty December evenings they would plod homeward -from some Saturday afternoon’s excursion to Yeoborough, and how the -cheerful firelight from the station-master’s house would greet them as -they crossed the railway. - -So closely had their thoughts and sensations grown together, that there -were many little poignant memories, out of the woven texture of which -he found himself quite unable to disentangle the imaginative threads -that were due to his brother, from such as were the evocation of his -own temperament. - -One such concentrated moment, of exquisite memory, he associated with -an old farm-house on the edge of the road leading from Hullaway to -Rogerstown. This road,--a forlorn enough highway of Roman origin, -dividing a level plain of desolate rain-flooded meadows,--was one of -their favourite haunts. “Halfway House,” as the farm-dwelling was -called, especially appealed to them, because of its romantic and -melancholy isolation. - -Luke remembered how he had paused with his brother one clear frosty -afternoon when the puddles by the road-side were criss-crossed by -little broken stars of fresh-formed ice, and had imagined how they -would feel if such a place belonged to them by hereditary birthright, -what they would feel were they even now returning there, between the -tall evergreens at the gate, to spend a long evening over a log fire, -with mulled claret on the hob, and cards and books on the table, and -a great white Persian cat,--this was James’ interpolation!--purring -softly, and rubbing its silky sides against Chinese vases full of -rose-leaves. - -Strange journeys his mind took, that long unforgettable afternoon,--the -first of his life spent without his brother! He saw before him, at one -moment, a little desolate wooden pier, broken by waves and weather, -somewhere on the Weymouth coast. The indescribable pathos of things -outworn and done with, of things abandoned by man and ill-used by -nature, had given to this derelict pile of drift-wood a curious -prominence in his House of Memory. He remembered the look with which -James had regarded it, and how the wind had whistled through it and how -they had tried in vain to light their cigarettes under its shelter. - -At another moment his mind swung back to the daily routine in their -pleasant lodging. He recalled certain spring mornings when they had -risen together at dawn and had crept stealthily out, for fear of waking -their landlady. He vividly remembered the peculiar smell of moss and -primroses with which the air seemed full on one of these occasions. - -The place Luke had chosen for summoning up all these ghosts of the past -held him with such a spell that he permitted the church-bells to ring -and the little congregation to assemble for the evening service without -moving or stirring. “Hugh and Constance Foley” he kept repeating to -himself, as the priest’s voice, within the sacred building, intoned the -prayers. The sentiment of the plaintive hymn with which the service -closed,--he hardly moved or stirred for the brief hour of the liturgy’s -progress,--brought tears, the first he had shed since his brother’s -death, to this wanton faun’s eyes. What is there, he thought, in these -wistful tunes, and impossible, too-sweet words, that must needs hit the -most cynical of sceptics? - -He let the people shuffle out and drift away, and the grey-haired -parson and his silk-gowned wife follow them and vanish, and still he -did not stir. For some half-an-hour longer he remained in the same -position, his chin upon his knees, staring gloomily in front of him. -He was still seated so, when, to the eyes of an observer posted on the -top of the tower, two persons, the first a woman and the second a man, -would have been observed approaching, by a rarely-traversed field-path, -the side of the enclosure most remote from Hullaway Green. - -The path upon which these figures advanced was interrupted at certain -intervals by tall elm-trees, and it would have been clear to our -imaginary watcher upon the tower that the second of the two was glad -enough of the shelter of these trees, of which it was evident he -intended to make use, did the first figure turn and glance backward. - -Had such a sentinel been possessed of local knowledge he would have had -no difficulty in recognizing the first of these persons as Gladys Romer -and the second as Mr. Clavering. - -Gladys had, in fact, gone alone to the evening service, on the ground -of celebrating the close of her baptismal day. Immediately after the -service she had slipped off down the street leading to the railroad, -directing her steps towards Hullaway, whither a sure instinct told her -Luke had wandered. - -She was still in sight, having got no further than the entrance -to Splash Lane, when Clavering, who had changed his surplice with -lightning rapidity, issued forth into the street. In a flash he -remarked the direction of her steps, and impelled by an impulse of mad -jealousy, began blindly following her. - -Not a few heads were inquisitively turned, and not a few whispering -comments were exchanged, as first the squire’s daughter, and then the -young clergyman, made their way through the street. - -As soon as Gladys had crossed the railroad and struck out at a sharp -pace up the slope of the meadow Clavering realized that wherever she -intended to go it was not to the house in which lay James Andersen. -Torn with intolerable jealousy, and anxious, at all risks, to satisfy -his mind, one way or the other, as to her relations with Luke, -he deliberately decided to follow the girl to whatever hoped-for -encounter, or carefully plotted assignation, she was now directing her -steps. How true, how exactly true, to his interpretation of Luke’s -character, was this astutely arranged meeting, on the very day after -his brother’s death! - -At the top of the station-field Gladys paused for a moment, and, -turning round, contemplated the little dwelling which was now a house -of the dead. - -Luckily for Mr. Clavering, this movement of hers coincided with his -arrival at the thick-set hedge separating the field from the metal -track. He waited at the turn-stile until, her abstraction over, she -passed into the lane. - -All the way to Hullaway Mr. Clavering followed her, hurriedly -concealing himself when there seemed the least danger of discovery, and -at certain critical moments making slight deviations from the direct -pursuit. - -As she drew near the churchyard the girl showed evident signs of -nervousness and apprehension, walking more slowly, and looking about -her, and sometimes even pausing as if to take breath and collect her -thoughts. - -It was fortunate for her pursuer at this final moment of the chase that -the row of colossal elms, of which mention has been made, interposed -themselves between the two. Clavering was thus able to approach quite -close to the girl before she reached her destination, for, making use -of these rugged trunks, as an Indian scout might have done, he was -almost within touch of her by the time she clambered over the railings. - -The savage bite of insane jealousy drove from the poor priest’s head -any thought of how grotesque he must have appeared,--could any eyes but -those of field-mice and starlings have observed him,--with his shiny -black frock-coat and broad-brimmed hat, peeping and spying in the track -of this fair young person. - -With a countenance convulsed with helpless fury he watched the girl -walk slowly and timidly up to Luke’s side, and saw the stone-carver -recognize her and rise to greet her. He could not catch their words, -though he strained his ears to do so, but their gestures and attitudes -were quite distinguishable. - -It was, indeed, little wonder that the agitated priest could not -overhear what Gladys said, for the extreme nervousness under which she -laboured made her first utterances so broken and low that even her -interlocutor could scarcely follow them. - -She laid a pleading hand on Luke’s arm. “I was unhappy,” she murmured, -“I was unhappy, and I wanted to tell you. I’ve been thinking about you -all day. I heard of his death quite early in the morning. Luke,--you’re -not angry with me any more, are you? I’d have done anything that this -shouldn’t have happened!” - -Luke looked at her searchingly, but made, at the same time, an -impatient movement of his arm, so that the hand she had placed upon his -sleeve fell to her side. - -“Let’s get away from here, Luke,” she implored; “anywhere,--across the -fields,--I told them at home I might go for a walk after church. It’ll -be all right. No one will know.” - -“Across the fields--eh?” replied the stone-carver. “Well--I don’t mind. -What do you say to a walk to Rogerstown? I haven’t been there since I -went with James, and there’ll be a moon to get home by.” He looked at -her intently, with a certain bitter humour lurking in the curve of his -lips. - -Under ordinary circumstances it was with the utmost difficulty that -Gladys could be persuaded to walk anywhere. Her lethargic nature -detested that kind of exercise. He was amazed at the alacrity with -which she accepted the offer. - -Her eyes quite lit up. “I’d love that, Luke, I’d simply love it!” she -cried eagerly. “Let’s start! I’ll walk as fast as you like--and I don’t -care how late we are!” - -They moved out of the churchyard together, by the gate opening on the -green. - -Luke was interested, but not in the least touched, by the girl’s -chastened and submissive manner. His suggestion about Rogerstown was -really more of a sort of test than anything else, to see just how far -this clinging passivity of hers would really go. - -As they followed the lane leading out of one of the side-alleys of -the village towards the Roman Road, the stone-carver could not help -indulging in a certain amount of silent psychological analysis in -regard to this change of heart in his fair mistress. He seemed to get -a vision of the great world-passions, sweeping at random through the -universe, and bending the most obstinate wills to their caprice. - -On the one hand, he thought, there is that absurd Mr. -Clavering,--simple, pure-minded, a veritable monk of God,--driven -almost insane with Desire, and on the other, here is Gladys,--naturally -as selfish and frivolous a young pagan as one could wish to amuse -oneself with,--driven almost insane with self-oblivious love! They were -like earthquakes and avalanches, like whirlpools and water-spouts, -he thought, these great world-passions! They could overwhelm all -the good in one person, and all the evil in another, with the same -sublime indifference, and in themselves--remain non-moral, superhuman, -elemental! - -In the light of this vision, Luke could not resist a hurried mental -survey of the various figures in his personal drama. He wondered how -far his own love for James could be said to belong to this formidable -category. No! He supposed that both he and Mr. Quincunx were too -self-possessed, or too epicurean, ever to be thus swept out of their -path. His brother was clearly a victim of these erotic Valkyries, so -was Ninsy Lintot, and in a lesser degree, he shrewdly surmised, young -Philip Wone. He himself, he supposed, was, in these things, amorous and -vicious rather than passionate. So he had always imagined Gladys to -have been. But Gladys had been as completely swept out of the shallows -of her viciousness, by this overpowering obsession, as Mr. Clavering -had been swept out of the shallows of his puritanism, by the same -power. If that fantastic theory of Vennie Seldom’s about the age-long -struggle between the two Hills--between the stone of the one and the -wood of the other--had any germ of truth in it, it was clear that -these elemental passions belonged to a region of activity remote from -either, and as indifferent to both, as the great zodiacal signs were -indifferent to the solar planets. - -Luke had just arrived at this philosophical, or, if the reader pleases, -mystical conclusion, when they emerged upon the Roman Road. - -Ascending an abrupt hill, the last eminence between Hullaway and -far-distant ranges, they found themselves looking down over an -immense melancholy plain, in the centre of which, on the banks of a -muddy river, stood the ancient Roman stronghold of Rogerstown, the -birth-place, so Luke always loved to remind himself, of the famous -monkish scientist Roger Bacon. - -The sun had already disappeared, and the dark line of the Mendip Hills -on the northern horizon were wrapped in a thick, purple haze. - -The plain they looked down upon was cut into two equal segments by the -straight white road they were to follow,--if Luke was serious in his -intention,--and all along the edges of the road, and spreading in -transverse lines across the level fields, were deep, reedy ditches, -bordered in places by pollard willows. - -The whole plain, subject, in autumn and winter, to devastating floods, -was really a sort of inlet or estuary of the great Somersetshire -marshes, lying further west, which are collectively known as Sedgemoor. - -Gladys could not refrain from giving vent to a slight movement of -instinctive reluctance, when she saw how close the night was upon them, -and how long the road seemed, but she submissively suppressed any word -of protest, when, with a silent touch upon her arm, her companion led -her forward, down the shadowy incline. - -Their figures were still visible--two dark isolated forms upon the -pale roadway--when, hot and panting, Mr. Clavering arrived at the same -hill-top. With a sigh of profound relief he recognized that he had not -lost his fugitives. The only question was, where were they going, and -for what purpose? He remained for several minutes gloomy and watchful -at his post of observation. - -They were now nearly half a mile across the plain, and their receding -figures had already begun to grow indistinct in the twilight, when Mr. -Clavering saw them suddenly leave the road and debouch to the left. -“Ah!” he muttered to himself, “They’re going home by Hullaway Chase!” - -This Hullaway Chase was a rough tract of pasturage a little to the east -of the level flats, and raised slightly above them. From its southern -extremity a long narrow lane, skirting the outlying cottages of the -village, led straight across the intervening uplands to Nevilton Park. -It was clearly towards this lane, by a not much frequented foot-path -over the ditches, that Gladys and Luke were proceeding. - -To anyone as well acquainted as Clavering was with the general outline -of the country the route that the lovers--or whatever their curious -relation justifies us in calling them--must needs take, to return to -Nevilton, was now as clearly marked as if it were indicated on a map. - -“Curse him!” muttered the priest, “I hope he’s not going to drown her -in those brooks!” - -He let his gaze wander across the level expanse at his feet. How could -he get close to them, he wondered, so as to catch even a stray sentence -or two of what they were saying. - -His passion had reached such a point of insanity that he longed to be -transformed into one of those dark-winged rooks that now in a thin -melancholy line were flying over their heads, so that he might swoop -down above them and follow them--follow them--every step of the way! -He was like a man drawn to the edge of a precipice and magnetized by -the very danger of the abyss. To be near them, to listen to what they -said,--the craving for that possessed him with a fixed and obstinate -hunger! - -Suddenly he shook his cane in the air and almost leaped for joy. He -remembered the existence, at the spot where the lane they were seeking -began, of a large dilapidated barn, used, by the yeoman-farmer to whom -the Chase belonged, as a rough store-house for cattle-food. The spot -was so attractive a resting-place for persons tired with walking, -that it seemed as though it would be a strange chance indeed if the -two wanderers did not take advantage of it. The point was, could he -forestall them and arrive there first? - -He surveyed the landscape around him with an anxious eye. It seemed -as though by following the ridge of the hill upon which he stood, and -crossing every obstacle that intervened, he ought to be able to do -so--and to do so without losing sight of the two companions, as they -unsuspiciously threaded their way over the flats. - -Having made his resolution, he lost no time in putting it into -action. He clambered without difficulty into the meadow on his right, -and breaking, in his excitement, into a run, he forced his way -through three successive bramble-hedges, and as many dew-drenched -turnip-fields, without the least regard to the effect of this procedure -upon his Sunday attire. - -Every now and then, as the contours of the ground served, he caught a -glimpse of the figures in the valley below, and the sight hastened the -impetuosity of his speed. Once he felt sure he observed them pause and -exchange an embrace, but this may have been an illusive mirage created -by the mad fumes of the tempestuous jealousy which kept mounting -higher and higher into his head. Recklessly and blindly he rushed on, -performing feats of agility and endurance, such as in normal hours -would have been utterly impossible. - -From the moment he decided upon this desperate undertaking, to the -moment, when, hot, breathless, and dishevelled, he reached his -destination, only a brief quarter of an hour had elapsed. - -He entered the barn leaving the door wide-open behind him. In its -interior tightly packed bundles of dark-coloured hay rose up almost to -the roof. The floor was littered with straw and newly-cut clover. - -On one side of the barn, beneath the piled-up hay, was a large shelving -heap of threshed oats. Here, obviously, was the sort of place, if the -lovers paused at this spot at all, where they would be tempted to -recline. - -Directly opposite these oats, in the portion of the shed that was most -in shadow, Clavering observed a narrow slit between the hay-bundles. -He approached this aperture and tried to wedge himself into it. The -protruding stalks of the hay pricked his hands and face, and the dust -choked him. - -With angry coughs and splutters, and with sundry savage expletives by -no means suitable to a priest of the church, he at length succeeded -in firmly imbedding himself in this impenetrable retreat. He worked -himself so far into the shadow, that not the most cautious eye could -have discerned his presence. His sole danger lay in the fact that the -dust might very easily give him an irresistible fit of sneezing. With -the cessation of his violent struggles, however, this danger seemed to -diminish; for the dust subsided as quickly as it had been raised, and -otherwise, as he leant luxuriously back upon his warm-scented support, -his position was by no means uncomfortable. - -Meanwhile Luke and Gladys were slowly and deliberately crossing the -darkening water-meadows. - -Gladys, whose geographical knowledge of the district was limited to the -immediate vicinity of her home had not the remotest guess as to where -she was being led. For all she knew Luke might have gone crazy, like -his brother, and be now intending to plunge both himself and her into -the depths of some lonely pool or weir. Nevertheless, she continued -passively and meekly following him, walking, when the path along the -dyke’s edge narrowed, at some few paces behind him, with that peculiar -air of being a led animal, which one often observes in the partners of -tramps, as they plod the roads in the wake of their masters. - -The expanse they traversed in this manner was possessed of a peculiar -character of its own, a character which that especial hour of twilight -seemed to draw forth and emphasize. It differed from similar tracts of -marsh-land, such as may be found by the sea’s edge, in being devoid of -any romantic horizon to afford a spiritual escape from the gloom it -diffused. - -It was melancholy. It was repellant. It was sinister. It lacked the -element of poetic expansiveness. It gave the impression of holding -grimly to some dark obscene secret, which no visitation of sun or moon -would ever cajole it into divulging. - -It depressed without overwhelming. It saddened without inspiring. With -its reeds, its mud, its willows, its livid phosphorescent ditches, -it produced uneasiness rather than awe, and disquietude rather than -solemnity. - -Bounded by rolling hills on all sides save one, it gave the persons who -moved across it the sensation of being enclosed in some vast natural -arena. - -Gladys wished she had brought her cloak with her, as the filmy white -mists rose like ghosts out of the stagnant ditches, and with clammy -persistence invaded her unprotected form. - -It was one of those places that seem to suggest the transaction of -no stirring or heroic deeds, but of gloomy, wretched, chance-driven -occurrences. A betrayed army might have surrendered there. - -Luke seemed to give himself up with grim reciprocity to the influences -of the spot. He appeared totally oblivious of his meek companion, and -except to offer her languid, absent-minded assistance across various -gates and dams, he remained as completely wrapped in reserve as were -the taciturn levels over which they passed. - -It was with an incredible sense of relief that Gladys found herself -in the drier, more wholesome, atmosphere of Hullaway Chase. Here, as -they walked briskly side by side over the thyme-scented turf, it seemed -that the accumulated heat of the day, which, from the damp marsh-land -only drew forth miasmic vapours, flung into the fragrant air delicious -waftings of warm earth-breath. With still greater relief, and even with -a little cry of joy, she caught sight of the friendly open door of the -capacious barn, and the shadowy inviting heap of loose-flung oats lying -beneath its wall of hay. - -“Oh, we must go in here!” she cried, “what an adorable place!” - -They entered, and the girl threw upon Luke one of her slow, long, -amorous glances. “Kiss me!” she said, holding up her mouth to him -beseechingly. - -The faint light of the dying day fell with a pale glimmer upon her soft -throat and rounded chin. Luke found himself disinclined to resist her. - -There were tears on the girl’s cheek when, loosening her hold upon his -neck, she sank down on the idyllic couch offered them, and closed her -eyes in childish contentment. - -Luke hung over her thoughtfully and sadly. There is always something -sad,--something that seems to bring with it a withering breath from -the ultimate futility of the universe,--about a lover’s recognition -that the form which formerly thrilled him with ecstasy, now leaves -him cold and unmoved. Such sadness, chilly and desolate as the hand -of death itself, crept over the stone-carver’s heart, as he looked at -the gently-stirring breast and softly-parted lips of his beautiful -mistress. He bent down and kissed her forehead, caressing her passively -yielded fingers. - -She opened her eyes and smiled at him, the lingering smile of a soothed -and happy infant. - -They remained thus, silent and at rest, for several moments. It was -not long, however, before the subtle instinct of an enamoured woman -made the girl aware that her friend’s responsiveness had been but a -momentary impulse. She started up, her eyes wide-open and her lips -trembling. - -“Luke!” she murmured, “Luke, darling,--” Her voice broke, in a curious -little sob. - -Luke gazed at her blankly, thankful that the weight of weary -foreknowledge upon his face was concealed from her by the growing -darkness. - -“I want to say to you, my dear love,” the girl went on, her bosom -rising and falling in pitiful embarrassment, and her white fingers -nervously scooping up handful after handful of the shadowy grain. - -“I want to say to you something that is--that is very serious--for us -both, Luke,--I want to tell you,----” - -Her voice once more died away, in the same inarticulate and curious -gurgle, like the sob of water running under a weir. - -Luke rose to his feet and stood in front of her. “It’s all right,” he -said calmly. “You needn’t agitate yourself. I understand.” - -The girl covered her face with her hands. “But what shall I do? What -shall I do?” she sobbed. “I can’t marry Ralph like this. He’ll kill me -when he finds out. I’m so afraid of him, Luke--you don’t know,--you -don’t know,--” - -“He’ll forgive you,” answered the stone-carver quietly. “He’s not a -person to burst out like that. Lots of people have to confess these -little things after they’re married. Some men aren’t half so particular -as you girls think.” - -Gladys raised her head and gave her friend a long queer look, the full -import of which was concealed from him in the darkness. She made a -futile little groping movement with her hand. - -“Luke,” she whispered, “I must just say this to you even if it makes -you angry. I shouldn’t be happy afterwards--whatever happens--if I -didn’t say it. I want you to know that I’m ready, if you wish, if--if -you love me enough for that, Luke,--to go away with you anywhere! I -feel it isn’t as it used to be. I feel everything’s different. But -I want you to know,--to know without any mistake--that I’d go at -once--willingly--wherever you took me! - -“It’s not that I’m begging you to marry me,” she wailed, “it’s only -that I love you, love you and want you so frightfully, my darling! - -“I wouldn’t worry you, Luke,” she added, in a low, pitiful little -voice, that seemed to emerge rather from the general shadowiness of the -place than from a human being’s lips, “I wouldn’t tease you, or scold -you when you enjoyed yourself! It’s only that I want to be with you, -that I want to be near you. I never thought it would come to this. I -thought--” Her voice died away again into the darkness. - -Luke began pacing up and down the floor of the barn. - -Once more she spoke. “I’d be faithful to you, Luke, married or -unmarried,--and I’d work, though I know you won’t believe that. But I -can do quite hard work, when I like!” - -By some malignity of chance, or perhaps by a natural reaction from her -pleading words, Luke’s mind reverted to her tone and temper on that -June morning when she insulted him by a present of money. - -“No, Gladys,” he said. “It won’t do. You and I weren’t made for each -other. There are certain things--many things--in me that you’ll never -understand, and I daresay there are things in you that I never shall. -We’re not made for one another, child, I tell you. We shouldn’t be -happy for a week. I know myself, and I know you, and I’m sure it -wouldn’t do. - -“Don’t you fret yourself about Dangelis. If he finds out, he finds -out--and that’s the end of it. But I swear to you that I know _him_ -well enough to know that you’ve nothing to be afraid of--even if he -does find out. He’s not the kind of man to make a fuss. I can see -exactly the way he’d take it. He’d be sorry for you and laugh at -himself, and plunge desperately into his painting. - -“I like Dangelis, I tell you frankly. I think he’s a thoroughly -generous and large-minded fellow. Of course I’ve hardly seen him to -speak to, but you can’t be mistaken about a man like that. At least I -can’t! I seem to know him in and out, up hill and down dale. - -“Make a fuss? Not he! He’ll make this country ring and ting with the -fame of his pictures. That’s what he’ll do! And as for being horrid to -you--not he! I know him better than that. He’ll be too much in love -with you, too,--you little demon! That’s another point to bear in mind. - -“Oh, you’ll have the whip-hand of him, never fear,--and our son,--I -hope it _is_ a son my dear!--will be treated as if it were his own. - -“I know him, I tell you! He’s a thoroughly decent fellow, though a bit -of a fool, no doubt. But we’re all that! - -“Don’t you be a little goose, Gladys, and get fussed up and worried -over nothing. After all, what does it matter? Life’s such a mad affair -anyway! All we can do is to map things to the best of our ability, and -then chance it. - -“We’re all on the verge of a precipice. Do you think I don’t realize -that? But that’s no reason why we should rush blindly up to the thing, -and throw ourselves over. And it would be nothing else than that, -nothing else than sheer madness, for you and I to go off together. - -“Do you think your father would give us a penny? Not he! I detect in -your father, Gladys, an extraordinary vein of obstinacy. You haven’t -clashed up against it yet, but try and play any of these games on him, -and you’ll see! - -“No; one thing you may be perfectly sure of, and that is, that whatever -he finds out, Dangelis will never breathe a word to your father. He’s -madly in love with you, girl, I tell you; and if I’m out of the way, -you’ll be able to do just what you like with him!” - -It was completely dark now, and when Luke’s oration came to an end -there was no sound in the barn except a low sobbing. - -“Come on, child; we must be getting home, or you’ll be frightfully -late. Here! give me your hand. Where are you?” - -He groped about in the darkness until his sleeve brushed against her -shoulder. It was trembling under her efforts to suppress her sobs. - -He got hold of her wrists and pulled her to her feet. “Come on, my -dear,” he repeated, “we must get out of this now. Give me one nice kiss -before we go.” - -She permitted herself to be caressed--passive and unresisting in his -arms. - -In the darkness they touched the outer edge of Mr. Clavering’s -hiding-place, and the girl, swaying a little backwards under Luke’s -endearments, felt the pressure of the hay-wall behind her. She did not, -however, feel the impassioned touch of the choking kiss which the poor -imprisoned priest desperately imprinted on a loose tress of her hair. - -It was one of those pitiful and grotesque situations which seem -sometimes to arise,--as our fantastic planet turns on its orbit,--for -no other purpose than that of gratifying some malign vein of -goblin-like irony in the system of things. - -That at the moment when Luke, under the spell of the shadowy fragrance -of the place, and the pliant submissiveness of the girl’s form, threw -something of his old ardour into his kiss, her other, more desperate -love should have dared such an approach, was a coincidence apparently -of the very kind to appeal to the perverse taste of this planetary -humour. - -The actual result of such a strange consentaneousness of rival emotion -was that the three human heads remained for a brief dramatic moment -in close juxtaposition,--the two fair ones and the dark one so near -one another, that it might have seemed almost inevitable that their -thoughts should interact in that fatal proximity. - -The pitiful pathos of the whole human comedy might well have been -brought home to any curious observer able to pierce that twilight! Such -an observer would have felt towards those three poor obsessed craniums -the same sort of tenderness that they themselves would have been -conscious of, had they suddenly come across a sleeping person or a dead -body. - -Strange, that the ultimate pity in these things,--in this blind -antagonistic striving of human desires under such gracious flesh and -blood--should only arouse these tolerant emotions when they are no -longer of any avail! Had some impossible bolt from heaven stricken -these three impassioned ones in their tragic approximation, how,--long -afterwards,--the discoverer of the three skeletons would have -moralized upon their fate! As it was, there was nothing but the irony -of the gods to read what the irony of the gods was writing upon that -moment’s drowning sands. - -When Luke and Gladys left the barn, and hurriedly, under the rising -moon, retook their way towards Nevilton, Clavering emerged from his -concealment dazed and stupefied. He threw himself down in the darkness -on the heap of oats and strove to give form and coherence to the wild -flood of thoughts which swept through him. - -So this was what he had come out to learn! This was the knowledge that -his mad jealousy had driven him to snatch! - -He thought of the exquisite sacredness--for him--of that morning’s -ritual in the church, and of how easily he had persuaded himself to -read into the girl’s preoccupied look something more than natural -sadness over Andersen’s death. He had indeed,--only those short hours -ago,--allowed himself the sweet illusion that this religious initiation -really meant, for his pagan love, some kind of Vita Nuova. - -The fates had rattled their dice, however, to a different tune. The -unfortunate girl was indeed entering upon a Vita Nuova, but how -hideously different a one from that which had been his hope! - -On Wednesday came the confirmation service. How could he,--with any -respect for his conscience as a guardian of these sacred rites,--permit -Gladys to be confirmed now? Yet what ought he to do? Drops of cold -sweat stood upon his forehead as he wondered whether it was incumbent -upon him to take the first train the following morning for the bishop’s -palace and to demand an interview. - -No. Tomorrow the prelate would be starting on his episcopal tour. -Clavering would have to pursue him from one remote country village to -another, and what a pursuit that would be! He recoiled from the idea -with sick aversion. - -Could he then suppress his fatal knowledge and let the event take place -without protest? To act in such a manner would be nothing less than to -play the part of an accomplice in the girl’s sin. - -Perhaps when the bishop actually appeared he would be able to secure a -confidential interview with him and lay the whole matter before him. Or -should he act on his own responsibility, and write to Gladys himself, -telling her that under the circumstances it would be best for her to -stay away from the ceremony? - -What reason could he give for such an extraordinary mandate? Could -he bluntly indicate to her, in black and white, the secret he had -discovered, and the manner of its discovery? To accuse her on the -ground of mere village gossip would be to lay himself open to shameful -humiliation. Was he, in any case, justified in putting the fatal -information, gathered in this way, to so drastic a use? It was only in -his madness as a jealous lover that he had possessed himself of this -knowledge. As priest of Nevilton he knew nothing. - -He had no right to know anything. No; he must pay the penalty of his -shameful insanity by bearing this burden in silence, even though his -conscience groaned and cracked beneath the weight. Such a silence, -with its attendant misery of self-accusation and shame, was all he -could offer to his treacherous enchantress as a tacit recompense for -having stolen her secret. - -He rose and left the granary. As he walked homeward, along the Nevilton -road, avoiding by a sort of scrupulous reaction the shorter route -followed by the others, it seemed to him as though the night had never -been more sultry, or the way more loaded with the presence of impendent -calamity. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -METAMORPHOSIS - - -The day of James Andersen’s funeral and of Gladys’ confirmation -happened to coincide with a remarkable and unexpected event in the -life of Mr. Quincunx. Whatever powers, lurking in air or earth, were -attempting at that moment to influence the fatal stream of events in -Nevilton, must have been grimly conscious of something preordained and -inevitable about this eccentric man’s drift towards appalling moral -disaster. - -It seemed as though nothing on earth now could stop the marriage of -Lacrima and Goring, and from the point of view of the moralist, or even -of the person of normal decency, such a marriage, if it really did lead -to Mr. Quincunx’s pensioning at the hands of his enemy, necessarily -held over him a shame and a disgrace proportionate to the outrage done -to the girl who loved him. What these evil powers played upon, if evil -powers they were,--and not the blind laws of cause and effect,--was the -essential character of Mr. Quincunx, which nothing in heaven nor earth -seemed able to change. - -There are often, however, elements in our fate, which lie, it might -seem, deeper than any calculable prediction, deeper, it may be, than -the influence of the most powerful supernatural agents, and these -elements--unstirred by angel or devil--are sometimes roused to -activity by the least expected cause. It is, at these moments, as -though Fate, in the incalculable comprehensiveness of her immense -designs, condescended to make use of Chance, her elfish sister, to -carry out what the natural and normal stream of things would seem to -have decreed as an impossibility. - -Probably not a living soul who knew him,--certainly not Lacrima,--had -the least expectation of any chance of change in Mr. Quincunx. But then -none of these persons had really sounded the depths in the soul of -the man. There were certain mysterious and unfathomable gulfs in the -sea-floor of Mr. Quincunx’s being which would have exhausted all the -sorceries of Witch-Bessie even to locate. - -So fantastic and surprising are the ways of destiny, that,--as shall -be presently seen,--what neither gods nor devils, nor men nor angels, -could effect, was effected by nothing more nor less than a travelling -circus. - -The day of the burying of James and the confirmation of Gladys brought -into Nevilton a curious cortège of popular entertainers. This cortège -consisted of one of those small wandering circuses, which, during the -month of August are wont to leave the towns and move leisurely among -the remoter country villages, staying nowhere more than a night, and -taking advantage of any local festival or club-meeting to enhance their -popularity. - -The circus in question,--flamingly entitled Porter’s Universal -World-Show,--was owned and conducted by a certain Job Love, a shrewd -and avaricious ruffian, who boasted, though with little justification, -the inheritance of gipsy blood. As a matter of fact, the authentic -gipsy tribes gave Mr. Love an extremely wide berth, avoiding his path -as they would have avoided the path of the police. This cautious -attitude was not confined, however, to gipsies. Every species of -itinerant hawker and pedler avoided the path of Mr. Love, and the few -toy-booths and sweet-stalls that followed his noisy roundabouts were a -department of his own providing. - -It was late on Tuesday night when the World-Show established itself in -Nevilton Square. The sound of hammers and the barking of dogs was the -last thing that the villagers heard before they slept, and the first -thing they heard when they awoke. - -The master of the World-Show spent the night according to his custom -in solitary regal grandeur in the largest of his caravans. The sun had -not, however, pierced the white mists in the Nevilton orchards before -Mr. Love was up and abroad. The first thing he did, on descending the -steps of his caravan, was to wash his hands and face in the basin of -the stone fountain. His next proceeding was to measure out into a -little metal cup which he produced from his pocket a small quantity -of brandy and to pour this refreshment, diluted with water from the -fountain, down his capacious throat. - -Mr. Love was a lean man, of furtive and irascible appearance. His -countenance, bleached by exposure into a species of motley-coloured -leather, shone after its immersion in the fountain like the knob of a -well-worn cudgel. His whitish hair, cut in convict style close to his -head, emphasized the polished mahogany of his visage, from the upper -portion of which his sky-blue eyes, small and glittering, shone out -defiantly upon the world, like ominous jewels set in the forehead of an -obscene and smoke-darkened idol. - -Having replaced his cup and flask in his pocket, the master of the -World-Show looked anxiously at the omens of the weather, snuffing the -morning breeze with the air of one not lightly to be fooled either by -rain or shine. Returning to the still silent circus, he knocked sharply -with his knuckles at the door of the smallest of the three caravans. - -“Flick!” he shouted, “let me in! Flick! Old Flick! Darn ’ee, man, for -a blighting sand-louse! Open the door, God curse you! Old Flick! Old -Flick! Old Flick!” - -Thus assaulted, the door of the caravan was opened from within, and Mr. -Love pushed his way into the interior. A strange enough sight met him -when once inside. - -The individual apostrophized as “Old Flick” closed and bolted the door -with extraordinary precaution, as soon as his master had entered, and -then turned and hovered nervously before him, while Mr. Love sank down -on the only chair in the place. The caravan was bare of all furniture -except a rough cooking-stove and a three-legged deal table. But it was -at neither of these objects that Job Love stared, as he tilted back his -chair and waved impatiently aside the deprecatory old man. - -Stretched on a ragged horse-blanket upon the floor lay a sleeping -child. Clothed in little else than a linen bodice and a short flannel -petticoat, she turned restlessly in her slumber under Mr. Love’s -scrutiny, and crossing one bare leg over the other, flung out a long -white arm, while her dark curls, disturbed by her movement, fell over -her face and hid it from view. - -“Ah!” remarked Mr. Love. “Quieter now, I see. She must dance today, -Flick, and no mistake about it! You must take her out in the fields -this morning, like you did that other one. I can’t have no more -rampaging and such-like, in my decent circus. But she must dance, -there’s no getting over that,--she must dance, Old Flick! ’Twas your -own blighting notion to take her on, remember; and I can’t have no -do-nothing foreigners hanging around, specially now August be come. - -“What did she say her nonsense-name was? Lores,--Dolores? Whoever heard -tell of such a name as that?” - -The sound of his voice seemed to reach the child even in her sleep; for -flinging her arms over her head, and turning on her back, she uttered a -low indistinguishable murmur. Her eyes, however, remained closed, the -dark curves of her long eye-lashes contrasting with the scarlet of her -mouth and the ivory pallor of her skin. - -Even Job Love--though not precisely an æsthete--was struck by the -girl’s beauty. - -“She’ll make a fine dancer, Flick, a fine dancer! How old dost think -she be? ’Bout twelve, or may-be more, I reckon. - -“’Tis pity she won’t speak no Christian word. ’Tis wonderful, how these -foreign childer do hold so obstinate by their darned fancy-tongue! - -“We must trim her out in them spangle-gauzes of Skipsy Jane. _She_ -were the sort of girl to make the boys holler. But this one’ll do -well enough, I reckon, if so be she goes smilin’ and chaffin’ upon the -boards. - -“But no more of that devil’s foolery, Flick? Dost hear, man? Take her -out into the fields;--take her out into the fields! She must dance and -she must smile, all in Skipsy Jane’s spangles, come noon this day. She -must do so, Flick--or I ain’t Jobie Love!” - -The old man paused in his vague moth-like hovering, and surveyed the -outstretched figure. His own appearance was curious enough to excite a -thrill of intense curiosity, had any less callous eye but that of his -master been cast upon him. - -He produced the effect not so much of a living person, animated by -natural impulses, as of a dead body possessed by some sort of wandering -spirit which made use of him for its own purposes. - -If by chance this spirit were to desert him, one felt that what would -be left of Old Flick would be nothing but the mask of a man,--a husk, a -shard, a withered stalk, a wisp of dried-up grass! The old creature was -as thin as a lathe; and his cavernous, colourless eyes and drooping jaw -looked, in that indistinct light, as vague and shadowy as though they -belonged to some phantasmal mirage of mist and rain drifted in from the -sleeping fields. - -“How did ’ee ever get Mother Sterner to let ’ee have so dainty a bit of -goods?” went on Mr. Love, continuing his survey of their unconscious -captive. “The old woman must have been blind-scared of the police or -summat, so as to want to be free of the maid. ’Tisn’t every day you can -pick up a lass so cut out for the boards as she be.” - -At intervals during his master’s discourse the parchment-like visage -of the old man twisted and contorted itself, as if with the difficulty -of finding words. - -When Job Love at last became silent, the words issued from him as if -they had been rustling eddies of chaff, blown through dried stalks. - -“I’ve tried her with one thing, Mister, and I’ve tried her with -another,--but ’tis no use; she do cry and cry, and there’s no handling -her. I guess I must take her into them fields, as you do say. ’Tis -because of folks hearing that she do carry on so.” - -Job Love frowned and scratched his forehead. - -“Damn her,” he cried, “for a limpsy cat! Well--Old Flick--ye picked -her up and ye must start her off. This show don’t begin till nigh -along noon,--so if ye thinks ye can bring her to reason, some ways -or t’other ways, off with ’ee, my man! Get her a bite of breakfast -first,--and good luck to ’ee! Only don’t let’s have no fuss, and don’t -let’s have no onlookers. I’m not the man to stand for any law-breaking. -This show’s a decent show, and Job Love’s a decent man. If the wench -makes trouble, ye must take her back where she did come from. Mother -Sterner’ll have to slide down. I can’t have no quarrels with King and -Country, over a limpsy maid like she!” - -Uttering these words in a tone of formidable finality, Mr. Love moved -to the entrance and let himself out. - -Their master gone, Old Flick turned waveringly to the figure on the -floor. Taking down a faded coat from its peg on the wall, he carefully -spread it over the child, tucking it round her body with shaking -hands. He then went to the stove in the corner, lit it, and arranged -the kettle. From the stove he turned to the three-legged table; and -removing from a hanging cupboard a tea-pot, some cups and plates, -a loaf of bread and a pat of butter, he set out these objects with -meticulous nicety, avoiding the least clatter or sound. This done, he -sat down upon the solitary chair, and waited the boiling of the water -with inscrutable passivity. - -From outside the caravan came the shuffle of stirring feet and the -murmur of subdued and drowsy voices. The camp was beginning to enter -upon its labour of preparation. - -When he had made tea, Old Flick touched his sleeping captive lightly on -the shoulder. - -The girl started violently, and sat up, with wide-open eyes. She began -talking hurriedly, protesting and imploring; but not a word of her -speech was intelligible to Old Flick, for the simple reason that it was -Italian,--Italian of the Neapolitan inflexion. - -The old man handed her a strong cup of tea, together with a large slice -of bread-and-butter, uttering as he did so all manner of soothing and -reassuring words. When she had finished her breakfast he brought her -water and soap. - -“Tidy thee-self up, my pretty,” he said. “We be goin’ out, along into -them fields, present.” - -Bolting the caravan door on the outside, he shuffled off to the -fountain to perform his own ablutions, and to assist his companions in -unloading the stage-properties, and setting up the booths and swings. -After the lapse of an hour he climbed the caravan-steps and re-entered -softly. - -He found the girl crouched in a corner, her hands clasped over her -knees, and traces of tears upon her cheeks. Before leaving her, the old -man had placed shoes and stockings by her side, and these she now wore, -together with a dark-coloured skirt and a scarlet gipsy-shawl. - -“Come,” he said. “Thee be goin’ wi’ I into the fields. Thee be goin’ -to learn a dancin’ trick or two. Show opens along of noon; and Master, -he’s goin’ to let ’ee have Skipsy Jane’s spangles.” - -How much of this the child understood it is impossible to say; but -the old man’s tone was not threatening, and the idea of being taken -away--somewhere--anywhere--roused vague hopes in her soul. She pulled -the red shawl over her head and let him lead her by the hand. - -Down the steps they clambered, and hurriedly threaded their way across -the square. - -The old man took the road towards Yeoborough, and turned with the girl -up Dead Man’s Lane. He was but dimly acquainted with the neighbourhood; -but once before, in his wanderings as a pedler, he had encamped in a -certain grassy hollow bordering on the Auber Woods, and the memory of -the seclusion of this spot drew him now. - -As they passed Mr. Quincunx’s garden they encountered the solitary -himself, who, in his sympathy with Luke Andersen on this particular -day, had resolved to pay the young man an early morning visit. - -The recluse looked with extreme and startled interest at this singular -pair. The child’s beauty struck him with a shock that almost took his -breath away. There was something about the haunting expression of her -gaze as she turned it upon him that roused an overpowering flood of -tenderness and pity in untouched abysses of his being. - -There must have been some instantaneous reciprocity in the eccentric -man’s grey eyes, for the young girl turned back after they had passed, -and throwing the shawl away from her head, fixed upon him what seemed a -deliberate and beseeching look of appeal. - -Mr. Quincunx was so completely carried out of his normal self by this -imploring look that he went so far as to answer its inarticulate prayer -by a wave of his hand, and by a sign that indicated,--whether she -understood it or not,--that he intended to render her assistance. - -In his relations with Lacrima Mr. Quincunx was always remotely -conscious that the girl’s character was stronger than his own, -and--Pariah-like--this had the effect of lessening the emotion he felt -towards her. - -But now--in the look of the little Dolores--there was an appeal from -a weakness and helplessness much more desperate than his own,--an -appeal to him from the deepest gulfs of human dependence. The glance -she had given him burned in his brain like a coal of white fire. It -seemed to cry out to him from all the flotsam and jetsam, all the drift -and wreckage of everything that had ever been drowned, submerged, and -stranded, by the pitilessness of Life, since the foundation of the -world. - -The child’s look had indeed the same effect upon Mr. Quincunx that the -look of his Master had upon the fear-stricken Apostle, in the hall of -Caiaphas the high priest. In one heart-piercing stab it brought to his -overpowered consciousness a vision of all the victims of cruelty who -had ever cried aloud for help since the generations of men began their -tragic journey. - -Perhaps to all extremely sensitive natures of Mr. Quincunx’s type, a -type of morbidly self-conscious weakness as well as sensitiveness, the -electric stir produced by beauty and sex can only reach a culmination -when the medium of its appearance approximates to the extreme limit of -fragility and helplessness. - -Hell itself, so to speak, had to display to him its span-long babes, -before he could be aroused to descend and “harrow” it! But once roused -in him, this latent spirit of the pitiful Son of Man became formidable, -reckless, irresistible. The very absence in him of the usual weight of -human solidity and “character” made him the more porous to this divine -mood. - -Anyone who watched him returning hastily to his cottage from the -garden-gate would have been amazed by the change in his countenance. He -looked and moved like a man under a blinding illumination. So must the -citizen of Tarsus have looked, when he staggered into the streets of -Damascus. - -He literally ran into his kitchen, snatched up his hat and stick, -poured a glass of milk down his throat, put a couple of biscuits into -his pocket, and re-issued, ready for his strange pursuit. He hurried up -the lane to the first gate that offered itself, and passing into the -field continued the chase on the further side of the hedge. - -The old man evidently found the hill something of an effort, for it was -not long before Mr. Quincunx overtook them. - -He passed them by unremarked, and continued his advance along the -hedgerow till he reached the summit of the ridge between Wild Pine and -Seven Ashes. Here, concealed behind a clump of larches, he awaited -their approach. To his surprise, they entered one of the fields on the -opposite side of the road, and began walking across it. - -Mr. Quincunx watched them. In a corner of the field they were crossing -lay a spacious hollow,--once the bed of a pond,--but now quite dry and -overgrown with moss and clover. - -Old Flick’s instinct led him to this spot, as one well adapted to the -purpose he had in mind, both by reason of its absolute seclusion and by -reason of its smooth turf-floor. - -Mr. Quincunx waited till their two figures vanished into this -declivity, and then he himself crossed the field in their track. - -Having reached the mossy level of the vanished pond,--a place which -seemed as though Nature herself had designed it with a view to his -present intention,--Old Flick assumed a less friendly air towards -his captive. A psychologist interested in searching out the obscure -workings of derelict and submerged souls, would have come to the speedy -conclusion as he watched the old man’s cadaverous face that the spirit -which at present animated his corpse-like body was one that had little -commiseration or compunction in it. - -The young Dolores had not, it seemed, to deal at this moment with an -ordinary human scoundrel, but with a faded image of humanity galvanized -into life by some conscienceless Larva. - -In proportion as this unearthly obsession grew upon Old Flick, his -natural countenance grew more and more dilapidated and withered. -Innumerable years seemed suddenly added to the burden he already -carried. The lines of his face assumed a hideous and Egyptian -immobility; only his eyes, as he turned them upon his companion, were -no longer colourless. - -“Doll,” said he, “now thee must try thee’s steps, or ’twill be the -worse for thee!” - -The girl only answered by flinging herself down on her knees before -him, and pouring forth unintelligible supplications. - -“No more o’ this,” cried the old man; “no more o’ this! I’ve got to -learn ’ee to dance,--and learn ’ee to dance I will. Ye’ll have to go on -them boards come noon, whether ’ee will or no!” - -The child only clasped her hands more tightly together, and renewed her -pleading. - -It would have needed the genius of some supreme painter, and of such -a painter in an hour of sheer insanity, to have done justice to the -extraordinary expression that crossed the countenance of Old Flick at -that moment. The outlines of his face seemed to waver and decompose. -None but an artist who had, like the insatiable Leonardo, followed the -very dead into their forlorn dissolution, could have indicated the -setting of his eyes; and his eyes themselves, madness alone could have -depicted. - -With a sudden vicious jerk the old man snatched the shawl from the -girl’s shoulders, flung it on the ground, and seizing her by the wrists -pulled her up upon her feet. - -“Dance, ye baggage!” he cried hoarsely;--“dance, I tell ’ee!” - -It was plain that the luckless waif understood clearly enough now what -was required of her, and it was also plain that she recognized that the -moment for supplication had gone by. She stepped back a pace or two -upon the smooth turf, and slipping off her unlaced shoes,--shoes far -too large for her small feet,--she passed the back of her hand quickly -across her eyes, shook her hair away from her forehead, and began a -slow, pathetic little dance. - -“Higher!” cried Old Flick in an excited voice, beating the air with his -hand and humming a strange snatch of a tune that might have inspired -the dances of Polynesian cannibals. “Higher, I tell ’ee!” - -The girl felt compelled to obey; and putting one hand on her hip -and lifting up her skirt with the other, she proceeded, shyly and -in forlorn silence, to dance an old Neapolitan folk-dance, such as -might be witnessed, on any summer evening, by the shores of Amalfi or -Sorrento. - -It was at this moment that Mr. Quincunx made his appearance against -the sky-line above them. He looked for one brief second at the girl’s -bare arms, waving curls, and light-swinging body, and then leapt down -between them. - -All nervousness, all timidity, seemed to have fallen away from him -like a snake’s winter-skin under the spring sun. He seized the child’s -hand with an air of indescribable gentleness and authority, and made -so menacing and threatening a gesture that Old Flick, staggering -backwards, nearly fell to the ground. - -“Whose child is this?” he demanded sternly, soothing the frightened -little dancer with one hand, while with the other he shook his cane in -the direction of the gasping and protesting old man. - -“Whose child is this? You’ve stolen her, you old rascal! You’re no -Italian,--anyone can see that! You’re a damned old tramp, and if you -weren’t so old and ugly I’d beat you to death; do you hear?--to death, -you villain! Whose child is she? Can’t you speak? Take care; I’m badly -tempted to make you taste this,--to make _you_ skip and dance a little! - -“What do you say? Job Love’s circus? Well,--he’s not an Italian either, -is he? So if you haven’t stolen her, he has.” - -He turned to the child, stooping over her with infinite tenderness, and -folding the shawl of which she had again possessed herself, with hands -as gentle as a mother’s, about her shoulders and head. - -“Where are your parents, my darling?” he asked, adding with a flash of -amazing presence of mind,--“your ‘padre’ and ‘madre’?” - -The girl seemed to get the drift of the question, and with a pitiful -little smile pointed earthward, and made a sweeping gesture with both -her hands, as if to indicate the passing of death’s wings. - -“Dead?--both dead, eh?” muttered Mr. Quincunx. “And these rascals -who’ve got hold of you are villains and rogues? Damned rogues! Damned -villains!” - -He paused and muttered to himself. “What the devil’s the Italian for -a god-forsaken rascal?--‘Cattivo!’ ‘Tutto cattivo!’--the whole lot of -them a set of confounded scamps!” - -The child nodded her head vigorously. - -“You see,” he cried, turning to Old Flick, “she disowns you all. This -is clearly a most knavish piece of work! What were you doing to the -child? eh? eh? eh?” Mr. Quincunx accompanied these final syllables with -renewed flourishes of his stick in the air. - -Old Flick retreated still further away, his legs shaking under him. -“Here,--you can clear out of this! Do you understand? You can clear out -of this; and go back to your damned master, and tell him I’m going to -send the police after him! - -“As for this girl, I’m going to take her home with me. So off you -go,--you old reprobate; and thankful you may be that I haven’t broken -every bone in your body! I’ve a great mind to do it now. Upon my soul -I’ve a great mind to do it! - -“Shall I beat him into a jelly for you,--my darling? Shall I make him -skip and dance for you?” - -The child seemed to understand his gestures, if not his words; for she -clung passionately to his hands, and pressing them to her lips, covered -them with kisses; shaking her head at the same time, as much as to say, -“Old Flick is nothing. Let Old Flick go to the devil, as long as I can -stay with you!” In some such manner as this, at any rate, Mr. Quincunx -interpreted her words. - -“Sheer off, then, you old scoundrel! Shog off back to your confounded -circus! And when you’ve got there, tell your friends,--Job Love and his -gang,--that if they want this little one they’d better come and fetch -her! - -“Dead Man’s Lane,--that’s where I live. It’s easily enough found; -and so is the police-station in Yeoborough,--as you and your damned -kidnappers shall discover before you’ve done with me!” - -Uttering these words in a voice so menacing that the old man shook like -an aspen-leaf, Mr. Quincunx took the girl by the hand, and, ascending -the grassy slope, walked off with her across the field. - -Old Flick seemed reduced to a condition bordering upon imbecility. He -staggered up out of that unpropitious hollow, and stood stock-still, -like one petrified, until they were out of sight. Then, very slowly -and mumbling incoherently to himself, he made his way back towards the -village. - -He did not even turn his head as he passed Mr. Quincunx’s cottage. -Indeed, it is extremely doubtful how far he had recognized him as the -person they encountered on their way, and still more doubtful how -far he had heard or understood, when the tenant of Dead Man’s Lane -indicated the place of his abode. - -The sudden transformation of the timid recluse into a formidable man -of action did not end with his triumphant retirement to his familiar -domain. Some mysterious fibre in his complicated temperament had been -struck, and continued to be struck, by the little Dolores, which not -only rendered him indifferent to personal danger, but willing and happy -to encounter it. - -The event only added one more proof to the sage dictum of the Chinese -philosopher,--that you can never tell of what a man is capable until he -is stone-dead. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - -VARIOUS ENCOUNTERS - - -During the hours when Mr. Quincunx was undergoing this strange -experience, several other human brains under the roofs of Nevilton were -feeling the pressure of extreme perturbation. - -Gladys, after a gloomy breakfast, which was rendered more -uncomfortable, not only by her father’s chaffing references to the -approaching ceremony, but by a letter from Dangelis, had escaped to her -room to be assisted by Lacrima in dressing for the confirmation. - -In his letter the artist declared his intention of spending that night -at the Gloucester Hotel in Weymouth, and begged his betrothed to -forgive this delay in his return to her side. - -This communication caused Gladys many tremors of disquietude. Could it -be possible that the American had found out something and that he had -gone to Weymouth to meditate at leisure upon his course of action? - -In any case this intimation of a delay in his return irritated the -girl. It struck her in her tenderest spot. It was a direct flouting of -her magnetic power. It was an insult to her sex-vanity. - -She had seen nothing of Luke since their Sunday’s excursion; and as -Lacrima, with cold submissive fingers, helped her to arrange her white -dress and virginal veil, she could hear the sound of the bell tolling -for James Andersen’s funeral. - -Mingled curiously enough with this melancholy vibration falling at -protracted intervals upon the air, like the stroke of some reiterated -hammer of doom, came another sound, a sound of a completely opposite -character,--the preluding strains, namely, of the steam roundabouts of -Porter’s Universal Show. - -It was as though on one side of the village the angel of death were -striking an iron-threatening gong, while, on the other side, the demons -of life were howling a brazen defiance. - -The association of the two sounds as they reached her at this critical -hour brought the figure of Luke vividly and obsessingly into her mind. -How well she knew the sort of comment he would make upon the bizarre -combination! Beneath the muslin frills of her virginal dress,--a dress -that made her look fairer and younger than usual,--her heart ached with -sick longing for her evasive lover. - -The wheel had indeed come full circle for the fair-haired girl. She -could not help the thought recurring again and again, as Lacrima’s -light fingers adjusted her veil, that the next time she dressed in this -manner it would be for her wedding-day. Her one profound consolation -lay in the knowledge that her cousin, even more deeply than herself, -dreaded the approach of that fatal Thursday. - -Her hatred for the pale-cheeked Italian re-accumulated every drop of -its former venom, as with an air of affectionate gratitude she accepted -her assistance. - -It is a psychological peculiarity of certain human beings that the more -they hate, the more they crave, with a curious perverted instinct, -some sort of physical contact with the object of their hatred. - -Every touch of Lacrima’s hand increased the intensity of Gladys’ -loathing; and yet, so powerful is the instinct to which I refer, she -lost no opportunity of accentuating the contact between them, letting -their fingers meet again and again, and even their breath, and throwing -back her rounded chin to make it easier for those hated wrists to busy -themselves about her throat. Her general air was an air of playful -passivity; but at one moment, imprinting a kiss on the girl’s arm as, -in the process of arranging her veil, it brushed across her cheek, she -seemed almost anxious to convey to Lacrima the full implication of her -real feeling. - -Never has a human caress been so electric with the vibrations of -antipathy, as was that kiss. She followed up this signal of animosity -by a series of feline taunts relative to John Goring, one of which, -from its illuminated insight into the complex strata of the girl’s -soul, delighted her by its effect. - -Lacrima winced under it, as if under the sting of a lash, and a burning -flood of scarlet suffused her cheeks. She dropped her hands and stepped -back, uttering a fierce vow that nothing--nothing on earth--would -induce her to accompany a girl who could say such things, to such a -ceremony! - -“No, I wouldn’t,--I wouldn’t!” cried Gladys mockingly. “I wouldn’t -dream of coming with me! Tomorrow week, anyway, we’re bound to go to -church side by side. Father wanted to drive with me then, you know, and -to let mother go with you,--but I wouldn’t hear of it! I said they must -go in one carriage, and you and I in another, so that our last drive -together we should be quite by ourselves. You’ll like that, won’t you, -darling?” - -Lacrima’s only answer to this was to turn her back to her cousin, and -begin putting on her hat and gloves. - -“I know where you’re going,” said Gladys. “You’re going to see your -dear Maurice. Give him my love! I should be ashamed to let such a -wretched coward come near me. - -“James--poor boy!--was a fellow of a different metal. He’d some spirit -in him. Listen! When that bell stops tolling they’ll be carrying him -into the church. I expect you’re thinking now, darling, that it would -have been better if you’d treated him differently. Of course you know -it’s you that killed him? Oh, nobody else! Just little Lacrima and her -coy, demure ways! - -“_I’ve_ never killed a man. I can say that, at all events. - -“That’s right! Run off to her dear Maurice,--her dear brave Maurice! -Perhaps he’ll take her on his knees again, and she’ll play the sweet -little innocent,--like that day when I peeped through the window!” - -This final dart had hardly reached its objective before Lacrima without -attempting any retort rushed from the room. - -“I _will_ go and see Maurice. I will! I will!” she murmured to herself -as she ran down the broad oak staircase, and slipped out by the East -door. - -Simultaneously with these events, a scene of equal dramatic intensity, -though of a very different character, was being enacted in the -vicarage drawing-room. - -Vennie, as we have noted, had resolved to postpone for the present her -reception into the Catholic Church. She had also resolved that nothing -on earth should induce her to reveal to her mother her change of creed -until the thing was an accomplished fact. The worst, however, of the -kind of mental suppression in which she had been living of late, is -that it tends to produce a volcanic excitement of the nerves, liable -at any moment to ungovernable upheavals. Quite little things--mere -straws and bagatelles--are enough to set this eruption beginning; -and when once it begins, the accumulated passion of the long days of -fermentation gives the explosion a horrible force. - -One perpetual annoyance to Vennie was her mother’s persistent fondness -for family prayers. It seemed to the girl as though Valentia insisted -on this performance, not so much out of a desire to serve God, as -out of a sense of what was due to herself as the mistress of a -well-conducted establishment. - -Vennie always fancied she discerned a peculiar tone of -self-satisfaction in her mother’s voice, as, rather loudly, and -extremely clearly, she read her liturgical selections to the assembled -servants. - -On this particular morning the girl had avoided the performance of this -rite, by leaving her room earlier than usual and taking refuge in the -furthest of the vicarage orchards. Backwards and forwards she walked, -in that secluded place, with her hands behind her and her head bent, -heedless of the drenching dew which covered every grass-blade and of -the heavy white mists that still hung about the tree-trunks. She was -obliged to return to her room and change her shoes and stockings -before joining her mother at breakfast, but not before she had prayed -a desperate prayer, down there among the misty trees, for the eternal -rest of James Andersen’s soul. - -This little incident of her absence from prayers was the direct cause -of the unfortunate scene that followed. - -Valentia hardly spoke to her daughter while the meal proceeded, and -when at last it was over, she retired to the drawing-room and began -writing letters. - -This was an extremely ill-omened sign to anyone who knew Mrs. Seldom’s -habits. Under normal conditions, her first proceeding after breakfast -was to move to the kitchen, where she engaged in a long culinary debate -with both cook and gardener; a course of action which was extremely -essential, as without it,--so bitter was the feud between these two -worthies,--it is unlikely that there would have been any vegetables at -all, either for lunch or dinner. When anything occurred to throw her -into a mood of especially good spirits, she would pass straight out -of the French window on to the front lawn, and armed with a pair of -formidable garden-scissors would make a selection of flowers and leaves -appropriate to a festival temper. - -But this adjournment at so early an hour to the task of letter-writing -indicated that Valentia was in a condition of mind, which in anyone but -a lady of her distinction and breeding could have been called nothing -less than a furious rage. For of all things in the world, Mrs. Seldom -most detested this business of writing letters; and therefore,--with -that perverse self-punishing instinct, which is one of the most artful -weapons of offence given to refined gentlewomen,--she took grim -satisfaction in setting herself down to write; thus producing chaos in -the kitchen, where the gardener refused to obey the cook, and miserable -remorse in the heart of Vennie, who wandered up and down the lawn -meditating a penitential apology. - -Satisfied in her heart that she was causing universal annoyance and -embarrassment by her proceeding, and yet quite confident that there was -nothing but what was proper and natural in her writing letters at nine -o’clock in the morning, Valentia began, by gentle degrees, to recover -her lost temper. - -The only real sedative to thoroughly aggravated nerves, is the -infliction of similar aggravation upon the nerves of others. This -process is like the laying on of healing ointment; and the more -extended the disturbance which we have the good fortune to create, the -sooner we ourselves recover our equanimity. - -Valentia had already cast several longing glances through the window at -the heavy sunshine falling mistily on the asters and petunias, and in -another moment she would probably have left her letter and joined her -daughter in the garden, had not Vennie anticipated any such movement by -entering the room herself. - -“I ought to make you understand, mother,” the girl began as soon as she -stepped in, speaking in that curious strained voice which people assume -when they have worked themselves up to a pitch of nervous excitement, -“that when I don’t appear at prayers, it isn’t because I’m in a sulky -temper, or in any mad haste to get out of doors. It’s--it’s for a -different reason.” - -Valentia gazed at her in astonishment. The tone in which Vennie spoke -was so tense, her eyes shone with such a strange brilliance, and her -look was altogether so abnormal, that Mrs. Seldom completely forgot her -injured priestess-vanity, and waited in sheer maternal alarm for the -completion of the girl’s announcement. - -“It’s because I’ve made up my mind to become a Catholic, and Catholics -aren’t allowed to attend any other kind of service than their own.” - -Valentia rose to her feet and looked at her daughter in blank dismay. -Her first feeling was one of overpowering indignation against Mr. -Taxater, to whose treacherous influence she felt certain this madness -was mainly due. - -There was a terrible pause during which Vennie, leaning against the -back of a chair, was conscious that both herself and her mother were -trembling from head to foot. The soft murmur of wood-pigeons wafted in -from the window, was now blended with two other sounds, the sound of -the tolling of the church-bell and the sound of the music of Mr. Love’s -circus, testing the efficiency of its roundabouts. - -“So this is what it has come to, is it?” said the old lady at last. -“And I suppose the next thing you’ll tell me, in this unkind, -inconsiderate way, is that you’ve decided to become a nun!” - -Vennie made a little movement with her head. - -“You have?” cried Valentia, pale with anger. “You have made up your -mind to do that? Well--I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Vennie! In -spite of everything I’ve done for you; in spite of everything I’ve -taught you; in spite of everything I’ve prayed for;--you can go and do -this! Oh, you’re an unkind, ungrateful girl! But I know that look on -your face. I’ve known it from your childhood. When you look like that -there’s no hope of moving you. Go on, then! Do as you wish to do. Leave -your mother in her old age, and destroy the last hope of our family. I -won’t speak another word. I know nothing I can say will change you.” -She sank down upon the chintz-covered sofa and covered her face with -her hands. - -Vennie cursed herself for her miserable want of tact. What demon was it -that had tempted her to break her resolution? Then, suddenly, as she -looked at her mother swaying to and fro on the couch, a strange impulse -of hard inflexible obstinacy rose up in her. - -These wretched human affections,--so unbalanced and selfish,--what a -relief to escape from them altogether! Like the passing on its way, -across a temperate ocean, of some polar iceberg, there drove, at that -moment, through Vennie’s consciousness, a wedge of frozen, adamantine -contempt for all these human, too-human clingings and clutchings which -would fain imprison the spirit and hold it down with soft-strangling -hands. - -In her deepest heart she turned almost savagely away from this -grey-haired woman, sitting there so hurt in her earthly affections -and ambitions. She uttered a fierce mental invocation to that other -Mother,--her whose heart, pierced by seven swords, had submitted to -God’s will without a groan! - -Valentia, who, it must be remembered, had not only married a Seldom, -but was herself one of that breed, felt at that moment as though this -girl of hers were reverting to some mad strain of Pre-Elizabethan -fanaticism. There was something mediæval about Vennie’s obstinacy, as -there was something mediæval about the lines of her face. Valentia -recalled a portrait she had once seen of an ancestor of theirs in -the days before the Reformation. He, the great Catholic Baron, had -possessed the same thin profile and the same pinched lips. It was a -curious revenge, the poor lady thought, for those evicted Cistercians, -out of whose plundered house the Nevilton mansion had been built, that -this fate, of all fates, should befall the last of the Seldoms! - -The tolling of the bell, which hitherto had gone on, monotonously and -insistently, across the drowsy lawn, suddenly stopped. - -Vennie started and ran hurriedly to the door. - -“They are burying James Andersen,” she cried, “and I ought to be there. -It would look unkind and thoughtless of me not to be there. Good-bye, -mother! We’ll talk of this when I come back. I’m sorry to be so -unsatisfactory a daughter to you, but perhaps you’ll feel differently -some day.” - -Left to herself, Valentia Seldom rose and went back to her letter. -But the pen fell from her limp fingers, and tears stained the already -written page. - -The funeral service had only just commenced when Vennie reached the -churchyard. She remained at the extreme outer edge of the crowd, -where groups of inquisitive women are wont to cluster, wearing their -aprons and carrying their babies, and where the bigger children are -apt to be noisy and troublesome. She caught a glimpse of Ninsy Lintot -among those standing quite close to where Mr. Clavering, in his white -surplice, was reading the pregnant liturgical words. She noticed that -the girl held her hands to her face and that her slender form was -shaking with the stress of her emotion. - -She could not see Luke’s face, but she was conscious that his -motionless figure had lost its upright grace. The young stone-carver -seemed to droop, like a sun-flower whose stalk has been bent by the -wind. - -The words of the familiar English service were borne intermittently to -her ears as they fell from the lips of the priest who had once been her -friend. It struck her poignantly enough,--that brave human defiance, -so solemn and tender, with which humanity seems to rise up in sublime -desperation and hoist its standard of hope against hope! - -She wondered what the sceptical Luke was feeling all this while. When -Mr. Clavering began to read the passage which is prefaced in the Book -of Common Prayer by the words, “Then while the earth be cast upon the -Body by some standing by, the priest shall say,”--the quiet sobs of -poor little Ninsy broke into a wail of passionate grief, grief to which -Vennie, for all her convert’s aloofness from Protestant heresy, could -not help adding her own tears. - -It was the custom at Nevilton for the bearers of the coffin, when the -service was over, to re-form in solemn procession, and escort the -chief mourners back to the house from which they had come. It was her -knowledge of this custom that led Vennie to steal away before the final -words were uttered; and her hurried departure from the churchyard saved -her from being a witness of the somewhat disconcerting event with -which the solemn transaction closed. - -The bringing of James’ body to the church had been unfortunately -delayed at the start by the wayward movements of a luggage-train, which -persisted in shunting up and down over the level-crossing, at the -moment when they were carrying the coffin from the house. This delay -had been followed by others, owing to various unforeseen causes, and by -the time the service actually began it was already close upon the hour -fixed for the confirmation. - -Thus it happened that, soon after Vennie’s departure, at the very -moment when the procession of bearers, followed by Luke and the -station-master’s wife, issued forth into the street, there drove up to -the church-door a two-horsed carriage containing Gladys and her mother, -the former all whitely veiled, as if she were a child-bride. Seeing the -bearers troop by, the fair-haired candidate for confirmation clutched -Mrs. Romer’s arm and held her in her place, but leaning forward in the -effort of this movement she presented her face at the carriage window, -just as Luke himself emerged from the gates. - -The two young people found themselves looking one another straight in -the eyes, until with a shuddering spasm that shook her whole frame, -Gladys sank back into her seat, as if from the effect of a crushing -blow received full upon the breast. - -Luke passed on, following the bearers, with something like the ghost of -a smile upon his drawn and contorted lips. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - -VENNIE SELDOM - - -It was not towards her mother’s house that Vennie directed her steps -when she left the churchyard. She turned sharp to the west, and walked -rapidly down the central street of the village into the square at the -end of it. - -Here she found an arena of busy and stirring confusion, dominated -by hissing spouts of steam, hoarse whistlings from the “roundabout” -engines, and occasional bursts of extravagant melody, as the circus-men -made their musical experiments, pending the opening of the show. - -Vennie’s intention, in crossing the square, was to pay a morning visit -to Mr. Quincunx, whose absence from Andersen’s funeral had struck -her mind as extraordinary and ominous. She feared that the recluse -must be ill. Nothing less than illness, she thought, would have kept -him away from such an event. She knew how closely he and the younger -stone-carver were associated, and it was inconceivable that any insane -jealousy of the dead could have held him at home. Of course it was -possible that he had been compelled to go to work at Yeoborough as -usual, but she did not think this likely. - -It was, however, not only anxiety lest her mother’s queer friend -should be ill that actuated her. She felt,--now that her ultimatum -had been delivered,--that the sooner she entered the Catholic Church -and plunged into her novitiate, the better it would be. When events -had _happened_, Mrs. Seldom accepted them. It was during the days of -uncertain waiting that her nerves broke down. Once the daughter were -actually a postulant in a convent, she felt sure the mother would -resign herself, and resume her normal life. - -Valentia was a very independent and self-sufficient woman. With -her favourite flowers and her favourite biographies of proconsular -personages, the girl felt convinced she would be much less heart-broken -than she imagined. - -Her days in Nevilton being thus numbered, Vennie could not help giving -way to a desire that had lately grown more and more definite within -her, to have a bold and unhesitating interview with Mr. Quincunx. -Perhaps even at this last hour something might be done to save Lacrima -from her fate! - -Passing along the outskirts of the circus, she could not resist pausing -for a moment to observe the numerous groups of well-known village -characters, whom curiosity had drawn to the spot. - -She was amazed to catch sight of the redoubtable Mr. Wone, holding -one of his younger children by the hand and surveying with extreme -interest the setting up of a colossal framework of gilded and painted -wood, destined to support certain boat-shaped swings. She felt a little -indignant with the worthy man for not having been present at Andersen’s -funeral, but the naive and childlike interest with which, with open -mouth and eyes, he stood gaping at this glittering erection, soothed -her anger into a smile. He really was a good sort of man, this poor -Wone! She wondered vaguely whether he intended himself to indulge in -the pastime of swinging in a boat-shaped swing or whirling round upon -a wooden horse. She felt that if she could see him on one of these -roundabouts,--especially if he retained that expression of guileless -admiration,--she could really forgive him everything. - -She caught a glimpse of two other figures whose interest in the -proceedings appeared extremely vivid, no less persons than Mr. John -Goring and his devoted henchman, Bert Leerd. These two were engaged in -reading a glaring advertisement which depicted a young woman clad in -astounding spangles dancing on a tight-rope, and it was difficult to -say whether the farmer or the idiot was the more absorbed. - -She was just turning away, when she heard herself called by name, -and from amid a crowd of women clustering round one of Mr. Love’s -bric-a-brac stalls, there came towards her, together, Mrs. Fringe and -Mrs. Wotnot. - -Vennie was extremely surprised to find these two ladies,--by no -means particularly friendly as a rule,--thus joined in partnership -of dissipation, but she supposed the influence of a circus, like the -influence of religion, has a dissolvent effect upon human animosity. -That these excellent women should have preferred the circus, however, -to the rival entertainment in the churchyard, did strike her mind as -extraordinary. She did not know that they had, as a matter of fact, -“eaten their pot of honey” at the one, before proceeding, post-haste, -to enjoy the other. - -“May we walk with you, miss, a step?” supplicated Mrs. Fringe, -as Vennie indicated her intention of moving on, as soon as their -salutations were over. - -“Thank you, you are very kind, Mrs. Fringe. Perhaps,--a little way, but -I’m rather busy this morning.” - -“Oh we shan’t trouble you long,” murmured Mrs. Wotnot, “It’s -only,--well, Mrs. Fringe, here, had better speak.” - -Thus it came about that Vennie began her advance up the Yeoborough road -supported by the two housekeepers, the lean one on the left of her, and -the fat one on the right of her. - -“Will I tell her, or will you tell her?” murmured the plump lady -sweetly, when they were clear of the village. - -Mrs. Wotnot made a curious grimace and clasped and unclasped her hands. - -“Better you; much, much better, that it should be you,” she remarked. - -“But ’twas thy tale, dearie; ’twas thy tale and surprisin’ -discoverin’s,” protested Mrs. Fringe. - -“Those that knows aren’t always those that tells,” observed the other -sententiously. - -“But you do think it’s proper and right the young lady should know?” -said Mr. Clavering’s housekeeper. - -Mrs. Wotnot nodded. “If ’taint too shameful for her, ’tis best what -she’d a’ ought to hear,” said the lean woman. - -Vennie became conscious at this moment that whenever Mrs. Wotnot opened -her mouth there issued thence a most unpleasant smell of brandy, and -it flashed upon her that this was the explanation of the singular -converging of these antipodal orbits. In the absence of her master, -Mrs. Wotnot had evidently “taken to drink,” and it was doubtless out -of her protracted intoxication that Mrs. Fringe had derived whatever -scandalous piece of gossip it was that she was now so anxious to impart. - -“I’ll tell ’ee, miss,” said Mrs. Fringe, “with no nonsense-fangles and -no shilly-shally. I’ll tell ’ee straight out and sober,--same as our -dear friend did tell it to me. ’Tis along of Miss Romer,--ye be to -understand, wot is to be confirmed this same blessed day. - -“The dear woman, here, was out a-gatherin’ laurel-leaves one fine -evenin’, long o’ some weeks since, and who should she get wind of, in -the bushes near-by, but Mr. Luke and Miss Gladys. I been my own self -ere now, moon-daft on that there lovely young man, but Satan’s ways be -Satan’s ways, and none shall report that I takes countenance of _such_ -goings on. Mrs. Wotnot here, she heerd every Jack word them sinful -young things did say,--and shameful-awful their words were, God in -Heaven do know! - -“They were cursin’ one another, like to split, that night. She were -cryin’ and fandanderin’ and he were laughin’ and chaffin’. ’Twas God’s -terror to hear how they went on, with the holy bare sky over their -shameless heads!” - -“Tell the young lady quick and plain,” ejaculated Mrs. Wotnot at this -point, clutching Vennie’s arm and arresting their advance. - -“I _am_ ’a tellin’ her,” retorted Mrs. Fringe, “I’m a tellin’ as fast -as my besom can breathe. Don’t ’ee push a body so! The young lady ain’t -in such a tantrum-hurry as all that.” - -“I am _rather_ anxious to get on with my walk,” threw in Vennie, -looking from one to another with some embarrassment, “and I really -don’t care very much about hearing things of this kind.” - -“Tell ’er! Tell ’er! Tell ’er!” cried Mrs. Wotnot. - -Mrs. Fringe cast a contemptuous look at her rival housekeeper. - -“Our friend baint quite her own self today, miss,” she remarked with a -wink at Vennie, “the weather or summat’ ’ave moved ’er rheumatiz from -’er legs, and settled it in ’er stummick.” - -“Tell her! Tell her!” reiterated the other. - -Mrs. Fringe lowered her voice to a pregnant whisper. - -“The truth be, miss, that our friend here heered these wicked young -things talk quite open-like about their gay goings on. So plain did -they talk, that all wot the Blessed Lord ’is own self do know, of such -as most folks keeps to ’emselves, went burnin’ and shamin’ into our -friend’s ’stonished ears. And wot she did gather was that Miss Gladys, -for certin’ and sure, be a lost girl, and Mr. Luke ’as ’ad ’is bit of -fun down to the uttermost drop.” - -The extraordinary solemnity with which Mrs. Fringe uttered these -words and the equally extraordinary solemnity with which Mrs. Wotnot -nodded her head in corroboration of their truth had a devastating -effect upon Vennie. There was no earthly reason why these two females -should have invented this squalid story. Mrs. Fringe was an incurable -scandal-monger, but Vennie had never found her a liar. Besides there -was a genuine note of shocked sincerity about her tone which no mere -morbid suspicion could have evoked. - -The thing was true then! Gladys and Luke were lovers, in the most -extreme sense of that word, and Dangelis was the victim of an -outrageous betrayal. - -Vennie had sufficient presence of mind to avoid the eyes of both the -women, eyes fixed with ghoulish and lickerish interest upon her, -as they watched for the effect of this revelation,--but she was -uncomfortably conscious that her cheeks were flaming and her voice -strained as she bade them good-bye. Comment, of any kind, upon what -they had revealed to her she found absolutely impossible. She could -only wish them a pleasant time at the circus if they were returning -thither, and freedom from any ill effects due to their accompanying her -so far. - -When she was alone, and beginning to climb the ascent of Dead Man’s -Lane, the full implication of what she had learnt thrust itself -through her brain like a red-hot wedge. Vennie’s experience of the -treacherousness of the world had, as we know, gone little deeper than -her reaction from the rough discourtesy of Mr. Clavering and the -evasive aloofness of Mr. Taxater. This sudden revelation into the -brutishness and squalour inherent in our planetary system had the -effect upon her of an access of physical nausea. She felt dizzy and -sick, as she toiled up the hill, between the wet sun-pierced hedges, -and under the heavy September trees. - -The feeling of autumn in the air, so pleasant under normal conditions -to human senses, seemed to associate itself just now with this dreadful -glance she had had into the basic terrors of things. The whole -atmosphere about her seemed to smell of decay, of decomposition, of -festering mortality. The pull and draw of the thick Nevilton soil, -its horrible demonic gravitation, had never got hold of her more -tenaciously than it did then. She felt as though some vast octopus-like -tentacles were dragging her earthward. - -Vennie was one of those rare women for whom, even under ordinary -conditions, the idea of sex is distasteful and repulsive. Presented to -her as it was now, mingled with treachery and deception, it obsessed -her with an almost living presence. Sensuality had always been for her -the one unpardonable sin, and sensuality of this kind, turning the -power of sex into a mere motive for squalid pleasure-seeking, filled -her with a shuddering disgust. - -So this was what men and women were like! This was the kind of thing -that went on, under the “covert and convenient seeming” of affable lies! - -The whole of nature seemed to have become, in one moment, foul and -miasmic. Rank vapours rose from the ground at her feet, and the weeds -in the hedge took odious and indecent shapes. - -An immense wave of distrust swept over her for everyone that she knew. -Was Mr. Clavering himself like this? - -This thought,--the thought of what, for all she could tell, might exist -between her priest-friend and this harlot-girl,--flushed her cheeks -with a new emotion. Mixed at that moment with her virginal horror of -the whole squalid business, was a pang of quite a different character, -a pang that approached, if it did not reach, the sharp sting of sheer -physical jealousy. - -As soon as she became aware of this feeling in herself it sickened her -with a deeper loathing. Was she also contaminated, like the rest? Was -no living human being free from this taint? - -She stopped and passed her hand across her forehead. She took off -her hat and made a movement with her arms as if thrusting away some -invisible assailant. She felt she could not encounter even Mr. Quincunx -in this obsessed condition. She had the sensation of being infected by -some kind of odious leprosy. - -She sat down in the hedge, heedless of the still clinging dew. Strange -and desperate thoughts whirled through her brain. She longed to purge -herself in some way, to bathe deep, deep,--body and soul,--in some -cleansing stream. - -But what about Gladys’ betrothed? What about the American? Vennie had -scarcely spoken to Dangelis, hardly ever seen him, but she felt a wave -of sympathy for the betrayed artist surge through her heart. It could -not be allowed,--it could not,--that those two false intriguers should -fool this innocent gentleman! - -Struck by a sudden illumination as if from the unveiled future, she -saw herself going straight to Dangelis and revealing the whole story. -He should at least be made aware of the real nature of the girl he was -marrying! - -Having resolved upon this bold step, Vennie recovered something of her -natural mood. Where was Mr. Dangelis at this moment? She must find that -out,--perhaps Mr. Quincunx would know. She must make a struggle to -waylay the artist, to get an interview with him alone. - -She rose to her feet, and holding her hat in her hand, advanced -resolutely up the lane. She felt happier now, relieved, in a measure, -of that odious sense of confederacy with gross sin which had weighed -her down. But there still beat vaguely in her brain a passionate -longing for purification. If only she could escape, even for a few -hours, from this lust-burdened spot! If only she could cool her -forehead in the sea! - -As she approached Mr. Quincunx’s cottage she experienced a calm and -restorative reaction from her distress of mind. She felt no longer -alone in the world. Having resolved on a drastic stroke on behalf -of clear issues, she was strangely conscious, as she had not been -conscious for many months, of the presence, near her and with her, of -the Redeemer of men. - -It suddenly was borne in upon her that that other criminal abuse, -which had so long oppressed her soul with a dead burden,--the affair -of Lacrima and Goring,--was intimately associated with what she had -discovered. It was more than likely that by exposing the one she could -prevent the other. - -Flushed with excitement at this thought she opened Mr. Quincunx’s gate -and walked up his garden-path. To her amazement, she heard voices in -the cottage and not only voices, but voices speaking in a language that -vaguely reminded her of the little Catholic services in the chapel at -Yeoborough. - -Mr. Quincunx himself answered her knock and opened the door. He was -strangely agitated. The hand which he extended to her shook as it -touched her fingers. - -But Vennie herself was too astonished at the sight which met her eyes -to notice anything of this. Seated opposite one another, on either side -of the solitary’s kitchen-fire, were Lacrima and the little Dolores. -Vennie had interrupted a lively and impassioned colloquy between the -two Italians. - -They both rose at her entrance, and their host, in hurried nervous -speech, gave Vennie an incoherent account of what had happened. - -When they were all seated,--Vennie in the little girl’s chair, and the -child on Mr. Quincunx’s knees,--the embarrassment of the first surprise -quickly subsided. - -“I shall adopt her,” the solitary kept repeating,--as though the words -were uttered in a defiance of universal opposition, “I shall adopt her. -You’d advise me to do that, wouldn’t you Miss Seldom? - -“I shall get a proper document made out, so that there can be no -mistake. I shall adopt her. Whatever anyone likes to say, I shall adopt -her! - -“Those circus-scoundrels will hold their tongues and let me alone for -their own sakes. I shall have no trouble. Lacrima will explain to the -police who the child is, and who her parents were. That is, if the -police come. But they won’t come. Why should they come? I shall have a -document drawn out.” - -It seemed as though the little Neapolitan knew by instinct what her -protector was saying, for she nestled down against his shoulder and -taking one of his hands in both of hers pressed it against her lips. - -Vennie gazed at Lacrima, and Lacrima gazed at Vennie, but neither of -them spoke. There was an inner flame of triumphant concentration in -Vennie’s glance, but Lacrima’s look was clouded and sad. - -“Certainly no one will interfere with you,” said Vennie at last. “We -shall all be so glad to think that the child is in such good hands. - -“The only difficulty I can see,” she paused a moment, while the grey -eyes of Mr. Quincunx opened wide and an expression of something like -defiance passed over his face, “is that it’ll be difficult for you to -know what to do with her while you are away in Yeoborough. You could -hardly leave her alone in this out-of-the-way place, and I’m afraid our -Nevilton National School wouldn’t suit her at all.” - -Mr. Quincunx freed his hand and stroked his beard. His fingers were -quivering, and Vennie noticed a certain curious twitching in the -muscles of his face. - -“I shan’t go to Yeoborough any more,” he cried. “None of you need think -it! - -“That affair is over and done with. I shan’t stay here, any more, -either, to be bullied by the Romers and made a fool of by all -these idiots. I shall go away. I shall go--far away--to London--to -Liverpool,--to--to Norwich,--like the Man in the Moon!” - -This final inspiration brought a flicker of his old goblin-humour to -the corners of his mouth. - -Lacrima looked at Vennie with an imperceptible lifting of her eyebrows, -and then sighed deeply. - -The latter clasped the arms of her high-backed chair with firm hands. - -“I think it is essential that you should know _where_ you are going, -Mr. Quincunx. I mean for the child’s sake. You surely don’t wish to -drag her aimlessly about these great cities while you look for work? - -“Besides,--you won’t be angry will you, if I speak plainly?--what work, -exactly, have you in your mind to do? It isn’t, I’m afraid, always -easy--” - -Mr. Quincunx interrupted her with an outburst of unexpected fury. - -“That’s what I knew you’d say!” he cried in a loud voice. “That’s what -_she_ says.” He indicated Lacrima. “But you both say it, only because -you don’t want me to have the pleasure of adopting Dolores! - -“But I _shall_ adopt her,--in spite of you all. Yes, in spite of you -all! Nothing shall stop me adopting her!” - -Once more the little Italian nestled close against him, and took -possession of his trembling hand. - -Vennie perceived an expression of despairing hopelessness pass like an -icy mist over Lacrima’s face. - -The profile of the Nevilton nun assumed those lines of commanding -obstinacy which had reminded Valentia a few hours ago of the mediæval -baron. She rose to her feet. - -“Listen to me, Mr. Quincunx,” she said sternly. “You are right; you are -quite right, to wish to save this child. No one shall stop you saving -her. No one shall stop you adopting her. But there are other people -whose happiness depends upon what you do, besides this child.” - -She paused, and glanced from Mr. Quincunx to Lacrima, and from Lacrima -to Mr. Quincunx. Then a look of indescribable domination and power -passed into her face. She might have been St. Catharine herself, -magnetizing the whole papal court into obedience to her will. - -“Oh you foolish people!” she cried, “you foolish people! Can’t you see -where God is leading you? Can’t you see where His Spirit has brought -you?” - -She turned upon Mr. Quincunx with shining eyes, while Lacrima, white as -a phantom and with drooping mouth, watched her in amazement. - -“It’s not only this child He’s helped you to save,” she went on. -“It’s not only this child! Are you blind to what He means? Don’t you -understand the cruelty that is being done to your friend? Don’t you -understand?” - -She stretched out her arm and touched Mr. Quincunx’s shoulder. - -“You must do more than give this little one a father,” she murmured in -a low tone, “you must give her a mother. How can she be happy without a -mother? - -“Come,” she went on, in a voice vibrating with magnetic authority, -“there’s no other way. You and Lacrima must join hands. You must join -hands at once, and defy everyone. Our little wanderer must have both -father and mother! That is what God intends.” - -There was a long and strange silence, broken only by the ticking of the -clock. - -Then Mr. Quincunx slowly rose, allowed the child to sink down into his -empty chair, and crossed over to Lacrima’s side. Very solemnly, and -as if registering a sacred vow, he took his friend’s head between his -hands and kissed her on the forehead. Then, searching for her hand -and holding it tightly in his own, he turned towards Vennie, while -Lacrima herself, pressing her face against his shabby coat, broke into -convulsive crying. - -“I’ll take your advice,” he said gravely. “I’ll take it without -question. There are more difficulties in the way than you know, but -I’ll do,--we’ll do,--just what you tell us. I can’t think--” he -hesitated for a moment, while a curious smile flickered across his -face, “how on earth I’m going to manage. I can’t think how we’re going -to get away from here. But I’ll take your advice and we’ll do exactly -as you say. - -“We’ll do what she says, won’t we, Lacrima?” - -Lacrima’s only answer was to conceal her face still more completely -in his dusty coat, but her crying became quieter and presently ceased -altogether. - -At that moment there came a sharp knock a the door. - -The countenance of Mr. Quincunx changed. He dropped his friend’s hand, -and moved into the centre of the room. - -“That must be the circus-people,” he whispered. “They’ve come for -Dolores. You’ll support me won’t you?” He looked imploringly at Vennie. -“You’ll tell them they can’t have her--that I refuse to give her -up--that I’m going to adopt her?” - -He went out and opened the door. - -It was not the circus-men he found waiting on his threshold. Nor was it -the police. It was only one of the under-gardeners from Nevilton House. -The youth explained that Mr. Romer had sent him to fetch Lacrima. - -“They be goin’ to lunch early, mistress says, and the young lady ’ave -to come right along ’ome wi’ I.” - -Vennie intervened at this moment between her agitated host and the -intruder. - -“I’ll bring Miss Traffio home,” she said sternly, “when she’s ready to -come. You may go back and tell Mrs. Romer that she’s with me,--with -Miss Seldom.” - -The youth touched his hat, and slouched off, without further protest. - -Vennie, returning into the kitchen, found Mr. Quincunx standing -thoughtfully by the mantelpiece, stroking his beard, and the two -Italians engaged in an excited conversation in their own tongue. - -The descendant of the lords of Nevilton meditated for a moment with -drooping head, her hands characteristically clasped behind her back. -When she lifted up her chin and began to speak, there was the same -concentrated light in her eyes and the same imperative tone in her -voice. - -“The thing for us to do,” she said, speaking hurriedly but firmly, “is -to go--all four of us--straight away from here! I’m not going to leave -you until things are settled. I’m going to get you all clean out of -this,--clean away!” - -She paused and looked at Lacrima. “Where’s Mr. Dangelis?” she asked. - -Lacrima explained how the artist had written to Gladys that he was -staying until the following day at the Gloucester Hotel in Weymouth. - -Vennie’s face became radiant when she heard this. “Ah!” she cried, “God -is indeed fighting for us! It’s Dangelis that I must see, and see at -once. Where better could we all go,--at any rate for tonight--than to -Weymouth? We’ll think later what must be done next. Dangelis will help -us. I’m perfectly certain he’ll help us. - -“Oh yes, we’ll go to Weymouth at once,--before there’s any risk of the -Romers stopping us! We’ll walk to Yeoborough--that’ll give us time to -think out our plans--and take the train from there. - -“I’ll send a telegram to my mother late tonight, when there’s no chance -of her communicating with the House. As to being seen in Yeoborough -by any Nevilton people, we must risk that! God has been so good to us -today that I can’t believe He won’t go on being good to us. - -“Oh what a relief it’ll be,--what a relief,--to get away from Nevilton! -And I shall be able to dip my hands in the sea!” - -While these rapid utterances fell from Vennie’s excited lips, the face -of Mr. Quincunx was a wonder to look upon. It was the crisis of his -days, and he displayed his knowledge that it was so by more convulsive -changes of expression, than perhaps, in an equal stretch of time, had -ever crossed the visage of a mortal man. - -“We’ll take your advice,” he said, at last, with immense solemnity. - -Lacrima looked at him wistfully. Her face was very pale and her lips -trembled. - -“It isn’t only because of the child, is it, that he’s ready to go?” she -murmured, clutching at Vennie’s arm, as Mr. Quincunx retired to make -his brief preparations. “I shouldn’t like to think it was only that. -But he _is_ fond of me. He _is_ fond of me!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - -LODMOOR - - -It was Mr. Quincunx who had to find the money for their bold adventure. -Neither Vennie nor Lacrima could discover a single penny on their -persons. Mr. Quincunx produced it from the bottom of an old jam-pot -placed in the interior recesses of one of his deepest cupboards. He -displayed to his three friends, with not a little pride, the sum he was -possessed of,--no less in fact than five golden sovereigns. - -Their walk to Yeoborough was full of thrilling little excitements. -Three times they concealed themselves on the further side of the hedge, -to let certain suspicious pedestrians, who might be Nevilton people, -pass by unastonished. - -Once well upon their way, they all four felt a strange sense of -liberation and expansion. The little Neapolitan walked between Mr. -Quincunx and Lacrima, a hand given to each, and her childish high -spirits kept them all from any apprehensive brooding. - -Once and once only, they looked back, and Mr. Quincunx shook his fist -at the two distant hills. - -“You are right,” he remarked to Vennie, “it’s the sea we’re in want of. -These curst inland fields have the devil in their heavy mould.” - -They found themselves, when they reached the town, with an hour -to spare before their train started, and entering a little -dairy-shop near the station, they refreshed themselves with milk and -bread-and-butter. Here Mr. Quincunx and the child waited in excited -expectation, while the two girls went out to make some necessary -purchases--returning finally, in triumph, with a light wicker-work -suit-case, containing all that they required for several days and -nights. - -They were in the train at last, with a compartment to themselves, and, -as far as they could tell, quite undiscovered by anyone who knew them. - -Vennie had hardly ever in her life enjoyed anything more than she -enjoyed that journey. She felt that the stars were fighting on her side -or, to put it in terms of her religion, that God Himself was smoothing -the road in front of her. - -She experienced a momentary pang when the train, at last, passing -along the edge of the back-water, ran in to Weymouth Station. It was -so sweet, so strangely sweet, to know that three living souls depended -upon her for their happiness, for their escape from the power of the -devil! Would she feel like this, would she ever feel quite like this, -when the convent-doors shut her away from this exciting world? - -They emerged from the crowded station,--Mr. Quincunx carrying the -wicker-work suit-case--and made their way towards the Esplanade. - -The early afternoon sun lay hot upon the pavements, but from the sea -a strong fresh wind was blowing. Both the girls shivered a little -in their thin frocks, and as the red shawl of the young Italian had -already excited some curiosity among the passers-by, they decided to -enter one of the numerous drapery shops, and spend some more of Mr. -Quincunx’s money. - -They were so long in the shop that the nervous excitement of the -recluse was on the point of changing into nervous irritation, when -at last they reappeared. But he was reconciled to the delay when he -perceived the admirable use they had made of it. - -All three were wearing long tweed rain-cloaks of precisely the -same tint of sober grey. They looked like three sisters, newly -arrived from some neighbouring inland town,--Dorchester, perhaps, -or Sherborne,--with a view to spending a pleasant afternoon at the -sea-side. Not only were they all wrapped in the same species of cloak. -They had purchased three little woollen caps of a similar shade, such -things as it would have been difficult to secure in any shop but a -little unfashionable one, where summer and winter vogues casually -overlapped. - -Mr. Quincunx, whose exaltation of mood had not made him forget to bring -his own overcoat with him, now put this on, and warmly and comfortably -clad, the four fugitives from Nevilton strolled along the Esplanade in -the direction of St. John’s church. - -To leave his three companions free to run down to the sea’s edge, Mr. -Quincunx possessed himself of the clumsy paper parcels containing the -hats they had relinquished and also of the little girl’s red shawl, and -resting on a seat with these objects piled up by his side he proceeded -to light a cigarette and gaze placidly about him. The worst of his -plunge into activity being over,--for, whatever happened, the initial -effort was bound to be the worst,--the wanderer from Dead Man’s Lane -chuckled to himself with bursts of cynical humour as he contemplated -the situation they were in. - -But what a relief it was to see the clear-shining foam-sprinkled -expanse of water lying spread out before him! Like the younger -Andersen, Mr. Quincunx had a passionate love of Weymouth, and never had -he loved it more than he did at that moment! He greeted the splendid -curve of receding cliffs--the White Nore and St. Alban’s Head--with -a sigh of profound satisfaction, and he looked across to the massive -bulk of Portland, as though in its noble uncrumbling stone--stone that -was so much nearer to marble than to clay--there lurked some occult -talisman ready to save him from everything connected with Leo’s Hill. - -Yes, the sea was what he wanted just then! How well the salt taste of -it, the smell of its sun-bleached stranded weeds, its wide horizons, -its long-drawn murmur, blent with the strange new mood into which that -morning’s events had thrown him! - -How happy the little Dolores looked, between Lacrima and Vennie, her -dark curls waving in the wind from beneath her grey cap! - -All at once his mind reverted to James Andersen, lying now alone and -motionless, under six feet of yellow clay. Mr. Quincunx shivered. After -all it was something to be alive still, something to be still able to -stroke one’s beard and stretch one’s legs, and fumble in one’s pocket -for a “Three Castles” cigarette! - -He wondered vaguely how and when this young St. Catharine of theirs -intended to marry him to Lacrima. And then what? Would he have to work -frightfully, preposterously hard? - -He chuckled to himself to think how blank Mr. Romer would look, when he -found that both his victims had been spirited away in one breath. What -a girl this Vennie Seldom was! - -He tried to imagine what it would be like, this business of being -married. After all, he was very fond of Lacrima. He hoped that dusky -wavy hair of hers were as long as it suggested that it was! He liked -girls to have long hair. - -Would she bring him his tea in the morning, sometimes, with bare arms -and bare feet? Would she sit cross-legged at the foot of his bed, while -he drank it, and chatter to him of what they would do when he came back -from his work? - -_His work!_ That was an aspect of the affair which certainly might well -be omitted. - -And then, as he stared at the three girlish figures on the beach, -there came over him the strange illusion that both Vennie and Lacrima -were only dream-people--unreal and fantastic--and that the true living -persons of his drama were himself and his little Neapolitan waif. - -Suppose the three girls were to take a boat--one of those boats whose -painted keels he saw glittering now so pleasantly on the beach--and row -out into the water. And suppose the boat were upset and both Vennie and -Lacrima drowned? Would he be so sad to have to live the rest of his -life alone with the little Dolores? - -Perhaps it would be better if this event occurred after Vennie had -helped him to secure some work to do--some not too hard work! -Well--Vennie, at any rate, _was_ going to be drowned in a certain -sense, at least she was meditating entering a convent, and that was -little different from being drowned, or being buried in yellow clay, -like James Andersen! - -But Lacrima was not meditating entering a convent. Lacrima was -meditating being married to him, and being a mother to their adopted -child. He hoped she would be a gentle mother. If she were not, if she -ever spoke crossly to Dolores, he would lose his temper. He would lose -his temper so much that he would tremble from head to foot! He called -up an imaginary scene between them, a scene so vivid that he found -himself trembling now, as his hand rested upon the paper parcel. - -But perhaps, if by chance they left England and went on a -journey,--Witch-Bessie had found a journey, “a terrible journey,” in -the lines of his hand,--Lacrima would catch a fever in some foreign -city, and he and Dolores would be left alone, quite as alone as if she -were drowned today! - -But perhaps it would be he, Maurice Quincunx, who would catch the -fever. No! He did not like these “terrible journeys.” He preferred to -sit on a seat on Weymouth Esplanade and watch Dolores laughing and -running into the sea and picking up shells. - -The chief thing was to be alive, and not too tired, or too cold, or too -hungry, or too harassed by insolent aggressive people! How delicious a -thing life could be if it were only properly arranged! If cruelty, and -brutality, and vulgarity, and _office-work_, were removed! - -He could never be cruel to anyone. From that worst sin,--if one could -talk of such a thing as sin in this mad world,--his temperament -entirely saved him. He hoped when they were married that Lacrima would -not want him to be too sentimental about her. And he rather hoped that -he would still have his evenings to himself, to turn over the pages of -Rabelais, when he had kissed Dolores good night. - -His meditations were interrupted at this point by the return of his -companions, who came scrambling across the shingle, threading their way -among the boats, laughing and talking merrily, and trailing long pieces -of sea-weed in their hands. - -Vennie announced that since it was nearly four o’clock it would be -advisable for them to secure their lodging for the night, and when that -was done she would leave them to their own devices for an hour or two, -while she proceeded to the Gloucester Hotel to have her interview with -Ralph Dangelis. - -Their various sea-spoils being all handed over to the excited little -foundling, they walked slowly along the Esplanade, still bearing to the -east, while they surveyed the appearance of the various “crescents,” -“terraces,” and “rows” on the opposite side of the street. It was -not till they arrived at the very end of these, that Vennie, who had -assumed complete responsibility for their movements, piloted them -across the road. - -The houses they now approached were entitled “Brunswick Terrace,” -and they entirely fulfilled their title by suggesting, in the -pleasant liberality of their bay-windows and the mellow dignity of -their well-proportioned fronts, the sort of solid comfort which the -syllables “Brunswick” seem naturally to convey. They began their -enquiries for rooms, about five doors from the end of the terrace, -but it was not till they reached the last house,--the last except two -reddish-coloured ones of later date,--that they found what they wanted. - -It was arranged that the two Italians should share a room together. -Vennie elected to sleep in a small apartment adjoining theirs, while -Mr. Quincunx was given a front-room, looking out on the sea, on the -third floor. - -Vennie smiled to herself as she thought how amazed her mother would -have been could she have seen her at that moment, as she helped Lacrima -to unpack their solitary piece of luggage, while Mr. Quincunx smoked -cigarettes in the balcony of the window! - -She left them finally in the lodging-house parlour, seated on a -horse-hair sofa, watching the prim landlady preparing tea. Vennie -refused to wait for this meal, being anxious--she said--to get her -interview with the American well over, for until that moment had been -reached, she could neither discuss their future plans calmly, nor enjoy -the flavour of the adventure. - -When Vennie had left them, and the three were all comfortably seated -round the table, Mr. Quincunx found Lacrima in so radiant a mood that -he began to feel a little ashamed of his ambiguous meditations on the -Esplanade. She was, after all, quite beautiful in her way,--though, of -course, not as beautiful as the young Neapolitan, whose eyes had a look -in them, even when she was happy, which haunted one and filled one with -vague indescribable emotions. - -Mr. Quincunx himself was in the best of spirits. His beard wagged, his -nostrils quivered, his wit flowed. Lacrima fixed her eyes upon him with -delighted appreciation,--and led him on and on, through a thousand -caprices of fancy. The poor Pariah’s heart was full of exquisite -happiness. She felt like one actually liberated from the tomb. For the -first time since she had known anything of England she was able to -breathe freely and spontaneously and be her natural self. - -For some queer reason or other, her thoughts kept reverting to James -Andersen, but reverting to him with neither sadness nor pity. She felt -no remorse for not having been present when he was buried that morning. -She did not feel as though he were buried. She did not feel as though -he were dead. She felt, in some strange way, that he had merely escaped -from the evil spells of Nevilton, and that in the power of his new -strength he was the cause of her own emancipation. - -And what an emancipation it was! It was like suddenly becoming a child -again--a child with power to enjoy the very things that children so -often miss. - -Everything in this little parlour pleased her. The blue vases on the -mantelpiece containing dusty “everlasting flowers,” the plush-framed -portraits of the landlady’s deceased parents, enlarged to a magnitude -of shadowy dignity by some old-fashioned photographic process, the -quaint row of minute china elephants that stood on a little bracket -in the corner, the glaring antimacassar thrown across the back of the -arm-chair, the sea-scents and sea-murmurs floating in through the -window, the melodious crying of a fish-pedler in the street; all -these things thrilled her with a sense of freedom and escape, which -over-brimmed her heart with happiness. - -What matter, after all, she thought, that her little compatriot with -the wonderful eyes had been the means of arousing her friend from his -inertia! Her long acquaintance with Mr. Quincunx had mellowed her -affection for him into a tenderness that was almost maternal. She could -even find it in her to be glad that she was to be saved from the burden -of struggling alone with his fits of melancholia. With Dolores to keep -him amused, and herself to look after his material wants, it seemed -probable that, whatever happened, the dear man would be happier than he -had ever dreamed of being! - -The uncertainty of their future weighed upon her very little. She had -the true Pariah tendency to lie back with arms outstretched upon the -great tide, and let it carry her whither it pleased. She had done this -so long, while the tide was dark and evil, that to do it where the -waters gleamed and shone was a voluptuous delight. - -While her protégées were thus enjoying themselves Vennie sought out -and entered, with a resolute bearing, the ancient Gloucester Hotel. -The place had recently been refitted according to modern notions of -comfort, but in its general lines, and in a certain air it had of -liberal welcoming, it preserved the Georgian touch. - -She was already within the hall-way when, led by an indefinable impulse -to look back, she caught sight of Dangelis himself walking rapidly -along the Esplanade towards the very quarter from which she had just -come. Without a moment’s hesitation she ran down the steps, crossed the -road and followed him. - -The American seemed to be inspired by some mania for fast walking -that afternoon. Vennie was quite breathless before she succeeded in -approaching him, and she did not manage to do this until they were both -very nearly opposite Brunswick Terrace. - -Just here she was unwilling to make herself known, as her friends might -at any moment emerge from their lodging. She preferred to follow the -long strides of the artist still further, till, in fact he had led her, -hot and exhausted in her new cloak, quite beyond the limits of the -houses. - -Where the town ceases, on this eastern side, a long white dusty road -leads across a mile or two of level ground before the noble curve of -cliffs ending in St. Alban’s Head has its beginning. This road is -bounded on one hand by a high bank of shingle and on the other by a -wide expanse of salt-marshes known in that district under the name of -Lodmoor. It was not until the American had emerged upon this solitary -road that his pursuer saw fit to bring him to a halt. - -“Mr. Dangelis!” she called out, “Mr. Dangelis!” - -He swung round in astonishment at hearing his name. For the first -moment he did not recognize Vennie. Her newly purchased attire,--not to -speak of her unnaturally flushed cheeks,--had materially altered her -appearance. When she held out her hand, however, and stopped to take -breath, he realized who she was. - -“Oh Mr. Dangelis,” she gasped, “I’ve been following you all the way -from the Hotel. I so want to talk to you. You _must_ listen to me. It’s -very, very important!” - -He held his hat in his hand, and regarded her with smiling amazement. - -“Well, Miss Seldom, you _are_ an astonishing person. Is your mother -here? Are you staying at Weymouth? How did you catch sight of me? -Certainly--by all means--tell me your news! I long to hear this thing -that’s so important.” - -He made as if he would return with her to the town, but she laid her -hand on his arm. - -“No--no! let’s walk on quietly here. I can talk to you better here.” - -The roadway, however, proved so disconcerting, owing to great gusts -of wind which kept driving the sand and dust along its surface, that -before Vennie had summoned up courage to begin her story, they found -it necessary to debouch to their left and enter the marshy flats of -Lodmoor. They took their way along the edge of a broad ditch, whose -black peat-bottomed waters were overhung by clumps of “Michaelmas -daisies” and sprinkled with weird glaucous-leafed plants. It was a -place of a singular character, owing to the close encounter in it -of land and sea, and it seemed to draw the appeal of its strange -desolation almost equally from both these sources. - -Vennie, on the verge of speaking, found her senses in a state of -morbid alertness. Everything she felt and saw at that moment lodged -itself with poignant sharpness in her brain and returned to her mind -long afterwards. So extreme was her nervous tension that she found -it difficult to disentangle her thoughts from all these outward -impressions. - -The splash of a water-rat became an episode in her suspended -revelation. The bubbles rising from the movements of an eel in the mud -got mixed with the image of Mrs. Wotnot picking laurel-leaves. The -flight of a sea-gull above their heads was a projection of Dangelis’ -escape from the spells of his false mistress. The wind shaking the -reeds was the breath of her fatal news ruffling the man’s smiling -attention. The wail of the startled plovers was the cry of her own -heart, calling upon all the spirits of truth and justice, to make him -believe her words. - -She told him at last,--told him everything, walking slowly by his side -with her eyes cast down and her hands clasped tight behind her. - -When she had finished, there was an immense intolerable silence, -and slowly, very slowly, she permitted her glance to rise to her -companion’s face, to grasp the effect of her narration upon him. - -How rare it is that these world-shaking revelations produce the -impression one has anticipated! To Vennie’s complete amazement,--and -even, it must be allowed, a little to her dismay,--Dangelis regarded -her with a frank untroubled smile. - -“You,--I--” she stammered, and stopped abruptly. Then, before he -could answer her, “I didn’t know you knew all this. Did you really -know it,--and not mind? Don’t people mind these things in--in other -countries?” - -Dangelis spoke at last. “Oh, yes of course, we mind as much as any -of you; that is to say, if we _do_ mind,--but you must remember, Miss -Seldom, there are circumstances, situations,--there are, in fact -feelings,--which make these things sometimes rather a relief than -otherwise!” - -He threw up his stick in the air, as he spoke, and caught it as it -descended. - -“Pardon me, one moment, I want--I want to see if I can jump this ditch.” - -He threw both stick and hat on the ground, and to Vennie’s complete -amazement, stepped back a pace or two, and running desperately to the -brink of the stream cleared it with a bound. He repeated this manœuvre -from the further bank, and returned, breathing hard and fast, to the -girl’s side. - -Picking up his hat and stick, he uttered a wild series of barbaric -howls, such howls as Vennie had never, in her life, heard issuing from -the mouth of man or beast. Had Gladys’ treachery turned his brain? - -But no madman could possibly have smiled the friendly boyish smile with -which he greeted her when this performance was over. - -“So sorry if I scared you,” he said. “Do you know what that is? It’s -our college ‘yell.’ It’s what we do at base-ball matches.” - -Vennie thought he was going to do it again, and in her apprehension she -laid a hand on his sleeve. - -“But don’t you really mind Miss Romer’s being like this? Did you know -she was like this?” she enquired. - -“Don’t let’s think about her any more,” cried the artist. “I don’t -care what she’s like, now I can get rid of her. To tell you the honest -truth, Miss Seldom, I’d come down here for no other reason than to -think over this curst hole I’ve got myself into, and to devise some way -out. - -“What you tell me,--and I believe every word of it, I want to believe -every word of it!--just gives me the excuse I need. Good-bye, Miss -Gladys! Good-bye, Ariadne! ‘Ban-ban, Ca-Caliban, Have a new master, get -a new man!’ No more engagements for me, dear Miss Seldom! I’m a free -lance now, a free lance,--henceforward and forever!” - -The exultant artist was on the point of indulging once more in his -college yell, but the scared and bewildered expression on Vennie’s face -saved her from a second experience of that phenomenon. - -“Shall I tell you what I was thinking of doing, as I strolled along the -Front this afternoon?” - -Vennie nodded, unable to repress a smile as she remembered the -difficulty she had in arresting this stroll. - -“I was thinking of taking the boat for the Channel Islands tomorrow! I -even went so far as to make enquiries about the time it started. What -do you think of that?” - -Vennie thought it was extremely singular, and she also thought that she -had never heard the word “enquiries” pronounced in just that way. - -“It leaves quite early, at nine in the morning. And it’s _some_ -boat,--I can tell you that!” - -“Well,” continued Vennie, recovering by degrees that sense of -concentrated power which had accompanied her all day, “what now? Are -you still going to sail by it?” - -“That’s--a--large--proposition,” answered her interlocutor slowly. -“I--I rather think I am!” - -One effect of his escape from his Nevilton enchantress seemed to be an -irrepressible tendency to relapse into the American vernacular. - -They continued advancing along the edge of the ditch, side by side. - -Vennie plunged into the matter of Lacrima and Mr. Quincunx. - -She narrated all she knew of this squalid and sinister story. She -enlarged upon the two friends’ long devotion to one another. She -pictured the wickedness and shame of the projected marriage with John -Goring. Finally she explained how it had come about that both Mr. -Romer’s slaves, and with them the little circus-waif, were at that -moment in Weymouth. - -“And so you’ve carried them off?” cried the Artist in high glee. “Bless -my soul, but I admire you for it! And what are you going to do with -them now?” - -Vennie looked straight into his eyes. “That is where I want _your_ -help, Mr. Dangelis!” - -It was late in the evening before the citizen of Toledo, Ohio, and the -would-be Postulant of the Sacred Heart parted from one another opposite -the Jubilee Clock. - -A reassuring telegram had been sent to Mrs. Seldom announcing Vennie’s -return in the course of the following day. - -As for the rest, all had been satisfactorily arranged. The American -had displayed overpowering generosity. He seemed anxious to do penance -for his obsession by the daughter, by lavishing benefactions upon the -victims of the father. Perhaps it seemed to him that this was the best -manner of paying back the debt, which his æsthetic imagination owed to -the suggestive charms of the Nevilton landscape. - -He made himself, in a word, completely responsible for the three -wanderers. He would carry them off with him to the Channel Isles, and -either settle them down there, or make it possible for them to cross -thence to France, and from France, if so they pleased, on to Lacrima’s -home in Italy. He would come to an arrangement with his bankers to have -handed over definitely to Mr. Quincunx a sum that would once and for -all put him into a position of financial security. - -“I’d have paid a hundred times as much as that,” he laughingly assured -Vennie, “to have got clear of my mix-up with that girl.” - -Thus it came about that at nine o’clock on the day which followed the -burial of James Andersen, Vennie, standing on the edge of the narrow -wharf, between railway-trucks and hawsers, watched the ship with the -red funnels carry off the persons who--under Heaven--were the chief -cause of the stone-carver’s death. - -As the four figures, waving to her over the ship’s side grew less and -less distinct, Vennie felt an extraordinary and unaccountable desire to -burst into a fit of passionate weeping. She could not have told why she -wept, nor could she have told whether her tears were tears of relief or -of desolation, but something in the passing of that brightly-painted -ship round the corner of the little break-water, gave her a different -emotion from any she had ever known in her life. - -When at last she turned her back to the harbour, she asked the way to -the nearest Catholic Church, but in place of following the directions -given her, she found herself seated on the shingles below Brunswick -Terrace, watching the in-drawing and out-flowing waves. - -How strange this human existence was! Long after the last block of -Leonian stone had been removed from its place--long after the stately -pinnacles of Nevilton House had crumbled into shapeless ruins,--long -after the memory of all these people’s troubles had been erased and -forgotten,--this same tide would fling itself upon this same beach, -and its voice then would be as its voice now, restless, unsatisfied, -unappeased. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - -THE GOAT AND BOY - - -It was the middle of October. Francis Taxater and Luke Andersen sat -opposite one another over a beer-stained table in the parlour of the -Goat and Boy. The afternoon was drawing to its close and the fire in -the little grate threw a warm ruddy light through the darkening room. - -Outside the rain was falling, heavily, persistently,--the sort of rain -that by long-continued importunity finds its way through every sort of -obstacle. For nearly a month this rain had lasted. It had come in with -the equinox, and Heaven knew how long it was going to stay. It had so -thoroughly drenched all the fields, woods, lanes, gardens and orchards -of Nevilton, that a palpable atmosphere of charnel-house chilliness -pervaded everything. Into this atmosphere the light sank at night like -a thing drowned in deep water, and into this atmosphere the light rose -at dawn like something rising from beneath the sea. - -The sun itself, as a definite presence, had entirely disappeared. It -might have fallen into fathomless space, for all the visible signs it -gave of its existence. The daylight seemed a pallid entity, diffused -through the lower regions of the air, unconnected with any visible -fount of life or warmth. - -The rain seemed to draw forth from the earth all the accumulated -moisture of centuries of damp autumns, while between the water -below the firmament and the water above the firmament,--between the -persistent deluge from the sky and the dampness exuded from the -earth,--the death-stricken multitudinous leaves of Nevilton drifted to -their morgue in the cart-ruts and ditches. - -The only object in the vicinity whose appearance seemed to suffer no -change from this incursion of many waters was Leo’s Hill. Leo’s Hill -looked as if it loved the rain, and the rain looked as if it loved -Leo’s Hill. In no kind of manner were its familiar outlines affected, -except perhaps in winning a certain added weight, by reason of the fact -that its rival Mount had been stripped of its luxuriant foliage. - -“So our dear Mr. Romer has got his Freight Bill through,” said Luke, -sipping his glass of whiskey and smiling at Mr. Taxater. “He at any -rate then won’t be worried by this rain.” - -“I’m to dine with him tomorrow,” answered the papal champion, “so I -shall have an opportunity of discovering what he’s actually gained by -this.” - -“I wish I’d had James cremated,” muttered Luke, staring at the -fire-place, into which the rain fell down the narrow chimney. - -Mr. Taxater crossed himself. - -“What do you really feel,” enquired the younger man abruptly, “about -the chances in favour of a life after death?” - -“The Church,” answered Mr. Taxater, stirring his rum and sugar with a -spoon, “could hardly be expected to formulate a dogma denying such a -hope. The true spirit of her attitude towards it may perhaps be best -understood in the repetition of her requiem prayer, ‘Save us from -eternal death!’ We none of us want eternal death, my friend, though -many of us are very weary of this particular life. I do not know that -I am myself, however. But that may be due to the fact that I am a real -sceptic. To love life, Andersen, one cannot be too sceptical.” - -“Upon my soul I believe you!” answered the stone-carver, “but I cannot -quite see how _you_ can make claim to that title.” - -“You’re not a philosopher my friend,” said Mr. Taxater, leaning his -elbows on the table and fixing a dark but luminous eye upon his -interlocutor. - -“If you were a philosopher you would know that to be a true sceptic it -is necessary to be a Catholic. You, for instance, aren’t a sceptic, and -never can be. You’re a dogmatic materialist. You doubt everything in -the world except doubt. I doubt doubt.” - -Luke rose and poked the fire. - -“I’m afraid my little Annie’ll be frightfully wet,” he remarked, “when -she gets home tonight. I wish that last train from Yeoborough wasn’t -quite so late.” - -“Do you propose to go down to the station to meet her?” enquired Mr. -Taxater. - -Luke sighed. “I suppose so,” he said. “That’s the worst of being -married. There’s always something or other interfering with the main -purpose of life.” - -“May I ask what the main purpose of life may be?” said the theologian. - -“Talking with you, of course,” replied the young man smiling; “talking -with any friend. Oh damn! I can’t tell you how I miss going up to Dead -Man’s Cottage.” - -“Yes,” said the great scholar meditatively, “women are bewitching -creatures, especially when they’re very young or very old, but they -aren’t exactly arresting in conversation.” - -Luke became silent, meditating on this. - -“They throw out little things now and then,” he said. “Annie does. But -they’ve no sense of proportion. If they’re happy they’re thrilled by -everything, and if they’re unhappy,--well, you know how it is! They -don’t bite at the truth, for the sake of biting, and they never get to -the bone. They just lick the gloss of things with the tips of their -tongues. And they quiver and vibrate so, you never know where they are, -or what they’ve got up their sleeve that tickles them.” - -Mr. Taxater lifted his glass to his mouth and carefully replaced it -on the table. There was something in this movement of his plump white -fingers which always fascinated Luke. Mr. Taxater’s hands looked as -though, beyond the pen and the wine-cup, they never touched any earthly -object. - -“Have you heard any more of Philip Wone?” enquired the stone-carver. - -The theologian shook his head. “I’m afraid, since he went up to London, -he’s really got entangled in these anarchist plots.” - -“I’m not unselfish enough to be an anarchist,” said Luke, “but I -sympathize with their spirit. The sort of people I can’t stand are -these Christian Socialists. What really pleases me, I suppose, is the -notion of a genuine aristocracy, an aristocracy as revolutionary as -anarchists in their attitude to morals and such things, an aristocracy -that’s flung up out of this mad world, as a sort of exquisite flower -of chance and accident, an aristocracy that is _worth_ all this damned -confusion!” - -Mr. Taxater smiled. It always amused him when Luke Andersen got excited -in this way, and began catching his breath and gesticulating. He seemed -to have heard these remarks on other occasions. He regarded them as a -signal that the stone-carver had drunk more whiskey than was good for -him. When completely himself Luke talked of girls and of death. When a -little depressed he abused either Nonconformists or Socialists. When in -the early stages of intoxication he eulogized the upper classes. - -“It’s a pity,” said the theologian, “that Ninsy couldn’t bring herself -to marry that boy. There’s something morbid in the way she talks. I met -her in Nevil’s Gully yesterday, and I had quite a long conversation -with her.” - -Luke looked sharply at him. “Have you yourself ever seen her, across -there?” he asked making a gesture in the direction of the churchyard. - -Mr. Taxater shook his head. “Have you?” he demanded. - -Luke nodded. - -A sudden silence fell upon them. The rain beat in redoubled fury upon -the window, and they could hear it pattering on the roof and falling in -a heavy stream from the pipe above the eaves. - -The younger man felt as though some tragic intimation, uttered in a -tongue completely beyond the reach of both of them, were beating about -for entry, at closed shutters. - -Mr. Taxater felt no sensation of this kind. “_Non est reluctandum cum -Deo_” were the sage words with which he raised his glass to his lips. - -Luke remained motionless staring at the window, and thinking of a -certain shrouded figure, with hollow cheeks and crossed hands, to whom -this rain was nothing, and less than nothing. - -Once more there was silence between them, as though a flock of -noiseless night-birds were flying over the house, on their way to the -far-off sea. - -“How is Mrs. Seldom getting on?” enquired Luke, pushing back his chair. -“Is Vennie allowed to write to her from that place?” - -The theologian smiled. “Oh, the dear lady is perfectly happy! In fact, -I think she’s really happier than when she was worrying herself about -Vennie’s future.” - -“I don’t like these convents,” remarked Luke. - -“Few people like them,” said the papal champion, “who have never -entered them. - -“I’ve never seen an unhappy nun. They are almost too happy. They are -like children. Perhaps they’re the only persons in existence who know -what continual, as opposed to spasmodic, happiness means. The happiness -of sanctity is a secret that has to be concealed from the world, just -as the happiness of certain very vicious people has,--for fear there -should be no more marriages.” - -“Talking of marriages,” remarked Luke, “I’d give anything to know how -our friend Gladys is getting on with Clavering. I expect his attitude -of heroic pity has worn a little thin by this time. I wonder how soon -the more earthly side of the shield will wear thin too! But--poor dear -girl!--I do feel sorry for her. Fancy having to listen to the Reverend -Hugh’s conversation by night and by day! - -“I sent her a picture post-card, the other afternoon, from -Yeoborough--a comic one. I wonder if she snapped it up, and hid it, -before her husband came down to breakfast!” - -The jeering tone of the man jarred a little on Mr. Taxater’s nerves. - -“I think I understand,” he thought to himself, “why it is that he -praises the aristocracy.” - -To change the conversation, he reverted to Miss Seldom’s novitiate. - -“Vennie was very indignant with me for remaining so long in London, -but I am glad now that I did. None of our little arrangements--eh, my -friend?--would have worked out so well as her Napoleonic directness. -That shows how wise it is to stand aside sometimes and let things take -their course.” - -“Romer doesn’t stand aside,” laughed Luke. “I’d give a year of my life -to know what he felt when Dangelis carried those people away! But I -suppose we shall never know. - -“I wonder if it’s possible that there’s any truth in that strange idea -of Vennie’s that Leo’s Hill has a definite evil power over this place? -Upon my soul I’m almost inclined to wish it has! God, how it does rain!” - -He looked at his watch. “I shall have to go down to the station in a -minute,” he remarked. - -One curious feature of this conversation between the two men was that -there began to grow up a deep and vague irritation in Mr. Taxater’s -mind against his companion. Luke’s tone when he alluded to that -picture-card--“a comic one”--struck him as touching a depth of cynical -inhumanity. - -The theologian could not help thinking of that gorgeous-coloured -image of the wayward girl, represented as Ariadne, which now hung in -the entrance-hall of her father’s house. He recalled the magnificent -pose of the figure, and its look of dreamy exultation. Somehow, the -idea of this splendid heathen creature being the wife of Clavering -struck his mind as a revolting incongruity. For such a superb being to -be now stretching out hopeless arms towards her Nevilton lover,--an -appeal only answered by comic post-cards,--struck his imagination as -a far bitterer commentary upon the perversity of the world than that -disappearance of Vennie into a convent which seemed so to shock Luke. - -He extended his legs and fumbled with the gold cross upon his -watch-chain. He seemed so clearly to visualize the sort of look which -must now be settling down on that pseudo-priest’s ascetic face. He gave -way to an immoral wish that Clavering might take to drink. He felt as -though he would sooner have seen Gladys fallen to the streets than thus -made the companion of a monkish apostate. - -He wondered how on earth it had been managed that Mr. Romer had -remained ignorant of the cause of Dangelis’ flight and the girl’s -precipitate marriage. It was inconceivable that he should be aware -of these things and yet retain this imperturbable young man in his -employment. How craftily Gladys must have carried the matter through! -Well,--she was no doubt paying the penalty of her double-dyed -deceptions now. The theologian experienced a sick disgust with the -whole business. - -The rain increased in violence. It seemed as though the room where they -sat was isolated from the whole world by a flood of down-pouring waves. -The gods of the immense Spaces were weeping, and man, in his petty -preoccupation, could only mutter and stare. - -Luke rose to his feet. “To Romer and his Stone-Works,” he cried, -emptying his glass at one gulp down his throat, “and may he make me -their Manager!” - -Mr. Taxater also rose. “To the tears that wash away all these things,” -he said, “and the Necessity that was before them and will be after -them.” - -They went out of the house together, and the silence that fell between -them was like the silence at the bottom of deep waters. - -THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wood and Stone, by John Cowper Powys - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOOD AND STONE *** - -***** This file should be named 53157-0.txt or 53157-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/1/5/53157/ - -Produced by Stephen Rowland and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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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: Wood and Stone - A Romance - -Author: John Cowper Powys - -Release Date: September 28, 2016 [EBook #53157] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOOD AND STONE *** - - - - -Produced by Stephen Rowland and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">WOOD AND STONE</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> - -<div class="bbox"> - -<div class="bbox-top"> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Books by</span><br /> -JOHN COWPER POWYS</p> - -</div> - -<div class="bbox-middle"> - -<table summary="books"> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">The War and Culture, 1914</span></td><td class="tdr">$ .60</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Visions and Revisions, 1915</span></td><td class="tdr">$2.00</td> - </tr> -</table> - -</div> - -<div class="bbox-bottom"> - -<p class="center">PUBLISHED BY G. ARNOLD SHAW<br /> -GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">WOOD AND STONE</p> - -<p class="titlepage">A ROMANCE</p> - -<p class="titlepage">BY<br /> -JOHN COWPER POWYS</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Licuit, semperque licebit</div> -<div class="verse">Parcere personis, dicere de vitiis.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"> -<img src="images/publishers_device.jpg" width="200" height="100" alt="Aere perennius" /> -</div> - -<p class="titlepage">1915<br /> -G. ARNOLD SHAW<br /> -NEW YORK</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="titlepage smaller">COPYRIGHT, 1915<br /> -BY G. ARNOLD SHAW</p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller">COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN<br /> -AND COLONIES</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage">DEDICATED</p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller">WITH DEVOTED ADMIRATION<br /> -TO THE GREATEST POET AND NOVELIST<br /> -OF OUR AGE</p> - -<p class="titlepage">THOMAS HARDY</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>PREFACE</h2> - -<p>The following narrative gathers itself round -what is, perhaps, one of the most absorbing -and difficult problems of our age; the problem -namely of getting to the bottom of that world-old -struggle between the “well-constituted” and the “ill-constituted,” -which the writings of Nietzsche have -recently called so startlingly to our attention.</p> - -<p>Is there such a thing at all as Nietzsche’s born and -trained aristocracy? In other words, is the secret -of the universe to be reached only along the lines of -Power, Courage, and Pride? Or,—on the contrary,—is -the hidden and basic law of things, not Power -but Sacrifice, not Pride but Love?</p> - -<p>Granting, for the moment, that this latter alternative -is the true one, what becomes of the drastic -distinction between “well-constituted” and “ill-constituted”?</p> - -<p>In a universe whose secret is not self-assertion, but -self-abandonment, might not the “well-constituted” -be regarded as the vanquished, and the “ill-constituted” -as the victors? In other words, who, in such -a universe, <em>are</em> the “well-constituted”?</p> - -<p>But the difficulty does not end here. Supposing we -rule out of our calculation both of these antipodal -possibilities,—both the universe whose inner fatality -is the striving towards Power, and the universe whose -inner fatality is the striving towards Love,—will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> -there not be found to remain two other rational -hypotheses, either, namely, that there is no inner -fatality about it at all, that the whole thing is a -blind, fantastic, chance-drifting chaos; or that the -true secret lies in some subtle and difficult reconciliation, -between the will to Power and the will to -Love?</p> - -<p>The present chronicle is an attempt to give an -answer, inevitably a very tentative one, to this -formidable question; the writer, feeling that, as in -all these matters, where the elusiveness of human -nature plays so prominent a part, there is more hope -of approaching the truth, indirectly, and by means of -the imaginative mirror of art, than directly, and by -means of rational theorizing.</p> - -<p>The whole question is indeed so intimately associated -with the actual panorama of life and the -evasive caprices of flesh and blood, that every kind -of drastic and clinching formula breaks down under -its pressure.</p> - -<p>Art, alone,—that mysterious daughter of Life,—has -the secret of following the incalculable movements -of the Force to which she is so near akin. A -story which grossly points its moral with fixed indicative -finger is a story which, in the very strain of -that premature articulation, has lost the magic of -its probability. The secret of our days flies from -our attempts at making it fit such clumsy categories, -and the maddening flavour of the cosmic cup refuses -to be imprisoned in any laboratory.</p> - -<p>At this particular moment in the history of our -planet it is above all important to protest against -this prostituting of art to pseudo-science. It must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> -not be allowed to these hasty philosophical conclusions -and spasmodic ethical systems, to block up and -close in, as they are so ready to do, the large free -horizons of humour and poetry. The magic of the -World, mocking both our gravity and our flippancy, -withdraws itself from our shrewd rationalizations, only -to take refuge all the deeper in our intrinsic and -evasive hearts.</p> - -<p>In this story the author has been led to interest -himself in the curious labyrinthine subtleties -which mark the difference,—a difference to be observed -in actual life, quite apart from moral values,—between -the type of person who might be regarded -as born to rule, and the type of person who might -be regarded as born to be ruled over. The grand -Nietzschean distinction is, in a sense, rejected here -upon its own ground, a ground often inconsequently -deserted by those who make it their business to condemn -it. Such persons are apt to forget that the -whole assumption of this distinction lies in a substitution -of <em>æsthetic</em> values, for the values more commonly -applied.</p> - -<p>The pivotal point of the ensuing narrative might -be described as an attempt to suggest, granting such -an æsthetic test, that the hearts of “ill-constituted” -persons,—the hearts of slaves, Pariahs, cowards, -outcasts, and other victims of fate,—may be at -least as <em>interesting</em>, in their bizarre convolutions, as -the hearts of the bravest and gayest among us. And -<em>interest</em>, after all, is the supreme exigency of the -æsthetic sense!</p> - -<p>In order to thrust back from its free horizons these -invasions of its prerogatives by alien powers, Art<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span> -must prove itself able to evoke the very tang and -salt and bitter-sweetness of the actual pell-mell of -life—its unfolding spaces, its shell-strewn depths. -She must defend herself from those insidious traitors -in her own camp who would betray her into the hands -of the system-makers, by proving that she can approach -nearer to the magic of the world, without a -system, than all these are able to do, with all of -theirs! She must keep the horizons open—that must -be her main concern. She must hold fast to poetry -and humour, and about her creations there must be -a certain spirit of <em>liberation</em>, and the presence of -large tolerant after-thoughts.</p> - -<p>The curious thing about so many modern writers -is, that in their earnest preoccupation with philosophical -and social problems, they grow strained and -thin and sententious, losing the mass and volume, as -well as the elusive-blown airs, of the flowing tide. -On the other hand there is an irritating tendency, -among some of the cleverest, to recover their lost -balance after these dogmatic speculations, by foolish -indulgence in sheer burlesque—burlesque which is -the antithesis of all true humour.</p> - -<p>Heaven help us! It is easy enough to criticize -the lath and plaster which, in so many books, takes -the place of flesh and blood. It is less easy to catch, -for oneself, the breath of the ineffable spirit!</p> - -<p>Perhaps the deplorable thinness and sententiousness, -to which reference has been made, may be due to -the fact that in the excitement of modern controversy, -our enterprising writers have no time to read. -It is a strange thing, but one really feels as though, -among all modern English authors, the only one who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span> -brings with him an atmosphere of the large mellow -leisurely humanists of the past,—of the true classics, -in fact,—is Mr. Thomas Hardy.</p> - -<p>It is for this reason, for the reason that with this -great genius, life is approached in the old ample -ironic way, that the narrator of the following tale -has taken the liberty of putting Mr. Hardy’s name -upon his title-page. In any case mere courtesy and -decency called for such a recognition. One could -hardly have the audacity to plant one’s poor standard -in the heart of Wessex without obeisance being paid -to the literary over-lord of that suggestive region.</p> - -<p>It must be understood, however, that the temerity -of the author does not carry him so far as to regard -his eccentric story as in any sense an attempted -imitation of the Wessex novelist. Mr. Hardy cannot -be imitated. The mention of his admirable name at -the beginning of this book is no more than a humble -salutation addressed to the monarch of that particular -country, by a wayward nomad, lighting a -bivouac-fire, for a brief moment, in the heart of a -land that is not his.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a><br /> -<a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td class="tdr smaller">CHAPTER</td><td></td><td class="tdr smaller">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Leo’s Hill</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Nevilton</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Olympian Conspiracy</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Reprisals from Below</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Francis Taxater</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Pariahs</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Idyllic Pleasures</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Mythology of Sacrifice</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Mythology of Power</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Orchard</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Art and Nature</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Auber Lake</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Lacrima</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Under-Currents</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Mortimer Romer</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_355">355</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Hullaway</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_386">386</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Sagittarius</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_430">430</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Voices by the Way</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_460">460</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Planetary Intervention</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_489">489</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Vox Populi</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_519">519</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Cæsar’s Quarry</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_536">536</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">A Royal Watering-Place</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_572">572</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Ave atque Vale!</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_595">595</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Granary</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_621">621</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Metamorphosis</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_650">650</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Various Encounters</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_667">667</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Vennie Seldom</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_679">679</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Lodmoor</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_696">696</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Goat and Boy</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_714">714</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<h1>WOOD AND STONE</h1> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br /> -<span class="smaller">LEO’S HILL</span></h2> - -<p>Midway between Glastonbury and Bridport, -at the point where the eastern plains -of Somersetshire merge into the western -valleys of Dorsetshire, stands a prominent and -noticeable hill; a hill resembling the figure of a -crouching lion.</p> - -<p>East of the hill, nestling at the base of a cone-shaped -eminence overgrown with trees and topped -by a thin Thyrsus-like tower, lies the village of -Nevilton.</p> - -<p>Were it not for the neighbourhood of the more -massive promontory this conical protuberance would -itself have stood out as an emphatic landmark; -but Leo’s Hill detracts from its emphasis, as it -detracts from the emphasis of all other deviations -from the sea-level, between Yeoborough and the -foot of the Quantocks.</p> - -<p>It was on the apex of Nevilton Mount that the -Holy Rood of Waltham was first found; but with -whatever spiritual influence this event may have endowed -the gentler summit, it is not to it, but to -Leo’s Hill, that the lives and destinies of the people -of Nevilton have come to gravitate. One might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> -indeed without difficulty conceive of a strange -supernatural conflict going on between the consecrated -repository of Christian tradition guarding its -little flock, and the impious heathen fortress to which -day by day that flock is driven, to seek their material -sustenance.</p> - -<p>Even in Pre-Celtic times those formidably dug -trenches and frowning slopes must have looked down -on the surrounding valley; and to this day it is the -same suggestion of tyrannical military dominance, -which, in spite of quarries and cranes and fragrant -yellow gorse, gives the place its prevailing character.</p> - -<p>The rounded escarpments have for centuries been -covered with pleasant turf and browsed upon by -sheep; but patient antiquarian research constantly -brings to light its coins, torques, urns, arrow-heads, -amulets; and rumour hints that yet more precious -things lie concealed under those grassy mounds.</p> - -<p>The aboriginal tribes have been succeeded by the -Celt; the Celt by the Roman; the Roman by the -Saxon; without any change in the place’s inherent -character, and without any lessening of its tyranny -over the surrounding country. For though Leo’s -Hill dominates no longer by means of its external -strength, it dominates, quite as completely, by means -of its interior riches.</p> - -<p>It is, in fact, a huge rock-island, washed by the -leafy waves of the encircling valleys, and containing, -as its hid treasure, stone enough to rebuild -Babylon.</p> - -<p>In that particular corner of the West Country, so -distinct and deep-rooted are the legendary survivals, -it is hard not to feel as though some vast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> -spiritual conflict were still proceeding between the -two opposed Mythologies—the one drawing its -strength from the impulse to Power, and the other -from the impulse to Sacrifice.</p> - -<p>A village-dweller in Nevilton might, if he were -philosophically disposed, be just as much a percipient -of this cosmic struggle, as if he stood between the -Palatine and St. Peter’s.</p> - -<p>Let him linger among the cranes and pulleys of -this heathen promontory, and look westward to the -shrine of the Holy Grail, or eastward to where -rested the Holy Rood, and it would be strange if he -did not become conscious of the presence of eternal -spiritual antagonists, wrestling for the mastery.</p> - -<p>He would at any rate be made aware of the fatal -force of Inanimate Objects over human destiny.</p> - -<p>There would seem to him something positively -monstrous and sinister about the manner in which -this brute mass of inert sandstone had possessed -itself of the lives of the generations. It had come -to this at last; that those who owned the Hill -owned the dwellers beneath the Hill; and the Hill -itself owned them that owned it.</p> - -<p>The name by which the thing had come to be -known indicated sufficiently well its nature.</p> - -<p>Like a couchant desert-lion it overlooked its prey; -and would continue to do so, as long as the planet -lasted.</p> - -<p>Out of its inexhaustible bowels the tawny monster -fed the cities of seven countries—cities whose halls, -churches, theatres, and markets, mocked the caprices -of rain and sun as obdurately as their earth-bound -parent herself.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> - -<p>The sandstone of Leo’s Hill remains, so architects -tell us, the only rival of granite, as a means for the -perpetuation of human monuments. Even granite -wears less well than this, in respect to the assaults of -rain and flood. The solitary mysterious monoliths -of Stonehenge, with their unknown, alien origin, alone -seem to surpass it in their eternal perdurance.</p> - -<p>As far as Nevilton itself is concerned everything in -the place owes its persuasive texture to this resistant -yet soft material. From the lordly Elizabethan mansion -to the humblest pig-stye, they all proceed from -the entrails of Leo’s Hill; and they all still wear—these -motley whelps of the great dumb beast—its -tawny skin, its malleable sturdiness, its enduring -consistence.</p> - -<p>Who can resist a momentary wonder at the strange -mutability of the fate that governs these things? -The actual slabs, for example, out of which the high -shafts and slender pinnacles of the church-tower were -originally hewn, must once have lain in littered heaps -for children to scramble upon, and dogs to rub -against. And now they are the windy resting-places, -and airy “coigns of vantage,” of all the feathered -tribes in their migrations!</p> - -<p>What especially separates the Stone of Leo’s Hill -from its various local rivals, is its chameleon-like -power of taking tone and colour from every element -it touches. While Purbeck marble, for instance, -must always remain the same dark, opaque, slippery -thing it was when it left its Dorset coast; while -Portland stone can do nothing but grow gloomier -and gloomier, in its ashen-grey moroseness, under the -weight of the London fogs; the tawny progeny of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -this tyrant of the western vales becomes amber-streaked -when it restricts the play of fountains, -orange-tinted when it protects herbacious borders, -and rich as a petrified sunset when it drinks the -evening light from the mellow front of a Cathedral -Tower.</p> - -<p>Apart from any geological affinity, it might almost -seem as though this Leonian stone possessed some -weird occult relation to those deep alluvial deposits -which render the lanes and fields about Nevilton so -thick with heavy earth.</p> - -<p>Though closer in its texture to sand than to clay, -it is with clay that its local usage is more generally -associated, and it is into a clay-bed that it crumbles -at last, when the earth retakes her own. Its prevailing -colour is rather the colour of clay than of sand, -and no material that could be found could lend itself -more congruously to the clinging consistence of a -clay floor.</p> - -<p>It would be impossible to conceive of a temple of -marble or Portland stone rising out of the embrace -of the thick Nevilton soil. But Leonian sandstone -seems no more than a concentrated petrifaction of -such soil—its natural evocation, its organic expression. -The soil calls out upon it day and night with -friendly recognition, and day and night it answers the -call. There is thus no escape for the human victims -of these two accomplices. In confederate reciprocity -the stone receives them from the clay, and the clay -receives them from the stone. They pass from homes -built irretrievably of the one, into smaller and more -permanent houses, dug irretrievably out of the other.</p> - -<p>The character of the soil in that corner of Somersetshire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -is marked, beyond everything else, by the clinging -tenacity of its soft, damp, treacherous earth. -It is a spot loved by the west-wind, and by the rains -brought by the west-wind. Overshadowed by the -lavish fertility of its abounding foliage, it never seems -to experience enough sunshine to draw out of it the -eternal presence of this oppressive dampness. The -lush pastures may thicken, the rich gardens blossom, -the ancient orchards ripen; but an enduring sense of -something depressing and deep and treacherous lurks -ever in the background of these pleasant things. -Not a field but has its overshadowing trees; and not -a tree but has its roots loosely buried in that special -kind of soft, heavy earth, which an hour’s rain can -change into clinging mud.</p> - -<p>It is in the Nevilton churchyard, when a new -grave is being dug, that this sinister peculiarity of -the earth-floor is especially noticeable. The sight of -those raw, rough heaps of yellow clay, tossed out -upon grass and flowers, is enough to make the living -shrink back in terror from the oblong hole into which -they have consigned their dead. All human cemeteries -smell, like the hands of the Shakespearean king, -of forlorn mortality; but such mortality seems more -palpably, more oppressively emphasized among the -graves of Nevilton than in other repositories of the -dead. To be buried in many a burying-ground one -knows, would be no more than a negative terror; no -more than to be deprived, as Homer puts it, of the -sweet privilege of the blessed air. But to be buried -in Nevilton clay has a positive element in its dreadfulness. -It is not so much to be buried, as to be -sucked in, drawn down, devoured, absorbed. Never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -in any place does the peculiar congruity between the -yellowness of the local clay and the yellowness of the -local stone show so luridly as among these patient -hillocks.</p> - -<p>The tombstones here do not relieve the pressure of -fate by appealing, in marble whiteness, away from -the anthropophagous earth, to the free clouds of -heaven. They are of the earth, and they conspire -with the earth. They yearn to the soil, and the soil -yearns to them. They weigh down upon the poor -relics consigned to their care, in a hideous partnership -with the clay that is working its will upon them.</p> - -<p>And the rank vegetation of the place assists -this treachery. Orange-tinted lichen and rusty-red -weather-stains alternate with the encroachments of -moss and weeds in reducing each separate protruding -slab into conformity with what is about it and beneath -it. This churchyard, whose stone and clay -so cunningly intermingle, is in an intimate sense the -very navel and centre of the village. Above it rises -the tall perpendicular tower of St. Catharine’s church; -and beyond it, on the further side of a strip of pasture, -a stagnant pond, and a solitary sycamore, stands the -farm that is locally named “the Priory.” This -house, the most imposing of all in the village except -the Manor, has as its immediate background the -umbrageous conical eminence where the Holy Rood -was found. It is a place adapted to modern usage -from a noble fragment of monastic ruin. Here, in -mediæval days, rose a rich Cistercian abbey, to which, -doubtless, the pyramidal mount, in the background, -offered a store of consecrated legends.</p> - -<p>North of the churchyard, beyond the main village<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -street with its formal town-like compactness, the -ground slopes imperceptibly up, past a few enclosed -cottage-orchards, to where, embosomed in gracious -trees and Italianated gardens, stands the pride and -glory of Nevilton, its stately Elizabethan house.</p> - -<p>This house, founded in the reign of Henry VIII, -synchronized in its foundation with the overthrow of -the Cistercian Order, and was constructed entirely -of Leonian stone, removed for the purpose of building -it from the scene of the Priory’s destruction. Twice -over, then, in their human history, since they left -the entrails of that brooding monster over which the -Nevilton people see the sun set each day, had these -carved pieces of sandstone contributed to the pride -of the rulers of men.</p> - -<p>Their first use had not been attended with an -altogether propitious destiny. How far their present -use will prove of happier omen remains a secret of -the adamantine Fates. The imaginary weaving of -events, upon which we are just now engaged, may -perhaps serve, as certain liturgical formulæ of propitiation -served in former days, as a means of averting -the wrath of the Eumenides. For though made use -of again and again for fair and pious purposes, something -of the old heathen malignity of the Druid hill -still seems to hang about the stone it yields; and over -the substance of that stone’s destiny the two Mythologies -still struggle; Power and Sacrifice dividing the -living and the dead.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br /> -<span class="smaller">NEVILTON</span></h2> - -<p>Until within some twenty years of the date -with which we are now concerned, the distinguished -family who originally received the -monastic estates from the royal despot had held -them intact and unassailed. By an evil chance however, -the property had extended itself, during the -eighteenth century, so as to include the larger portion -of Leo’s Hill; and since that day its possession had -been attended by misfortune. The ancient aboriginal -fortress proved as fatal to its modern invaders as it -had proved in remoter times to Roman, Saxon and -Norman.</p> - -<p>A fanciful imagination might indeed have amused -itself with the curious dream, that some weird Druidic -curse had been laid upon that grass-grown island of -yellow rock, bringing disaster and eclipse to all who -meddled with it. Such an imagination would have -been able to fortify its fancy by recalling the suggestive -fact that at the bottom of the large woodland -pond, indicated in this narrative under the name of -Auber Lake, was discovered, not many years before, -an immense slab of Leonian stone, inscribed with -symbols baffling interpretation, but suggesting, to one -antiquarian mind at least, a hint of prehistoric Devil-Worship. -However this may be, it is certain that -the family of Seldom found themselves finally faced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -with the alternative of selling the place they loved or -of seeing it lapse under their hands into confusion -and neglect. Of these evil alternatives they chose the -former; and thus the estates, properties, royalties, -and appurtenances, of the historic Manor of Nevilton -fell into the hands of a clever financier from Lombard -Street.</p> - -<p>The family of Mr. Mortimer Romer had never at -any time bowed its knee in kings’ houses. Nor were -its religious antecedents marked by orthodox reputation. -Mr. Romer was indeed in every sense of the -word a “self-made man.” But though neither Christian -nor Jew,—for his grandfather, the fish-monger -of Soho, had been of the Unitarian persuasion—it -cannot be denied that he possessed the art of making -himself thoroughly respected by both the baptized -and the circumcised. He indeed pursued his main -purpose, which was the acquiring of power, with -an unscrupulousness worthy of a Roman Emperor. -Possibly it was this Roman tenacity in him, combined -with his heathen indifference to current theology, -which propitiated the avenging deities of Leo’s Hill. -So far at any rate he had been eminently successful -in his speculations. He had secured complete possession -of every quarry on the formidable eminence; -and the company of which he was both director and -president was pursuing its activities in a hundred new -directions. It had, in the few last years, gone so far -as to begin certain engineering assaults upon those -remote portions of the ancient escarpments that had -been left untouched since the legions of Claudius -Cæsar encamped under their protection.</p> - -<p>The bulk of Mr. Romer’s stone-works were on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -Hill itself; but others, intended for the more delicate -finishing touches, were situated in a convenient spot -close to Nevilton Station. Out of these sheds and -yards, built along the railway-track, arose, from -morning to night, the monotonous, not unpleasing, -murmur of wheels and saws and grindstones. The -contrast between these sounds and the sylvan quietness -of the vicarage garden, which sloped down -towards them, was one of the most significant indications -of the clash of the Two Mythologies in this -place. The priest meditating among his roses upon -the vanity of all but “heavenly habitations” might -have been in danger of being too obtrusively reminded -of the pride of the houses that are very definitely -“made with hands.” Perhaps this was one of the -reasons why the present incumbent of Nevilton had -preferred a more undisturbed retreat.</p> - -<p>The general manager of Mortimer Romer’s quarries -was a certain Mr. Lickwit, who served also as his -confidential adviser in many other spheres.</p> - -<p>The works at Nevilton Station were left to the -superintendence of two brothers named Andersen, -skilled stone-cutters, sons of the famous Gideon -Andersen known to architects all over the kingdom -for his designs in Leonian stone. Both Gideon -and his wife Naomi were buried in Nevilton churchyard, -and the brothers were condemned in the -village as persons of an almost scandalous piety -because of their innocent habit of lingering on warm -summer evenings over their parents’ grave. They -lived together, these two, as lodgers with the station-master, -in a newly built cottage close to their work. -Their social position in the place was a curious and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -anomalous one. Their father’s reputation as a sculptor -had brought him into touch with every grade of -society; and the woman who became his wife was by -birth what is usually termed a lady. Gideon himself -had been a rough and gross fellow; and after his -wife’s death had hastened to take his sons away from -school and apprentice them to his own trade. They -were in many respects a noteworthy pair, though -scarcely favourites, either with their fellow-workmen -or their manager.</p> - -<p>James Andersen, the elder by some ten years, was -of a morose, reserved temper, and though a capable -workman never seemed happy in the work-shop. -Luke, on the contrary, possessed a peculiarly sunny -and serene spirit.</p> - -<p>They were both striking in appearance. The -younger approximated to that conventional type of -beauty which is popularly known as being “like a -Greek god.” The elder, tall, swarthy, and sinister, -suggested rather the image of some gloomy idol -carved on the wall of an Assyrian temple. What, -however, was much more remarkable than their -appearance was their devoted attachment to one -another. They lived, worked, ate, drank, walked -and slept together. It was impossible to separate -them. Had Mr. Lickwit dismissed James, Luke would -immediately have thrown down his tools. Had -Luke been the banished one, James would have -followed him into exile.</p> - -<p>It had fallen to Mr. Romer, some seven years -before our narrative begins, to appoint a new vicar -to Nevilton; and he had appointed one of such -fierce ascetic zeal and such pronounced socialistic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -sympathies, that he had done nothing since but -vehemently and bitterly repent his choice.</p> - -<p>The Promoter of Companies had been betrayed -into this blunder by the impulse of revengeful -caprice, the only impulse in his otherwise well-balanced -nature that might be termed dangerous to -himself.</p> - -<p>He had quarrelled with the bishop over some -matter connected with his stone-works; and in -order to cause this distinguished prelate grief -and annoyance he had looked about for someone -to honour who was under the episcopal ban. The -bishop, however, was of so discreet a temper and -so popular in his diocese that the only rebel to his -authority that could be discovered was one of the -curates of a church at Yeoborough who had insisted -upon preaching the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation.</p> - -<p>The matter would probably have lapsed into -quiescence, save for the crafty interference in the -local newspaper of a group of aggressive Nonconformists, -who took this opportunity of sowing desirable -dissension between the higher and lower orders -of the hated Establishment.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer, who, like Gallio, cared for none of -these things, and was at heart a good deal worse -than a Nonconformist, seized upon the chance -offered by the death of Nevilton’s vicar; and installed -as his successor this rebel to ecclesiastical -authority.</p> - -<p>Once installed, however, the Rev. Hugh Clavering -speedily came to an understanding with his bishop; -compromised on the matter of preaching Transubstantiation;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -and apparently was allowed to go on -believing in it.</p> - -<p>And it was then that the Promoter of Companies -learned for the first time how much easier it is to -make a priest than to unmake him. For situation -after situation arose in which the master of the -Leonian quarries found himself confronted by an -alien Power—a Power that refused to worship -Sandstone. Before this rupture, however, the young -Priest had persuaded Mr. Romer to let him live in -the Old Vicarage, a small but cheerful house just -opposite the church door. The orthodox vicarage, -a rambling Early Victorian structure standing in -its own grounds at the end of the West Drive, -was let—once more at the Priest’s suggestion—to -the last living representatives of the dispossessed -Seldoms.</p> - -<p>It indicated a good deal of spirit on the part of -Valentia Seldom and her daughter thus to return to -the home of their ancestors.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Seldom was a cousin of the man who had -sold the estate. Her daughter Vennie, brought up -in a school at Florence, had never seen Nevilton, -and it was with the idea of taking advantage for the -girl’s sake of their old prestige in that corner of -England that Valentia accepted Mr. Romer’s offer -and became the vicarage tenant.</p> - -<p>The quarry-owner himself was influenced in carrying -through this affair, by his anxiety, for the sake -of <em>his</em> daughter, to secure a firmer footing with the -aristocracy of the neighborhood. Here again, however, -he was destined to disappointment: for once -in possession of her twenty years’ lease the old lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -showed not the least intention of letting herself be -used as a social stepping-stone.</p> - -<p>She had, indeed, under her own roof, cause enough -for preoccupation and concern.</p> - -<p>Her daughter—a little ghost-moth of a girl, of -fragile delicacy—seemed entirely devoid of that -mysterious magnetic attraction which lures to the -side of most virgins the devotion of the opposite -sex. She appeared perfectly content to remain forever -in her tender maidenhood, and refused to exert -the slightest effort to be “nice” to the charming -young people her mother threw in her way. She -belonged to that class of young girls who seem to -be set apart by nature for other purposes than those -of the propagation of the race.</p> - -<p>Her wistful spirit, shrinking into itself like the -leaves of a sensitive plant at the least approach of -a rough hand, responded only to one passionate -impulse, the impulse of religion.</p> - -<p>She grew indeed so estranged from the normal -world, that it was not only Valentia who concealed -the thought that when she left the earth the ancient -race of Seldoms would leave it with her.</p> - -<p>Nor was it only in regard to her child’s religious -obsession that the lady suffered. She had flatly -refused to let her enter into anything but the coldest -relations with “those dreadful people at the -House”; and it was with a peculiar shock of dismay -that she found that the girl was not literally obeying -her. It was not, however, to the Romers themselves -that Vennie made her shy overtures, but to a luckless -little relative of that family now domiciled with -them as companion to Gladys Romer.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> - -<p>This young dependent, reputed in the village to -be of Italian origin, struck the gentle heart of the -last of the Seldoms with indescribable pity. She -could not altogether define the impression the girl -produced upon her, but it was a singularly oppressive -one, and it vexed and troubled her.</p> - -<p>The situation was wretchedly complicated. It was -extremely difficult to get a word with the little companion -without encountering Gladys; and any approach -to intimacy with “the Romer girl” would -have meant an impossible scene with Mrs. Seldom. -Nor was it a light undertaking, in such hurried -interviews as she did manage to secure, to induce -the child to drop her reserve. She would fix her -great brown foreign eyes—her name was Lacrima -Traffio—on Vennie’s face, and make curious little -helpless gestures with her hands when questions -were asked her; but speak of herself she would not.</p> - -<p>It was clear she was absolutely dependent on her -cousins. Vennie gathered as much as that, as she -once talked with her under the church wall, when -Gladys was chatting with the vicar. A reference to -her own people had nearly resulted in an outburst -of tears. Vennie had had to be content with a -broken whisper: “We come from Rapallo—they -are all dead.” There was nothing, it appeared, that -could be added to this.</p> - -<p>It was perhaps a little inconsistent in the old lady -to be so resolute against her daughter’s overtures to -Lacrima, as she herself had no hesitation in making -a sort of protégé of another of Mr. Romer’s tribe.</p> - -<p>This was an eccentric middle-aged bachelor who -had drifted into the place soon after the new-comer’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -arrival and had established himself in a dilapidated -cottage on the outskirts of the Auber woods.</p> - -<p>Remotely related to Mrs. Romer, he had in some -way become dependent on her husband, whose financial -advantage over him was not, it seemed, as time -went on, exerted in a very considerate manner.</p> - -<p>Maurice Quincunx, for such was his unusual name, -was an illegitimate descendant of one of the most -historic houses in the neighborhood, but both his -poverty and his opinions caused him to live what -was practically the life of a hermit, and made him -shrink away, even more nervously than little Vennie -Seldom, from any intercourse with his equals.</p> - -<p>The present possessors of his queer ancient name -were now the Lords of Glastonbury, and had probably -never so much as heard of Maurice’s existence.</p> - -<p>He would come by stealth to pay Valentia visits, -preferring the evening hours when in the summer -she used to sit with her work, on a terrace overlooking -a sloping orchard, and watch Vennie water -her roses.</p> - -<p>The vicarage terrace was a place of extraordinary -quiet and peace, eminently adapted to the low-voiced, -nervous ramblings of a recluse of Maurice Quincunx’s -timidity.</p> - -<p>The old lady by degrees quite won this eccentric’s -heart; and the queerly assorted friends would pace -up and down for hours in the cool of the evening -talking of things in no way connected either with -Mr. Romer or the Church—the two subjects about -which Mr. Quincunx held dangerously strong views.</p> - -<p>Apart from this quaint outcast and the youthful -parson, Mrs. Seldom’s only other intimate in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -place was a certain John Francis Taxater, a gentleman -of independent means, living by himself with -an old housekeeper in a cottage called The Gables, -situated about half-way between the vicarage and -the village.</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater was a Catholic and also a philosopher; -these two peculiarities affording the solution to what -otherwise would have been an insoluble psychic -riddle. Even as it was, Mr. Taxater’s mind was of -so subtle and complicated an order, that he was at -once the attraction and the despair of all the religious -thinkers of that epoch. For it must be -understood that though quietly resident under the -shadow of Nevilton Mount, the least essay from Mr. -Taxater’s pen was eagerly perused by persons interested -in religious controversy in all the countries of -Europe.</p> - -<p>He wrote for philosophical journals in London, -Paris, Rome and New York; and there often appeared -at The Gables most surprising visitors -from Germany and Italy and Spain.</p> - -<p>He had a powerful following among the more -subtle-minded of the Catholics of England; and was -highly respected by important personages in the social, -as well as the literary circles, of Catholic society.</p> - -<p>The profundity of his mind may be gauged from -the fact that he was able to steer his way successfully -through the perilous reefs of “modernistic” -discussion, without either committing himself to heretical -doctrine or being accused of reactionary ultramontanism.</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater’s written works were, however, but -a trifling portion of his personality. His intellectual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -interests were as rich and varied as those of some -great humanist of the Italian Renaissance, and his -personal habits were as involved and original as his -thoughts were complicated and deep.</p> - -<p>He was perpetually engaged in converting the -philosopher in him to Catholicism, and the Catholic -in him to philosophy—yet he never permitted either -of these obsessions to interfere with his enjoyment -of life.</p> - -<p>Luke Andersen, who was perhaps of all the inhabitants -of Nevilton most conscious of the drama -played around him, used to maintain that it was -impossible to tell in the last resort whether Mr. -Taxater’s place was with the adherents of Christ or -with the adherents of Anti-Christ. Like his prototype, -the evasive Erasmus, he seemed able to be on -both sides at the same time.</p> - -<p>Perhaps it was a secret consciousness of the singular -position of Nevilton, planted, as it were, between -two streams of opposing legend, that originally led -Mr. Taxater to take up his abode in so secluded -a spot.</p> - -<p>It is impossible to tell. In this as in all other -transactions of his life he combined an unworldly -simplicity with a Machiavellian astuteness. If the -Day of Judgment revealed him as being on the side -of the angels, it might also reveal him as having -exercised, in the microcosmic Nevilton drama, as -well as in his wider sphere, one of the most subtle -influences against the Powers of Darkness that those -Powers ever encountered in their invisible activity.</p> - -<p>At the moment when the present narrative takes -up the woven threads of these various persons’ lives<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -there seemed every prospect that in external nature -at least there was going to be an auspicious and -halcyon season. June had opened with abnormal -pleasantness. Exquisite odours were in the air, -wafted from woods and fields and gardens. White -dust, alternating with tender spots of coolness where -the shadows of trees fell, lent the roads in the -vicinity that leisured gala-day expectancy which -one notes in the roads of France and Spain, but -which is so rare in England.</p> - -<p>It seemed almost as though the damp sub-soil -of the place had relaxed its malign influence; as -though the yellow clay in the churchyard had -ceased its calling for victims; and as though the -brooding monster in the sunset, from which every -day half the men of the village returned with their -spades and picks, had put aside, as irrelevant to a -new and kindlier epoch, its ancient hostility to the -Christian dwellers in that quiet valley.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br /> -<span class="smaller">OLYMPIAN CONSPIRACY</span></h2> - -<p>The depths of Mr. Romer’s mind, as he paced -up and down the Leonian pavement under the -east front of his house on one of the early days -of this propitious June, were seething with predatory -projects. The last of the independent quarries on the -Hill had just fallen into his hands after a legal process -of more than usual chicanery, conducted in person -by the invaluable Mr. Lickwit.</p> - -<p>He was now occupied in pushing through Parliament -a bill for the reduction of railway freight -charges, so that the expense of carrying his stone to -its various destinations might be materially reduced. -But it was not only of financial power that he thought -as the smell of the roses from the sun-baked walls -floated in upon him across the garden.</p> - -<p>The man’s commercial preoccupations had not by -any means, as so often happens, led to the atrophy -of his more personal instincts.</p> - -<p>His erotic appetite, for instance, remained as -insatiable as ever. Age did not dull, nor finance -wither, that primordial craving. The aphrodisiac instincts -in Mortimer Romer were, however, much less -simple than might be supposed.</p> - -<p>In this hyper-sensual region he had more claim -to artistic subtlety than his enemies realized. He -rarely allowed himself the direct expansion of frank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -and downright lasciviousness. His little pleasures -were indirect, elaborate, far-fetched.</p> - -<p>He afforded really the interesting spectacle of -one whose mind was normal, energetic, dynamic; -but whose senses were slow, complicated, fastidious. -He was a formidable forward-marching machine, with -a heart of elaborate perversity. He was a thick-skinned -philistine with the sensuality of a sybarite.</p> - -<p>I do not mean to imply that there was any lack -of rapacity in the senses of Mr. Romer. His senses -were indeed unfathomable in their devouring depths. -But they were liable to fantastic caprices. They -were not the simple animal senses of a Gothic barbarian. -They assumed imperial contortions.</p> - -<p>The main eccentricity of the erotic tendencies of -this remarkable man lay in the elaborate pleasure he -derived from his sense of power. The actual lure of -the flesh had little attraction for him. What pleased -him was a slow tightening of his grip upon people—upon -their wills, their freedom, their personality.</p> - -<p>Any impression a person might make upon Mr. -Romer’s senses was at once transformed into a -desire to have that person absolutely at his mercy. -The thought that he held such a one reduced to -complete spiritual helplessness alone satisfied him.</p> - -<p>The first time he had encountered Lacrima Traffio -he had been struck by her appealing eyes, her fragile -figure, her frightened gestures. Deep in his perverted -heart he had desired her; but his desire, under the -psychic law I have endeavoured to explain, quickly -resolved itself into a resolution to take possession -of her, not as his mistress, but as his slave.</p> - -<p>Nor did the subtle elaboration of his perversity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -stop there. It were easy and superficial to dominate -in his own person so helpless a dependent. What -was less easy was to reduce her to submission to -the despotic caprices of his daughter, a girl only a -few years older than herself.</p> - -<p>The enjoyment of a sense of vicarious power was -a satisfaction curiously provocative to his predatory -craving. Nor did subtlety of the situation stop at -that point. It was not only necessary that the girl -who attracted him should be at his daughter’s -mercy; it was necessary that his daughter should -not be unconscious of the rôle she herself played. -It was necessary that they should be in a sense -confederates in this game of cat-and-mouse.</p> - -<p>As Mr. Romer paced the terrace of his imposing -mansion a yet profounder triumph presented itself -in the recesses of his imperial nature.</p> - -<p>He had lately introduced into his “entourage” a -certain brother-in-law of his, the widower of his -sister, a man named John Goring. This individual -was of a much simpler, grosser type than the recondite -quarry-owner. He was, indeed, no more than -a narrow-minded, insolent, avaricious animal. He -lacked even the superficial gentility of his formidable -relation. Nor had his concentrated but unintelligent -avarice brought him, so far, any great wealth. He -still remained, in spite of Romer’s help, what he -had been born, an English farmer of unpropitiating -manners and supernal greed.</p> - -<p>The Promoter of Companies was, however, not -unaware, any more than was Augustus Cæsar, of -the advantage accruing to a despot from the possession -of devoted, if unattractive, tools; and contemptuously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -risking the shock to his social prestige of -such an apparition in the neighborhood, he had -secured Mr. Goring as a permanent tenant of the -largest farm on his estate. This was no other than -the Priory Farm, with its gentle monastic memories. -What the last Prior of Nevilton would have thought -could he have left his grave under St. Catharine’s -altar and reappeared among his dove-cotes it is -distressing to surmise. He would doubtless have -drawn from the sight of John Goring a profoundly -edifying moral as to the results of royal interference -with Christ’s Holy Church. Nor is it likely -that an encounter with Mr. Romer himself would -have caused less astonishment to his mediæval -spirit. He would, indeed, have recognized that what -is now called Progress is no mere scientific phrase; -but a most devastating reality. He would have -found that Nevilton had “progressed” very far. He -would have believed that the queer stone-devils that -his monks had carved, half emerging from the eaves -of the church-roof, had got quite loose and gone -abroad among men. Had he probed, in the manner -of clairvoyant saints, the troubled recesses of Mr. -Romer’s mind as that gentleman inhaled the sweet -noon air, he would have cried aloud his indignation -and made the sign of the cross as if over a mortuary -of spiritual decomposition.</p> - -<p>For as the mid-day sun of that hot June morning -culminated, and the clear hard shadows fell, sharp -and thin, upon the orange-tinted pavement, it entered -Mr. Romer’s head that he might make a more -personal use of his farmer-brother than had until -now been possible.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> - -<p>With this idea in his brain he entered the house -and sought his wife in her accustomed place at the -corner of the large reception-hall. He sat down -forthright by the side of her mahogany table and -lit a cigar. As Mr. Romer was the species of male -animal that might be written down in the guidebook -of some Martian visitor as “the cigar-smoking -variety” his wife would have taken her place among -“the sedentary knitting ones.”</p> - -<p>She was a large, fair, plump, woman, as smooth -and pallid as her husband was grizzled and ruddy. -Her obsequious deference to her lord’s views was only -surpassed by her lethargic animal indolence. She -was like a great, tame, overgrown, white-skinned -Puma. Her eyes had the greenish tint of feline eyes, -and something of their daylight contraction. Her -use of spectacles did not modify this tendency, but -rather increased it; for the effect of the round glass -orbs pushed up upon her forehead was to enhance -the malicious gleam of the little narrow-lidded slits -that peered out beneath them.</p> - -<p>It may be imagined with what weary and ironical -detachment the solemn historic portraits of the ancient -Seldoms—for the pictures and furniture had been -sold with the house—looked out from their gilded -frames upon these ambiguous intruders. But neither -husband nor wife felt the least touch of “compunctuous -visiting” as they made themselves at ease under -that immense contempt.</p> - -<p>“I have been thinking,” said Mr. Romer, puffing -a thick cloud of defiant smoke into the air, so that -it went sailing up to the very feet of a delicate -Reynolds portrait; “I have been thinking that I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -really quite unjustified in going on with that allowance -to Quincunx. He ought to realize that he has -completely exhausted the money your aunt left him. -He ought to face the situation, instead of quietly -accepting our gift as if it were his right. And they -tell me he does not even keep a civil tongue in his -head. Lickwit was only complaining the other day -about his tampering with our workmen. He has -been going about for some time with those damned -Andersen fellows, and no doubt encouraging them in -their confounded impertinence.</p> - -<p>“I don’t like the man, my dear;—that is the plain -truth. I have never liked him; and he has certainly -never even attempted to conceal his dislike of me.”</p> - -<p>“He is very polite to your face, Mortimer,” murmured -the lady.</p> - -<p>“Exactly,” Mr. Romer rejoined, “to my face he is -more than polite. He is obsequious; he is cringing. -But behind my back—damn him!—the rascal is -a rattlesnake.”</p> - -<p>“Well, dear, no doubt it has all worked out for -the best”; purred the plump woman, softly counting -the threads of her knitting. “You were in need of -Aunt’s money at the time—in great need of it.”</p> - -<p>“I know I was,” replied the Promoter of Companies, -“I know I was; and he knows I was. That -is why I have been giving him six per cent on what -he lent me. But the fellow has had more than -that. He has had more by this time than the whole -original sum; and I tell you, Susan, it’s got to end;—it’s -got to end here, now, and forever!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer’s cigar-smoke had now floated up above -the feet of the Reynolds Portrait and was invading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -its gentle and melancholy face. It was a portrait -of a young girl in the court-dress of the time, but -with such pathetic nun-like features that it was -clear that little Vennie was not the only one of her -race to have grown weary of this rough world.</p> - -<p>“It is a providential thing, dear,” whispered the -knitting female, “that there were no horrid documents -drawn up about that money. Maurice cannot -impose upon us in that way.”</p> - -<p>“He is doing worse,” answered her husband. “He -is imposing upon us on the strength of a disgusting -sort of sickly sentiment. He has had all his money -back and more; and he knows he has. But he wants -to go on living on my money while he abuses me -on every occasion. Do you know, he even preaches -in that confounded social meeting? I shall have that -affair put a stop to, one of these days. It is only an -excuse for spreading dissatisfaction in the village. -Lickwit has complained to me about it more than -once. He says that Socialistic scoundrel Wone is -simply using the meeting to canvass for his election. -You know he is going to stand, in place of Sir -Herbert Ratcliffe? What the Liberal Party is doing -I cannot conceive—pandering to these slimy windbags! -And your blessed relation backs him up. The -thing is monstrous, outrageous! Here am I, allowing -this fellow a hundred a year to live in idleness; and -he is plotting against me at my very doorstep.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps he does not know that the Conservative -member is going to retire in your favour,” insinuated -the lady.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> -<p>“Know? Of course he knows! All the village -knows. All the country knows. You can never hide -things of that kind. He knows, and he is deliberately -working against me.”</p> - -<p>“It would be nice if he could get a place as a -clerk,” suggested Mr. Quincunx’s relative, pensively. -“It certainly does not seem fair that you, who work -so hard for the money you make, should support him -in complete idleness.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer looked at her thoughtfully, knocking -the ashes from his cigar. “I believe you have hit -it there, my dear,” he said. Then he smiled in a -manner peculiarly malignant. “Yes, it would be very -nice if he could get a place as a clerk—a place -where he would have plenty of simple office work—a -place where he would be kept to his desk, and not -allowed to roam the country corrupting honest workmen. -Yes, you are quite right, Susan; a clerk’s -place is what this Quincunx wants. And, by Heaven, -what he shall have! I’ll bring the affair to a head -at once. I’ll put it to him that your aunt’s money is -at an end, and that I have already paid him back -in full all that he lent me. I’ll put it to him that -he is now in my debt. In fact, that he is now -entirely dependent on me to the tune of a hundred -a year. And I’ll explain to him that he must either -go out into the world and shift for himself, as better -men than he have had to do, or enter Lickwit’s -office, either in Yeoborough or on the Hill.”</p> - -<p>“He will enter the office, Mortimer,” murmured -the lady; “he will enter the office. Maurice is not -the man to emigrate, or do anything of that kind. -Besides he has a reason”—here her voice became -so extremely mellifluous that it might almost be -said to have liquefied—“to stay in Nevilton.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What’s this?” cried Romer, getting up and throwing -his cigar out of the window. “You don’t mean -to tell me—eh?—that this scarecrow is in love -with Gladys?”</p> - -<p>The lady purred softly and replaced her spectacles. -“Oh dear no! What an idea! Oh certainly, certainly -not! But Gladys, you know, is not the only girl in -Nevilton.”</p> - -<p>“Who the devil is it then? Not Vennie Seldom, -surely?”</p> - -<p>“Look nearer, Mortimer, look nearer”; murmured -the lady with sibilant sweetness.</p> - -<p>“Not Lacrima! You don’t mean to say—”</p> - -<p>“Why, dear, you needn’t be so surprised. You -look more angry than if it had been Gladys herself. -Yes, of course it is Lacrima. Hadn’t you observed -it? But you dear men are so stupid, aren’t you, in -these things?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Romer rubbed one white hand over the -other; and beamed upon her husband through her -spectacles.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer frowned. “But the Traffio girl is so, -so—you know what I mean.”</p> - -<p>“So quiet and unimpressionable. Ah! my dear, -it is just these quiet girls who are the very ones to -be enjoying themselves on the sly.”</p> - -<p>“How far has this thing gone, Susan?”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> -<p>“Oh you needn’t get excited, Mortimer. It has not -really ‘gone’ anywhere. It has hardly begun. In -fact I have not the least authority for saying that -she cares for him at all. I think she does a little, -though. I <em>think</em> she does. But one never can tell. -I can, however, give you my word that he cares for -her. And that is what we were talking about, weren’t -we?”</p> - -<p>“I shall pack him off to my office in London,” -said Mr. Romer.</p> - -<p>“He wouldn’t go, my dear. I tell you he wouldn’t -go.”</p> - -<p>“But he can’t live on nothing.”</p> - -<p>“He can. He will. Sooner than leave Nevilton -Maurice would eat grass. He would become lay-reader -or something. He would sponge on Mrs. -Seldom.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then he shall walk to Yeoborough and -back every day. That will cool his blood for him.”</p> - -<p>“That will do him a great deal of good, dear; a -great deal of good. Auntie always used to say that -Maurice ought to take more exercise.”</p> - -<p>“Lickwit will exercise him! Make no mistake about -that.”</p> - -<p>“How you do look round you, dear, in all these -things! How impossible it is for anyone to fool <em>you</em>, -Mortimer!”</p> - -<p>As Mrs. Romer uttered these words she glanced -up at the Reynolds portrait above their heads, as -if half-suspecting that such fawning flattery would -bring down the mockery of the little Lady-in-Waiting.</p> - -<p>“I can’t help thinking Lacrima would make a very -good wife to some hard-working sensible man,” -Mr. Romer remarked.</p> - -<p>His lady looked a little puzzled. “It would be -difficult to find so suitable a companion for Gladys,” -she said.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> -<p>“Oh, of course I don’t mean till Gladys is married,” -said the quarry-owner quickly. “By the way, when -<em>is</em> she going to accept that young fool of an -Ilminster?”</p> - -<p>“All in good time, my dear, all in good time,” -purred his wife. “He has not proposed to her yet.”</p> - -<p>“It’s very curious,” remarked Mr. Romer pensively, -“that a young man of such high connections should -<em>wish</em> to marry our daughter.”</p> - -<p>“What things you say, Mortimer! Isn’t Gladys -going to inherit all this property? Don’t you suppose -that a younger son of Lord Tintinhull would -jump at the idea of being master of this house?”</p> - -<p>“He won’t be master of it while <em>I</em> live,” said Mr. -Romer grimly.</p> - -<p>“In my opinion he never will be”; added the lady. -“I don’t think Gladys really intends to accept him.”</p> - -<p>“She’ll marry somebody, I hope?” said the master -sharply.</p> - -<p>“O yes she’ll marry, soon enough. Only it’ll be a -cleverer man, and a richer man, than young Ilminster.”</p> - -<p>“Have you any other pleasant little romance to -fling at me?”</p> - -<p>“O no. But I know what our dear Gladys is. I -know what she is looking out for.”</p> - -<p>“When she does marry,” said Mr. Romer, “we -shall have to think seriously what is to become of -Lacrima. Look here, my dear,”—it was wonderful, -the pleasant ejaculatory manner in which this flash -of inspiration was thrown out,—“why not marry -her to John? She would be just the person for a -farmer’s wife.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Romer, to do her justice, showed signs of -being a little shocked at this proposal.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But John,”—she stammered;—“John—is not—exactly—a -marrying person, is he?”</p> - -<p>“He is—what I wish him to be”; was her husband’s -haughty answer.</p> - -<p>“Oh well, of course, dear, it’s as you think best. -Certainly”—the good woman could not resist this -little thrust—“it’s John’s only chance of marrying -a lady. For Lacrima is <em>that</em>—with all her faults.”</p> - -<p>“I shall talk to John about it”; said the Promoter -of Companies. Feline thing though she was, Susan -Romer could not refrain from certain inward qualms -when she thought of the fragile hyper-sensitive Italian -in the embraces of John Goring. What on earth set -her husband dreaming of such a thing? But he was -subject to strange caprices now and then; and it was -more dangerous to balk him in these things than in his -most elaborate financial plots. She had found that -out already. So, on the present occasion, she made -no further remark, than a reiterated—“How you do -look all round you, Mortimer! It is not easy for -anyone to fool <em>you</em>.”</p> - -<p>She rose from her seat and collected her knitting. -“I must go and see where Gladys is,” she said.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer followed her to the door, and went out -again upon the terrace. The little nun-like Lady-in-Waiting -looked steadily out across the room, her -pinched attenuated features expressing nothing but -patient weariness of all the ways of this mortal world.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br /> -<span class="smaller">REPRISALS FROM BELOW</span></h2> - -<p>It was approaching the moment consecrated to -the close of the day’s labour in the stone-works -by Nevilton railway-station. The sky was -cloudless; the air windless. It was one of those -magical arrests of the gliding feet of time, which -afternoons in June sometimes bring with them, holding -back, as it were, all living processes of life, in -sweet and lingering suspense. The steel tracks of the -railway-line glittered in the sun. In the fields, that -sloped away beyond them, the browsing cattle wore -that unruffled air of abysmal indifference, which seems -to make one day in their sight to be as a thousand -years. To these placid earth-children, drawing the -centuries together in solemn continuity, the tribes of -men and their turbulent drama were but as vapours -that came and went. The high elms in the hedges -had already assumed that dark monotonous foliage -which gives to their patient stillness on such a day -an atmosphere of monumental expectancy. A flock -of newly-sheared sheep, clean and shining in the hot -sun, drifted in crowded procession down the narrow -road, leaving a cloud of white dust behind them that -remained stationary in the air long after they had -passed. In the open stone-yard close to the road the -brothers Andersen were working together, chipping -and hammering with bare arms at an enormous Leonian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -slab, carving its edges into delicate mouldings. -The younger of the two wore no hat, and his closely -clipped fair curls and loose shirt open at the throat, -lent him, as he moved about his work with easy -gestures, a grace and charm well adapted to that -auspicious hour.</p> - -<p>A more sombre form by his brother’s side, his broad -brimmed hat low down over his forehead, the elder -Andersen went on with his carving, in imperturbable -morose absorption.</p> - -<p>Watching them with languid interest, their arms -linked together, stood the figures of two girls. The -yellow dust from the sandstone rose intermittently -into the air, mingling with the white dust from the -road and settling, as it sank earthward, upon the -leaves of the yet unbudded knapweed and scabious -which grew in the thin dusty grass.</p> - -<p>Between Gladys and her cousin—for the girls had -wandered as far as this in search of distraction after -their lazy tea on the great lawn—a curious contrast -was now displayed.</p> - -<p>Gladys, with slow provocative interest, was intent -on every movement of Luke’s graceful figure. Lacrima’s -attention wandered wistfully away, to the -cattle and the orchards, and then to the sheep, which -now were being penned in a low line of spacious -railway trucks.</p> - -<p>Luke himself was by no means unaware of the -condescending interest of his master’s daughter. He -paused in his work once or twice. He turned up his -shirt-sleeves still higher. He bent down, to blow -away the dust from the moulding he had made. -Something very like a flash of amorous admiration<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -passed across his blue eyes as he permitted them slyly -to wander from Gladys’ head to her waist, and from -her waist to her shoes. She certainly was an alluring -figure as she stood there in her thin white dress. The -hand which pulled her skirt away from the dust -showed as soft and warm as if it were pleading for a -caress, and the rounded contours of her bosom looked -as if they had ripened with the early peaches, under -the walls of her stately garden. She presently unlinked -her arm from her companion’s, and sliding it -softly round Lacrima’s side drew the girl close against -her. As she did this she permitted a slow amorous -glance of deliberate tantalization to play upon the -young carver. How well Luke Andersen knew that -especial device of maidens when they are together—that -way they have of making their playful, innocent -caresses such a teasing incentive! And Luke knew -well how to answer all this. Nothing could have -surpassed in subtle diplomacy the manner in which -he responded, without responding, to the amorous -girl’s overtures. He let her realize that he himself -understood precisely the limits of the situation; that -she was perfectly at liberty to enter a mock-flirtation -with him, without the remotest risk of any “faux -pas” on his part spoiling the delicacy of their relations.</p> - -<p>What was indeed obvious to her, without the necessity -of any such unspoken protestation, was the fact -that he found her eminently desirable. Nor did her -pride as “the girl up at the house” quarrel with her -vanity as the simple object of Luke’s admiration. -She wanted him to desire her as a girl;—to desire -her to madness. And then she wanted to flout him, -with her pretensions as a lady. This particular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -occasion was by no means the first time she had -drifted casually down the vicarage hill and lingered -beside the stone-cutters. It was, however, an epoch -in their curious relations. For the first time since -she had been attracted to him, she deliberately moved -close up to the stone he worked at, and entered into -conversation. While this occurred, Lacrima, released -from her rôle as the accomplice of amorous teasing, -wandered away, picking listlessly the first red poppies -of the year, which though less flaunting in -their bold splendour than those of her childhood’s -memories, were at least the same immortal classical -flowers.</p> - -<p>As she bent down in this assuaging pastime, letting -her thoughts wander so far from Nevilton and its -tyrants, Lacrima became suddenly conscious that -James Andersen had laid down his tools, resumed his -coat, and was standing by her side.</p> - -<p>“A beautiful evening, Miss”; he said respectfully, -holding his hat in his hand and regarding her with -grave gentleness.</p> - -<p>“Yes, isn’t it?” she answered at once; and then -was silent; while a sigh she could not suppress rose -from the depths of her heart. For her thoughts -reverted to another fair evening, in the days when -England was no more than a name; and a sudden -overpowering longing for kind voices, and the shadows -of olives on warm hill-sides, rushed, like a wave, over -her.</p> - -<p>“This must be near the Angelus-hour,” she thought; -and somehow the dark grave eyes of the man beside -her and his swarthy complexion made her think -of those familiar forms that used to pass driving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -their goats before them up the rocky paths of the -Apennine range.</p> - -<p>“You are unhappy, Miss,” said James in a low -voice; and these words, the only ones of genuine -personal tenderness, except for poor Maurice’s, that -had struck her sense for the last twelve months, -brought tears to her eyes. Vennie Seldom had -spoken kindly to her; but—God knows—there is a -difference between the kindness even of the gentlest -saint and this direct spontaneous outflow of one -heart to another. She smiled; a little mournful smile.</p> - -<p>“Yes; I was thinking of my own country,” she -murmured.</p> - -<p>“You are an Italian, Miss; I know it”; continued -Andersen, instinctively leading her further away from -the two golden heads that now were bending so close -together over the Leonian stone.</p> - -<p>“I often think of Italy,” he went on; “I think I -should be at home in Italy. I love everything I hear -of it, everything I read of it. It comes from my -mother, this feeling. She was a lady, you know Miss, -as well born as any and with a passionate love of -books. She used to read Dante in that little ‘Temple’ -Series, which perhaps you have seen, with the -Italian on one side and the English on the other. I -never look at that book without thinking of her.”</p> - -<p>“You have many books yourself, I expect,—Mr.—Andersen. -You see I know your name.” And -Lacrima smiled, the first perfectly happy smile she -had been betrayed into for many months.</p> - -<p>“It is not a very nice name,” said James, a little -plaintively. “I wish I had a name like yours Miss—Traffio.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Why, I think yours is quite as nice,” she answered -gravely. “It makes me think of the man who wrote -the fairy stories.”</p> - -<p>James Andersen frowned, “I don’t like fairy -stories,” he said almost gruffly. “They tease and fret -me. I like Thomas Hardy’s books. Do you know -Thomas Hardy?” Lacrima made a little involuntary -gesture of depreciation. As a matter of fact her -reading, until very lately, had been as conventual as -that of a young nun. Vennie Seldom or the demure -Reynolds girl could not have been more innocent of -the darker side of literature. Hardy’s books she had -seen in the hands of Gladys, and the association -repelled her. Pathetically anxious to brush away this -little cloud, she began hurriedly talking to her new -friend of Italy; of its cities, its sea-coasts, its monasteries, -its churches. James Andersen listened with -reverential attention, every now and then asking a -question which showed how deeply his mother’s love -of the classical country had sunk into his nature.</p> - -<p>By this time they had wandered along the road as -far as a little stone bridge with low parapets which -crosses there a muddy Somersetshire stream. From -this point the road rises quite steeply to the beginning -of the vicarage garden. Leaning against the parapet -of the little bridge, and looking back, they saw to -their surprise that Gladys and Luke had not only not -followed them but had completely disappeared.</p> - -<p>The last of the unskilled workmen from the sheds, -trailing up the road together laughing and chatting, -turned when they passed, and gazed back, as our -two companions were doing, at the work-shops -they had left, acknowledging Lacrima’s gentle “good-night”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -with a rather shifty salutation.—This girl -was after all only a dependent like themselves.—They -had hardly gone many steps before they burst -into a loud rough guffaw of rustic impertinence.</p> - -<p>Lacrima struck the ground nervously with her -parasol. “What has happened?” she asked; “where -has Gladys gone?”</p> - -<p>James Andersen shrugged his shoulders, “I expect -they have wandered into the shed,” he rejoined, “to -look at my brother’s work there.”</p> - -<p>She glanced nervously up and down the road; -gave a quaint little sigh and made an expressive -gesture with her hands as if disclaiming all responsibility -for her cousin’s doings. Then, quite suddenly, -she smiled at Andersen with a delicious childish smile -that transfigured her face.</p> - -<p>“Well, I am glad I am not left alone at any rate,” -she said.</p> - -<p>“I have a presentiment,” the stone-cutter answered, -“that this is not the last time you will be -thrown upon my poor company.”</p> - -<p>The girl blushed, and smiled confidingly. Her -manner was the manner of a child, who has at last -found a safe protector. Then all of a sudden she -became very grave. “I hope,” she said, “that you -are one of the people who are kind to Mr. Quincunx. -He is a <em>great</em> friend of mine.”</p> - -<p>Never had the melancholy intimation, that one -could not hope to hold anything but the second place -in a woman’s heart, been more tenderly or more -directly conveyed!</p> - -<p>James Andersen bowed his head.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> -<p>“Mr. Quincunx has always been very kind to <em>me</em>,” -he said, “and certainly, after what you say, I shall -do all in my power to help him. But I can do very -little. I believe Mrs. Seldom understands him better -than anyone else.”</p> - -<p>He had hardly finished speaking when the figures -of two men made themselves visible opposite the -back entrance of the vicarage. They were leisurely -strolling down the road, and every now and then they -would pause, as if the interest of their conversation -was more than the interest of the way.</p> - -<p>“Why! There <em>is</em> Mr. Quincunx,” cried the Italian; -and she made an instinctive movement as if to put a -little further space between herself and her companion. -“Who is that person with him?” she added.</p> - -<p>“It looks like George Wone,” answered the stone-cutter. -“Yes, it is George; and he is talking as -usual at the top of his voice. You’d suppose he -wanted to be heard by all Nevilton.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima hesitated and looked very embarrassed. -She evidently did not know whether to advance in -the direction of the new-comers or to remain where -she was. Andersen came to her rescue.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” said he, “it would be better if I went -back and told Miss Romer you are waiting for her.” -Lacrima gave him a quick glance of responsive -gratitude.</p> - -<p>“O, that would be really kind of you, Mr. Andersen,” -she said.</p> - -<p>The moment he had gone, however, she felt annoyed -that she had let him go. It looked so odd, she -thought, his leaving her so suddenly, directly Maurice -came on the scene. Besides, what would Gladys say -at this interruption of her pleasure? She would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -suppose she had done it out of pure spitefulness! -The moments seemed very long to her as she waited -at the little bridge, tracing indecipherable hieroglyphics -in the dust with the end of her parasol. -She kept her eyes steadily fixed on the tall retreating -figure of the stone-cutter as he slouched with his long -shambling stride towards the work-shop. The two -men were not, however, really long in approaching. -Maurice had seen her from the beginning, and his -replies to Mr. Wone’s oratory had grown proportionally -brief.</p> - -<p>When they reached her, the girl shook hands with -Maurice and bowed rather coldly to Mr. Wone. -That gentleman was not however in the least quelled -or suppressed. It was one of his most marked -characteristics to have absolutely no consciousness of -season or situation. When less clever people would -have wished the earth to swallow them up, Mr. Wone -remained imperviously self-satisfied. Having exchanged -greetings, Lacrima hastened to explain that -she was waiting at this spot till Miss Romer should -rejoin her. “Luke Andersen is showing her his -work,” she said, “and James has gone to tell her I am -waiting.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone became voluble at this. “It is a shame -to keep a young lady like yourself waiting in the -middle of the road.” He turned to Mr. Quincunx.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -“We must not say all we think, must we? But -begging this young lady’s pardon, it is just like the -family. No consideration! No consideration for -anyone! It is the same with his treatment of the -poor. I am talking of Mr. Romer, you know, Miss. -I would say the same thing to his face. Why is it -that hard-working clever fellows, like these Andersens -for instance, should do all the labour, and he get all -the profits? It isn’t fair. It’s unjust. It’s an insult -to God’s beautiful earth, which is free to all.” He -paused to take breath, and looked to Maurice for -confirmation of his words.</p> - -<p>“You are quite right, Wone; you are quite right,” -muttered the recluse in his beard, furtively glancing -at Lacrima.</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone continued his discourse, making large -and eloquent allusion to the general relations in -England between employer and employed, and implying -plainly enough his full knowledge that at least -one of his hearers belonged to the latter class. His -air, as he spoke, betrayed a certain disordered fanaticism, -quite genuine and deeply felt, but queerly -mingled with an indescribable element of complacent -self-conceit. Lacrima, in spite of considerable sympathy -with much that he said, felt that there was, in -the man himself, something so slipshod, so limp, so -vague, and so patently vulgar, that both her respect -for his sincerity and her interest in his opinions were -reduced to nothing. Not only was he narrow-minded -and ignorant; but there was also about him, in spite -of the aggressive violence of his expressions, an odd -sort of deprecatory, apologetic air, as though he were -perpetually endeavouring to cajole his audience, by -tacit references to his deferential respect for them. -There was indeed more than a little in him of the sleek -unction of the nonconformist preacher; and one could -well understand how he might combine, precisely as -Mr. Lickwit suspected, the divergent functions of the -politician and the evangelist.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I tell you,” he was saying, “the country will not -long put up with this sort of thing. There is a movement, -a tendency, a volcanic upheaval, a stirring of -waters, which these plutocrats do not realize. There -is a surging up from the depths of—of—” He -paused for a word.</p> - -<p>“Of mud,” murmured Mr. Quincunx.</p> - -<p>“—Of righteous revolt against these atrocious inequalities! -The working people are asleep no longer. -They’re roused. The movement’s begun. The thunder’s -gathering on the horizon. The armies of the -exploited are feeling the impulse of their own strength, -of that noble, that splendid anger, which, when it is -conceived, will bring forth—will bring forth—”</p> - -<p>“Damnation,” murmured Mr. Quincunx.</p> - -<p>The three figures as they stood, thus consorted, -on the little stone bridge, made up a dramatic group. -The sinking sun threw their shadows in long wavering -lines upon the white road, distorting them to so -grotesque a length that they nearly reached the open -gates of the station.</p> - -<p>Human shadows! What a queer half-mocking commentary -they make upon the vanity of our passionate -excitements, roused by anything, quieted by -nothing, as the world moves round!</p> - -<p>Lacrima, in her shadow, was not beautiful at all. -She was an elongated wisp of darkness. The beard -of Mr. Quincunx looked as if it belonged to a mammoth -goat, and the neck of Mr. Wone seemed to -support, not a human cranium at all, but a round, -wagging mushroom.</p> - -<p>The hushed fields on each side of the way began to -assume that magical softness which renders them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -at such an hour, insubstantial, unreal, remote, transformed. -One felt as though the earth might indeed -be worthy of better destinies than those that traced -their fantastic trails up and down its peaceful surface. -Something deeply withheld, seemed as though it only -needed the coming of one god-like spirit to set it free -forever, and, with it, all the troubled hearts of men. -It was one of those moments which, whether the participants -in them recognize them or not, at the actual -time, are bound to recur, long afterwards, to their -memory.</p> - -<p>Lacrima, half-listening to Mr. Wone, kept her head -anxiously turned in the direction of the sheds, into -one of which she had observed James Andersen enter.</p> - -<p>Maurice Quincunx, his mood clogged and clotted -by jealousy, watched her with great melancholy grey -eyes, while with his nervous fingers he plucked at his -beard.</p> - -<p>“The time is coming—the time is coming”; cried -Mr. Wone, striking with the back of his fist, the -parapet against which he leaned, “when this exploitation -of the poor by the rich will end once for all!” -The warmth of his feeling was so great, that large -drops of sweat trickled down his sallow cheeks, and -hanging for a moment at the end of his narrow chin, -fell into the dust. The man was genuinely moved; -though in his watery blue eyes no trace of any fire -was visible. He looked, in his emotion, like an -hypnotized sick person, talking in the stress of a -morbid fever. It was the revolt of one who carried -the obsequious slavery of generations in his blood, -and could only rebel in galvanized moribund spasms. -The fellow was unpleasing, uninspiring: not the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -savage leader of a race of stern revolutionary devotees -fired by the iron logic of their cause, but the inchoate -inarticulate voice of clumsy protest, apologizing and -propitiating, even while it protested. The vulgarity -and meanness of the candidate’s tone made one -wonder how such a one as he could ever have been -selected by the obscure working of the Spirit of Sacrifice, -to undertake this titanic struggle against the -Spirit of Power. One turned away instinctively from -his febrile rhetoric, to cast involuntary incense at the -feet of the masterful enemy he opposed. He had no -reticence in his enthusiasm, no reserve, no decency.</p> - -<p>“You may perhaps not know,” he blundered on; -“that the General Election is much nearer than people -think. Mr. Romer will find this out; he will find it -out; he will find it out! I have good authority -for what I say. I speak of what I know, young -lady.” This was said rather severely, for Lacrima’s -attention was so obviously wandering.—“Of course -you will not breathe a word of this, up there,”—he -nodded in the direction of the House. “It -would not do. But the truth is, he is making a great -mistake. I am prepared for this campaign, and he -is not. He is even thinking of reducing the men’s -wages still further. The fool—the fool—the fool! -For he <em>is</em> a fool, you know, though he thinks he is so -clever.”</p> - -<p>Even Mr. Wone would scarcely have dared to -utter these bold asseverations in the ear of Gladys -Romer’s cousin, if Maurice’s innate indiscretion had -not made it the gossip of the village that the Italian -was ill-treated “among those people.” To the -pathetic man’s poor vulgar turn of mind there was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -something soothing in this confidential abuse of the -lord of Nevilton Manor to his own relation. It had -a squalid piquancy. It was itself a sort of revenge.</p> - -<p>Once more he began his spasmodic enunciation of -those sad economic platitudes that are the refuge of -the oppressed; but Mr. Quincunx had crossed the -road, in the pursuit of a decrepit tiger-moth, and was -listening no more. Lacrima’s attention was completely -withdrawn.</p> - -<p>“Well, dear friends,” he concluded, “I must really -be getting back to my supper. Mrs. Wone will be -unbearable if I am late.” He hesitated a moment -as if wondering whether the occasion called for any -further domestic jocosity, to let these high matters -lightly down to earth; but he contented himself with -shaking hands with Mr. Quincunx and removing his -hat to Lacrima.</p> - -<p>“Good night, dear friends,” he repeated, drifting -off, up the road, humming a hymn tune.</p> - -<p>“Poor man!” whispered the girl, “he means well.”</p> - -<p>“He ought to be shot!” was the unexpected response -of the hermit of Dead Man’s Cottage, as he -let the tiger-moth flutter down into the edge of the -field. “He is no better than the rest. He is an -idiot. He ought to learn Latin.”</p> - -<p>They moved together towards the station.</p> - -<p>“I don’t like the way you agree with people to -their face,” said Lacrima, “and abuse them behind -their backs.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like the way you hang about the roads -with handsome stone-cutters,” was Mr. Quincunx’s -surly retort.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, a quite interesting little drama had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -been unfolding itself in the neighbourhood of the -half-carved block of sandstone. Instructed, by a -swift flash of perception, into what the situation -implied, Luke’s quick magnetic fingers soon drew -from his companion’s an electric responsive clasp, as -they leant together over the mouldings. The warmth -and pliable softness of the girl’s body seemed to -challenge the man with intimations of how quickly it -would yield. He pointed to the shed-door, wide open -behind them.</p> - -<p>“I will show you my work, in there, in a moment,” -he murmured, “as soon as they have gone.”</p> - -<p>Her breast rose and fell under the increased excitement -of her breathing. Violent quivers ran up and -down her frame and communicated themselves to -him. Their hearts beat fiercely in reciprocal agitation. -Luke’s voice, as he continued his conventional -summary of the quality and destination of the stone, -shook a little, and sounded queer and detached.</p> - -<p>“It is for Shaftesbury church,” he said, “for the -base of the column that supports the arch. This -particular moulding is one which my father designed. -You must remember that upon it will rest a great -deal of the weight of the roof.”</p> - -<p>His fellow workmen had now collected their tools -and were shuffling nervously past them. It required -all Gladys’ sang-froid to give them the casual nod due -from the daughter of the House to those who laboured -in its service. As soon as they were well upon their -way, with a quick glance at the distant figures of -Lacrima and James, Gladys turned rapidly to her -companion.</p> - -<p>“Show me,” she said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> - -<p>He went before her and stood in the entrance of -the work-shop. When she had passed him into its -interior, he casually closed behind them one of the -rough folding doors. The contrast from the horizontal -sun outside, turning the sandstone blocks into -ruddy gold, to the shadowy twilight within, was -strangely emphatic. He began to speak; saying he -hardly knew what—some kind of stammered nonsense -about the bases and capitals and carved mouldings -that lay around them. But Gladys, true to her -feminine prerogative, swept all this aside. With a -bold audacity she began at once.</p> - -<p>“How nice to be alone and free, for a little while!”</p> - -<p>Then, moving still further into the shadow, and -standing, as if absorbed in interest, before the rough -beginnings of a fluted pillar which reached as high as -the roof—</p> - -<p>“What kind of top are you going to put on to that -thing?”</p> - -<p>As she spoke she leant against the pillar with a -soft, weary relaxation of her whole form.</p> - -<p>“Come near and tell me about it,” she whispered, -as if her breath caught in her throat.</p> - -<p>Luke recognized the tone—the tone that said, so -much more distinctly than words, “I am ready. -Why are you so slow?” He came behind her, and as -gently and lightly as he could, though his arms -trembled, let his fingers slide caressingly round her -flexible figure. Her breath came in quick gasps, and -one hot small hand met his own and pressed it against -her side. Encouraged by this response, he boldly -drew her towards him. She struggled a little; a shy -girlish struggle, more than half conventional—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -then, sliding round in his arms with a quick feline -movement, she abandoned herself to her craving, and -embraced him shamelessly and passionately. When -at last in sheer weariness her arms relaxed and she -sank down, with her hands pressed to her burning -cheeks, upon an unfinished font, Luke Andersen -thought that never to his dying day would he forget -the serpentine clinging of that supple form and the -pressure of those insatiable lips. He turned, a little -foolishly, towards the door and kicked with his foot a -fragment of a carved reredos. Then he went back to -her and half-playfully, half-amorously, tried to remove -her hands from her face.</p> - -<p>“Don’t touch me! I hate you!” she said.</p> - -<p>“Please,” he whispered, “please don’t be unkind now. -I shall never, never forget how sweet you’ve been.”</p> - -<p>“Tell me more about this work of yours,” she -suddenly remarked, in a completely changed voice, -rising to her feet. “I have always understood that -you were one of our best workmen. I shall tell my -father how highly I think of what you’re doing—you -and your brother. I am sure he will be glad to -know what artists he has among his men.”</p> - -<p>She gave her head a proud little toss and raised -negligent deliberate hands to her disarranged fair -hair, smoothing it down and readjusting her wide-brimmed -hat. She had become the grand lady again -and Luke had become the ordinary young stone-mason. -Superficially, and with a charming grace, he -adapted himself to this change, continuing his conventional -remarks about fonts, pillars, crosses, and -capitals; and calling her “Miss” or “Miss Gladys,” -with scrupulous discretion. But in his heart, all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -while, he was registering a deep and vindictive vow—a -vow that, at whatever risk and at whatever cost, -he would make this fair young despot suffer for her -caprice. Gladys had indeed, quite unwittingly, -entered into a struggle with a nature as remorseless -and unscrupulous as her own. She had dreamed, in -her imperial way, of using this boy for her amusement, -and then throwing him aside. She did not for -a moment intend to get entangled in any sentimental -relations with him. A passing “amour,” leading to -nothing, and in no way committing her, was what she -had instinctively counted on. For the rest, in snatching -fiercely at any pleasure her fervent senses craved, -she was as conscienceless and antinomian, as a young -tiger out of the jungle. Nor had she the remotest -sense of danger in this exciting sport. Corrupt and -insensitive as any amorous courtezan of a pagan age, -she trusted to her freedom from innocence to assure -her of freedom from disaster. Vaguely enough in -her own mind she had assumed, as these masterful -“blond beasts” are inclined to assume, that in -pouncing on this new prey she was only dealing once -more with that malleable and timorous humanity she -had found so easy to mould to her purpose in other -quarters. She reckoned, with a pathetic simplicity, -that Luke would be clay in her hands. As a matter -of fact this spoiled child of the wealth produced by -the Leonian stone had audaciously flung down her -challenge to one who had as much in him as herself -of that stone’s tenacity and imperviousness. The -daughter of sandstone met the carver of sandstone; -and none, who knew the two, would have dared to -predict the issue of such an encounter.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> - -<p>The young man was still urbanely and discreetly -discoursing to his lady-visitor upon the contents of -the work-shop, when the tall figure of James Andersen -darkened the door.</p> - -<p>“Excuse me, Miss,” he said to Gladys, “but Miss -Lacrima asked me to tell you that she was waiting -for you on the bridge.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, James,” answered the girl simply, -“I will come. I am afraid my interest in all the -things your brother has been so kindly showing me -has made you both late. I am sorry.” Here she -actually went so far as to fumble in her skirt for her -purse. After an awkward pause, during which the -two men waited at either side of the door, she -found what she sought, and tripping lightly by, -turned as she passed Luke and placed in his hand, -the hand that so recently had been clasped about her -person, the insolent recompense of a piece of silver. -Bidding them both good-night, she hurried away -to rejoin Lacrima, who, having by this time got rid -of Mr. Quincunx, moved down the road to meet -her.</p> - -<p>Luke closed and locked the door of the shed without -a word. Then to the astonishment of James Andersen -he proceeded to dance a kind of grotesque war-dance, -ending it with a suppressed half-mocking -howl, as he leant exhausted against the wall of the -building.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got her, I’ve got her, I’ve got her!” he -repeated. “James, my darling Daddy James, I’ve got -this girl in the palm of my hand!” He humorously -proceeded to toss the coin she had given him high in -the air. “Heads or tails?” he cried, as the thing fell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -among the weeds. “Heads! It’s heads, my boy! -That means that Miss Gladys Romer will be sorry -she ever stepped inside this work-shop of ours. Come, -let’s wash and eat, my brother; for the gods have -been good to us today.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br /> -<span class="smaller">FRANCIS TAXATER</span></h2> - -<p>The day following the one whose persuasive -influence we have just recorded was not -less auspicious. The weather seemed to have -effected a transference of its accustomed quality, -bringing to the banks of the Yeo and the Parret the -atmospheric conditions belonging to those of the -Loire or the Arno.</p> - -<p>Having finished her tea Valentia Seldom was strolling -meditatively up and down the vicarage terrace, -alternately stopping to pick off the petals of a dead -flower, or to gaze, with a little gloomy frown, upon -the grass of the orchard.</p> - -<p>Her slender upright figure, in her black silk dress, -made a fine contrast to the rich green foliage about -her, set on one side with ruby-coloured roses and on -the other with yellow buttercups. But the old lady -was in no peaceful frame of mind. Every now and -then she tapped the gravel impatiently with her -ebony stick; and the hand that toyed with the -trinkets at her side mechanically closed and unclosed -its fingers under the wrist-band of Mechlin lace. It -was with something of an irritable start, that she -turned round to greet Francis Taxater, as led by the -little servant he presented himself to her attention. -He moved to greet her with his usual imperturbable -gravity, walking sedately along the edge of the flowery<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -border; with one shoulder a little higher than the -other and his eyes on the ground.</p> - -<p>His formidable prelatical chin seemed more than -ever firmly set that afternoon, and his grey waistcoat, -under his shabby black coat, was tightly drawn -across his emphatic stomach. His coal-black eyes, -darkened yet further by the shadow of his hat, -glanced furtively to right and left of him as he advanced. -In the manner peculiar to persons disciplined -by Catholic self-control, his head never followed, by -the least movement, the shrewd explorations of these -diplomatic eyes.</p> - -<p>One would have taken him for a French bishop, of -aristocratic race, masquerading, for purposes of discretion, -in the dress of a secular scholar.</p> - -<p>Everything about Francis Taxater, from the noble -intellectual contours of his forehead, down to his -small satyr-like feet, smacked of the courtier and the -priest; of the learned student, and the urbane frequenter -of sacred conclaves. His small white hand, -plump and exquisitely shaped, rested heavily on his -cane. He carried with him in every movement and -gesture that curious air of dramatic weight and importance -which men of diplomatic experience are -alone able to use without letting it degenerate into -mannerism. It was obvious that he, at any rate, -according to Mr. Quincunx’s favourite discrimination, -“knew Latin.” He seemed to have slid, as it were, -into this commercial modern world, from among the -contemporaries of Bossuet. One felt that his authors -were not Ibsen or Tolstoy, but Horace and Cicero.</p> - -<p>One felt also, however, that in sheer psychological -astuteness not even Mr. Romer himself would be a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -match for him. Between those two, the man of -modern wisdom and the man of ancient wisdom, any -struggle that might chance to occur would be a singularly -curious one. If Mr. Taxater really was “on the -side of the angels,” he was certainly there with the -full weight of organized hierarchies. If he did exert -his strength upon the side of “meekness,” it would -be a strength of no feverish, spasmodic eruption.</p> - -<p>If Satan threw a Borgia in Mr. Taxater’s path, -that Borgia, it appeared, would find his Machiavel.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is a lovely day again,” said the old lady, -leading her visitor to a seat and placing herself by his -side. “But what is our naughty Monsignor doing, -playing truant from his consistory? I thought you -would be in London this week—at the Eucharist -Conference your people are holding? Is it to the -loveliness of the weather that we owe this pleasant -surprise?”</p> - -<p>One almost expected—so formal and old-fashioned -were the two interlocutors—that Mr. Taxater would -have replied, in the tone of Ivanhoe or the Talisman, -“A truce to such jesting, Madam!” No doubt if he -had, the lady would hardly have discerned any -anachronism. As a matter of fact he did not answer -her question at all, but substituted one of his own.</p> - -<p>“I met Vennie in the village,” he said. “Do you -think she is happier now, in her new English circle?”</p> - -<p>“Ah! my friend,” cried the old lady, in a nervous -voice, “it is of Vennie that I have been thinking all -this afternoon. No, I cannot say I think she is happier. -I wonder if it is one thing; and then I wonder -if it is another. I cannot get to the bottom of it and -it worries me.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I expect it is her nerves,” said the diplomatist. -“Though the sun is so warm, there has been a constant -east wind lately; and, as you know, I put down -most of our agitations to the presence of east wind.”</p> - -<p>“It will not do, Mr. Taxater; it will not do! It -may be the east wind with you and me. It is not -the east wind with Vennie. Something is troubling -her. I wish I could discern what it is?”</p> - -<p>“She isn’t by any chance being vexed by some -theological dispute with the Vicar, is she? I know -how seriously she takes all his views. And his views -are, if I may say so, decidedly confusing. Don’t -misunderstand me, dear lady. I respect Mr. Clavering -and admire him. I like the shape of his head; especially -when he wears his beretta. But I cannot -feel much confidence in his wisdom in dealing with a -sensitive child like your daughter. He is too impulsive. -He is too dogmatic. He lives too entirely -in the world of doctrinal controversy. It is dangerous”; -here Mr. Taxater luxuriously stretched out his -legs and lit a cigarette; “it is dangerous to live only -for theology. We have to learn to live for Religion; -and that is a much more elaborate affair. <em>That</em> -extends very far, Mrs. Seldom.” The old lady let -her stick slide to the ground and clasped her hands -together. “I want to ask you one thing, Mr. Taxater. -And I implore you to be quite direct with me. You -do not think, do you, that my girl is tending towards -<em>your</em> church—towards Rome? I confess it would -be a heavy blow to me, one of the heaviest I have -ever had, if anything of that kind happened. I know -you are tolerant enough to let me speak like this -without scruple. I like <em>you</em>, my dear friend—”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -Here a soft flush spread over Valentia’s ivory-coloured -cheeks and she made a little movement as if to put -her hand on her companion’s arm. “I like you -yourself, and have the utmost confidence in you. But -Oh, it would be a terrible shock to me if Vennie became -a Roman Catholic. She would enter a convent; I -<em>know</em> she would enter a convent and that would be -more than I could bear.” The accumulated distress -of many years was in the old lady’s voice and tears -stood in her eyes. “I know it is silly,” she went on -as Mr. Taxater steadily regarded the landscape. -“But I cannot help it. I do so hope—Oh, I can’t tell -you how much—that Vennie will marry and have -children. It is the secret burden of my life, the -thought that, with this frail little thing, our ancient -race should disappear. I feel it my deepest duty—my -duty to the Past and my duty to the Future—to -arrange a happy marriage for her. If only that -could be achieved, I should be able to die content.”</p> - -<p>“You have no evidence, no authority for thinking,” -said Mr. Taxater gravely, “that she is meditating -any approach to <em>my</em> church, as you call it, have you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh no!” cried the old lady, “quite the contrary. -She seems absorbed in the services here. She works -with Mr. Clavering, she discusses everything with -Mr. Clavering, she helps Mr. Clavering with the poor. -I believe”—here Valentia lowered her voice; “I -believe she confesses to Mr. Clavering.”</p> - -<p>Francis Taxater smiled—the smile of the heir of -Christendom’s classic faith at these pathetic fumblings -of heresy—and carefully knocked the ashes from his -cigarette against the handle of his cane.</p> - -<p>“You don’t think, dear lady,” he said, “that by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -any chance—girls are curiously subtle in these little -things—she is ‘in love,’ as they call it, with our -nice handsome Vicar?”</p> - -<p>Valentia gave an involuntary little start. In her -heart there rose up the shadow of a shadow of questioning, -whether in this last remark the great secular -diplomatist had not lapsed into something approaching -a “faux pas.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly not,” she answered. “Vennie is not a -girl to mix up her religion with things of that sort.”</p> - -<p>Francis Taxater permitted the flicker of a smile to -cross his face. He slightly protruded his lower lip -which gave his countenance a rather sinister expression. -His look said, more clearly than words, that in -his opinion there was no woman on earth who did -not “mix up these things” with her religion.</p> - -<p>“I have not yet made my request to you,” continued -the old lady, with a certain nervous hesitation. -“I am so afraid lest you should think it an evidence -of a lack of confidence. It isn’t so! It really isn’t -so. I only do it to relieve my mind;—to make my -food taste better, if you understand?—and to stop -this throbbing in my head.” She paused for a moment, -and picking up her stick, prodded the gravel -with it, with lowered face. The voices of not less -than three wood-pigeons were audible from the -apple-orchard. And this soft accompaniment to her -words seemed to give her courage. Fate could not, -surely, altogether betray her prayers, in a place so -brooded over by “the wings of the dove.” In the -exquisite hush of the afternoon the birds’ rich voices -seemed to take an almost liturgical tone—as though -they were the ministers of a great natural temple.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -To make a solemn request of a dear friend under such -conditions was almost as though one were exacting -a sacred vow under the very shadow of the altar.</p> - -<p>So at least Valentia felt, as she uttered her serious -petition; though it may well be that Mr. Taxater, -skilled in the mental discipline of Saint Ignatius, knew -better how to keep the distracting influences of mere -“Nature,” in their proper secondary place.</p> - -<p>“I want you faithfully to promise me,” she said, -“that you will in no way—in no way at all—use -your influence over Vennie to draw her from her -English faith.” The old lady’s voice became quite -husky in her emotion. “It would be dreadful to me -to think,—I could not bear to think”—she went -on, “that you should in the smallest degree use your -great powers of mind to disturb the child’s present -attitude. If she is not happy, it is not—Oh, I assure -you, it is not—in any sense due to her being dissatisfied -with her religion. It must be something -quite different. What it is, I cannot guess; but it -must be something quite different from <em>that</em>. Well, -dear friend,” and she did now, quite definitely, lay -her hand on his arm, “will you promise this for me? -You will? I know you will.”</p> - -<p>Francis Taxater rose from his seat and stood over -her very gravely, leaning upon his cane.</p> - -<p>“You have done well to tell me this, Mrs. Seldom,” -he said. “Most certainly I shall make no attempt to -influence Vennie. It would be indeed contrary to all -that I regard as wise and suitable in the relations -between us. I never convert people. I believe you -will find that very few of those who are born Catholics -ever interfere in that way. It is the impetuosity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -of new-comers into the church that gives us this -bad name. They often carry into their new faith -the turbulent theological zeal which distinguished -them in their old one. I, at any rate, am not like -that. I leave people alone. I prefer to watch them -develop on their own lines. The last thing I should -wish to do would be to meddle with Vennie’s religious -taste. It would be a blunder as well as an impertinence. -Vennie would be the first to resist any such -proceeding. It would destroy her respect for me. It -might even destroy her affection for me. It certainly -would not move her. Indeed, dear lady, if I wished -to plant the child’s soul irrevocably in the soil prepared -by our good vicar I could not do anything -more effective than try to persuade her of its deficiencies. -No, no! You may rely upon me to stand -completely aside in this matter. If Vennie <em>were</em> led -to join us—which for your sake, dear Mrs. Seldom, -I hope will never happen,—you may accept -my word of honour it will be from her own spontaneous -impulse. I shall make not the least movement -in the direction you fear. <em>That</em> I can devoutly -promise.”</p> - -<p>He turned away his head and regarded with calm, -placid detachment the rich, shadowy orchard and -the golden buttercups.</p> - -<p>The contours of his profile were so noble, and the -pose of his head so majestic, that the agitated mother -was soothed and awed into complete confidence.</p> - -<p>“Thank God!” she exclaimed. “<em>That</em> fear, at any -rate, has passed. I shall be grateful to you forever, -dear friend, for what you have just now said. It is -a direct answer to my prayers.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> - -<p>“May I, in my turn,” said Mr. Taxater, resuming -his seat by her side, “ask you a bold and uncalled -for question? What would you do, if in the changes -and chances of this life, Vennie <em>did</em> come to regard -Mr. Clavering with favour? Would you for a moment -consider their union as a possible one?”</p> - -<p>Valentia looked not a little embarrassed. Once -more, in her heart, she accused the urbane scholar -of a lack of delicacy and discretion. These little -questions are not the ones to put to a perturbed -mother.</p> - -<p>However, she answered him plainly enough. “I -should not like it, I confess. It would disappoint -me. I am not ambitious, but sometimes I catch -myself desiring, for my beloved child, a marriage that -would give her the position she deserves, the position—pardon -a woman’s weakness, sir!—that her ancestors -held in this place. But then, again, I am -only anxious for her happiness. No, Mr. Taxater. -If such a thing did occur I should not oppose it, -Mr. Clavering is a gentleman, though a poor one and, -in a sense, an eccentric one. But I have no prejudice -against the marriage of our clergy. In fact I -think they ought to marry. It is so suitable, you -know, to have a sensible woman endowed with such -opportunities for making her influence felt. I would -not wish Vennie to marry beneath her, but sooner -than not see her married—well!—That is the -kind of feeling I have about it, Mr. Taxater.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p> -<p>“Thank you—thank you. I fear my question -was impertinent; but in return for the solemn oath -you exacted from me, I think I deserved some reward, -don’t you? But seriously, Mrs. Seldom, I -do not think that any of these less desirable fates -will befall our dear child. I think she will marry a -pillar of the aristocracy, and remain herself a pillar -of the Anglican Church! I trust she will not, whatever -happens, lose her regard for her old Catholic -friend.”</p> - -<p>He rose as he spoke and held out his hand. Mrs. -Seldom took it in her own and held it for a moment -with some emotion. Had he been a real Monsignor, -he could not have looked more calm, more tolerant, -more kind, than he looked at that moment. He -wore the expression that high ecclesiastics must come -to wear, when devoted but somewhat troublesome -daughters of the church press close to kiss the amethystine -ring.</p> - -<p>A few minutes later he was passing out of the -vicarage gate. The new brood of warblers that -flitted about the tall bushes at that spot heard—with -perfect unconcern—a mysterious Latin quotation -issue from that restrained mouth. They could -hardly be blamed for not understanding, even though -they had migrated to these fields of heresy from more -classic places, that the plain English interpretation -of the dark saying was that all things are lawful to -him whose motive is the “Potestas Civitatis Dei!”</p> - -<p>He crossed the dusty road and was proceeding -towards his own house, which was hardly more than -a hundred yards away, when he saw through a wide -gap in the hedge a pleasant and familiar sight. It -was a hay-field, in the final stage of its “making,” -surrendering to a great loose stack, built up beneath -enormous elm-trees, the last windrows of its sweet-scented -harvest.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> - -<p>Pausing for a moment to observe more closely this -pleasant scene—for hay-making in Dorsal Field -amounted to a village ritual—Mr. Taxater became -aware that among the figures scattered in groups -about the meadow were the very two whose relation -to one another he had just been discussing. Vennie -and the young clergyman were engaged in an animated -conversation with three of the farm-boys.</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater at once climbed through the gap, and -crossing the field approached the group unobserved. -It was not till he was quite close that Vennie caught -sight of him. Her pale, pinched little face, under its -large hat, flushed slightly as she held out her hand; -but her great steady grey eyes were full of friendly -welcome.</p> - -<p>Mr. Clavering too was effusive and demonstrative -in his greeting. They chatted a little of indifferent -matters, and the theologian was introduced to the -shy farm-boys, who stared at him in rustic wonder.</p> - -<p>Then Hugh Clavering said, “If you’ll pardon me -for a moment, I think I ought to go across and speak -to John Goring,” and he indicated the farmer’s -figure bending over a new gleaning-machine, at the -opposite end of the field. “Don’t go away, please, -Mr. Taxater, till I come back. You will keep him, -won’t you, Miss Seldom?”</p> - -<p>He strode off; and the boys drifted away after -him, leaving Mr. Taxater and the girl together, -under the unfinished hay-stack. “I was so much -wanting to speak to you,” began Vennie at once.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -“I very nearly ran in to the Gables; but I saw Mrs. -Wotnot over the wall, and she told me you were -out. I am in serious need of advice upon a thing -that is troubling me, and you are the only person -who can really help.”</p> - -<p>The expression of Mr. Taxater’s face at that moment -was so sympathetic, and yet so grave, that one -would hardly have been surprised to hear him utter -the conventional formula of a priest awaiting confession. -Though unuttered, the sacred formula must -have been telepathically communicated, for Vennie -continued without a pause, holding her hands behind -her back, and looking on the ground. “Ever since -our last serious conversation—do you remember?—after -Easter, I have been thinking so much about -that phrase of yours, referring to the Pope, as the -eternal living defender of the idea of Love as the -secret of the universe. Mr. Clavering talks to -me about love—you know what I mean,” she smiled -and blushed prettily, with a quick lifting of her head, -“but he never gives me the feeling of something real -and actual which we can approach on earth—something -personal, I mean. And I have been feeling so -much lately that this is what I want. Mr. Clavering -is very gentle with me when I try to explain my -difficulties to him; but I don’t think he really understands. -The way he talks is beautiful and inspiring—but -it somehow sounds like poetry. It does not -give me anything to lay hands on.” And she looked -into Mr. Taxater’s face with a pathetic wide-eyed -appeal, as if he were able to call down angels from -heaven.</p> - -<p>“Dear child,” said the diplomatist, “I know only -too well what you mean. Yes, that is the unfortunate -and necessary limitation of a heretical church. -It can only offer mystic and poetic consolations. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -has lost touch with the one true Vine, and consequently -the full stream of life-giving sap cannot flow -through its veins.”</p> - -<p>“But I have felt so strengthened,” said Vennie -mournfully, “by the sacrament in our Church; so -strengthened and inspired! It seems dreadful that -it should all be a sort of mockery.”</p> - -<p>“Do not speak like that, dear child,” said Mr. -Taxater. “God is good; and in his knowledge of -our weakness he permits us to taste of his mystery -even in forbidden cups. The motive in your heart, -the faith in your soul, have been pure; and God has -given to them some measure, though but an imperfect -one, of what he will grant to your complete -obedience.”</p> - -<p>Vennie bent down and picking up a swathe of -sweet-scented hay twisted it thoughtfully in her -fingers. “God has indeed been working miracles on -your behalf,” continued Mr. Taxater. “It must have -been your guardian angel that led me to speak to -you as I did at that time. For in future, I regret -to say, I shall be less free. But the good work has -been done. The seed has been sown. What follows -must be at your own initiative.”</p> - -<p>Vennie looked at him, puzzled, and rather alarmed. -“Why do you say you will be less free? Are we -going to have no more lovely conversations at the -bottom of our orchard? Are you going to be too -busy to see me at all?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater smiled. “Oh no, it isn’t as bad as -that,” he said. “It is only that I have just faithfully -promised your mother not to convert you to -Catholicism.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Mother had no right to make you give any such -promise,” cried the girl indignantly.</p> - -<p>“No,” responded the diplomatist, “she had no -such right. No one has a right to demand promises -of that kind. It is one of the worst and subtlest -forms of persecution.”</p> - -<p>“But you did not promise? You surely did not -promise?”</p> - -<p>“There was no escaping it,” replied Mr. Taxater. -“If I had not done so she would have given you no -peace, and your future movements would have been -mercilessly watched. However,” he went on, smilingly, -“a promise exacted under that kind of compulsion -must be interpreted in a very large and -liberal way. Relatively I must avoid discussing -these things with you. In a higher and more absolute -sense we will combine our thoughts about them, -day and night, until we worship at the same altar.”</p> - -<p>Vennie was silent. The noble and exalted sophistry -of the subtle scholar puzzled and bewildered her. -“But I have no idea of what to do next,” she protested. -“I know no Catholics but you. I should -feel very nervous on going to the priest in Yeoborough. -Besides, I don’t at all like the look of him. -And the people here say he is often drunk. You -wouldn’t send me to a man like that, would you? -Oh, I feel so angry with mother! She had no right -to go to you behind my back.”</p> - -<p>Francis Taxater laid his hand gently on the girl’s -shoulder. “There is no reason for haste,” he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -“There is no cause to agitate yourself. Just remain -quietly as you are. Say nothing to your mother. -It would only cause her unnecessary distress. I -never promised not to lend you books. All my -shelves are at your service. Read, my dear Vennie, -read and think. My books will supply the place of -my words. Indeed, they will serve the purpose much -better. In this way we shall at once be obeying -your earthly mother, and not disobeying your heavenly -mother, who is now—Ave Maria gratiæ plena!—drawing -you so strongly towards her.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I say anything to Mr. Clavering?”</p> - -<p>“Not a word! not a word! And enter as little as -possible into argument with him. If he fancies, from -your silence, that he has quelled your doubts, let -him fancy so. The mistake will be due to his own -pride and not to any deception. It is wrong to lie—but -we are not called upon to dispel illusions arising -from the self-conceit of others.”</p> - -<p>“But you—will—think—of me?” pleaded little -Vennie. “I may know that you have not deserted -me? That you are always ready—always there?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater smiled benignly. “Of course I shall -be ready, dear child. And you must be ready. That -is why I only ask you to read and think. God will -answer your prayers if you show patience. He has -taught his church never to clamour for hurried conversions. -But to wait, with all her reservoirs of mysteries, -till they come to her of their own accord. -You will come, Vennie, you will come! But it will be -in God’s hour and not in ours.”</p> - -<p>Vennie Seldom thanked him with a timid glance of -infinite gratitude and confidence. A soft luminous -happiness suffused her being, into which the scents -and sounds of that felicitous hour poured their offerings -of subtle contentment. In after years, in strange<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -and remote places, she never forgot the high thrilling -exultation, calm, yet passionate as an indrawn wave, -of that unrecurring moment.</p> - -<p>The security that filled her passed, indeed, only -too quickly away. Her face clouded and a little anxious -frown puckered her narrow white forehead.</p> - -<p>“There is something else I wanted to ask you,” -she said hurriedly, “and I must say it quickly because -I am afraid of Mr. Clavering coming back. -It has to do with Mr. Clavering. I do not think -you realize what influence you have over people, -what powerful influence! Mr. Clavering adores you. -He would do anything for you. He respects you as a -thinker. He venerates you as a good man. Now, -Mr. Taxater, please, please, use your influence with -him to save him—to save him—” She stopped -abruptly, and a flood of colour rushed to her cheeks.</p> - -<p>“To save him from what, dear child? I am afraid -there is no hope of Mr. Clavering coming to our -way of thinking.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t that, Mr. Taxater! It’s something else;—something -to do with his own happiness, with his -own life. Oh, it is so hard for me to tell you!” She -clenched her hands tightly together and looked -steadily away from him as she spoke. “It is that -that dreadful Gladys Romer has been plaguing him -so—tempting him to flirt with her, to be silly about -her, and all that sort of thing. He does not really -like her at all. That I <em>know</em>. But he is passionate -and excitable, and easily led away by a girl like that. -Oh, it all sounds so absurd, as I say it,” cried poor -Vennie, with cheeks that were by this time flaming,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -“but it’s much, much more serious than it sounds. -You see, I know Mr. Clavering very well. I know -how simple and pure-minded he is. And I know how -desperately he prays against being led away—like -this. Gladys does not care for him really a bit. -She only does it to amuse herself; to satisfy her -wicked, wicked nature! She would like to lead him as -far as she possibly could, and then to turn upon -him and make him thoroughly miserable. She is -the kind of girl—Oh what am I saying to you, Mr. -Taxater?—that men always are attracted by. Some -men I believe would even call her beautiful. I don’t -think she’s that at all. I think she is gross, fleshly, -and horrid! But I know what a danger she is to -Mr. Clavering. I know the dreadful struggle that -goes on in his mind; and the horrible temptation she -is to him. I know that after seeing her he always -suffers the most cruel remorse. Now, Mr. Taxater, -use your influence to strengthen him against this -girl’s treachery. She only means him harm, I know -she does! And if a person like you, whom he loves -and admires so much, talked to him seriously about -it, it would be such a help to him. He is so young. -He is a mere boy, and absolutely ignorant of the -world. He does not even realize that the village has -already begun its horrid gossip about them. Do—do, -do something, Mr. Taxater. It is like that young -Parsifal, in the play, being tempted by the enchantress.”</p> - -<p>“But how do they meet?” asked the diplomatist, -with unchanged gravity. “I do not see how they -are ever alone together.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p> -<p>“She has arranged it. She is so clever; the bad, -bad girl! She goes to him for confirmation lessons. -He teaches her in his study twice a week—separately -from the others.”</p> - -<p>“But her father is a Unitarian.”</p> - -<p>“That does not interfere. She does what she likes -with Mr. Romer. Her game now is to want to be -baptized into our church. She is going to be baptized -first, and then confirmed.”</p> - -<p>“And the preparation for baptism is as dangerous -as the preparation for confirmation,” remarked the -scholar; straightening the muscles of his mouth, after -the discipline of St. Ignatius.</p> - -<p>“The whole thing is horrible—dreadful! It frets -me every hour of the day. He is so good and so -innocent. He has no idea where she is leading him.”</p> - -<p>“But I cannot prevent her wanting to be baptized,” -said Mr. Taxater.</p> - -<p>“You can talk to him,” answered Vennie, with -intense conviction. “You can talk to him and he -will listen to you. You can tell him the danger he -is in of being made miserable for life.” She drew her -breath deeply. “Oh the remorse he will feel; the -horrible, horrible remorse!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater glanced across the hay-field. The sun, -a red globe of fire, was resting on the extreme edge -of Leo’s Hill, and seemed like a great blood-shot -eye regarding them with lurid interest. Long cool -shadows, thrown across the field by the elms in the -hedge and by the stack beside them, melted magically -into one another, and made the hillocks of still ungathered -grass soft and intangible as fairy graves.</p> - -<p>“I will do my best,” said the scholar. “I will do -my best.” And indicating to Vennie, who was absorbed -in her nervous gratitude, the near approach<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -of the object of their saintly conspiracy, he led her -forward to meet the young clergyman with an appropriate -air of friendly and casual nonchalance.</p> - -<p>“I am sorry to have to say it,” was Mr. Clavering’s -greeting, “but that farmer-fellow is the only person in -my parish for whom I have a complete detestation. -I wish to goodness Mr. Romer had never brought -him into the place!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like the look of his back, I must say,” -answered the theologian, following with his eyes the -retreating figure of Mr. John Goring.</p> - -<p>“He is,” said the young priest, “without exception -the most repulsive human being I have ever met in -my life. Our worthy Romer is an angel of light -compared with him.”</p> - -<p>With Mr. Goring still as their topic, they strolled -amicably together towards the same gap in the hedge, -through which the apologist of the papacy had -emerged an hour before. There they separated; -Vennie returning to the vicarage, and the young -clergyman carrying off Mr. Taxater to supper with -him in his house by the church.</p> - -<p>Clavering’s establishment consisted of a middle-aged -woman of inordinate volubility, and the woman’s -daughter, a girl of twelve.</p> - -<p>The supper offered by the priest to his guest was -“light and choice”—nor did it lack its mellow -accompaniment of carefully selected, if not “Attic,” -wine. Of this wine Mr. Taxater did not hesitate to -partake freely, sitting, when the meal was over, -opposite his host at the open window, through which -the pleasant murmurs of the evening, and the voices of -the village-street, soothingly and harmoniously floated.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> - -<p>The famous theologian was in an excellent temper. -Rich recondite jests pursued one another from his -smiling lips, and his white hands folded themselves -complacently above the cross on his watch-chain.</p> - -<p>Lottie Fringe, the child of Clavering’s servant, -tripped sportively in and out of the room, encouraged -in her girlish coquetries by the amiable scholar. -She was not yet too old to be the kittenish plaything -of the lighter moments of a wise and scholarly man, -and it was pleasant to watch the zest with which the -vicar’s visitor entered into her sportive audacities. -Mr. Taxater made her fill and refill his glass, and -taking her playfully on his knee, kissed her and -fondled her many times. It was the vicar himself, -who finally, a little embarrassed by these levities, sent -the girl off to the kitchen, apologizing to his guest for -the freedom she displayed.</p> - -<p>“Do not apologize, dear Mr. Clavering,” said the -theologian. “I love all children, especially when they -are girls. There is something about the kisses of a -young girl—at once amorous and innocent—which -reconciles one to the universe, and keeps death at a -distance. Could one for a moment think of death, -when holding a young thing, so full of life and beauty, -on one’s knee?”</p> - -<p>The young priest’s face clouded. “To be quite -honest with you, Mr. Taxater,” he murmured, in -a troubled voice, “I cannot say that I altogether -agree. We are both unconventional people, so I may -speak freely. I do not think that one does a child -any good by encouraging her to be playful and -forward, in that particular way. You live with your -books; but I live with my people, and I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -known so many sad cases of girls being completely -ruined by getting a premature taste for coquetry of -that kind.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid, my friend,” answered Mr. Taxater, -“that the worst of all heresies is lodged deep in your -heart.”</p> - -<p>“Heresies? God knows,” sighed the priest, “I -have enough evil in my heart—but heresies? I am -at a loss to catch your meaning.”</p> - -<p>In the absence of his playful Clerica—to use the -Pantagruelian allusion—the great Homenas of Nevilton -was compelled to fill his “tall-boy of extravagant -wine” with his own hand. He did so, and continued -his explanation.</p> - -<p>“By the worst of all heresies I mean the dangerous -Puritan idea that pleasure itself is evil and a thing -detestable to God. The Catholic doctrine, as I -understand it, is that all these things are entirely -relative to the persons concerned. Pleasure in itself -is, in the Aristotelian sense, a supreme good. Everyone -has a right to it. Everyone must have it. The -whole thing is a matter of proportion and expediency. -If an innocent playful game, of the kind you have -just witnessed, was likely in this definite particular -case to lead to harm, then you would be justified in -your anxiety. But there must be no laying down of -hard general rules. There must be no making a -virtue of the mere denying ourselves pleasure.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Clavering could hardly wait for his guest to -finish.</p> - -<p>“Then, according to your theory,” he exclaimed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -“it would be right for you, or whoever you will,—pardon -my making the thing so personal—to indulge -in casual levities with any pretty barmaid, as long as -you vaguely surmised that she was a sensible girl and -would not be harmed?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly it would be right,” replied the papal -apologist, sipping his wine and inhaling the perfume -of the garden, “and not only right, but a plain duty. -It is our duty, Mr. Clavering, to make the world -happier while we live in it; and the way to make -girls happier, especially when their occupations are -laborious, is to kiss them; to give them innocent and -admiring embraces.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid you are not quite serious, Mr. Taxater,” -said the clergyman. “I have an absurd way of -being direct and literal in these discussions.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, I am serious. Do you not know—young -puritan—that some of the noblest spirits in -history have not hesitated to increase the pleasure of -girls’ lives by giving them frequent kisses? In the -Greek days he who could give the most charming kiss -was awarded a public prize. In the Elizabethan days -all the great and heroic souls, whose exquisite wit -and passionate imagination put us still to shame, -held large and liberal views on this matter. In the -eighteenth century the courtly and moral Joseph -Addison used never to leave a coffee-house, however -humble and poor, without bestowing a friendly -embrace upon every woman in it. The religious -Doctor Johnson—a man of your own faith—was -notoriously in the habit of taking his prettier visitors -upon his knee, and tenderly kissing them. It is no -doubt due to this fact, that the great lexicographer -was so frequently visited;—especially by young -Quakers. When we come to our own age, it is well<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -known that the late Archbishop Taraton, the refuter -of Darwin, was never so happy as when romping -round the raspberry-canes in his garden with a crowd -of playful girls.</p> - -<p>“These great and wise men have all recognized the -fact that pleasure is not an evil but a good. A good, -however, that must be used discreetly and according -to the Christian self-control of which God has given -his Church the secret. The senses are not under a -curse, Mr. Clavering. They are not given us simply -to tempt and perplex us. They are given for our -wise and moderate enjoyment.”</p> - -<p>Francis Taxater once more lifted his glass to his -lips.</p> - -<p>“To the devil with this Protestant Puritanism of -yours! It has darkened the sun in heaven. It is -the cause of all the squalid vice and gross excesses -of our forlorn England. It is the cause of the -deplorable perversities that one sees around one. It -is the cause of that odious hypocrisy that makes -us the laughing-stock of the great civilized nations -of France, Italy and Spain.” The theologian drew -a deep breath, and continued. “I notice, Mr. -Clavering, that you have by your side, still unfinished, -your second glass of wine. That is a mistake. -That is an insult to Providence. Whatever -may be your attitude towards these butterfly-wenches, -it cannot, as a matter of poetic economy, be right -to leave a wine, as delicate, as delicious as this, to -spoil in the glass.</p> - -<p>“I suppose it has never occurred to you, Mr. Clavering, -to go and sit, with the more interesting of your -flock, at the Seldom Arms? It never has? So I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -imagined from my knowledge of your uncivilized -English ways.</p> - -<p>“The European café, sir, is the universal school -of refined and intellectual pleasure. It was from -his seat in a Roman café—a place not unknown to -me myself—that the great Gibbon was accustomed -to survey the summer moon, rising above the -Pantheon.</p> - -<p>“It is the same in the matter of wine as in the other -matter. It is your hypocritical and puritanical fear -of pleasure that leads to the gross imbibing of villainous -spirits and the subterranean slavery of prostitution. -If you allowed yourselves, freely, naturally, and -with Christian moderation, to enjoy the admirable -gifts of the supreme giver, there would no longer be -any need for this deplorable plunging into insane vice. -As it is—in this appalling country of yours—one -can understand every form of debauchery.”</p> - -<p>At this point Mr. Clavering intervened with an -eager and passionate question. He had been listening -intently to his visitor’s words, and his clear-cut, mobile -face had changed its expression more than once during -this long discourse.</p> - -<p>“You do not, then, think,” said he, in a tone of -something like supplication, “that there is anything -wrong in giving ourselves up to the intense emotion -which the presence of beauty and charm is able to -excite?”</p> - -<p>“Wrong?” said Mr. Taxater. “It is wrong to -suppress such feelings! It is all a matter of proportion, -my good sir, a matter of proportion and common -sense. A little psychological insight will soon -make us aware whether the emotion you speak of is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -likely to prove injurious to the object of our admiration.”</p> - -<p>“But oneself—what about oneself?” cried the -young priest. “Is there not a terrible danger, in all -these things, lest one’s spiritual ideal should become -blurred and blighted?”</p> - -<p>To this question Mr. Taxater returned an answer -so formidable and final, that the conversation was -brought to an abrupt close.</p> - -<p>“What,” he said, “has God given us the Blessed -Sacraments for?”</p> - -<p>Hugh Clavering escorted his visitor to the corner of -the street and bade him good-night there. As he -re-entered his little garden, he turned for a moment to -look at the slender tower of St. Catharine’s church, -rising calm and still into the hot June sky. Between -him and it, flitted like the ghost of a dead Thaïs or -Phryne, the pallid shadow of an impassioned temptress -holding out provocative arms. The form of the -figure seemed woven of all the vapours of unbridled -poetic fantasy, but the heavy yellow hair which most -of all hid the tower from his view was the hair of -Gladys Romer.</p> - -<p>The apologist of the papacy strolled slowly and -meditatively back to his own house with the easy -step of one who was in complete harmony both with -gods and men. Above him the early stars began, one -by one, to shine down upon the earth, but as he -glanced up towards them, removing his hat and -passing his hand across his forehead, the great -diplomatist appeared quite untroubled by the ineffable -littleness of all earthly considerations, under the remoteness -of those austere watchers.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> - -<p>The barking of dogs, in distant unknown yards, -the melancholy cry of new-shorn lambs, somewhere -far across the pastures, the soft, low, intermittent -breathing, full of whispers and odours, of the whole -mysterious night, seemed only to throw Mr. Taxater -back more completely and securely upon that firm -ecclesiastical tradition which takes the hearts of men -in its hands and turns them away from the Outer -Darkness.</p> - -<p>He let himself quietly into the Gables garden, by -the little gate in the wall, and entered his house. -He was surprised to find the door unlocked and -a light burning in the kitchen. The careful Mrs. -Wotnot was accustomed to retire to rest at a much -earlier hour. He found the good woman extended at -full length upon three hard chairs, her head supported -by a bundle of shawls. She was suffering from one -of her chronic rheumatic attacks, and was in considerable -distress.</p> - -<p>To a less equable and humane spirit there might -have been something rather irritating than pathetic -about this unexpected finale to a harmonious day. -But Mr. Taxater’s face expressed no sign of any feeling -but that of grave and gentle concern.</p> - -<p>With some difficulty, for the muscles of her body -were twisted by nervous spasms, the theologian supported -the old woman up the stairs, to her room -under the eaves. Here he laid her upon the bed, and -for the rest of the night refused to leave her room, -rubbing with his white plump hands her thin old -legs, and applying brandy to her lips at the moments -when the nervous contractions that assailed her -seemed most extreme. The delicate light of dawn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -showed its soft bluish pallour at the small casemented -window before the old lady fell asleep; but it was -not till relieved by a woman who appeared, several -hours later, with their morning’s milk, that the -defender of the Catholic Faith in Nevilton retired to -his well-earned repose.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE PARIAHS</span></h2> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx was digging in his garden. -The wind, a little stronger than on the -previous days and still blowing from the -east, buffeted his attenuated figure and ruffled his -pointed beard, tinged with premature grey. He dug -up all manner of weeds, some large, some small, and -shaking them carefully free of the adhesive earth, -flung them into a wheel-barrow by his side.</p> - -<p>It was approaching noon, and in spite of the chilly -gusts of wind, the sun beat down hotly upon the -exposed front of Dead Man’s Cottage. Every now -and then Mr. Quincunx would leave his work; and -retiring into his kitchen, proceed with elaborate -nicety to stir a small pot of broth which simmered -over the fire. He was a queer mixture of epicurean -preciseness and ascetic indifference in these matters, -but, on the whole, the epicurean tendency predominated, -owing to a subtle poetic passion in the eccentric -man, for the symbolic charm of all these little necessities -of life. The lighting of his fire in the morning, -the crackling of the burning sticks, and their fragrant -smell, gave Mr. Quincunx probably as much pleasure -as anything else in the world.</p> - -<p>Every bowl of that fresh milk and brown bread, -which, prepared with meticulous care, formed his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -staple diet, was enjoyed by him with more ceremonious -concentration than most gourmands devote -to their daintiest meat and wine.</p> - -<p>The broiling of his chicken on Sunday was a -function of solemn ritual. Mr. Quincunx bent over -the bird, basting it with butter, in the absorbed -manner of a priest preparing the sacrament.</p> - -<p>The digging up of onions or lettuces in his garden, -and the stripping them of their outer leaves, was a -ceremony to be performed in no light or casual haste, -but with a prepared and concentrated spirit.</p> - -<p>No profane hand ever touched the little canister of -tea from which Mr. Quincunx, at the same precise -hour every day, replenished his tea-pot.</p> - -<p>In all these material things his scrupulous and punctilious -nicety never suffered the smallest diminution. -His mind might be agitated to a point bordering upon -despair, but he still, with mechanical foresight, sawed -the fagots in his wood-shed and drew the water from -his well.</p> - -<p>As he pulled up weed after weed, on this particular -morning, his mind was in a state of extreme nervous -agitation. Mr. Romer had called him up the night -before to the House, and had announced that his -present income—the sum regarded by the recluse as -absolutely secure—was now entirely to cease, and -in the place of it he was destined to receive, in return -for horrible clerical work performed in Yeoborough, -a considerably smaller sum, as Mr. Romer’s paid -dependent.</p> - -<p>The idea of working in an office was more distasteful -to Mr. Quincunx than it is possible to indicate to -any person not actually acquainted with him. His<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -exquisitely characteristic hand, admirably adapted to -the meticulous diary he had kept for years, was -entirely unsuited to competing with type-writing -machines and machine-like type-writers. The walk -to Yeoborough too,—a matter of some four or five -miles—loomed upon him as a hideous purgatory. -Walking tired him much more than working in his -garden; and he had a nervous dread of those casual -encounters and salutations on the way, which the -habitual use of the same road to one’s work necessarily -must imply.</p> - -<p>His mind anticipated with hideous minuteness -every detail of his future dreary life. He decided -that even at the cost of the sacrifice of the -last of his little luxuries he would make a point of -going one way at least by train. That walk, twice a -day, through the depressing suburbs of Yeoborough -was more than he could bear to contemplate. It was -characteristic of him that he never for a moment -considered the possibility of an appeal to law. -Law and lawyers were for Mr. Quincunx, with his -instincts of an amiable anarchist, simply the engines -through which the rich and powerful worked their -will upon the weak and helpless.</p> - -<p>It was equally characteristic of him that it never -entered his head to throw up his cottage, pack his -scanty possessions and seek his fortune in another -place. It was not only Lacrima that held him from -such a resolution. It was as impossible for him to -think of striking out in a new soil as it would have -been for an aged frog to leave the pond of its nativity -and sally forth across the fields in search of new -waters. It was this inability to “strike out” and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -grapple with the world on equal terms, that had -led, in the beginning, to his curious relation to the -Romers. He clung to Susan Romer for no other -reason than that she supplied a link between his -past and his present.</p> - -<p>His lips trembled with anger and his hand shook, -as he recalled the interview of the preceding night. -The wife had annoyed him almost more than the -husband. His brutality had been gross and frank. -The lascivious joy of a strong nature, in deliberately -outraging a weaker one, had gleamed forth from his -jeering eyes.</p> - -<p>But there had been an unction, an hypocritical -sentimentality, about Mrs. Romer’s tone, that had -made him hate her the more bitterly of the two. The -fact that she also—stupid lump of fawning obesity -as she was!—was a victim of this imperial tyrant, -did not in the least assuage him. The helot who is -under the lash hates the helot who crouches by the -master’s chair, more deeply than he hates the master. -It is because of this unhappy law of nature that there -are so few successful revolts among our social Pariahs. -The well-constituted ruler of men divides his serfs -into those who hold the whip and those who are -whipped. Yes, he hated her the most. But how he -hated them both!</p> - -<p>The heart of your true Pariah is a strange and -dark place, concealing depths of rancorous animosity, -which those who over-ride and discount such feelings -rarely calculate upon. It is a mistake to assume that -this curious rôle—the rôle of being a Pariah upon -our planet—is one confined to the submerged, the -outcast, the criminal.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> - -<p>There are Pariahs in every village. It might be -said that there are Pariahs in every family. The -Pariah is one who is born with an innate inability -to deal vigorously and effectively with his fellow -animals. One sees these unfortunates every day—on -the street, in the office, at the domestic hearth. -One knows them by the queer look in their eyes; -the look of animals who have been crushed rather -than tamed.</p> - -<p>It is not only that they are weaker than the rest -and less effectual. They are <em>different</em>. It is in their -difference that the tragedy of their fate lies. Commonplace -weaklings, who are not born Pariahs, have -in their hearts the same standards, the same ambitions, -the same prejudices, as those who rule the -world. Such weaklings venerate, admire, and even -<em>love</em> the strong unscrupulous hands, the crafty unscrupulous -brains, who push them to and fro like -pawns.</p> - -<p>But the Pariah does not venerate the Power -that oppresses him. He despises it and hates it. -Long-accumulated loathing rankles in his heart. He -is crushed but not won. He is penned, like a shorn -sheep; but his thoughts “wander through Eternity.”</p> - -<p>And it is this difference, separating him from the -rest, that excites such fury in those who oppress him. -The healthy-minded prosperous man is irritated beyond -endurance by this stranger within the gate—this -incorrigible, ineffectual critic, cumbering his road. -The mob, too, always ready, like spiteful, cawing -rooks, to fall upon a wounded comrade, howl remorselessly -for his destruction. The Pariah is seldom -able to retain the sweetness of his natural affections.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p> - -<p>Buffeted by the unconscious brutality of those -about him, he retorts with conscious and unfathomable -hatred. His soul festers and gangrenes within -him, and the loneliness of his place among his fellows -leads him to turn upon them all—like a rat in -a gin. The pure-minded capable man, perceiving -the rancorous misanthropy of this sick spirit, longs -to trample him into the mud, to obliterate him, to -forget him. But the man whose strength and cunning -is associated with lascivious perversity, wishes -to have him by his side, to humiliate, to degrade, to -outrage. A taste to be surrounded by Pariahs is an -interesting peculiarity of a certain successful class. -Such companionship is to them a perpetual and -pleasing reminder of their own power.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx was a true Pariah in his miserable -combination of inability to strike back at the people -who injured him, and inability to forget their injuries. -He propitiated their tastes, bent to their will, conciliated -their pride, agreed with their opinions, and -hated them with demoniacal hatred.</p> - -<p>As he pulled up his weeds in the hot sun, this -particular morning, Maurice Quincunx fantastically -consoled himself by imagining all manner of disasters -to his enemies. Every time he touched with his -hands the soft-crumbling earth, he uttered a kind of -half-conscious prayer that, in precisely such a way, -the foundations of Nevilton House should crumble and -yield. Under his hat—for he was hypochondriacally -apprehensive about sunstrokes—flapped and waved -in the wind a large cabbage leaf, placed carefully at -the back of his head to protect his neck as he bent -down. The shadow of this cabbage leaf, as it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -thrown across the dusty path, assumed singular and -sinister shapes, giving the impression sometimes that -the head of Mr. Quincunx was gnome-like or goblin-like -in its proportions.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the most unfortunate characteristic of -Pariahs is that though they cling instinctively to one -another they are irritated and provoked by each -other’s peculiarities.</p> - -<p>This unhappy tendency was now to receive sad -confirmation in our weed-puller’s case, for he was -suddenly interrupted by the appearance at his gate -of Lacrima Traffio.</p> - -<p>He rose to meet her, and without inviting her to -pass the entrance, for he was extremely nervous of -village gossip, and one never knew what a casual -passer-by might think, he leant over the low wall -and talked with her from that security.</p> - -<p>She seemed in a very depressed and pitiable mood -and the large dark eyes that fixed themselves upon -her friend’s face were full of an inarticulate appeal.</p> - -<p>“I cannot endure it much longer,” she said. “It -gets worse and worse every day.”</p> - -<p>Maurice Quincunx knew perfectly well what she -meant, but the curious irritation to which I have just -referred drove him to rejoin:</p> - -<p>“What gets worse?”</p> - -<p>“Their unkindness,” answered the girl with a quick -reproachful look, “their perpetual unkindness.”</p> - -<p>“But they feed you well, don’t they?” said the -hermit, removing his hat and rearranging the cabbage-leaf -so as to adapt it to the new angle of the sun.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -“And they don’t beat you. You haven’t to scrub -floors or mend clothes. People, like you and I, must -be thankful for being allowed to eat and sleep at all -on this badly-arranged earth.”</p> - -<p>“I keep thinking of Italy,” murmured Lacrima. -“I think it is your English ways that trouble me. -I don’t believe—I can’t believe—they always mean -to be unkind. But English people are so heartless!”</p> - -<p>“You seemed to like that Andersen fellow well -enough,” grumbled Mr. Quincunx.</p> - -<p>“How can you be so silly, Maurice?” cried the -girl, slipping through the gate in spite of its owner’s -furtive glances down the road. “How can you be so -silly?”</p> - -<p>She moved past him, up the path, and seated herself -upon the edge of the wheel-barrow.</p> - -<p>“You can go on with your weeding,” she said, “I -can talk to you while you work.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” murmured Mr. Quincunx, making no -effort to resume his labour, “you naturally find a -handsome fellow like that, a more pleasant companion -than me. I don’t blame you. I understand it very -well.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima impatiently took up a handful of groundsel -and spurge from the dusty heap by her side and flung -them into the path.</p> - -<p>“You make me quite angry with you, Maurice,” -she cried. “How can you say such things after all -that has happened between us?”</p> - -<p>“That’s the way,” jeered the man bitterly, plucking -at his beard. “That’s the way! Go on abusing me -because you are not living at your full pleasure, like a -stall-fed upper-class lady!”</p> - -<p>“I shan’t stay with you another moment,” cried -Lacrima, with tears in her eyes, “if you are so unkind.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p> - -<p>As soon as he had reduced her to this point, Mr. -Quincunx instantaneously became gentle and tender. -This is one of the profoundest laws of a Pariah’s -being. He resents it when his companion in helplessness -shows a spirit beyond his own, but directly such -a one has been driven into reciprocal wretchedness, -his own equanimity is automatically regained.</p> - -<p>After only the briefest glance at the gate, he put -his arms round the girl and kissed her affectionately. -She returned his embrace with interest, disarranging -as she did so the cabbage-leaf in his hat, and causing -it to flutter down upon the path. They leant together -for a while in silence, against the edge of the -wheel-barrow, their hands joined.</p> - -<p>Thus associated they would have appeared, to the -dreaded passer-by, in the light of a pair of extremely -sentimental lovers, whose passion had passed into the -stage of delicious melancholia. The wind whirled -the dust in little eddies around them and the sun beat -down upon their heads.</p> - -<p>“You must be kind to me when I come to tell you -how unhappy I am,” said the Italian. “You are the -only real friend I have in the world.”</p> - -<p>It is sad to have to relate that these tender words -brought a certain thrill of alarm into the heart of -Mr. Quincunx. He felt a sudden apprehension lest -she might indicate that it was his duty to run away -with her, and face the world in remote regions.</p> - -<p>No one but a born Pariah could have endured the -confiding clasp of that little hand and the memory -of so ardent a kiss without being roused to an impetuosity -of passion ready to dare anything to make her -its own.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> - -<p>Instead of pursuing any further the question of his -friend’s troubles, Mr. Quincunx brought the conversation -round to his own.</p> - -<p>“The worst that could happen to me has happened,” -he said, and he told her of his interview with -the Romers the day before. The girl flushed with -anger.</p> - -<p>“But this is abominable!” she cried, “simply -abominable! You’d better go at once and talk it -over with Mrs. Seldom. Surely, surely, something -can be done! It is clear they have robbed you of -your money. It is a disgraceful thing! Santa Maria—what -a country this is!”</p> - -<p>“It is no use,” sighed the man helplessly. “Mrs. -Seldom can’t help me. She is poor enough herself. -And she will know as well as I do that in the matter -of law I am entirely in their hands. My aunt had -absolute confidence in Mr. Romer and no confidence -in me. No doubt she arranged it with them that -they were to dole me out the money like a charity. -Mr. Romer did once talk about my <em>lending</em> it to him, -and his paying interest on it, and so forth; but he -managed all my aunt’s affairs, and I don’t know what -arrangement he made with her. My aunt never -liked me really. I think if she were alive now she -would probably support them in what they are doing. -She would certainly say,—she always used to say—that -it would do me good to do a little honest -work.” He pronounced the words “honest work” -with concentrated bitterness.</p> - -<p>“Probably,” he went on, “Mrs. Seldom would say -the same. I know I should be extremely unwilling to -try and make her see how horrible to me the idea of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -work of this kind is. She would never understand. -She would think it was only that I wanted to remain -a “gentleman” and not to lose caste. She would -probably tell me that a great many gentlemen have -worked in offices before now. I daresay they have, -and I hope they enjoyed it! I know what these -gentlemen-workers are, and how easy things are made -for them. They won’t be made easy for me. I can -tell you that, Lacrima!”</p> - -<p>The girl drew a deep sigh, and walked slowly a few -paces down the path, meditating, with her hands -behind her. Presently she turned.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps after all,” she said, “it won’t be as bad -as you fancy. I know the head-clerk in Mr. Romer’s -Yeoborough office and he is quite a nice man—altogether -different from that Lickwit.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx stroked his beard with a trembling -hand. “Of course I knew you’d say that, Lacrima. -You are just like the rest. You women all think, -at the bottom of your hearts, that men are no good -if they can’t make money. I believe you have an -idea that I ought to do what people call ‘get on a -bit in the world.’ If you think that, it only shows -how little you understand me. I have no intention of -‘getting on.’ I <em>won’t</em> ‘get on’! I would sooner walk -into Auber Lake and end the whole business!”</p> - -<p>The suddenness and injustice of this attack really -did rouse the Italian to anger. “Good-bye,” she said -with a dark flash in her eyes. “I see it’s no use -talking to you when you are in this mood. You -have never, <em>never</em> spoken to me in that tone before. -Good-bye! I can open the gate for myself, thank -you.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p> - -<p>She walked away from him and passed out into -the lane. He stood watching her with a queer -haggard look on his face, his sorrowful grey eyes -staring in front of him, as if in the presence of an -apparition. Then, very slowly, he resumed his work, -leaving however the fallen cabbage-leaf unnoticed on -the ground.</p> - -<p>The weeds in the wheel-barrow, the straight -banked-up lines of potatoes and lettuces, wore, as he -returned to them, that curious air of forlorn desertion -which is one of nature’s bitterest commentaries upon -the folly of such scenes.</p> - -<p>A sickening sense of emptiness took possession of -him, and in a moment or two became unendurable. -He flung a handful of weeds to the ground and ran -impetuously to the gate and out into the lane. It -was too late. A group of farm-labourers laughing -and shouting, and driving before them a herd of -black pigs, blocked up the road. He could not -bring himself to pass them, thus hatless and in his -shirt-sleeves. Besides, they must have seen the girl, -and they would know he was pursuing her.</p> - -<p>He returned slowly up the path to his house, -and—to avoid being seen by the men—entered -his kitchen, and sat gloomily down upon a chair. -The clock on the mantelpiece ticked with contemptuous -unconcern. The room had that smell -of mortuary dust which rooms in small houses often -acquire in the summer. He sat down once more on a -chair, his hands upon his knees, and stared vacantly -in front of him. A thrush outside the window was -cracking a snail upon a stone. When the shouts of -the men died away, this was the only sound that came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -to him, except the continual “tick—tick—tick—tick” -of the clock, which seemed to be occupied in -driving nails into the heavy coffin-lid of every mortal -joy that time had ever brought forth.</p> - -<p>That same night in Nevilton House was a night -of wretched hours for Lacrima, but of hours of a -wretchedness more active than that which made the -hermit of Dead Man’s Cottage pull the clothes over -his head and turn his face to the wall, long ere the -twilight had vanished from his garden.</p> - -<p>On leaving her friend thus abruptly, her heart full -of angry revolt, Lacrima had seen the crowd of men -and animals approaching, and to escape them had -scrambled into a field on the border of the road. -Following a little path which led across it, and crossing -two more meadows, she flung herself down under -the shadow of some great elms, in a sort of grassy -hollow beneath an overgrown hedge, and gave full -vent to her grief. The hollow in which she hid -herself was a secluded and lonely spot, and no sound -reached her but the monotonous summer-murmur of -the flies and the rustle of the wind-troubled branches. -Lying thus, prone on her face, her broad-brimmed hat -with its poppy-trimmings thrown down at her side, -and her limbs trembling with the violence of her -sobs, Lacrima seemed to insert into that alien landscape -an element of passionate feeling quite foreign -to its sluggish fertility. Not alien to the spot, however, -was another human form, that at the same hour -had been led to wander among those lush meadows.</p> - -<p>The field behind the high bank and thick-set hedge -which overshadowed the unhappy girl, was a large -and spacious one, “put up,” as country people say,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -“for hay,” but as yet untouched by the mowers’ -machines. Here, in the heat of the noon, walked the -acquisitive Mr. John Goring, calculating the value of -this crop of grass, and deciding upon the appropriate -date of its cutting.</p> - -<p>What curious irony is it, in the blind march of -events, which so frequently draws to the place of our -exclusive sorrow the one particular spectator that we -would most avoid? One talks lightly of coincidence -and of chance; but who that has walked through life -observingly has not been driven to pause with sad -questioning before accidents and occurrences that -seem as though some conscious malignity in things -had <em>arranged</em> them? Are there, perhaps, actual telepathic -vibrations at work about us, drawing the -hunter to his prey—the prey to the hunter? Is -the innocent object of persecution, hiding from its -persecutors, compelled by a fatal psychic law—the -law of its own terror—to call subconsciously upon -the very power it is fleeing from; to betray, against -its will, the path of its own retreat? Lacrima in any -case, as she lay thus prostrate, her poppy-trimmed -hat beside her, and her brown curls flecked with spots -of sun and shadow, brought into that English landscape -a strangely remote touch,—a touch of tragic -and passionate colour. A sweet bruised exile, she -seemed, from another region, flung down, among all -this umbrageous rankness, to droop like a transplanted -flower. Certainly the sinister magic, whatever -it was, that had drawn Mr. Goring in that fatal -direction, was a magic compounded of the attraction -of contrary elements.</p> - -<p>If Mr. Romer represented the occult power of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -sandstone hill, his brother-in-law was the very -epitome and culmination of the valley’s inert clay. -The man breathed clay, looked clay, smelt clay, -understood clay, exploited clay, and in a literal sense -<em>was</em> clay.</p> - -<p>If there is any truth in the scientific formula -about the “survival” of those most “adapted” to -their “environment,” Mr. Goring was sure of a -prolonged and triumphant sojourn on this mortal -globe. For his “environment” was certainly one of -clay—and to clay he certainly was most prosperously -“adapted.”</p> - -<p>It was not long before the tragic sobs of the unhappy -Lacrima, borne across the field on the east-wind, -arrested the farmer’s attention. He stood still, -and listened, snuffing the air, like a great jungle-boar. -Then with rapid but furtive steps he crossed over to -where the sound proceeded, and slipping down -cautiously through a gap in the hedge, made his way -towards the secluded hollow, breathing heavily like -an animal on a trail.</p> - -<p>Her fit of crying having subsided, Lacrima turned -round on her back, and remained motionless, gazing -up at the blue sky. Extended thus on the ruffled -grass, her little fingers nervously plucking at its roots -and her breast still heaving, the young girl offered a -pitiful enough picture to any casual intruder. Slight -and fragile though she was, the softness and charm of -her figure witnessed to her Latin origin. With her -dusky curls and olive complexion, she might, but for -her English dress, have been taken for a strayed -gipsy, recovering from some passionate quarrel with -her Romany lover.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What’s the matter, Miss Lacrima?” was the -farmer’s greeting as his gross form obtruded itself -against the sky-line.</p> - -<p>The girl started violently, and scrambled rapidly -to her feet. Mr. Goring stepped awkwardly down -the grassy slope and held out his hand.</p> - -<p>“Good morning,” he said without removing his hat. -“I should have thought ’twas time for you to be up -at the House. ’Tis past a quarter of one.”</p> - -<p>“I was just resting,” stammered the girl. “I hope -I have not hurt your grass.” She looked apprehensively -down at the pathetic imprint on the ground.</p> - -<p>“No, no! Missie,” said the man. “That’s nothing. -’Tis hard to cut, in a place like this. May-be they’ll -let it alone. Besides, this field ain’t for hay. The -cows will be in here tomorrow.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima looked at the watch on her wrist.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you are right,” she said. “I am late. I -must be running back. Your brother does not like -our being out when he comes in to lunch.” She -picked up her hat and made as if she would pass him. -But he barred her way.</p> - -<p>“Not so quick, lassie, not so quick,” he said. -“Those that come into farmers’ fields must not -be too proud to pass the time of day with the -farmer.”</p> - -<p>As he spoke he permitted his little voracious pig’s -eyes to devour her with an amorous leer. All manner -of curious thoughts passed through his head. It was -only yesterday that his brother-in-law had been talking -to him of this girl. Certainly it would be extremely -satisfactory to be the complete master of -that supple, shrinking figure, and of that frightened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -little bosom, that rose and fell now, like the heart of -a panting hare.</p> - -<p>After all, she was only a sort of superior servant, -and with servants of every kind the manner of -the rapacious Mr. Goring was alternately brutal and -endearing. Encouraged by the isolation of the spot -and the shrinking alarm of the girl, he advanced still -nearer and laid a heavy hand upon her shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Come, little wench,” he said, “I will answer for it -if you’re late, up at the House. Sit down a bit with -me, and let’s make ourselves nice and comfortable.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima trembled with terror. She was afraid to -push him away, and try to scramble out of the -hollow, lest in doing so she should put herself still -further at his mercy. She wondered if anyone in the -road would hear if she screamed aloud. Her quick -Latin brain resorted mechanically to a diplomatic -subterfuge. “What kind of field have you got over -that hedge?” she asked, with a quiver in her voice.</p> - -<p>“A very nice field for hay, my dear,” replied the -farmer, removing his hand from her shoulder and -thinking in his heart that these foreign girls were -wonderfully easy to manage.</p> - -<p>“I’ll show it to you if you like. There’s a pretty -little place for people like you and me to have a chat -in, up along over there.” He pointed through the -hedge to a small copse of larches that grew green and -thick at the corner of the hay-field.</p> - -<p>She let him give her his hand and pull her out of -the hollow. Quite passively, too, she followed him, -as he sought the easiest spot through which he might -help her to surmount the difficulties of the intervening -hedge.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> - -<p>When he had at last decided upon the place, -“Go first, please, Mr. Goring,” she murmured, -“and then you can pull me up.”</p> - -<p>He turned his back upon her and began laboriously -ascending the bank, dragging himself forward by the -aid of roots and ferns. It had been easy enough to -slide down this declivity. It was much less easy to -climb up. At length, however, stung by nettles and -pricked by thorns, and with earth in his mouth, he -swung himself round at the top, ready to help her to -follow him.</p> - -<p>A vigorous oath escaped his lips. She was already -a third of the way across the field, running -madly and desperately, towards the gate into -the lane.</p> - -<p>Mr. Goring shook his fist after her retreating figure. -“All right, Missie,” he muttered aloud, “all -right! If you had been kind to the poor farmer, -he might have let you off. But now”—and he dug -his stick viciously into the earth—“There’ll be no -dilly-dallying or nonsense about this business. I’ll -tell Romer I’m ready for this marriage-affair as soon -as he likes. I’ll teach you—my pretty darling!”</p> - -<p>That night the massive Leonian masonry of Nevilton -House seemed especially heavy and antipathetic -to the child of the Apennines, as it rose, somnolent -and oppressive about her, in the hot midsummer air.</p> - -<p>In their spacious rooms, looking out upon the east -court with its dove-cotes and herbacious borders, -the two girls were awake and together.</p> - -<p>The wind had fallen, and the silence about the -place was as oppressive to Lacrima’s mind as the -shadow of some colossal raven’s wing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> - -<p>The door which separated their chambers was -ajar, and Gladys, her yellow hair loose upon her -shoulders, had flung herself negligently down in a -deep wicker-chair at the side of her companion’s bed.</p> - -<p>The luckless Pariah, her brown curls tied back -from her pale forehead by a dark ribbon, was lying -supine upon her pillows with a look of troubled terror -in her wide-open eyes. One long thin arm lay upon -the coverlet, the fingers tightened upon an open book.</p> - -<p>At the beginning of her “visit” to Nevilton House -she had clung desperately to these precious night-hours, -when the great establishment was asleep; -and she had even been so audacious as to draw the -bolt of the door which separated her from her cousin. -But that wilful young tyrant had pretended to her -mother that she often “got frightened” in the night, -so orders had gone out that the offending bolt should -be removed.</p> - -<p>After this, Gladys had her associate quite at -her mercy, and the occasions were rare when the -pleasure of being allowed to read herself to sleep -was permitted to the younger girl.</p> - -<p>It was curiously irritating to the yellow-haired -despot to observe the pleasure which Lacrima derived -from these solitary readings. Gladys got into -the habit of chattering on, far into the night, so as -to make sure that, when she did retire, her cousin -would be too weary to do anything but fall asleep.</p> - -<p>As the two girls lay thus side by side, the one in -her chair, and the other in her bed, under the weight -of the night’s sombre expectancy, the contrast between -them was emphasized to a fine dramatic point. -The large-winged bat that fluttered every now and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -then across the window might have caught, if for a -brief moment it could have been endowed with -human vision, a strange sense of the tragic power -of one human being over another, when the restriction -of a common roof compels their propinquity.</p> - -<p>One sometimes seeks to delude oneself in the fond -belief that our European domestic hearths are places -of peace and freedom, compared with the dark haunts -of savagery in remoter lands. It is not true! The -long-evolved system that, with us, groups together, -under one common authority, beings as widely -sundered as the poles, is a system that, for all its -external charm, conceals, more often than anyone -could suppose, subtle and gloomy secrets, as dark and -heathen as any in those less favoured spots.</p> - -<p>The nervous organization of many frail human animals -is such that the mere fact of being compelled, -out of custom and usage and economic helplessness, -to live in close relation with others, is itself a tragic -purgatory.</p> - -<p>It is often airily assumed that the obstinate and -terrible struggles of life are encountered abroad—far -from home—in desolate contention with the -elements or with enemies. It is not so! The most -obstinate and desperate struggles of all—struggles -for the preservation of one’s most sacred identity, of -one’s inmost liberty of action and feeling—take -place, and have their advances and retreats, their -treacheries and their betrayals, under the hypocritical -calm of the domestic roof. Those who passionately -resent any agitation, any free thought, any legislative -interference, which might cause these fortresses of -seclusion to enlarge their boundaries, forget, in their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -poetic idealization of the Gods of the Hearth, that -tragedies are often enacted under that fair consecration -which would dim the sinister repute of Argos or -of Thebes. The Platonic speculations which, all -through human history, have erected their fanciful -protests against these perils, may often be unscientific -and ill-considered. But there is a smouldering passion -of heroic revolt behind such dreams, which it is -not always wise to overlook.</p> - -<p>As these two girls, the fair-haired and the dark-haired, -let the solemn burden of the night thus press -unheeded upon them, they would have needed no -fantastic imagination, in an invisible observer, to be -aware of the tense vibration between them of some -formidable spiritual encounter.</p> - -<p>High up above the mass of Leonian stone which -we have named Nevilton House, the Milky Way -trailed its mystery of far-off brightness across the -incredible gulfs. What to it was the fact that one -human heart should tremble like a captured bird in -the remorseless power of another?</p> - -<p>It was not to this indifferent sky, stretched equally -over all, that hands could be lifted. And yet the -scene between the girls must have appeared, to such -an invisible watcher, as linked to a dramatic contest -above and beyond their immediate human personalities.</p> - -<p>In this quiet room the “Two Mythologies” were -grappling; each drawing its strength from forces of an -origin as baffling to reason as the very immensity of -those spaces above, so indifferent to both!</p> - -<p>The hatred that Gladys bore to Lacrima’s enjoyment -of her midnight readings was a characteristic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -indication of the relations between the girls. It is -always infuriating to a well-constituted nature to -observe these little pathetic devices of pleasure in -a person who has no firm grip upon life. It excites -the same healthy annoyance as when one sees some -absurd animal that ought, properly speaking, not to -be alive at all, deriving ridiculous satisfaction from -some fantastic movement incredible to sound senses.</p> - -<p>The Pariah had, as a matter of fact, defeated her -healthy-minded cousin by using one of those sly -tricks which Pariahs alone indulge in; and had -craftily acquired the habit of slipping away earlier -to her room, and snatching little oases of solitary -happiness before the imperious young woman came -upstairs. It was in revenge for these evasions that -Gladys was even now announcing to her companion -a new and calculated outrage upon her slave’s peace -of mind.</p> - -<p>Every Pariah has some especial and peculiar dread,—some -nervous mania. Lacrima had several innate -terrors. The strongest of all was a shuddering -dread of the supernatural. Next to this, what she -most feared was the idea of deep cold water. Lakes, -rivers, and chilly inland streams, always rather -alarmed than inspired her. The thought of mill-ponds, -as they eddied and gurgled in the darkness, -often came to her as a supreme fear, and the image -of indrawn dark waters, sucked down beneath weirs -and dams, was a thing she could not contemplate -without trembling. It was no doubt the Genoese -blood in her, crying aloud for the warm blue waves -of the Mediterranean and shrinking from the chill -of our English ditches, that accounted for this peculiarity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -The poor child had done her best to conceal -her feeling, but Gladys, alert as all healthy minded -people are, to seize upon the silly terrors of the ill-constituted, -had not let it pass unobserved, and was -now serenely prepared to make good use of it, as a -heaven-sent opportunity for revenge.</p> - -<p>It must be noted, that in the centre of the north -garden of Nevilton House, surrounded by cypress-bordered -lawns and encircled by a low hedge of carefully -clipped rosemary, was a deep round pond.</p> - -<p>This pond, built entirely of Leonian stone, lent -itself to the playing of a splendid fountain—a fountain -which projected from an ornamental island, -covered with overhanging ferns.</p> - -<p>The fountain only played on state occasions, and -the coolness and depth of the water, combined with -the fact that the pond had a stone bottom, gave the -place admirable possibilities for bathing. Gladys herself, -full of animal courage and buoyant energy, had -made a custom during the recent hot weather of -rising from her bed early in the morning, before the -servants were up, and enjoying a matutinal plunge.</p> - -<p>She was a practised swimmer and had been lately -learning to dive; and the sensation of slipping out -of the silent house, garbed in a bathing-dress, with -sandals on her feet, and an opera-cloak over her -shoulders, was thrilling to every nerve of her healthy -young body. Impervious animal as she was, she -would hardly have been human if those dew-drenched -lawns and exquisite morning odours had not at least -crossed the margin of her consciousness. She had -hitherto been satisfied with a proud sense of superiority -over her timid companion, and Lacrima so far,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -had been undisturbed by these excursions, except in -the welcoming of her cousin on her return, dripping -and laughing, and full of whimsical stories of how -she had peeped down over the terrace-wall, and seen -the milk-men, in the field below, driving in their -cattle.</p> - -<p>Looking about, however, in her deliberate feline -way, for some method of pleasant revenge, she had -suddenly hit upon this bathing adventure as a heaven-inspired -opportunity. The thought of it when it -first came to her as she languidly sunned herself, -like a great cat, on the hot parapet of the pond, had -made her positively laugh for joy. She would compel -her cousin to accompany her on these occasions!</p> - -<p>Lacrima was not only terrified of water, but was -abnormally reluctant and shy with regard to any risk -of being observed in strange or unusual garments.</p> - -<p>Gladys had stretched herself out on the Leonian -margin of the pond with a thrilling sense of delight -at the prospect thus offered. She would be able to -gratify, at one and the same time, her profound need -to excel in the presence of an inferior, and her insatiable -craving to outrage that inferior’s reserve.</p> - -<p>The sun-warmed slabs of Leonian stone, upon which -she had so often basked in voluptuous contentment -seemed dumbly to encourage and stimulate her in -this heathen design. How entirely they were the -accomplices of all that was dominant in her destiny—these -yellow blocks of stone that had so enriched -her house! They answered to her own blond beauty, -to her own sluggish remorselessness. She loved their -tawny colour, their sandy texture, their enduring -strength. She loved to see them around and about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -her, built into walls, courts, terraces and roofs. They -gave support and weight to all her pretensions.</p> - -<p>Thus it had been with an almost mystical thrill of -exultation that she had felt the warmth of the Leonian -slabs caress her limbs, as this new and exciting -scheme passed through her mind.</p> - -<p>And now, luxuriously seated in her low chair by -her friend’s side she was beginning to taste the -reward of her inspiration.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, crossing her hands negligently -over her knees, “it is so dull bathing alone. I really -think you’ll have to do it with me, dear! You’ll -like it all right when once you begin. It is only the -effort of starting. The water isn’t so very cold, and -where the sun warms the parapet it is lovely.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t, Gladys,” pleaded the other, from her -bed, “I can’t—I can’t!”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, child. Don’t be so silly! I tell you, -you’ll enjoy it. Besides, there’s nothing like bathing -to keep one healthy. Mother was only saying last -night to father how much she wished you would -begin it.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima’s fingers let her book slip through them. It -slid down unnoticed upon the floor and lay open there.</p> - -<p>She sat up and faced her cousin.</p> - -<p>“Gladys,” she said, with grave intensity, “if you -make your mother insist on my doing this, you are -more wicked than I ever dreamed you would be.”</p> - -<p>Gladys regarded her with indolent interest.</p> - -<p>“It’s only at first the water feels cold,” she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -“You get used to it, after the first dip. I always -race round the lawn afterwards, to get warm. What’s -the matter now, baby?”</p> - -<p>These final words were due to the fact that the -Pariah had suddenly put up her hands to her face -and was shaking with sobs. Gladys rose and bent -over her. “Silly child,” she said, “must I kiss its -tears away? Must I pet it and cosset it?”</p> - -<p>She pulled impatiently at the resisting fingers, and -loosening them, after a struggle, did actually go so -far as to touch the girl’s cheek with her lips. Then -sinking back into her chair she resumed her interrupted -discourse.</p> - -<p>The taste of salt tears had not, it seemed, softened -her into any weak compliance. Really strong and -healthy natures learn the art, by degrees, of proving -adamant, to the insidious cunning of these persuasions.</p> - -<p>“Girls of our class,” she announced sententiously, -“must set the lower orders in England an example -of hardiness. Father says it is dreadful how effeminate -the labouring people are becoming. They are -afraid of work, afraid of fresh air, afraid of cold -water, afraid of discipline. They only think of getting -more to eat and drink.”</p> - -<p>The Pariah turned her face to the wall and lay -motionless, contemplating the cracks and crevices in -the oak panelling.</p> - -<p>Under the same indifferent stars the other Pariah -of Nevilton was also staring hopelessly at the wall. -What secrets these impassive surfaces, near the pillows -of sleepers, could reveal, if they could only -speak!</p> - -<p>“Father says that what we all want is more -physical training,” Gladys went on. “This next -winter you and I must do some practising in the -Yeoborough Gymnasium. It is our superior physical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -training, father says, which enables us to hold the -mob in check. Just look at these workmen and -peasants, how clumsily they slouch about!”</p> - -<p>Lacrima turned round at this. “Your father and -his friends are shamefully hard on their workmen. -I wish they would strike again!”</p> - -<p>Gladys smiled complacently. The scene was really -beginning to surpass even what she had hoped.</p> - -<p>“Why are you such a baby, Lacrima?” she said. -“Stop a moment. I will show you the things you -shall wear.”</p> - -<p>She glided off into her own room, and presently -returned with a child’s bathing dress.</p> - -<p>“Look, dear! Isn’t it lucky? I’ve had these in -my wardrobe ever since we were at Eastbourne, -years and years ago. They will not be a bit too -small for you. Or if they are—it doesn’t matter. -No one will see us. And I’ll lend you my mackintosh -to go out in.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima’s head sank back upon her pillows and she -stared at her cousin with a look of helpless terror.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> -<p>“You needn’t look so horrified, you silly little -thing. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Besides, -people oughtn’t to give way to their feelings. They -ought to be brave and show spirit. It’s lucky for -you you did come to us. There’s no knowing what -a cowardly little thing you’d have grown into, if -you hadn’t. Mother is quite right. It will do you -ever so much good to bathe with me. You can’t -be drowned, you know. The water isn’t out of your -depth anywhere. Father says every girl in England -ought to learn to swim, so as to be able to rescue -people. He says that this is the great new idea of -the Empire—that we should all join in making the -race braver and stronger. You are English now, you -know—not Italian any more. I am going to take -fencing lessons soon. Father says you never can tell -what may happen, and we ought all to be prepared.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima did not speak. A vision of a fierce aggressive -crowd of hard, hostile, healthy young persons, -drilling, riding, shooting, fencing, and dragging such -renegades as herself remorselessly along with them, -blocked every vista of her mind.</p> - -<p>“I hate the Empire!” she cried at last. Gladys -had subsided once more into her chair—the little -bathing-suit, symbol of our natural supremacy, -clasped fondly in her lap.</p> - -<p>“I know,” she said, “where you get your socialistic -nonsense from. Yes, I do! You needn’t shake your -head. You get it from Maurice Quincunx.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t get it from anybody,” protested the -Pariah; and then, in a weak murmur, “it grows up -naturally, in my heart.”</p> - -<p>“What is that you’re saying?” cried Gladys. -“Sometimes I think you are really not right in your -mind. You mutter so. You mutter, and talk to -yourself. It irritates me more than I can say. It -would irritate a saint.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p> -<p>“I am sorry if I annoy you, cousin.”</p> - -<p>“Annoy me? It would take more than a little -coward like you to annoy me! But I am not going -to argue about it. Father says arguing is only fit -for feeble people. He says we Romers never argue. -We think, and then we <em>do</em>. I’m going to bed. So -there’s your book! I hope you’ll enjoy it Miss -Socialism!”</p> - -<p>She picked up the volume from the floor and flung -it into her cousin’s lap. The gesture of contempt -with which she did this would admirably have suited -some Roman Drusilla tossing aside the culture of -slaves.</p> - -<p>An hour later the door between the two rooms -was hesitatingly opened, and a white figure stole to -the head of Gladys’ couch. “You’re not asleep, dear, -are you? Oh Gladys, darling! Please, please, please, -don’t make me bathe with you! You don’t know -how I dread it.”</p> - -<p>But the daughter of the Romers vouchsafed no -reply to this appeal, beyond a drowsy “Nonsense—nonsense—let’s -only pray tomorrow will be fine.”</p> - -<p>The night-owls, that swept, on heavy, flapping -wings, over the village, from the tower of St. Catharine’s -Church to the pinnacles of the manor, brought -no miraculous intervention from the resting-place of -the Holy-Rood. What was St. Catharine doing that -she had thus deserted the sanctuary of her name? -Perhaps the Alexandrian saint found the magic of -the heathen hill too strong for her; or perhaps because -of its rank heresy, she had blotted her former -shrine altogether from her tender memory.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br /> -<span class="smaller">IDYLLIC PLEASURES</span></h2> - -<p>Mortimer Romer could not be called a -many-sided man. His dominant lust for -power filled his life so completely that he -had little room for excursions into the worlds of art -or literature. He was, however, by no means narrow -or stupid in these matters. He had at least the -shrewdness to recognize the depth of their influence -over other people. Indeed, as he was so constantly -occupied with this very question of influence, with -the problem of what precise motives and impulses -did actually stir and drive the average mass of -humanity, it was natural that he should, sooner or -later, have to assume some kind of definite attitude -towards these things. The attitude he finally hit -upon, as most harmonious with his temperament, was -that of active and genial patronage combined with a -modest denial of the possession of any personal -knowledge or taste. He recognized that an occasion -might easily arise, when some association with the -æsthetic world, even of this modest and external -kind, might prove extremely useful to him. He might -find it advisable to make use of these alien forces, -just as Napoleon found it necessary to make use of -religion. The fact that he himself was devoid of -ideal emotions, whether religious or æsthetic, mattered -nothing. Only fools confined their psychological<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -interest within the narrow limits of their -subjective tastes. Humanity was influenced by these -things, and Romer was concerned with influencing -humanity. Not that these deviations into artistic -by-paths carried him very far. He would invite -“cultivated” people to stay with him in his noble -House—at least they would appreciate that!—and -then hand them over to the care of his charming -daughter, a method of hospitality which, it must be -confessed, seemed to meet with complete approval -on the part of those concerned. Thus the name of -the owner of Leo’s Hill came to be associated, in -many artistic and literary circles, with the names of -such admirable and friendly patrons of these pursuits, -as could be counted upon for practical and -efficient, if not for intellectual aid, in the contest -with an unsympathetic and materialistic world. It -was not perhaps the more struggling and less prosperous -artists who found him their friend. To most -of these his attitude, though kind and attentive, was -hardly cordial. He knew too little of the questions -at issue, to risk giving his support to the Pariahs -and Anarchists of Art. It was among the well-known -and the successful that Mr. Romer’s patronage was -most evident. Success was a quality he admired in -every field; and while, as has been hinted, his personal -taste remained quite untouched, he was clever -enough to pick up the more fashionable catch-words -of current criticism, and to use them, when -occasion served, with effective naturalness and apparent -conviction.</p> - -<p>Among other celebrities or semi-celebrities, across -whose track he came, while on his periodic visits to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -London, was a certain Ralph Dangelis, an American -artist, whose masterly and audacious work was just -then coming into vogue. True to his imperial instinct -of surrounding himself with brilliant and prosperous -clients, if such they could be called, he promptly -invited the famous Westerner to come down and -stay with him in Nevilton.</p> - -<p>The American, who knew nothing of English -country life, and was an impassioned and desperate -pursuer of all new experiences, accepted this invitation, -and appeared, among the quiet Somersetshire -orchards, like a bolt from the blue; falling into the -very centre of the small quaintly involved drama, -whose acts and scenes we are now recording. Thus -plunged into a completely new circle the distinguished -adventurer very soon made himself most felicitously -at home. He was of a frank and friendly disposition; -at heart an obdurate and impenetrable egoist, but on -the surface affable and kind to a quite exceptional -degree. He had spent several years in both Paris -and Rome, and hence it was in his power to adapt -himself easily and naturally to European, if not to -English ways. One result of his protracted visits -to foreign cities was the faculty of casting off at -pleasure his native accent—the accent of a citizen -of Toledo, Ohio. He did not always do this. Sometimes -it was his humour, especially in intercourse with -ladies, to revert to most free and fearless provincialisms, -and a certain boyish gaiety in him made him -mischievously addicted to use such expressions when -they seemed least of all acceptable, but under normal -conditions it would have been difficult to gather from -the tone of his language that he was anything but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -an extremely well-travelled gentleman of Anglo-Saxon -birth. He speedily made a fast friend of -Gladys, who found his airy persiflage and elaborate -courtesy eminently to her liking; and as the long -summer days succeeded one another and brought the -visitor into more and more familiar relation with -Nevilton ways and customs, it seemed as though his -sojourn in that peaceful retreat was likely to be indefinitely -prolonged. It may be well believed that -their guest’s attraction to Gladys did not escape -the notice of the girl’s parents. Mr. Romer took -the trouble to make sundry investigations as to the -status of Mr. Dangelis in his native Ohio; and it -was with unmixed satisfaction that both he and his -wife received the intelligence that he was the son -and the only son of one of Toledo’s most “prominent” -citizens, a gentleman actively and effectively -engaged in furthering the progress of civilization by -the manufacturing of automobiles. Dangelis was, -indeed, a prospective, if not an actual, millionaire, -and, from all that could be learned, it appeared that -the prominent citizen of Toledo handed over to his -son an annual allowance equal to the income of -many crowned heads.</p> - -<p>The Pariah of Nevilton House—the luckless child -of the Apennines—found little to admire in this -energetic wanderer. His oratorical manner, his -abrupt, aggressive courtesies, his exuberant high -spirits, the sweep and swing of his vigorous personality, -the extraordinary mixture in him of pedantry -and gaiety, jarred upon her sensitive over-strung -nerves. In his boyish desire to please her, hearing -that she came from Italy, the good-natured artist<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -would frequently turn the conversation round to the -beauty and romance of that “garden of the world,” -as he was pleased to style her home; but the tone -of these discourses increased rather than diminished -Lacrima’s obstinate reserve. He had a habit of referring -to her country as if it were a place whose -inhabitants only existed, by a considerate dispensation -of Providence, to furnish a charming background -for certain invaluable relics of antiquity. -These precious fragments, according to this easy -view of things, appeared to survive, together with -their appropriate guardians, solely with the object -of enlarging and inspiring the voracious “mentality” -of wayfarers from London and New York. Grateful -as Lacrima was for the respite the artist brought her -from the despotism of her cousin, she could not -bring herself to regard him, so far as she herself was -concerned, with anything but extreme reserve and -caution.</p> - -<p>One peculiarity he displayed, filled her with shy -dismay. Dangelis had a trick of staring at the people -with whom he associated, as if with a kind of quizzical -analysis. He threw her into a turmoil of -wretched embarrassment by some of his glances. -She was troubled and frightened, without being able -to get at the secret of her agitation. Sometimes she -fancied that he was wondering what he could make -of her as a model. The idea that anything of this -kind should be expected of her filled her with nervous -dread. At other times the wild idea passed through -her brain that he was making covert overtures to -her, of an amorous character. She thought she intercepted -once or twice a look upon his face of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -particular kind which always filled her with shrinking -apprehension. This illusion—if it were an illusion—was -far more alarming than any tendency he -might display to pounce on her for æsthetic purposes; -for the Pariah’s association with the inhabitants of -Nevilton House had not given her a pleasing impression -of human amorousness.</p> - -<p>Shortly after Dangelis’ arrival, Mr. Romer found -it necessary to visit London again for a few days; -and the artist was rather relieved than otherwise by -his departure. He felt freer, and more at liberty -to express his ideas, when left alone with the three -women. For himself, however varied their attitude -to him might be, he found them all, in their different -ways, full of stimulating interest. With Mrs. Romer -he soon became perfectly at home; and discovered a -mischievous and profane pleasure in the process of -exciting and encouraging all her least lady-like characteristics. -He would follow her into the spacious -Nevilton kitchens, where the good lady was much more -at home than in her stately drawing room; and watch -with unconventional interest her rambling domestic -colloquies with Mrs. Murphy the housekeeper, Jane -the cook, and Lily the house-maid.</p> - -<p>The men-servants, of whom Mr. Romer kept two, -always avoided, with scrupulous refinement, these -unusual gatherings. They discoursed, in the pantry, -upon their mistress’ dubious behavior, and came to -the conclusion that she was no more of a “real lady” -than her visitor from America was a “real gentleman.”</p> - -<p>Dangelis made some new and amazing discovery -in Susan Romer’s character every day. In all his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -experiences from San Francisco to New York, and -from Paris to Vienna, he had never encountered -anything in the least resembling her.</p> - -<p>He could never make out how deep her apparent -simplicity went, nor how ingrained and innate was -her lethargic submission to circumstances. Nothing -in the woman shocked him; neither her vulgarity -nor her grossness. And as for her sly, sleepy, feline -malice, he loved to excite and provoke it, as he would -have loved to have excited a slumbering animal in a -cage. He delighted in the way she wrinkled up her -eyes. He delighted in the way she smacked her lips -over her food. He loved watching her settling herself -to sleep in her high-backed Sheraton chair in -the kitchen, or in her more modern lounge in the -great entrance hall. He never grew tired of asking -her questions about the various personages of Nevilton, -their relation to Mr. Romer, and Mr. Romer’s -relation to them. He used to watch her sometimes, -as in drowsy sensual enjoyment she would bask in -the hot sunshine on the terrace, or drift in her slow -stealthy manner about the garden-paths, as if she -were a great fascinating tame puma. He made endless -sketches of her, in his little note-books, some of -them of the most fantastic, and even Rabelaisean -character. He had certainly never anticipated just -this, when he accepted the shrewd financier’s invitation -to his Elizabethan home. And if Susan Romer -delighted him, Gladys Romer absolutely bewitched -him. He treated her as if she were no grown-up -young lady, but a romping and quite unscrupulous -child; and the wily Gladys, quickly perceiving how -greatly he was pleased by any naive display of youthful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -malice, or greed, or sensuality, or vanity, took good -care to put no rein upon herself in the expression of -her primitive emotions.</p> - -<p>It was with Lacrima that Ralph Dangelis found himself -on ground that was less secure, but in the genial -aplomb of his all-embracing good-fellowships, it was -only by degrees that he became conscious even of this. -He found the place not only extraordinarily harmonious -to his general temper, but extremely inspiring to -his imaginative work. It only needed the securing of -a few mechanical contrivances, a studio, for instance, -with a north-light, to have made his sojourn at Nevilton -one of the most prolific summers, in regard to -his art, that he had experienced since his student days -in Rome. He began vaguely to wish in the depths -of his mind that it were possible for these good -Romers to bestow upon him in perpetuity some -pleasant airy chamber in their great house, so that he -might not have to lose, for many summers to come, -these agreeable and scandalous gossippings with the -mother and these still more agreeable flirtations with -the delicious daughter. This bold and fantastic idea -was less a fabric of airy speculation than might have -been supposed; for if the American was enchanted -with his entertainers, his entertainers, at any rate the -mother and the daughter, were extremely well pleased -with him. The free sweep of his capacious sympathy, -the absence in him of any punctilious gentility, the -large and benignant atmosphere he diffused round -him, and the mixture of cynical realism with considerate -chivalry, were things so different from anything -they had been accustomed to, that they both -of them would willingly have offered him a suite of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -apartments in the house, if he could have accepted -such an offer.</p> - -<p>Dangelis was particularly lucky in arriving at -Nevilton at this especial moment. An abnormally -retarded spring had led to the most delicious overlapping -in the varied flora of the place. Though June -had begun, there were still many flowers lingering in -the shadier spots of the woods and ditches, which -properly belonged not only to May, but to very -early May. Certain, even, of April’s progeny had -not completely faded from the late-flowering lanes.</p> - -<p>The artist found himself surrounded by a riotous -revel of leafy exuberance. The year’s “primal burst” -had occurred, not in reluctant spasmodic fits and -starts, as is usual in our intermittent fine weather, -but in a grand universal outpouring of the earth’s -sap. His imagination answered spontaneously to -this appeal, and his note-books were speedily filled -with hurried passionate sketches, made at all hours -of the long bright days, and full of suggestive charm. -One particularly lovely afternoon the American found -himself wandering slowly up the hill from the little -Nevilton station, after a brief excursion to Yeoborough -in search of pigments and canvas. He was hoping -to take advantage of this auspicious stirring of his -imaginative senses, by entering upon some more -important and more continuous work. The Nevilton -ladies had assured him that it would be quite impossible -to find in the little town the kind of materials he -needed; and he was returning in high spirits to assure -them that he had completely falsified their prediction. -He suspected Gladys of having invented this difficulty -with a view to confining his labours to such easily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -shared sketching-trips as she might accompany him -upon, but though the fascination of the romping and -toying girl still retained, and had even increased, its -power over him; he was, in this case, impelled and -driven by a force stronger and more dominant than -any sensual attraction. He was in a better mood for -painting than he had ever been in his life, and nothing -could interfere with his resolution to exploit this mood -to its utmost limit. With the most precious of his -newly purchased materials under his arm and the more -bulky ones promised him that same evening, Dangelis, -as he drifted slowly up the sunny road chatting -amicably with such rural marketers as overtook him, -felt in a peculiarly harmonious temper.</p> - -<p>He had recently, in the western cities of the States, -won a certain fiercely contested notoriety in the art -of portrait-painting, an art which he had come more -and more to practise according to the very latest -of those daring modern theories, which are summed -up sometimes under the not very illuminative title -of Post-impressionism, and he had, during the last -few days, indulged in a natural and irresistible wish -to associate this new departure with his personal -experiences at Nevilton.</p> - -<p>Gossiping nonchalantly with the village-wives, as -he ascended the dusty road, by the vicarage wall, his -thoughts ran swiftly over the motley-coloured map of -his past life, and the deviating track across the world -which he had been led to follow. He congratulated -himself in his heart, as he indulged in easy persiflage -with his fellow-wayfarers, upon his consistent freedom -from everything that might choke or restrain the -freedom of his will.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> - -<p>How fortunate, how incredibly fortunate, that he -should, in weather like this, and in so abounding a -mood of creative energy, be completely his own -master, except for the need of propitiating two naive -and amusing women! He entertained himself by the -thought of how little they really knew him,—these -friendly Romers—how little they sounded his real -purposes, his essential feelings! To them no doubt, -he was no more than he was to these excellent villagers,—a -tall, fair, slouching, bony figure, with a -face,—if they went as far as his face,—massively -heavy and irregular, with dreamy humorous eyes and -a mouth addicted to nervous twitching.</p> - -<p>A clump of dandelions, obtruding their golden -indifference to human drama, into the dust of the -road at his feet, mixed oddly, at that moment, in -these obscure workings of his brain, with a sort of -savage caress of self-complacent congratulation which -he suddenly bestowed on his interior self; as, beneath -his pleasant chatter with his rural companions, -he thought how imperturbable, how ferocious, his -secret egoism was, and how well he concealed it -under his indolent good-nature! He had passed now -the entrance to the vicarage garden, and in the -adjoining field he observed with a curious thrill of -psychic sympathy the tenacious grip with which a -viciously-knotted ash-tree held to the earth with -its sturdy roots. Out-walked at last by all the other -returned travellers, Dangelis glanced without pausing -down the long Italianated avenue, at the end of -which shone red, in the afternoon sun, the mullioned -windows of the great house. He preferred to prolong -his stroll, by taking the circuitous way, round by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -village. He knew the expression of that famous -west front too well now, to linger in admiration over -its picturesque repose in the afternoon sunshine. -As a matter of fact a slight chill of curious antipathy -crossed his consciousness as he quickened his steps.</p> - -<p>Happily situated though he was, in his pleasant -lodging beneath that capacious roof, the famous -edifice itself had not altogether won his affection. The -thing suggested to his wayward and prairie-nurtured -soul, a stately product rather of convention than of -life. He felt oddly conscious of it as something symbolic -of what would be always intrinsically opposed -to him, of what would willingly, if it were able, suppress -him and render him helpless.</p> - -<p>Dangelis belonged to quite a different type of -trans-Atlantic visitor, from the kind that hover with -exuberant delight over everything that is “old” or -“English” or “European.” He was essentially rather -an artist than an antiquary, rather an energetic -workman than an epicurean sentimentalist. Once out -of sight of the Elizabethan pile, the curious chill -passed from his mind, and as he approached the first -cottages of the village he looked round for more -reassuring tokens. Such tokens were not lacking. -They crowded in upon him, indeed, from every side. -Stopping for a moment, ere the houses actually -blocked his view, and leaning over a gate which -faced westward, Dangelis looked out across the great -Somersetshire plain, to which Leo’s Hill and Nevilton -Mount serve the office of watchful sentinels. Tall, -closely-clipped elm-trees, bordering every field, gave -the country on this side of the horizon, a queer artificial -look, as if it had been one huge landscape-garden,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -arranged according to the arbitrary pleasure -of some fantastic artist, whose perversion it was to -reduce every natural extravagance to the meticulous -rhythm of his own formal taste.</p> - -<p>This impression, the impression of something willed -and intentional in the very formation of Nature, gave -our eccentric onlooker a caressing and delicate pleasure, -a sense as of a thing peculiarly harmonious to his -own spirit. The formality of Nevilton House depressed -and chilled him, but the formality of age-trimmed -trees and hedges liberated his imagination, -as some perverse work of a Picasso or a Matisse might -have done. He wondered vaguely to himself what -was the precise cause of the psychic antipathy which -rendered him so cold to the grandeur of Elizabethan -architecture, while the other features of his present -dwelling remained so attractive, and he came to the -temporary solution, as he took his arms from the -top of the gate, that it was because that particular -kind of magnificence expressed the pride of a class, -rather than of an individual, whereas he himself was -all for individual self-assertion in everything—in -everything! The problem was still teasing him, when, -a few minutes later, he passed the graceful tower of -St. Catharine’s church.</p> - -<p>This strangely organic, this curiously anonymous -Gothic art—was not this also, the suppression of -the individual, in the presence of something larger -and deeper, of something that demanded the sacrifice -of mere transient personality, as the very condition -of its appearance? At all events it was less -humiliating, less of an insult, to the claims of the -individual will, when the thing was done in the interest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -of religion, than when it was done in the interests -of a class. The impersonality of the former, resembled -the impersonality of rocks and flowers; that -of the latter, the impersonality of fashions in dress.</p> - -<p>“But away with them both!” muttered Dangelis -to himself, as he strode viciously down the central -street of Nevilton. The American was in very truth, -and he felt he was, for all his artistic receptivity, an -alien and a foreigner in the midst of these time-worn -traditions. In spite of their beauty he knew himself -profoundly opposed to them. They excited fibres of -opposition and rebellion in him, that went down to -the very depths of his nature. If, allowing full scope -to our speculative fancy—and who knows upon -what occult truths these wandering thoughts sometimes -stumble?—we image the opposing “streams of -tendency,” in Nevilton village, as focussed and summed -up, in the form of the Gothic church, guarded by the -consecrated Mount, and the form of the Elizabethan -house, owned by the owner of Leo’s Hill, it is clear -that this wanderer, from the shores of the Great -Lakes, was equally antagonistic to both of them. He -brought into the place a certain large and elemental -indifference. To the child of the winds and storms -of the Great Lakes, as, so one might think, to the -high fixed stars themselves, this local strife of opposed -mythologies must needs appear a matter of but trifling -importance.</p> - -<p>The American was not permitted, on this occasion, -to pursue his meditations uninterrupted to the end -of his walk. Half-way down the south drive he was -overtaken by Gladys, returning from the village -post-office. “Hullo! How have you got on?” she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -cried. “I suppose you’ll believe me another time? -You know now, I expect, how impossible the Yeoborough -shops are!”</p> - -<p>“On the contrary,” said the artist smiling, “I have -found them extremely good. Perhaps I am less -exacting,” he added, “than some artists.”</p> - -<p>“I am exacting in everything,” said Gladys, “especially -in people. That is why I get on so well -with you. You are a new experience to me.”</p> - -<p>Dangelis made no reply to this and they paced in -silence under the tall exotic cedars until they reached -the house.</p> - -<p>“There’s mother!” cried the girl, pushing open the -door that led into the kitchen premises, and pulling -the American unceremoniously in after her. They -found Mrs. Romer before a large oak table, set in -the mullioned window of the housekeeper’s little -room. She was arranging flowers for the evening’s -dinner-table. The plump lady welcomed Dangelis -effusively and made him sit down upon a Queen Anne -settle of polished mahogany which stood in the corner -of the fire-place. Gladys remained standing, a tall -softly-moulded figure, appealingly girlish in her light -muslin frock. She swayed slightly, backwards and -forwards, pouting capriciously at her mother’s naive -discourse, and loosening her belt with both her hands.</p> - -<p>“Why should you ever go back to America?” Mrs. -Romer was saying. “Don’t go, dear Mr. Dangelis. -Stay with us here till the end of the summer. The -Red room in the south passage was getting quite -damp before you came. Please, don’t go! Gladys -and I are getting so fond of you, so used to your -ways and all that. Aren’t we Gladys? Why should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -you go? There are plenty of lovely bits of scenery -about here. And you can have a studio built! Yes! -Why not? Couldn’t he, Gladys? The lumber-room in -the south passage—opposite where Lily sleeps—would -make a splendid place for painting in hot -weather. I suppose a north light, though, would be -impossible. But some kind of glass arrangement -might be made. I must talk to Mortimer about it. -I suppose you rich Americans think nothing of -calling in builders and putting up studios. I suppose -you do it everywhere. America must be full of -north light. But perhaps something of the kind could -be done. I really don’t understand architecture, but -Mortimer does. Mortimer understands everything. -I daresay it wouldn’t be very expensive. It would -only mean buying the glass.”</p> - -<p>The admirable woman, whose large fair face and -double chin had grown quite creased and shiny -with excitement, turned at last to her daughter who -had been coquettishly and dreamily staring at the -smiling artist.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you say something, Gladys? You don’t -want Mr. Dangelis to go, any more than I do, do -you?”</p> - -<p>The girl moved to the table and picking up a large -peony stuck it wantonly and capriciously into her -dress. “I have my confirmation lesson tonight,” -she said. “I must be at Mr. Clavering’s by six. -What’s the time now?” She looked at the clock on -the mantelpiece. “Why, it’s nearly half-past four! -I wonder where Lacrima is. Never mind! We must -have tea without her. I’m sure Mr. Dangelis is -dying for tea. Let’s have it out on the terrace.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> - -<p>“At six?” repeated Mrs. Romer. “I thought the -class was always at seven. It was given out to be -seven. I heard the notice on Sunday.”</p> - -<p>Gladys looked smilingly at the American as she -answered her mother. “Don’t be silly, dear. You -know Mr. Clavering takes me separately from the -others. The others are all village people.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Romer rose from her seat with something -between a sigh and a chuckle. “I hadn’t the least -idea,” she said, “that he took you separately. You’ve -been going to these classes for three weeks and you’ve -never mentioned such a thing until this moment. -Well—never mind! I expect Mr. Dangelis will not -object to strolling down the drive with you. You’d -better both get ready for tea now. I’ll go and tell -somebody we want it.”</p> - -<p>She had no sooner departed than Gladys began flicking -the American, in playful childish sport, with a -spray of early roses. He entered willingly into the -game, and a pleasant tussle ensued between them -as he sought to snatch the flowers out of her hands. -She resisted but he pushed her backwards, and held -her imprisoned against the edge of the table, teasing -her as if she were a romping child of twelve.</p> - -<p>“So you are going to these classes alone, are you?” -he said. “I see that your English clergymen are -allowed extraordinary privileges. I expect you cause -him a good deal of agitation, poor dear man, if you -flirt with him as shamelessly as you do with me. -Well, go ahead! I’m not responsible for you. In -fact I’m all for spurring you on. It’ll amuse me to -see what happens. But no doubt all sorts of things -have happened already! I suppose you’ve made Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -Clavering desperately in love with you. I expect -you persecute him unmercifully. I know you. I -know your ways.” He playfully pinched her arm. -“But go on. It’ll be an amusement to me to watch -the result of all this. I like being a sort of sympathetic -onlooker, in these things. I like the idea of -hiding behind the scenes, and watching the tricks of -a naughty little flirt like you, set upon troubling the -mind of a poor harmless minister.”</p> - -<p>The reply made by the daughter of the House to -this challenge was a simple but effective one. Like -a mischievous infant caught in some unpardonable -act, she flagrantly and shamelessly put out her -tongue at him. Long afterwards, with curious feelings, -Dangelis recalled this gesture. He associated -it to the end of his life with the indefinable smell of -cut flowers, with their stalks in water, and the -pungency of peony-petals.</p> - -<p>Tea, when it reached our friends upon the stately -east terrace, proved a gay and festive meal. The -absence of the reserved and nervous Italian, and also -of the master of Nevilton, rendered all three persons -more completely and freely at their ease, than they -had ever been since the American’s first appearance. -The grass was being cut at that corner of the park, -and the fresh delicious smell, full of the very sap of -the earth, poured in upon them across the sunny -flower beds. The chattering of young starlings, the -cawing of young rooks, blended pleasantly with the -swish of the scythes and the laughter of the hay-makers; -and from the distant village floated softly -to their ears all those vague and characteristic sounds -which accompany the close of a hot day, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -release from labour of men and beasts. As they -devoured their bread and butter with that naive -greediness which is part of the natural atmosphere -of this privileged hour in an English home, the three -friends indicated by their playful temper and gay -discourse that they each had secret reasons for self-congratulation.</p> - -<p>Dangelis felt an exquisite sense of new possibilities -in his art, drawn from the seduction of these -surroundings and the frank animalism of his cheerful -companions. He sat between them, watching -their looks and ways, very much as Rubens or -Franz Hals might have watched the rounded bosoms -and spacious gestures of two admirable burgess-women -in some country house of Holland.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Romer, below her garrulous chatter, nourished -fantastic and rose-colored dreams, in which inestimable -piles of dollars, and limitless rows of golden -haired grand-children, played the predominant part. -Gladys, flushed and excited, gave herself up to the -imagined exercise of every sort of wanton and wilful -power, with the desire for which the flowing sap of -the year’s exuberance filled her responsive veins.</p> - -<p>Tea over, Dangelis suggested that he should accompany -the girl to Mr. Clavering’s door.</p> - -<p>“You needn’t be there for three quarters of an -hour,” he said, “let’s go across to the mill copse -first, and see if there are any blue-bells left.”</p> - -<p>Gladys willingly consented, and Susan Romer, -remaining pensive in her low cane chair, watched -their youthful figures retreating across the sunlit -park with a sigh of profound thankfulness addressed -vaguely and obscurely to Omnipotence. This was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -indeed the sort of son-in-law she craved. How much -more desirable than that reserved and haughty young -Ilminster! Gladys would be, three times over, a -fool if she let him escape.</p> - -<p>A few minutes later the artist and his girl-friend -reached the mill spinney. He helped her over the -stream and the black thorn hedge without too much -damage to her frock and he was rewarded for his -efforts by the thrill of vibrating pleasure with which -she plunged her hands among the oozy stalks of those -ineffable blue flowers.</p> - -<p>“No wonder young Hyacinth was too beautiful -to live,” he remarked.</p> - -<p>“Shut up,” was the young woman’s reply, as she -breathlessly stretched herself along the length of a -fallen branch, and endeavoured to reach the damp -moist stalks and cool leaves with her forehead and lips.</p> - -<p>“How silly it is, having one’s hair done up,” she -cried presently, raising herself on her hands from her -prone position, and kicking the branch viciously with -her foot.</p> - -<p>“You’d have liked me with my hair down, Mr. -Dangelis,” she continued. “Lying like this,” and she -once more embraced the fallen bough, “it would -have got mixed up with all those blue-bells and then -you <em>would</em> have had something to paint!”</p> - -<p>“Bad girl!” cried the artist playfully, switching -her lightly with a willow wand from which he had -been stripping the bark. “I would have made you -do your hair up, tight round your head, years and -years ago.”</p> - -<p>He offered her his hand and lifted her up. Once in -possession of those ardent youthful fingers, he seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -to consider himself justified in retaining them and, -as the girl made no sign of dissent, they advanced -hand in hand through the thick undergrowth.</p> - -<p>The place was indeed a little epitome of the season’s -prolific growth. Above and about them, elder-bushes -and hazels met in entangled profusion; while -at their feet the marshy soil was covered with a mass -of moss and cool-rooted leafy plants. Golden-green -burdocks grew there, and dark dog-mercury; while -mixed with aromatic water-mint and ground ivy, -crowds of sturdy red campions lifted up their rose-coloured -heads. The undergrowth was so thick, and -the roots of the willows and alders so betraying, that -over and over again he had to make a path for her, -and hold back with his hand some threatening withy-switch -or prickly thorn branch, that appeared likely -to invade her face or body.</p> - -<p>The indescribable charm of the hour, as the broken -sunlight, almost horizontal now, threw red patches, -like the blood of wounded satyrs, upon tree-trunks -and mossy stumps, and made the little marsh-pools -gleam as if filled with fairy wine, found its completest -expression in the long-drawn flute-music, at -the same time frivolously gay and exquisitely sad, of -the blackbird’s song. An angry cuckoo, crying its -familiar cry as it flew, flapped away from some -hidden perch, just above their heads.</p> - -<p>Not many more blackbird’s notes and not many -more cuckoo’s cries would that diminutive jungle -hear, before the great midsummer silence descended -upon it, to be broken only by the less magical -sounds of the later season. Nothing but the auspicious -accident of the extreme lateness of the spring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -had given to the visitor from Ohio these revelations -of enchantment. It was one of those unequalled -moments when the earth seems to breathe out from -its most secret heart perfumes and scents that seem -to belong to a more felicitous planet than our planet, -murmurs and voices adapted to more responsive ears -than our ears.</p> - -<p>It was doubtless, so Dangelis thought, on such an -evening as this, that the first notion of the presence -in such places of beings of a finer and yet a grosser -texture than man’s, first entered the imagination of -humanity. In such a spot were the earth-gods born.</p> - -<p>Many feathered things, besides blackbirds and -cuckoos abounded in the mill spinney.</p> - -<p>They had scarcely reached the opposite end of the -little wood, when with a sudden cry of excitement -and a quick sinking on her knees, the girl turned to -him with a young thrush in her hand. It was big -enough to be capable of flying and, as she held it in -her soft white fingers, it struggled desperately and -uttered little cries. She held it tightly in one hand, -and with the other caressed its ruffled feathers, -looking sideways at her companion, as she did so, -with dreamy, half-shut, voluptuous eyes.</p> - -<p>“Little darling,” she whispered. And then, with -a breathless gasp in her voice,—“Kiss its head, Mr. -Dangelis. It can’t get away.” He stooped over her -as she held the bird up to him, and if in obeying her -he brushed with his lips fingers as well as feathers, -the accident was not one he could bring himself to -regret.</p> - -<p>“It can’t get away,” she repeated, in a low soft -murmur.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> - -<p>The bird did, however, get away, a moment afterwards, -and went fluttering off through the brushwood, -with that delicious, awkward violence, which -young thrushes share with so many other youthful -things.</p> - -<p>In the deep ditch which they now had to cross, the -artist caught sight of a solitary half-faded primrose, -the very last, perhaps, of its delicate tribe. He -showed it to Gladys, gently smoothing away, as he -did so, the heavy leaves which seemed to be overshadowing -its last days of life.</p> - -<p>The girl pushed him aside impetuously, and plucking -the faded flower deliberately thrust it into her mouth.</p> - -<p>“I love eating them,” she cried, “I used to do it -when I was ever so little and I do it still when I am -alone. You’ve no idea how nice they taste!”</p> - -<p>At that moment they heard the sound of the church -clock striking six.</p> - -<p>“Quick!” cried Gladys. “Mr. Clavering will be -waiting. He’ll be cross if I’m too dreadfully late.”</p> - -<p>They emerged from the wood and followed the -grass-grown lane, round by the small mill-pond. -Crossing the park once more, they entered the village -by the Yeoborough road.</p> - -<p>“What a girl!” said Dangelis to himself, in a voice -of unmitigated admiration, as he held open for her, -at last, the little gate of the old vicarage garden, -and waved his good-bye.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p> -<p>“What a girl! Heaven help that unfortunate Mr. -Clavering! If he’s as susceptible as most of these -young Englishmen, she’ll make havoc of his poor -heart. Will he read the ‘Imitation’ with her, I -wonder?”</p> - -<p>He strolled slowly back, the way they had come, -the personality of the insidious Gladys pressing less -and less heavily upon him as his thought reverted -to his painting. He resolved that he would throw all -these recent impressions together in some large and -sumptuous picture, that should give to these modern -human figures something of the ample suggestion and -noble aplomb, the secret of which seemed to have -been lost to the world with the old Flemish and -Venetian masters.</p> - -<p>What in his soul he vaguely imaged as his task, -was an attempt to eliminate all mystic and symbolic -attitudes from his works, and to catch, in their place, -if the inspiration came to him, something of the -lavish prodigality, superbly material, and yet possessed -of ineffable vistas, of the large careless evocations -of nature herself.</p> - -<p>His imaginative purpose, as it defined itself more -and more clearly in his mind, during his solitary -return through the evening light, seemed to imply an -attempted reproduction of those aspects of the human -drama, in such a place as this, which carried upon -their surface the air of things that could not happen -otherwise, and which, in their large inevitableness, -over-brimmed and over-flowed all traditional distinctions. -He would have liked to have given, in -this way, to the figures of Gladys and her mother, -something of the superb non-moral “insouciance,” -springing, like the movements of animals and the -fragrance of plants, out of the bosom of an earth -innocent of both introspection and renunciation, which -one observes in the forms of Attic sculpture, or in -the creations of Venetian colourists. Below the high<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -ornamental wall of Nevilton garden he paused a -moment before entering the little postern-gate, to -admire the indescribable greenness and luxuriousness -of the heavy grass devoted in this place, not to hay-makers -but to cattle. There was a sort of poetry, -he humorously told himself, even about the great -black heaps of cow-dung which alternated here with -the golden clumps of drowsy buttercups. They also,—why -not?—might be brought into the kind of -picture he visioned, just as Veronese brought his -mongrels and curs to the very feet of the Saviour!</p> - -<p>Dangelis lifted his eyes, to where, through a gap in -the leafy uplands, the more distant hills were visible. -He could make out clearly, in the rich purple light, -the long curving lines of the Corton downs, as they -melted, little by little, in a floating lake of aerial -blue-grey vapour, the exhalation of the great valley’s -day-long breathing.</p> - -<p>He could even mark, at the end of the Corton -range—and the sight of it gave him a thrilling -sense of the invincible continuity of life in these -regions—the famous tree-crested circle of Cadbury -Camp, the authentic site of the Arthurian Camelot.</p> - -<p>What a lodging this Nevilton was, to pass one’s -days in, to work in, and to love and dream! What -enchantments were all around him! What memories! -What dumb voices!</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE MYTHOLOGY OF SACRIFICE</span></h2> - -<p>June, in Nevilton, that summer, seemed debarred -by some strange interdiction from regaining its -normal dampness and rainy discomfort.</p> - -<p>It continued unnaturally hot and dry—so dry, that -though the hay-harvest was still in full session, the -farmers were growing seriously anxious and impatient -for the long-delayed showers. It had been, as we -have already noted, an unusual season. Not only -were there so many blue-bells lingering in the shadowy -places in the woods, but among the later flowers there -were curious over-lappings.</p> - -<p>The little milk-wort blossoms, for instance, on Leo’s -Hill, were overtaken, before they perished, by premature -out-croppings of yellow trefoil and purple thyme.</p> - -<p>The walnut-trees had still something left of their -spring freshness, while in the hedges along the roads, -covered, all of them, with a soft coating of thin -white dust, the wild-roses and the feathery grasses -suggested the heart of the year’s prime.</p> - -<p>It was about eight o’clock, in the evening of a day -towards the end of the second week in this unusual -month, that Mr. Hugh Clavering emerged from the -entrance of the Old Vicarage with a concentrated -and brooding expression. His heart was indeed rent -and torn within him by opposite and contrary emotions. -With one portion of his sensitive nature he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -was craving desperately for the next day’s interview -with Gladys; with the other portion he was making -firm and drastic resolutions to avoid it and escape -from it. She was due to come to his house in the -afternoon—less than twenty-four hours’ time from -this actual moment! But the more rigorous half of -his being had formed the austere plan of sending her -a note in the morning begging her to appear, along -with the other candidates, at a later hour. He had -written the note and it still remained, propped up -against the little Arundel print of the Transfiguration, -on the mantelpiece of his room.</p> - -<p>He went up the street with bowed, absorbed head, -hardly noticing the salutations of the easy loiterers -gathered outside the door of the Goat and Boy,—the -one of Nevilton’s two taverns which just at -present attracted the most custom. Passing between -the tavern and the churchyard wall, he pushed open -the gate leading into the priory farm-yard, and -striding hurriedly through it began the ascent of -the grassy slope at the base of Nevilton Mount.</p> - -<p>The wind had sunk with the sinking of the sun, and -an immense quietness lay like a catafalque of sacred -interposition on the fields and roofs and orchards of -the valley. A delicious smell of new-mown grass -blent itself with the heavy perfume of the great white -blossoms of the elder bushes—held out, like so many -consecrated chalices to catch the last drops of soft-lingering -light, before it faded away.</p> - -<p>Hugh Clavering went over the impending situation -again and again; first from one point of view, then -from another. The devil whispered to him—if it -were the devil—that he had no right to sacrifice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -his spiritual influence over this disconcerting pupil, -out of a mere personal embarrassment. If he gave -her her lesson along with the rest, all that special -effort he had bestowed upon her thought, her reading, -her understanding, might so easily be thrown away! -She was different, obviously different, from the simple -village maids, and to put her now, at this late hour, -with the confirmation only a few weeks off, into the -common class, would be to undo the work of several -months. He could not alter his method with the -others for her sake, and she would be forced to listen -to teaching which to her would be elementary and -platitudinous. He would be throwing her back in her -spiritual development. He would be forcing her to return -to the mere alphabet of theology at the moment -when she had just begun to grow interested in its -subtle and beautiful literature. She would no doubt -be both bored and teased. Her nerves would be -ruffled, her interest diminished, her curiosity dulled. -She would be angry, too, at being treated exactly as -were these rustic maidens—and anger was not a -desirable attribute in a gentle catechumen.</p> - -<p>Besides, her case was different from theirs on quite -technical grounds. She was preparing for baptism as -well as confirmation, and he, as her priest, was -bound to make this, the most essential of all Christian -sacraments, the head and front of his instruction. -It was hardly to the point to say that the other girls -knew quite as little of the importance of this sacred -rite as she did. His explanations of it to them, his -emphasis upon the blessing it had already been to -them, would be necessarily too simple and childish -for her quicker, maturer understanding.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> - -<p>As he reached the actual beginning of the woody -eminence and turned for a moment to inhale the -magical softness of the invading twilight, it occurred -to him that from a logically ecclesiastical standpoint -it was a monstrous thing that he should be serenely -and coldly debating the cutting off of his spiritual -assistance from this poor thirsty flower of the heathen -desert. She was unbaptized—and to be unbaptized, -according to true doctrine, meant, with all our -Christian opportunities, a definite peril, a grave and -assured peril, to her immortal soul. Who was he -that he should play with such a formidable risk—such -a risk to such a lamb of the Great Shepherd? -It was quite probable—he knew it was probable—that, -angry with him for deserting her so causelessly -and unreasonably, she would refuse to go further in -the sacred business. She would say, and say justly, -that since the affair seemed of so little importance to -him she would make it of little importance to herself. -Suppose he were to call in some colleague from -Yeoborough, and make over this too exciting -neophyte to some other pastor of souls—would she -agree to such a casual transference? He knew well -enough that she would not.</p> - -<p>How unfortunate it was that the peculiar constitution -of his English Church made these things so -difficult! The individual personality of the priest -mattered so much in Anglican circles! The nobler -self in him envied bitterly at that moment the stricter -and yet more malleable organization of the Mother -Church. How easy it would be were he a Roman -priest. A word to his superior in office, and all -would arrange itself! It was impossible to imagine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -himself speaking such a word to the Right Reverend -the Bishop of Glastonbury. The mere idea of such -a thing, in our England of discreet propriety, made -him smile in the midst of his distress.</p> - -<p>The thought of the Roman Church brought into -his mind the plausible figure of Mr. Taxater. How -that profound and subtle humanist would chuckle -over his present dilemma! He would probably -regard it as a proper and ironical punishment upon -him for his heretical assumption of this traditional -office.</p> - -<p>Tradition! That was the thing. Tradition and -organization. After all, it was only to Hugh Clavering, -as a nameless impersonal priest of God, that -this lovely outcast lamb came begging to be enfolded. -He had no right to dally with the question at all. -There <em>was</em> no question. As the priest of Nevilton it -was his clear pastoral duty to give every possible -spiritual assistance to every person in his flock. What -if the pursuit of this duty did throw temptation—intolerable -temptation—in his way? His business was -not to try and escape from such a struggle; but to face -it, to wrestle with it, to overcome it! He was like a -sentinel at his post in a great war. Was he to leave -his post and retreat to the rear because the shells -were bursting so thickly round him?</p> - -<p>He sat down on the grass with his back to an -ancient thorn-tree and gazed upon the tower of his -beloved church. Would he not be false to that -Church—false to his vows of ordination—if he were -now to draw back from the firing-line of the battle -and give up the struggle by a cowardly retreat? -Even supposing the temptation were more than he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -could endure—even supposing that he fell—would -not God prefer his suffering such a fall with his face -to the foe, sword in hand, rather than that he should -be saved, his consecrated weapon dropped from his -fingers, in squalid ignoble flight?</p> - -<p>So much for the arguments whispered in his ear -by the angel of darkness! But he had lately been -visited by another angel—surely not of darkness—and -he recalled the plausible reasonings of the great -champion of the papacy, as he sat in that pleasant -window sipping his wine. Why should he agitate -himself so furiously over this little matter? After -all, why not enjoy the pleasure of this exquisite being’s -society? He was in no danger of doing her any harm—he -knew Gladys at least well enough by now to -know that!—and what harm could she do him? -There was no harm in being attracted irresistibly to -something so surpassingly attractive! Suppose he -fell really in love with her? Well! There was no -religious rule—certainly none in the church he -belonged to—against falling in love with a lovable -and desirable girl. But it was not a matter of falling -in love. He knew that well enough. There was -very little of the romantic or the sentimental about -the feelings she aroused in him. It was just a simple, -sensuous, amorous attraction to a provocative and -alluring daughter of Eve. Just a simple sensuous -attraction—so simple, so natural, as to be almost -“innocent,” as Mr. Taxater would put it.</p> - -<p>So he argued with himself; but the Tower of the -Church opposite seemed to invade the mists of these -subtle reasonings with a stern emphasis of clear-cut -protest. He knew well enough that his peculiar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -nature was not of the kind that might be called -“sensuous” or “amorous,” but of quite a different -sort. The feelings that had lately been excited in -him were as concentrated and passionate as his -feelings for the altar he served. They were indeed -a sort of temporal inversion of this sacred ardour; -or, as the cynical Mr. Quincunx in his blunt manner -would have expressed it, this sacred fire itself was -only a form taken by the more earthly flame. But -a “flame” it was,—not any gentle toying with soft -sensation,—a flame, a madness, a vice, an obsession.</p> - -<p>In no ideal sense could he be said to be “in love” -with Gladys. He was intoxicated with her. His -senses craved for her as they might have craved for -some sort of maddening drug. In his heart of hearts -he knew well that the emotion he felt was closely -allied to a curious kind of antagonism. He thought -of her with little tenderness, with no gentle, responsible -consideration. Her warm insidious charm maddened -and perturbed him. It did not diffuse itself -through his senses like a tender fragrance. It provoked, -disturbed, and tantalized. She was no Rose -of Sharon, to be worshipped forever. She was a Rose -of Shiraz, to be seized, pressed against his face, and -flung aside! The appeal she made to him was an -appeal to what was perverse, vicious, dangerous -devastating, in his nature. To call his attraction to -her beauty “innocent”—in Mr. Taxater’s phrase—was -a mere hypercritical white-washing of the brutal -fact.</p> - -<p>His mind, in its whirling agitation, conjured up the -image of himself as married to her, as legally and -absolutely possessed of her. The image was like fuel to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -his flame, but it brought no solution of the problem. -Marriage, though permitted by his church, was as -directly contrary to his own interpretation of his duty -as a priest, as any mortal sin might be. To him it -would have been a mortal sin—the betrayal of his -profoundest ideal. In the perversity—if you will—of -his ecclesiastical conscience, he felt towards such a -solution the feeling a man might have if the selling -of his soul were to be a thing transacted in cold -blood, rather than in the tempest of the moment. -To marry Gladys would be to summon the very -sacraments of his church to bless with a blasphemous -consecration his treachery to their appeal.</p> - -<p>Rent and torn by all these conflicting thoughts, the -poor clergyman scrambled once more to his feet, -pushed his way recklessly through the intervening -fence, and began ascending the steep side of the -pyramidal hill. As he struggled upward, through -burdocks, nettles, tall grasses, red-campion, and -newly planted firs, his soul felt within him as if it -were something fleeing from an invincible pursuer. -The rank aromatic smell of torn elder-boughs and -the pungent odour of trodden ground-ivy filled his nostrils. -His clothes were sprinkled with feathery seed-dust. -Closely-sticking burs clung to his legs and arms. -Outstretched branches switched his face with their -leaves. His feet stumbled over young fern-fronds, -bent earthwards in their elaborate unsheathing.</p> - -<p>He vaguely associated with his thoughts, as he -struggled on, certain queer purple markings which -he noticed on the stalks of the thickly-grown hemlocks, -and the bind-weed, which entwined itself round -many of the slenderer tree-stems, became a symbol<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -of the power that assailed him. To escape—to be -free! This was the burden of his soul’s crying as he -plunged forward through all these dim leafy obstructions.</p> - -<p>Gradually, as he drew nearer the hill’s summit, -there formed in his mind the only real sanctuary of -refuge, the only genuine deliverance. He must obey -his innate conscience; and let the result be as God -willed. At all costs he must shake himself clear of -this hot, sweet, luscious bind-weed, that was choking -the growth of his soul. His own soul—that, after -all, was his first care, his predominant concern. To -keep <em>that</em>, pure and undefiled, and let all else go! -Confused by the subtle arguments of the serpent, he -would cling only the more passionately to the actual -figure of the God-Man, and obey his profound command -in its literal simplicity. Ecclesiastical casuistry -might say what it pleased about the danger he -plunged Gladys into, in thus neglecting her. The -matter had gone deeper than casuistry, deeper, far -deeper, than points of doctrine. It had become a -direct personal struggle between his own soul and -Satan; a struggle in which, as he well knew, the -only victory lay in flight. On other fields he might -be commanded by his celestial Captain to hold his -post to the last; but in the arena of this temptation, -to hold the field was to desert the field; to escape -from it, to win it.</p> - -<p>He paused breathlessly under a clump of larches, -and stretching out his arms, seized—like Samson -in the temple of Dagon—two of the slender-growing -trunks. “Let all this insidious growth of Nature,” -he thought, “all this teeming and prolific exuberance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -of godless life, be thrust into oblivion, as long as the -great translunar Secret be kept inviolable!” Exhausted -by the struggle within him he sank down in -the green twilight of that leafy security, and crossed -his hands over his knees. Through a gap in the foliage -he could perceive the valley below; he could even -perceive the outline of the roof of Nevilton House. -But against the magic of those carved pinnacles he -had found a counter-charm. In the hushed stillness -about him, he seemed conscious of the power of all -these entangled growing things as a sinister heathen -influence pulling him earthward.</p> - -<p>Men differ curiously from one another in this -respect. To some among them the influences of -what we call Nature are in harmony with all that -is good in them, and have a soothing and mystical -effect. Others seem to disentangle themselves from -every natural surrounding, and to stand out, against -the background of their own spiritual horizons, clear-edged, -opaque, and resistant.</p> - -<p>Clavering was entirely of this latter type. Nature -to him was always full of hidden dangers and secret -perils. He found her power a magical, not a mystical, -one. He resented the spell she cast over him. It -seemed to lend itself, all too willingly, to the vicious -demons that delighted to waylay his unguarded hours. -His instinctive attitude to these enchanting natural -forces was that of a mediæval monk. Their bewitching -shapes, their lovely colours, their penetrating -odours, were all permeated for him by a subtle diffusion -of something evil there; something capable of -leading one’s spirit desperately, miserably far—if one -allowed it the smallest welcome. Against all these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -siren-voices rumouring and whispering so treacherously -around us, against all this shifting and flitting -wizardry, one defence alone availed;—the clear-cut, -absolute authority, of Him who makes the clouds his -chariot and the earth his footstool.</p> - -<p>As Clavering sat crouching there under his tent of -larches, the spirit of the Christ he served seemed to -pass surging through him like a passionate flood. He -drew deep breaths of exquisite relief and comfort. -The problem was solved,—was indeed no problem -at all; for he had nothing to do but to obey the -absolute authority, the soul-piercing word. Who was -he to question results? The same God who commanded -him to flee from temptation was able—beyond -the mystery of his own divine method—to -save her who tempted him, whether baptized or -unbaptized!</p> - -<p>He leapt to his feet, and no more like one pursued, -but rather like one pursuing, pushed his way to the -summit of the Mount. The space at the top was -flat and circular; not unlike, in its smooth level -surface, the top of the mountain in that very Transfiguration -picture which was now overshadowing his -letter to his enchantress. In the centre of this open -space rose the thin Thyrsus-shaped tower. He -advanced to the eastern edge of the hill and looked -down over the wide-spread landscape.</p> - -<p>The flat elm-fringed meadows of the great mid-Somerset -plain stretched softly away, till they lost -themselves in a purple mist. Never had the formidable -outline of the Leonian promontory looked more -emphatic and sinister than it looked in this deepening -twilight. The sky above it was of a pale green tint,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -flecked here and there by feathery streaks of carmine. -The whole sky-dome was still lit by the pallid reflection -of the dead sunset; and on the far northern -horizon, where the Mendip hills rise above the plain, -a livid whitish glimmer touched the rim of an enormous -range of sombre clouds.</p> - -<p>The priest stood, hushed, and motionless as a statue, -contemplating this suggestive panorama. But little -of its transparent beauty passed the surface of his -consciousness. He was absorbed, rapt, intent. But -the cause of his abstraction was not the diaphanous -air-spaces above him or the dark earth beneath him; -it was the pouring of the waves of divine love through -his inmost being; it was his fusion with that great -Spirit of the Beyond which renders its votaries independent -of space and time.</p> - -<p>After long exquisite moments of this high exultation, -his mind gradually resumed its normal functioning. -A cynical interpreter of this sublime experience -would doubtless have attributed the whole phenomenon -to a natural reaction of the priest, back to his -habitual moral temper, from the turbulent perturbations -of the recent days. Would such a one have -found it a mere coincidence that at the moment of -regaining his natural vision the clergyman’s attention -was arrested by the slow passage of a huge white -cloud towards the Leonian promontory, a cloud that -assumed, as it moved, gigantic and almost human -lineaments?</p> - -<p>Coincidence or not, Clavering’s attention was not -allowed to remain fixed upon this interesting spectacle. -It seemed as though his return to ordinary human -consciousness was destined to be attended by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -reappearance of ordinary humanity. He perceived in -the great sloping field on the eastern side of the mount -the white figure of a woman, walking alone. For the -moment his heart stood still; but a second glance -reassured him. He knew that figure, even in the -dying light. It was little Vennie Seldom. Simultaneously -with this discovery he was suddenly aware -that he was no longer the only frequenter of the -woody solitudes of Nevilton Hill. On a sort of -terrace, about a hundred yards below him, there -suddenly moved into sight a boy and a girl, walking -closely interlinked and whispering softly. Acting -mechanically, and as if impelled by an impulse from -an external power, he sank down upon his knees and -spied upon them. They too slipped into a semi-recumbent -posture, apparently upon the branches of -a fallen tree, and proceeded, in blissful unconsciousness -of any spectator, to indulge in a long and passionate -embrace. From where he crouched Clavering -could actually discern these innocents’ kisses, and -catch the little pathetic murmurings of their amorous -happiness. His heart beat wildly and strangely. In -his fingers he clutched great handfuls of earth. His -thoughts played him satyrish and fantastic tricks. -Suddenly he leapt to his feet and stumbled away, like -an animal that has been wounded. He encountered -the Thyrsus-shaped tower—that queer fancy of -eighteenth century leisure—and beat with his hands -upon its hard smooth surface. After a second or -two, however, he recovered his self-control; and to -afford some excuse to his own mind for his mad -behaviour, he walked deliberately round the edifice, -looking for its entrance. This he presently found,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -and stood observing it, with scowling interest, in the -growing darkness. He had recognized the lovers -down there. They were both youngsters of his -parish. He made a detached mental resolve to talk -tomorrow to the girl’s mother. These flirtations -during the hay-harvest often led to trouble.</p> - -<p>There was just enough light left for him to remark -some obscure lettering above the little locked door of -this fanciful erection. It annoyed him that he could -not read it. With trembling hand he fumbled in his -pocket—produced a match-box and lit a match. -There was no difficulty now in reading what it had -been the humour of some eighteenth century Seldom -to have carved on this site of the discovery of the -Holy Rood. “Carpe Diem” he spelt out, before the -flutterings of an agitated moth extinguished the light -he held. This then was the oracle he had climbed -the sacred Mount to hear!</p> - -<p>With quick steps, steps over which his mind seemed -no longer to have control, he returned to his point of -observation. The boy and girl had disappeared, but -Vennie Seldom was still visible in her white dress, -pacing up and down the meadow. What was she -doing there?—he wondered. Did she often slip away, -after the little formal dinner with her mother, and -wander at large through the evening shadows? An -unaccountable rage against her besieged his heart. -He felt he should soon begin to hate her if he watched -her much longer; so, with a more collected and calm -step and a sigh that rose from the depths of his soul -he moved away to where the path descended.</p> - -<p>As it happened, however, the path he had to follow -now, for it was too dark to return as he had come,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -emerged, after many windings round the circle of the -hill, precisely into the very field, in which Vennie was -walking. He moved straight towards her. She gave -a little start when she saw him, but waited passively, -in that patient drooping pose so natural to her, till -he was by her side.</p> - -<p>“You too,” she said, touching his hand, “feel the -necessity of being alone a little while before the day -ends. I always do. Mother sometimes protests. -But it is no good. There are certain little pleasures -that we have a right to enjoy—haven’t we?”</p> - -<p>They moved together along the base of the hill -following its circuit in the northerly direction. -Clavering felt as though, after a backward plunge -into the Inferno, he had encountered a reproachful -angel of light. He half expected her to say to him, -in the crushing austerity of Beatrice, “Lift up your -chin and answer me face to face.” The gentle power -of her pure spirit over him was so persuasive that in -the after-ebb of this second turbulent reaction he -could not refrain from striking the confessional -note.</p> - -<p>“I wish I were as good as you, Miss Seldom,” he -said. “I fear the power of evil in me goes beyond -anything you could possibly conceive.”</p> - -<p>“There are few things I cannot conceive, Mr. -Clavering,” the girl answered, with that helpless droop -of her little head that had so winning a pathos. -“We people who live such secluded lives are not as -ignorant of the great storms as you may imagine.”</p> - -<p>Clavering’s voice shook as he responded to this.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> -<p>“I wish I could talk quite freely to you. This -convention that forbids friends such as we are from -being frank with one another, seems to me sometimes -an invention of the devil.”</p> - -<p>The girl lifted her head. He could not see in the -darkness that had now fallen upon them, how her -mouth quivered and her cheeks grew scarlet.</p> - -<p>“I think I can guess at what is worrying you, my -friend,” she murmured gently.</p> - -<p>He trembled from head to foot with a curious shame. -“You think it is about Gladys Romer,” he burst -out. “Well it is! I find her one of the greatest -difficulties I have ever had in my life.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid,” said Vennie timidly, “she intends -to be a difficulty to you. It is wrong to say so, but -I have always been suspicious of her motives in this -desire to enter our church.”</p> - -<p>“God knows what her motives are!” sighed the -priest, “I only know she makes it as hard for me as -she can.”</p> - -<p>As soon as he had uttered these words a queer -observing sense of having been treacherous to Gladys -rose in his heart. Once more he had to suppress an -emotion of hatred for the little saint by his side.</p> - -<p>“I know,” murmured Vennie, “I know. She tries -to play upon your good-nature. She tries to make -you over-fond of her. I suppose”—she paused for -a moment—“I suppose she is like that. It is not -her fault. It is her—her character. She has a mad -craving for admiration and is ready to play it off on -anybody.”</p> - -<p>“It makes it very difficult to help her,” said the -priest evasively.</p> - -<p>Vennie peered anxiously at his face. “It is not as -though she really was fond of <em>you</em>,” she boldly added.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -“I doubt whether she is fond of anyone. She loves -troubling people’s minds and making them unhappy.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t mistake me, Miss Seldom,” cried Clavering. -“I am not in the least sentimental about her—it is -only—only”—Vennie smoothed his path for him.</p> - -<p>“It is only that she makes it impossible for you to -teach her,” she hazarded, following his lead. “I -know something of that difficulty myself. These -wayward pleasure-loving people make it very hard -for us all sometimes.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Clavering shook his stick defiantly into the -darkness, whether as a movement directed against -the powers of evil or against the powers of good, he -would himself have found it hard to say. Queer -thoughts of a humourous frivolity passed through his -mind. Something in the girl’s grave tone had an -irritating effect upon him. It is always a little annoying, -even to the best of men, to feel themselves being -guided and directed by women, unless they are in -love with them. Clavering was certainly not in love -with Vennie; and though in his emotional agitation -he had gone so far in confiding in her, he was by no -means unconscious of something incongruous and even -ridiculous in the situation. This queer new frivolity -in him, which now peered forth from some twisted -corner of his nature, like a rat out of a hole, found -this whole interview intolerably absurd. He suddenly -experienced the sensation of being led along at -Vennie’s side like a convicted school-boy. He found -himself rebelling against all women in his heart, -both good and bad, and recalling, humorously and -sadly, the old sweet scandalous attitude of contempt -for the whole sex, of his irresponsible Cambridge days.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -Perhaps, dimly and unconsciously, he was reacting -now, after all this interval, to the subtle influence of -Mr. Taxater. He knew perfectly well that the very -idea of a man—not to speak of a priest—confiding -his amorous weaknesses to a woman, would have -excited that epicurean sage to voluble fury. Everything -that was mediæval and monkish in him rose up -too, in support of this interior outburst of Rabelaisean -spleen.</p> - -<p>It would be interesting to know if Vennie had any -inkling, as she walked in the darkness by his side, -of this new and unexpected veering of his mood. -Certainly she refrained from pressing him for any -further confessions. Perhaps with the genuine clairvoyance -of a saint she was conscious of her danger. -At any rate she began speaking to him of herself, -of her difficulties with her mother and her mother’s -friends, of her desire to be of more use to Lacrima -Traffio, and of the obstacles in the way of that.</p> - -<p>Conversing with friendly familiarity on these less -poignant topics they arrived at last at the gates of -the Priory farm and the entrance to the church. -Mr. Clavering was proceeding to escort her home, -when she suddenly stopped in the road, and said in a -quick hurried whisper, “I should dearly love to walk -once round the churchyard before I go back.”</p> - -<p>The cheerful light from the windows of the Goat -and Boy showed, as it shone upon his face, his -surprise as well as his disinclination. The truth is, -that by a subtle reversion of logic he had now reached -the idea that it was at once absurd and unkind to -send that letter to Gladys. He was trembling to -tear it in pieces, and burn the pieces in his kitchen-fire!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -Vennie however, did not look at his face. She -looked at the solemn tower of St. Catharine’s -church.</p> - -<p>“Please get the key,” she said, “and let us walk -once round.”</p> - -<p>He was compelled to obey her, and knocking at -the door of the clerk’s cottage aroused that astonished -and scandalized official into throwing the object -required out of his bedroom window. Once inside the -churchyard however, the strange and mystical power -of the spot brought his mood into nearer conformity -with his companion’s.</p> - -<p>They stopped, as everyone who visits Nevilton -churchyard is induced to stop, before the extraordinary -tomb of Gideon and Naomi Andersen. The -thing had been constructed from the eccentric old -carver’s own design, and had proved one of the -keenest pleasures of his last hours.</p> - -<p>Like the whimsical poet Donne, he had derived a -sardonic and not altogether holy delight in contemplating -before his end the actual slab of earthly consistence -that was to make his bodily resurrection so emphatically -miraculous. Clavering and Vennie stood for several -minutes in mute contemplation before this strange -monument. It was composed of a huge, solid block of -Leonian stone, carved at the top into the likeness of an -enormous human skull, and ornamented, below the -skull, by a deeply cut cross surrounded by a circle. -This last addition gave to the sacred symbol within -it a certain heathen and ungodly look, making it -seem as though it were no cross at all, but a pagan -hieroglyph from some remote unconsecrated antiquity. -The girl laid her fragile hand on the monstrous image<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -of death, which the gloom around them made all the -more threatening.</p> - -<p>“It is wonderful,” she said, “how the power of -Christ can change even the darkest objects into -beauty. I like to think of Him striking His hand -straight through the clumsy half-laws of Man and -Nature, and holding out to us the promise of things -far beyond all this morbid dissolution.”</p> - -<p>“You are right, my friend,” answered the priest.</p> - -<p>“I think the world is really a dark and dreadful -place,” she went on. “I cannot help saying so. I -know there are people who only see its beauty and -joy. I cannot feel like that. If it wasn’t for Him -I should be utterly miserable. I think I should go -mad. There is too much unhappiness—too much to -be borne! But this strong hand of His, struck clean -down to us from outside the whole wretched confusion,—I -cling to that; and it saves me. I know -there are lots of happy people, but I cannot forget -the others! I think of them in the night. I think -of them always. They are so many—so many!”</p> - -<p>“Dear child!” murmured the priest, his interlude -of casual frivolity melting away like mist under the -flame of her conviction.</p> - -<p>“Do you think,” she continued, “that if we were -able to hear the weeping of all those who suffer and -have suffered since the beginning of the world, we -could endure the idea of going on living? It would be -too much! The burden of those tears would darken -the sun and hide the moon. It is only His presence -in the midst of us,—His presence, coming in from -outside, that makes it possible for us to endure and -have patience.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, He must come in from <em>outside</em>,” murmured -the priest, “or He cannot help us. He must be able -to break every law and custom and rule of nature -and man. He must strike at the whole miserable -entanglement from outside it—from outside it!”</p> - -<p>Clavering’s voice rose almost to a shout as he uttered -these last words. He felt as though he were refuting -in one tremendous cry of passionate certainty all those -“modernistic” theories with which he loved sometimes -to play. He was completely under Vennie’s -influence now.</p> - -<p>“And we must help Him,” said the girl, “by -entering into His Sacrifice. Only by sacrifice—by -the sacrifice of everything—can we enable Him to -work the miracle which He would accomplish!”</p> - -<p>Clavering could do nothing but echo her words.</p> - -<p>“The sacrifice of everything,” he whispered, and -abstractedly laid <em>his</em> hand upon the image of death -carved by the old artist. Moved apparently by an -unexpected impulse, Vennie seized, with her own, the -hand thus extended.</p> - -<p>“I have thought,” she cried, “of a way out of your -difficulty. Give her her lessons in the church! That -will not hurt her feelings, and it will save you. It -will prevent her from distracting your mind, and -it will concentrate her attention upon your teaching. -It will save you both!”</p> - -<p>Clavering held the little hand, thus innocently -given him, tenderly and solemnly in both of his.</p> - -<p>“You are right, my friend,” he said, and then, -gravely and emphatically as if repeating a vow,—“I -will take her in the church. That will settle -everything.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p> - -<p>Vennie seemed thrilled with spiritual joy at his -acquiescence in her happy inspiration. She walked -so rapidly as they recrossed the churchyard that he -could hardly keep pace with her. She seemed to -long to escape, to the solitude of her own home, of -her own room, in order to give full vent to her -feelings. He locked the gate of the porch behind -them, and put the key in his pocket. Very quickly -and in complete silence they made their way up the -road to the entrance of the Vicarage garden.</p> - -<p>Here they separated, with one more significant and -solemn hand-clasp. It was as if the spirit of St. -Catharine herself was in the girl, so ethereal did she -look, so transported by unearthly emotion, as the -gate swung behind her.</p> - -<p>As for the vicar of Nevilton, he strode back impetuously -to his own house, and there, from its place -beneath the print of the transfiguration, he took the -letter, and tore it into many pieces; but he tore it -with a different intention from that which, an hour -before, had ruled his brain; and the sleep which -awaited him, as soon as his head touched his pillow, -was the soundest and sweetest he had known since -first he came to the village.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE MYTHOLOGY OF POWER</span></h2> - -<p>It was late in the afternoon of the day following -the events just described. Mrs. Fringe was -passing in and out of Clavering’s sitting-room -making the removal of his tea an opportunity for -interminable discourse.</p> - -<p>“They say Eliza Wotnot’s had a bad week of it -with one thing and another. They say she be as -yellow as a lemon-pip in her body, as you might call -it, and grey as ash-heaps in her old face. I never -cared for the woman myself, and I don’t gather as -she was desperate liked in the village, but a Christian’s -a Christian when they be laid low in the -Lord’s pleasure, though they be as surly-tongued as -Satan.”</p> - -<p>“I know, I know,” said the clergyman impatiently.</p> - -<p>“They say Mr. Taxater sits up with her night after -night as if he was a trained nurse. Why he don’t -have a nurse I can’t think, ’cept it be some papist -practice. The poor gentleman will be getting woeful -thin, if this goes on. He’s not one for losing his sleep -and his regular meals.”</p> - -<p>“Sally Birch is doing all that for him, Mrs. Fringe,” -said Clavering. “I have seen to it myself.”</p> - -<p>“Sally Birch knows as much about cooking a -gentleman’s meals as my Lottie, and that’s not saying -a great deal.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Thank you, Mrs. Fringe, thank you,” said Clavering. -“You need not move the table.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, of course, ’tis Miss Gladys’ lesson-day. They -say she’s given young Mr. Ilminster the go-by, sir. -’Tis strange and wonderful how some people be made -by the holy Lord to have their whole blessed pleasure -in this world. Providence do love the ones as loves -themselves, and those that seeks what they want shall -find it! I expect, between ourselves, sir, the young -lady have got someone else in her eye. They tell me -some great thundering swell from London is staying -in the House.”</p> - -<p>“That’ll do, Mrs. Fringe, that’ll do. You can -leave those flowers a little longer.”</p> - -<p>“I ought to let you know, sir, that old Jimmy -Pringle has gone off wandering again. I saw Witch-Bessie -at his door when I went to the shop this -morning and she told me he was talking and talking, -as badly as ever he did. Far gone, poor old sinner, -Witch-Bessie said he was.”</p> - -<p>“He is a religious minded man, I believe, at bottom,” -said the clergyman.</p> - -<p>“He be stark mad, sir, if that’s what you mean! As -to the rest, they say his carryings on with that harlotry -down in Yeoborough was a disgrace to a Christian -country.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” said Clavering, “I know, but we all -have our temptations, Mrs. Fringe.”</p> - -<p>“Temptations, sir?” and the sandy complexioned -female snorted with contempt. “And is those as -takes no drop of liquor, and looks at no man edge-ways, -though their own lawful partner be a stiff -corpse of seven years’ burying, to be put in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -same class with them as goes rampaging with -harlotries?”</p> - -<p>“He has repented, Mrs. Fringe, he has repented. -He told me so himself when I met him last week.”</p> - -<p>“Repented!” groaned the indignant woman; “he -repents well who repents when he can’t sin no more. -His talk, if you ask me, sir, is more scandalous than -religious. Witch-Bessie told me she heard him say -that he had seen the Lord Himself. I am not a -learned scholar like you, sir, but I know this, that -when the Lord does go about the earth he doesn’t -visit hoary old villains like Jimmy Pringle—except -to tell them they be damned.”</p> - -<p>“Did he really say that?” asked the clergyman, -feeling a growing interest in Mr. Pringle’s revelations.</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir, he did, sir! Said he met God,—those -were his very words, and indecent enough words I -call them!—out along by Captain Whiffley’s drive-gate. -You should have heard Witch-Bessie tell me. -He frightened her, he did, the wicked old man! -God, he said, came to him, as I might come to you, -sir, quite ordinary and familiar-like. ‘Jimmy,’ said -God, all sudden, as if he were a person passing the -time of day, ‘I have come to see you, Jimmy.’</p> - -<p>“‘And who may you be, Mister?’ said the wicked -old man, just as though the Lord above were a casual -decent-dressed gentleman.</p> - -<p>“‘I am God, Jimmy,’ said the Vision. ‘And I be -come to tell ’ee how dearly I loves ’ee, spite of Satan -and all his works.’ Witch-Bessie told me,” Mrs. -Fringe continued, “how as the old man said things -to her as she never thought to hear from human lips, -so dreadful they were.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p> - -<p>“And what happened then?” asked Clavering -eagerly.</p> - -<p>“What happened then? Why God went away, he -said, in a great cloud of roaring fire, and he was -left alone, all dazed-like. Did you ever hear such a -scimble-scamble story in your life, sir? And all by -Captain Whiffley’s drive-gate!”</p> - -<p>“Well, Mrs. Fringe,” said the clergyman, “I think -we must postpone the rest of this interesting conversation -till supper-time. I have several things I want -to do.”</p> - -<p>“I know you have, sir, I know you have. It isn’t -easy to find out from all them books ways and means -of keeping young ladies like Miss Gladys in the path -of salvation. How does she get on, sir, if I might -be so bold? I fear she don’t learn her catechism as -quiet and patient as I used to learn mine, under old -Mr. Ravelin, God forgive him!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I think Miss Romer is quite as good a -pupil as you used to be, Mrs. Fringe,” said Clavering, -rising and gently ushering her out of the -door.</p> - -<p>“She’s as good as some of these new-fangled village -hussies, anyway,” retorted the irrepressible lady, -turning on the threshold. “They tell me that Lucy -Vare was off again last night with that rascally Tom -Mooring. She’ll be in trouble, that young girl, before -she wants to be.”</p> - -<p>“I know, I know,” sighed the clergyman sadly, -fumbling with the door handle.</p> - -<p>“You don’t know all you <em>ought</em> to know, sir, if -you’ll pardon my boldness,” returned the woman, -making a step backwards.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I know, because I saw them!” shouted Clavering, -closing the door with irritable violence.</p> - -<p>“Goodness me!” muttered Mrs. Fringe, returning -to her kitchen, “if the poor young man knew what -this parish was really like, he wouldn’t talk so freely -about ‘seeing’ people!”</p> - -<p>Left to himself, Clavering moved uneasily round his -room, taking down first one book and then another, -and looking anxiously at his shelves as if seeking -something from them more efficient than eloquent -words.</p> - -<p>“As soon as she comes,” he said to himself, “I -shall take her across to the church.”</p> - -<p>He had not long to wait. The door at the end of -the garden-path clicked. Light-tripping steps followed, -and Gladys Romer’s well-known figure made -itself visible through the open window. He hastened -out to meet her, hoping to forestall the hospitable -Mrs. Fringe. In this, however, he was unsuccessful. -His housekeeper was already in the porch, taking -from the girl her parasol and gloves. How these -little things, these chance-thrown little things, always -intervene between our good resolutions and their -accomplishment! He ought to have been ready in his -garden, on the watch for her. Surely he had not intentionally -remained in his room? No, it was the -fault of Mrs. Fringe; of Mrs. Fringe and her stories -about Jimmy Pringle and God. He wished that “a -roaring cloud of fire” would rise between him and -this voluptuous temptress. But probably, priest -though he was, he lacked the faith of that ancient -reprobate. He stood aside to let her enter. The -words “I think it would be better if we went over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -to the church,” stuck, unuttered, to the roof of his -mouth. She held out her white ungloved hand, and -then, as soon as the door was closed, began very -deliberately removing her hat.</p> - -<p>He stood before her smiling, that rather inept -smile, which indicates the complete paralysis of every -faculty, except the faculty of admiration. He could -hardly now suggest a move to the church. He -could not trouble her to re-assume that charming -hat. Besides, what reason could he give? He did, -however, give a somewhat ambiguous reason for -following out Vennie’s heroic plan on another—a -different—occasion. In the tone we use when allaying -the pricks of conscience by tacitly treating that -sacred monitor as if its intelligence were of an inferior -order: “One of these days,” he said, “we must -have our lesson in the church. It would be so nice -and cool there, wouldn’t it?”</p> - -<p>There was a scent of burning weeds in the front-room -of the old Vicarage, when master and neophyte -sat down together, at the round oak table, before the -extended works of Pusey and Newman. Sombre -were the bindings of these repositories of orthodoxy, -but the pleasant afternoon sun streamed wantonly -over them and illumined their gloom.</p> - -<p>Gladys had seated herself so that the light fell -caressingly upon her yellow hair and deepened into -exquisite attractiveness the soft shadows of her throat -and neck. Her arms were sleeveless; and as she leaned -them against the table, their whiteness and roundness -were enhanced by the warm glow.</p> - -<p>The priest spoke in a low monotonous voice, -explaining doctrines, elucidating mysteries, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -emphasizing moral lessons. He spoke of baptism. He -described the manner in which the Church had appropriated -to her own purpose so many ancient pagan -customs. He showed how the immemorial heathen -usages of “immersion” and “ablution” had become, -in her hands, wonderful and suggestive symbols of -the purifying power of the nobler elements. He used -words that he had come, by frequent repetition, to -know by heart. In order that he might point out -to her passages in his authors which lent themselves -to the subject, he brought his chair round to her -side.</p> - -<p>The sound of her gentle breathing, and the terrible -attraction of her whole figure, as she leant -forward, in sweet girlish attention to what he was -saying, maddened the poor priest.</p> - -<p>In her secret heart Gladys hardly understood a -single word. The phrase “immersion,” whenever it -occurred, gave her an irresistible desire to laugh. She -could not help thinking of her favourite round pond. -The pond set her thinking of Lacrima and how -amusing it was to frighten her. But this lesson with -the young clergyman was even more amusing. She -felt instinctively that it was upon herself his attention -rested, whatever mysterious words might pass -his lips.</p> - -<p>Once, as they were leaning together over the -“Development of Christian Doctrine,” and he was -enlarging upon the gradual evolution of one sacred -implication after another, she let her arm slide lightly -over the back of his hand; and a savage thrill of -triumph rose in her heart, as she felt an answering -magnetic shiver run through his whole frame.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> - -<p>“The worship of the Body of our Saviour,” he -said—using his own words as a shield against her—“allows -no subterfuges, no reserves. It gathers to -itself, as it sweeps down the ages, every emotion, -every ardour, every passion of man. It appropriates -all that is noble in these things to its own high purpose, -and it makes even of the evil in them a means -to yet more subtle good.”</p> - -<p>As he spoke, with an imperceptible gesture of -liberation he rose from his seat by her side and set -himself to pace the room. The struggle he was -making caused his fingers to clench and re-clench -themselves in the palms of his hands, as though he -were squeezing the perfume from handfuls of scented -leaves.</p> - -<p>The high-spirited girl knew by instinct the suffering -she was causing, but she did not yield to any -ridiculous pity. She only felt the necessity of holding -him yet more firmly. So she too rose from her chair, -and, slipping softly to the window, seated herself -sideways upon its ledge. Balanced charmingly here—like -some wood-nymph stolen from the forest to -tease the solitude of some luckless hermit—she -stretched one arm out of the window, and pulling -towards her a delicate branch of yellow roses, pressed -it against her breast.</p> - -<p>The pose of her figure, as she balanced herself -thus, was one of provoking attractiveness, and with -a furtive look of feline patience in her half-shut eyes -she waited while it threw its spell over him.</p> - -<p>The scent of burning weeds floated into the room. -Clavering’s thoughts whirled to and fro in his head -like whipped chaff. “I must go on speaking,” he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -thought; “and I must not look at her. If I look at -her I am lost.” He paced the room like a caged -animal. His soul cried out within him to be liberated -from the body of this death. He thought of -the strange tombstone of Gideon Andersen, and -wished he too were buried under it, and free forever!</p> - -<p>“Yet is it not my duty to look at her?” the devil -in his heart whispered. “How can I teach her, how -can I influence her for good, if I do not see the effect -of my words? Is it not an insult to the Master -Himself, and His Divine power, to be thus cowardly -and afraid?”</p> - -<p>His steps faltered and he leant against the table.</p> - -<p>“Christ,” he found his lips repeating, “is the explanation -of all mysteries. He is the secret root -of all natural impulses in us. All emerge from Him -and all return to Him. He is to us what their ancient -god Pan was to the Greeks. He is in a true sense -our <em>All</em>—for in him is all we are, all we have, and -all we hope. All our passions are His. Touched by -Him, their true originator, they lose their dross, are -purged of their evil, and give forth sweet-smelling, -sweet-breathing—yellow roses!”</p> - -<p>He had not intended to say “yellow roses.” The -sentence had rounded itself off so, apart from his -conscious will.</p> - -<p>The girl gravely indicated that she heard him; and -then smiled dreamily, acquiescingly—the sort of -smile that yields to a spiritual idea, as if it were a -physical caress.</p> - -<p>The scent of burning weeds continued to float in -through the window. “Oh, it has gone!” she cried -suddenly, as, released from her fingers, the branch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -swung back to its place against the sandstone -wall.</p> - -<p>“I must have it again,” she added, bending her -supple body backwards. She made one or two ineffectual -efforts and then gave up, panting. “I can’t -reach it,” she said. “But go on, Mr. Clavering. I -can listen to you like this. It is so nice out here.”</p> - -<p>Strange unfathomable thoughts surged up in the -depths of Clavering’s soul. He found himself wishing -that he had authority over her, that he might tame -her wilful spirit, and lay her under the yoke of some -austere penance. Why was she free to provoke him -thus, with her merciless fragility? The madness she -was arousing grew steadily upon him. He stumbled -awkwardly round the edge of the table and approached -her. The scent of burning weeds became -yet more emphatic. To make his nearness to her -less obvious, and out of a queer mechanical instinct -to allay his own conscience, he continued his spiritual -admonitions, even when he was quite close—even -when he could have touched her with his hand. And -it would be so easy to touch her! The playful -perilousness of her position in the window made such -a movement natural, justifiable, almost conventional.</p> - -<p>“The true doctrine of the Incarnation,” his lips repeated, -“is not that something contrary to nature -has happened; it is that the innermost secret of -Nature has been revealed. And this secret,”—here -his fingers closed feverishly on the casement-latch—“is -identical with the force that swings the furthest -star, and drives the sap through the veins of all living -things.”</p> - -<p>It would have been of considerable interest to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -a student of religious psychology—like Mr. Taxater -for example—to observe how the phrases that -mechanically passed Clavering’s lips at this juncture -were all phrases drawn from the works of rationalistic -modernists. He had recently been reading the -charming and subtle essays of Father Mervyn; and -the soft and melodious harmonies of that clever -theologian’s thought had accumulated in some hidden -corner of his brain. The authentic religious emotion -in him being superseded by a more powerful impulse, -his mind mechanically reverted to the large, dim -regions of mystical speculation. A certain instinct -in him—the instinct of his clamorous senses—made -him careful to blur, confuse, and keep far back, that -lovely and terrible “Power from Outside,” the hem -of Whose garments he had clung to, the night -before. “Christ,” he went on, “is, as it were, the -centre and pivot of the whole universe, and every -revelation granted to us of His nature is a revelation -from the system of things itself. I want you to -understand that our true attitude towards this great -mystery, ought to be the attitude of scientific explorers, -who in searching for hidden causes have -come upon the one, the unique Cause.”</p> - -<p>The girl’s only indication that she embraced the -significance of these solemn words was to make a -sudden gliding serpentine movement which brought -her into a position more easy to be retained, and -yet one that made it still more unnatural that he -should refuse her some kind of playful and affectionate -support.</p> - -<p>The poor priest’s heart beat tumultuously. He -began to lose all consciousness of everything except<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -his propinquity to his provoker. He was aware -with appalling distinctness of the precise texture -of the light frock that she wore. It was of a -soft fawn colour, crossed by wavy lines of a darker -tint. He watched the way these wavy lines followed -the curves of her figure. They began at -her side, and ended where her skirt hung loose -over her little swinging ankles. He wished these -lines had sloped upwards, instead of downwards; then -it would have been so much easier for him to follow -the argument of the “Development of Christian -Doctrine.”</p> - -<p>Still that scent of burning weeds! Why must his -neighbours set fire to their rubbish, on this particular -afternoon?</p> - -<p>With a fierce mental effort he tried to suppress -the thought that those voluptuous lips only waited -for him to overcome his ridiculous scruples. Why -must she wait like this so pitilessly passive, laying -all the burden of the struggle upon him? If she -would only make a little—a very little—movement, -his conscience would be able to recover its -equilibrium, whatever happened. He tried to unmagnetize -her attraction, by visualizing the fact that -under this desirable form—so near his touch—lurked -nothing but that bleak, bare, last outline of -mortality, to which all flesh must come. He tried -to see her forehead, her closed eyes, her parted -lips, as they would look if resting in a coffin. Like -his monkish predecessors in the world-old struggle -against Satan, he sought to save himself by clutching -fast to the grinning skull.</p> - -<p>All this while his lips went on repeating their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -liturgical formula. “We must learn to look upon the -Redemption, as a natural, not a supernatural fact. -We must learn to see in it the motive-force of the -whole stream of evolution. We must remember that -things <em>are</em> what they have it in them to <em>become</em>. -It is the purpose, the end, which is the true truth—not -the process or the method. Christ is the end -of all things. He is therefore the beginning of all -things. All things find their meaning, their place, -their explanation, only in relation to Him. He is -the reality of the illusion which we call Nature, -and of the illusion which we call Life. In Him the -universe becomes real and living—which else were -a mere engine of destruction.” How much longer -he would have continued in this strain—conquered -yet still resisting—it were impossible to say. All -these noble words, into the rhythm of which so -much passionate modern thought had been poured, -fell from his lips like sand out of a sieve.</p> - -<p>The girl herself interrupted him. With a quick -movement she suddenly jerked herself from her recumbent -position; jumped, without his help, lightly -down upon the floor, and resumed her former place -at the table. The explanation of this virtuous retreat -soon made itself known in the person of a -visitor advancing up the garden. Clavering, who -had stumbled foolishly aside as she changed her -place, now opened the door and went to meet the -new-comer.</p> - -<p>It was Romer’s manager, Mr. Thomas Lickwit, -discreet, obsequious, fawning, as ever,—but with -a covert malignity in his hurried words. “Sorry to -disturb you, sir. I see it is Miss Gladys’ lesson. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -hope the young lady is getting on nicely, sir. I -won’t detain you for more than a moment. I have -just a little matter that couldn’t wait. Business is -business, you know.”</p> - -<p>Clavering felt as though he had heard this last -observation repeated “ad nauseam” by all the disgusting -sycophants in all the sensational novels he -had ever read. It occurred to him how closely Mr. -Lickwit really did resemble all these monotonously -unpleasant people.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” went on the amiable man, “business is -business—even with reverend gentlemen like yourself -who have better things to attend to.” Clavering -forced himself to smile in genial appreciation of this -airy wit, and beckoned the manager into his study. -He then returned to the front room. “I am afraid -our lesson must end for tonight, Miss Romer,” -he said. “You know enough of this lieutenant -of your father’s to guess that he will not be easy -to get rid of. The worst of a parson’s life are these -interruptions.”</p> - -<p>There was no smile upon his face as he said this, -but the girl laughed merrily. She adjusted her hat -with a deliciously coquettish glance at him through -the permissible medium of the gilt-framed mirror. -Then she turned and held out her hand. “Till next -week, then, Mr. Clavering. And I will read all those -books you sent up for me—even the great big black -one!”</p> - -<p>He gravely opened the door for her, and with a -sigh from a heart “sorely charged,” returned to face -Mr. Lickwit.</p> - -<p>He found that gentleman comfortably ensconced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -in the only arm-chair. “It is like this, sir,” said -the man, when Clavering had taken a seat opposite -him. “Mr. Romer thinks it would be a good thing -if this Social Meeting were put a stop to. There -has been talk, sir. I will not conceal it from you. -There has been talk. The people say that you -have allied yourself with that troublesome agitator. -You know the man I refer to, sir, that wretched -Wone.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Romer doesn’t approve of what he hears of -these meetings. He doesn’t see as how they serve any -good purpose. He thinks they promote discord in -the place, and set one class against another. He does -not like the way, neither, that Mr. Quincunx has -been going on down there; nor to say the truth, sir, -do <em>I</em> like that gentleman’s doings very well. He -speaks too free, does Mr. Quincunx, much too free, -considering how he is situated as you might say.”</p> - -<p>Clavering leapt to his feet, trembling with anger. -“I cannot understand this,” he said, “Someone has -been misleading Mr. Romer. The Social Meeting -is an old institution of this village; and though it is -not exactly a church affair, I believe it is almost -entirely frequented by church-goers. I have always -felt that it served an invaluable purpose in this place. -It is indeed the only occasion when priest and people -can meet on equal terms and discuss these great -questions man to man. No—no, Lickwit, I cannot -for a moment consent to the closing of the Social -Meeting. It would undo the work of years. It -would be utterly unwise. In fact it would be wrong. -I cannot think how you can come to me with such a -proposal.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mr. Lickwit made no movement beyond causing -his hat to twirl round on the top of the stick he held -between his knees.</p> - -<p>“You will think better of it, sir. You will think -better of it,” he said. “The election is coming on, -and Mr. Romer expects all supporters of Church and -State to help him in his campaign. You have heard -he is standing, sir, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Lickwit uttered the word “standing” in a -tone which suggested to Clavering’s mind a grotesque -image of the British Constitution resting like an enormous -cornucopia on the head of the owner of Leo’s -Hill. He nodded and resumed his seat. The manager -continued. “That old Methodist chapel where those -meetings are held, belongs, as you know, to Mr. -Romer. He is thinking of having it pulled down—not -only because of Wone’s and Quincunx’s goings on -there, but because he wants the ground. He’s thinking -of building an estate-office on that corner. We -are pressed for room, up at the Hill, sir.”</p> - -<p>Once more Clavering rose to his feet. “This is too -much!” he cried. “I wonder you have the impertinence -to come here and tell me such things. I -am not to be bullied, Lickwit. Understand that! -I am not to be bullied.”</p> - -<p>“Then I may tell the master,” said the man sneeringly, -rising in his turn and making for the door, -“that Mr. Parson won’t have nothing to do with -our little plan?”</p> - -<p>“You may tell him what you please, Lickwit. I -shall go over myself at once to the House and see -Mr. Romer.” He glanced at his watch. “It is not -seven yet, and I know he does not dine till eight.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p> - -<p>“By all means, sir, by all means! He’ll be extremely -glad to see you. You couldn’t do better, sir. -You’ll excuse me if I don’t walk up with you. I have -to run across and speak to Mr. Goring.”</p> - -<p>He bowed himself out and hurried off. Clavering -seized his hat and followed him, turning, however, -when once in the street, in the direction of the south -drive. It took him scarcely a couple of minutes to -reach the village square where the drive emerged. -In the centre of the square stood a solid erection of -Leonian stone adapted to the double purpose of a -horse-trough and a drinking fountain. Here the -girls came to draw water, and here the lads came to -chat and flirt with the girls. Mr. Clavering could -not help pausing in his determined march to watch -a group of young people engaged in animated and -laughing frivolity at this spot. It was a man and -two girls. He recognized the man at once by his -slight figure and lively gestures. It was Luke Andersen. -“That fellow has a bad influence in this place,” -he said to himself. “He takes advantage of his -superior education to unsettle these children’s minds. -I must stop this.” He moved slowly towards the -fountain. Luke Andersen looked indeed as reckless -and engaging as a young faun out of a heathen -story. He was making a cup of his two hands and -whimsically holding up the water to the lips of the -younger of his companions, while the other one giggled -and fluttered round them. Had the priest been in -a poetic humour at that moment, he might have -been reminded of those queer mediæval legends of -the wanderings of the old dispossessed divinities. -The young stone-carver, with his classic profile and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -fair curly hair, might have passed for a disguised -Dionysus seducing to his perilous service the women -of some rustic Thessalian hamlet. No pleasing image -of this kind crossed Hugh Clavering’s vision. All he -saw, as he approached the fountain, was another -youthful incarnation of the dangerous Power he had -been wrestling with all the afternoon. He advanced -towards the engaging Luke, much as Christian might -have advanced towards Apollyon. “Good evening, -Andersen,” he said, with a certain professional severity. -“Using the fountain, I see? We must be careful, -though, not to waste the water this hot summer.”</p> - -<p>The girl who was drinking rose up with a little -start, and stood blushing and embarrassed. Luke -appeared entirely at his ease. He leant negligently -against the edge of the stone trough, and pushed his -hat to the back of his head. In this particular pose -he resembled to an extraordinary degree the famous -Capitolian statue.</p> - -<p>“It is hardly wasting the water, Mr. Clavering,” -he said with a smile, “offering it to a beautiful -mouth. Why don’t you curtsey to Mr. Clavering, -Annie? I thought all you girls curtsied when clergymen -spoke to you.”</p> - -<p>The priest frowned. The audacious aplomb of the -young man unnerved and disconcerted him.</p> - -<p>“Water in a stone fountain like this,” went on -the shameless youth, “has a peculiar charm these -hot evenings. It makes you almost fancy you are -in Seville. Seville is a place in Spain, Annie. Mr. -Clavering will tell you all about it.”</p> - -<p>“I think Annie had better run in to her mother -now,” said the priest severely.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s all right,” replied the youth with unruffled -urbanity. “Her mother has gone shopping in -Yeoborough and I have to see that Annie behaves -properly till she comes back.”</p> - -<p>Clavering looked reproachfully at the girl. Something -about him—his very inability perhaps to cope -with this seductive Dionysus—struck her simple -intelligence as pathetic. She made a movement as -if to join her companion, who remained roguishly -giggling a few paces off. But Luke boldly restrained -her. Putting his hand on her shoulder he said -laughingly to the priest, “She will be a heart-breaker -one of these days, Mr. Clavering, will our Annie -here! You wouldn’t think she was eighteen, would -you, sir?”</p> - -<p>Under other circumstances the young clergyman -would have unhesitatingly commanded the girl to go -home. But his recent experiences had loosened the -fibre of his moral courage. Besides, what was there -to prevent this incorrigible young man from walking -off after her? One could hardly—at least in Protestant -England—make one’s flock moral by sheer -force.</p> - -<p>“Well—good-night to you all,” he said, and -moved away, thinking to himself that at any rate -there was safety in publicity. “But what a dangerous -person that Andersen is! One never knows how -to deal with these half-and-half people. If he were -a village-boy it would be different. And it would be -different if he were a gentleman. But he is neither -one thing or the other. Seville! Who would have -thought to have heard Seville referred to, in the -middle of Nevilton Square?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p> - -<p>He reached the carved entrance of the House with -its deeply-cut armorial bearings—the Seldom falcon -with the arrow in its beak. “No more will <em>that</em> bird -fly,” he thought, as he waited for the door to open.</p> - -<p>He was ushered into the spacious entrance hall, -the usual place of reception for Mr. Romer’s less -favoured guests. The quarry-owner was alone. He -shook hands affably with his visitor and motioned -him to a seat.</p> - -<p>“I have come about that question of the Social -Meeting—” he began.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer cut him short. “It is no longer a -question,” he said. “It is a ‘fait accompli.’ I have -given orders to have the place pulled down next -week. I want the space for building purposes.”</p> - -<p>Clavering turned white with anger. “We shall have -to find another room then,” he said. “I cannot -have those meetings dropping out from our village -life. They keep the thoughtful people together as -nothing else can.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer smiled grimly. “You will find it difficult -to discover another place,” he remarked.</p> - -<p>“Then I shall have them in my own house,” said -the vicar of Nevilton.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer crossed his hands and threw back his -head; looking, with the air of one who watches the -development of precisely foreseen events, straight -into the sad eyes of the little Royal Servant on the -wall.</p> - -<p>“Pardon such a question, my friend,” said he, “but -may I ask you what your personal income is, at this -moment?”</p> - -<p>“You know that well enough,” returned the other.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -“I have nothing beyond the hundred and fifty -pounds I receive as vicar of this place.”</p> - -<p>“And what,” pursued the Quarry-owner, “may -your expenditure amount to?”</p> - -<p>“That, also, you know well,” replied Clavering. -“I give away about eighty pounds, every year, to -the poor of this village.”</p> - -<p>“And where does this eighty pounds come from?” -went on the Squire. The priest was silent.</p> - -<p>“I will tell you where it comes from,” pronounced -the other. “It comes from me. It is my contribution, -out of the tithes which I receive as lay-rector. -And it is the larger part of them.”</p> - -<p>The priest was still silent.</p> - -<p>“When I first came here,” his interlocutor continued, -“I gave up these tithes as an offering to our -village necessities; and I have not yet withdrawn -them. If this Social Meeting, Mr. Clavering, is not -brought to an end, I shall withdraw them. And no -one will be able to blame me.”</p> - -<p>Hugh jumped up on his feet with a gesture of -fury. “I call this,” he shouted, “nothing short of -sacrilege! Yes, sacrilege and tyranny! I shall proclaim -it abroad. I shall write to the papers. I shall -appeal to the bishop—to the country!”</p> - -<p>“As you please,” said Mr. Romer quietly, “as you -please. I should only like to point out that any -action of this kind will tie up my purse-strings forever. -You will not be popular with your flock, my -friend. I know something of our dear Nevilton -people; and I shall have only to make it plain to -them that it is their vicar who has reduced this -charity; and you will not find yourself greatly loved!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p> - -<p>Clavering fell back into his chair with a groan. -He knew too well the truth of the man’s words. He -knew also the straits into which this lack of money -would plunge half his benevolent activities in the -parish. He hung his head gloomily and stared at the -floor. What would he not have given, at that moment, -to have been able to meet this despot, man to -man, unencumbered by his duty to his people!</p> - -<p>“Let me assure you, my dear sir,” said Mr. Romer -quietly, “that you are not by any means fighting -the cause of your church, in supporting this wretched -Meeting. If I were bidding you interrupt your -services or your sacraments, it would be another -matter. This Social Meeting has strong anti-clerical -prejudices. You know that, as well as I. It is -conducted entirely on nonconformist lines. I happen -to be aware,” he added, “since you talk of -appealing to the bishop, that the good man has already, -on more than one occasion, protested vigorously -against the association of his clergy with this -kind of organization. I do not know whether you -ever glance at that excellent paper the Guardian; -but if so you will find, in this last week’s issue, a -very interesting case, quite parallel to ours, in which -the bishop’s sympathies were by no means on the -side you are advocating.”</p> - -<p>The young priest rose and bowed. “There is, at -any rate, no necessity for me to trouble you any -further,” he said. “So I will bid you good-night.”</p> - -<p>He left the hall hastily, picked up his hat, and let -himself out, before his host had time to reply. All -the way down the drive his thoughts reverted to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -seductive wiles of this despot’s daughter. “The -saints are deserting me,” he thought, “by reason of -my sin.”</p> - -<p>He was not, even then, destined to escape his -temptress. Gladys, who doubtless had been expecting -this sudden retreat, emerged from the shadow of -the trees and intercepted him. “I will walk to the -gate with you,” she said. The power of feminine -attraction is never more insidious than at the moment -of bitter remorse. The mind reverts so easily, -so willingly, then, back to the dangerous way. The -mere fact of its having lost its pride of resistance, its -vanity of virtue, makes it yield to a new assault with -terrible facility. She drew him into the dusky twilight -of the scented exotic cedars which bordered the -way, on the excuse of inhaling their fragrance more -closely.</p> - -<p>She made him pull down a great perfumed cypress-bough, -of some unusual species, so that they might -press their faces against it. They stood so closely -together that she could feel through her thin evening-gown -the furious trembling that seized him. She knew -that he had completely lost his self-control, and was -quite at her mercy. But Gladys had not the least -intention of yielding herself to the emotion she had -excited. What she intended was that he should -desire her to desperation, not that, by the least -touch, his desire should be gratified. In another -half-second, as she well knew, the poor priest would -have seized her in his arms. In place of permitting -this, what she did was to imprint a fleeting kiss with -her warm lips upon the back of his hand, and then -to leap out of danger with a ringing laugh. “Good-bye!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -she called back at him, as she ran off. “I’ll -come in good time next week.”</p> - -<p>It may be imagined in what a turbulence of miserable -feelings Hugh Clavering repassed the village -square. He glanced quickly at the fountain. Yes! -Luke Andersen was still loitering in the same place, -and the little bursts of suppressed screams and -laughter, and the little fluttering struggles, of the -group around him, indicated that he was still, in his -manner, corrupting the maidens of Nevilton. The -priest longed to put his hands to his ears and run -down the street, even as Christian ran from the -city of Destruction. What was this power—this invincible, -all-pervasive power—against which he had -committed himself to contend? He felt as though -he were trying, with his poor human strength, to -hold back the sea-tide, so that it should not cover -the sands.</p> - -<p>Could it be that, after all, the whole theory of the -church was wrong, and that the great Life-Force was -against her, and punishing her, for seeking, with -her vain superstitions, to alter the stars in their -courses?</p> - -<p>Could it be that this fierce pleasure-lust, which he -felt so fatally in Gladys, and saw in Luke, and was -seduced by in his own veins, was after all the true -secret of Nature, and, to contend against it, madness -and impossible folly? Was he, and not they, the -really morbid and infatuated one—morbid with the -arbitrary pride of a desperate tradition of perverted -heroic souls? He moved along the pavement under -the church wall and looked up at its grand immovable -tower. “Are you, too,” he thought, “but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -the symbol of an insane caprice in the mad human -race, seeking, in fond recklessness, to alter the basic -laws of the great World?”</p> - -<p>The casuistical philosophy of Mr. Taxater returned -to his mind. What would the papal apologist say -to him now, thus torn and tugged at by all the -forces of hell? He felt a curious doubt in his heart -as to the side on which, in this mad struggle, the -astute theologian really stood. Perhaps, for all his -learning, the man was no more Christian in his true -soul, than had been many of those historic popes -whose office he defended. In his desperate mood -Clavering longed to get as near as possible to the -altar of this God of his, who thus bade him confront -the whole power of nature and all the wisdom of the -world. He looked up and down the street. Two men -were talking outside The Goat and Boy, but their -backs were turned. With a quick sudden movement -he put his hands on the top of the wall and scrambled -hastily over, scraping his shins as he did so on a -sharp stone at the top. He moved rapidly to the -place where rose the strange tombstone designed by -the atheist carver. It was here that Vennie and he -had entered into their heroic covenant only twenty-four -hours before. He looked at the enormous skull -so powerfully carved and at the encircled cross beneath -it. He laid his hand upon the skull, precisely -as he had done the night before; only this time there -were no little cold fingers to instil pure devotion into -him. Instead of the touch of such fingers he felt the -burning contact of Gladys’ soft lips.</p> - -<p>No! it was an impossible task that his God had laid -upon him. Why not give up the struggle? Why not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -throw over this mad idol of purity he had raised for his -worship, and yield himself to the great stream? The -blood rushed to his head with the alluring images that -this thought evoked. Perhaps, after all, Gladys would -marry him, and then—why, then, he could revert -to the humourous wisdom of Mr. Taxater, and cultivate -the sweet mystical speculations of modernism; -reconciling, pleasantly and easily, the natural pleasures -of the senses, with the natural exigencies of the soul!</p> - -<p>He left Gideon’s grave and walked back to the -church-porch. It was now nearly dark and without -fear of being observed by any one through the iron -bars of the outer gate, he entered the porch and stood -before the closed door. He wished he had brought -the key with him. How he longed, at that moment, -to fling himself down before the altar and cry aloud -to his God!</p> - -<p>By his side stood the wheeled parish bier, ornamented -by a gilt inscription, informing the casual -intruder that it had been presented to the place in -honour of the accession of King George the Fifth. -There was not light enough to read these touching -words, but the gilt plate containing them gave forth -a faint scintillating glimmer.</p> - -<p>Worn out by the day-long struggle in his heart, -Clavering sat down upon this grim “memento mori”; -and then, after a minute or two, finding that position -uncomfortable, deliberately stretched himself out at -full length upon the thing’s bare surface. Lying here, -with the bats flitting in and out above his head, the -struggle in his mind continued. Supposing he did -yield,—not altogether, of course; his whole nature -was against that, and his public position stood in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -way,—but just a little, just a hair’s breadth, could -he not enjoy a light playful flirtation with Gladys, -such as she was so obviously prepared for, even if it -were impossible to marry her? The worst of it was -that his imagination so enlarged upon the pleasures -of this “playful flirtation,” that it very quickly became -an obsessing desire. He propped himself up -upon his strange couch and looked forth into the -night. The stars were just beginning to appear, and -he could see one or two constellations whose names -he knew. How indifferent they were, those far-off -lights! What did it matter to them whether he yielded -or did not yield? He had the curious sensation that -the whole conflict in which he was entangled belonged -to a terrestrial sphere infinitely below those heavenly -luminaries. Not only the Power against which he -contended, but the Power on whose side he fought, -seemed out-distanced and derided by those calm -watchers.</p> - -<p>He sank back again and gazed up at the carved -stone roof above him. A dull inert weariness stole -over his brain; a sick disgust of the whole mad -business of a man’s life upon earth. Why was he born -into the world with passions that he must not satisfy -and ideals that he could not hold? Better not to have -been born at all; or, being born, better to lie quiet -and untroubled, with all these placid churchyard -people, under the heavy clay! The mental weariness -that assailed him gradually changed into sheer physical -drowsiness. His head sought instinctively a more -easy position and soon found what it sought. His -eyes closed; and there, upon the parish bier, worn -out with his struggle against Apollyon, the vicar of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -Nevilton slept. When he returned to consciousness -he found himself cramped, cold and miserable. Hurriedly -he scrambled to his feet, stretched his stiff -limbs and listened. The clock in the Tower above him -began to strike. It struck one—two—and then -stopped. He had slept for nearly five hours.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE ORCHARD</span></h2> - -<p>Every natural locality has its hour of special -self-assertion; its hour, when the peculiar qualities -and characteristics which belong to it -emphasize themselves, and attain a sort of temporary -apogee or culmination. It is then that such localities—be -they forests or moors, hill-sides or valleys—seem -to gather themselves together and bring themselves -into focus, waiting expectantly, it might almost seem, -for some answering dramatic crisis in human affairs -which should find in them an inevitable background.</p> - -<p>One of the chief features of our English climate is -that no two successive days, even in a spell of the -warmest weather, are exactly alike. What one might -call the culminant day of that summer, for the orchards -of Nevilton, arrived shortly after Mr. Clavering’s -unfortunate defeat. Every hour of this day -seemed to add something more and more expressive to -their hushed and expectant solitudes.</p> - -<p>Though the hay had been cut, or was being cut, in -the open fields, in these shadowy recesses the grass -was permitted to grow lush and long, at its own -unimpeded will.</p> - -<p>Between the ancient trunks of the moss-grown -apple-trees hung a soft blue vapour; and the flickering -sunlight that pierced the denser foliage, threw -shadows upon the heavy grass that were as deeply<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> -purple as the waves of the mid-atlantic. There -was indeed something so remote from the ordinary -movements of the day about this underworld of -dim, rich seclusion, that the image of a sleepy wave-lulled -land, long sunken out of reach of human invasion, -under the ebbing and flowing tide, seemed -borne in naturally upon the imagination.</p> - -<p>It was towards the close of the afternoon of this -particular segment of time that the drowsy languor of -these orchards reached its richest and most luxurious -moment. Grass, moss, lichen, mistletoe, gnarled -trunks, and knotted roots, all seemed to cry aloud, -at this privileged hour, for some human recognition of -their unique quality; some human event which should -give that quality its dramatic value, its planetary -proportion. Not since the Hesperidean Dragon -guarded its sacred charge, in the classic story, has -a more responsive background offered itself to what -Catullus calls the “furtive loves” of mortal men.</p> - -<p>About six o’clock, on this day of the apogee of the -orchards, Mr. Romer, seated on the north terrace -of his house, caught sight of his daughter and her -companion crossing the near corner of the park. He -got up at once, and walked across the garden to intercept -them. The sight of the Italian’s slender drooping -figure, as she lingered a little behind her cousin, -roused into vivid consciousness all manner of subterranean -emotions in the quarry-owner’s mind. He -felt as an oriental pasha might feel, when under the -stress of some political or monetary transaction, he -is compelled to hand over his favorite girl-slave to -an obsequious dependent. The worst of it was that -he could not be absolutely sure of Mr. Goring’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> -continued adherence. It was within the bounds of -possibility that once in possession of Lacrima, the -farmer might breathe against him gross Thersites-like -defiance, and carry off his captive to another -county. He experienced, at that moment, a sharp -pang of inverted remorse at the thought of having -to relinquish his prey.</p> - -<p>As he strode along by the edge of the herbaceous -borders, where the blue spikes of the delphiniums were -already in bud, his mind swung rapidly from point -to point in the confused arena of his various contests -and struggles.</p> - -<p>Mixed strangely enough with his direct Napoleonic -pursuit of wealth and power, there was latent in -Mr. Romer, as we have already hinted, a certain -dark and perverse sensuality, which was capable of -betraying and distorting, in very curious ways, the -massive force of his intelligence.</p> - -<p>At this particular moment, as he emerged into the -park, he found himself beginning to regret his conversation -with his brother-in-law. But, after all, he -thought, when Gladys married, it would be difficult -to find any reason for keeping Lacrima at his side. -His feelings towards the girl were a curious mixture -of attraction and hatred. And what could better -gratify this mixed emotion than a plan which would -keep her within his reach and at the same time -humiliate and degrade her? To do the master of -Nevilton justice, he was not, at that moment, as he -passed under a group of Spanish chestnuts and observed -the object of his conspiracy rendered gentler -and more fragile than ever by the loveliness of her -surroundings, altogether devoid of a certain remote<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> -feeling of compunction. He crushed it down, however, -by his usual thought of the brevity and futility of -all these things, and the folly of yielding to weak -commiseration, when, in so short a time, nothing, -one way or the other, would matter in the least! -He had long ago trained himself to make use of these -materialistic reasonings to suppress any irrelevant -prickings of conscience which might interfere with -the bias of his will. The whole world, looked at with -the bold cynical eye of one who was not afraid to -face the truth, was, after all, a mad, wild, unmeaning -struggle; and, in the confused arena of this struggle, -one could be sure of nothing but the pleasure one -derived from the sensation of one’s own power. He -tried, as he walked towards the girls, to imagine to -himself what his feelings would be, supposing he yielded -to these remote scruples, and let Lacrima go, giving -her money, for instance, to enable her to live independently -in her own country, or to marry whom she -pleased. She would no doubt marry that damned -fool Quincunx! Lack of money was, assuredly, all -that stood in the way. And how could he contemplate -an idea of that kind with any pleasure? He -wondered, in a grim humourous manner, what sort of -compensation these self-sacrificing ones really got? -What satisfaction would <em>he</em> get, for instance, in the -consciousness that he had thrown a girl who attracted -him, into the arms of an idiot who excited his hate?</p> - -<p>He looked long at Lacrima, as she stood with -Gladys, under a sycamore, waiting his approach. It -was curious, he said to himself,—very curious,—the -sort of feelings she excited in him. It was not that -he wished to possess her. He was scornfully cynical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -of that sort of gratification. He wished to do more -than possess her. He wished to humiliate her, to -degrade her, to put her to shame in her inmost spirit. -He wished her to know that he knew that she was -suffering this shame, and that he was the cause of it. -He wished her to feel herself absolutely in his power, -not bodily—that was nothing!—but morally, and -spiritually.</p> - -<p>The owner of Leo’s Hill had the faculty of detaching -himself from his own darkest thoughts, and -of observing them with a humourous and cynical eye. -It struck him as not a little grotesque, that he, the -manipulater of far-flung financial intrigues, the ambitious -politician, the formidable captain of industry, -should be thus scheming and plotting to satisfy the -caprice of a mere whim, upon the destiny of a -penniless dependent. It <em>was</em> grotesque—grotesque -and ridiculous. Let it be! The whole business of -living was grotesque and ridiculous. One snatched -fiercely at this thing or the other, as the world moved -round; and one was not bound always to present -oneself in a dignified mask before one’s own tribunal. -It was enough that this or that fantasy of the dominant -power-instinct demanded a certain course of -action. Let it be as grotesque as it might! He, and -none other, was the judge of his pleasure, of what he -pleased to do, or to refrain from doing. It was his -humour;—and that ended it! He lived to fulfil his -humour. There was nothing else to live for, in this -fantastic chaotic world! Meditating in this manner -he approached the girls.</p> - -<p>“It occurred to me,” he said, breathing a little -hard, and addressing his daughter, “that you might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> -be seeing Mr. Clavering again tonight. If so, perhaps -you would give him a message from me, or -rather,—how shall I put it?—a suggestion, a -gentle hint.”</p> - -<p>“What are you driving at, father?” asked Gladys, -pouting her lips and swinging her parasol.</p> - -<p>“It is a message best delivered by mouth,” Mr. -Romer went on, “and by your mouth.”</p> - -<p>Then as if to turn this last remark into a delicate -compliment, he playfully lifted up the girl’s chin -with his finger and made as if to kiss her. Gladys, -however, lightly evaded him, and tossing her head -mischievously, burst out laughing. “I know you, -father, I know you,” she cried. “You want me to -do some intriguing for you. You never kiss me like -that, unless you do!”</p> - -<p>Lacrima glanced apprehensively at the two of -them. Standing there, in the midst of that charming -English scene, they represented to her mind all that -was remorseless, pitiless and implacable in this island -of her enforced adoption. Swiftly, from those ruddy -pinnacles of the great house behind them, her mind -reverted to the little white huts in a certain Apennine -valley and the tinkling bells of the goats led back -from pasture. Oh how she hated all this heavy -foliage and these eternally murmuring doves!</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Mr. Romer, as Gladys waited mockingly, -“I do want you to do something. I want you -to hint to our dear clergyman that this ceremony -of your reception into his church is dependent upon -his good behaviour. Not <em>your</em> good behavior,” he -repeated smiling, “but <em>his</em>. The truth is, dear child, -if I may speak quite plainly, I know the persuasive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -power of your pretty face over all these young men; -and I want you to make it plain to this worthy -priest that if you are to continue being nice to him, -he must be very nice to <em>me</em>. Do you catch my meaning, -my plump little bird?” As he spoke he encircled -her waist with his arm. Lacrima, watching them, -thought how singularly alike father and daughter -were, and was conscious of an instinctive desire to -run and warn this new victim of conspiracy.</p> - -<p>“Why, what has he been doing, father?” asked -the fair girl, shaking herself free, and opening her -parasol.</p> - -<p>“He has been supporting that fellow Wone. And -he has been talking nonsense about Quincunx,—yes, -about your friend Quincunx,” he added, nodding -ironically towards Lacrima.</p> - -<p>“And I am to punish him, am I?” laughed Gladys. -“That is lovely! I love punishing people, especially -people like Mr. Clavering who think they are so -wonderfully good!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer smiled. “Not exactly punish him, -dear, but lead him gently into the right path. Lead -him, in fact, to see that the party to belong to in -this village is the party of capacity—not the party -of chatter.”</p> - -<p>Gladys looked at her father seriously. “You don’t -mean that you are actually afraid of losing this election?” -she said. Mr. Romer stretched out his arm -and rested himself against the umbrageous sycamore, -pressing his large firm hand upon its trunk.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> -<p>“Losing it, child? No, I shan’t lose it. But these -idiots do really annoy me. They are all such cowards -and such sentimental babies. It is people like these who -have to be ruled with a firm hand. They cringe and -whimper when you talk to them; and then the moment -your back is turned they grow voluble and impertinent. -My workmen are no better. They owe everything -to me. If it wasn’t for me, half those quarries -would be shut down tomorrow and they’d be out of -a job. But do you think they are grateful? Not -a bit of it!” His tone grew more angry. He felt -a need of venting the suppressed rage of many -months. “Yes, you needn’t put on that unconscious -look, Lacrima. I know well enough where <em>your</em> -sympathies lie. The fact is, in these rotten days, -it is the incapable and miserable who give the tone -to everyone! No one thinks for himself. No one -goes to the bottom of things. It is all talk—talk—talk; -talk about equality, about liberty, about kindness -to the weak. I hate the weak; and I refuse to -let them interfere with me! Look at the faces of these -people. Well,—you know, Gladys, what they are -like. They are all feeble, bloodless, sneaking, fawning -idiots! I hate the faces of these Nevilton fools. -They are always making me think of slugs and worms. -This Wone is typical. His disgusting complexion -and flabby mouth is characteristic of them all. No -one of them has the spirit to hit one properly back, -face to face. And their odious, sentimental religion!—This -Clavering of yours ought to know better. He -is not quite devoid of intelligence. He showed some -spirit when I talked with him. But he is besotted, -too, with this silly nonsense about humouring the -people, and considering the people, and treating the -people in a Christian spirit! As though you could -treat worms and slugs in any other spirit than the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -spirit of trampling upon them. They are born to be -trampled upon—born for it—I tell you! You have -only to look at them!” He glared forth over the -soft rich fields; and continued, still more bitterly:</p> - -<p>“It’s no good your pretending not to hear me, -Lacrima! I can read your thoughts like an open -book. You are quoting to yourself, no doubt, at -this very moment, some of the pretty speeches of -your friend Quincunx. A nice fellow, he is, for a -girl’s teacher! A fellow with no idea of his own in -his head! A fellow afraid to raise his eyes above -one’s boot-laces! Why the other day, when I was -out shooting and met him in the lane, he turned -straight round, and walked back on his tracks—simply -from fear of passing me. I hate these sneaking -cowards! I hate their cunning, miserable, little -ways! I should like to trample them all out of -existence! That is the worst of being strong in this -world. One is worried to death by a lot of fools who -are not worth the effort spent on them.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima uttered no word, but looked sadly away, -over the fair landscape. In her heart, in spite of her -detestation of the man, she felt a strange fantastic -sympathy with a good deal of what he said. Women, -especially women of Latin races, have no great respect -for democratic sentiments when they do not issue in -definite deeds. Her private idea of a revolutionary -leader was something very far removed from the -voluble local candidate, and she had suffered too -much herself from the frail petulance of Maurice -Quincunx not to feel a secret longing that somewhere, -somehow, this aggressive tyrant should be faced by a -strength as firm, as capable, as fearless, as his own.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mr. Romer, with his swarthy imperial face and -powerful figure, seemed to her, as he leant against -the tree, so to impress himself upon that yielding -landscape, that there appeared reason enough for his -complaint that he could find no antagonist worthy -of his steel. In the true manner of a Pariah, who -turns, with swift contempt, upon her own class, the -girl was conscious of a rising tide of revolt in her -heart against the incompetent weakness of her friend. -What would she not give to be able, even once, to -see this man outfaced and outwitted! She was impressed -too, poor girl, as she shrank silently aside -from his sarcasm, by the horrible indifference of these -charming sunlit fields to the brutality of the man’s -challenge. They cared nothing—nothing! It was -impossible to make them care. Hundreds of years -ago they had slumbered, just as dreamily, just as -indifferently, as they did now. If even at this -moment she were to plunge a knife into the man’s -heart, so that he fell a mass of senseless clay at her -feet, that impervious wood-pigeon would go on murmuring -its monotonous ditty, just as peacefully, just -as serenely! There was something really terrifying -to her in this callous indifference of Nature. It was -like living perpetually in close contact with a person -who was deaf and dumb and blind; and who, while -the most tragic events were being transacted, went -on cheerfully and imperturbably humming some merry -tune. It would be almost better, thought the girl, -if that tree-trunk against which the quarry-owner -pressed his heavy hand were really in league with -him. Anything were better than this smiling indifference -which seemed to keep on repeating in a voice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -as monotonous as the pigeon’s—“Everything is -permitted. Nothing is forbidden. Nothing is forbidden. -Everything is permitted.” like the silly -reiterated whirring of some monstrous placid shuttle. -It was strange, the rebellious inconsistent thoughts, -which passed through her mind! She wondered why -Hugh Clavering was thus to be waylaid and persuaded. -Had he dared to rise in genuine opposition? -No, she did not believe it. He had probably talked -religion, just as Maurice talked anarchy and Wone -talked socialism. It was all talk! Romer was quite -right. They had no spirit in them, these English -people. She thought of the fierce atheistic rebels of -her own country. <em>They</em>, at any rate, understood that -evil had to be resisted by action, and not by vague -protestations of unctuous sentiment!</p> - -<p>When Mr. Romer left them and returned to his -seat on the terrace, the girls did not at once proceed -on their way, but waited, hesitating; and amused -themselves by pulling down the lower branches of a -lime and trying to anticipate the sweetness of its yet -unbudded fragrance.</p> - -<p>“Let’s stroll down the drive first,” said Gladys -presently, “till we are out of sight, and then we can -cross the mill mead and get into the orchard that -way.” They followed this design with elaborate -caution, and only when quite concealed from the -windows of the house, turned quickly northward and -left the park for the orchards. Between the wall, -of the north garden and the railway, lay some of the -oldest and least frequented of these shadowy places, -completely out of the ordinary paths of traffic, and -only accessible by field-ways. Into the smallest and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -most secluded of all these the girls wandered, gliding -noiselessly between the thick hedges and heavy grass, -like two frail phantoms of the upper world visiting -some Elysian solitude.</p> - -<p>Gladys laid her hand on her companion’s arm. -“We had better wait here,” she said, “where we can -see the whole orchard. They ought to know, by now, -where to come.”</p> - -<p>They seated themselves on the bowed trunk of an -ancient apple-tree that by long decline had at last -reached a horizontal position. The flowering season -was practically over, though here and there a late -cider-tree, growing more in shadow than the rest, -still carried its delicate burden of clustered blossoms.</p> - -<p>“How many times is it that we have met them -here?” whispered the fair girl, snatching off her hat -and tossing it on the grass. “This is the fifth time, -isn’t it? What dear things they are! I think it’s -much more exciting, this sort of thing,—don’t you?—than -dull tennis parties with silly idiots like young -Ilminster.”</p> - -<p>The Italian nodded. “It is a good thing that -James and I get on so well,” she said. “It would -be awkward if we were as afraid of one another as -when we first met.”</p> - -<p>Gladys put her hand caressingly on her companion’s -knee and looked into her face with a slow seductive -smile.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> -<p>“You are forgetting your Mr. Quincunx a little, -just a little, these days, aren’t you, darling? Don’t -be shy, now—or look cross. You know you are! -You can’t deny it. Your boy is almost as nice as -mine. He doesn’t like me, though. I can see that! -But I like <em>him</em>. I like him awfully! You’d better -take care, child. If ever I get tired of my Luke—”</p> - -<p>“James isn’t a boy,” protested Lacrima.</p> - -<p>“Silly!” cried Gladys. “Of course he is. Who -cares about age? They are all the same. I always -call them boys when they attract me. I like the -word. I like to say it. It makes me feel as if I -were one of those girls in London. You know what I -mean!”</p> - -<p>Lacrima looked at her gravely. “I always feel as -if James Andersen were much older than I,” she said.</p> - -<p>“But your Mr. Quincunx,” repeated the fair -creature, slipping her soft fingers into her friend’s -hand, “your Mr. Quincunx is not quite what he was -to you, before we began these adventures?”</p> - -<p>“I wish you wouldn’t say that, Gladys!” rejoined -the Italian, freeing her hands and clasping them -passionately together. “It is wicked of you to say -that! You know I only talk to James so that you -can do what you like. I shall always be Maurice’s -friend. I shall be his friend to the last!”</p> - -<p>Gladys laughed merrily. “That is what I wanted,” -she retorted. “I wanted to make you burst out. -When people burst out, they are always doubtful in -their hearts. Ah, little puritan! so we are already in -the position of having two sweethearts, are we?—and -not knowing which of the two we really like best? -That is a very pretty situation to be in. It is where -we all are! I hope you enjoy it!”</p> - -<p>Lacrima let her hands fall helplessly to her side, -against the grey bark of the apple-tree. “Why do -you hate Mr. Quincunx so?” she asked, looking -gravely into her friend’s face.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Why do I hate him?” said Gladys. “Oh, I really -don’t know! I didn’t know I did. If I do, it’s -because he’s such a weak wretched creature. He has -no more spirit than a sick dog. He talks such nonsense -too! I am glad he has to walk to Yeoborough -every day and do a little work. You ought to be -glad too! He could never marry if he didn’t make -some money.”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t want to marry,” murmured Lacrima. -“He only wants to be left alone.”</p> - -<p>“A nice friend he seems to be,” cried the other, -“for a girl like you! I suppose he kisses you and that -sort of thing, doesn’t he? I shouldn’t like to be -kissed by a silly old man like that, with a great -stupid beard.”</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t say these things to me, Gladys, you -mustn’t! I won’t hear them. Mr. Quincunx isn’t -an old man! He is younger than James Andersen. -He is not forty yet.”</p> - -<p>“He looks fifty, if he looks a day,” said Gladys, -“and the colour of his beard is disgusting! It’s like -dirty water. Fancy having a horrid thing like that -pressed against your face! And I suppose he cries -and slobbers over you, doesn’t he? I have seen him -cry. I hate a man who cries. He cried the other -night,—father told me so—when he found he had -spent all his money.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima got up and walked a few paces away. -She loathed this placid golden-haired creature, at that -moment, so intensely, that it was all she could do to -refrain from leaping upon her and burying her teeth -in her soft neck. She leant against one of the trees -and pressed her head upon its grey lichen. Gladys<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -slipped down into a more luxurious position. She -looked complacently around her. No spot could have -been better adapted for a romantic encounter.</p> - -<p>The gnarled and time-worn trunks of the old apple-trees, -each looking as if it had lingered there, full of -remote memories, from an age coeval with the age of -those very druids whose sacred mistletoe still clung -in patches to their boughs, formed a strange fantastic -array of twisted and distorted natural pillars, upon -which the foliage, meeting everywhere above their -heads, leaned in shadowy security, like the roof of a -heathen temple. The buttercups and cuckoo-flowers, -which, here and there, sprinkled the heavy grass, -were different from those in the open meadows. -The golden hue of the one, and the lavender tint of -the other, took on, in this diurnal gloom, a chilly and -tender pallour, both colours approximating to white. -The grey lichen hung down in loose festoons from the -higher portions of the knotted trunks, and crept, -thick and close, round the moss at their roots. There -could hardly be conceived a spot more suggestive of -absolute and eternal security than this Hesperidean -enclosure.</p> - -<p>The very fact of the remote but constant presence -of humanity there, as a vague dreamy background of -immemorial tending, increased this sense. One felt -that the easy invasions of grafting-time and gathering-time, -returning perennially in their seasons, only -intensified the long delicious solitudes of the intervals -between, when, in rich, hushed languor, the blossoms -bud and bloom and fall; and the fruit ripens and -sweetens; and the leaves flutter down. That exquisite -seductive charm, the charm of places full of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -quietness, yet bordering on the edge of the days’ -labour, hung like a heavy atmosphere of contentment -over the shadowy aisles of this temple of peace. The -wood-pigeons keep up a perpetual murmur, all the -summer long, in these untrodden spots. No eyes see -them. It is as though they never saw one another. -But their drowsy liturgical repetitions answer and -answer again, as if from the unfathomable depths of -some dim green underworld, worshipping the gods of -silence with sounds that give silence itself a richer, a -fuller weight.</p> - -<p>“There they are!” cried Gladys suddenly, as the -figures of the Andersen brothers made themselves -visible on the further side of the orchard.</p> - -<p>The girls advanced to meet them through the thick -grass, swinging their summer-hats in their hands and -bending their heads, now and then, to avoid the -overhanging boughs. The meeting between these -four persons would have made a pleasant and appropriate -subject for one of those richly-coloured old-fashioned -prints which one sometimes observes in -early Victorian parlours. Gladys grew quite pale with -excitement, and her voice assumed a vibrant tenderness -when she accosted Luke, which made Lacrima -give a little start of surprise, as she shook hands with -the elder brother. Had her persecutor then, got, -after all, some living tissue in the place where the -heart beat?</p> - -<p>Luke’s manner had materially altered since he had -submitted so urbanely to the fair girl’s insulting airs -at the close of their first encounter. His way of -treating her now was casual, flippant, abrupt—almost -indifferent. Instead of following the pathetic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -pressure of her arm and hand, which at once bade -him hasten the separation of the group, he deliberately -lingered, chatting amicably with Lacrima and asking -her questions about Italy. It seemed that the plausible -Luke knew quite as much about Genoa and -Florence and Venice as his more taciturn brother, and -all he knew he was well able to turn into effective -use. He was indeed a most engaging and irresistible -conversationalist; and Gladys grew paler and paler, -as she watched the animation of his face and listened -to his pleasant and modulated voice.</p> - -<p>It caused sheer suffering to her fiercely impetuous -nature, this long-drawn out delay. Every moment -that passed diminished the time they would have -together. Her nerves ached for the touch of his -arms about her, and a savage desire to press her -mouth to his, and satiate herself with kisses, throbbed -in her every vein. Why would he not stop this -irrelevant stream of talk? What did she care about -the narrow streets of Genoa,—or the encrusted -façade of San Marco? It had been their custom to -separate immediately on meeting, and for Luke to -carry her off to a charming hiding-place they had -discovered. With the fierce pantherish craving of a -love-scorched animal her soul cried out to be clasped -close to her friend in this secluded spot, having her -will of those maddening youthful lips with their proud -Grecian curve! Still he must go on talking!</p> - -<p>James and Lacrima, lending themselves, naturally -and easily, to the mood of the moment, were already -seated at the foot of a twisted and ancestral apple-tree. -Soon Luke, still absorbed in his conversation -with the Italian, shook off Gladys’ arm and settled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -himself beside them, plucking a handful of grass, as -he did so, and inhaling its fragrance with sybarite -pleasure.</p> - -<p>“St. Mark’s is the only church in the world for -me,” Luke was saying. “I have pictures of it from -every conceivable angle. It is quite a mania with me -collecting such things. I have dozens of them; -haven’t I, James?”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean those post-cards father sent home -when he went over there to work?” answered the -elder brother, one of whose special peculiarities was -a curious pleasure in emphasizing, in the presence of -the “upper classes,” the humility of his origin.</p> - -<p>Luke laughed. “Well—yes—those—and others,” -he said. “<em>You</em> haven’t the least idea what I keep -in my drawer of secret treasures; you know you -haven’t! I’ve got some lovely letters there among -other things. Letters that I wouldn’t let anyone see -for the world!” He glanced smilingly at Gladys, who -was pacing up and down in front of them, like a -beautiful tigress.</p> - -<p>“Look here, my friends,” she said. “The time is -slipping away frightfully. We are not going to sit -here all the while, are we, talking nonsense, like -people at a garden party?”</p> - -<p>“It’s so lovely here,” said Luke with a slow smile. -“I really don’t think that your favourite corner is so -much nicer. I am in no hurry to move. Are you, -Miss Traffio?”</p> - -<p>Lacrima saw a look upon her cousin’s face that -boded ill for their future relations if she did not -make some kind of effort. She rose to her feet.</p> - -<p>“Come, Mr. Andersen,” she said, giving James a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -wistful look. “Let us take a little stroll, and then -return again to these young people.”</p> - -<p>James rose obediently, and they walked off together. -They passed from the orchards belonging to -Mr. Romer’s tenant, and entered those immediately -at the foot of the vicarage garden. Here, through a -gap in the hedge they were attracted by the sight of -a queer bed of weeds growing at the edge of a potato-patch. -They were very curious weeds, rather resembling -sea-plants than land-plants; in colour of a -dull glaucous green, and in shape grotesquely elongated.</p> - -<p>“What are those things?” said Lacrima. “I think -I have never seen such evil-looking plants. Why do -they let them grow there?”</p> - -<p>James surveyed the objects. “They certainly have -a queer look,” he said, “but you know, in old days, -there was a grave-yard here, of a peculiar kind. It -is only in the last fifty years that they have dug it -up and included it in this garden.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima shuddered. “I would not eat those potatoes -for anything! You know I think I come to -dislike more and more the look of your English vegetable -gardens, with their horrid, heavy leaves, so -damp and oozy and disgusting!”</p> - -<p>“I agree with you there,” returned the wood-carver. -“I have always hated Nevilton, and every -aspect of it; but I think I hate these overgrown -gardens most of all.”</p> - -<p>“They look as if they were fed from churchyards, -don’t they?” went on the girl. “Look at those -heavy laurel bushes over there, and those dreadful -fir-trees! I should cut them all down if this place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> -belonged to me. Oh, how I long for olives and vine-yards! -These orchards are all very well, but they -seem to me as if they were made to keep out the sun -and the wholesome air.”</p> - -<p>James Andersen smiled grimly. “Orchards and -potato gardens!” he muttered. “Yes, these are typical -of this country of clay. And these Vicarage shrubberies! -I think a shrubbery is the last limit of -depression and desolation. I am sure all the murders -committed in this country are planned in shrubberies, -and under the shade of damp laurel-bushes.”</p> - -<p>“In our country we grow corn between the fruit-trees,” -said Lacrima.</p> - -<p>“Yes, corn—” returned Andersen, “corn and wine -and oil! Those are the natural, the beautiful, -products of the earth. Things that are fed upon sun -and air—not upon the bones of the dead! All these -Nevilton places, however luxuriant, seem to me to -smell of death.”</p> - -<p>“But was this corner really a churchyard?” asked -the Italian. “I hope Mrs. Seldom won’t stroll down -this way and see us!”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Seldom is well suited to the place she lives -in,” returned the other. “She lives upon the Past, -just as her garden does—just as her potatoes do! -These English vicarages are dreadful places. They -have all the melancholy of age without its historic -glamour. And how morbid they are! Any of your -cheerful Latin curés would die in them, simply of -damp and despair.”</p> - -<p>“But do tell me about this spot,” repeated Lacrima, -with a little shiver. “Why did you say it -was a peculiar churchyard?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It was the place where they buried unbaptized -children,” answered Andersen, and added, in a lower -tone, “how cold it is getting! It must be the shadow -we are in.”</p> - -<p>“But you haven’t yet,” murmured Lacrima, “you -haven’t yet told me, what those weeds are.”</p> - -<p>“Well—we call them ‘mares’-tails’ about here,” -answered the stone-carver, “I don’t know their -proper name.”</p> - -<p>“But why don’t they dig them up? Look! They -are growing all among the potatoes.”</p> - -<p>“They can’t dig them up,” returned the man. -“They can’t get at their roots. They are the worst -and most obstinate weed there is. They grow in all -the Nevilton gardens. They are the typical Nevilton -flora. They must have grown here in the days of -the druids.”</p> - -<p>“But how absurd!” cried Lacrima. “I feel as if -I could pull them up with my hands. The earth -looks so soft.”</p> - -<p>“The earth is soft enough,” replied Andersen, “but -the roots of these weeds adhere fast to the rock -underneath. The rock, you know, the sandstone -rock, lies only a short distance beneath our feet.”</p> - -<p>“The same stone as Nevilton house is built of?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly the same. Our stone, Mr. Romer’s -stone, the stone upon which we all live here—except -those who till the fields.”</p> - -<p>“I hate the thing!” cried Lacrima, in curious -agitation.</p> - -<p>“You do? Well—to tell you the honest truth, -so do I. I associate it with my father.”</p> - -<p>“I associate it with Gladys,” whispered Lacrima.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I can believe it. We both associate it with -houses of tyranny, of wretched persecution. Perhaps -I have never told you that my father was directly -the cause of my mother’s death?”</p> - -<p>“You have hinted it,” murmured the girl. “I -suspected it. But Luke loves the stone, doesn’t he? -He always speaks as if the mere handling of it, in his -work-shop, gave him exquisite pleasure.”</p> - -<p>“A great many things give Luke exquisite pleasure,” -returned the other grimly. “Luke lives for exquisite -pleasure.”</p> - -<p>A quick step on the grass behind them made them -swing suddenly round. It was Vennie Seldom, who, -unobserved, had been watching them from the -vicarage terrace. A few paces behind her came Mr. -Taxater, walking cautiously and deliberately, with -the air of a Lord Chesterfield returning from an -audience at St. James’. Mr. Taxater had already -met the Italian on one or two occasions. He had -sat next to her once, when dining at Nevilton House, -and he was considerably interested in her.</p> - -<p>“What a lovely evening, Miss Traffio,” said Vennie -shyly, but without embarrassment. Vennie was -always shy, but nothing ever interfered with her -self-possession.</p> - -<p>“I am glad you are showing Mr. Andersen these -orchards of ours. I always think they are the most -secluded place in the whole village.”</p> - -<p>“Ha!” said Mr. Taxater, when he had greeted -them with elaborate and friendly courtesy, “I thought -you two were bound to make friends sooner or later! -I call you my two companions in exile, among our -dear Anglo-Saxons. Miss Traffio I know is Latin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -and you, sir, must have some kind of foreign blood. -I am right, am I not, Mr. Andersen?”</p> - -<p>James looked at him humorously, though a little -grimly. He was always pleased to be addressed by -Mr. Taxater, as indeed was everybody who knew him. -The great scholar’s detached intellectualism gave him -an air of complete aloofness from all social distinctions.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I may have,” he answered. “My -mother used to hint at something of the kind. She -was always very fond of foreign books. I rather -fancy that I once heard her say something about a -strain of Spanish blood.”</p> - -<p>“I thought so! I thought so!” cried Mr. Taxater, -pulling his hat over his eyes and protruding his -chin and under-lip, in the manner peculiar to him -when especially pleased.</p> - -<p>“I thought there was something Spanish in you. -How extraordinarily interesting! Spain,—there is no -country like it in the world! You must go to Spain, -Mr. Andersen. You would go there in a different spirit -from these wretched sight-seers who carry their own -vulgarity with them. You would go with that feeling -of reverence for the great things of civilization, which -is inseparable from the least drop of Latin blood.”</p> - -<p>“Would <em>you</em> like to see Spain, Miss Traffio?” enquired -Vennie. “Mr. Taxater, I notice, always leaves -out us women, when he makes his attractive proposals. -I think he thinks that we have no capacity -for understanding this civilization he talks of.”</p> - -<p>“I think you understand everything, better than -any man could,” murmured Lacrima, conscious of an -extraordinary depth of sympathy emanating from -this frail figure.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Miss Seldom has been trying to make me appreciate -the beauty of these orchards,” went on Mr. -Taxater, addressing James. “But I am afraid I am -not very easily converted. I have a prejudice against -orchards. For some reason or other, I associate -them with dragons and serpents.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Seldom has every reason to love the beautiful -aspects of our Nevilton scenery,” said the stone-carver. -“Her ancestors possessed all these fields and -orchards so long, that it would be strange if their -descendant did not have an instinctive passion for -them.” He uttered these words with that curious -undertone of bitterness which marked all his references -to aristocratic pretension.</p> - -<p>Little Vennie brushed the sarcasm gently aside, as -if it had been a fluttering moth.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do love them in a sense,” she said, “but -you must remember that I, too, was educated in a -Latin country. So, you see, we four are all outsiders -and heretics! I fancy your brother, Mr. Andersen, is -an ingrained Neviltonian.”</p> - -<p>James smiled in a kindly, almost paternal manner, -at the little descendant of the Tudor courtiers. Her -sweetness and artless goodness made him feel ashamed -of his furtive truculence.</p> - -<p>“I wish you would come in and see my mother and -me, one of these evenings,” said Vennie, looking -rather wistfully at Lacrima and putting a more tender -solicitation into her tone than the mere words implied.</p> - -<p>Lacrima hesitated. “I am afraid I cannot promise,” -she said nervously. “My cousin generally wants me -in the evening.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” put in Mr. Taxater, with his most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -Talleyrand-like air, “a similar occasion to the present -one may arise again, when with Mr. Andersen’s permission, -we may all adjourn to the vicarage garden.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima, rather uncomfortably, looked down at the -grass.</p> - -<p>“We four, being, as we have admitted, all outsiders -here,” went on the diplomatist, “ought to have no -secrets from one another. I think”—he looked at -Vennie—“we may just as well confess to our friends -that we quite realize the little—charming—‘friendship,’ -shall I say?—that has sprung up between this -gentleman’s brother and Miss Romer.”</p> - -<p>“I think,” said James Andersen hurriedly, in order -to relieve Lacrima’s embarrassment, “I think the -real bond between Luke and Miss Gladys is their -mutual pleasure in all this luxuriant scenery. Somehow -I feel as if you, Sir, and Miss Seldom, were quite -separate from it and outside it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” cried Vennie eagerly, “and Lacrima is -outside it, because she is half-Italian, and you are -outside it because you are half-Spanish.”</p> - -<p>“It is clear, then,” said Mr. Taxater, “that we -four must form a sort of secret alliance, an alliance -based upon the fact that even Miss Seldom’s lovely -orchards do not altogether make us forget what -civilization means!”</p> - -<p>Neither of the two girls seemed quite to understand -what the theologian implied, but Andersen shot at -him a gleam of appreciative gratitude.</p> - -<p>“I was telling Miss Traffio,” he said, “that under -this grass, not very many feet down, a remarkable -layer of sandstone obtrudes itself.”</p> - -<p>“An orchard based on rock,” murmured Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -Taxater, “that, I think, is an admirable symbol of -what this place represents. Clay at the top and -sandstone at the bottom! I wonder whether it is -better, in this world, to be clay or stone? We four -poor foreigners have, I suspect, a preference for a -material very different from both of these. Our -element would be marble. Eh, Andersen? Marble -that can resist all these corrupting natural forces and -throw them back, and hold them down. I always -think that marble is the appropriate medium of -civilization’s retort to instinct and savagery. The -Latin races have always built in marble. It was -certainly of marble that our Lord was thinking when -he used his celebrated metaphor about the founding -of the Church.”</p> - -<p>The stone-carver made no answer. He had noticed -a quick supplicating glance from Lacrima’s dark eyes.</p> - -<p>“Well,”—he said, “I think I must be looking for -my brother, and I expect our young lady is waiting -for Miss Traffio.”</p> - -<p>They bade their friends good-night and moved off.</p> - -<p>“I am always at your service,” were Mr. Taxater’s -last words, “if ever either of you care to appeal to -the free-masonry of the children of marble against -the children of clay.”</p> - -<p>As they retraced their steps Andersen remarked to -his companion how curious it was, that neither Vennie -nor Mr. Taxater seemed in the least aware of anything -extraordinary or unconventional in this surreptitious -friendship between the girls from the House -and their father’s workmen.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I wonder what Mrs. Seldom would think of -us,” rejoined Lacrima, “but she probably thinks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -Gladys is capable of anything and that I am as bad -as she is. But I do like that little Vennie! I believe -she is a real saint. She gives me such a queer feeling -of being different from everyone.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Taxater no doubt is making a convert of -her,” said the stone-carver. “And I have a suspicion -that he hopes to convert Gladys too, probably through -your influence.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like to think that of him,” replied the -girl. “He seems to me to admire Vennie for herself -and to be kind to us for ourselves. I think he is a -thoroughly good man.”</p> - -<p>“Possibly—possibly,” muttered James, “but I -don’t trust him. I never have trusted him.”</p> - -<p>They said no more, and threaded their way slowly -through the orchard to the place where they had -left the others. The wind had dropped and there was -a dull, obstinate expectancy in the atmosphere. -Every leaf and grass blade seemed to be intently -alert and listening.</p> - -<p>In her heart Lacrima was conscious of an unusual -sense of foreboding and apprehension. Surely there -could be nothing worse in store for her than what -she already suffered. She wondered what Maurice -Quincunx was doing at that moment. Was he thinking -of her, and were his thoughts the cause of this -strange oppression in the air? Poor Maurice! She -longed to be free to devote herself to him, to smooth -his path, to distract his mind. Would fate ever -make such a thing possible? How unfair Gladys was -in her suspicions!</p> - -<p>She liked James Andersen and was very grateful to -him, but he did not need her as Maurice needed her!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I see them!” she cried suddenly. “But how odd -they look! They’re not speaking a word. Have -they quarrelled, I wonder?”</p> - -<p>The two fair-haired amorists appeared indeed -extremely gloomy and melancholy, as they sat, with -a little space between them, on the fallen tree. They -rose with an air of relief at the others’ approach.</p> - -<p>“I thought you were never coming,” said Gladys. -“How long you have been! We have been waiting -for hours. Come along. We must go straight back -and dress or we shall be late for dinner. No time -for good-byes! Au revoir, you two! Come along, -girl, quick! We’d better run.”</p> - -<p>She seized her cousin’s hand and dragged her off -and they were quickly out of sight.</p> - -<p>The two brothers watched them disappear and -then turned and walked away together. “Don’t -let’s go home yet,” said Luke. “Let’s go to the -churchyard first. The sun will have set, but it won’t -be dark for a long time. And I love the churchyard -in the twilight.”</p> - -<p>James nodded. “It is our garden, isn’t it,—and -our orchard? It is the only spot in Nevilton where -no one can interfere with us.”</p> - -<p>“That, and the Seldom Arms,” added the younger -brother.</p> - -<p>They paced side by side in silence till they reached -the road. The orchards, left to themselves, relapsed -into their accustomed reserve. Whatever secrets -they concealed of the confused struggles of ephemeral -mortals, they concealed in inviolable discretion.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI<br /> -<span class="smaller">ART AND NATURE</span></h2> - -<p>The early days of June, all of them of the same -quality of golden weather, were hardly over, -before our wanderer from Ohio found himself -on terms of quite pleasant familiarity with the -celibate vicar of Nevilton, whose relations with his -friend Gladys so immensely interested him.</p> - -<p>The conscientious vicar had sought him out, on -the very day after his visit to the mill copse and -the artist had found the priest more to his fancy -than he had imagined possible.</p> - -<p>The American’s painting had begun in serious -earnest. A studio had been constructed for him in -one of the sheds near the conservatory, a place much -more full of light and air and pleasant garden smells, -than would have been the lumber-room referred to by -Mrs. Romer, adjoining the chaste slumbers of the -laborious Lily. Here for several long mornings he -had worked at high pressure and in a vein of imaginative -expansion.</p> - -<p>Something of the seething sap of these incomparable -days seemed to pass into his blood. He plunged into -a bold and original series of Dionysic “impressions,” -seeking to represent, in accordance with his new vision, -those legendary episodes in the life of the divine -Wanderer which seemed most capable of lending<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> -themselves to a half-realistic, half-fantastic transmutation, -of the people and places immediately -around him. He sought to introduce into these -pictures the very impetus and pressure of the exuberant -earth-force, as he felt it stirring and fermenting -in his own veins, and in those of the persons and -animals about him. He strove to clothe the shadowy -poetic outline of the classical story with fragments -and morsels of actual experience as one by one his -imaginative intellect absorbed them.</p> - -<p>Here, too, under the sycamores and elms of Nevilton, -the old world-madness followed the alternations -of sun and moon, with the same tragic swiftness and -the same ambiguous beauty, as when, with tossing -arms and bared throats, the virgins of Thessaly flung -themselves into the dew-starred thickets.</p> - -<p>Dangelis began by making cautious and tentative -use of such village children as he found it possible -to lay hands upon, as models in his work, but this -method did not prove very satisfactory.</p> - -<p>The children, when their alarm and inquisitiveness -wore off, grew tired and turbulent; and on more than -one occasion the artist had to submit to astonishing -visits from confused and angry parents who -called him a “foreigner” and a “Yankee,” and -qualified these appellations with epithets so astoundingly -gross, that Dangelis was driven to wonder -from what simple city-bred fancy the illusion of rural -innocence had first proceeded.</p> - -<p>At length, as the days went on, the bold idea -came into his head of persuading Gladys herself to -act as his model.</p> - -<p>His relations with her had firmly established themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -now on the secure ground of playful camaraderie, -and he knew enough of her to feel tolerably -certain that he had only to broach such a scheme, -to have it welcomed with enthusiastic ardour.</p> - -<p>He made the suggestion one evening as they walked -home together after her spiritual lesson. “I find -that last picture of mine extremely difficult to manage,” -he said.</p> - -<p>“Why! I think it’s the best of them all!” cried -Gladys. “You’ve got a lovely look of longing in the -eyes of your queer god; and the sail of Theseus’ ship, -as you see it against the blue sea, is wonderful. The -little bushes and things, too, you’ve put in; I like -them particularly. They remind me of that wood -down by the mill, where I caught the thrush. I -suppose you’ve forgotten all about that day,” she -added, giving him a quick sidelong glance.</p> - -<p>The artist seized his opportunity. “They would -remind you still more of our wood,” he said eagerly, -“if you let me put you in as Ariadne! Do, Gladys,”—he -had called her Gladys for some days—“you -will make a simply adorable Ariadne. As she is -now, she is wooden, grotesque, archaic—nothing -but drapery and white ankles!”</p> - -<p>The girl had flushed with pleasure as soon as she -caught the drift of his request. Now she glanced -mischievously and mockingly at him.</p> - -<p>“<em>My</em> ankles,” she murmured laughing, “are not -so very, very beautiful!”</p> - -<p>“Please be serious, Gladys,” he said, “I am really -quite in earnest. It will just make the difference -between a masterpiece and a fiasco.”</p> - -<p>“You are very conceited,” she retorted teasingly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> -“but I suppose I oughtn’t to say that, ought I, as -my precious ankles are to be a part of this masterpiece?”</p> - -<p>She ran in front of him down the drive, and, as -if to give him an exhibition of her goddess-like agility, -caught at an overhanging bough and swung herself -backwards and forwards.</p> - -<p>“What fun!” she cried, as he approached. “Of -course I’ll do it, Mr. Dangelis.” Then, with a sudden -change of tone and a very malign expression, as she -let the branch swing back and resumed her place at -his side, “Mr. Clavering must see me posing for you. -He must say whether he thinks I’m good enough -for Ariadne.”</p> - -<p>The artist looked a shade disconcerted by this -unexpected turn to the project, but he was too anxious -to make sure of his model to raise any premature -objections. “But you must please understand,” was -all he said, “that I am very much in earnest about -this picture. If anybody but myself <em>does</em> see you, -there must be no teasing and fooling.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I long for him to see me!” cried the girl. -“I can just imagine his face, I can just imagine it!”</p> - -<p>The artist frowned. “This is not a joke, Gladys. -Mind you, if I do let Clavering into our secret, it’ll -be only on condition that you promise not to flirt -with him. I shall want you to stay very still,—just -as I put you.”</p> - -<p>Dangelis had never indicated before quite so plainly -his blunt and unvarnished view of her relations with -her spiritual adviser, and he now looked rather nervously -at her to see how she received this intimation.</p> - -<p>“I <em>love</em> teasing Mr. Clavering!” she cried savagely,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> -“I should like to tease him so much, that he never, -never, would forget it!”</p> - -<p>This extreme expression of feeling was a surprise, -and by no means a pleasant one, to Ralph Dangelis.</p> - -<p>“Why do you want so much to upset our friend?” -he enquired.</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” she answered, still instinctively playing -up to his idea of her naiveté and childishness, -“it is because he thinks himself so good and so perfectly -safe from falling in love with anyone—and -that annoys me.”</p> - -<p>“Ha!” chuckled Dangelis, “so that’s it, is it?” -and he paced in thoughtful silence by her side until -they reached the house.</p> - -<p>The morning that followed this conversation was -as warm as the preceding ones, but a strong southern -wind had risen, with a remote touch of the sea in its -gusty violence. The trees in the park, as the artist -and his girl-friend watched them from the terrace, -while Mr. Romer, who had now returned from town -worked in his study, and Lacrima helped Mrs. Romer -to “do the flowers,” swayed and rustled ominously in -the eddying gusts.</p> - -<p>Clouds of dust kept blowing across the gates from -the surface of the drive and the delphiniums bent -low on their long stalks. The wind was of that peculiar -character which, though hot and full of balmy -scents, conveys a feeling of uneasiness and troubled -expectation. It suggested thunder and with and beyond -that, something threatening, calamitous and -fatal.</p> - -<p>Gladys was preoccupied and gloomy that morning. -She was growing a little, just a little, tired of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> -the American’s conversation. Even the excitement -of arranging about the purchase in Yeoborough of -suitable materials for her Ariadne costume did not -serve to lift the shadow from her brow.</p> - -<p>She was getting tired of her rôle as the naive, impetuous -and childish innocent; and though mentally -still quite resolved upon following her mother’s frequent -and unblushing hints, and doing her best to -“catch” this æsthetic master of a million dollars, the -burden of the task was proving considerably irksome.</p> - -<p>Ralph’s growing tendency to take her into his -confidence in the matter of the philosophy of his -art, she found peculiarly annoying.</p> - -<p>Philosophy of any kind was detestable to Gladys, -and this particular sort of philosophy especially depressed -her, by reducing the attraction of physical -beauty to a kind of dispassionate analysis, against -the chilling virtue of which all her amorous wiles -hopelessly collapsed. It was becoming increasingly -difficult, too, to secure her furtive interviews with -Luke—interviews in which her cynical sensuality, -suppressed in the society of the American, was allowed -full swing.</p> - -<p>Her thoughts, at this very moment, turned passionately -and vehemently towards the young stone-carver, -who had achieved, at last, the enviable triumph of -seriously ruffling and disturbing her egoistic self-reliance.</p> - -<p>Unused to suffering the least thwarting in what she -desired, it fretted and chafed her intolerably to be -forced to go on playing her coquettish part with this -good-natured but inaccessible admirer, while all the -time her soul yearned so desperately for the shameless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> -kisses that made her forget everything in the -world but the ecstacy of passion.</p> - -<p>It was all very well to plan this posing as Ariadne -and to listen to Dangelis discoursing on the beauty -of pagan myths. The artist might talk endlessly -about dryads and fauns. The faun she longed -to be pursued by, this wind-swept morning, was now -engaged in hammering Leonian stone, in her father’s -dusty work-shops.</p> - -<p>She knew, she told herself, far better than the -cleverest citizen of Ohio, what a real Greek god was -like, both in his kindness and his unkindness; and her -nerves quivered with irritation, as the hot southern -wind blew upon her, to think that she would only -be able, and even then for a miserably few minutes, -to steal off to her true Dionysus, after submitting -for a whole long day to this æsthetic foolery.</p> - -<p>“It must have been a wind like this,” remarked -Dangelis, quite unobservant of his companion’s moroseness, -“which rocked the doomed palace of the blaspheming -Pentheus and drove him forth to his fate.” -He paused a moment, pondering, and then added, “I -shall paint a picture of this, Gladys. I shall bring -in Tiresias and the other old men, feeling the madness -coming upon them.”</p> - -<p>“I know all about that,” the girl felt compelled to -answer. “They danced, didn’t they? They couldn’t help -dancing, though they were so old and weak?”</p> - -<p>Dangelis hardly required this encouragement, to -launch into a long discourse upon the subject of -Dionysian madness, its true symbolic meaning, its -religious significance, its survival in modern times.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p> - -<p>He quite forgot, as he gave himself up to this -interesting topic, his recent resolution to exclude drastically -from his work all these more definitely intellectualized -symbols.</p> - -<p>His companion’s answers to this harangue became, -by degrees, so obviously forced and perfunctory, that -even the good-tempered westerner found himself a -little relieved when the appearance of Lacrima upon -the scene gave him a different audience.</p> - -<p>When Lacrima appeared, Gladys slipped away and -Dangelis was left to do what he could to overcome the -Italian’s habitual shyness.</p> - -<p>“One of these days,” he said, looking with a kindly -smile into the girl’s frightened eyes, “I’m going to -ask you, Miss Traffio, to take me to see your friend -Mr. Quincunx.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima started violently. This was the last name -she expected to hear mentioned on the Nevilton -terrace.</p> - -<p>“I—I—” she stammered, “I should be very -glad to take you. I didn’t know they had told you -about him.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, they only told me—you can guess the kind of -thing!—that he’s a queer fellow who lives by himself -in a cottage in Dead Man’s Lane, and does -nothing but dig in his garden and talk to old women -over the wall. He’s evidently one of these odd out-of-the-way -characters, that your English—Oh, I beg -your pardon!—your European villages produce. Mr. -Clavering told me he is the only man in the place -he never goes to see. Apparently he once insulted -the good vicar.”</p> - -<p>“He didn’t insult him!” cried Lacrima with flashing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> -eyes. “He only asked him not to walk on his potatoes. -Mr. Clavering is too touchy.”</p> - -<p>“Well—anyway, do take me, sometime, to see -this interesting person. Why shouldn’t we go this -afternoon? This wind seems to have driven all the -ideas out of my head, as well as made your cousin -extremely bad-tempered! So do take me to see your -friend, Miss Traffio! We might go now—this -moment—why not?”</p> - -<p>Lacrima shook her head, but she looked grateful -and not displeased. As a matter of fact she was -particularly anxious to introduce the American to -Mr. Quincunx. In that vague subtle way which is -a peculiarity, not only of the Pariah-type, but of -human nature in general, she was anxious that -Dangelis should be given at least a passing glimpse -of another view of the Romer family from that which -he seemed to have imbibed.</p> - -<p>It was not that she was definitely plotting against -her cousin or trying to undermine her position with -her artist-friend, but she felt a natural human desire -that this sympathetic and good-tempered man should -be put, to some extent at least, upon his guard.</p> - -<p>She was, at any rate, not at all unwilling to initiate -him into the mysteries of Mr. Quincunx’ mind, hoping, -perhaps, in an obscure sort of way, that such an -initiation would throw her own position, in this -strange household, into a light more evocative of -considerate interest.</p> - -<p>She had been so often made conscious of late that -in his absorption in Gladys he had swept her brusquely -aside as a dull and tiresome spoil-sport, that it was -not without a certain feminine eagerness that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> -embraced the thought of his being compelled to -listen to what she well knew Mr. Quincunx would -have to say upon the matter.</p> - -<p>It was also an agreeable thought that in doing -justice to the originality and depth of the recluse’s -intelligence, the American would be driven to recognize -the essentially unintellectual tone of conversation -at Nevilton House.</p> - -<p>She instinctively felt sure that the same generous -and comprehensive sympathy that led him to condone -the vulgar lapses of these “new people,” would -lead him to embrace with more than toleration the -eccentricities and aberration of the forlorn relative -of the Lords of Glastonbury.</p> - -<p>With these thoughts passing rapidly through her -brain, Lacrima found herself, after a little further -hesitation, agreeing demurely to the American’s proposal -to visit the tenant of Dead Man’s Lane before -the end of the day. She left it uncertain at what -precise hour they should go—probably between tea -and dinner—because she was anxious, for her own -sake, dreading her cousin’s anger, to make the adventure -synchronize, if possible, with the latter’s assignation -with Luke, trusting that the good turn she thus did -her, by removing her artistic admirer at a critical juncture, -would propitiate the fair-haired tyrant’s wrath.</p> - -<p>This matter having been satisfactorily settled, the -Italian began to feel, as she observed the artist’s bold -and challenging glance embracing her from head to -foot, while he continued to this new and more attentive -listener his interrupted monologue, that species -of shy and nervous restraint which invariably embarrassed -her when left alone in his society.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> - -<p>Inexperienced at detecting the difference between -æsthetic interest and emotional interest, and associating -the latter with nothing but what was brutal -and gross, Lacrima experienced a disconcerting sort -of shame when under the scrutiny of his eyes.</p> - -<p>Her timid comments upon his observations showed, -however, so much more subtle insight into his meaning -than Gladys had ever displayed, that it was with -a genuine sense of regret that he accepted at last -some trifling excuse she offered and let her wander -away. Feeling restless and in need of distraction he -returned to the house and sought the society of -Mrs. Romer.</p> - -<p>He discovered this good lady seated in the housekeeper’s -room, perusing an illustrated paper and -commenting upon its contents to the portly Mrs. -Murphy. The latter discreetly withdrew on the -appearance of the guest of the house, and Dangelis -entered into conversation with his hostess.</p> - -<p>“Maurice Quincunx!” she cried, as soon as her -visitor mentioned the recluse’s queer name, “you -don’t mean to say that Lacrima’s going to take you -to see <em>him</em>? Well—of all the nonsensical ideas I -ever heard! You’d better not tell Mortimer where -you’re going. He’s just now very angry with -Maurice. It won’t please him at all, her taking you -there. Maurice is related to me, you know, not to -Mr. Romer. Mr. Romer has never liked him, and -lately—but there! I needn’t go into all that. -We used to see quite a lot of him in the old days, -when we first came to Nevilton. I like to have someone -about, you know, and Maurice was somebody -to talk to, when Mr. Romer was away; but lately<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -things have been quite different. It is all very sad and -very tiresome, you know, but what can a person do?”</p> - -<p>This was the nearest approach to a hint of divergence -between the master and mistress of Nevilton -that Dangelis had ever been witness to, and even -this may have been misleading, for the shrewd little -eyes, out of which the lady peered at him, over her -spectacles, were more expressive of mild malignity -than of moral indignation.</p> - -<p>“But what kind of person is this Mr. Quincunx?” -enquired the American. “I confess I can’t, so far, -get any clear vision of his personality. Won’t you -tell me something more definite about him, something -that will ‘give me a line on him,’ as we say -in the States?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Romer looked a trifle bewildered. It seemed -that the personality of Mr. Quincunx was not a topic -that excited her conversational powers.</p> - -<p>“I never really cared for him,” she finally remarked. -“He used to talk so unnaturally. He’d come over -here, you know, almost every day—when Gladys -was a little girl,—and talk and talk and talk. I -used to think sometimes he wasn’t quite right here,”—the -good lady tapped her forehead with her fore-finger,—“but -in some things he was very sensible. -I don’t mean that he spoke loud or shouted or was -noisy. Sometimes he didn’t say very much; but -even when he didn’t speak, his listening was like -talking. Gladys used to be quite fond of him when -she was a little girl. He used to play hide-and-seek -with her in the garden. I think he helped me to -keep her out of mischief more than any of her governesses -did. Once, you know, he beat Tom Raggles—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -miller’s son—because he followed her across -the park—beat him over the head, they say, with -an iron pick. The lying wretch of a lad swore that -she had encouraged him, and we were driven to hush -the matter up, but I believe Mr. Quincunx had to -see the inspector in Yeoborough.”</p> - -<p>Beyond this somewhat obscure incident, Dangelis -found it impossible to draw from Mrs. Romer any -intelligible answer to his questions. The figure of -the evasive tenant of the cottage in Dead Man’s -Lane remained as misty as ever.</p> - -<p>A little irritated by the ill success of his psychological -investigations, the artist, conscious that he -was wasting the morning, began, out of sheer capricious -wilfulness, to expound his æsthetic ideas to -this third interlocutor.</p> - -<p>His nerves were in a morbid and unbalanced state, -due partly to a lapse in his creative energy, and partly -to the fact that in the depths of his mind he was -engaged in a half-conscious struggle to suppress and -keep in its proper place the insidious physical attraction -which Gladys had already begun to exert upon -him.</p> - -<p>But the destiny of poor Dangelis, this inauspicious -morning, was, it seemed, to become a bore and -a pedant to everyone he encountered; for the lady -had hardly listened for two minutes to his discourse -when she also left him, with some suitable apology, -and went off to perform more practical household -duties. “What did this worthy Quincunx talk about, -that you used to find so tiresome?” the artist flung -after her, as she left the room.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Romer turned on the threshold. “He talked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> -of nothing but the bible,” she said. “The bible and -our blessed Lord. You can’t blame me, Mr. Dangelis, -for objecting to that sort of thing, can you? -I call it blasphemy, nothing short of blasphemy!”</p> - -<p>Dangelis wondered, as he strolled out again into -the air, intending to seek solace for his irritable -nerves in a solitary walk, whether, if it were blasphemy -in Nevilton House to refer to the Redeemer -of men, and a nuisance and a bore to refer to heathen -idolatries, what kind of topic it might be that the -place’s mental atmosphere demanded.</p> - -<p>He came to the conclusion, as he proceeded down -the west drive, that the Romer family was more -stimulating to watch, than edifying to converse with.</p> - -<p>After tea that evening, as Lacrima had hoped, -Gladys announced her intention of going down to -the mill to sketch. This—to Lacrima’s initiated -ears—meant an assignation with Luke, and she -glanced quickly at Dangelis, with a shy smile, to -indicate that their projected visit was possible. As -soon as her cousin had departed they set out. Their -expedition seemed likely to prove a complete success. -They found Mr. Quincunx in one of his gayest moods. -Had he been expecting the appearance of the American -he would probably have worked himself up into -a miserable state of nervous apprehension; but the -introduction thus suddenly thrust upon him, the -genial simplicity of the Westerner’s manners and his -honest openness of speech disarmed him completely. -In a mood of this kind the recluse became a charming -companion.</p> - -<p>Dangelis was immensely delighted with him. His -original remarks, and the quaint chuckling bursts of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> -sardonic laughter which accompanied his irresistible -sallies, struck the artist as something completely -different from what he had expected. He had -looked to see a listless preoccupied mystic, ready to -flood him with dreamy and wearisome monologues -upon “the simple life,” and in place of this he found -an entertaining and gracious gentleman, full of delicious -malice, and uttering quip after quip of sly, -half-innocent, half-subtle, Rabelaisean humour, in the -most natural manner in the world.</p> - -<p>Not quite able to bring his affability to the point -of inviting them into his kitchen, Mr. Quincunx carried -out, into a sheltered corner, three rickety chairs -and a small deal table. Here, protected from the -gusty wind, he offered them cups of exquisitely prepared -cocoa and little oatmeal biscuits. He asked -the American question after question about his -life in the remote continent, putting into his enquiries -such naive and childlike eagerness, that -Dangelis congratulated himself upon having at last -discovered an Englishman who was not superior to -the charming vice of curiosity. Had the artist possessed -less of that large and careless aplomb which -makes the utmost of every situation and never teases -itself with criticism, he might have regarded the -recluse’s effusiveness as too deprecatory and propitiatory -in its tone. This, however, never occurred -to him and he swallowed the solitary’s flattery with -joy and gratitude, especially as it followed so quickly -upon the conversational deficiencies of Nevilton -House.</p> - -<p>“I live in the mud here,” said Mr. Quincunx, “and -that makes it so excellent of you two people from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> -the upper world to slip down into the mud with -me.”</p> - -<p>“I think you live very happily and very sensibly, -Maurice!” cried Lacrima, looking with tender affection -upon her friend. “I wish we could all live as you -do.”</p> - -<p>The recluse waved his hand. “There must be -lions and antelopes in the world,” he said, “as well -as frogs and toads. I expect this friend of yours, -who has seen the great cities, is at this moment -wishing he were in a café in New York or Paris, -rather than sitting on a shaky chair drinking my bad -cocoa.”</p> - -<p>“That’s not very complimentary to me, is it, Mr. -Dangelis?” said Lacrima.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Quincunx is much to be envied,” remarked -the American. “He is living the sort of life that -every man of sense would wish to live. It’s outrageous, -the way we let ourselves become slave to -objects and circumstances and people.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima, anxious in the depths of her heart to -give the American the benefit of Mr. Quincunx’s -insight into character, turned the conversation in -the direction of the rumored political contest between -Romer and Wone. She was not quite pleased -with the result of this manœuvre, however, as it at -once diminished the solitary’s high spirits and led -to his adoption of the familiar querulous tone of -peevish carping.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx spoke of his remoteness from the -life around him. He referred with bitter sarcasm -to the obsequious worship of power from which every -inhabitant of the village of Nevilton suffered.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I laugh,” he said, “when our good socialist Wone -gives vent to his eloquent protestations. Really, -in his heart, he is liable to just the same cringing -to power as all the rest. Let Romer make overtures -to him,—only he despises him too much to do that,—and -you’d soon see how quickly he’d swing round! -Give him a position of power, Dangelis—I expect -you know from your experience in your own country -how this works out,—and you would soon find him -just as tyrannical, just as obdurate.”</p> - -<p>“I think you’re quite wrong, Maurice,” cried -Lacrima impetuously. “Mr. Wone is not an educated -man as you are, but he’s entirely sincere. You’ve -only to listen to him to understand his sincerity.”</p> - -<p>A grievous shadow of irritation and pique crossed -the recluse’s face. Nothing annoyed him more than -this kind of direct opposition. He waved the objection -aside. Lacrima’s outburst of honest feeling had -already undone the subtle purpose with which she -had brought the American. Her evasive Balaam -was, it appeared, inclined, out of pure wilfulness, to -bless rather than curse their grand enemy.</p> - -<p>“It’s all injured vanity,” Mr. Quincunx went on, -throwing at his luckless girl-friend a look of quite -disproportioned anger. “It’s all his outraged power-instinct -that drives him to take up this pose. I know -what I’m talking about, for I often argue with him. -Whenever I dispute the smallest point of his theories, -he bursts out like a demon and despises me as a -downright fool. He’d have got me turned out of -the Social Meetings, because I contradicted him there, -if our worthy clergyman hadn’t intervened. You’ve -no idea how deep this power-instinct goes. You must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> -remember, Mr. Dangelis, you see a village like ours -entirely from the outside and you think it beautiful, -and the people charming and gentle. I tell you it’s a -nest of rattlesnakes! It’s a narrow, poisonous cage, -full of deadly vindictiveness and concentrated malice. -Of course we know what human nature is, wherever -you find it, but if you want to find it at its very worst, -come to Nevilton!”</p> - -<p>“But you yourself,” protested the artist, “are you -not one of these same people? I understand that -you—”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx rose to his feet, his expressive nostrils -quivering with anger. “I don’t allow anyone to say -that of me!” he cried “I may have my faults, but I’m -as different from all these rats, as a guillemot is different -from a cormorant!”</p> - -<p>He sat down again and his voice took almost a -pleading tone. “You know I’m different. You must -know I’m different! How could I see all these things -as clearly as I do if it wasn’t so? I’ve undergone -what that German calls ‘the Great Renunciation.’ -I’ve escaped the will to live. I neither care to acquire -myself this accursed power—or to revolt, in jealous -envy, against those who possess it.”</p> - -<p>He relapsed into silence and contemplated his -garden and its enclosing hedge, with a look of profound -melancholy. Dangelis had been considerably -distracted during the latter part of this discourse by -his artistic interest in the delicate lines of Lacrima’s -figure and the wistful sadness of her expression. It -was borne in upon him that he had somewhat neglected -this shy cousin of his exuberant young friend. -He promised himself to see more of the Italian, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> -occasion served. Perhaps—if only Gladys would -agree to it—he might make use of her, also, in his -Dionysian impressions.</p> - -<p>“Surely,” he remarked, speaking with the surface -of his intelligence, and pondering all the while upon -the secret of Lacrima’s charm, “whatever this man -may be, he’s not a hypocrite,—is he? From all I -hear he’s pathetically in earnest.”</p> - -<p>“Of course we know he’s in earnest,” answered -Maurice. “What I maintain is, that it is his personal -vindictiveness that creates his opinions. I believe -he would derive genuine pleasure from seeing Nevilton -House burnt to the ground, and every one of the -people in it reduced to ashes!”</p> - -<p>“That proves his sincerity,” answered the American, -keeping his gaze fixed so intently upon Lacrima -that the girl began to be embarrassed.</p> - -<p>“He takes the view-point, no doubt, that if the -present oligarchy in England were entirely destroyed, -a new and happier epoch would begin at once.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure Mr. Wone is opposed to every kind of -violence,” threw in Lacrima.</p> - -<p>“Nonsense!” cried Mr. Quincunx abruptly. “He -may not like violence because he’s afraid of it reacting -on himself. But what he wants to do is to humiliate -everyone above him, to disturb them, to -prod them, to harass and distress them, and if -possible to bring them down to his own level. He’s -got his thumb on Lacrima’s friends over there,”—he -waved his hand in the direction of Nevilton -House,—“because they happen to be at the -top of the tree at this moment. But if you or I -were there, it would be just the same. It’s all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> -jealousy. That’s what it is,—jealousy and envy! -He wants to make every one who’s prosperous and -eats meat, and drinks champagne, know what it is -to live a dog’s life, as he has known it himself! I -understand his feelings very well. We poor toads, who -live in the mud, get extraordinary pleasure when any -of you grand gentlemen slip by accident into our -dirty pond. He sees such people enjoying themselves -and being happy and he wants to stick a few pins -into them!”</p> - -<p>“But why not, my good sir?” answered the American. -“Why shouldn’t Wone use all his energy to -crush Romer, just as Romer uses all his energy to -crush Wone?”</p> - -<p>Lacrima sighed. “I don’t think either of you make -this world seem a very nice place,” she observed.</p> - -<p>“A nice place?” cried Mr. Quincunx. “It’s a -place poisoned at the root—a place full of gall and -wormwood!”</p> - -<p>“In my humble opinion,” said the American, “it’s -a splendid world. I love to see these little struggles -and contests going on. I love to see the delicious -inconsistencies and self-deceptions that we’re all -guilty of. I play the game myself, and I love to -see others play it. It’s the only thing I do love, -except—” he added after a pause—“except my -pictures.”</p> - -<p>“I loathe the game,” retorted the recluse, “and I -find it impossible to live with people who do not -loathe it too.”</p> - -<p>“Well—all I can say, my friend,” observed Dangelis,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> -“is that this business of ‘renouncing,’ of which -you talk, doesn’t appeal to me. It strikes me as -a backing down and scurrying away, from the splendid -adventure of being alive at all. What are you -alive for,” he added, “if you are going to condemn -the natural combative instinct of men and women -as evil and horrible? They are the instincts by -which we live. They are the motives that propel the -whole universe.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Wone would say,” interposed Lacrima, “and -I’m not sure that I don’t agree with him, that the -real secret of the universe is deeper than all these -unhappy struggles. I don’t like the unctuous way -he puts these things, but he may be right all the -same.”</p> - -<p>“There’s no secret of the universe, Miss Traffio,” -the American threw in. “There are many things -we don’t understand. But no one principle,—not -even the principle of love itself, can be allowed to -monopolize the whole field. Life, I always feel, is -better interpreted by Art than by anything else, and -Art is equally interested in every kind of energy.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima’s face clouded, and her hands fell wearily -upon her lap.</p> - -<p>“Some sorts of energy,” she observed, in a low -voice, “are brutal and dreadful. If Art expresses that -kind, I’m afraid I don’t care for Art.”</p> - -<p>The American gave her a quick, puzzled glance. -There was a sorrowful intensity about her tone which -he found difficult to understand.</p> - -<p>“What I meant was,” he said, “that logically we -can only do one of two things,—either join in the -game and fight fiercely and craftily for our own hand, -or take a convenient drop of poison and end the whole -affair.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p> - -<p>The melancholy eyes of Mr. Quincunx opened very -wide at this, and a fluttering smile twitched the corners -of his mouth.</p> - -<p>“We poor dogs,” he said, “who are not wanted in -this world, and don’t believe in any other, are just -the people who are most unwilling to finish ourselves -off in the way you suggest. We can’t help a sort of -sneaking hope, that somehow or another, through -no effort of our own, things will become better for -us. The same cowardice that makes us draw back -from life, makes us draw back from the thought of -death. Can’t you understand that,—you American -citizen?”</p> - -<p>Dangelis looked from one to another of his companions. -He could not help thinking in his heart of -the gay animated crowds, who, at that very moment, -in the streets of Toledo, Ohio, were pouring along -the side-walks and flooding the picture shows. These -quaint Europeans, for all their historic surroundings, -were certainly lacking in the joy of life.</p> - -<p>“I can’t conceive,” remarked Mr. Quincunx suddenly, -and with that amazing candour which distinguished -him, “how a person as artistic and sensitive -as you are, can stay with those people over there. -Anyone can see that you’re as different from them as -light from darkness.”</p> - -<p>“My dear sir,” replied the American, interrupting -a feeble little protest which Lacrima was beginning -to make at the indiscretion of her friend, “I may or -may not understand your wonder. The point is, -that my whole principle of life is to deal boldly and -freely with every kind of person. Can’t you see that -I like to look on at the spectacle of Mr. Romer’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -energy and prosperity, just as I like to look on at -the revolt against these things in the mind of our -friend Wone. I tell you it tickles my fancy to touch -this human pantomime on every possible side. The -more unjust Romer is towards Wone, the more I -am amused. And the more unjust Wone is towards -Romer, the more I am amused. It is out of the -clash of these opposite injustices that nature,—how -shall I put it?—that nature expands and grows.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx gazed at the utterer of these antinomian -sentiments, with humorous interest. Dangelis -gathered, from the twitching of his heavy moustache, -that he was chuckling like a goblin. The -queer fellow had a way of emerging out of his melancholy, -at certain moments, like a badger out of his -hole; and at such times he would bring the most ideal -or speculative conversation down with a jerk to the -very bed-rock of reality.</p> - -<p>“What’s amusing you so?” enquired the citizen -of Ohio.</p> - -<p>“I was only thinking,” chuckled Mr. Quincunx, -stroking his beard, and glancing sardonically at -Lacrima, “that the real reason of your enjoying -yourself at Nevilton House, is quite a different one -from any you have mentioned.”</p> - -<p>Dangelis was for the moment quite confused. “Confound -the fellow!” he muttered to himself, “I’m -curst if I’m sorry he’s under the thumb of our friend -Romer!”</p> - -<p>His equanimity was soon restored, however, and he -covered his confusion by assuming a light and flippant -air.</p> - -<p>“Ha! ha!” he exclaimed, “so you’re thinking I’ve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> -been caught by this young lady’s cousin? Well! -I don’t mind confessing that we get on beautifully -together. But as for anything else, I think Miss -Traffio will bear witness that I am quite as devoted -to the mother as the daughter. But Gladys Romer -must be admitted a very attractive girl,—mustn’t she -Miss Traffio? I suppose our friend here is not so -stern an ascetic as to refuse an artist like me the -pleasure of admiring such adorable suppleness as -your cousin possesses; such a—such a—” he waved -his hand vaguely in the air, “such a free and flexible -sort of grace?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx picked up a rough ash stick which -lay on the ground and prodded the earth. His face -showed signs of growing once more convulsed with -indecent merriment.</p> - -<p>“Why do you use all those long words?” he said. -“We country dogs go more straight to the point in -these matters. Flexible grace! Can’t you confess -that you’re bitten by the old Satan, which we all -have in us? Adorable suppleness! Why can’t you -say a buxom wench, a roguish wench, a playful -wanton wench? We country fellows don’t understand -your subtle artistic expressions. But we know -what it is when an honest foreigner like yourself -goes walking and talking with a person like Madame -Gladys!”</p> - -<p>Glancing apprehensively at the American’s face -Lacrima saw that her friend’s rudeness had made -him, this time, seriously angry.</p> - -<p>She rose from her chair. “We must be getting -back,” she said, “or we shall be late. I hope you and -Mr. Dangelis will know more of one another, before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> -he has to leave Nevilton. I’m sure you’ll find that -you’ve quite a lot in common, when you really -begin to understand each other.”</p> - -<p>The gravity and earnestness with which she uttered -these words made both her companions feel a little -ashamed.</p> - -<p>“After all,” thought the artist, “he is a typical -Englishman.”</p> - -<p>“After all,” thought Mr. Quincunx, “I’ve always -been told that Americans treat women as if they were -made of tissue-paper.”</p> - -<p>Their parting from the recluse at his garden gate -was friendly and natural. Mr. Quincunx reverted -to his politest manner, and the artist’s good temper -seemed quite restored.</p> - -<p>In retrospect, after the passing of a couple of days, -spent by Dangelis in preparing the accessories of his -Ariadne picture, and by Gladys in unpacking certain -mysterious parcels telegraphed for to London, the -American found himself recalling his visit to Dead -Man’s Cottage with none but amiable feelings. The -third morning which followed this visit, dawned -upon Nevilton with peculiar propitiousness. The -air was windless and full of delicious fragrance. The -bright clear sunshine seemed to penetrate every portion -of the spacious Elizabethan mansion and to -turn its corridors and halls, filled with freshly plucked -flowers, into a sort of colossal garden house.</p> - -<p>Dangelis rose that morning with a more than -normal desire to plunge into his work. He was considerably -annoyed, however, to find that Gladys had -actually arranged to have Mr. Clavering invited to -lunch and had gone so far as to add a pencilled scrawl<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> -of her own—she herself laughingly confessed as -much—to her mother’s formal note, begging him to -appear in the middle of the forenoon, as she had a -“surprise” in store for him.</p> - -<p>The American’s anxiety to begin work as soon as -possible with his attractive model, made him suffer -miseries of impatience, while Gladys amused herself -with her Ariadne draperies, making Lacrima dress -and undress her twenty times, behind the screens of -the studio.</p> - -<p>She appeared at last, however, and the artist, -looking up at her from his canvas, was for the -moment staggered by her beauty. The instinctive -taste of her cousin’s Latin fingers was shown in the -exquisite skill with which the classical folds of the -dress she wore accentuated the natural charm of her -young form.</p> - -<p>The stuff of which her chief garment was made -was of a deep gentian blue and the contrast between -this color and the dazzling whiteness of her neck and -arms was enough to ravish not only the æsthetic -soul in the man but his more human senses also. -Her bare feet were encased in white sandals, bound -by slender leathern straps, which were twisted round -her legs almost as high as the knee. A thin metal -band, of burnished bronze, was clasped about her -head and over and under this, her magnificent sun-coloured -hair flowed, in easy and natural waves, to -where it was caught up, in a Grecian knot, above the -nape of her neck. Save for this band round her head -she wore no clasps or jewelry of any kind, and the -softness of her flesh was made more emphatic by -the somewhat rough and coarse texture of her loosely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> -folded drapery. Dangelis was so lost in admiration -of this delicious apparition, that he hardly noticed -Lacrima’s timid farewell, as the Italian slipped away -into the garden and left them together. It was indeed -not till Gladys had descended from the little -wooden platform and coyly approached the side of his -easel, that the artist recovered himself.</p> - -<p>“Upon my soul, but you look perfectly wonderful!” -he cried enthusiastically. “Quick! Let’s to business. -I want to get well started, before we have any interruption.”</p> - -<p>He led her back to the platform, and made her -lean in a semi-recumbent position upon a cushioned -bench which he had prepared for the purpose. He -took a long time to satisfy himself as to her precise -pose, but at last, with a lucky flash of inspiration, -and not without assistance from Gladys herself, whose -want of æsthetic feeling was compensated for in -this case by the profoundest of all feminine instincts, -he found for her the inevitable, the supremely effective, -position. It was with a thrill of exquisite sweetness, -pervading both soul and senses, that he began -painting her. He felt as though this were one of the -few flawless and unalloyed moments of his life. -Everything in him and about him seemed to vibrate -and quiver in response to the breath of beauty and -youth. Penetrated by the delicate glow of a passion -which was free, at present, from the sting of sensual -craving, he felt as though all the accumulative impressions, -of a long procession of harmonious days, -were summed up and focussed in this fortunate hour. -The loveliness of the young girl, as he transferred it, -curve by curve, shadow by shadow, to his canvas,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> -seemed expressive of a reserved secret of enchantment, -until this moment withheld and concealed from -him. The ravishing contours of her lithe figure seemed -to open up, to his magnetized imagination, vistas -and corridors of emotion, such as he had never even -dreamed of experiencing. She was more than a -supremely lovely girl. She was the very epitome and -incarnation of all those sunward striving forces and -impulses, which, rising from the creative heart of the -universe, struggle upwards through the resisting -darkness. She was a Sun-child, a creature of air and -earth and fire, a daughter of Circe and Dionysus; and -as he drained the so frankly offered philtre of her -intoxicating beauty, and flung his whole soul’s response -to it in glowing color upon the canvas, he -felt that he would never again thus catch the fates -asleep, or thus plunge his hands into the nectar of -the supreme gods.</p> - -<p>The world presented itself to him at that moment, -while he swept his brush with fierce passionate energy -across the canvas, as bathed in translucent and unclouded -ether. Everything it contained, of weakness -and decadence, of gloom and misgiving, seemed to be -transfigured, illuminated, swallowed up. He felt as -though, in thus touching the very secret of divine -joy, held in the lap of the abysmal mothers, nothing -but energy and beauty and creative force would -ever concern or occupy him again. All else,—all -scruples, all questions, all problems, all renunciations—seemed -but irrelevant and negligible vapour, compared -with this glorious and sunlit stream of life. -He worked on feverishly at his task. By degrees, -and in so incredibly a short time that Gladys herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> -was astonished when he told her she could rest and -stretch herself a little, the figure of the Ariadne he -had seen in his imagination limned itself against the -expectant background. He was preparing to resume -his labour, and Gladys, after a boyish scramble into -the neighbouring conservatory, and an eager return -to the artist’s side with a handful of early strawberries, -was just re-mounting the platform, when the door -of the studio opened and Hugh Clavering entered.</p> - -<p>He had been almost inclined,—in so morbid a -condition were his nerves—to knock at the door before -coming in, but a lucky after-thought had reminded -him that such an action would have been -scandalously inappropriate.</p> - -<p>Assuming an air of boyish familiarity, which harmonized -better perhaps with her leather-bound ankles -than with her girlish figure, Gladys jumped down at -once from the little stage and ran gaily to welcome him. -She held out her hand, and then, raising both her arms -to her head and smoothing back her bright hair beneath -its circlet of bronze, she inquired of him, in a soft low -murmur, whether he thought she looked “nice.”</p> - -<p>Clavering was struck dumb. He had all those -shivering sensations of trembling agitation which are -described with such realistic emphasis in the fragmentary -poem of Sappho. The playful girl, her fair -cheeks flushed with excitement and a treacherous -light in her blue eyes, swung herself upon the rough -oak table that stood in the middle of the room, and -sat there, smiling coyly at him, dangling her sandalled -feet. She still held in her hand the strawberries she -had picked; and as, with childish gusto, she put one -after another of these between her lips, she looked at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> -him with an indescribable air of mischievous, challenging -defiance.</p> - -<p>“So this is the pagan thing,” thought the poor -priest, “that it is my duty to initiate into the religion -of sacrifice!”</p> - -<p>He could not prevent the passing through his brain -of a grotesque and fantastic vision in which he saw -himself, like a second hermit of the Thebaid, leading -this equivocal modern Thaïs to the waters of Jordan. -Certainly the association of such a mocking white-armed -darling of errant gods with the ceremony of -confirmation was an image somewhat difficult to embrace! -The impatient artist, apologizing profusely to -the embarrassed visitor, soon dragged off his model -to her couch on the platform, and it fell to the lot of -the infatuated priest to subside in paralyzed helplessness, -on a modest seat at the back of the room. -What thoughts, what wild unpermitted thoughts, -chased one another in strange procession through his -soul, as he stared at the beautiful heathen figure thus -presented to his gaze!</p> - -<p>The movements of the artist, the heavy stream of -sunlight falling aslant the room, the sweet exotic -smells borne in from the window opening on the conservatory, -seemed all to float and waver about him, -as though they were things felt by a deep-sea diver -beneath a weight of humming waters. He gave himself -up completely to what that moment brought.</p> - -<p>Faith, piety, sacrifice, devotion, became for him -mere words and phrases—broken, fragmentary, unmeaning—sounds -heard in the shadow-land of sleep, -vague and indistinct like the murmur of drowned -bells under a brimming tide.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> - -<p>It may well be believed that the langourously -reclining model was not in the least oblivious to the -effect she produced. This was, indeed, one of Gladys’ -supreme moments, and she let no single drop of its -honeyed distillation pass undrained. She permitted -her heavy-lidded blue eyes, suffused with a soft -dreamy mist, to rest tenderly on her impassioned -lover; and as if in response to the desperate longing -in his look, a light-fluttering, half-wistful smile crossed -her parted lips, like a ripple upon a shadowy stream.</p> - -<p>The girl’s vivid consciousness of the ecstasy of -power was indeed, in spite of her apparent lethargic -passivity, never more insanely aroused. Lurking -beneath the dreamy sweetness of the look with -which she responded to Clavering’s magnetized gaze, -were furtive depths of Circean remorselessness. Under -her gentian-blue robe her youthful breast trembled -with exultant pleasure, and she felt as though, with -every delicious breath she drew, she were drinking to -the dregs the very wine of the immortals.</p> - -<p>“I must give Mr. Clavering some strawberries!” she -suddenly cried, jumping to her feet, and breaking -both the emotional and the æsthetic spell as if they -were gossamer-threads. “He looks bored and tired.”</p> - -<p>In vain the disconcerted artist uttered an imploring -groan of dismay, as thus, at the critical moment, his -model betrayed him. In vain the bewildered priest -professed his complete innocence of any wish for -strawberries.</p> - -<p>The wayward girl clambered once more through -the conservatory window, at the risk of spoiling -her Olympian attire, and returning with a handful -of fruit, tripped coquettishly up to both of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> -them in turn and insisted on their dividing the -spoil.</p> - -<p>Had either of the two men been in a mood for -classical reminiscences, the famous image of Circe -feeding her transformed lovers might have been irresistibly -evoked. They were all three thus occupied,—the -girl in the highest spirits, and both men feeling -a little sulky and embarrassed, when, to the general -consternation, the door began slowly to open, and -a withered female figure, clad in a ragged shawl and -a still more dilapidated skirt made its entry into the -room.</p> - -<p>“Why, it’s Witch-Bessie!” cried Gladys, involuntarily -clutching at Clavering’s arm. “Wicked old -thing! She gave me quite a start. Well, Bessie, -what do you want here? Don’t you know the way -to the back door? You mustn’t come round to the -front like this. What do you want?”</p> - -<p>Each of the model’s companions made a characteristic -movement. Dangelis began feeling in his -pocket for some suitable coin, and Clavering raised -his hand with an half-reproachful, half-conciliatory, -and altogether pastoral gesture, as if at the same -time threatening and welcoming a lost sheep of his -flock.</p> - -<p>But Witch-Bessie had only eyes for Gladys. She -stared in petrified amazement at the gentian-blue -robe and the boyish sandals.</p> - -<p>“Send her away!” whispered the girl to Mr. -Clavering. “Tell her to go to the back door. They’ll -give her food and things there.”</p> - -<p>The cadaverous stare of the old woman relaxed -at last. Fixing her colourless eyes on the two men,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> -and pointing at Gladys with her skinny hand, she -cried, in a shrill, querulous voice, that rang unpleasantly -through the studio, “What be she then, touzled -up in like of this? What be she then, with her -Jezebel face and her shameless looks? Round to -back door, is it, ’ee ’d have me sent? I do know -who you be, well enough, Master Clavering, and I -do guess this gentleman be him as they say does -bide here; but what be she, tricketed up in them outlandish -clothes, like a Gypoo from Roger-town -Fair? Be she Miss Gladys Romer, or baint she?”</p> - -<p>“Come, Bessie,” said Clavering in propitiatory -tone. “Do as the young lady says and go round to -the back. I’ll go with you if you like. I expect -they’ll have plenty of scraps for you in that big -kitchen.”</p> - -<p>He laid his hand on the old woman’s shoulder and -tried to usher her out. But she turned on him -angrily. “Scraps!” she cried. “Scraps thee own self! -What does the like of a pair of gentlemen such as -ye be, flitter-mousing and flandering round, with a -hussy like she?”</p> - -<p>She turned furiously upon Gladys, waving aside -with a snort of contempt the silver coin which -Dangelis, with a vague notion that “typical English -beggars” should be cajoled with gifts, sought to press -into her hand.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> -<p>“’Twas to speak a bit of my mind to ’ee, not to -beg at your blarsted back door that I did come this -fine morning! Us that do travel by night and by -day hears precious strange things sometimes. What -for, my fine lady, did ye go and swear to policeman -Frank, down in Nevilton, that ’twas I took your God-darned -pigeons? Your dad may be a swinking magistrate, -what can send poor folks to gaol for snaring -rabbities, or putting a partridge in the pot to make -the cabbage tasty, but what right does that give a -hussy like thee to send policeman Frank swearing -he’ll lock up old Bessie? It don’t suit wi’ I, this -kind of flummery; so I do tell ’ee plain and straight. -It don’t suit wi’ I!”</p> - -<p>“Come, clear out of this, my good woman!” cried -the indignant clergyman, seizing the trembling old -creature by the arm.</p> - -<p>“Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt her!” exclaimed -Gladys. “She’ll put the evil eye on me. She did -it to Nance Purvis and she’s been mad ever since.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a lie!” whimpered the old woman, struggling -feebly as Clavering pulled her towards the door.</p> - -<p>“It’s your own dad and Nance’s dad with their -ugly ways what have driven that poor lass moon-crazy. -Mark Purvis do whip her with withy sticks—all -the country knows it. Darn ’ee, for a black devil’s -spawn, and no blessed minister, pulling and harrying -an old woman!”</p> - -<p>This last ejaculation was addressed to the furious -Mr. Clavering, who was now thrusting her by bodily -force through the open door. With one final effort -Witch-Bessie broke loose from him and turned on -the threshold. “Ye <em>shall</em> have the evil eye, since -ye’ve called for it,” she shrieked, making a wild -gesture in the air, in the direction of the shrinking -Ariadne. “And what if I let these two gentlemen -know with whom it was ye were out walking the other -night? I did see ’ee, and I do know what I did see! -I’m a pigeon-stealer am I, ye flaunting flandering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> -Gypoo? Let me tell these dear gentlemen how as—” Her -voice died suddenly away in an incoherent -splutter, as the vicar of Nevilton, with his hand -upon her mouth, swung her out of the door.</p> - -<p>Gladys sank down upon a chair pale and trembling.</p> - -<p>As soon, however, as the old woman’s departure -seemed final, she began to recover her equanimity. -She gave vent to a rather forced and uneasy laugh. -“Silly old thing!” she exclaimed. “This comes of -mother’s getting rid of the dogs. She never used to -come here when we had the dogs. They scented her -out in a minute. I wish we had them now to let loose -at her! They’d make her skip.”</p> - -<p>“I do hope, my dear child,” said Dangelis -anxiously, “that she has not really frightened you? -What a terrible old creature! I’ve always longed to -see a typical English witch, but bless my heart if I -want to see another!”</p> - -<p>“She’s gone now,” announced Mr. Clavering, returning -hot and breathless. “I saw her half-way down -the drive. She’ll be out of sight directly. I expect -you don’t want to see any more of her, else, if you -come out here a step or two, you can see her slinking -away.”</p> - -<p>Gladys thanked him warmly for his energetic defence -of her, but denied having the least wish to -witness her enemy’s retreat.</p> - -<p>“It must be getting near lunch time,” she said. -“If you don’t mind waiting a moment, I’ll change -my dress.” And she tripped off behind the screens.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII<br /> -<span class="smaller">AUBER LAKE</span></h2> - -<p>The presence of Ralph Dangelis in Nevilton -House had altered, in more than one respect, -the relations between Gladys and her cousin.</p> - -<p>The girls saw much less of each other, and Lacrima -was left comparatively at liberty to follow her own -devices.</p> - -<p>On several occasions, however, when they were all -three together, it chanced that the American had -made himself extremely agreeable to the younger -girl, even going so far as to take her part, quite energetically, -in certain lively discussions. These occasions -were not forgotten by Gladys, and she hated -the Italian with a hatred more deep-rooted than -ever.</p> - -<p>As soon as her first interest in the American’s -society began to pall a little, she cast about in her -mind for some further way of causing discomfort and -agitation to the object of her hatred.</p> - -<p>Only those who have taken the trouble to watch -carefully what might be called the “magnetic antagonism,” -between feminine animals condemned to live -in close relations with one another, will understand the -full intensity of what this young person felt. It was -not necessarily a sign of any abnormal morbidity in -our fair-haired friend.</p> - -<p>For a man in whom one is interested, even though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -such interest be mild and casual, to show a definite -tendency to take sides against one, on behalf of one’s -friend, is a sufficient justification,—at least so nature -seems to indicate—for the awakening in one’s heart -of an intense desire for revenge. Such desire is often -aroused in the most well-constituted temperaments -among us, and in this case it might be said that the -sound physical nerves of the daughter of the Romers -craved the satisfaction of such an impulse with the -same stolid persistence as her flesh and blood craved -for air and sun. But how to achieve it? What new -and elaborate humiliation to devise for this irritating -partner of her days?</p> - -<p>The bathing episode was beginning to lose its -piquancy. Custom, with its kindly obliviousness, had -already considerably modified Lacrima’s fears, and -there had ceased to be for Gladys any further pleasure -in displaying her aquarian agility before a companion -so occupied with the beauty of lawn and -garden at that magical hour.</p> - -<p>Fate, however, partial, as it often is, to such -patient tenacity of emotion, let fall at last, at her -very feet, the opportunity she craved.</p> - -<p>She had just begun to experience that miserable -sensation, so sickeningly oppressive to a happy disposition, -of hating where she could not hurt, when, -one evening, news was brought to the house by -Mark Purvis the game-keeper that a wandering flock -of wild-geese had taken up its temporary abode amid -the reeds of Auber Lake. Mr. Romer himself -soon brought confirmation of this fact.</p> - -<p>The birds appeared to leave the place during the -day and fly far westward, possibly as far as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> -marshes of Sedgemoor, but they always returned at -night-fall to this new tarrying ground.</p> - -<p>The very evening of this exciting discovery, Gladys’ -active mind formulated a thrilling and absorbing -project, which she positively trembled with longing -to communicate to Lacrima. She found the long -dinner that night, and the subsequent chatter with -Dangelis on the terrace, almost too tedious to be -endured; and it was at an unusually early hour -that she surprised her cousin by joining her in her -room.</p> - -<p>The Pariah was seated at her mirror, wearily reducing -to order her entangled curls, when Gladys -entered. She looked very fragile in her white bodice -and the little uplifted arms, that the mirror reflected, -showed unnaturally long and thin. When one hates -a person with the sort of massive hatred such as, -at that time, beat sullenly under Gladys’ rounded -bosom, every little physical characteristic in the object -of our emotion is an added incentive to our revengeful -purpose.</p> - -<p>This Saturnian planetary law is unfortunately not -confined to antipathies between persons of the same -sex. Sometimes the most unhappy results have been -known to spring from the manner in which one or -another, even of two lovers, has lifted chin or head, -or moved characteristically across a room.</p> - -<p>Thus it were almost impossible to exaggerate -the loathing with which this high-spirited girl contemplated -the pale oval face and slender swaying -arms of her friend, as full of her new project she -flung herself into her favourite arm chair and met -Lacrima’s frightened eyes in the gilded Georgian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> -mirror. She began her attack with elaborate feline -obliquity.</p> - -<p>“They say Mark Purvis’ crazy daughter has been -giving trouble again. He was up this morning, talking -to father about it.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you send her away?” said the Italian, -without turning round.</p> - -<p>“Send her away? She has to do all the house-work -down there! Mark has no one else, you know, and -the poor man does not want the expense of hiring -a woman.”</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it rather a lonely place for a child like that?”</p> - -<p>“Lonely? I should think it is lonely! But what -would you have? Somebody must keep that cottage -clean; and it’s just as well a wretched mad girl, of -no use to anyone, should do it, as that a sound person -should lose her wits in such a god-forsaken spot!”</p> - -<p>“What does she do at—at these times? Is she -violent?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, she gets out in the night and roams about the -woods. She was once found up to her knees in the -water. No, she isn’t exactly violent. But she is a -great nuisance.”</p> - -<p>“It must be terrible for her father!”</p> - -<p>“Well—in a way it does bother him. But he is -not the man to stand much nonsense.”</p> - -<p>“I hope he is kind to her.”</p> - -<p>Gladys laughed. “What a soft-hearted darling -you are! I expect he finds sometimes that you -can’t manage mad people, any more than you can -manage children, without using the stick. But I -fancy, on the whole, he doesn’t treat her badly. He’s -a fairly good-natured man.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Pariah sighed. “I think Mr. Romer ought to -send her away at once to some kind of home, and -pay someone to take her place.”</p> - -<p>“I daresay you do! If you had your way, father -wouldn’t have a penny left in the bank.”</p> - -<p>The Pariah rose from her seat, crossed over to the -window, and looked out into the sultry night. What -a world this was! All the gentle and troubled -beings in it seemed over-ridden by gigantic merciless -wheels!</p> - -<p>A little awed, in spite of herself, by the solemnity -of her companion, Gladys sought to bring her back -out of this translunar mood by capricious playfulness. -She stretched herself out at full length in her low chair, -and calling the girl to her side, began caressing her, -pulling her down at last upon her lap.</p> - -<p>“Guess what has happened!” she murmured -softly, as the quick beating of the Pariah’s heart -communicated itself to her, and made her own still -harder.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know it’s something I shan’t like, something -that I shall dread!” cried the younger girl, making -a feeble effort to escape.</p> - -<p>“Shall I tell you what it is?” Gladys went on, -easily overcoming this slight movement. “You know, -don’t you, that there’s a flock of wild-geese settled on -the island in the middle of Auber Lake? Well! I -have got a lovely plan. I’ve never yet seen those -birds, because they don’t come back till the evening. -What you and I are going to do, darling, is to slip -away out of the house, next time Mr. Dangelis goes -to see that friend of yours, and make straight to -Auber Lake! I’ve never been into those woods by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> -night, and it’ll be extraordinarily thrilling to see -what Auber Lake looks like with the moon gleaming -on it. And then we may be able to make the wild-geese -rise, by throwing sticks or something, into the -water. Oh, it’ll be simply lovely! Don’t you think -so, darling? Aren’t you quite thrilled by the idea?”</p> - -<p>The Pariah liberated herself by a sudden effort -and stood erect on the floor.</p> - -<p>“I think you are the wickedest girl that God ever -made!” she said solemnly. And then, as the full -implication of the proposed adventure grew upon her, -she clasped her hands convulsively. “You cannot -mean it!” she cried. “You cannot mean it! You -are teasing me, Gladys. You are only saying it to -tease me.”</p> - -<p>“Why, you’re not such a coward as all that!” -her cousin replied. “Think what it must be for -Nance Purvis, who always lives down there! I -shouldn’t like to be more cowardly than a poor crazy -labouring girl. We really <em>ought</em> to visit the place, -once in a way, to see if these stories are true about -her escaping out of the house. One can never tell -from what Mark says. He may have been drinking -and imagining it all.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima turned away and began rapidly undressing. -Without a word she arranged the books on her table, -moving about like a person in a trance, and without -a word she slipped into bed and turned her face to -the wall.</p> - -<p>Gladys smiled, stretched herself luxuriously, and continued -speaking.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> -<p>“Auber Lake by moonlight would well be worth -a night walk. You know it’s supposed to be the -most romantic spot in Somersetshire? They say it’s -incredibly old. Some people think it was used in -prehistoric times by the druids as a place of worship. -The villagers never dare to go near it after dark. -They say that very curious noises are heard there. -But of course that may only be the mad—”</p> - -<p>She was not allowed to go on. The silent figure -in the bed suddenly sat straight up, with wide-staring -eyes fixed upon her, and said slowly and solemnly, -“If I come with you to this place, will you faithfully -promise me that your father will send that girl into -a home?”</p> - -<p>Gladys was so surprised by this unexpected utterance -that she made an inarticulate gasping noise in -her throat.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered, mesmerized by the Pariah’s -fixed glance. “Yes—most certainly. If you come -with me to see those wild-geese, I’ll make any -promise you like about that girl!”</p> - -<p>Lacrima continued for a moment fixing her with wide-dilated -pupils.</p> - -<p>Then, with a shiver that passed from head to foot, -she slowly sank back on her pillows and closed her -eyes.</p> - -<p>Gladys rose a little uneasily from her chair. “But -of course,” she said, “you understand she may not -<em>want</em> to go away. She is quite crazy, you know. And -she may prefer wandering about freely among dark -woods to being locked up in a nice white-washed -asylum, under the care of fat motherly nurses!”</p> - -<p>With this parting shot she went off into her own -room feeling in a curious vague manner that somehow -or another the edge of her delectation had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> -taken off. In this unexpected resolution of the -Italian, the Mythology of Sacrifice had suddenly -struck a staggering blow at the Mythology of Power. -Like the point of a bright silver sword, this unforseen -vein of heroism in the Pariah cleared the sultry air -of that hot night with a magical freshness and -coolness. A planetary onlooker might have been -conscious at that moment of strange spiritual vibrations -passing to and fro over the sleeping roofs of -Nevilton. But perhaps such a one would also have -been conscious of the abysmal indifference to either -stream of opposing influence, of the high, cold galaxy -of the Milky Way, stretched contemptuously above -them all!</p> - -<p>All we are able to be certain of is, that as the fair-haired -daughter of the house prepared for bed she -muttered sullenly to herself. “I’ll make her go anyway. -It will be lovely to feel her shiver, when we -pass under those thick laurels! That mad girl won’t -leave the place, unless they drag her by force.”</p> - -<p>Left alone, Lacrima remained, for nearly two hours, -motionless and with closed eyes. She was not asleep, -however. Strange and desperate thoughts pursued -one another through her brain. She wondered if she, -too, like the girl of Auber Lake, were destined to -find relief from this merciless world in the unhinging -of her reason. She reverted again and again in her -mind to her cousin’s final malicious suggestion. -That would be indeed, she thought, a bitter example -of life’s irony, if after going through all this to save -the poor wretch, such sacrifice only meant worse -misery for her. But no! God could not be as unkind -as that.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> - -<p>She stretched out her arm for a book with which -to still the troublesome palpitation of her heart.</p> - -<p>The book she seized by chance turned out to be -Andersen’s Fairy Stories, and she read herself to -sleep with the tale of the little princess who wove -coats of nettles for her enchanted brothers, and all -night long she dreamed of mad unhappy girls struggling -amid entwining branches, of bottomless lakes full -of terrible drowned faces, and of flocks of wild-geese -that were all of them kings’ sons!</p> - -<p>The Saturday following this eventful colloquy between -the cousins was a day of concentrated gloom. -There was thunder in the vicinity and, although no -rain had actually fallen in Nevilton, there was a -brooding presence of it in the heavy atmosphere.</p> - -<p>The night seemed to descend that evening more -quickly than usual. By eight o’clock a strange -unnatural twilight spread itself over the landscape. -The trees in the park submitted forlornly to a burden -of sultry indistinction and seemed, in their pregnant -stillness, to be trying in vain to make mysterious -signals to one another.</p> - -<p>Dinner in the gracious Elizabethan dining-room -was an oppressive and discomfortable meal to all -concerned. Mrs. Romer was full of tremors and -apprehensions over the idea of a possible thunder-storm.</p> - -<p>The quarry-owner was silent and preoccupied, his -mind reviewing all the complicated issues of a new -financial scheme. Dangelis kept looking at his -watch. He had promised to be at Dead Man’s Lane -by nine o’clock, and the meal seemed to drag itself -out longer than he had anticipated.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p> - -<p>He was a little apprehensive, too, as to what -reception he would receive when he did arrive at -Mr. Quincunx’s threshold.</p> - -<p>Their last encounter had been so extremely controversial, -that he feared lest the sensitive recluse -might be harbouring one of his obstinate psychic -reactions at his expense.</p> - -<p>He was very unwilling to risk the loss of Mr. -Quincunx’s society. There was no one in Nevilton -to whom he could discourse quite as freely and -philosophically as he could to the conscripted office-clerk, -and his American interest in a “representative -type” found inexhaustible satisfaction in listening to -the cynical murmurings of this eccentric being.</p> - -<p>Lacrima was calm and self-contained, but she ate -hardly anything; and the hand with which she -raised her glass to her lips trembled in spite of all -her efforts.</p> - -<p>Gladys herself was exuberant with suppressed -excitement. Every now and then she glanced furtively -at the window, and at other times, when there -was no reason for such an outburst, she gave vent to -a low feline laugh. She was of the type of animal that -the approach of thunder, and the presence of electricity -in the air, fills with magnetic nervous exaltation.</p> - -<p>The meal was over at last, and the various persons -of the group hastened to separate, each of them -weighed upon, as if by an atmospheric hand, with -the burden of their own purposes and apprehensions.</p> - -<p>The two girls retired to their rooms. Mrs. Romer -retreated to her favourite corner in the entrance hall, -and then, uneasy even here, took refuge in the assuaging -society of her friend the housekeeper.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> - -<p>Romer himself marched away gloomily to his -study; and Dangelis, snatching up his coat and hat, -made off across the south garden.</p> - -<p>It did not take the American long to reach the -low hedge which separated Mr. Quincunx’s garden -from the lane. The recluse was awaiting him, and -joined him at once at the gate, giving him no invitation -to enter, and taking for granted that their conversation -was to be a pedestrian one.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx experienced a curious reluctance to -allow any of his friends to cross his threshold. The -only one completely privileged in this matter was -young Luke Andersen, whose gay urbanity was so -insidious that it would have overcome the resistance -of a Trappist monk.</p> - -<p>“Well, where are you proposing to take me tonight?” -enquired Dangelis, when they had advanced -in silence some distance up the hill.</p> - -<p>“To a place that will interest you, if your damned -artistic tastes haven’t quite spoiled your pleasure in -little things!”</p> - -<p>“Not to the Seven Ashes again?” protested the -American. “I know this lane leads up there.”</p> - -<p>“You wait a little. We shall turn off presently,” -muttered his companion. “The truth is I am taking -you on a sort of scouting expedition tonight.”</p> - -<p>“What on earth do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Well—if you must know, you shall know! I saw -Miss Traffio yesterday and she asked me to keep an -eye on Auber Lake tonight.”</p> - -<p>“What? That place they were talking of? Where -the wild-geese are?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx nodded. “It may, for all I know,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> -be a wild-goose chase. But I find your friend Gladys -is up to her little tricks again—frightening people -and upsetting their minds. And I promised Lacrima -that you and I would stroll round that way—just -to see that the girls don’t come to any harm. Only -we mustn’t let them know we’re there. Lacrima -would never forgive me if Gladys saw us.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to say that those two children are -going to wander about these confounded damp woods -of yours alone?” cried the American.</p> - -<p>“Look here, Mr. Dangelis, please understand this -quite clearly. If you ever say a word to your -precious Miss Gladys about this little scouting expedition, -that’s an end of our talks, forever and a day!”</p> - -<p>The citizen of Ohio bowed with a mock heroic -gesture, removing his hat as he did so.</p> - -<p>“I submit to your conditions, Don Quixote. I am -entirely at your service. Is it the idea that we -should track our friends on hands and knees? I am -quite ready even for that, but I know what these -woods of yours are like.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx vouchsafed no reply to this ill-timed -jocosity. He was anxiously surveying the tall -hedge upon their right hand. “Here’s the way,” he -suddenly exclaimed. “Here’s the path. We can hit -a short-cut here that brings us straight through -Camel’s Cover, up to Wild Pine. Then we can slip -down into Badger’s Bottom and so into the Auber -Woods.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> -<p>“But I thought the Auber Woods were much -nearer than that. You told me the other day that -you could get into the heart of them, in a quarter -of an hour from your own garden!”</p> - -<p>“And so I can, my friend,” replied Mr. Quincunx, -scrambling up the bank into the field, and turning -to offer his hand to his companion. “But it happens -that this is the way those girls are coming. At any -rate that is what she said. They were going to avoid -my lane but they were going to enter the woods -from the Seven Ashes side, just because it is so -much nearer.”</p> - -<p>“I submit, I submit,” muttered the artist blandly. -“I only hope this scouting business needn’t commence -till we have got well through Camel’s Cover and -Badger’s Bottom! I must confess I am not altogether -in love with the sound of those places, though -no doubt they are harmless enough. But you people -do certainly select the most extraordinary names for -your localities. Our own little lapses in these things -are classical compared with your Badgers and Camels -and Ashes and Dead Men!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx did not condescend to reply to this. -He continued to plough his way across the field, -every now and then glancing nervously at the sky, -which grew more and more threatening. Walking -behind him and a little on one side, the American -was singularly impressed by the appearance he -presented, especially when the faint light of the -pallid and cloud-flecked moon fell on his uplifted -profile. With his corrugated brow and his pointed -beard, Mr. Quincunx was a noticeable figure at any -time, but under the present atmospheric conditions -his lean form and striking head made a picture of -forlorn desolation worthy of the sombre genius of a -Bewick.</p> - -<p>Dangelis conceived the idea of a picture, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> -he himself might be capable of evoking, with this -melancholy, solitary figure as its protagonist.</p> - -<p>He wondered vaguely what background he would -select as worthy of the resolute hopelessness in Mr. -Quincunx’s forlorn mien.</p> - -<p>It was only after they had traversed the sloping -recesses of Camel’s Cover, and had arrived at the -crest of the Wild Pine ridge, that he was able to -answer this question. Then he knew at once. The -true pictorial background for his eccentric companion -could be nothing less than that line of wind-shaken, -rain-washed Scotch firs, which, visible from all portions -of Nevilton, had gathered to themselves the -very essence of its historic tragedy.</p> - -<p>These trees, like Mr. Quincunx, seemed to derive -a grim satisfaction from their submission to destiny. -Like him, they submitted with a definite volition of -resolution. They took, as he took, the line of least -resistance with a sort of stark voluptuousness. They -did not simply bow to the winds and rains that oppressed -them. They positively welcomed them. And -yet all the while, just as he did, they emitted a low -melancholy murmur of protest, a murmur as completely -different from the howling eloquence of the -ashes and elms, as it was different from the low -querulous sob of the larches and elders. The rusty-red -stain, too, in the rough bark of their trunks, was also -singularly congruous with a certain reddish tinge, -which often darkened the countenance of the recluse, -especially when his fits of goblin-humour shook him -into convulsive merriment.</p> - -<p>As they paused for a moment on this melancholy -ridge, looking back at the flickering lights of the village,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> -and down into the darkness in front of them, -the painter made a mental vow that before he left -Nevilton he would sublimate his vision of Mr. Quincunx -into a genuine masterpiece. Plunging once -more into the shadows, they followed a dark lane -which finally emerged into a wide-sloping valley. In -the depths of this was the secluded hollow, full of -long grass and tufted reeds, which was the place -known as Badger’s Bottom.</p> - -<p>The entrance to Auber Wood was now at hand; -and as they reached its sinister outskirts, they both -instinctively paused to take stock of their surroundings. -The night was more sultry than ever. The -leaves and grasses swayed with an almost imperceptible -movement, as if stirred, not by the wind, but by -the actual heavy breathing of the Earth herself, -troubled and agitated in her planetary sleep.</p> - -<p>Sombre banks of clouds moved intermittently over -the face of a blurred moon, and, out of the soil at -their feet, rose up damp exotic odours, giving the -whole valley the atmosphere of an enormous hot-house.</p> - -<p>It was one of those hushed, steamy nights, pregnant -and listening, which the peculiar conditions of -our English climate do not often produce, and which -are for that very reason often quite startling in their -emotional appeal. The path which the two men took, -after once they had entered the wood, was one that -led them through a gloomy tunnel of gigantic, overhanging -laurel-bushes.</p> - -<p>All the chief entrances to Auber Wood were -edged with these exotics. Some capricious eighteenth-century -Seldom,—perhaps the one who raised the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -Tower of Pleasure on the site of the resting-place of -the Holy Rood—had planted them there, and for more -than a hundred years they had grown and multiplied.</p> - -<p>Auber Lake itself was the centre of a circumference -of thick jungle-like brushwood which itself was overshadowed -by high sloping hills. These hills, also -heavily wooded, formed a sort of gigantic cup or -basin, and the level expanse of undergrowth they -enclosed was itself the margin of a yet deeper concavity, -in the middle of which was the lake-bed.</p> - -<p>Mingling curiously with the more indigenous trees -in this place were several unusual and alien importations. -Some of these, like the huge laurels they were -now passing under, belonged more properly to gardens -than to woods. Others were of a still stranger -and more foreign nature, and produced a very bizarre -effect where they grew, as though one had suddenly -come upon the circle of some heathen grove, in the -midst of an English forest. Auber Lake was certainly -a spot of an unusual character. Once it had -been drained, and a large monolith, of the same stone -as that produced by Leo’s Hill, had been discovered -embedded in the mud. Traces were said to have -been discerned upon this of ancient human carving, -but local antiquarianism had contradicted this -rumour. At least it may be said that nowhere else -on the Romer estate, except perhaps in Nevilton -churchyard, was the tawny-colored clay which bore -so close a symbolic, if not a geological, relation to -the famous yellow sandstone, more heavily and -malignantly clinging, in its oozy consistence.</p> - -<p>Dangelis and Mr. Quincunx advanced slowly, and -in profound silence, along their overshadowed path.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p> - -<p>An occasional wood-pigeon, disturbed in its roosting, -flapped awkwardly through the branches; and -far away, in another part of the wood, sounded at -intervals the melancholy cry of a screech-owl.</p> - -<p>Great leather-winged bats flitted over their heads -with queer unearthly little cries; and every now and -then some agitated moth, from the under-bushes, -fluttered heavily across their faces. Sometimes in -the darkness their feet stumbled upon a dead -branch, but more often they slipped uneasily in -the deep ruts left in the mud by the woodmen’s -carts.</p> - -<p>All the various intermittent noises they heard only -threw the palpable stillness of the place into heavier -relief.</p> - -<p>The artist from the wind-swept plains of Ohio felt -as though he had never plunged so deeply into the -indrawn recesses of the earth-powers as he was doing -now. It seemed to him as though they were approaching -the guarded precincts of some dark and crouching -idol. It was as if, by some ill-omened mistake, -they had stumbled unawares upon a spot that through -interminable ages had been forbidden to human -tread.</p> - -<p>And yet the place seemed to expect them, to await -them; to have in reserve for them some laboured -pregnancy of woeful significance.</p> - -<p>Once more, as he walked behind Mr. Quincunx, -Dangelis was startled by the extraordinary congruity -of that forlorn figure with the occasion and the -scene. The form of the recluse seemed to exhale a -reciprocity of fearful brooding. Auber Wood seemed -aware of him, and ready to welcome him, in consentaneous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> -sympathy. He might have been the long-expected -priest of some immemorial rites transacted -there, the priest of some old heathen worship, perhaps -the worship of generations of dead people, buried -under those damp leaves.</p> - -<p>It seemed a long while to Ralph Dangelis, in spite -of the breathless quickening of his imagination, before -the laurel-tunnel thinned away, and the two men -were able to walk side by side between the trunks of -the larger trees. Here again they encountered -Scotch firs.</p> - -<p>What strange dream, of what fantastic possessor -of this solitude, had shaped itself into the planting -of these moorland giants, among the native-born -oaks and beeches of this weird place?</p> - -<p>The open spaces at the foot of the tree-trunks -were filled with an obscure mass of oozy stalks and -heavily drooping leaves. The obscurity of the spot -made it difficult to discern the differences between -these rank growths; but the ghostly flowers of enormous -hemlocks stood forth from among the rest. -Fungoid excrescences, of some sort or another, were -certainly prolific here. Their charnel-house odour -set Dangelis thinking of a morgue he had once -visited.</p> - -<p>At last—and with quite startling suddenness—the -path they followed emerged into a wide open -expanse; and there,—under the diffused light of the -cloud-darkened moon—they saw stretched at their -feet the dim surface of Auber Lake.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx stood for a moment motionless and -silent, leaning upon his stick. Then he turned to -his companion; and the American noticed how vague<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> -and shadowy his face looked, as if it were a face -seen through some more opaque medium than that -of air.</p> - -<p>They sat down together upon a fallen log; and out -of an instinctive desire to break the tension of the -spell that lay on him Dangelis lit a cigarette.</p> - -<p>He had smoked in silence for some moments, -when Mr. Quincunx, who had been listening attentively, -raised his hand. “Hark!” he said, “do you -hear anything?”</p> - -<p>Across the stillness of the water came a low blood-curdling -wail. It was hardly a human sound, and -yet it was not like the voice of any bird or beast. -It seemed to unsettle the drowsy natives of the -spot; for a harsh twittering of sedge-birds answered -it, and a great water-rat splashed down into the -lake.</p> - -<p>“God! they were right then,” whispered the -American. “They spoke of some mad girl living -down here, but I did not believe them. It seemed -incredible that such a thing should be allowed. -Quick, my friend!—we ought to warn those girls -at once and get them away. This is not the sort of -thing for them to hear.”</p> - -<p>They both rose and listened intently, but the sound -was not repeated; only a hot gust of wind coming, as -it were, out of the lake itself, went quivering through -the reeds.</p> - -<p>“I don’t imagine,” said Mr. Quincunx calmly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> -“that <em>your</em> young lady will be much alarmed. I -fancy she has less fear of this kind of thing than that -water-rat we heard just now. It’ll terrify Lacrima, -though. But I understand that your charming sweetheart -gets a good deal of amusement from causing -people to feel terror!”</p> - -<p>Dangelis was so accustomed to the plain-spoken -utterances of the hermit of Dead Man’s Lane that -he received this indictment of his enchantress with -complete equanimity.</p> - -<p>“All the same,” he remarked, “I think we’d better -go and meet them, if you know the direction they’re -coming. It’s not a very pleasant proposition, any -way, to face escaped lunatics in a place like this.”</p> - -<p>“I tell you,” muttered Mr. Quincunx crossly, “your -darling Gladys is coming here for no other reason -than to hear that girl’s cries. The more they terrify -Lacrima, the better she’ll be pleased.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know about Lacrima,” answered Dangelis. -“I know that devil of a noise will scare <em>me</em> if I hear -it again.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx did not reply. With his hand on -his companion’s arm he was once more listening -intently. At the back of his mind was gradually -forming a grim remote wish that some overt act and -palpable revelation of Gladys Romer’s interesting -character might effect a change of heart in the -citizen of Ohio.</p> - -<p>Such a wish had been obscurely present in his -brain ever since they started on this expedition; and -now that the situation was developing, it took a -more vivid shape.</p> - -<p>“I believe,” he remarked at last, “I hear them -coming down the path. Listen! It’s on the other -side of the pond,—over there.” He pointed across -the water to the left-hand corner of the lake. It -was from the right-hand corner, where the keeper’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> -cottage stood, that the poor mad girl’s voice had -proceeded.</p> - -<p>“Yes; I am sure!” he whispered after a moment’s -pause. “Come! quick! get in here; then they won’t -see us even if they walk round this way.”</p> - -<p>He pulled Dangelis beneath the overhanging boughs -of a large weeping willow. The droop of this tree’s -delicate foliage made, in the semi-darkness in -which they were, a complete and impenetrable -hiding-place; and yet from between the trailing -branches, when they held them apart with their -hands, they had a free and unimpeded view of the -whole surface of the lake.</p> - -<p>The sound of distant voices struck clearly now upon -their ears; and a moment after, nudging his companion, -Mr. Quincunx pointed to two cloaked figures -advancing across the open space towards the water’s -edge.</p> - -<p>“Hush!” whispered the recluse. “They are bound -to come this way now.”</p> - -<p>The two girls were, however, for the moment, apparently -occupied with another intention. The taller -of the two stopped and picked up something from -the ground, and then approaching close to the lake’s -edge raised her arm and flung it far into the water.</p> - -<p>The object she threw must have been a stick or a -stone of considerable size, for the splash it produced -was startling.</p> - -<p>The result was also startling. From a little island -in the middle of the lake, rose suddenly, with a tremendous -flapping, several large and broad-winged -birds. They flew in heavy circles, at first, over the -island; and then, descending to the water’s level,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -went splashing and flapping across its surface, uttering -strange cries.</p> - -<p>The noise made by these birds had hardly subsided, -as they settled down in a thick bed of reeds, when, -once more, that terrible inhuman wail rang out upon -the night. Both men peered forth anxiously from -their hiding-place, to see the effect of this sound upon -their two friends.</p> - -<p>They could see that they both stood stone-still -for a moment as if petrified by terror.</p> - -<p>Then they noticed that the taller of the two drew -her companion still nearer to the water’s edge.</p> - -<p>“If that yell begins again,” whispered the American, -“I shall go out and speak to them.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx made no answer. He prayed in his -heart that something would occur to initiate this -innocent Westerner a little more closely into the -workings of his inamorata’s mind. It seemed indeed -quite within the bounds of possibility that the recluse -might be gratified in this wish, for the girls began -rapidly advancing towards them, skirting the edge of -the lake.</p> - -<p>The two men watched their approach in silence, -the artist savouring with a deep imaginative excitement -the mystical glamour of the scene.</p> - -<p>He felt it would be indelibly and forever imprinted -on his mind, this hot heavily scented night, this -pallid-glimmering lake, those uneasy stirrings of the -wild-geese in their obscure reed-bed, and the frightful -hush of the listening woods, as they seemed to -await a repetition of that unearthly cry.</p> - -<p>The girls had actually paused at the verge of the -lake, just in front of their hiding-place; so near, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> -fact, that by stretching out his arm, from behind -his willowy screen, Dangelis could have touched -Gladys on the shoulder, when the fearfully expected -voice broke forth again upon the night.</p> - -<p>The men could see the visible tremor of panic-fear -quiver through Lacrima’s slight frame.</p> - -<p>“Oh, let us go!—let us go!” she pleaded, pulling -with feverish fingers at her companion’s cloak.</p> - -<p>But Gladys folded her arms and flung back her -head.</p> - -<p>“Little coward!” she murmured in a low unshaken -voice. “I am not afraid of a mad girl’s yelling. -Look! there’s one of those birds going back to the -island!”</p> - -<p>Once more the inhuman wail trembled across the -water.</p> - -<p>“Gladys! Gladys dear!” cried the panic-stricken -girl, “I cannot endure it! I shall go mad myself if -we do not go! I’ll do anything you ask me! I’ll -go anywhere with you! Only—please—let us go -away now!”</p> - -<p>The sound was repeated again, and this time it -proceeded from a quarter much nearer them. All -four listeners held their breath. Presently the Italian -made a terrified gesture and pointed frantically to -the right bank of the lake.</p> - -<p>“I see her!” she cried, “I see her! She is coming -towards us!”</p> - -<p>The frightened girl made a movement as if she -would break away from her companion and flee into -the darkness of the trees.</p> - -<p>Gladys clasped her firmly in her arms.</p> - -<p>“No—no!” she said, “no running off! Remember<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> -our agreement! There’s nothing really to be afraid -of. I’m not afraid.”</p> - -<p>A slight quiver in her voice a little belied the calmness -of this statement. She was indeed torn at that -moment between a very natural desire to escape -herself and an insatiable craving to prolong her -companion’s agitation.</p> - -<p>In her convulsive terror the Italian, unable to free -herself from the elder girl’s enfolding arms, buried -her head in the other’s cloak.</p> - -<p>Thus linked, the two might have posed for a picture -of heroic sisterly solicitude, in the presence of -extreme danger.</p> - -<p>Once more that ghastly cry resounded through the -silence; and several nocturnal birds, from distant portions -of the wood, replied to it with their melancholy -hootings.</p> - -<p>The white-garbed figure of the mad girl, her arms -tossed tragically above her head, came swaying -towards them. She moved unevenly, and staggered -in her advance, as if her volition had not complete -power over her movements. Gladys was evidently -considerably alarmed herself now. She clutched at -a chance of combining escape with triumph.</p> - -<p>“Say you let me off that promise!” she whispered -hoarsely, “and we’ll run together! We’re quite -close to the way out.”</p> - -<p>Who can read the obscure recesses of the human -mind, or gauge the supernatural strength that lurks -amid the frailest nerves?</p> - -<p>This reference to her sublime contract was the one -thing needed to rouse the abandoned soul of the -Pariah. For one brief second more the powers of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> -darkness struggled over her bowed head with the -powers of light.</p> - -<p>Then with a desperate movement the Italian rose -erect, flung aside her cousin’s arms, turned boldly -towards the approaching maniac, and ran straight to -meet her. Her unexpected appearance produced -an immediate effect upon the unhappy girl. Her -wildly-tossing arms fell to her side. Her wailing -died away in pathetic sobs, and these also quickly -ceased.</p> - -<p>Lacrima seemed to act like one possessed of some -invincible magic. One might have dreamed that now -for the first time for uncounted ages this unholy -shrine of heathen tradition was invaded by an emissary -of the true Faith.</p> - -<p>Gladys, who had reeled bewildered against the wood-work -of an ancient weir, that formed the outlet to -the lake, leaned in complete prostration of astonishment -upon this support, and gazed helplessly and -dumbly at the two figures. She was too petrified -with amazement to notice the appearance of Ralph -and Maurice, who, also absorbed in watching this -strange encounter, had half-emerged from their -concealment.</p> - -<p>The three onlookers saw the Italian lay her hands -upon the girl’s forehead, smooth back her hair, kiss -her gently on the brow, and fling her own cloak over -her bare shoulders. They heard her murmuring -again and again some soft repetition of soothing -words. Dangelis caught the liquid syllables of the -Tuscan tongue. Evidently in her excitement the -child of Genoa the Superb had reverted to the language -of her fathers.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></p> - -<p>The next thing they saw was the slow retreat of the -two together, towards the keeper’s cottage; the arm -of the Italian clinging tenderly round the maniac’s -waist.</p> - -<p>At this point Dangelis stepped forward and made -himself known to Gladys.</p> - -<p>The expression on the face of Mr. Romer’s -daughter, when she recognized the American, was a -palimpsest of conflicting emotions. Her surprise was -still more intense when Mr. Quincunx stepped out -from the shadow of the drooping tree and raised his -hat to her. Her eyes for the moment looked positively -scared; and her mouth opened, like the mouth -of a bewildered infant. The tone with which the -citizen of Ohio addressed the confused young lady -made the heart of Mr. Quincunx leap for joy.</p> - -<p>“I am astonished at you,” he said. “I should not -have believed such a thing possible! Your only excuse -is that this infernal jest of yours has turned out so -well for the people concerned, and so shamefully for -yourself. How could you treat that brave foreign -child so brutally? Why—I saw her trembling and -trembling, and trying to get away; and you were -holding—actually holding her—while that poor -mad thing came nearer! It’s a good thing for you -that the Catholic spirit in her burst out at last. Do -you know what spell she used to bring that girl to -her senses? A spell that you will never understand, -my friend, for all this baptism and confirmation -business! Why—she quoted passages out of the -Litany of Our Lady! I heard her clearly, and I recognized -the words. I am a damned atheist myself, -but if ever I felt religion to be justified it was when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> -your cousin stopped that girl’s crying. It was like -real magic. You ought to be thoroughly proud of -her! I shall tell her when I see her what I feel about -her.”</p> - -<p>Gladys rose from her seat on the weir and faced -them haughtily. Her surprise once over, and the -rebuke having fallen, she became mistress of herself -again.</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” she said, completely ignoring Mr. Quincunx, -“we’d better follow those two, and see if Lacrima -gets her safely into the house. I fancy she’ll -have no difficulty about it. Of course if she had not -done this I should have had to do it myself. But -not knowing Italian”—she added this with a sneer—“I -am not so suitable a mad-house nurse.”</p> - -<p>“It was her good heart, Gladys,” responded the -American; “not her Italian, nor her Litany, that -soothed that girl’s mind. I wish your heart, my -friend, were half as good.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” returned the fair girl quite cheerfully, -“we’ll leave my heart for the present, and see how -Lacrima has got on.”</p> - -<p>She took the arm which Dangelis had not offered, -but which his chivalry forbade him to refuse, and -together they proceeded to follow the heroic Genoese.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx shuffled unregarded behind them.</p> - -<p>They had hardly reached the keeper’s cottage, a -desolate and ancient erection, of the usual stone -material, darkened with damp and overshadowed by -a moss-grown oak, when Lacrima herself came towards -them.</p> - -<p>She started with surprise at seeing, in the shadowy -obscurity, the figures of the two men.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p> - -<p>Her surprise changed to pleasure when she recognized -their identity.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she said. “You come too late. Gladys -and I have had quite an adventure, haven’t we, -cousin?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx glanced at the American to see if he -embraced the full generosity of the turn she gave to -the situation.</p> - -<p>Gladys took advantage of it in a moment. “You -see I was right after all,” she remarked. “I knew -you would lose your alarm directly you saw that -girl! When it came to the point you were braver -than I. You dear thing!” She kissed the Italian -ostentatiously, and then retook possession of her -admirer’s arm.</p> - -<p>“I got her up to her room without waking her -father,” said Lacrima. “She had left the door wide -open. Gladys is going to ask Mr. Romer to have her -sent away to some sort of home. I believe they’ll -be able to cure her. She talked quite sensibly to -me. I am sure she only wants to be treated gently. -I’m afraid her father’s unkind to her. You are going -to arrange for her being sent away, aren’t you, -Gladys?”</p> - -<p>The elder girl turned. “Of course, my dear, of -course. I don’t go back on my word.”</p> - -<p>The four friends proceeded to take the nearest -path through the wood. One by one the frightened -wild-geese returned to their roosting-place on the -island. The water-rats resumed uninterrupted their -night-prowls along the reedy edge of the lake, and -the wood-pigeons settled down in peace upon their -high branches.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p> - -<p>Long before Dead Man’s Lane was reached the -two couples had drifted conveniently apart in their -lingering return.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx had seldom been more tender -towards his little friend than he was that night; and -Lacrima, still strangely happy in the after-ebb of her -supernatural exultation, nestled closely to his side as -they drifted leisurely across the fields.</p> - -<p>In what precise manner the deeply-betrayed Gladys -regained the confidence of her lover need not be -related. The artist from Ohio would have been adamantine -indeed, could he have resisted the appeal -which the amorous telepathy of this magnetic young -person gave her the power of expressing.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, in her low-pitched room, with the -shadow of the oak-tree coming and going across her -face, as the moonlight shone out or faded, Nance -Purvis lay placidly asleep, dreaming no more of -strange phantoms or of stinging whips, but of gentle -spirits from some translunar region, who caressed her -forehead with hands softer than moth’s wings and -spoke to her in a tongue that was like the moonlight -itself made audible.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">LACRIMA</span></h2> - -<p>Mr. John Goring was feeding his rabbits. -In the gross texture of his clayish nature -there were one or two curious layers of a -pleasanter material. One of these, for instance, was -now shown in the friendly equanimity with which he -permitted a round-headed awkward youth, more than -half idiotic, to assist him at this innocent task.</p> - -<p>Between Mr. Goring and Bert Leerd there existed -one of those inexplicable friendships, which so often, -to the bewilderment of moral philosophers, bring a -twilight of humanity into the most sinister mental -caves. The farmer had saved this youth from a conspiracy -of Poor-Law officials who were on the point -of consigning him to an asylum. He had assumed -responsibility for his good-behaviour and had given -him a lodging—his parents being both dead—in the -Priory itself.</p> - -<p>Not a few young servant-girls, selected by Mr. -Goring rather for their appearance than their disposition, -had been dismissed from his service, after -violent and wrathful scenes, for being caught teasing -this unfortunate; and even the cook, a female of the -most taciturn and sombre temper, was compelled to -treat him with comparative consideration. The gossips -of Nevilton swore, as one may believe, that the -farmer, in being kind to this boy, was only obeying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> -the mandate of nature; but no one who had ever -beheld Bert’s mother, gave the least credence to such -a story.</p> - -<p>Another of Mr. Goring’s softer aspects was his -mania for tame rabbits. These he kept in commodious -and spacious hutches at the back of his house, -and every year wonderful and interesting additions -were added to their number.</p> - -<p>On this particular morning both the farmer and -his idiot were absorbed and rapt in contemplation before -the gambols of two large new pets—great silky -lop-eared things—who had arrived the night before. -Mr. Goring was feeding them with fresh lettuces, -carefully handed to him by his assistant, who divested -these plants of their rough outer leaves and dried -them on the palms of his hands.</p> - -<p>“The little ’un do lap ’em up fastest, master,” -remarked the boy. “I mind how those others, with -them girt ears, did love a fresh lettuce.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Goring watched with mute satisfaction the -quivering nostrils and nibbling mouth of the dainty -voracious creature.</p> - -<p>“Mustn’t let them have more than three at a -time, Bert,” he remarked. “But they do love them, -as you say.”</p> - -<p>“What be going to call this little ’un, master?” -asked the boy.</p> - -<p>Mr. Goring straightened his back and drew a deep -breath.</p> - -<p>“What do you think, Bert, my boy?” he cried, in -a husky excited tone, prodding his assistant jocosely -with the handle of his riding-whip; “What do you -think? What would you call her?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Ah! I knew she were a she, master!” chuckled -the idiot. “I knew that, afore she were out of the -packer-case! Call ’er?” and the boy leered an indescribable -leer. “By gum! I can tell ’ee that fast -enough. Call ’er Missy Lacrima, pretty little Missy -Lacrima, wot lives up at the House, and wot is going -to be missus ’ere afore long.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Goring surveyed his protégé for a moment -with sublime contentment, and then humorously -flicked at his ears with his whip.</p> - -<p>“Right! my imp of Satan. Right! my spawn of -Belial. That is just what I <em>was</em> thinking.”</p> - -<p>“She be silky and soft to handle,” went on the -idiot, “and her, up at the House, be no contrary, -or I’m darned mistaken.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Goring expressed his satisfaction at his friend’s -intelligence by giving him a push that nearly threw -him backwards.</p> - -<p>“And I’ll tell you this, my boy,” he remarked confidentially, -surveying the long line of well-filled hutches, -“we’ve never yet bought such a rabbit, as this foreign -one will turn out, or you and I be damned fools.”</p> - -<p>“The young lady’ll get mighty fond of these ’ere -long-ears, looks so to me,” observed the youth. “Hope -she won’t be a feeding ’em with wet cabbage, same -as maids most often do.”</p> - -<p>The farmer grew even more confidential, drawing -close to his assistant and addressing him in the tone -customary with him on market-days, when feeling -the ribs of fatted cattle.</p> - -<p>“That same young lady is coming up here this -morning, Bert,” he remarked significantly. “The -squire’s giving her a note to bring along.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p> - -<p>“And you be going to bring matters to a head, -master,” rejoined the boy. “That’s wise and thoughtful -of ’ee, choosing time, like, and season, as the Book -says. Maids be wonderful sly when the sun’s down, -while of mornings they be meek as guinea-fowls.”</p> - -<p>The appearance of the Priory servant—no very -demure figure—put a sudden stop to these touching -confidences.</p> - -<p>“Miss Lacrima, with a note, in the front Parlour!” -the damsel shouted.</p> - -<p>“You needn’t call so loud, girl,” grumbled the -farmer. “And how often must I tell you to say -‘Miss Traffio,’ not ‘Miss Lacrima’?”</p> - -<p>The girl tossed her head and pouted her lips.</p> - -<p>“A person isn’t used to waiting on foreigners,” she -muttered.</p> - -<p>Mr. Goring’s only reply to this remark was to -pinch her arm unmercifully. He then pushed her -aside, and entering the kitchen, walked rapidly -through to the front of the house. The front parlour -in the Priory was nothing more or less than the old -entrance-gate of the Cistercian Monastery, preserved -through four centuries, with hardly a change.</p> - -<p>The roof was high and vaulted. In the centre of -the vault a great many-petalled rose, carved in -Leonian stone, seemed to gather all the curves and -lines of the masonry together, and hold them in -religious concentration.</p> - -<p>The fire-place—a thing of more recent, but still -sufficiently ancient date—displayed the delicate and -gracious fantasy of some local Jacobean artist, who -had lavished upon its ornate mouldings a more personal -feeling than one is usually aware of in these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> -things. In place of a fire the wide grate was, at this -moment, full of new-grown bracken fronds, evidently -recently picked, for they were still fresh and green.</p> - -<p>In front of the fire-place stood Lacrima with the -letter in her hand. Had Mr. Goring been a little less -persuaded of the “meekness” of this young person, -he would have recognized something not altogether -friendly to himself and his plans in the strained white -face she raised to him and the stiff gloved hand she -extended.</p> - -<p>He begged her to be seated. She waved aside the -chair he offered, and handed him the letter. He tore -this open and glanced carelessly at its contents.</p> - -<p>The letter was indeed brief enough, containing -nothing but the following gnomic words: “Refusal -or no refusal,” signed with an imperial flourish.</p> - -<p>He flung it down on the table, and came to business -at once.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t let that little mistake of Auber -Great Meadow mean anything, missie,” he said. -“You were too hasty with a fellow that time—too -hasty and coy-like. Those be queer maids’ tricks, -that crying and running! But, bless my heart! -I don’t bear you any grudge for it. You needn’t -think it.”</p> - -<p>He advanced a step—while she retreated, very -pale and very calm, her little fingers clasped nervously -together. She managed to keep the table between -them, so that, barring a grotesque and obvious pursuit -of her, she was well out of his reach.</p> - -<p>“I have a plain and simple offer to make to you, -my dear,” he continued, “and it is one that can do -you no hurt or shame. I am not one of those who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> -waste words in courting a girl, least of all a young -lady of education like yourself. The fact is, I am -a lonely man—without wife or child—and as far -as I know no relations on earth, except brother -Mortimer. And I have a pretty tidy sum laid up in -Yeoborough Bank, and the farm is a good farm. I -do not say that the house is all that could be wished; -but ’tis a pretty house, too, and one that could stand -improvement. In plain words, dearie, what I want -you to say now is ‘yes,’ and no nonsense,—for what -I am doing,” his voice became quite husky at this -point, as if her propinquity really did cause him some -emotion, “is asking you, point-blank, and no beating -about the bush, whether you will marry me!”</p> - -<p>Lacrima’s face during this long harangue would -have formed a strange picture for any old Cistercian -monk shadowing that ancient room. At first she -had kept unmoved her strained and tensely-strung -impassivity. But by degrees, as the astounding -character of the man’s communication began to dawn -upon her, her look changed into one of sheer blind -terror. When the final fatal word crossed the -farmer’s lips, she put her hand to her throat as though -to suppress an actual cry. She had never looked -for this;—not in her wildest dreams of what destiny, -in this curst place, could inflict upon her. This -surpassed the worst of possible imagination! It was -a deep below the deep. She found herself at first -completely unable to utter a word. She could only -make a vague helpless gesture with her hand as -though dumbly waving the whole world away.</p> - -<p>Then at last with a terrible effort she broke the -silence.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What you say is utterly—utterly impossible! -It is—it is too—”</p> - -<p>She could not go on. But she had said enough to -carry, even to a brain composed of pure clay, the -conviction that the acquiescence he demanded was -not a thing to be easily won. He thought of his -brother-in-law’s enigmatic note. Possibly the owner -of Leo’s Hill had ways of persuading recalcitrant -foreign girls that were quite hidden from him. The -psychological irony of the thing lay in the fact that -in proportion as her terror increased, his desire for -her increased proportionally. Had she been willing,—had -she been even passive and indifferent,—the curious -temperament of Mr. Goring would have been -scarcely stirred. He might have gone on pursuing -her, out of spite or out of obstinacy; but the pursuit -would have been no more than an interlude, a distraction, -among his other affairs.</p> - -<p>But that look of absolute terror on her face—the -look of a hunted animal under the hot breath of the -hounds—appealed to something profoundly deep in -his nature. Oddly enough—such are the eccentricities -of the human mind—the very craving to -possess her which her terror excited, was accompanied -by a rush of extraordinary pity for himself as the -object of her distaste.</p> - -<p>He let her pass—making no movement to interrupt -her escape. He let her hurry out of the garden -and into the road—without a word; but as soon as -she was gone, he sat down on the wooden seat under -the front of the house and resting his head upon his -chin began blubbering like a great baby. Big salt -tears fell from his small pig’s eyes, rolled down his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> -tanned cheeks, and falling upon the dust caked it -into little curious globules.</p> - -<p>Two wandering ants of a yellowish species, dragging -prisoner after them one of a black kind, encountered -these minute globes of sand and sorrow, and explored -them with interrogatory feelers.</p> - -<p>Mingled with this feeling of pity for himself under -the girl’s disdain was a remarkable wave of immense -tenderness and consideration for her. Short of letting -her escape him, how delicately he would cherish, how -tenderly he would pet and fondle her, how assiduously -he would care for her! The consciousness of this -emotion of soft tenderness towards the girl increased -his pity for himself under the weight of the girl’s -contempt. How ungrateful she was! And yet that -very look of terror, that stifled cry of the hunted -hare, which made him so resolved to win her, produced -in him an exquisite feeling of melting regard -for her youth, her softness, her fragility. When she -did belong to him, oh how tenderly he would treat -her! How he would humour her and give her everything -she could want!</p> - -<p>The shadowy Cistercian monks would no doubt, -from their clairvoyant catholic knowledge of the -subtleties of the human soul, have quite understood -the cause of those absurd tears caking the dust under -that wooden seat. But the yellowish ants continued -to be very perplexed and confused by their presence. -Thunder-drops tasting of salt were no doubt as -strange to them as hail-stones tasting of wine would -have been to Mr. Goring. But the ants were not the -only creatures amazed at this new development in -the psychology of the man of clay. From one corner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> -of the house peeped the servant-girl, full of tremulous -curiosity, and from another the idiot Bert shuffled -and spied, full of most anxious and perturbed concern.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the innocent cause of this little drama -was making her way with drooping head and dragging -steps down the south drive. When she reached -the house she was immediately informed by one of -the servants that Mr. Romer wished to see her in the -study.</p> - -<p>She was so dazed and broken, so forlorn and indifferent, -that she made her way straight to this room -without pause or question.</p> - -<p>She found Mr. Romer in a most lively and affable -mood. He made her sit down opposite him, and -handed her chocolates out of a decorative Parisian -box which lay on the table.</p> - -<p>“Well, young lady,” he said, “I know, without -your telling me, that an important event has occurred! -Indeed, to confess the truth, I have, for a -long time, foreseen its occurrence. And what did you -answer to my worthy brother’s flattering proposal? It -isn’t every girl, in your peculiar position, who is as -lucky as this. Come—don’t be shy! There is no -need for shyness with me. What did you say to -him?”</p> - -<p>Lacrima looked straight in front of her out of the -window. She saw the waving branches of a great -dark yew-tree and above it the white clouds. She -felt like one whose guardian-angel has deserted her, -leaving her the prey of blind elemental forces. -She thought vaguely in her mind that she would -make a desperate appeal to Vennie Seldom. Something -in Vennie gave her a consciousness of strength.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> -To this strength, at the worst, she would cling for -help. She was thus in a measure fortified in advance -against any outburst in which her employer might -indulge. But Mr. Romer indulged in no outburst.</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” he said calmly, “that I may take for -granted that you have refused my good brother’s -offer?”</p> - -<p>Lacrima nodded, without speaking.</p> - -<p>“That is quite what I expected. You would not -be yourself if you had not done so. And since you -have done so it is of course quite impossible for me -to put any pressure upon you.”</p> - -<p>He paused and carefully selecting the special kind -of chocolate that appealed to him put it deliberately -in his mouth.</p> - -<p>Lacrima was so amazed at the mild tone he used -and at the drift of his words, that she turned full -upon him her large liquid eyes with an expression -in them of something almost like gratitude. The corners -of her mouth twitched. The reaction was too -great. She felt she could not keep back her tears.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer quietly continued.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p> -<p>“In all these things, my dear young lady, the world -presents itself as a series of bargains and compromises. -My brother has made you his offer—a -flattering and suitable one. In the girlish excitement -of the first shock you have totally refused to -listen to him. But the world moves round. Such -natural moods do not last forever. They often do -not last beyond the next day! In order to help you—to -make it easier for you—to bring such a mood -to an end, I also, in my turn, have a little proposal -to make.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima’s expression changed with terrible rapidity; -she stared at him panic-stricken.</p> - -<p>“My proposal is this,” said Mr. Romer, quietly -handing her the box of chocolates, and smiling as she -waved it away. “As I said just now, the world is a -place of bargains and compromises. Nothing ever -occurs between human beings which is not the result -of some unuttered transaction of occult diplomacy. -Led by your instincts you reject my brother’s offer. -Led by my instincts I offer you the following persuasion -to overcome your refusal.”</p> - -<p>He placed another chocolate in his mouth.</p> - -<p>“I know well,” he went on, “your regard and fondness—I -might use even stronger words—for our -friend Maurice Quincunx. Now what I propose is -this. I will settle upon Maurice,—you shall see -the draft itself and my signature upon it,—an income -sufficient to enable him to live comfortably and happily, -wherever he pleases, without doing a stroke of -work, and without the least anxiety. I will arrange -it so that he cannot touch the capital of the sum -I make over to him, and has nothing to do but to -sign receipts for each quarter’s dividend, as the bank -makes them over to him.</p> - -<p>“The sum I will give him will be so considerable, -that the income from it will amount to not less than -three hundred pounds a year. With this at his disposal -he will be able to live wherever he likes, either -here or elsewhere. And what is more,”—here Mr. -Romer looked intently and significantly at the trembling -girl—“what is more, he will be in a position -to <em>marry</em> whenever he may desire to do so. I believe”—he -could not refrain from a tone of sardonic irony<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> -as he added this—“that you have found him not -particularly well able to look after himself. I shall -sign this document, rendering your friend free from -financial anxiety for the rest of his life, on the day -when you are married to Mr. Goring.”</p> - -<p>When he had finished speaking Lacrima continued -to stare at him with a wide horror-struck gaze.</p> - -<p>Mechanically she noticed the peculiar way in -which his eyebrows met one another across a scar -on his forehead. This scar and the little grey bristles -that crossed it remained in her mind long afterwards, -indelibly associated with the thoughts that then -passed through her brain. Chief among these thoughts -was a deep-lurking, heart-clutching dread of her own -conscience, and a terrible shapeless fear that this subterranean -conscience might debar her from the <em>right</em> -to make her appeal to Vennie. From Mr. Romer’s persecution -she could appeal; but how could she appeal -against his benevolence to her friend, even though the -path of that benevolence lay over her own body?</p> - -<p>She rose from her seat, too troubled and confused -even to hate the man who thus played the part of -an ironic Providence.</p> - -<p>“Let me go,” she said, waving aside once more the -bright-coloured box of chocolates which he had the -diabolical effrontery to offer her again. “Let me go. -I want to be alone. I want to think.”</p> - -<p>He opened the door for her, and she passed out. -Once out of his presence she rushed madly upstairs -to her own room, flung herself on the bed, and remained, -for what seemed to her like centuries of -horror, without movement and without tears, staring -up at the ceiling.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span></p> - -<p>The luncheon bell sounded, but she did not heed -it. From the open window floated in the smell of -the white cluster-roses, scented like old wine, which -encircled the terrace pillars. Blending with this -fragrance came the interminable voice of the wood-pigeons, -and every now and then a sharp wild cry, -from the peacocks on the east lawn. Two—three -hours passed thus, and still she did not move. A -certain queer-shaped crack above the door occupied -her superficial attention, very much in the same way -as the scar on Mr. Romer’s forehead. Any very -precise formulation of her thoughts during this long -period would be difficult to state.</p> - -<p>Her mind had fallen into that confused and feverish -bewilderment that comes to us in hours between -sleeping and waking. The clearest image that shaped -itself to her consciousness during these hours was the -image of herself as dead, and, by means of her death, -of Maurice Quincunx being freed from his hated -office-work, and enabled to live according to his -pleasure. She saw him walking to and fro among -rows of evening primroses—his favourite flowers—and -in place of a cabbage-leaf—so fantastic were her -dreams—she saw his heavy head ornamented with -a broad, new Panama-hat, purchased with the price -of her death.</p> - -<p>Her mind gave no definite shape or form to this -image of herself dying. The thought of it followed -so naturally from the idea of a union with the -Priory-tenant, that there seemed no need to separate -the two things. To marry Mr. John Goring was just -a simple sentence of death. The only thing to make -sure of, was that before she actually died, this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> -precious document, liberating her friend forever, -should be signed and sealed. Oddly enough she never -for a moment doubted Mr. Romer’s intention of carrying -out his part of the contract if she carried out hers. -As he had said, the world was designed and arranged -for bargains between men and women; and if her -great bargain meant the putting of life itself into -the scale—well! she was ready.</p> - -<p>Strangely enough, the final issue of her feverish -self-communings was a sense of deep and indescribable -peace. It was more of a relief to her than anyone -not acquainted with the peculiar texture of a Pariah’s -mind could realize, to be spared that desperate appeal -to Vennie Seldom. In a dumb inarticulate way she -felt that, without making such an appeal, the spirit -of the Nevilton nun was supporting and strengthening -her. Did Vennie know of her dilemma, she would -be compelled to resort to some drastic step to stop -the sacrifice, just as one would be compelled to hold -out a hand of rescue to some determined suicide. But -she felt in the depths of her heart that if Vennie -were in her position she would make the same -choice.</p> - -<p>The long afternoon was still only half over, when—comforted -and at peace with herself, as a devoted -patriot might be at peace, when the throw of the -dice has appointed him as his country’s liberator—she -rose from her recumbent position, and sitting on -the edge of her bed turned over the pages of her -tiny edition of St. Thomas à Kempis.</p> - -<p>It had been long since she had opened this volume. -Indeed, isolated from contact with any Catholic -influence except that of the philosophical Mr. Taxater,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> -Lacrima had been recently drifting rather far away -from the church of her fathers. This complete upheaval -of her whole life threw her back upon her old -faith.</p> - -<p>Like so many other women of suppressed romantic -emotions, when the moment came for some heroic -sacrifice for the sake of her friend, she at once threw -into the troubled waters the consecrated oil that had -anointed the half-forgotten piety of her childhood.</p> - -<p>One curious and interesting psychological fact in -connection with this new trend of feeling in her, was -the fact that the actual realistic horror of being, in -a literal and material sense, at the mercy of Mr. John -Goring never presented itself to her mind at all. -Its very dreadfulness, being a thing that amounted to -sheer death, blurred and softened its tangible and -palpable image.</p> - -<p>Yet it must not be supposed that she meditated -definitely upon any special line of action. She formulated -no plan of self-destruction. For some strange -reason, it was much less the bodily terror of the -idea that rose up awful and threatening before her, -than its spiritual and moral counterpart.</p> - -<p>Had Lacrima been compelled, like poor Sonia in the -Russian novel, to become a harlot for the sake of -those she loved, it would have been the mental -rather than the physical outrage that would have -weighed upon her.</p> - -<p>She was of that curious human type which separates -the body from the soul, in all these things. -She had always approached life rather through her -mind than through her senses, and it was in the imagination -that she found both her catastrophes and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> -recoveries. In this particular case, the obsessing image -of death had for the moment quite obliterated the -more purely realistic aspect of what she was contemplating. -Her feeling may perhaps be best described -by saying that whenever she imaged the farmer’s -possession of her, it was always as if what he possessed -was no more than a dead inert corpse, about -whose fate none, least of all herself, could have any -further care.</p> - -<p>She had just counted the strokes of the church -clock striking four, when she heard Gladys’ steps in -the adjoining room. She hurriedly concealed the -little purple-covered volume, and lay back once more -upon her pillows. She fervently prayed in her heart -that Gladys might be ignorant of what had occurred, -but her knowledge of the relations between father and -daughter made this a very forlorn hope.</p> - -<p>Such as it was, it was entirely dispelled as soon as -the fair-haired creature glided in and sat down at -the foot of her bed.</p> - -<p>Gladys looked at her cousin with intent and luxurious -interest; her expression being very much what -one might suppose the countenance of a young pagan -priestess to have worn, as she gazed, dreamily and -sweetly, in a pause of the sacrificial procession, at -some doomed heifer “lowing at the skies, and all her -silken flanks with garlands dressed.”</p> - -<p>“So I hear that you are going to be married,” she -began at once, speaking in a slow, liquid voice, and -toying indolently with her friend’s shoe-strings.</p> - -<p>“Please—please don’t talk about it,” murmured -the Italian. “Nothing is settled yet. I would so -much rather not think of it now.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But, how silly!” cried the other, with a melodious -little laugh. “Of course we must talk about it. It is -so extremely exciting! I shall be seeing uncle John -today and I must congratulate him. I am sure he -doesn’t half know how lucky he is.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima jumped up from where she lay and stepping -to the window looked out over the sunlit park.</p> - -<p>Gladys rose too, and standing behind her cousin, -put her arms round her waist.</p> - -<p>“No, I am sure he doesn’t realize how sweet you -are,” she whispered. “You darling little thing,—you -little, shy, frightened thing—you must tell me -all about it! I’ll try not to tease you—I really -will! What a clever, naughty little girl, it has been, -peeping and glancing at a poor elderly farmer and -inflaming his simple heart! But all your friends are -rather well advanced in age, aren’t they, dear? I -expect uncle John is really no older than Mr. Quincunx -or James Andersen. What tricks do you use, darling, -to attract all these people?</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p> -<p>“I’ll tell you what it is! It’s the way you clasp -your fingers, and keep groping with your hands in -the air in front of you, as if you were blind. I’ve -noticed that trick of yours for a long time. I expect -it attracts them awfully! I expect they all long to -take those little wrists and hold them tight! And -the drooping, dragging way you walk, too; that no -doubt they find quite enthralling. It has often irritated -<em>me</em>, but I can quite see now why you do it. -It must make them long to support you in their -strong arms! What a crafty little puss she is! And -I have sometimes taken her for no better than a -little simpleton! I see I shall not for long be the -only person allowed to kiss our charming Lacrima! -So I must make the best of my opportunities, -mustn’t I?”</p> - -<p>Suiting her action to her words she turned the girl -towards her with a vigorous movement, and overcoming -her reluctance, embraced her softly, whispering, -as she kissed her averted mouth,—</p> - -<p>“Uncle John won’t do this half so prettily as I do, -will he? But oh, how you must have played your -tricks upon him—cunning, cunning little thing!”</p> - -<p>Lacrima had by this time reached the end of her -endurance. With a sudden flash of genuine Italian -anger she flung her cousin back, with such unexpected -violence, that the elder girl would actually have -fallen to the floor, if she had not encountered in her -collapse the arm of the wicker chair which stood -behind her.</p> - -<p>She rose silent and malignant.</p> - -<p>“So that’s what we gentle, wily ones do, is it, -when we lose our little tempers! All right, my -friend, all right! I shall remember.”</p> - -<p>She walked haughtily to the door that divided their -rooms.</p> - -<p>“The sooner I am married,” she cried, as a final -hit, “the sooner <em>you</em> will be—and I shall be married -soon—soon—soon; perhaps before this summer is -out!”</p> - -<p>Lacrima stood for some moments rigid and unmoving. -Then there came over her an irresistible -longing to escape from this house, and flee far off, -anywhere, anyhow, so long as she could be alone with -her misery, alone with her tragic resolution.</p> - -<p>The invasion of Gladys had made this resolution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> -a very different thing from what it had seemed an -hour ago. But she must recover herself! She must -see things again in the clearer, larger light of sublime -sacrifice. She must purge the baseness of her cousin’s -sensual magnetism out of her brain and her heart!</p> - -<p>She hurriedly fastened on her hat, took her faded -parasol, slipped the tiny St. Thomas into her dress, -and ran down the great oak staircase. She hurried -past the entrance without turning aside to greet the -impassive Mrs. Romer, seated as usual in her accustomed -place, and skirting the east lawns emerged -from the little postern-gate into the park. Crossing -a half-cut hay-field and responding gravely and gently -to the friendly greetings of the hay-makers, she -entered the Yeoborough road just below the steep -ascent, between high overshadowing hedges, of Dead -Man’s Lane.</p> - -<p>Whether from her first exit from the house, she -had intended to follow this path, she could hardly -herself have told. It was the instinct of a woman at -bay, seeking out, not the strong that could help her, -but the weak that she herself could help. It was -also perhaps the true Pariah impulse, which drives -these victims of the powerful and the well-constituted, -to find rehabilitation in the society of one another.</p> - -<p>As she ascended the shadowy lane with its crumbling -banks of sandy soil and its overhanging trees, -she felt once again how persistently this heavy -luxuriant landscape dragged her earthwards and -clogged the wings of her spirit. The tall grasses -growing thick by the way-side enlaced themselves -with the elder-bushes and dog-wood, which in their -turn blended indissolubly with the lower branches<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> -of the elms. The lane itself was but a deep shadowy -path dividing a flowing sea of foliage, which seemed -to pour, in a tidal wave of suffocating fertility, over -the whole valley.</p> - -<p>The Italian struggled in vain against the depressing -influence of all these rank and umbrageous growths, -spreading out leafy arms to catch her and groping -towards her with moist adhesive tendrils. The lane -was full of a warm steamy vapour, like that of a -hot-house, to the heavy odour of which, every sort -of verdurous growing thing offered its contribution.</p> - -<p>There was a vague smell of funguses in the air, -though none were visible; and the idea of them may -only have been due to the presence of decaying wood -or the moist drooping stalks of the dead flowers of -the earlier season. Now and again the girl caught, -wafted upon a sudden stir of wind, the indescribably -sweet scent of honey-suckle—a sweetness almost -overpowering in its penetrating voluptuous approach. -Once, high up above her head, she saw a spray of this -fragrant parasite; not golden yellow, as it is where -the sun shines full upon it, but pallid and ivory-white. -In a curious way it seemed as if this Nevilton scenery -offered her no escape from the insidious sensuality -she fled.</p> - -<p>The indolent luxuriousness of Gladys seemed to -breathe from every mossy spore and to over-hang -every unclosing frond. And if Gladys was in the -leaves and grass, the remoter terror of Mr. Goring -was in the earth and clay. Between the two they -monopolized this whole corner of the planet, and -made everything between zenith and nadir their -privileged pasture.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p> - -<p>As she drew nearer to where Mr. Quincunx lived, -her burdened mind sought relief in focussing itself -upon him. She would be sure to find him in his -garden. That she knew, because the day was Saturday. -Should she tell him what had happened to her?</p> - -<p>Ah! that was indeed the crucial question! Was it -necessary that she should sacrifice herself for him -without his even knowing what she did?</p> - -<p>But he would have to know, sooner or later, of -this marriage. Everyone would be talking of it. It -would be bound to come to his ears.</p> - -<p>And what would he think of her if she said nothing? -What would he think of her, in any case, having -accepted such a degradation?</p> - -<p>Not to tell him at all, would throw a completely -false light upon the whole transaction. It would make -her appear treacherous, fickle, worldly-minded, shameless—wickedly -false to her unwritten covenant with -himself.</p> - -<p>To tell him, without giving him the true motive of -her sacrifice, would be, she felt sure, to bring down -his bitterest reproaches on her head.</p> - -<p>For a passing second she felt a wave of indignation -against him surge up in her heart. This, however, -she passionately suppressed, with the instinctive desire -of a woman who is sacrificing herself to feel the -object of such sacrifice worthy of what is offered.</p> - -<p>It was not long before she reached the gate of Mr. -Quincunx’s garden. Yes,—there he was—with his -wheel-barrow and his hoe—bending over his potatoes. -She opened the gate and walked quite close -up to him before he observed her. He greeted her in -his usual manner, with a smile of half-cynical,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> -half-affectionate welcome, and taking her by the hand -as he might have taken a child, he led her to the -one shady spot in his garden, where, under a weeping -ash, he had constructed a rough bench.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t expect you,” he said, when they were -seated. “I never do expect you. People like me who -have only Saturday afternoons to enjoy themselves -in don’t expect visitors. They count the hours -which are left to them before the night comes.”</p> - -<p>“But you have Sunday, my friend,” she said, laying -her hand upon his.</p> - -<p>“Sunday!” Mr. Quincunx muttered. “Do you call -Sunday a day? I regard Sunday as a sort of prison-exercise, -when all the convicts go walking up and -down and showing off their best clothes. I can neither -work nor read nor think on Sunday. I have to put on -my best clothes like the rest, and stand at my gate, -staring at the weather and wondering what the -hay-crop will be. The only interesting moments I -have on Sunday are when that silly-faced Wone, or -one of the Andersens, drifts this way, and we lean -over my wall and abuse the gentry.”</p> - -<p>“Poor dear!” said the girl pityingly. “I expect -the real truth is that you are so tired with your work -all the week, that you are glad enough to rest and -do nothing.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx’s nostrils dilated, and his drooping -moustache quivered. A smile of delicious and sardonic -humour wavered over the lower portion of his -face, while his grey eyes lost their sadness and -gleamed with a goblin-like merriment.</p> - -<p>“I am getting quite popular at the office,” he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> -“I have learnt the secret of it now.”</p> - -<p>“And what is the secret?” asked Lacrima, suppressing -a queer little gasp in her throat.</p> - -<p>“Sucking up,” Mr. Quincunx answered, his face -flickering with subterranean amusement, “sucking up -to everyone in the place, from the manager to the -office boy.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima returned to him a very wan little smile.</p> - -<p>“I suppose you mean ingratiating yourself,” she -said; “you English have such funny expressions.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, ingratiating myself, pandering to them, flattering -them, agreeing with them, anticipating their -wishes, doing their work for them, telling lies for -them, abusing God to make them laugh, introducing -them to Guy de Maupassant, and even making a -few light references, now and again, to what Shakespeare -calls ‘country-matters.’”</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe a word you say,” protested Lacrima -in rather a quavering voice. “I believe you hate them -all and that they are all unkind to you. But I can quite -imagine you have to do more work than your own.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx’s countenance lost its merriment -instantaneously.</p> - -<p>“I believe you are as annoyed as Mr. Romer,” he -said, “that I should get on in the office. But I am -past being affected by that. I know what human -nature is! We are all really pleased when other -people get on badly, and are sorry when they do -well.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima felt as though the trees in the field opposite -had suddenly reversed themselves and were -waving their roots in the air.</p> - -<p>She gave a little shiver and pressed her hand to -her side.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx continued.</p> - -<p>“Of course you don’t like it when I tell you the -truth. Nobody likes to hear the truth. Human -beings lap up lies as pigs lap up milk. And women -are worst of all in that! No woman really can love -a person—not, at any rate, for long—who tells -her the truth! That is why women love clergymen, -because clergymen are brought up to lie. I saw you -laughing and amusing yourself the other evening with -Mr. Clavering—you and your friend Gladys. I -went the other way, so as not to interrupt such a -merry conversation.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima turned upon him at this.</p> - -<p>“I cannot understand how you can say such things -of me!” she cried. “It is too much. I won’t—I -won’t listen to it!”</p> - -<p>Her over-strained nerves broke down at last, and -covering her face with her hands, she burst into a fit -of convulsive sobs.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx rose and stood gazing at her, -gloomily plucking at his beard.</p> - -<p>“And such are women!” he thought to himself. -“One can never tell them the least truth but they -burst into tears.”</p> - -<p>He waited thus in silence for one or two moments, -and then an expression of exquisite tenderness and -sympathy came into his face. His patient grey eyes -looked at her bowed head with the look of a sorrowful -god. Gently he sat down beside her and laid his -hand on her shoulder.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span></p> -<p>“Lacrima—dear—I am sorry—I oughtn’t to -have said that. I didn’t mean it. On my solemn -oath I didn’t mean it! Lacrima, please don’t cry. I -can’t bear it when you cry. It was all absolute nonsense -what I said just now. It is the devil that -gets into me and makes me say those things! -Lacrima—darling Lacrima—we won’t tease one -another any more.”</p> - -<p>Her sobs diminished under the obvious sincerity -of his words. She lifted up a tear-stained face and -threw her arms passionately round his neck.</p> - -<p>“I’ve no one but you,” she cried, “no one, no one!”</p> - -<p>For several minutes they embraced each other in -silence—the girl’s breast quivering with the after-sighs -of her emotion and their tears mingling together -and falling on Mr. Quincunx’s beard. Had Gladys -Romer beheld them at that moment she would certainly -have been strengthened in her healthy-minded -mocking contempt for sentimental “slobbering.”</p> - -<p>When they had resumed a more normal mood their -conversation continued gently and quietly.</p> - -<p>“Of course you are right,” said Mr. Quincunx. “I -am not really happy at the office. Who <em>could</em> be -happy in a place of that kind? But it is my life—and -one has to do what one can with one’s life! I -have to pretend to myself that they like me there, and -that I am making myself useful—otherwise I simply -could not go on. I have to pretend. That’s what -it is! It is my pet illusion, my little fairy-story. It -was that that made me get angry with you—that and -the devil. One doesn’t like to have one’s fairy-stories -broken into by the brutal truth.”</p> - -<p>“Poor dear!” said Lacrima softly, stroking his -hand with a gesture of maternal tenderness.</p> - -<p>“If there was any hope of this wretched business -coming to an end,” Maurice went on, “it would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> -different. Then I would curse all these people to -hell and have done with it. But what can I do? -I am already past middle age. I shouldn’t be able -to get anything else if I gave it up. And I don’t -want to leave Nevilton while you are here.”</p> - -<p>The girl looked intently at him. Then she folded -her hands on her lap and began gravely.</p> - -<p>“I have something to tell you, Maurice dear. -Something very important. What would you say if -I told you that it was in my power to set you free -from all this and make you happy and comfortable -for the rest of your life?”</p> - -<p>An invisible watcher from some more clairvoyant -planet than ours would have been interested at that -moment in reading the double weakness of two poor -Pariah hearts. Lacrima, brought back from the half-insane -attitudes of her heroic resolution by the intermission -of natural human emotion, found herself on -the brink of half-hoping that her friend would completely -and indignantly refuse this shameful sacrifice.</p> - -<p>“Surely,” her heart whispered, “some other path of -escape must offer itself for them both. Perhaps, -after all, Vennie Seldom might discover some way.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx, on the other hand, was most thoroughly -alarmed by her opening words. He feared -that she was going to propose some desperate scheme -by which, fleeing from Nevilton together, she was to -help him earn money enough for their mutual support.</p> - -<p>“What should I say?” he answered aloud, to the -girl’s question. “It would depend upon the manner -in which you worked this wonderful miracle. But I -warn you I am not hopeful. Things might be worse. -After all I have a house to return to. I have food.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> -I have my books. I have you to come and pay me -visits. I have my garden. In this world, when a -person has a roof over his head, and someone to talk -to every other day, he had better remain still and -not attract the attention of the gods.”</p> - -<p>Silence followed his words. Instead of speaking, -Lacrima took off her hat, and smoothed her hair -away from her forehead, keeping her eyes fixed upon -the ground. An immense temptation seized her to -let the moment pass without revealing her secret. -She could easily substitute any imaginary suggestion -in place of the terrible reality. Her friend’s morbid -nerves would help her deception. The matter would -be glossed over and be as if it had never been: be, in -fact, no more than it was, a hideous nightmare of -her own insane and diseased conscience.</p> - -<p>But could the thing be so suppressed? Would it -be like Nevilton to let even the possible image of -such a drama pass unsnatched at by voluble tongues, -unenlarged upon by malicious gossip?</p> - -<p>He would be bound to hear of Mr. Goring’s offer. -That, at least, could not be concealed. And what -assurance had she that Mr. Romer would not himself -communicate to him the full nature of the hideous -bargain? The quarry-owner might think it diplomatic -to trade upon Maurice’s weakness.</p> - -<p>No—there was no help for it. She must tell him;—only -praying now, in the profound depths of her -poor heart, that he would not consider such an infamy -even for a second. So she told him the whole story, -in a low monotonous voice, keeping her head lowered -and watching the progress of a minute snail laboriously -ascending a stalk of grass.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span></p> - -<p>Maurice Quincunx had never twiddled the point of -his Elizabethan beard with more detached absorption -than while listening to this astounding narration. -When she had quite finished, he regarded her from -head to foot with a very curious expression.</p> - -<p>The girl breathed hard. What was he thinking? -He did not at once, in a burst of righteous indignation, -fling the monstrous suggestion to the winds. -What was he thinking? As a matter of fact the -thoughts of Mr. Quincunx had taken an extraordinary -turn.</p> - -<p>Being in his personal relation to feminine charm, -of a somewhat cold temper, he had never, for all his -imaginative sentiment towards his little friend, been -at all swayed by any violent sensuous attraction. -But the idea of such attraction having seized so -strongly upon another person reacted upon him, and -he looked at her, perhaps for the first time since -they had met, with eyes of something more than -purely sentimental regard.</p> - -<p>This new element in his attitude towards her did -not, however, issue in any excess of physical jealousy. -What it did lead to, unluckily for Lacrima, was a -certain queer diminution of his ideal respect for her -personality. In place of focussing his attention upon -the sublime sacrifice she contemplated for his sake, the -events she narrated concentrated his mind upon the -mere brutal and accidental fact that Mr. Goring -had so desperately desired her. The mere fact of -her having been so desired by such a man, changed -her in his eyes. His cynical distrust of all women -led him to conceive the monstrous and grotesque idea -that she must in her heart be gratified by having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> -aroused this passion in the farmer. It did not carry -him quite so far as to make him believe that she had -consciously excited such emotion; but it led him to -the very brink of that outrageous fantasy. Had -Lacrima come to him with a shame-faced confession -that she had let herself be seduced by the Priory-tenant -he could hardly have gazed at her with more -changed and troubled eyes. He felt the same curious -mixture of sorrowful pity and remote unlawful attraction -to the object of his pity, that he would have -felt in a casual conversation with some luckless child -of the streets. By being the occasion of Mr. Goring’s -passion, she became for him no less than such an -unfortunate; the purer sentiment he had hitherto -cherished changing into quite a different mood.</p> - -<p>He lifted her up by the wrists and pressed her -closely to him, kissing her again and again. The -girl’s heart went on anxiously beating. She could -hardly restrain her impatience for him to speak. -Why did he not speak?</p> - -<p>Disentangling herself from his embrace with a quick -feminine instinct that something was wrong, she -pulled him down upon the bench by her side and -taking his hand in hers looked with pitiful bewilderment -into his face.</p> - -<p>“So when this thing happens,” she said, “all your -troubles will be over. You will be free forever from -that horrid office.”</p> - -<p>“And you,” said Mr. Quincunx—his mood changing -again, and his goblin-like smile twitching his -nostrils,—“You will be the mistress of the Priory. -Well! I suppose you will not desert me altogether -when that happens!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p> - -<p>So that was the tone he adopted! He could afford -to turn the thing into a jest—into God knows what! -She let his hand drop and stared into empty space, -seeing nothing, hearing nothing, understanding nothing.</p> - -<p>This time Maurice realized that he had disappointed -her; that his cynicism had carried him too far. Unfortunately -the same instinct that told him he had -made a fool of himself pushed him on to seek an -issue from the situation by wading still further into it.</p> - -<p>“Come—come,” he said. “You and I must face -this matter like people who are really free spirits, -and not slaves to any ridiculous superstition. It is -noble, it is sweet of you to think of marrying that -brute so as to set me free. Of course if I <em>was</em> free, -and you were up at the Priory, we should see a great -deal more of each other than we do now. I could -take one of those vacant cottages close to the church.</p> - -<p>“Don’t think—Lacrima dear,” he went on, possessing -himself of one of her cold hands and trying to -recall her attention, “don’t think that I don’t realize -what it is to you to have to submit to such a frightful -thing. Of course we know how outrageous it is -that such a marriage should be forced on you. But, -after all, you and I are above these absurd popular -superstitions about all these things. Every girl -sooner or later hates the man she marries. It is -human nature to hate the people we have to live -with; and when it comes down to actual reality, all -human beings are much the same. If you were -forced to marry me, you would probably hate me -just as much as you’ll hate this poor devil. After -all, what is this business of being married to people -and bearing them children? It doesn’t touch your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> -mind. It doesn’t affect your soul. As old Marcus -Aurelius says, our bodies are nothing! They are -wretched corpses, anyway, dragged hither and thither -by our imprisoned souls. It is these damned clergymen, -with their lies about ‘sin’ and so forth, that -upset women’s minds. For you to be married to -a man you hate, would only be like my having -to go to this Yeoborough office with people I -hate. You will always have, as that honest fellow -Epictetus says, your own soul to retire into, whatever -happens. Heavens! it strikes me as a bit of -humorous revenge,”—here his nostrils twitched again -and the hobgoblin look reappeared—“this thought -of you and me living peacefully at our ease, so near -one another, and at these confounded rascals’ -expense!”</p> - -<p>Lacrima staggered to her feet. “Let me go,” she -said. “I want to go back—away—anywhere.”</p> - -<p>Her look, her gesture, her broken words gave Mr. -Quincunx a poignant shock. In one sudden illuminating -flash he saw himself as he was, and his recent -remarks in their true light. We all have sometimes -these psychic search-light flashes of introspection; -but the more healthy-minded and well-balanced -among us know how to keep them in their place and -how to expel them promptly and effectively.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx was not healthy-minded. He had -the morbid sensitive mind of a neurotic Pariah. -Hence, in place of suppressing this spiritual illumination, -he allowed it to irradiate the gloomiest caverns -of his being. He rose with a look of abject and -miserable concern.</p> - -<p>“Stop,” he cried huskily.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p> - -<p>She looked at him wondering, the blood returning -a little to her cheeks.</p> - -<p>“It is the Devil!” he exclaimed. “I must have -the Devil in me, to say such things and to treat you -like this. You are the bravest, sweetest girl in the -world, and I am a brutal idiot—worse than Mr. -Romer!”</p> - -<p>He struck himself several blows upon the forehead, -knocking off his hat. Lacrima could not help noticing -that in place of the usual protection, some small -rhubarb-leaves ornamented the interior of this -appendage.</p> - -<p>She smiled at him, through a rain of happy tears,—the -first smile that day had seen upon her face.</p> - -<p>“We are both of us absurd people, I suppose,” -she said, laying her hands upon his shoulders. “We -ought to have some friend with a clear solid head to -keep us straight.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx kissed her on the forehead and -stooped down for his hat.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said. “We are a queer pair. I suppose -we are really both a little mad. I wish there was -someone we could go to.”</p> - -<p>“Couldn’t you—perhaps—” said Lacrima, “say -something to Mrs. Seldom? And yet I would much -rather she didn’t know. I would much rather no -one knew!”</p> - -<p>“I might,” murmured Maurice thoughtfully; “I -might tell her. But the unlucky thing is, she is so -narrow-minded that she can’t separate you in her -thoughts from those frightful people.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I try Vennie?” whispered the girl, “or shall -we—” here she looked him boldly in the face with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> -eager, brightening eyes—“shall we run away to -London, and be married, and risk the future?”</p> - -<p>Poor little Italian! She had never made a greater -tactical blunder than when she uttered these words. -Maurice Quincunx’s mystic illumination had made -it possible for him to exorcise his evil spirit. It -could not put into his nature an energy he had not -been born with. His countenance clouded.</p> - -<p>“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he remarked. -“You don’t know what a sour-tempered -devil I am, and how I am sure to make any girl -who lives with me miserable. You would hate me -in a month more than you hate Mr. Romer, and in -a year I should have either worried you into your -grave or you would have run away from me. No—no—no! -I should be a criminal fool to let you -subject yourself to such a risk as that.”</p> - -<p>“But,” pleaded the girl, with flushed cheeks, “we -should be sure to find something! I could teach -Italian,—and you could—oh, I am sure there are -endless things you could do! Please, please, Maurice -dear, let us go. Anything is better than this misery. -I have got quite enough money for the journey. -Look!”</p> - -<p>She pulled out from beneath her dress a little -chain purse, that hung, by a small silver chain, round -her slender neck. She opened it and shook three -sovereigns into the palm of her hand. “Enough for -the journey,” she said, “and enough to keep us for -a week if we are economical. We should be sure to -find something by that time.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx shook his head. It was an ironical -piece of psychic malice that the very illumination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> -which had made him remorseful and sympathetic -should have also reduced to the old level of tender -sentiment the momentary passion he had felt. It -was the absence in him of this sensual impulse which -made the scheme she proposed seem so impossible. -Had he been of a more animal nature, or had she -possessed the power of arousing his senses to a more -violent craving, instead of brooding, as he did, upon -the mere material difficulties of such a plan, he would -have plunged desperately into it and carried her off -without further argument. The very purity of his -temperament was her worst enemy.</p> - -<p>Poor Lacrima! Her hands dropped once more -helplessly to her side, and the old hopeless depression -began to invade her heart. It seemed impossible to -make her friend realize that if she refused the farmer -and things went on as before, her position in Mr. -Romer’s establishment would become more impossible -than ever. What—for instance—would become of -her when this long-discussed marriage of Gladys with -young Ilminster took place? Could she conceive -herself going on living under that roof, with Mr. -Romer continually harassing her, and his brother-in-law -haunting every field she wandered into?</p> - -<p>“It was noble of you,” began her bearded friend -again, resuming his work at the weeds, while she, as -on a former occasion, leant against his wheel-barrow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> -“to think of enduring this wretched marriage -for my sake. But I cannot let you do it. I should -not be happy in letting you do it. I have some -conscience—though you may not think so—and -it would worry me to feel you were putting up with -that fool’s companionship just to make me comfortable. -It would spoil my enjoyment of my freedom, -to know that you were not equally free. Of -course it would be paradise to me to have the money -you speak of. I should be able to live exactly as I -like, and these damned villagers would treat me with -proper respect then. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t -take my pleasure at the expense of such a strain on -you. It would spoil everything!</p> - -<p>“I don’t deny, however,” he went on, evidently -deriving more and more virtuous satisfaction from -his somewhat indecisive rejection of her sacrifice, -“that it is a temptation to me. I hate that office so -profoundly! You were quite right there, Lacrima. -All I said about getting on with those people was -damned bluff. I loathe them and they loathe me. -It is simply like a kind of death, my life in that -place. Yes, what you suggest is a temptation to me. -I can’t help feeling rather like that poor brother of -the girl in ‘Measure for Measure’ when she comes to -say that she could save his life by the loss of her -virtue, and he talks about his feelings on the subject -of death. She put him down fiercely enough, poor -dog! She evidently thought her virtue was much -more important than his life. I am glad you are -just the opposite of that puritanical young woman. -I shouldn’t like you very much if you took her line!</p> - -<p>“But just because you don’t do that, my dear,” -Mr. Quincunx went on, tugging at the obstinate -roots of a great dock, “I couldn’t think of letting -you sacrifice yourself. If you <em>were</em> like that woman -in the play, and made all that damned silly fuss about -your confounded virtue, I should be inclined to wish -that Mr. Goring had got his hands upon you. Women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> -who think as much of themselves as that, <em>ought</em> to be -given over to honest fellows like Mr. Goring. It’s the -sort of punishment they deserve for their superstitious -selfishness. For it’s all selfishness, of course. We -know that well enough!”</p> - -<p>He flung the defeated weed so vindictively upon his -barrow that some of the earth from its roots was -sprinkled into Lacrima’s lap. He came to help her -brush it away, and took the opportunity to kiss her -again,—this time a shade more amorously.</p> - -<p>“All this business of ‘love,’” he went on, returning -to his potatoes, “is nothing but the old eternal -wickedness of man’s nature. The only kind of love -which is worth anything is the love that gets rid of -sex altogether, and becomes calm and quiet and -distant—like the love of a planetary spirit. Apart -from this love, which is not like human love at all, -everything in us is selfish. Even a mother’s care for -its child is selfish.”</p> - -<p>“I shall never have a child,” said Lacrima in a -low voice.</p> - -<p>“I wonder what your friend James Andersen would -say to all this,” continued Mr. Quincunx. “Why, by -the way, don’t you get <em>him</em> to marry you? He would -do it, no doubt, like a shot, if you gave him a little -encouragement; and then make you work all day in -his kitchen, as his father made his mother, so they -say.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima made a hopeless gesture, and looked at -the watch upon her wrist. She began to feel dizzy -and sick for want of food. She had had nothing -since breakfast, and the shadows were beginning to -grow long.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I know what Luke Andersen would say if we asked -him,” added Mr. Quincunx. “He would advise you -to marry this damned farmer, wheedle his money -out of him, and then sheer off with some fine youth -and never see Nevilton again! Luke Andersen’s the -fellow for giving a person advice in these little -matters. He has a head upon his shoulders, that -boy! I tell you what it is, my dear, your precious -Miss Gladys had better be careful! She’ll be getting -herself into trouble with that honest youth if she -doesn’t look out. I know him. He cares for no mortal -soul in the world, or above the world. He’s a -master in the art of life! We are all infants compared -with him. If you do need anyone to help you, or -to help me either, I tell you Luke Andersen’s the -one to go to. He has more influence in this village -than any living person except Romer himself, and I -should be sorry for Romer if his selfishness clashed -with the selfishness of that young Machiavel!”</p> - -<p>“Do you mind,” said Lacrima suddenly, “if I go -into your kitchen and make myself a cup of tea? -I feel rather exhausted. I expect it is the heat.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx looked intently at her, leaning upon -his hoe. He had only once before—on an exceptionally -cold winter’s day—allowed the girl to enter -the cottage.</p> - -<p>He had a vague feeling that if he did so he would -in some way commit himself, and be betrayed into -a false position. He almost felt as though, if she -were once comfortably established there, he would -never be able to get her out again! He was nervous, -too, about her seeing all his little household peculiarities. -If she saw, for instance, how cheaply, how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> -very cheaply, he managed to live, eating no meat -and economizing in sugar and butter, she might be -encouraged still further in her attempts to persuade -him to run away.</p> - -<p>He was also strangely reluctant that she should -get upon the track of his queer little lonely epicurean -pleasures, such as his carefully guarded bottle of -Scotch whiskey; his favourite shelf of mystical and -Rabelaisian books; his jar of tobacco, with a piece -of bread under its lid, to keep the contents moist -and cool; his elaborate arrangements for holding -draughts out; his polished pewter; his dainty writing-desk -with its piled-up, vellum-bound journals, all -labelled and laid in order; his queer-coloured oriental -slippers; his array of scrupulously scrubbed pots and -pans. Mr. Quincunx was extremely unwilling that -his lady-love should poke her pretty fingers into all -these mysteries.</p> - -<p>What he liked, was to live in two distinct worlds: -his world of sentiment with Lacrima as its solitary -centre, and his world of sacramental epicurism with -his kitchen-fire as its solitary centre. He was extremely -unwilling that the several circumferences of -these centres should intersect one another. Both -were equally necessary to him. When days passed -without a visit from his friend he became miserably -depressed. But he saw no reason for any inartistic -attempt to unite these two spheres of interest. A -psychologist who defined Mr. Quincunx’s temper as -the temper of a hermit would have been far astray. -He was profoundly dependent on human sympathy. -But he liked human sympathy that kept its place. -He did not like human <em>society</em>. Perhaps of all well-known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> -psychological types, the type of the philosopher -Rousseau was the one to which he most -nearly approximated. And yet, had he possessed -children, Mr. Quincunx would certainly never have -been persuaded to leave them at the foundling -hospital. He would have lived apart from them, -but he would never have parted with them. He was -really a domestic sentimentalist, who loved the exquisite -sensation of being alone with his own -thoughts.</p> - -<p>With all this in mind, one need feel no particular -surprise that the response he gave to Lacrima’s -sudden request was a somewhat reluctant one. However, -he did respond; and opening the cottage-doors -for her, ushered her into the kitchen and put the -kettle on the fire.</p> - -<p>It puzzled him a little that she should feel no embarrassment -at being alone with him in this secluded -place! In the depths of his heart—like many -philosophers—Mr. Quincunx, in spite of his anarchistic -theories, possessed no slight vein of conventional -timidity. He did not realize this in the least. -Women, according to his cynical code, were the sole -props of conventionality. Without women, there -would be no such thing in the world. But now, -brought face to face with the reckless detachment of -a woman fighting for her living soul, he felt confused, -uncomfortable, and disconcerted.</p> - -<p>Lacrima waited in patient passivity, too exhausted -to make any further mental or moral effort, while -her friend made the tea and cut the bread-and-butter.</p> - -<p>As soon as she had partaken of these things, her -exhaustion gave place to a delicious sense—the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> -she had known for many weeks—of peaceful and -happy security. She put far away, into the remote -background of her mind, all melancholy and tragic -thoughts, and gave herself up to the peacefulness of -the moment. The hands of Mr. Quincunx’s clock -pointed to half-past six. She had therefore a clear -thirty minutes left, before she need set out on her -return walk, in order to have time to dress for dinner.</p> - -<p>“I wonder if your Miss Gladys,” remarked Lacrima’s -host, lighting a cigarette as he sipped his -tea, “will marry the Honourable Mr. Ilminster after -all, or whistle him down the wind, and make up to -our American friend? I notice that Dangelis is -already considerably absorbed in her.”</p> - -<p>“Please, dear, don’t let us talk any more about -these people,” begged Lacrima softly. “Let me be -happy for a little while.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx stroked his beard. “You are a -queer little girl,” he said. “But what I should do -if the gods took you away from me I have not the -least idea. I should not care then whether I worked -in an office or in a factory. I should not care what -I did.”</p> - -<p>The girl jumped up impulsively from her seat and -went over to him. Mr. Quincunx took her upon his -knees as he might have taken a child and fondled her -gravely and gently. The smoke of his cigarette -ascended in a thin blue column above their two -heads.</p> - -<p>At that moment there was a mocking laugh at the -window. Lacrima slid out of his arms and they both -rose to their feet and turned indignantly.</p> - -<p>The laughing face of Gladys Romer peered in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> -upon them, her eyes shining with delighted malevolence. -“I saw you,” she cried. “But you needn’t -look so cross! I like to see these things. I have been -watching you for quite a long time! It has been such -fun! I only hoped I could keep quiet for longer still, -till one of you began to cry, or something. But you -looked so funny that I couldn’t help laughing. And -that spoilt it all. Mr. Dangelis is at the gate. -Shall I call him up? He came with me across the -park. He tried to stop me from pouncing on you, -but I wouldn’t listen to him. He said it was a ‘low-down -stunt.’ You know the way he talks, Lacrima!”</p> - -<p>The two friends stood staring at the intruder in -petrified horror. Then without a word they quickly -issued from the cottage and crossed the garden. -Neither of them spoke to Gladys; and Mr. Quincunx -immediately returned to his house as soon as he saw -the American advance to greet Lacrima with his -usual friendly nonchalance.</p> - -<p>The three went off down the lane together; and the -poor philosopher, staring disconsolately at the empty -tea-cups of his profaned sanctuary, cursed himself, -his friend, his fate, and the Powers that had appointed -that fate from the beginning of the world.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV<br /> -<span class="smaller">UNDER-CURRENTS</span></h2> - -<p>June was drawing to an end, and the days, -though still free from rain, grew less and less -bright. A thin veil of greyish vapour, which -never became thick enough or sank low enough to -resolve itself into definite clouds, offered a perpetual -hindrance to the shining of the sun. The sun was -present. Its influence was felt in the warmth of the -air; but when it became visible, it was only in the -form of a large misty disc, at which the weakest -eyes might gaze without distress or discomfort.</p> - -<p>On a certain evening when this vaporous obscurity -made it impossible to ascertain the exact moment of -the sun’s descent and when it might be said that -afternoon became twilight before men or cattle realized -that the day was over, Mr. Wone was assisting -his son Philip in planting geraniums in his back -garden.</p> - -<p>The Wone house was neither a cottage nor a villa. -It was one of those nondescript and modest residences, -which, erected in the mid-epoch of Victoria’s reign, -when money was circulating freely among the middle-classes, -win a kind of gentle secondary mellowness -in the twentieth century by reason of something -solid and liberal in their original construction. It -stood at the corner of the upper end of Nevilton, -where, beyond the fountain-square, the road from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> -Yeoborough takes a certain angular turn to the north. -The garden at the back of it, as with many of the -cottages of the place, was larger than might have -been expected, and over the low hedge which separated -it from the meadows behind, the long ridge of -wooded upland, with its emphatic lines of tall Scotch -firs that made the southern boundary of the valley, -was pleasantly and reassuringly visible.</p> - -<p>Philip Wone worked in Yeoborough. He was a -kind of junior partner in a small local firm of tombstone -makers—the very firm, in fact, which under -the direction of the famous Gideon, had constructed -the most remarkable monument in Nevilton churchyard. -It was doubtful whether he would ever attain -the position of full partner in this concern, for his -manner of life was eccentric, and neither his ways nor -his appearance were those of a youth who succeeds -in business. He was a tall pallid creature. His dark -coarse hair fell in a heavy wave over his white forehead, -and his hands were thin and delicate as the -hands of an invalid.</p> - -<p>He was an omnivorous reader and made incessant -use of every subscription library that Yeoborough -offered. His reading was of two kinds. He read -romantic novels of every sort—good, bad, and indifferent—and -he read the history of revolutions. -There can hardly have been, in any portion of the -earth’s surface, a revolution with whose characters -and incidents Philip was unacquainted. His chief -passion was for the great French Revolution, the -personalities of which were more real to him than -the majority of his own friends.</p> - -<p>Philip was by temperament and conviction an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> -ardent anarchist; not an anarchist of Mr. Quincunx’s -mild and speculative type, but of a much more -formidable brand. He had also long ago consigned -the idea of any Providential interference with the -sequence of events upon earth, into the limbo of -outworn superstitions.</p> - -<p>It was Philip’s notion, this, of planting geraniums -in the back-garden. Dressed nearly always in black, -and wearing a crimson tie, it was his one luxurious -sensuality to place in his button-hole, as long as -they were possibly available, some specimen or other -of the geranium tribe, with a preference for the most -flaming varieties.</p> - -<p>The Christian Candidate regarded his son with a -mixture of contempt and apprehension. He despised -his lack of business ability, and he viewed his intellectual -opinions as the wilful caprices of a sulky and -disagreeable temper.</p> - -<p>It was as a sort of pitying concession to the whim -of a lunatic that Mr. Wone was now assisting Philip -in planting these absurd geraniums. His own idea -was that flower-gardens ought to be abolished altogether. -He associated them with gentility and toryism -and private property in land. Under the régime -he would have liked to have established, all decent -householders would have had liberal small holdings, -where they would grow nothing but vegetables. Mr. -Wone liked vegetables and ate of them very freely in -their season. Flowers he regarded as the invention -of the upper classes, so that their privately owned -world might be decorated with exclusive festoons.</p> - -<p>“I shall go round presently,” he said to his son,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> -“and visit all these people. I see no reason why -Taxater and Clavering, as well as the two Andersens, -should not make themselves of considerable use -to me. I am tired of talking to these Leo’s Hill -labourers. One day they <em>will</em> strike, and the next -they <em>won’t</em>. All they think of is their own quarrel -with Lickwit. They have no thought of the general -interest of the country.”</p> - -<p>“No thought of your interests, you mean,” put in -the son.</p> - -<p>“With these others it is different,” went on Mr. -Wone, oblivious of the interruption. “It would be -a real help to me if the more educated people of the -place came out definitely on my side. They ought -to do it. They know what this Romer is. They are -thinking men. They must see that what the country -wants is a real representative of the people.”</p> - -<p>“What the country wants is a little more honesty -and a little less hypocrisy,” remarked the son.</p> - -<p>“It is abominable, this suppression of our Social -Meeting. You have heard about that, I suppose?” -pursued the candidate.</p> - -<p>“Putting an end to your appeals to Providence, -eh?” said Philip, pressing the earth down round the -roots of a brilliant flower.</p> - -<p>“I forbid you to talk like that,” cried his father. -“I might at least expect that <em>you</em> would do something -for me. You have done nothing, since my -campaign opened, but make these silly remarks.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you pray about it?” jeered the irrepressible -young man. “Mr Romer has not suppressed -prayer, has he, as well as Political Prayer-Meetings?”</p> - -<p>“They were not political!” protested the aggrieved -parent. “They were profoundly religious. What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> -you young people do not seem to realize nowadays -is that the soul of this country is still God-fearing -and religious-minded. I should myself have no hope -at all for the success of this election, if I were not -sure that God was intending to make His hand felt.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you canvass God, then?” muttered -the profane boy.</p> - -<p>“I cannot allow you to talk to me in this way, -Philip!” cried Mr. Wone, flinging down his trowel. -“You know perfectly well that you believe as firmly -as I do, in your heart. It is only that you think it -impressive and original to make these silly jokes.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, father,” replied Philip. “You certainly -remove my doubts with an invincible argument! -But I assure you I am quite serious. Nobody -with any brain believes in God in these days. God -died about the same time as Mr. Gladstone.”</p> - -<p>The Christian Candidate lost his temper. “I must -beg you,” he said, “to keep your infidel nonsense to -yourself. Your mother and I are sick of it! You -had better stay in Yeoborough, and not come home -at all, if you can’t behave like an ordinary person -and keep a civil tongue.”</p> - -<p>Philip made no answer to this ultimatum, but -smiled sardonically and went on planting geraniums.</p> - -<p>But his father was loath to let the matter drop.</p> - -<p>“What would the state of the country be like, I -wonder,” he continued, “if people lost their faith in -the love of a merciful Father? It is only because we -feel, in spite of all appearances, the love of God must -triumph in the end, that we can go on with our great -movement. The love of God, young man, whatever -you foolish infidels may say, is at the bottom of all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> -attempts to raise the people to better things. Do you -think I would labour as I do in this excellent cause -if I did not feel that I had the loving power of a -great Heavenly Father behind me? Why do I trouble -myself with politics? Because His love constrains -me. Why have I brought you up so carefully—though -to little profit it seems!—and have been so -considerate to your mother—who, as you know, -isn’t always very cheerful? Because His love constrains -me. Without the knowledge that His love -is at the bottom of everything that happens, do you -think I could endure to live at all?”</p> - -<p>Philip Wone lifted up his head from the flower-border.</p> - -<p>“Let me just tell you this, father, it is not the -love of God, or of anyone else, that’s at the bottom -of our grotesque world. There is nothing at the -bottom! The world goes back—without limit or -boundary—upwards and downwards, and everywhere. -It has no bottom, and no top either! It is -all quite mad and we are all quite mad. Love? Who -knows anything of love, except lovers and madmen? -If these Romers and Lickwits are to be crushed, -they must be crushed by force. By force, I tell -you! This love of an imaginary Heavenly Father has -never done anything for the revolution and never -will!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone, catching at a verbal triumph, regained -his placable equanimity.</p> - -<p>“Because, dear boy,” he remarked, “it is not -revolution that we want, but reconstruction. Force -may destroy. It is only love that can rebuild.”</p> - -<p>No words can describe the self-satisfied unction<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> -with which the Christian Candidate pronounced this -oracular saying.</p> - -<p>“Well, boy,” he added, “I must be off. I want to -see Taxater and Clavering and both the Andersens -tonight. I might see Quincunx too. Not that I -think <em>he</em> can do very much.”</p> - -<p>“There’s only one way you’ll get James Andersen -to help you,” remarked Philip, “and I doubt whether -you’ll bring yourself to use that.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose you mean,” returned his father, “that -Traffio girl, up at the House. I have heard that they -have been seen together. But I thought she was going -to marry John Goring.”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t mean her,” said the son. “She’s all -right. She’s a fine girl, and I am sorry for her, -whether she marries Goring or not. The person I -mean is little Ninsy Lintot, up at Wild Pine. She’s -the only one in this place who can get a civil word -out of Jim Andersen.”</p> - -<p>“Ninsy?” echoed his father, “but I thought Ninsy -was dead and buried. There was some one died up -at Wild Pine last spring, and I made sure ’twas her.”</p> - -<p>“That was her sister Glory,” affirmed Philip. “But -Ninsy is delicate, too. A bad heart, they say—too -bad for any thoughts of marrying. But she and Jim -Andersen have been what you might call sweethearts -ever since she was in short frocks.”</p> - -<p>“I have never heard of this,” said Mr. Wone.</p> - -<p>“Nor have many other people here,” returned -Philip, “but ’tis true, none the less. And anyone -who wants to get at friend James must go to him -through Ninsy Lintot.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span></p> -<p>“I am extremely surprised at what you tell me,” -said Mr. Wone. “Do you really mean that if I got -this sick child to promise me Andersen’s help, he -really would give it?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I do,” replied Philip. “And what is -more, he would bring his brother with him.”</p> - -<p>“But his brother is thick with Miss Romer. All -the village is talking about them.”</p> - -<p>“Never mind the village—father! You think too -much of the village and its talk. I tell you—Miss -Romer or no Miss Romer—if you get James to help -you, you get Luke. I know something of the ways of -those two.”</p> - -<p>A look of foxy cunning crossed the countenance of -the Christian Candidate.</p> - -<p>“Do <em>you</em> happen to have any influence with this -poor Ninsy?” he asked abruptly, peering into his -son’s face.</p> - -<p>Philip’s pale cheeks betrayed no embarrassment.</p> - -<p>“I know her,” he said. “I like her. I lend her -books. She will die before Christmas.”</p> - -<p>“I wish you would go up and see her for me then,” -said Mr. Wone eagerly. “It would be an excellent -thing if we <em>could</em> secure the Andersens. They must -have a lot of influence with the men they work with.”</p> - -<p>Philip glanced across the rich sloping meadows -which led up to the base of the wooded ridge. From -where they stood he could see the gloomy clump of -firs and beeches which surrounded the little group of -cottages known as Wild Pine.</p> - -<p>“Very well,” he said. “I don’t mind. But no more -of this nonsense about my not coming home! I -prefer for the present”—and he gave vent to rather -an ominous laugh—“to live with my dear parents.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> -But, mind—I can’t promise anything. These Andersens -are queer fellows. One never knows how -things will strike them. However, we shall see. If -anyone could persuade our friend James, it would be -Ninsy.”</p> - -<p>The affair being thus settled, the geraniums were -abandoned; and while the father proceeded down -the village towards the Gables, the son mounted -the slope of the hill in the direction of Wild Pine.</p> - -<p>The path Philip followed soon became a narrow -lane running between two high sandy banks, overtopped -by enormous beeches. At all hours, and on -every kind of day, this miniature gorge between the -wooded fields was a dark and forlorn spot. On an -evening of a day like the present one, it was nothing -less than sinister. The sky being doubly dark above, -dark with the coming on of night, and dark with -the persistent cloud-veil, the accumulated shadows -of this sombre road intensified the gloom to a pitch -of darkness capable of exciting, in agitated nerves, -an emotion bordering upon terror. Though the sun -had barely sunk over Leo’s Hill, between these ivy-hung -banks it was as obscure as if night had already -fallen.</p> - -<p>But the obscurity of Root-Thatch Lane was nothing -to the sombreness that awaited him when, arrived -at the hill-top, he entered Nevil’s Gully. This was -a hollow basin of close-growing beech-trees, surrounded -on both sides by impenetrable thickets of bramble -and elder, and crossed by the path that led to Wild -Pine cottages. Every geographical district has its -typical and representative centre,—some characteristic -spot which sums up, as it were, and focuses, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> -limited bounds, qualities and attributes that are diffused -in diverse proportions through the larger area. -Such a centre of the Nevilton district was the place -through which Philip Wone now hurried.</p> - -<p>Nevil’s Gully, however dry the weather, was never -free from an overpowering sense of dampness. The -soil under foot was now no longer sand but clay, and -clay of a particularly adhesive kind. The beech -roots, according to their habit, had created an empty -space about them—a sort of blackened floor, spotted -with green moss and pallid fungi. Out of this, their -cold, smooth trunks emerged, like silent pillars in the -crypt of a mausoleum.</p> - -<p>The most characteristic thing, as we have noted, -in the scenery of Nevilton, is its prevalent weight -of heavy oppressive moisture. For some climatic or -geographical reason the foliage of the place seems -chillier, damper, and more filled with oozy sap, than -in other localities of the West of England. Though -there may have been no rain for weeks—as there -had been none this particular June—the woods in -this district always give one the impression of retaining -an inordinate reserve of atmospheric moisture. -It is this moisture, this ubiquitous dampness, that -to a certain type of sun-loving nature makes the -region so antipathetic, so disintegrating. Such persons -have constantly the feeling of being dragged -earthward by some steady centripedal pull, against -which they struggle in vain. Earthward they are -pulled, and the earth, that seems waiting to receive -them, breathes heavy damp breaths of in-drawing -voracity, like the mouth of some monster of the -slime.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span></p> - -<p>And if this is true of the general conditions of -Nevilton geography, it is especially and accumulatively -true of Nevil’s Gully, which, for some reason -or other, is a very epitome of such sinister gravitation. -If one’s latent mortality feels the drag of its clayish -affinity in all quarters of this district, in Nevil’s -Gully it becomes conscious of such oppression as a -definite demonic presence. For above the Gully -and above the cottages to which the Gully leads, the -umbrageous mass of entangled leafiness hangs, fold -upon fold, as if it had not known the woodman’s -axe since the foot of man first penetrated these -recesses. The beeches, to which reference has been -made, are overtopped on the higher ground by ashes -and sycamores, and these, in their turn, are surmounted, -on the highest level of all, by colossal -Scotch firs, whose forlorn grandeur gives the cottages -their name.</p> - -<p>Philip hurried, in the growing darkness, across the -sepulchral gully, and pushed open the gate of the -secluded cattle-yard which was the original cause of -this human hamlet. The houses of men in rural -districts follow the habitations of beasts. Where -cattle and the stacks that supply their food can -conveniently be located, there must the dwelling be -of those whose business it is to tend them. The -convenience of Wild Pine as a site for a spacious and -protected farm-yard was sufficient reason for the -erection of a human shelter for the hands by whose -labour such places are maintained.</p> - -<p>He crossed the yard with quick steps. A light -burned in one of the sheds, throwing a fitful flicker -upon the heaps of straw and the pools of dung-coloured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> -water. Some animal, there—a horse or a -cow or a pig—was probably giving birth to young.</p> - -<p>From the farm-yard he emerged into the cottage-garden, -and stumbling across this, he knocked at -the first door he reached. There was not the least -sound in answer. Dead unbroken stillness reigned, -except for an intermittent shuffling and stamping -from the watcher or the watched in the farm-yard -behind.</p> - -<p>He knocked again, and even the sounds in the yard -ceased. Only, high up among the trees above him, -some large nocturnal bird fluttered heavily from -bough to bough.</p> - -<p>For the third time he knocked and then the door -of the next house opened suddenly, emitting a long -stream of light into which several startled moths -instantly flew. Following the light came a woman’s -figure.</p> - -<p>“If thee wants Lintot,” said the voice of this -figure, “thee can’t see ’im till along of most an hour. -He be tending a terrible sick beast.”</p> - -<p>“I want to see Ninsy,” shouted Philip, knocking -again on the closed door.</p> - -<p>“Then thee must walk in and have done with it,” -returned the woman. “The maid be laid up with -heart-spasms again and can open no doors this night, -not if the Lord his own self were hammering.”</p> - -<p>Philip boldly followed her advice and entered the -cottage, closing the door behind him. A faint voice -from a room at the back asked him what he wanted -and who he was.</p> - -<p>“It is Philip,” he answered, “may I come in and -see you, Ninsy? It is Philip—Philip Wone.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span></p> - -<p>He gathered from the girl’s low-voiced murmur that -he was welcome, and crossing the kitchen he opened -the door of the further room.</p> - -<p>He found Ninsy dressed and smiling, but lying in -complete prostration upon a low horse-hair sofa. He -closed the door, and moving a chair to her side, sat -down in silence, gazing upon her wistfully with his -great melancholy eyes.</p> - -<p>“Don’t look so peaked and pining, Philip-boy,” -she said, laying her white hand upon his and smiling -into his face. “’Tis only the old trouble. ’Tis -nothing more than what I expect. I shall be about -again tomorrow or the day after. But I be real glad -to see ’ee here! Father’s biding down in the yard, -and ’tis a lonesome place to be laid-up in, this poor -old house.”</p> - -<p>Ninsy looked exquisitely fragile and slender, lying -back in this tender helplessness, her chestnut-coloured -hair all loose over her pillow. Philip was filled with -a flood of romantic emotion. The girl had always -attracted him but never so much as now. It was -one of his ingrained peculiarities to find hurt and -unhappy people more engaging than healthy and -contented ones. He almost wished Ninsy would -stop smiling and chattering so pleasantly. It only -needed that she should shed tears, to turn the young -man’s commiseration into passion.</p> - -<p>But Ninsy did not shed tears. She continued -chatting to him in the most cheerful vein. It was -only by the faintest shadow that crossed her face -at intervals, that one could have known that anything -serious was the matter with her. She spoke -of the books he had lent her. She spoke of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> -probable break-up of the weather. She talked of -Lacrima Traffio.</p> - -<p>“I think,” she said, speaking with extreme earnestness, -“the young foreign lady is lovely to look at. -I hope she’ll be happy in this marriage. They do say, -poor dear, she is being driven to it. But with the -gentry you never know. They aren’t like us. Father -says they have all their marriages thought out for -them, same as royalty. I wonder who Miss Gladys -will marry after all! Father has met her several -times lately, walking with that American gentleman.”</p> - -<p>“Has Jim Andersen been up to see you, Ninsy,” -put in Mr. Wone’s emissary, “since this last attack -of yours?”</p> - -<p>The fact that this question left his lips simultaneously -with a rising current of emotion in his heart -towards her is a proof of the fantastic complication -of feeling in the young anarchist.</p> - -<p>He fretted and chafed under the stream of her -gentle impersonal talk. He longed to rouse in her -some definite agitation, even though it meant the -introduction of his rival’s image. The fact that such -agitation was likely to be a shock to her did not -weigh with him. Objective consideration for people’s -bodily health was not one of Philip’s weaknesses. -His experiment met with complete success. At the -mention of James Andersen’s name a scarlet flush -came into the girl’s cheeks.</p> - -<p>“No—yes—no!” she answered stammering.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> -“That is—I mean—not since I have been ill. But -before—several times—lately. Why do you look -at me like that, Philip? You’re not angry with me, -are you?”</p> - -<p>Philip’s mind was a confused arena of contradictory -emotions. Among the rest, two stood out and -asserted themselves—this unpardonable and remorseless -desire to trouble her, to embarrass her, to -make her blush yet more deeply—and a strange -wild longing to be himself as ill as she was, and of -the same disease, so that they might die together!</p> - -<p>“My father wanted me to ask you,” he blurted -out, “whether you would use your influence over -Jim to get him to help in this election business. I -told my father Jim would do anything you asked -him.”</p> - -<p>The girl’s poor cheeks burned more deeply than -ever at this.</p> - -<p>“I wish you hadn’t told him that, Philip,” she -said. “I wish you hadn’t! You know very well I -have no more influence over James than anyone else -has. It was unkind of you to tell him that! Now -I am afraid he’ll be disappointed. For I shall never -dare to worry Jim about a thing like that. <em>You</em> don’t -take any interest in this election, Philip, do you?”</p> - -<p>From the tone of this last remark the young anarchist -gathered the intimation that Andersen had been -talking about the affair to his little friend and had -been expressing opinions derogatory to Mr. Wone’s -campaign. She would hardly have spoken of so lively -a local event in such a tone of weary disparagement, -if some masculine philosopher had not been “putting -ideas into her head.”</p> - -<p>“You ought to make him join in,” continued -Philip. “He has such influence down at the works. -It would be a great help to father. We labouring -people ought to stand by one another, you know.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But I thought—I thought—,” stammered poor -Ninsy, pushing back her hair from her forehead, -“that you had quite different opinions from Mr. -Wone.”</p> - -<p>“Damn my opinions!” cried the excited youth. -“What do my opinions matter? We are talking of -Jim Andersen. Why doesn’t he join in with the -other men and help father in getting up the -strike?”</p> - -<p>“He—he doesn’t believe in strikes,” murmured -the girl feebly.</p> - -<p>“Why doesn’t he!” cried the youth. “Does he -think himself different, then, from the rest of us, -because old Gideon married the daughter of a vicar? -He ought to be told that he is a traitor to his class. -Yes—a traitor—a turn-coat—a black-leg! That’s -what he is—if he won’t come in. A black-leg!”</p> - -<p>They were interrupted by a sharp knock at the -outer door. The girl raised herself on her elbow and -became distressingly agitated.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I believe that <em>is</em> Jim,” she cried. “What shall -I do? He won’t like to find you here alone with me -like this. What a dreadful accident!”</p> - -<p>Philip without a moment’s delay went to the door -and opened it. Yes, the visitor was James Andersen. -The two men looked at one another in silence. James -was the first to speak.</p> - -<p>“So <em>you</em> are looking after our invalid?” he said. -“I only heard this afternoon that she was bad -again.”</p> - -<p>He did not wait for the other’s response, but -pushing past him went straight into Ninsy’s room.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Poor child!” he said, “Poor dear little girl! -Why didn’t you send a message to me? I saw your -father in the yard and he told me to come on in. -How are you? Why aren’t you in bed? I’m sure -you ought to be in bed, and not talking to such an -exciting person as our friend Philip.”</p> - -<p>“She won’t be talking to me much longer,” threw -in that youth, following his rival to the side of the -girl’s sofa. “I only came to ask her to do something -for us in this election. She will tell you what I mean. -Ask her to tell you. Don’t forget! Good-bye -Ninsy,” and he held out his hand with a searching -look into the girl’s face, a look at once wistfully entreating -and fiercely reproachful.</p> - -<p>She took his hand. “Good night, Philip,” she said. -“Think kindly of me, and think—” this was said -in a voice so low that only the young man could -hear—“think kindly of Jim. Good night!”</p> - -<p>He nodded to Andersen and went off, a sombre -dangerous expression clouding the glance he threw -upon the clock in the corner.</p> - -<p>“You pay late visits, James Andersen,” he called -back, as he let himself out of the cottage-door.</p> - -<p>Left alone with Ninsy, the stone-carver possessed -himself of the seat vacated by the angry youth. -The girl remained quiet and motionless, her hands -crossed on her lap and her eyes closed.</p> - -<p>“Poor child!” he murmured, in a voice of tender -and affectionate pity. “I cannot bear to see you like -this. It almost gives me a sense of shame—my being -so strong and well—and you so delicate. But you -will be better soon, won’t you? And we will go for -some of our old walks together.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span></p> - -<p>Ninsy’s mouth twitched a little, and big tears -forced their way through her tightly shut eyelids.</p> - -<p>“When your father comes in,” he went on, “you -must let me help him carry you upstairs. And I -am sure you had better have the doctor tomorrow -if you are not better. Won’t you let me go to Yeoborough -for him tonight?”</p> - -<p>Ninsy suddenly struck the side of her sofa with -her clenched hand. “I don’t want the doctor!” -she burst out, “and I don’t want to get better. I -want to end it all—that’s what I want! I want to -end it all.”</p> - -<p>Andersen made a movement as if to caress her, but -she turned her head away.</p> - -<p>“I am sick and tired of it all,” she moaned. “I -wish I were dead. Oh, I wish I were dead!”</p> - -<p>The stone-carver knelt down by her side. “Ninsy,” -he murmured, “Ninsy, my child, my friend, what is -it? Tell me what it is.”</p> - -<p>But the girl only went on, in a low soft wail, “I -knew it would come to this. I knew it. I knew it. -Oh, why was I ever born! Why wasn’t it me, and not -Glory, who died! I <em>shall</em> die. I <em>want</em> to die!”</p> - -<p>Andersen rose to his feet. “Ninsy!” he said in a -stern altered voice. “Stop this at once—or I shall -go straight away and call your father!”</p> - -<p>He assumed an air and tone as if quieting a petulant -infant. It had its effect upon her. She swallowed -down her rising fit of sobs and looked up at -him with great frightened tearful eyes.</p> - -<p>“Now, child,” he said, once more seating himself, -and this time successfully taking possession of a submissive -little hand, “tell me what all this is about.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> -Tell me everything.” He bent down and imprinted -a kiss upon her cold wet cheek.</p> - -<p>“It is—” she stammered, “it is that I think you -are fond of that Italian girl.” She hid her face in a -fold of her rich auburn hair and went on. “They do -tell me you walk with her when your brother goes -with Miss Gladys. Don’t be angry with me, Jim. -I know I have no right to say these things. I know -I have no claim, no power over you. But we did -keep company once, Jim, didn’t us? And it do stab -my heart,—to hear them tell of you and she!”</p> - -<p>James Andersen looked frowningly at the window.</p> - -<p>The curtains were not drawn; and a dark ash-branch -stretched itself across the casement like an extended -threatening arm. Its form was made visible by a gap -in the surrounding trees, through which a little cluster -of stars faintly twinkled. The cloud veil had melted.</p> - -<p>“What a world this is!” the stone-carver thought -to himself. His tone when he spoke was irritable and -aggrieved.</p> - -<p>“How silly you are, Ninsy—with your fancies! -A man can’t be civil to a poor lonesome foreign -wench, without your girding at him as if he had done -something wrong! Of course I speak to Miss Traffio -and walk with her too. What else do you expect -when the poor thing is left lonesome on my hands, -with Luke and Miss Gladys amusing themselves? -But you needn’t worry,” he added, with a certain -unrestrained bitterness. “It’s only when Luke and -his young lady are together that she and I ever -meet, and I don’t think they’ll often be together -now.”</p> - -<p>Ninsy looked at him with questioning eyes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span></p> - -<p>“He and she have quarrelled,” he said curtly.</p> - -<p>“Over the American?” asked the girl.</p> - -<p>“Over the American.”</p> - -<p>“And you won’t be walking with that foreigner -any more?”</p> - -<p>“I shan’t be walking with her any more.”</p> - -<p>Ninsy sank back on her pillow with a sigh of ineffable -relief. Had she been a Catholic she would -have crossed herself devoutly. As it was she turned -her head smilingly towards him and extended her -arms. “Kiss me,” she pleaded. He bent down, and -she embraced him with passionate warmth.</p> - -<p>“Then we belong to each other again, just the same -as before,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Just the same as before.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I wish that cruel doctor hadn’t told me I -mustn’t marry. He told father it would kill me, and -the other one who came said the same thing. But -wouldn’t it be lovely if you and I, Jim—”</p> - -<p>She stopped suddenly, catching a glimpse of his -face. Her happiness was gone in a moment.</p> - -<p>“You don’t love me. Oh, you don’t love me! I -know it. I have known it for many weeks! That girl -has poisoned you against me—the wicked, wicked -thing! It’s no use denying it. I know it. I feel it,—oh, -how can I bear it! How can I bear it!”</p> - -<p>She shut her eyes once more and lay miserable and -silent. The wood-carver looked gloomily out of the -window. The cluster of stars now assumed a shape -well-known to him. It was Orion’s Belt. His -thoughts swept sadly over the field of destiny.</p> - -<p>“What a world it is!” he said to himself. “There -is that boy Philip gone with a tragic heart because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> -his girl loves me. And I—I have to wait and wait -in helplessness, and see the other—the one I care for—driven -into madness. And she cares not a straw for -me, who could help her, and only cares for that poor -fool who cannot lift a finger. And meanwhile, -Orion’s Belt looks contemptuously down upon us -all! Ninsy is pretty well right. The lucky people -are the people who are safe out of it—the people -that Orion’s Belt cannot vex any more!”</p> - -<p>He rose to his feet. “Well, child,” he said, “I -think I’ll be going. It’s no use our plaguing one -another any further tonight. Things will right themselves, -little one. Things will right themselves! It’s -a crazy world—but the story isn’t finished yet.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you worry about it,” he added gently, -bending over her and pushing the hair back from her -forehead. “Your old James hasn’t deserted you yet. -He loves you better than you think—better than -he knows himself perhaps!”</p> - -<p>The girl seized the hand that caressed her and -pressed it against her lips. Her breast rose and fell -in quick troubled breathing.</p> - -<p>“Come again soon,” she said, and then, with a wan -smile, “if you care to.”</p> - -<p>Their eyes met in a long perplexed clinging farewell. -He was the first to break the tension.</p> - -<p>“Good-night, child,” he said, and turning away, -left the room without looking back.</p> - -<p>While these events were occurring at Wild Pine, -in the diplomatist’s study at the Gables Mr. Wone -was expounding to Mr. Taxater the objects and purposes -of his political campaign.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Wotnot, leaner and more taciturn than ever,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> -had just produced for the refreshment of the visitor -a bottle of moderately good burgundy. Mr. Taxater -had demanded “a little wine,” in the large general -manner which his housekeeper always interpreted as -a request for something short of the very best. It -was clear that for the treasures of innermost wine-cellars -Mr. Wone was not among the privileged.</p> - -<p>The defender of the papacy had placed his visitor -so that the light of the lamp fell upon his perspiring -brow, upon his watery blue eyes, and upon his drooping, -sandy-coloured moustache. Mr. Taxater himself -was protected by a carefully arranged screen, out of -the shadow of which the Mephistophelian sanctity of -his patient profile loomed forth, vague and indistinct.</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone’s mission was in his own mind tending -rapidly to a satisfactory conclusion. The theologian -had heard him with so much attention, had asked -such searching and practical questions, had shown -such sympathetic interest in all the convolutions and -entanglements of the political situation, that Mr. -Wone began to reproach himself for not having made -use of such a capable ally earlier in the day.</p> - -<p>“It is,” he was saying, “on the general grounds of -common Christian duty that I ask your help. We -who recognize the importance of religion would be -false to our belief if we did not join together to defeat -so ungodly and worldly a candidate as this -Romer turns out to be.”</p> - -<p>It must be confessed that in his heart of hearts -Mr. Wone regarded Roman Catholics as far more -dangerous to the community than anarchists or -infidels, but he prided himself upon a discretion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> -worthy of apostolic inspiration in thus seeking to -divide and set asunder the enemies of evangelical -truth. He found the papist so intelligent a listener,—that -hardly one secret of his political designs remained -unshared between them.</p> - -<p>“The socialism,” he finally remarked, “which you -and I are interested in, is Christian Socialism. You -may be sure that in nothing I do or say there will be -found the least tincture of this deplorable modern -materialism. My own feeling is that the closer our -efforts for the uplifting of the people are founded -upon biblical doctrines the more triumphant their -success will be. It is the ethical aspect of this great -struggle for popular rights which I hold most near -my heart. I wish to take my place in Parliament -as representing not merely the intelligence of this -constituency but its moral and spiritual needs—its -soul, in fact, Mr. Taxater. There is no animosity -in my campaign. I am scrupulous about that. I am -ready, always ready, to do our opponents justice. -But when they appeal to the material needs of the -country, I appeal to its higher requirements—to its -soul, in other words. It is for this reason that I am -so glad to welcome really intelligent and highly educated -men, like yourself. We who take this loftier -view must of course make use of many less admirable -methods. I do so myself. But it is for us to keep -the higher, the more ethical considerations, always in -sight.</p> - -<p>“As I was saying to my son, this very evening, the -grand thing for us all to remember is that it is only -on the assumption of Divine Love being at the bottom -of every confusion that we can go to work at all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> -The Tory party refuse to make this assumption. -They refuse to recognize the ethical substratum of -the world. They treat politics as if they were a -matter of merely imperial or patriotic importance. -In my view politics and religion should go hand in -hand. In the true democracy which I aim at establishing, -all these secular theories—evidently due to -the direct action of the Devil—such as Free Love -and the destruction of the family—will not be -tolerated for a moment.</p> - -<p>“Let no one think,”—and Mr. Wone swallowed a -mouthful of wine with a gurgling sound,—“that -because we attack capitalism and large estates, -we have any wish to interfere with the sacredness of -the home. There are, I regret to say, among some -of our artizans, wild and dangerous theories of this -kind, but I have always firmly discountenanced them -and I always will. That is why, if I may say so, -I am so well adapted to represent this district. I -have the support of the large number of Liberal-minded -tradesmen who would deeply regret the introduction -of such immoral theories into our movement. -They hold, as I hold, that this unhappy tendency to -atheistic speculation among our working-classes is -one of the gravest dangers to the country. They hold, -as I hold, that the cynical free thought of the Tory -party is best encountered, not by the equally deplorable -cynicism of certain labor-leaders, but by the -high Christian standards of men like—like ourselves, -Mr. Taxater.”</p> - -<p>He paused for a moment and drew his hand, which -certainly resembled the hand of an ethical-minded -dispenser of sugar rather than that of an immoral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> -manual labourer, across his damp forehead. Then -he began again.</p> - -<p>“Another reason which seems to point to me, in -quite a providential manner, as the candidate for -this district, is the fact that I was born in Nevilton -and that my father was born here before me.</p> - -<p>“‘Wone’ is one of the oldest names in the church -Register. There were Wones in Nevilton in the days -of the Norman Conquest. I love the place—Mr. -Taxater—and I believe I may say that the place -loves me. I am in harmony with it, you know. -I understand its people. I understand their little -weaknesses. Some of these, though you may not -believe it, I even may say I share.</p> - -<p>“I love this beautiful scenery, these luscious fields, -these admirable woods. I love to think of them as -belonging to us—to the people who live among them—I -love the voice of the doves in our dear trees, -Mr. Taxater. I love the cattle in the meadows. I -love the vegetables in the gardens. And I love to -think”—here Mr. Wone finished his glass, and -drew the back of his hand across his mouth—“I -love to think of these good gifts of the Heavenly -Father as being the expression of His divine bounty. -Yes, if anywhere in our revered country atheism and -immorality are condemned by nature herself, it is in -Nevilton. The fields of Nevilton are like the fields -of Canaan, they are full of the goodness of the Lord!”</p> - -<p>“Your emotions,” said the Papal Apologist at last, -as his companion paused breathless, “do you credit, -my dear Sir. I certainly hold with you that it is -important to counteract the influence of Free-Thinkers.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But the love of God, Mr. Taxater!” cried the -other, leaning forward and crossing his hands over -his knees. “We must not only refute, we must construct.” -Mr. Wone had never felt in higher feather. -Here was a man capable of really doing him justice. -He wished his recalcitrant son were present!</p> - -<p>“Construct—that is what I always say,” he repeated. -“We must be creative and constructive in -our movement, and fix it firmly upon the Only Foundation.”</p> - -<p>He surveyed through the window the expansive -heavens; and his glance encountered the same prominent -constellation, which, at that very moment, -but with different emotions, the agitated stone-carver -was contemplating from the cottage at Wild -Pine.</p> - -<p>“You are undoubtedly correct, Mr. Wone,” said -his host gravely, using a tone he might have used -if his interlocutor had been recommending him to buy -cheese. “You are undoubtedly correct in finding -the basis of the system of things in love. It is no -more than what the Saints have always taught. I -am also profoundly at one with you in your objection -to Free Love. Love and Free Love are contradictory -categories. They might even be called antinomies. -There is no synthesis which reconciles them.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone had not the remotest idea what any of -these words meant, but he felt flattered to the -depths of his being. It was clear that he had been -led to utter some profound philosophical maxim. -He once more wished from his heart that his son -could hear this conversation!</p> - -<p>“Well, Mr. Taxater,” he said, “I must now leave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span> -you. I have other distinguished gentlemen to call upon -before I retire. But I thank you for your promised -support.</p> - -<p>“It would be better, perhaps”—here he lowered -his voice and looked jocose and crafty—“not to -refer to our little conversation. It might be misunderstood. -There is a certain prejudice, you know—unjustifiable, -of course, but unfortunately, very -prevalent, which makes it wiser—but I need say no -more. Good-bye, Mr. Taxater—good night, sir, -good night!”</p> - -<p>And he bowed himself off and proceeded up the -street to find the next victim of his evangelical discretion.</p> - -<p>As soon as he had gone, Mr. Taxater summoned his -housekeeper.</p> - -<p>“The next time that person comes,” he said, “will -you explain to him, very politely, that I have been -called to London? If this seems improbable, or if -he has caught a glimpse of me through the window, -will you please explain to him that I am engaged -upon a very absorbing literary work.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Wotnot nodded. “I kept my eyes open yesterday,” -the old woman remarked, in the manner of -some veteran conspirator in the service of a Privy -Counsellor.</p> - -<p>“As you happened to be looking for laurel-leaves, -I suppose?” said Mr. Taxater, drawing the red -curtains across the window, with his expressive -episcopal hand. “For laurel-leaves, Mrs. Wotnot, to -flavour that excellent custard?”</p> - -<p>The old woman nodded. “And you saw?” pursued -her master.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I saw Mr. Luke Andersen and Miss Gladys -Romer.”</p> - -<p>“Were they as happy as usual—these young -people,” asked the theologian mildly, “or were they—otherwise?”</p> - -<p>“They were very much what you are pleased to -call otherwise,” answered the old lady.</p> - -<p>“Quarrelling in fact?” suggested the diplomat, -seating himself deliberately in his arm-chair.</p> - -<p>“Miss Gladys was crying and Mr. Luke was -laughing.”</p> - -<p>The Papal Apologist waved his hand. “Thank -you, Mrs. Wotnot, thank you. These things will -happen, won’t they—even in Nevilton? Mr. Luke -laughing, and Miss Gladys crying? Your laurel-leaves -were very well chosen, my friend. Let me -have the rest of that custard tonight! I hope you -have not brought back your rheumatism, Mrs. Wotnot, -by going so far?”</p> - -<p>The housekeeper shook her head and retired to -prepare supper.</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater took up the book by his side and -opened it thoughtfully. It was the final volume of -the collected works of Joseph de Maistre.</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone had not advanced far in the direction of -the church, when he overtook Vennie Seldom walking -slowly, with down-cast head, in the same direction.</p> - -<p>Vennie had just passed an uncomfortable hour -with her mother, who had been growing, during the -recent days, more and more fretful and suspicious. -It was partly to allay these suspicions and partly -to escape from the maternal atmosphere that she had -decided to be present that evening at the weekly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> -choir-practice, a function that she had found herself -lately beginning to neglect. Mr. Wone had forgotten -the choir-practice. It would interfere, he was afraid, -with his desired interview with Mr. Clavering. Vennie -assured him that the clergyman’s presence was -not essential at these times.</p> - -<p>“He is not musical, you know. He only walks up -and down the aisle and confuses things. Everybody -will be glad if you take him away.”</p> - -<p>She was a little surprised at herself, even as she -spoke. To depreciate her best friend in this flippant -way, and to such a person, showed that her nerves -were abnormally strained.</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone did not miss the unusual tone. He had -never been on anything but very distant terms with -Miss Seldom, and his vanity was hugely delighted by -this new manner.</p> - -<p>“I am coming into my own,” he thought to himself. -“My abilities are being recognized at last, by -all these exclusive people.”</p> - -<p>“I hope,” he said, tentatively, “that you and your -dear mother are on our side in this great national -struggle. I have just been to see Mr. Taxater, and -he has promised me his energetic support.”</p> - -<p>“Has he?” said Vennie in rather a startled voice. -“That surprises me—a little. I know he does not -admire Mr. Romer; but I thought——”</p> - -<p>“O he is with us—heart and soul with us!” repeated -the triumphant Nonconformist. “I am glad -I went to him. Many of us would have been too -narrow-minded to enter his house, seeing he is a -papist. But I am free from such bigotry.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span></p> -<p>“And you hope to convert Mr. Clavering, too?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly; that is what I intend. But I believe -our excellent vicar needs no conversion. I have -often heard him speak—at the Social Meeting, you -know—and I assure you he is a true friend of the -working-classes. I only wish more of his kind were -like him.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Clavering is too changeable,” remarked Vennie, -hardly knowing what she said. “His moods alter -from day to day.”</p> - -<p>“But you yourself, dear Miss Seldom,” the candidate -went on. “You yourself are, I think, entirely -with us?”</p> - -<p>“I really don’t know,” she answered. “My interests -do not lie in these directions. I sometimes -doubt whether it greatly matters, one way or the -other.”</p> - -<p>“Whether it matters?” cried Mr. Wone, inhaling -the night-air with a sigh of protestation. “Surely, -you do not take that indifferent and thoughtless attitude? -A young lady of your education—of your -religious feeling! Surely, you must feel that it -matters profoundly! As we walk here together, -through this embalmed air, full of so many agreeable -scents, surely you must feel that a good and great -God is making his power known at last, known and -respected, through the poor means of our consecrated -efforts? Forgive my speaking so freely to one -of your position; but it seems to me that you must—you -at least—be on our side, simply because what -we are aiming at is in such complete harmony with -this wonderful Love of God, diffused through all -things.”</p> - -<p>It is impossible to describe the shrinking aversion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> -which these words produced upon the agitated nerves -of Vennie. Something about the Christian candidate -seemed to affect her with an actual sense of -physical nausea. She could have screamed, to feel -the man so near her—the dragging sound of his feet -on the road, the way he breathed and cleared his -throat, the manner in which his hat was tilted, all -combined to irritate her unendurably. She found -herself fantastically thinking how much sooner she -would have married even the egregious John Goring—as -Lacrima was going to do—than such a one as this. -What a pass Nevilton had brought itself to—when -the choice lay between a Mr. Romer and a Mr. Wone!</p> - -<p>An overpowering wave of disgust with the whole -human race swept over her—what wretched creatures -they all were—every one of them! She mentally -resolved that nothing—nothing on earth—should -stop her entering a convent. The man talked of -agreeable odours on the air. The air was poisoned, -tainted, infected! It choked her to breathe it.</p> - -<p>“I am so glad—so deeply glad,” Mr. Wone continued,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> -“to have enjoyed the privilege of this little -quiet conversation. I shall never forget it. I feel as -though it had brought us wonderfully, beautifully, -near each other. It is on such occasions as this, that -one feels how closely, how entirely, in harmony, all -earnest-minded people are! Here are you, my dear -young lady, the descendant of such a noble and -ancient house, expressing in mute and tender silence, -your sympathy with one who represents the aspirations -of the poorest of the people! This is a symbolic -moment. I cannot help saying so. A symbolic -and consecrated moment!”</p> - -<p>“We had better walk a little faster,” remarked -Miss Seldom.</p> - -<p>“We will. We will walk faster,” agreed Mr. Wone. -“But you must let me put on record what this conversation -has meant to me! It has made me more -certain, more absolutely certain than ever, that without -a deep ethical basis our great movement is doomed -to hopeless failure.”</p> - -<p>The tone in which he used the word “ethical” was -so irritating to Vennie, that she felt an insane longing -to utter some frightful blasphemy, or even indecency, -in his ears, and to rush away with a peal -of hysterical laughter.</p> - -<p>They were now at the entrance to a narrow little -alley or lane which, passing a solitary cottage and an -unfrequented spring, led by a short approach directly -into the village-square. Half way down this lane a -curious block of Leonian stone stood in the middle of -the path. What the original purpose of this stone -had been it were not easy to tell. The upper portion -of it had apparently supported a chain, but -this had long ago disappeared. At the moment when -Mr. Wone and Miss Seldom reached the lane’s entrance, -a soft little scream came from the spot where -the stone stood; and dimly, in the shadowy darkness, -two forms became visible, engaged in some obscure -struggle. The scream was repeated, followed by a -series of little gasps and whisperings.</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone glanced apprehensively in the direction -of these sounds and increased his pace. He was confounded -with amazement when he found that Vennie -had stopped as if to investigate further. The truth -is, he had reduced the girl to such a pitch of unnatural<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> -revolt that, for one moment in her life, she felt -glad that there were flagrant and lawless pleasures in -the world.</p> - -<p>Led by an unaccountable impulse she made several -steps up the lane. The figures separated as she approached, -one of them boldly advancing to meet her, -while the other retreated into the shadows. The -one who advanced, finding himself alone, turned and -called to his companion, “Annie! Where are you? -Come on, you silly girl! It’s all right.”</p> - -<p>Vennie recognized the voice of Luke Andersen. -She greeted him with hysterical gratitude. “I -thought it was you, Mr. Andersen; but you did -frighten me! I took you for a ghost. Who is that -with you?”</p> - -<p>The young stone-carver raised his hat politely. -“Only our little friend Annie,” he said. “I am escorting -her home from Yeoborough. We have been -on an errand for her mother. She’s such a baby, -you know, Miss Seldom, our little Annie. I love -teasing her.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid you love teasing a great many people, -Mr. Andersen,” said Vennie, recovering her equanimity -and beginning to feel ashamed. “Here is Mr. -Wone. No doubt, he will be anxious to talk politics -to you. Mr. Wone!” She raised her voice as the -astonished Methodist came towards them. “It is -only Mr. Andersen. You had better talk to <em>him</em> of -your plans. I am afraid I shall be late if I don’t -go on.” She slipped aside as she spoke, leaving the -two men together, and hurried off towards the -church.</p> - -<p>Luke Andersen shook hands with the Christian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> -Candidate. “How goes the campaign, the great -campaign?” he said. “I wonder you haven’t talked -to James about it. James is a hopeless idealist. -James is an admirable listener. You really ought to -talk to James. I wish you <em>would</em> talk to him; and -put a little of your shrewd common-sense into him! -He takes the populace seriously—a thing you and I -would never be such fools as to do, eh, Mr. Wone?”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid we disturbed you,” remarked the -Nonconformist, “Miss Seldom and I—I think you -had someone with you. Miss Seldom was quite interested. -We heard sounds, and she stopped.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, only Annie”—returned the young man lightly, -“only little Annie. We are old friends you know. -Don’t worry about Annie!”</p> - -<p>“It is a beautiful night, is it not?” remarked the -Methodist, peering down the lane. Luke Andersen -laughed.</p> - -<p>“Are you by any chance, Mr. Wone, interested in -astronomy? If so, perhaps you can tell me the name -of that star, over there, between Perseus and Andromeda? -No, no; that one—that greenish-coloured -one! Do you know what that is?”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t the least idea,” confessed the representative -of the People. “But I am a great admirer of -Nature. My admiration for Nature is one of the -chief motives of my life.”</p> - -<p>“I believe you,” said Luke. “It is one of my -own, too. I admire everything in it, without any -exception.”</p> - -<p>“I hope,” said Mr. Wone, reverting to the purpose -that, with Nature, shared just now his dominant -interest, “I hope you are also with us in our struggle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> -against oppression? Mr. Taxater and Miss Seldom -are certainly on our side. I sometimes feel as though -Nature herself, were on our side, especially on a -lovely night like this, full of such balmy odours.”</p> - -<p>“I am delighted to see the struggle going on,” returned -the young man, emphatically. “And I am -thoroughly glad to see a person like yourself at the -head of it.”</p> - -<p>“Then you, too, will take a part,” cried the candidate, -joyfully. “This, indeed, has been a successful -evening! I feel sure now that in Nevilton, at any -rate, the tide will flow strongly in my favour. Next -week, I have to begin a tour of the whole district. -I may not be able to return for quite a long time. -How happy I shall be to know that I leave the cause -in such good hands! The strike is the important -thing, Andersen. You and your brother must work -hard to bring about the strike. It is coming. I -know it is coming. But I want it soon. I want it -immediately.”</p> - -<p>The stone-carver nodded and hummed a tune. -He seemed to intimate with the whole air of his -elegant quiescence that the moment had arrived for -Mr. Wone’s departure.</p> - -<p>The Nonconformist felt the telepathic pressure of -this polite dismissal. He waved his arm. “Good -night, then; good night! I am afraid I must postpone -my talk with Mr. Clavering till another occasion. -Remember the strike, Andersen! That is what I -leave in your hands. Remember the strike!”</p> - -<p>The noise of Mr. Wone’s retreating steps was -still audible when Luke returned to the stone in the -middle of Splash Lane. The sky was clear now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> -and a faint whitish glimmer, shining on the worn -surface of the stone, revealed the two deep holes in -it, where the fastenings of the chain had hung. -The young man tapped the stone with his stick and -gave a low whistle. An amorphous heap of clothes, -huddled in the hedge, stirred, and emitted a reproachful -sound.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re there, are you?” he said. “What silly -nonsense is this? Get up! Let’s see your face!” -He stooped and pulled at the object. After a moment’s -struggle the flexible form of a young girl -emerged into the light. She held down her head and -appeared sulky and angry.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter, Annie?” whispered the youth -encircling her with his arms.</p> - -<p>The girl shook him away. “How could you tell -Miss Seldom who I was!” she murmured. “How -could you do it, Luke? If it had been anybody -else—but for her to know——”</p> - -<p>The stone-carver laughed. “Really, child, you are -too ridiculous! Why, on earth, shouldn’t she know, -more than anyone else?”</p> - -<p>The girl looked fiercely at him. “Because she is -good,” she said. “Because she is the only good -person in this blasted place!”</p> - -<p>The young man showed no astonishment at this -outburst. “Come on, darling,” he rejoined. “We -must be getting you home. I daresay, Miss Seldom -is all you think. It seemed to me, though, that she -was different from usual tonight. But I expect that -fool had upset her.”</p> - -<p>He let the young girl lean for a moment against -the shadowy stone while he fumbled for his cigarettes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> -and matches. He observed her make a quick movement -with her hands.</p> - -<p>“What are you up to now?” he asked.</p> - -<p>She gave a fierce little laugh. “There!” she cried. -“I have done it!”</p> - -<p>“What have you done?” he enquired, emitting a -puff of smoke, and throwing the lighted match into -the hedge.</p> - -<p>She pressed her hands against the stone and looked -up at him mischievously and triumphantly. “Look!” -she said, holding out her fingers in the darkness. He -surveyed her closely. “What is it? Have you -scratched yourself?”</p> - -<p>“Light a match and see!” she cried. He lit a -match and examined the hand she held towards him.</p> - -<p>“You have thrown away that ring!”</p> - -<p>“Not <em>thrown</em> it away, Luke; not thrown it away! -I have pressed it down into this hole. You can’t -get it out now! Nobody never can!”</p> - -<p>He held the flickering match closely against the -stone’s surface. In the narrow darkness of the -aperture she indicated, something bright glittered.</p> - -<p>“But this is really annoying of you, Annie,” said -the stone-carver. “I told you that ring was only -lent to me. She’ll be asking for it back tomorrow.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you can tell her to come here and get it!”</p> - -<p>“But this is really serious,” protested Luke, trying -in vain to reach the object with his outstretched -fingers.</p> - -<p>“And I have twisted my hair round it!” the girl -went on, in exulting excitement, “I have twisted it -tight around. It will be hard to get it off!”</p> - -<p>Luke continued making ineffectual dives into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> -hole, while she watched him gleefully. He went to -the hedge and breaking off a dusty sprig of woundwort -prodded the ring with its stalk.</p> - -<p>“You can’t do it” she cried, “you can’t do it! -You’ll only push it further in!”</p> - -<p>“Damn you, Annie!” he muttered. “This is a -horrible kind of joke. I tell you, Gladys will want -this confounded thing back tomorrow. She’s already -asked me twice for it. She only gave it to -me for fun.”</p> - -<p>The girl leaned across the stone towards him, -propping herself on the palms of her hands, and -laughing mischievously. “No one in this village -can get that ring out of there!” she cried; “no one! -And when they does, they’ll find it all twisted up -with my hair!” She tossed back her black locks -defiantly.</p> - -<p>Luke Andersen’s thoughts ran upon scissors, pincers, -willow-wands, bramble-thorns, and children’s -arms.</p> - -<p>“Leave it then!” he said. “After all, I can swear -I lost it. Come on, you little demon!”</p> - -<p>They moved away; and St. Catharine’s church -was only striking the hour of nine, when they separated -at her mother’s door.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV<br /> -<span class="smaller">MORTIMER ROMER</span></h2> - -<p>The incredibly halcyon June which had filled -the lanes and meadows of Nevilton that -summer with such golden weather, gave place -at last to July; and with July came tokens of a -change.</p> - -<p>The more slow-growing hay-fields were still strewn -with their little lines of brown mown grass waiting -its hour of “carrying,” but the larger number of -the pastures wore now that freshly verdant and yet -curiously sad look, which fields in summer wear when -they have been shorn of their first harvest. The -corn in the arable-lands was beginning to stand high; -wheat and barley varying their alternate ripening -tints, from the rich gold of the one, to the diaphanous -glaucous green, so tender and pallid, of the -other. In the hedges, rag-wort, knapweed and scabious -had completely replaced wild-rose and elder-blossom; -and in the ditches and by the margins of ponds, -loosestrife and willow-herb were beginning to bud. -Even the latest-sprouting among the trees carried -now the full heavy burden, dark and monotonous, of -the summer’s prime; and the sharp, dry intermittent -chirping of warblers, finches and buntings, had long -since replaced, in the garden-bushes, the more flute-like -cries of the earlier-nesting birds.</p> - -<p>The shadowy woods of the Nevilton valleys, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> -their thick entangled undergrowth, were less pleasant -to walk in than they had been. Tall rank growths -choked the wan remnants of the season’s first prime; -and beneath sombre, indistinguishable foliage, the -dry, hard-trodden paths lost their furtive enchantment. -Dog-mercury, that delicate child of the under-shadows, -was no more now than a gross mass of -tarnished leaves. Enchanter’s night-shade took the -place of pink-campion; only to yield, in its turn, -to viper’s bugloss and flea-bane.</p> - -<p>As the shy gods of the year’s tender birth receded -before these ranker maturings, humanity became -more prominent. Print-frocked maidens assisted the -sheep in treading the slopes of Leo’s Hill into earthy -grassless patches. Bits of dirty paper and the litter -of careless picnickers strewed the most shadowy -recesses. Smart youths flicked town-bought canes in -places where, a few weeks before, the squirrel had -gambolled undisturbed, and the wood-pecker had -deepened the magical silence by his patent labour. -Where recently, amid shadowy moss “soft as sleep,” -the delicate petals of the fragile wood-sorrel had -breathed untroubled in their enchanted aisles of -leafy twilight, one found oneself reading, upon -torn card-board boxes, highly-coloured messages to -the Human Race from energetic Tradesmen. July -had replaced June. The gods of Humanity had replaced -the gods of Nature; and the interlude between -hay-harvest and wheat-harvest had brought the -dog-star Sirius into his diurnal ascendance.</p> - -<p>The project of Lacrima’s union with Mr. John -Goring remained, so to speak, “in the air.” The -village assumed it as a certainty; Mr. Quincunx regarded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> -it as a probability; and Mr. Goring himself, -enjoying his yearly session of agreeable leisure, -meditated upon it day and night.</p> - -<p>Lacrima had fallen into a curious lassitude with -regard to the whole matter. In these July days, -especially now that the sky was overcast by clouds -and heavy rains seemed imminent, she appeared to -lose all care or interest in her own life. Her mood -followed the mood of the weather. If some desperate -deluge of disaster was brooding in the distance, she -felt tempted to cry out, “Let it fall!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx’s feelings on the subject remained a -mystery to her. He neither seemed definitely to -accept her sacrifice, nor to reject it. He did not -really—so she could not help telling herself—visualize -the horror of the thing, as it affected her, in any -substantial degree. He often made a joke of it; -and kept quoting cynical and worldly suggestions, -from the lips of Luke Andersen.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, both from Mr. Romer and -the farmer, she received quiet, persistent and inexorable -pressure; though to do the latter justice, -he made no further attempts to treat her roughly or -familiarly.</p> - -<p>She had gone so far once—in a mood of panic-stricken -aversion, following upon a conversation with -Gladys—as actually to walk to the vicarage gate, -with the definite idea of appealing to Vennie; but -it chanced that in place of Vennie she had observed -Mrs. Seldom moving among her flower-beds, and the -grave austerity of the aristocratic old lady had taken -all resolution from her and made her retrace her -steps.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span></p> - -<p>It must also be confessed that her dislike and fear -of Gladys had grown to dimensions bordering upon -monomania. The elder girl at once hypnotized and -paralyzed her. Her sensuality, her feline caprices, -her elaborately cherished hatred, reduced the Italian -to such helpless misery, that any change—even the -horror of this marriage—assumed the likeness of a -desirable relief.</p> - -<p>It is also true that by gradual degrees,—for women, -however little prone to abstract thought, are quick -to turn the theories of those they love into living -practice,—she had come to regard the mere physical -terror of this momentous plunge as a less insurmountable -barrier than she had felt at first. Without -precisely intending it, Mr. Quincunx had really, -in a measure—particularly since he himself had come -to frequent the society of Luke Andersen—achieved -what might have conventionally been called the -“corruption” of Lacrima’s mind. She found herself -on several occasions imagining what she would really -feel, if, escaped for an afternoon from her Priory -duties, she were slipping off to meet her friend in -Camel’s Cover or Badger’s Bottom.</p> - -<p>When the suggestion had been first made to her -of this monstrous marriage, it had seemed nothing -short of a sentence of death, and beyond the actual -consummation of it, she had never dreamed of -looking. But all this had now imperceptibly changed. -Many an evening as she sat with her work by Mrs. -Romer’s side, watching Gladys and her father play -cards, the thought came over her that she might -just as well enjoy the comparative independence of -having her own house and her own associations—even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> -though the price of them <em>were</em> the society of -such a lump of clay—as live this wretched half-life -without hope or aim.</p> - -<p>Other moods arrived when the thought of having -children of her own came to her with something more -than a mere sense of escape; came to her with the -enlargement of an opening horizon. She recalled the -many meandering discourses which Mr. Quincunx -had addressed to her upon this subject. They had -not affected her woman’s instincts; but they had -lodged in her mind. A girl’s children, so her friend -had often maintained, do not belong to the father -at all. The father is nothing—a mere irrelevant -incident, a mere chance. The mother alone—the -mother always—has the rights and pleasures, as -she has the responsibilities and pains of the parental -relation. She even recalled one occasion of twilight -philosophizing in the potato-bed, when Mr. Quincunx -had gone so far as to maintain the unscientific thesis -that children, born where there is no love, inherit -character, appearance, tastes, everything—from the -mother.</p> - -<p>Lacrima had a dim suspicion that some of these -less pious theories were due to the perverse Luke, -who, as the cloudier July days overcast his evening -rambles, had acquired the habit of strolling at night-fall -into Mr. Quincunx’s kitchen. Once indeed she -was certain she discerned the trail of this plausible -heathen in her friend’s words. Mr. Quincunx, with -one of his peculiarly goblin-like leers, had intimated—in -jest indeed, but with a searching look into her face -that it would be no very difficult task to deceive,—in -shrewd Panurgian roguery, this clumsy clown.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> -His words at the time had hurt and shocked her; -and her reaction from them had led to the spoiling -of a pleasant conversation; but they invaded afterwards, -more deeply than she would have cared to -confess, her hours of dreamy solitude.</p> - -<p>Her southern imagination, free from both the -grossness and the hypocrisy of the Nevilton mind, -was much readier to wander upon an antinomian -path—at least in its wayward fancies—than it -would have been, had circumstances not led her -away from her inherited faith.</p> - -<p>While the sensuality of Gladys left her absolutely -untouched, the anarchistic theories of her friend—especially -now they had been fortified and directed -by the insidious Luke—gave her intelligence many -queer and lawless topics of solitary brooding. Her -senses, her instincts, were as pure and unsophisticated -as ever; but her conscience was besieged and threatened. -It was indeed a queer rôle—this, which fate -laid upon Mr. Quincunx—the rôle of undermining -the reluctance of his own sweetheart to make a -loveless marriage—but it was one for which his -curious lack of physical passion singularly fitted -him.</p> - -<p>Had Vennie Seldom or Hugh Clavering been aware -of the condition of affairs they would have condemned -Mr. Quincunx in the most wholesale manner. -Clavering would probably have been tempted -to apply to him some of the most abusive language -in the dictionary. But it is extremely questionable -whether this judgment of theirs would have been -justified.</p> - -<p>A more enlightened planetary observer, initiated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> -into the labyrinthine hearts of men, might well have -pointed out that Mr. Quincunx’s theories were largely -a matter of pure speculation, humorously remote -from any contact with reality. He might also have -reminded these indignant ones that Mr. Quincunx -quite genuinely laboured under the illusion—if -it were an illusion—that for his friend to be mistress -of the Priory and free of her dependence on the -Romers was a thing eminently desirable, and worth -the price she paid for it. Such an invisible clairvoyant -might even have surmised, what no one in -Nevilton who knew of Mr. Romer’s offer would for -one second have believed; namely, that he would -have given her the same advice had there been no -such offer, simply on the general ground of binding -her permanently to the place.</p> - -<p>The fact, however, remained, that by adopting this -ambiguous and evasive attitude Mr. Quincunx reduced -the more heroic and romantic aspect of the -girl’s sacrifice to the lowest possible level, and flung -her into a mood of reckless and spiritless indifference. -She was brought to the point of losing all interest -in her own fate and of simply relapsing upon the -tide of events.</p> - -<p>It was precisely to this condition that Mr. Romer -had desired to bring her. When she had first attracted -him, and had fallen into his hands, there had -been certain psychological contests between them, in -which the quarry-owner had by no means emerged -victorious. It was the rankling memory of these -contests—contests spiritual rather than material—which -had issued in his gloomy hatred of her and his -longing to corrupt her mind and humiliate her soul.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> -This corruption, this humiliation had been long in -coming. It had seemed out of his own power and -out of the power of his feline daughter to bring -it about; but this felicitous plan of using the -girl’s own friend to assist her moral disintegration -appeared to have changed the issue very completely.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer, watching her from day to day, became -more and more certain that her integral soul, the inmost -fortress of her self-respect, was yielding inch -by inch. She had flung the rudder down; and was -drifting upon the tide.</p> - -<p>It might have been a matter of surprise to some -ill-judging psychologists that a Napoleonic intriguer, -of the quarry-owner’s type, should ever have entered -upon a struggle apparently so unequal and unimportant -as that for the mere integrity of a solitary -girl’s spirit. Such a judgment would display little -knowledge of the darker possibilities of human character. -Resistance is resistance, from whatever quarter -it comes; and the fragile soul of a helpless Pariah -may be just as capable of provoking the aggressive -instincts of a born master of men as the most obdurate -of commercial rivals.</p> - -<p>There are certain psychic oppositions to our will, -which, when once they have been encountered, remain -indelibly in the memory as a challenge and a -defiance, until their provocation has been wiped out -in their defeat. It matters nothing that such oppositions -should spring from weak or trifling quarters. -We have been baffled, thwarted, fooled; and we cannot -recover the feeling of identity with ourselves, -until, like a satisfied tidal wave, our will has drowned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> -completely the barricades that defied it. It matters -nothing if at the beginning, what we were thwarted -by was a mere trifle, a straw upon the wind, a -feather in the breeze. The point is that our will, in -flowing outwards, at its capricious pleasure, met -with opposition—met with resistance. We do not -really recover our self-esteem until every memory of -such an event has been obliterated by a complete -revenge.</p> - -<p>It is useless to object that a powerful ambitious -man of the Romer mould, contending Atlas-like under -a weight of enormous schemes, was not one to harbour -such long-lingering rancour against a mere Pariah. -There was more in the thing than appears on the -surface. The brains of mortal men are queer crucibles, -and the smouldering fires that heat them -are driven by capricious and wanton guests. Lacrima’s -old defeat of the owner of Leo’s Hill—a defeat -into which there is no need to descend now, for -its “terrain” was remote from our present stage—had -been a defeat upon what might be called a subliminal -or interior plane.</p> - -<p>It was almost as if he had encountered her and she -had encountered him, not only in the past of this -particular life, but a remoter past—in a past of -some pre-natal incarnation. There are—as is well-known, -many instances of this unfathomable conflict -between certain human types—types that seem -to <em>find</em> one another, that seem to be drawn to one -another, by some preordained necessity in the occult -influences of mortal fate. It matters nothing in regard -to such a conflict, that on one side should be -strength, power and position, and on the other weakness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> -and helplessness. The soul is the soul, and has -its own laws.</p> - -<p>It is a case of what a true initiate into the secrets -of our terrestrial drama might entitle Planetary -Opposition. By some hidden law of planetary opposition, -this frail child of the Apennine ridges was -destined to provoke, to an apparently quite unequal -struggle, this formidable schemer from the money-markets -of London.</p> - -<p>In these strange pre-natal attractions and repulsions -between men and women, the mere conventional -differences of rank and social importance -are as nothing and less than nothing.</p> - -<p>Vast unfathomable tides of cosmic conflict drive us -all backwards and forwards; and if under the ascendance -of Sirius in the track of the Sun, the master -of Nevilton found himself devoting more energy to -the humiliation of his daughter’s companion than to -his election to the British Parliament, one can only -remember that both of them—the strong and the -weak—were merely puppets and pawns of elemental -forces, compared with which he, as well as she, was -as the chaff before the wind.</p> - -<p>It was one of the peculiarities of this Nevilton -valley to draw to itself, as we have already -hinted, and focus strangely in itself, these airy and -elemental oppositions. To rise above the clash of -the Two Mythologies on this spot, with all their -planetary “auxiliar gods,” one would have had -to ascend incredibly high into that star-sown -space above—perhaps so high, that the whole -solar system, rushing madly through the ether -towards the constellation of Hercules, would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> -shown itself as less than a cluster of wayward fireflies. -From a height as supreme as this, the difference -between Mortimer Romer and Lacrima Traffio would -have been less than the difference between two -summer-midges transacting their affairs on the edge -of a reed in Auber Lake.</p> - -<p>Important or unimportant, however, the struggle -went on; and, as July advanced, seemed to tend -more and more to Mr. Romer’s advantage. Precisely -what he desired to happen was indeed happening—Lacrima’s -soul was disintegrating; her powers -of resistance were diminishing; and a reckless carelessness -about her personal fate was taking the place -of her old sensitive apprehensions.</p> - -<p>Another important matter went well at this time -for Mr. Romer. His daughter became formally engaged -to the wealthy American. Dangelis had been -pressing her, for many weeks, to come to some -definite decision, between himself and Lord Tintinhull’s -heir, and she had at last made up her mind and -given him her promise.</p> - -<p>The Romers were enchanted at this new development. -Mrs. Romer had always disliked the thought -of having to enter into closer relations with the -aristocracy—relations for which she was so obviously -unsuited; and Ralph Dangelis fitted in exactly with -her idea of what her son-in-law should be.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer, too, found in Dangelis just the sort of -son he had always longed for. He had quite recognized, -by this time, that the “artistic” tastes of the -American and his unusual talent interfered in no -way with the possession of a very shrewd intellectual -capacity. Dangelis had indeed all the qualities that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> -Mr. Romer most admired. He was strong. He was -clever. He was an entertaining companion. He was -at once very formidable and very good-tempered. -And he was immensely rich.</p> - -<p>It would have annoyed him to see Gladys dominate -a man of this sort with her capricious ways. -But he had not the remotest fear that she would -dominate this citizen of Ohio. Dangelis would pet her -and spoil her and deluge her with money, but keep -a firm and untroubled hand over her; and that -exactly suited Mr. Romer’s wishes. The man’s -wealth would also be an immense help to himself in -his financial undertakings. Together they would be -able to engineer colossal and world-shaking schemes.</p> - -<p>It was a satisfaction, too, to think that, when he -died, his loved quarries on Leo’s Hill and his historic -Leonian House should fall into the hands, not of these -Ilchesters and Ilminsters and Evershots—families -whose pretensions he hated and derided—but of an -honest descendant of plain business men of his own -class.</p> - -<p>It was Mrs. Romer, and not her husband, who -uttered a lament that the House after their death -should no longer be the property of one of their own -name. She proposed that Gladys’ American should be -induced to change his name. But Mr. Romer would -hear nothing of this. His system was the old imperial -Roman system, of succession by adoption. -The man who could deal with the Legions, the man -who was strong enough to suppress strikes on Leo’s -Hill, and cope successfully with such rascals as this -voluble Wone, was the man to inherit Nevilton! -Be his patronymic what you please, such a man was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> -Cæsar. Himself, a new-comer, risen from nothing, -and contemptuous of all tradition, it had constantly -been a matter of serious annoyance to him that the -wealth he had amassed should only go to swell the -pride of these fatuous landed gentry. It delighted -him to think that Gladys’ children—the future inheritors -of his labour—should be, on their father’s -side also, from new and untraditional stock. It -gave him immense satisfaction to think of disappointing -Lord Tintinhull, who no doubt had long ago -told his friends how sad it was that his son had got -entangled with that girl at Nevilton; but how nice -it was that Nevilton House should in the future -take its proper place in the county.</p> - -<p>There was one cloud on Mr. Romer’s horizon at -this moment, and that cloud was composed of vapours -spun from the brain of his parliamentary rival, the -eloquent Methodist.</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone had long been at work among the Leo’s -Hill quarry-men, encouraging them to strike. Until -the second week in July his efforts had been fruitless; -but with the change in the weather to which we have -referred, the strike came. It had already lasted -some seven or eight days, when a Saturday arrived -which had been selected, several months before, for -a great political gathering on the summit of Leo’s -Hill. This was a meeting of radicals and socialists -to further the cause of Mr. Wone’s campaign.</p> - -<p>Leo’s Hill had been, for many generations, the site -of such local gatherings. These gatherings were not -confined to political demonstrators. They were usually -attended by circus-men and other caterers to -proletarian amusement; and were often quite as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> -lively, in their accompaniments of feasting and festivity, -as any country fair.</p> - -<p>The actual speaking took place at the extreme -northern end of the hill, where there was a singular -and convenient feature, lending itself to such assemblies, -in the formation of the ground. This was the -grassy outline, still emphasizing quite distinctly its -ancient form, of the military Roman amphitheatre -attached to the camp. Locally the place was known -as “the Frying-pan”, from its marked and grotesque -resemblance to that utensil; but no base culinary -appellation, issue of Anglo-Saxon unimaginativeness, -could conceal the formidable classic moulding of -its well-known shape—the shape of the imperial -colisseum.</p> - -<p>Between the Frying-pan and the southern side -of the hill, where the bulk of the quarries were, rose -a solitary stone building. One hardly expected the -presence of such a building in such a place, for it -was a considerable-sized inn; but the suitableness of -the grassy expanses of the ancient camp for all -manner of tourist-jaunts accounted for its erection; -and doubtless it served a good purpose in softening -with interludes of refreshment the labours of the -quarry-men.</p> - -<p>It was the presence of this admirable tavern so -near the voice of the orator, that led Mr. Romer, -himself, to stroll, on that Saturday, in the direction -of his rival’s demonstration. Though the more considerable -of his quarries were at the southern end of -the hill, certain new excavations, in the success of -which he took exceptional interest, had been latterly -made in its very centre, and within a stone’s throw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span> -of the tavern-door. The great cranes, used in this -new invasion, stood out against the sky from the -highest part of the hill, and assumed, especially at -sunset, when their shape was rendered most emphatic, -the form of enormous compasses, planted -there by some gigantic architectural hand.</p> - -<p>It was in relation to these new works that Mr. -Romer, towards the close of the afternoon, found himself -advancing along the narrow path that led, between -clumps of bracken and furze-bushes, from the -most westward of his woods to the hill’s base. Mr. -Lickwit had informed him that there was talk, -among some of the more intransigent of the Yeoborough -socialists, about destroying these cranes. -Objections had been brought against them, in recent -newspaper articles, on purely æsthetic grounds. It -was said they disfigured the classic outline of the -hill, and interfered with a landmark which had been -a delight to every eye for unnumbered ages.</p> - -<p>It was hardly to be supposed that the more official -of the supporters of Mr. Wone would condone any -such outbreak. It was unlikely that Wone himself -would do so. The “Christian Candidate,” as his -Methodist friends called him, was in no way a man -of violence. But the fact that there had been this -pseudo-public criticism of the works from an unpolitical -point of view might lend colour to any sort -of scandal. There were plenty of bold spirits among -the by-streets of Yeoborough who would have loved -nothing better than to send Mr. Romer’s cranes -toppling over into a pit, and indeed it was the sort -of adventure which would draw all the more restless -portion of the meeting’s audience. The possibility<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> -was the more threatening because the presence of -this kind of general fair attracted to the hill all -manner of heterogeneous persons quite unconnected -with the locality.</p> - -<p>But what really influenced Mr. Romer in making -his own approach to the spot, was the neighbourhood -of the Half Moon. Where there was drink, he argued, -people would get drunk; and where people got drunk, -anything might happen. He had instituted Mr. -Lickwit to remain on guard at the eastern works; -and he had written to the superintendent of police -suggesting the advisability of special precautions. -But he felt nervous and ill at ease as he listened, -from his Nevilton terrace, to the distant shouts and -clamour carried to him on the west wind; and true -to his Napoleonic instincts, he proceeded, without -informing anyone of his intention, straight to the -zone of danger.</p> - -<p>The afternoon was very hot, though there was no -sun. The wind blew in threatening gusts, and the -quarry-owner noticed that the distant Quantock -Moors were overhung with a dark bank of lowering -clouds. It was one of those sinister days that have -the power of taking all colour and all interest out of -the earth’s surface. The time of the year lent itself -gloomily to this sombre unmasking. The furze-bushes -looked like dead things. Many of them had -actually been burnt in some wanton conflagration; -and their prickly branches carried warped and -blighted seeds. The bracken, near the path, had been -dragged and trodden. Here and there its stalks protruded -like thin amputated arms. The elder-bushes, -caught in the wind, showed white and metallic, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span> -if all their leaves had been dipped in some brackish -water. All the trees seemed to have something of -this dull, whitish glare, which did not prevent them -from remaining, in the recesses of their foliage, as -drearily dark as the dark dull soil beneath them. -The grass of the fields had a look congruous with the -rest of the scene; a look as if it had been one large -velvety pall, drawn over the whole valley.</p> - -<p>In the valley itself, along the edges of this grassy -hall, the tall clipped elm-trees stood like mourning -sentinels bowing towards their dead. Drifting butterflies, -principally of the species known as the -“Lesser Heath” and the “Meadow-Brown,” whirled -past his feet as he walked, in troubled and tarnished -helplessness. Here and there a weak dilapidated -currant-moth, the very epitome of surrender to circumstance, -tried in vain to arrest its enforced flight -among the swaying stalks of grey melancholy thistles, -the only living things who seemed to find the temper -of the day congenial with their own.</p> - -<p>When he reached the base of the hill, Mr. Romer -was amazed at the crowd of people which the festivity -had attracted to the place. He had heard -them passing down the roads all day from the seclusion -of his garden, and to judge by such vehicles -as he had secured a glimpse of from the entrance to -his drive, many of them must have come from miles -away. But he had never expected a crowd like this. -It seemed to cover the whole northern side of the -hill, swaying to and fro, like some great stream of -voracious maggots, in the body of a dead animal.</p> - -<p>Round the cranes, in the centre of the hill, the -crowd seemed especially thick. He made out the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> -presence there of several large caravans, and he heard -the music of a merry-go-round from that direction. -This latter sound, in its metallic and ferocious gaiety, -seemed especially adapted to the character of the -scene. It seemed like the very voice of some savage -Dionysian helot-feast, celebrated in defiance of all -constituted authority. It was such music as Caliban -would have loved.</p> - -<p>Unwilling to arouse unnecessary anger by making -his presence known, while there was no cause, Mr. -Romer left the Half Moon on his right, and crossing -the brow of the hill diagonally, by a winding path -that encircled the grassy hollows of innumerable -ancient quarries, arrived at the foot of an immense -circular tumulus which dominated the whole scene. -This indeed was the highest point of Leo’s Hill, and -from its summit one looked far away towards the -Bristol Channel in one direction, and far away -towards the English Channel in another. It was, as -it were, the very navel and pivot of that historic -region. From this spot one obtained a sort of birds-eye -view of the whole surface of Leo’s Hill.</p> - -<p>Here Mr. Romer found himself quite alone, and -from here, with hands clasped behind him, he surveyed -the scene with a grave satiric smile. He could -see his new works with the immense cranes reaching -into the sky above them. He could see the swaying -crowd round the amphitheatre at the extreme corner -of the promontory; and he could see, embosomed in -trees to the left of Nevilton’s Mount, a portion of -his own Elizabethan dwelling.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer felt strong and confident as he looked -down on all these things. He always seemed to renew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span> -the forces of his being when he visited this grass-covered -repository of his wealth and influence. Leo’s -Hill suited his temper, and he felt as though he suited -the temper of Leo’s Hill. Between the man who -exploited the stone, and the great reservoir of the -stone he exploited, there seemed an illimitable affinity.</p> - -<p>He looked down with grim and humorous contempt -at the noisy crowd thus invading his sacred domain. -They might harangue their hearts out,—those besotted -sentimentalists,—he could well afford to let -them talk! They might howl and dance and feast -and drink, till they were as dazed as Comus’ rabble,—he -could afford to let them shout! Probably Mr. -Wone, the “Christian Candidate,” was even at that -moment, making his great final appeal for election -at the hands of the noble, the free, the enlightened -constituency of Mid-Wessex.</p> - -<p>Romer felt an immense wave of contempt surge -through his veins for this stream of fatuous humanity -as it swarmed before his eyes like an army of disturbed -ants. How little their anger or their affection -mattered to him—or mattered to the world at large! -He would have liked to have seized in his hands -some vast celestial torch and suffocated them all -in its smoke, as one would choke out a wasp’s nest. -Their miserable little pains and pleasures were not -worth the trouble Nature had taken in giving them -the gift of life. Dead or alive—happy or unhappy—they -were not deserving of any more consideration -than a cloud of gnats that one brushed away from -one’s face.</p> - -<p>The master of Leo’s Hill drew a deep breath and -listened to the screams of the merry-go-round.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> -Something in the strident machine made him think -of hymn-singing and mob-religion. This Religion of -Sentiment and Self-Pity with which they cloak their -weakness and their petty rancour—what is it, he -thought, but an excuse of escaping from the necessity -of being strong and fearless and hard and formidable? -It is easier—so much easier—to draw back, and -go aside, and deal in paltry subterfuges and sneaking -jealousies, veneered over with hypocritical unction, -than to strike out and pursue one’s own way drastically -and boldly.</p> - -<p>He folded his arms and frowned. What is it, he -muttered to himself, this hidden Force, this Power, -this God, to which they raise their vague appeals -against the proud, clear, actual domination of natural -law and unscrupulous strength? Is there really some -other element in the world, some other fact, from -which they can draw support and encouragement? -There cannot be! He looked at the lowering sky -above him, and at the grey thistles and little patches -of thyme under his feet. All was solid, real, unyielding. -There was no gap, no open door, in the stark -surface of things, through which such a mystery might -enter.</p> - -<p>He found himself vaguely wondering whose grave -this had originally been, this great flat tumulus, upon -which he stood and hated the mob of men. There -was a burnt circle in the centre of it, with blackened -cinders. The place had been used for some recent -national rejoicing, and they had raised a bonfire -here. He supposed that there must have been a -much more tremendous bonfire in the days when—perhaps -before the Romans—this mound was raised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span> -to celebrate some savage chieftain. He wondered -whether, in his life-time, this long-buried, long-forgotten -one had stood, even as he stood now, and -cried aloud to the Earth and the Sky in sick loathing -of his wretched fellow-animals.</p> - -<p>He humorously speculated whether this man also, -this ancient challenger of popular futility, had been -driven to strange excesses by the provocative resistance -of some feeble girl, making her mute appeals to -the suppressed conscience in him, and calling in the -help of tender compassionate gods? Had they softened -this buried chieftain’s heart, these gods of -slavish souls and weak wills, before he went down -into darkness? Or had he defied them to the last -and died lonely, implacable, contemptuous?</p> - -<p>The quarry-owner’s ears began to grow irritated -at last by these raucous metallic sounds and by the -laughter and the shouting. It was so precisely as if -this foolish crowd were celebrating, in drunken ecstasy, -a victory won over him, and over all that was clear-edged, -self-possessed, and effectual, in this confused -world. He struck off the heads of some of the grey -thistles with his cane, and wished they had been the -heads of the Christian Candidate and his oratorical -associates.</p> - -<p>Presently his attention was excited by a tremendous -hubbub at the northern extremity of the hill. The -crowd seemed to have gone mad. They cheered -again and again, and seemed vociferating some popular -air or some marching-song. He could almost -catch the words of this. The curious thing was that -he could not help in his heart dallying with the strange -wish that in place of being the man at the top, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span> -had been one of these men at the bottom. How differently -he would have conducted the affair. He knew, -from his dealings with the country families, how -deep this revolutionary rage with established tradition -could sink. He sympathized with it himself. -He would have loved to have flung the whole sleek -structure of society into disorder, and to have shaken -these feeble rulers out of their snug seats. But this -Wone had not the spirit of a wood-louse! Had he—Romer—been -at this moment the arch-revolutionary, -in place of the arch-tyrant, what a difference -in method and result! Did they think, these idiots, -that eloquent words and appeals to Justice and -Charity would change the orbits of the planets?</p> - -<p>He strode impatiently to the edge of the tumulus. -Yes, there was certainly something unusual going -forward. The crowd was swaying outwards, was -scattering and wavering. Men were running to and -fro, tossing their hats in the air and shouting. At -last there really was a definite event. The whole -mass of the crowd seemed to be seized simultaneously -with a single impulse. It began to move. It began -to move in the direction of his new quarries. The -thrill of battle seized the heart of the master of -Nevilton with an exultant glow. So they were really -going to attempt something—the incapable sheep! -This was the sort of situation he had long cried out -for. To have an excuse to meet them, face to face, -in a genuine insurrection, this was worthier of a -man’s energy than quarrelling with wretched Social -Meetings.</p> - -<p>He ran down the side of the tumulus and hastened -to meet the approaching mob. By leaving the path<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> -and skirting the edge of several disused quarries he -should, he thought, easily be able to reach his new -works long before they did. The tall cranes served -as a guide. To his astonishment he found, on approaching -his objective, that the mob had swerved, -and were now streaming forward in a long wavering -line, between the Half Moon tavern and the lower -slopes, towards the southern end of the hill.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” he muttered under his breath, “this is more -serious! They are going to attack the offices.”</p> - -<p>By this time, the bulk of the crowd had got so far -that it would have been impossible for him to intercept -or anticipate them.</p> - -<p>Among the more cautious sight-seers who, mixed -with women and children, were trailing slowly in the -rear, he was quite certain he made out the figures of -Wone and his fellow-politicians. “Just like him,” he -thought. “He has stirred them up with his speeches -and now he is hiding behind them! I expect he will -be sneaking off home presently.” The figure he supposed -to be that of the Christian Candidate did, -as a matter of fact, shortly after this, detach himself -from the rest of his group and retire quietly and -discreetly towards the path leading to Nevilton.</p> - -<p>Romer retraced his steps as rapidly as he could. -He repassed the tumulus, crossed a somewhat precipitous -bank between two quarries, and emerged -upon the road that skirts the western brow of the -hill. This road he followed at an impetuous pace, -listening, as he advanced, for any sound of destruction -and violence. When he arrived at the open -level between the two largest of his quarries he found -himself at the edge of a surging and howling mob.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span> -He could see over their heads the low slate roofs of -his works, and he could see that someone, mounted -on a large slab of stone, was haranguing the people -near him, but more than this it was impossible to -make out and it was extremely difficult to get any -closer. The persons on the outskirts of the crowd -were evidently strangers, and with no interest in -the affair at all beyond excited curiosity, for he heard -them asking one another the most vague and confused -questions.</p> - -<p>Presently he observed the figure of a policeman -rise behind the man upon the stone and jerk him to -the ground. This was followed by a bewildering -uproar. Clenched hands were raised in the air, and -wild cries were audible. He fancied he caught the -sound of the syllable “fire.”</p> - -<p>Romer was seized with a mad lust of contest. He -struggled desperately to force his way through to -the front, but the entangled mass of agitated, perspiring -people proved an impassable barrier.</p> - -<p>He began hastily summing up in his mind what -kind of destruction they could achieve that would -cause him any serious annoyance. He remembered -with relief that all the more delicate pieces of carved -work were down at Nevilton Station. They could -do little damage to solid blocks of stone, which were -all they would find inside those wooden sheds. They -might injure the machinery and the more fragile -of the tools, but they could hardly do even that, -unless they were aided by some of his own men. He -wondered if his own men—the men on strike—were -among them, or if the rioters were only roughs -from Yeoborough. Let them burn the sheds down!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span> -He did not value the sheds. They could be replaced -tomorrow. Their utmost worth was hardly the price -of a dozen bottles of champagne. It gave him a -thrill of grim satisfaction to think of the ineffectualness -of this horde of gesticulating two-legged creatures, -making vain assaults upon slabs of impervious rock. -Man against Stone! It was a pleasant and symbolic -struggle. And it could only have one issue.</p> - -<p>Finding it impossible to move forward, and not -caring to be observed by anyone who knew him -hemmed in in this ridiculous manner among staring -females and jocose youths, Romer edged himself -backwards, and, hot and breathless, got clear of the -crowd.</p> - -<p>The physical exhaustion of this effort—for only -a man of considerable strength could have advanced -an inch through such a dense mass—had materially -diminished his thirst for a personal encounter. He -smiled to himself to think how humorous it would -be if he could, even now, overtake the escaping Mr. -Wone, and offer his rival restorative refreshment, in -the cool shades of his garden! For the prime originals -of this absurd riot to be drinking claret-cup upon a -grassy lawn, while the misled and deluded populace -were battering their heads against the stony heart -of Leo’s Hill, struck Mr. Romer as a curiously suitable -climax to the days’ entertainment. Hardly -thinking of what he did, he clambered up the side of -a steep bank, where a group of children were playing, -and looked across the valley. Surely that solitary -black figure retreating so furtively, so innocently, -along the path towards the wood, could be no one -but the Christian Candidate!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mr. Romer burst out laughing. The discreet fugitive -looked so absurdly characteristic in his shuffling -retirement, that he felt for the moment as if the -whole incident were a colossal musical-comedy farce. -A puff of smoke above the heads of the crowd, and -a smell of burning, made him serious again. “Damn -them!” he muttered. “They shall not get off without -anything being done.”</p> - -<p>From his present position he was able to discern -how he could get round to the sheds. On their -remoter side he saw that the crowd had considerably -thinned away. He made out the figures of some -policemen there, bending, it appeared, over something -upon the ground.</p> - -<p>It did not take him long to descend from his post, -to skirt the western side of the quarries, and to -reach the spot. He found that the object upon the -ground was no other than his manager Lickwit, -gasping and pallid, with a streak of blood running -down his face. From the policemen he learnt that -an entrance had been forced into the sheds, and the -more violent of the rioters—the ones who had laid -Mr. Lickwit low—were now regaling themselves in -that shelter upon the contents of a barrel of cider, -whose hiding-place someone had unearthed. The fire -was already trampled upon and extinguished. He -learnt further that a messenger had been sent to -summon more police to the spot, and that it was to -be hoped that the revellers within the shed would -continue their opportune tippling until their arrival. -This, however, was not what fate intended. Reeling -and shouting, the half-a-dozen joyous Calibans -emerged from their retreat and proceeded to address<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span> -the people, all vociferating at the same time, and each -interrupting the other. The more official and respectable -among the politicians had either retired -altogether from the scene or were cautiously watching -it, from the safe obscurity of the general crowd, and -the situation around the stone-works was completely -in the hands of the rioters.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer, having done what he could for the -comfort of his manager, who was really more frightened -than hurt, turned fiercely upon the aggressors. -He commanded the two remaining policemen—the -third was helping Lickwit from the scene—to arrest -on the spot these turbulent ruffians, who were now -engaged in laying level with the ground a tool-shed -adjoining the one they had entered. They were -striking at the corner-beams of this erection with -picks and crow-bars. Others among the crowd, pushing -their less courageous neighbours forward, began -throwing stones at the policemen, uttering, as they -did so, yells and threats and abusive insults.</p> - -<p>The mass of the people behind, hearing these -yells, and yielding to a steady pressure from the -rear, where more and more inquisitive persons kept -arriving, began to sway ominously onward, crowding -more and more thickly around the open space, where -Mr. Romer stood, angrily regarding them.</p> - -<p>The policemen kept looking anxiously towards the -Half Moon where the road across the hill terminated. -They were evidently very nervous and extremely desirous -of the arrival of re-enforcements. No re-enforcements -coming, however, and the destruction -of property continuing, they were forced to act; and -drawing their staves, they made a determined rush<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span> -upon the men attacking the shed. Had these persons -not been already half-drunk, the emissaries of the -law would have come off badly. As it was, they -only succeeded in flinging the rioters back a few -paces. The whole crowd moved forward and a volley -of stones and sticks compelled the officials to retreat. -In their retreat they endeavoured to carry Mr. Romer -with them, assuring him, in hurried gasps, that his -life itself was in danger. “They’ll knock your head -off, sir—the scoundrels! Phil Wone has seen you.”</p> - -<p>The pale son of Mr. Wone had indeed pushed his -way to the front. He at once began an impassioned -oration.</p> - -<p>“There he is—the devil himself!” he shouted, -panting with excitement. “Do for him, friends! -Throw him into one of his own pits—the bloodsucker, -the assassin, the murderer of the people!”</p> - -<p>Wild memories of historic passages rushed through -the young anarchist’s brain. He waved his arms -savagely, goading on his companions. His face was -livid. Mr. Romer moved towards him, his head -thrown back and a contemptuous smile upon his -face.</p> - -<p>The drunken ring leaders, recognizing their hereditary -terror—the local magistrate—reeled backwards -in sudden panic. Others in the front line of the -crowd, knowing Mr. Romer by sight, stood stock still -and gaped foolishly or tried to shuffle off unobserved. -A few strangers who were there, perceiving the presence -of a formidable-looking gentleman, assumed at -once that he was Lord Tintinhull or the Earl of -Glastonbury and made frantic efforts to escape. The -crowd at the back, conscious that a reverse movement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> -had begun, became alarmed. Cries were raised -that the “military” had come. “They are going to -fire!” shouted one voice, and several women screamed.</p> - -<p>Philip Wone lifted up his voice again, pointing -with outstretched arm at his enemy, and calling upon -the crowd to advance.</p> - -<p>“The serpent!—the devil-fish!—the bread-stealer!—the -money-eater!” he yelled. “Cast him into his -own pit, bury him in his own quarries!”</p> - -<p>It was perhaps fortunate for Mr. Romer at that -moment that his adversary was this honest youth -in place of a more hypocritical leader. An English -crowd, even though sprinkled with a leaven of angry -strikers, only grows puzzled and bewildered when -it hears its enemy referred to as “devil-fish” and -“assassin.”</p> - -<p>The enemy at this moment took full advantage of -their bewilderment. He deliberately drew out his -cigarette-case and lighting a cigarette, made a gesture -as if driving back a flock of sheep. The crowd -showed further signs of panic. But the young anarchist -was not to be silenced.</p> - -<p>“Look round you, friends,” he shouted. “Here is -this man defying you on the very spot where you -work for him day and night, where your descendants -will work for his descendants day and night! What -are you afraid of? This man did not make this hill -bring forth stone, though it is stone, instead of bread, -that he would willingly give your children!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer gave a sign to the policemen and approached -a step nearer. The cider-drinkers had -already moved off. The crowd began to melt -away.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span></p> - -<p>“The very earth,” went on the young man, “cries -aloud to you to put an end to this tyranny! Do you -realize that this is the actual place where in one grand -revolt the men of Mid Wessex rose against the—”</p> - -<p>He was interrupted by a man behind him—a -poacher from an outlying hamlet. “Chuck it, Phil -Wone! Us knows all about this ’ere job.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer raised his hand. The policemen seized -the young man by the arms, one on either side. He -seemed hardly to notice them, and went on in a loud -resonant voice that rang across the valley.</p> - -<p>“It will end! It will end, this evil day! Already -the new age is beginning. These robbers of the people -had better make haste with their plundering, for the -hour is approaching! Where is your priest?”—he -struggled violently with his captors, turning towards -the rapidly retreating crowd, “where is your vicar,—your -curer of souls? He talks to you of submission, -and love, and obedience, and duty. What does -this man care for these things? It is under this -talk of “love” that you are betrayed! It is under -this talk of “duty,” that your children have the -bread taken from their mouths! But the hour will -come;—yes, you may smile,” he addressed himself -directly to Mr. Romer now, “but you will not smile -for long. <em>Your</em> fate is already written down! It is -as sure as this rain,—as sure as this storm!”</p> - -<p>He was silent, and making no further resistance, -let himself be carried off by the two officials.</p> - -<p>The rain he spoke of was indeed beginning. Heavy -drops, precursors of what seemed likely to be a -tropical deluge, fell upon the broken wood-work, upon -the half-burnt bracken, upon the slabs of Leonian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span> -stone, and upon the trampled grass. They also fell -upon Mr. Romer’s silver match-box as he selected -another cigarette of his favourite brand, and walked -slowly and smilingly away in the direction of Nevilton.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI<br /> -<span class="smaller">HULLAWAY</span></h2> - -<p>“I see,” said Luke Andersen to his brother, as they -sat at breakfast in the station-master’s kitchen, -about a fortnight after the riot on Leo’s Hill, -“I see that Romer has withdrawn his charge against -young Wone. It seems that the magistrates set him -free yesterday, on Romer’s own responsibility. So -the case will not come up at all. What do you make -of that?”</p> - -<p>“He is a wiser man than I imagined,” said James.</p> - -<p>“And that’s not all!” cried his brother blowing the -cigarette ashes from the open paper in front of him. -“It appears the strike is in a good way of being -settled by those damned delegates. We were idiots -to trust them. I knew it. I told the men so. But -they are all such hopeless fools. No doubt Romer -has found some way of getting round them! The -talk is now of arbitration, and a commissioner from -the government. You mark my words, Daddy Jim, -we shall be back working again by Monday.”</p> - -<p>“But we shall get the chief thing we wanted, after -all—if Lickwit is removed,” said James, rising from -the table and going to the window, “I know I shall -be quite satisfied myself, if I don’t see that rascal’s -face any more.”</p> - -<p>“The poor wretch has collapsed altogether, so they -said down at the inn last night,” Luke put in. “My<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span> -belief is that Romer has now staked everything on -getting into Parliament and is ready to do anything -to propitiate the neighbourhood. If that’s his line, -he’ll succeed. He’ll out-manœuvre our friend Wone -at every step. When a man of his type once tries -the conciliatory game be becomes irresistible. That -is what these stupid employers so rarely realize. No -doubt that’s his policy in stopping the process -against Philip. He’s a shrewd fellow this Romer—and -I shouldn’t wonder if, when the strike is settled, -he became the most popular landlord in the country. -Wone did for himself by sneaking off home that day, -when things looked threatening. They were talking -about that in Yeoborough. I shouldn’t be surprised -if it didn’t lose him the election.”</p> - -<p>“I hope not,” said James Andersen gazing out of -the window at the gathering clouds. “I should be -sorry to see that happen.”</p> - -<p>“I should be damned glad!” cried his brother, -pushing back his chair and luxuriously sipping his -final cup of tea. “My sympathies are all with Romer -in this business. He has acted magnanimously. -He has acted shrewdly. I would sooner, any day, -be under the control of a man like him, than see a -sentimental charlatan like Wone get into Parliament.”</p> - -<p>“You are unfair, my friend,” said the elder brother, -opening the lower sash of the window and letting in -such a draught of rainy wind that he was immediately -compelled to re-close it, “you are thoroughly unfair. -Wone is not in the least a charlatan. He believes -every word he says, and he says a great many things -that are profoundly true. I cannot see,” he went on, -turning round and confronting his equable relative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> -with a perturbed and troubled face, “why you have -got your knife into Wone in this extreme manner. -Of course he is conceited and long-winded, but the -man is genuinely sincere. I call him rather a pathetic -figure.”</p> - -<p>“He looked pathetic enough when he sneaked off -after that riot, leaving Philip in the hands of the -police.”</p> - -<p>“It annoys me the way you speak,” returned the -elder brother, in growing irritation. “What right -have you to call the one man’s discretion cowardice, -and the other’s wise diplomacy? I don’t see that it -was any more cowardice for Wone to protest against -a riot, than for Romer to back down before public -opinion as he seems now to have done. Besides, -who can blame a fellow for wanting to avoid a scene -like that? I know <em>you</em> wouldn’t have cared to encounter -those Yeoborough roughs.”</p> - -<p>“Old Romer encountered them,” retorted Luke. -“They say he smoked a cigarette in their faces, and -just waved them away, as if they were a cloud of -gnats. I love a man who can do that sort of thing!”</p> - -<p>“That’s right!” cried the elder brother growing -thoroughly angry. “That’s the true Yellow Press -attitude! Here we have one of your ‘still, strong -men,’ afraid of no mob on earth! I know them—these -strong men! It’s easy enough to be calm and -strong when you have a banking-account like Romer’s, -and all the police in the county on your side!”</p> - -<p>“Brother Lickwit will not forget that afternoon,” -remarked Luke, taking a rose from a vase on the -table and putting it into his button-hole.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Lickwit is the scape-goat,” rejoined the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> -other. “Lickwit will have to leave the place, broken -in his nerves, and ruined in his reputation, while -his master gets universal praise for magnanimity -and generosity! That is the ancient trick of these -crafty oppressors.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you use such grand words, Daddy Jim?” -said Luke smiling and stretching out his legs. “It’s -all nonsense, this talk about oppressors and oppressed. -The world only contains two sorts of people—the -capable ones and the incapable ones. I am all on the -side of the capable ones!”</p> - -<p>“I suppose that is why you are treating little -Annie Bristow so abominably!” cried James, losing -all command of his temper.</p> - -<p>Luke made an indescribable grimace which converted -his countenance in a moment from that of -a gentle faun to that of an ugly Satyr.</p> - -<p>“Ho! ho!” he exclaimed, “so we are on that tack -are we? And please tell me, most virtuous moralist, -why I am any worse in my attitude to Annie, than -you in your attitude to Ninsy? It seems to me we -are in the same box over these little jobs.”</p> - -<p>“Damn you!” cried James Andersen, walking -fiercely up to his brother and trembling with rage.</p> - -<p>But Luke sipped his tea with perfect equanimity.</p> - -<p>“It’s no good damning me,” he said quietly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span> -“That will not alter the situation. The fact remains, -that both of us have found our little village-girls -rather a nuisance. I don’t blame you. I don’t -blame myself. These things are inevitable. They are -part of the system of the universe. Little girls have -to learn—as the world moves round—that they -can’t have everything they want. I don’t know -whether you intend to marry Ninsy? I haven’t the -slightest intention of marrying Annie.”</p> - -<p>“But you’ve been making love to her for the last -two months! You told me so yourself when we met -her at Hullaway!”</p> - -<p>“And you weren’t so very severe then, were you, -Daddy Jim? It’s only because I have annoyed you -this morning that you bring all this up. As a matter -of fact, Annie is far less mad about me than Ninsy -is about you. She’s already flirting with Bob Granger. -Anyone can see she’s perfectly happy. She’s been -happy ever since she made a fool of me over Gladys’ -ring. As long as a girl knows she’s put you in a -ridiculous position, she’ll very soon console herself. -No doubt she’ll make Granger marry her before the -summer’s over. Ninsy is quite a different person. -Annie and I take our little affair in precisely the same -spirit. I am no more to blame than she is. But -Ninsy’s case is different. Ninsy is seriously and -desperately in love with you. And her invalid state -makes the situation a much more embarrassing one. -I think my position is infinitely less complicated than -yours, brother Jim!”</p> - -<p>James Andersen’s face became convulsed with -fury. He stretched out his arm towards his brother, -and extended a threatening fore-finger.</p> - -<p>“Young man,” he cried, “I will <em>never</em> forgive you -for this!”</p> - -<p>Having uttered these words he rushed incontinently -out of the room, and, bare-headed as he was, proceeded -to stride across the fields, in a direction opposite -from that which led to Nevilton.</p> - -<p>The younger brother shrugged his shoulders,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span> -drained his tea-cup, and meditatively lit another -cigarette. The stone-works being closed, he had all -the day before him in which to consider this unfortunate -rupture. At the present moment, however, -all he did was to call their landlady—the station-master’s -buxom wife—and affably help her in the -removal and washing up of the breakfast things.</p> - -<p>Luke was an adept in all household matters. His -supple fingers and light feminine movements were -equal to almost any task, and while occupied in such -things his gay and humorous conversation made any -companion of his labour an enviable person. Mrs. -Round, their landlady, adored him. There was -nothing she would not have done at his request; and -Lizzie, Betty, and Polly, her three little daughters, -loved him more than they loved their own father. -Having concerned himself for more than an hour with -these agreeable people, Luke took his hat and stick, -and strolling lazily along the railroad-line railings, -surveyed with inquisitive interest the motley group -of persons who were waiting, on the further side, -for the approach of a train.</p> - -<p>A little apart from the rest, seated on a bench -beside a large empty basket, he observed the redoubtable -Mrs. Fringe. Between this lady and himself -there had existed for the last two years a sort -of conspiracy of gossip. Like many other middle-aged -women in Nevilton, Mrs. Fringe had made a -pet and confidant of this attractive young man, who -played, in spite of his mixed birth, a part almost -analogous to that of an affable and ingratiating -cadet of some noble family.</p> - -<p>He passed through the turn-stile, crossed the track,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> -and advanced slowly up the platform. His plump -Gossip, observing him afar off, rose and moved to -meet him, her basket swinging in her hand and a -radiant smile upon her face. It was like an encounter -between some Pantagruelian courtier and some colossal -Gargamelle. They stood together, in the wind, -at the extreme edge of the platform. Luke, who -was dressed so well that it would have been impossible -to distinguish him from any golden youth -from Oxford or Cambridge, whispered shameless -scandal into the lady’s ears, from beneath the shadow -of his panama-hat. She on her side was equally -confidential.</p> - -<p>“There was a pretty scene down our way last -night,” she said. “Miss Seldom came in with some -books for my young Reverend and, Lord! they did -have an ado. I heard ’un shouting at one another -as though them were rampin’ mad. My master ’ee -were hollerin’ Holy Scripture like as he were dazed, -and the young lady she were answerin’ ’im with God -knows what. From all I could gather of it, that girl -had got some devil’s tale on Miss Gladys. ’Tweren’t -as though she did actually name her by name, as you -might say, but she pulled her hair and scratched her -like any crazy cat, sideways-like and cross-wise. It -seems she’d got hold of some story about that foreign -young woman and Miss Gladys having her knife into -’er, but I saw well enough what was at the bottom -of it and I won’t conceal it from ’ee, my dear. She -do want ’im for herself. That’s the long and short. -She do want ’im for herself!”</p> - -<p>“What were they disputing about?” asked Luke -eagerly. “Did you hear their words?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span></p> - -<p>“’Tis no good arstin’ me about their words,” -replied Mrs. Fringe. “Those long-windy dilly-dallies -do sound to me no more than the burbering of blowflies. -God save us from such words! I’m not a -reading woman and I don’t care who knows it. But -I know when a wench is moon-daft on a fellow. I -knows that, my dear, and I knows when she’s got a -tale on another girl!”</p> - -<p>“Did she talk about Catholicism to him?” enquired -Luke.</p> - -<p>“I won’t say as she didn’t bring something of that -sort in,” replied his friend. “But ’twas Miss Gladys -wot worried ’er. Any fool could see that. ’Tis my -experience that when a girl and a fellow get hot on -any of these dilly-dally argimints, there’s always -some other maid biding round the corner.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve just had a row with James,” remarked the -stone-carver. “He’s gone off in a fury over towards -Hullaway.”</p> - -<p>Mrs Fringe put down her basket and glanced up -and down the platform. Then she laid her hand on -the young man’s arm.</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t say what I do now say, to anyone, but -thee own self, dearie. And I wouldn’t say it to thee -if it hadn’t been worriting me for some merciful long -while. And what’s more I wouldn’t say it, if I didn’t -know what you and your Jim are to one another. -‘More than brothers,’ is what the whole village do -say of ye!”</p> - -<p>“Go on—go on—Mrs. Fringe!” cried Luke. -“That curst signal’s down, and I can hear the train.”</p> - -<p>“There be other trains than wot run on them -irons,” pronounced Mrs. Fringe sententiously, “and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span> -if you aren’t careful, one such God Almighty’s train -will run over that brother of yours, sooner or later.”</p> - -<p>Luke looked apprehensively up the long converging -steel track. The gloom of the day and the ominous -tone of his old gossip affected him very unpleasantly. -He began to wish that there was not a deep muddy -pond under the Hullaway elms.</p> - -<p>“What on earth do you mean?” he cried, adding -impatiently, “Oh damn that train!” as a cloud of -smoke made itself visible in the distance.</p> - -<p>“Only this, dearie,” said the woman picking up -her basket, “only this. If you listen to me you’d -sooner dig your own grave than have words with -brother. Brother be not one wot can stand these -fimble-fambles same as you and I. I know wot I -do say, cos I was privileged, under Almighty God, -to see the end of your dear mother.”</p> - -<p>“I know—I know—” cried the young man, “but -what do you mean?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fringe thrust her arm through the handle of -her basket and turned to meet the incoming train.</p> - -<p>“’Twas when I lived with my dear husband down -at Willow-Grove,” she said. “’Twas a stone’s throw -there from where you and Jim were born. I always -feared he would go, same as she went, sooner or later. -He talks like her. He looks like her. He treats a -person in the way she treated a person, poor moon-struck -darling! ’Twas all along of your father. She -couldn’t bide him along-side of her in the last days. -And he knew it as well as you and I know it. But -do ’ee think it made any difference to him? Not a -bit, dearie! Not one little bit!”</p> - -<p>The train had now stopped, and with various<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span> -humorous observations, addressed to porters and -passengers indiscriminately, Mrs. Fringe took her -place in a carriage.</p> - -<p>Heedless of being overheard, Luke addressed her -through the window of the compartment. “But -what about James? What were you saying about -James?”</p> - -<p>“’Tis too long a tale to tell ’ee, dearie,” murmured -the woman breathlessly. “There be need now of all -my blessed wits to do business for the Reverend. -There, look at that!” She waved at him a crumpled -piece of paper. “Beyond all thinking I’ve got to -fetch him books from Slitly’s. Books, by the Lord! -As if he hadn’t too many of the darned things for his -poor brain already!”</p> - -<p>The engine emitted a portentous puff of smoke, and -the train began to move. Luke walked by the side -of his friend’s window, his hand on the sash.</p> - -<p>“You think it is inadvisable to thwart my brother, -then,” he said, “in any way at all. You think I -must humour him. You are afraid if I don’t—” -His walk was of necessity quickened into a run.</p> - -<p>“It’s a long story, dearie, a long story. But I had -the privilege under God Almighty of knowing your -blessed mother when she was called, and I tell you it -makes my heart ache to see James going along the -same road as—”</p> - -<p>Her voice was extinguished by the noise of wheels -and steam. Luke, exhausted, was compelled to relax -his hold. The rest of the carriages passed him with -accumulated speed and he watched the train disappear. -In his excitement he had advanced far beyond -the limits of the platform. He found himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> -standing in a clump of yellow rag-wort, just behind -his own stone-cutter’s shed.</p> - -<p>He gazed up the track, along which the tantalizing -lady had been so inexorably snatched away. The -rails had a dull whitish glitter but their look was -bleak and grim. They suggested, in their narrow -merciless perspective, cutting the pastures in twain, -the presence of some remorseless mechanical Will -carving its purpose, blindly and pitilessly, out of -the innocent waywardness of thoughtless living -things.</p> - -<p>An immense and indefinable foreboding passed, -like the insertion of a cold, dead finger, through the -heart of the young man. Fantastic and terrible -images pursued one another through his agitated -brain. He saw his brother lying submerged in -Hullaway Pond, while a group of frightened children -stood, in white pinafores, stared at him with -gaping mouths. He saw himself arriving upon this -scene. He even went so far as to repeat to himself -the sort of cry that such a sight might naturally -draw from his lips, his insatiable dramatic sense -making use, in this way, of his very panic, to project -its irrepressible puppet-show. His brother’s words, -“Young man, I will never forgive you for this,” -rose luridly before him. He saw them written along -the edge of a certain dark cloud which hung threateningly -over the Hullaway horizon. He felt precisely -what he would feel when he saw them—luminously -phosphorescent—in the indescribable mud and greenish -weeds that surrounded his brother’s dead face. -A sickening sense of loss and emptiness went shivering -through him. He felt as though nothing in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span> -world was of the least importance except the life of -James Andersen.</p> - -<p>With hurried steps he recrossed the line, repassed -the turn-stile, and began following the direction -taken by his brother just two hours before. Never -had the road to Hullaway seemed so long!</p> - -<p>Half-way there, where the road took a devious -turn, he left it, and entering the fields again, followed -a vaguely outlined foot-path. This also betraying -him, or seeming to betray him, by its departure -from the straight route, he began crossing the meadows -with feverish directness, climbing over hedges and -ditches with the desperate preoccupation of one -pursued by invisible pursuers. The expression upon -his face, as he hurried forward in this manner, was -the expression of a man who has everything he values -at stake. A casual acquaintance would never have -supposed that the equable countenance of Luke Andersen -had the power to look so haggard, so drawn, -so troubled. He struck the road again less than -half a mile from his destination. Why he was so -certain that Hullaway was the spot he sought, he -could hardly have explained. It was, however, one -of his own favourite walks on rainless evenings and -Sunday afternoons, and quite recently he had several -times persuaded his brother to accompany him. He -himself was wont to haunt the place and its surroundings, -because of the fact that, about a mile to -the west of it, there stood an isolated glove-factory -to which certain of the Nevilton girls were accustomed -to make their way across the field-paths.</p> - -<p>Hullaway village was a very small place, considerably -more remote from the world than Nevilton, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span> -attainable only by narrow lanes. The centre of it -was the great muddy stagnant pond which now so -dominated Luke’s alarmed imagination. Near the -pond was a group of elms, of immense antiquity,—many -of them mere stumps of trees,—but all of -them possessed of wide-spreading prominent roots, -and deeply indented hollow trunks worn as smooth -as ancient household furniture, by the constant -fumbling and scrambling of generations of Hullaway -children.</p> - -<p>The only other objects of interest in the place, were -a small, unobtrusive church, built, like everything -else in the neighborhood, of Leonian stone, and an -ancient farm-house surrounded by a high manorial -wall. Beneath one of the Hullaway Elms stood an -interesting relic of a ruder age, in the shape of some -well-worn stocks, now as pleasant a seat for rural -gossips as they were formerly an unpleasant pillory -for rural malefactors.</p> - -<p>As Luke Andersen approached this familiar spot he -observed with a certain vague irritation the well-known -figure of one of his most recent Nevilton -enchantresses. The girl was no other, in fact, than -that shy companion of Annie Bristow who had been -amusing herself with them in the Fountain Square -on the occasion of Mr. Clavering’s ill-timed intervention. -At this moment she was sauntering negligently -along, on a high-raised path of narrow paved -flag-stones, such paths being a peculiarity of Hullaway, -due to the prevalence of heavy autumn floods.</p> - -<p>The girl was evidently bound for the glove-factory, -for she swung a large bundle as she walked, resting -it idly every now and then, on any available wall or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span> -rail or close-cut hedge, along which she passed. She -was an attractive figure, tall, willowy, and lithe, and -she walked in that lingering, swaying voluptuous -manner which gives to the movements of maidens of -her type a sort of provocative challenge. Luke, advancing -along the road behind her, caught himself -admiring, in spite of his intense preoccupation, the -alluring swing of her walk and the captivating lines -of her graceful person.</p> - -<p>The moment was approaching that he had so fantastically -dreaded, the moment of his first glance at -Hullaway Great Pond. He was already relieved to -see no signs of anything unusual in the air of the -place,—but the imaged vision of his brother’s -drowned body still hovered before him, and that -fatal “I’ll never forgive you for this!” still rang in -his ears.</p> - -<p>His mind all this while was working with extraordinary -rapidity and he was fully conscious of the -grotesque irrelevance of this lapse into the ingrained -habit of wanton admiration. Quickly, in a flash of -lightning, he reviewed all his amorous adventures and -his frivolous philanderings. How empty, how bleak, -how impossible, all such pleasures seemed, without -the dark stooping figure of this companion of his -soul as their taciturn background! He looked at -Phyllis Santon with a sudden savage resolution, and -made a quaint sort of vow in the depths of his heart.</p> - -<p>“I’ll never speak to the wench again or look at her -again,” he said to himself, “if I find Daddy Jim safe -and sound, and if he forgives me!”</p> - -<p>He hurried past her, almost at a run, and arrived -at the centre of Hullaway. There was the Great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span> -Pond, with its low white-washed stone parapet. There -were the ancient elm-trees and the stocks. There -also were the white-pinafored infants playing in the -hollow aperture of the oldest among the trees. But -the slimy surface of the water was utterly undisturbed -save by two or three assiduous ducks who at intervals -plunged beneath it.</p> - -<p>He drew an immense sigh of relief and glanced -casually round. Phyllis had not failed to perceive -him. With a shy little friendly smile she advanced -towards him. His vow was already in some danger. -He waved her a hasty greeting but did not take her -hand.</p> - -<p>“You’d better put yourself into the stocks,” he -said, covering with a smile the brutality of his neglect, -“until I come back! I have to find James.”</p> - -<p>Leaving her standing in mute consternation, he -rushed off to the churchyard on the further side of -the little common. There was a certain spot here, -under the shelter of the Manor wall, where Luke -and his brother had spent several delicious afternoons, -moralizing upon the quaint epitaphs around them, -and smoking cigarettes. Luke felt as if he were -almost sure to find James stretched out at length -before a certain old tombstone whose queer appeal -to the casual intruder had always especially attracted -him. Both brothers had a philosophical mania for -these sepulchral places, and the Hullaway grave-yard -was even more congenial to their spirit than the -Nevilton one, perhaps because this latter was so -dominatingly possessed by their own dead.</p> - -<p>Luke entered the enclosure through a wide-open -wooden gate and glanced quickly round him. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span> -was the Manor wall, as mellow and sheltering as -ever, even on such a day of clouds. There was their -favourite tombstone, with its long inscription to the -defunct seignorial house. But of James Andersen -there was not the remotest sign.</p> - -<p>Where the devil had his angry brother gone? -Luke’s passionate anxiety began to give place to a -certain indignant reaction. Why were people so -ridiculous? These volcanic outbursts of ungoverned -emotion on trifling occasions were just the things -that spoiled the harmony and serenity of life. -Where, on earth, could James have slipped off to? -He remembered that they had more than once gone -together to the King’s Arms—the unpretentious -Hullaway tavern. It was just within the bounds -of possibility that the wanderer, finding their other -haunts chill and unappealing, had taken refuge -there.</p> - -<p>He recrossed the common, waved his hand to -Phyllis, who seemed to have taken his speech quite -seriously and was patiently seated on the stocks, and -made his way hurriedly to the little inn.</p> - -<p>Yes—there, ensconced in a corner of the high settle, -with a half-finished tankard of ale by his side, was -his errant brother.</p> - -<p>James rose at once to greet him, showing complete -friendliness, and very small surprise. He seemed to -have been drinking more than his wont, however, -for he immediately sank back again into his corner, -and regarded his brother with a queer absent-minded -look.</p> - -<p>Luke ordered a glass of cider and sat down close -to him on the settle.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I am sorry,” he whispered, laying his hand on -his brother’s knee. “I didn’t mean to annoy you. -What you said was quite true. I treated Annie very -badly. And Ninsy is altogether different. You’ll -forgive me, won’t you, Daddy Jim?”</p> - -<p>James Andersen pressed his hand. “It’s nothing,” -he said in rather a thick voice. “It’s like everything -else, it’s nothing. I was a fool. I am still a fool. -But it’s better to be a fool than to be dead, isn’t it? -Or am I talking nonsense?”</p> - -<p>“As long as you’re not angry with me any longer,” -answered Luke eagerly, “I don’t care how you talk!”</p> - -<p>“I went to the churchyard—to our old place—you -know,” went on his brother. “I stayed nearly -an hour there—or was it more? Perhaps it was -more. I stayed so long, anyway, that I nearly went -to sleep. I think I must have gone to sleep!” he -added, after a moment’s pause.</p> - -<p>“I expect you were tired,” remarked Luke rather -weakly, feeling for some reason or other, a strange -sense of disquietude.</p> - -<p>“Tired?” exclaimed the recumbent man, “why -should I be tired?” He raised himself up with a jerk, -and finishing his glass, set it down with meticulous -care upon the ground beside him.</p> - -<p>Luke noticed, with an uncomfortable sense of -something not quite usual in his manner, that every -movement he made and every word he spoke seemed -the result of a laborious and conscious effort—like -the effort of one in incomplete control of his sensory -nerves.</p> - -<p>“What shall we do now?” said Luke with an air -of ease and indifference. “Do you feel like strolling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span> -back to Nevilton, or shall we make a day of it and -go on to Roger-Town Ferry and have dinner there?”</p> - -<p>James gave vent to a curiously unpleasant laugh. -“You go, my dear,” he said, “and leave me where -I am.”</p> - -<p>Luke began to feel thoroughly uncomfortable. He -once more laid his hand caressingly on his brother’s -knee. “You have really forgiven me?” he pleaded. -“Really and truly?”</p> - -<p>James Andersen had again sunk back into a semi-comatose -state in his corner. “Forgive?” he muttered, -as though he found difficulty in understanding -the meaning of the word, “forgive? I tell you it’s -nothing.”</p> - -<p>He was silent, and then, in a still more drowsy -murmur, he uttered the word “Nothing” three or -four times. Soon after this he closed his eyes and -relapsed into a deep slumber.</p> - -<p>“Better leave ’un as ’un be,” remarked the landlord -to Luke. “I’ve had my eye on ’un for this last -’arf hour. ’A do seem mazed-like, looks so. Let ’un -bide where ’un be, master. These be wonderful -rumbly days for a man’s head. ’Taint what ’ee’s -’ad, you understand; to my thinking, ’tis these thunder-shocks -wot ’ave worrited ’im.”</p> - -<p>Luke nodded at the man, and standing up surveyed -his brother gravely. It certainly looked as if -James was settled in his corner for the rest of the -morning. Luke wondered if it would be best to let -him remain where he was, and sleep off his coma, or -to rouse him and try and persuade him to return -home. He decided to take the landlord’s advice.</p> - -<p>“Very well,” he said. “I’ll just leave him for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span> -while to recover himself. You’ll keep an eye to -him, won’t you, Mr. Titley? I’ll just wander round a -bit, and come back. May-be if he doesn’t want to -go home to dinner, we’ll have a bite of something -here with you.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Titley promised not to let his guest out of his -sight. “I know what these thunder-shocks be,” he -said. “Don’t you worry, mister. You’ll find ’un -wonderful reasonable along of an hour or so. ’Tis -the weather wot ’ave him floored ’im. The liquor -’ee’s put down wouldn’t hurt a cat.”</p> - -<p>Luke threw an affectionate glance at his brother’s -reclining figure and went out. The reaction from his -exaggerated anxiety left him listless and unnerved. -He walked slowly across the green, towards the group -of elms.</p> - -<p>It was now past noon and the small children who -had been loitering under the trees had been carried -off to their mid-day meal. The place seemed entirely -deserted, except for the voracious ducks in the -mud of the Great Pond. He fancied at first that -Phyllis Santon had disappeared with the children, and -a queer feeling of disappointment descended upon -him. He would have liked at least to have had the -opportunity of <em>refusing</em> himself the pleasure of talking -to her! He approached the enormous elm under -which stood the stocks. Ah! She was still there -then, his little Nevilton acquaintance. He had not -seen her sooner, because she was seated on the lowest -roots of the tree, her knees against the stocks themselves.</p> - -<p>“Hullo, child!” he found himself saying, while his -inner consciousness told itself that he would just say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span> -one word to her, so that her feelings should not be -hurt, and then stroll off to the churchyard. “Why, -you have fixed yourself in the very place where they -used to make people sit, when they put them in the -stocks!”</p> - -<p>“Have I?” said the girl looking up at him without -moving. “’Tis curious to think of them days! They -do say folks never tasted meat nor butter in them -old times. I guess it’s better to be living as we be.”</p> - -<p>Luke’s habitual tone of sentimental moralizing had -evidently set the fashion among the maids of Nevilton. -Girls are incredibly quick at acquiring the mental -atmosphere of a philosopher who attracts them. The -simple flattery of her adoption of his colour of thought -made it still more difficult for Luke to keep his vow -to the Spinners of Destiny.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he remarked pensively, seating himself on -the stocks above her. “It is extraordinary, isn’t it, -to think how many generations of people, like you -and me, have talked to one another here, in fine days -and cloudy days, in winter and summer—and the -same old pond and the same old elms listening to -all they say?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say that, Luke dear,” protested the girl, -with a little apprehensive movement of her shoulders, -and a tightened clasp of her hands round her knees. -“I don’t like to think of that! ’Tis lonesome enough -in this place, mid-day, without thinking of them -ghost-stories.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you say ghost-stories?” inquired Luke.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span> -“There’s nothing ghostly about that dirty old pond -and there’s nothing ghostly about these hollow trees—not -now, any way.”</p> - -<p>“’Tis what you said about their listening, that -seems ghostly-like to me,” replied the girl. “I am -always like that, you know. Sometimes, down home, -I gets a grip of the terrors from staring at old Mr. -Pratty’s barn. ’Tis funny, isn’t it? I suppose I was -born along of Christmas. They say children born -then are wonderful ones for fancying things.”</p> - -<p>Luke prodded the ground with his cane and looked -at her in silence. Conscious of a certain admiration -in his look, for the awkwardness of her pose -only enhanced the magnetic charm of her person, -she proceeded to remove her hat and lean her head -with a wistful abandonment against the rough bark -of the tree.</p> - -<p>The clouds hung heavily over them, and it seemed -that at any moment the rain might descend in -torrents; but so far not a drop had fallen. Queer -and mysterious emotions passed through Luke’s -mind.</p> - -<p>He felt in some odd way that he was at a turning-point -in the tide of his existence. It almost seemed -to him as though, silent and unmoving, under the -roof of the little inn which he could see from where -he sat, his brother was lying in the crisis of some -dangerous fever. A movement, or gesture, or word, -from himself might precipitate this crisis, in one -direction or the other.</p> - -<p>The girl crouched at his feet became to him, as he -gazed at her, something more than a mere amorous -acquaintance. She became a type, a symbol—an -incarnation of the formidable writing of that Moving -Finger, to which all flesh must bow. Her half-coquettish, -half-serious apprehensions, about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span> -ghostliness of the things that are always <em>listening</em>, -as the human drama works itself out in their dumb -presence, affected him in spite of himself. The village -of Hullaway seemed at that moment to have -disappeared into space, and he and his companion -to be isolated and suspended—remote from all terrestrial -activities, and yet aware of some confused -struggle between invisible antagonists.</p> - -<p>From the splashing ducks in the pond who, every -now and then, so ridiculously turned up their squat -tails to the cloudy heavens, his eye wandered to the -impenetrable expectancy of the stone path which -bordered the muddy edge of the water. With the -quick sense of one whose daily occupation was concerned -with this particular stone, he began calculating -how long that time-worn pavement had remained -there, and how many generations of human feet, -hurrying or loitering, had passed along it since it -was first laid down. What actual men, he wondered, -had brought it there, from its resting-place, -æons-old in the distant hill, and laid it where it -now lay, slab by slab?</p> - -<p>From where he sat he could just observe, between -a gap in the trees of the Manor-Farm garden, the -extreme edge of that Leonian promontory. It seemed -to him as though the hill were at that moment being -swept by a storm of rain. He shivered a little at -the idea of how such a sweeping storm, borne on a -northern wind, would invade those bare trenches -and unprotected escarpments. He felt glad that -his brother had selected Hullaway rather than that -particular spot for his angry retreat.</p> - -<p>With a sense of relief he turned his eyes once more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span> -to the girl reclining below him in such a charming -attitude.</p> - -<p>How absurd it was, he thought, to let these -vague superstitions overmaster him! Surely it was -really an indication of cowardice, in the presence of -a hypothetical Fate, to make such fantastic vows -as that which he had recently made. It was all -part of the atavistic survival in him of that unhappy -“conscience,” which had done so much to -darken the history of the tribes of men. It was -like “touching wood” in honour of infernal deities! -What was the use of being a philosopher—of being -so deeply conscious of the illusive and subjective -nature of all these scruples—if, at a crisis, one only -fell back into such absurd morbidity? The vow he -had registered in his mind an hour before, seemed to -him now a piece of grotesque irrelevance—a lapse, -a concession to weakness, a reversion to primitive -inhibition. If it had been cowardice to make such -a vow, it were a still greater cowardice to keep it.</p> - -<p>He rose from his seat on the stocks, and began idly -lifting up and down the heavy wooden bar which -surmounted this queer old pillory. He finally left -the thing open and gaping; its semi-circular cavities -ready for any offender. Moved by a sudden impulse, -the girl leant back still further against the -tree, and whimsically raising one of her little feet, -inserted it into the aperture. Amused at her companion’s -interest in this levity, and actuated by a -profound girlish instinct to ruffle the situation by -some startling caprice, she had no sooner got one -ankle into the cavity thus prepared for it, than -with a sudden effort she placed the other by its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span> -side, and coyly straightening her skirts with her -hands, looked up smiling into Luke’s face.</p> - -<p>Thus challenged, as it were, by this wilful little -would-be malefactor, Luke was mechanically compelled -to complete her imprisonment. With a sudden -vicious snap he let down the enclosing bar.</p> - -<p>She was now completely powerless; for the most -drastic laws of balance made it quite impossible that -she could release herself. It thus became inevitable -that he should slip down on the ground by her side, -and begin teasing her, indulging himself in sundry -innocent caresses which her helpless position made -it difficult to resist.</p> - -<p>It was not long, however, before Phyllis, fearful -of the appearance upon the scene of some of Hullaway’s -inhabitants, implored him to release her.</p> - -<p>Luke rose and with his hand upon the bar contemplated -smilingly his fair prisoner.</p> - -<p>“Please be quick!” the girl cried impatiently. -“I’m getting so stiff.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I, or shan’t I?” said Luke provokingly.</p> - -<p>The corner of the girl’s mouth fell and her under-lip -quivered. It only needed a moment’s further -delay to reduce her to tears.</p> - -<p>At that moment two interruptions occurred simultaneously. -From the door of the King’s Arms -emerged the landlord, and began making vehement -signals to Luke; while from the corner of the road -to Nevilton appeared the figures of two young ladies, -walking briskly towards them, absorbed in earnest -conversation. These simultaneous events were observed -in varying ratio by the captive and her captor. -Luke was vaguely conscious of the two ladies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span> -and profoundly agitated by the appearance of the -landlord. Phyllis was vaguely conscious of the landlord -and was profoundly agitated by the appearance -of the ladies. The young stone-carver gave a quick -thoughtless jerk to the bar; and without waiting to -see the result, rushed off towards the inn. The -heavy block of wood, impelled by the impetus he -had given it, swung upwards, until it almost reached -the perpendicular. Then it descended with a crash. -The girl had just time to withdraw one of her ankles. -The other was imprisoned as hopeless as before.</p> - -<p>Phyllis was overwhelmed with shame and embarrassment. -She had in a moment recognized Gladys, -and she felt as those Apocalyptic unfortunates in -Holy Scripture are reported as feeling when they -call upon the hills to cover them.</p> - -<p>It had happened that Ralph Dangelis had been -compelled to pay a flying visit to London on business -connected with his proposed marriage. The two -cousins, preoccupied, each of them, with their separate -anxieties, had wandered thus far from home -to escape the teasing fussiness of Mrs. Romer, who -with her preparations for the double wedding gave -neither of them any peace.</p> - -<p>They approached quite near to the group of elms -before either of them observed the unfortunate -Phyllis.</p> - -<p>“Why!” cried Gladys suddenly to her companion. -“There’s somebody in the stocks!”</p> - -<p>She went forward hastily, followed at a slower -pace by the Italian. Poor Phyllis, her bundle by -her side, and her cheeks tear-stained, presented a -woeful enough appearance. Her first inclination was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span> -to hide her face in her hands; but making a brave -effort, she turned her head towards the new-comers -with a gasping little laugh.</p> - -<p>“I put my foot in here for a joke,” she stammered, -“and it got caught. Please let me out, Miss Romer.”</p> - -<p>Gladys came quite near and laid her gloved hand -upon the wooden bar.</p> - -<p>“It just lifts up, Miss,” pleaded Phyllis, with -tears in her voice. “It isn’t at all heavy.”</p> - -<p>Gladys stared at her with a growing sense of interest. -The girl’s embarrassment under her scrutiny -awoke her Romer malice.</p> - -<p>“I really don’t know that I want to let you out -in such a hurry,” she said. “If it’s a game you are -playing, it would be a pity to spoil it. Who put you -in? You must tell me that, before I set you free! -You couldn’t have done it yourself.”</p> - -<p>By this time Lacrima had arrived on the scene.</p> - -<p>The shame-faced Phyllis turned to her. “Please, -Miss Traffio, please, lift that thing up! It’s quite -easy to move.”</p> - -<p>The Italian at once laid her hands upon the block -of wood and struggled to raise it; but Gladys had -no difficulty in keeping the bar immoveable.</p> - -<p>“What are you doing?” cried the younger girl -indignantly. “Take your arm away!”</p> - -<p>“She must tell us first who put her where she is,” -reiterated Miss Romer. “I won’t have her let out -’till she tells us that!”</p> - -<p>Phyllis looked piteously from one to the other. -Then she grew desperate.</p> - -<p>“It was Luke Andersen,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“What!” cried Gladys. “Luke? Then he’s been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span> -out walking with you? Has he? Has he? Has -he?”</p> - -<p>She repeated these words with such concentrated -fury that Phyllis began to cry. But the shock of this -information gave Lacrima her chance. Using all her -strength she lifted the heavy bar and released the -prisoner. Phyllis staggered to her feet and picked -up her bundle. Lacrima handed the girl her hat -and helped her to brush the dust from her clothes.</p> - -<p>“So <em>you</em> are Luke’s latest fancy are you?” -Gladys said scowling fiercely at the glove-maker.</p> - -<p>The pent-up feelings of the young woman broke -forth at once. Moving a step or two away from -them and glancing at a group of farm-men who were -crossing the green, she gave full scope to her revenge.</p> - -<p>“I’m only Annie Bristow’s friend,” she retorted. -“Annie Bristow is going to marry Luke. They are -right down mad on one another.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a lie!” cried Gladys, completely forgetting -herself and looking as if she could have struck the -mocking villager.</p> - -<p>“A lie, eh?” returned the other. “Tisn’t for me -to tell the tale to a young lady, the likes of you. -But we be all guessing down in Mr. North’s factory, -who ’twas that gave Luke the pretty lady-like ring -wot he lent to Annie!”</p> - -<p>Gladys became livid with anger. “What ring?” -she cried. “Why are you talking about a ring?”</p> - -<p>“Annie, she stuck it, for devilry, into that hole in -Splash-Lane stone. She pushed it in, tight as ’twere -a sham diamint. And there it do bide, the lady’s -pretty ring, all glittery and shiny, at bottom of that -there hole! We maids do go to see ’un glinsying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span> -and gleaming. It be the talk of the place, that ring -be! Scarce one of the childer but ’as ’ad its try to -hook ’un out. But ’tis no good. I guess Annie -must have rammed it down with her mother’s girt -skewer. ’Tis fast in that stone anyway, for all the -world to see. Folks, may-be, ’ll be coming from -Yeoborough, long as a few days be over, to see the -lady’s ring, wot Annie threw’d away, ’afore she said -‘yes’ to her young man!”</p> - -<p>These final words were positively shouted by the -enraged Phyllis, as she tripped away, swinging her -bundle triumphantly.</p> - -<p>It seemed for a moment as though Gladys meditated -a desperate pursuit, and the infliction of physical -violence upon her enemy. But Lacrima held -her fast by the hand. “For heaven’s sake, cousin,” -she whispered, “let her go. Look at those men -watching us!”</p> - -<p>Gladys turned; but it was not at the farm-men -she looked.</p> - -<p>Across the green towards them came the two -Andersens, Luke looking nervous and worried, and -his brother gesticulating strangely. The girls remained -motionless, neither advancing to meet them -nor making any attempt to evade them. Gladys -seemed to lose her defiant air, and waited their -approach, rather with the look of one expecting to -be chidden than of one prepared to chide. On all -recent occasions this had been her manner, when in -the presence of the young stone-carver.</p> - -<p>The sight of Lacrima seemed to exercise a magical -effect upon James Andersen. He ceased at once his -excited talk, and advancing towards her, greeted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span> -her in his normal tone—a tone of almost paternal -gentleness.</p> - -<p>“It is nearly a quarter to one,” said Gladys, -addressing both the men. “Lacrima and I’ll have -all we can do to get back in time for lunch. Let’s -walk back together!”</p> - -<p>Luke looked at his brother who gave him a friendly -smile. He also looked sharply at the Hullaway labourers, -who were shuffling off towards the barton of -the Manor-Farm.</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind,” he said; “though it is a dangerous -time of day! But we can go by the fields, and -you can leave us at Roandyke Barn.”</p> - -<p>They moved off along the edge of the pond together.</p> - -<p>“It was Lacrima, not I, Luke,” said Gladys presently, -“who let that girl out.”</p> - -<p>Luke flicked a clump of dock-weeds with his cane. -“It was her own fault,” he said carelessly. “I -thought I’d opened the thing. I was called away -suddenly.”</p> - -<p>Gladys bowed her head submissively. In the -company of the young stone-carver her whole nature -seemed to change. A shrewd observer might even -have marked a subtle difference in her physical -appearance. She appeared to wilt and droop, like -a tropical flower transplanted into a northern -zone.</p> - -<p>They remained all together until they reached the -fields. Then Gladys and Luke dropped behind.</p> - -<p>“I have something I want to tell you,” said the -fair girl, as soon as the others were out of hearing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span> -“Something very important.”</p> - -<p>“I have something to tell you too,” answered -Luke, “and I think I will tell it first. It is hardly -likely that your piece of news can be as serious as -mine.”</p> - -<p>They paused at a stile; and the girl made him take -her in his arms and kiss her, before she consented to -hear what he had to say.</p> - -<p>It would have been noticeable to any observer that -in the caresses they exchanged, Luke played the perfunctory, -and she the passionate part. She kissed -him thirstily, insatiably, with clinging lips that -seemed avid of his very soul. When at last they -moved on through grass that was still wet with the -rain of the night before, Luke drew his hand away -from hers, as if to emphasize the seriousness of his -words.</p> - -<p>“I am terribly anxious, dearest, about James,” -he said. “We had an absurd quarrel this morning, -and he rushed off to Hullaway in a rage. I found -him in the inn. He had been drinking, but it was -not that which upset him. He had not taken enough -to affect him in that way. I am very, very anxious -about him. I forget whether I’ve ever told you -about my mother? Her mind—poor darling—was -horribly upset before she died. She suffered from -more than one distressing mania. And my fear is -that James may go the same way.”</p> - -<p>Gladys hung her head. In a strange and subtle -way she felt as though the responsibility of this new -catastrophe rested upon her. Her desperate passion -for Luke had so unnerved her, that she had become -liable to be victimized by any sort of superstitious -apprehension.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span></p> - -<p>“How dreadful!” she whispered, “but he seemed to -me perfectly natural just now.”</p> - -<p>“That was Lacrima’s doing,” said Luke. “Lacrima -is at the bottom of it all. I wish, oh, I wish, -she was going to marry James, instead of that uncle -of yours.”</p> - -<p>“Father would never allow that,” said Gladys, -raising her head. “He is set upon making her take -uncle John. It has become a kind of passion with -him. Father is funny in these things.”</p> - -<p>“Still—it might be managed,” muttered Luke -thoughtfully, “if we carried it through with a high -hand. We might arrange it; the world is malleable, -after all. If you and I, my dear, put our heads -together, Mr. John Goring might whistle for his -bride.”</p> - -<p>“I <em>hate</em> Lacrima!” cried Gladys, with a sudden -access of her normal spirit.</p> - -<p>“I don’t care two pence about Lacrima,” returned -Luke. “It is of James I am thinking.”</p> - -<p>“But she would be happy with James, and I don’t -want her to be happy.”</p> - -<p>“What a little devil you are!” exclaimed the stone-carver, -slipping his arm round her waist.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know I am,” she answered shamelessly. -“I suppose I inherit it from father. He hates people -just like that. But I am not a devil with you, -Luke, am I? I wish I were!” she added, after a little -pause.</p> - -<p>“We must think over this business from every -point of view,” said Luke solemnly. “I cannot -help thinking that if you and I resolve to do it, we -can twist the fates round, somehow or another. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span> -am sure Lacrima could save James if she liked. If -you could only have seen the difference between -what he was when I was called back to him just now, -and what he became as soon as he set eyes upon -her, you would know what I mean. He is mad -about her, and if he doesn’t get her, he’ll go really -mad. He <em>was</em> a madman just now. He nearly -frightened that fool Titley into a fit.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t <em>want</em> Lacrima to marry James,” burst -out Gladys. Luke in a moment drew his arm away, -and quickened his pace.</p> - -<p>“As you please,” he said. “But I can promise -you this, my friend, that if anything does happen to -my brother, it’ll be the end of everything between -<em>us</em>.”</p> - -<p>“Why—what—how can you say such dreadful -things?” stammered the girl.</p> - -<p>Luke airily swung his stick. “It all rests with -you, child. Though <em>we</em> can’t marry, there’s no -reason why we shouldn’t go on seeing each other, -as we do now, forever and ever,—as long as you -help me in this affair. But if you’re going to sulk -and talk this nonsense about ‘hating’—it is probable -that it will be a case of good-bye!”</p> - -<p>The fair girl’s face was distorted by a spasmodic -convulsion of conflicting emotions. She bit her lip -and hung her head. Presently she looked up again -and flung her arms round his neck. “I’ll do anything -you ask me, Luke, anything, as long as you -don’t turn against me.”</p> - -<p>They walked along for some time in silence, hand -in hand, taking care not to lose sight of their two -companions who seemed as engrossed as themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span> -in one another’s society. James Andersen was showing -sufficient discretion in avoiding the more frequented -foot-paths.</p> - -<p>“Luke,” began the girl at last, “did you really -give my ring to Annie Santon?”</p> - -<p>Luke’s brow clouded in a moment. “Damn -your ring!” he cried harshly. “I’ve got other things -to think about now than your confounded rings. -When people give me presents of that kind,” he added -“I take for granted I can do what I like with -them.”</p> - -<p>Gladys trembled and looked pitifully into his face.</p> - -<p>“But that girl said,” she murmured—“that factory -girl, I mean—that it had been lost in some way; -hidden, she said, in some hole in a stone. I can’t -believe that you would let me be made a laughing-stock -of, Luke dear?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t worry me about that,” replied the -stone-carver. “May-be it is so, may-be it isn’t so; -anyway it doesn’t matter a hang.”</p> - -<p>“She said too,” pleaded Gladys in a hesitating -voice, “that you and Annie were going to be married.”</p> - -<p>“Ho! ho!” laughed Luke, fumbling with some -tightly tied hurdles that barred their way; “so she -said that, did she? She <em>must</em> have had her knife -into you, our little Phyllis. Well, and what’s to -stop me if I did decide to marry Annie?”</p> - -<p>Gladys gasped and looked at him with a drawn -and haggard face. Her beauty was of the kind that -required the flush of buoyant spirits to illuminate it. -The more her heart ached, the less attractive she -became. She was anything but beautiful now; and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span> -as he looked at her, Luke noticed for the first time, -how low her hair grew upon her forehead.</p> - -<p>“You wouldn’t think of doing that?” she whispered, -in a tone of supplication. He laughed lightly -and lifting up her chin made as though he were -going to kiss her, but drew back without doing so.</p> - -<p>“Are you going to be good,” he said, “and help -me to get Lacrima for James?”</p> - -<p>She threw her arms round him. “I’ll do anything -you like—anything,” she repeated, “if you’ll only -let me love you!”</p> - -<p>While this conversation was proceeding between -these two, a not less interesting clash of divergent -emotions was occurring between their friends. The -Italian may easily be pardoned if she never for one -second dreamed of the agitation in her companion’s -mind that had so frightened Luke. James’ manner -was in no way different from usual, and though he -expressed his feelings in a more unreserved fashion -than he had ever done before, Lacrima had been for -many weeks expecting some such outbreak.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be angry with me,” he was saying, as he -strode by her side. “I had meant never to have -told you of this. I had meant to let it die with me, -without your ever knowing, but somehow—today—I -could not help it.”</p> - -<p>He had confessed to her point blank, and in simple, -unbroken words, the secret of his heart, and Lacrima -had for some moments walked along with head -averted making no response.</p> - -<p>It would not be true to say that this revelation -surprised her. It would be completely untrue to say -it offended her. It did not even enter her mind that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span> -it might have been kinder to have been less friendly, -less responsive, than she had been, to this queer -taciturn admirer. But circumstances had really -given her very little choice in the matter. She had -been, as it were, flung perforce upon his society, and -she had accepted, as a providential qualification of -her loneliness, the fact that he was attracted towards -her rather than repelled by her.</p> - -<p>It is quite possible that had he remained untouched -by the evasive appeal of her timid grace; had he, -for instance, remained a provocative and impenetrable -mystery at her side, she might have been led -to share his feelings. But, unluckily for poor Andersen, -the very fact that his feelings had been disclosed -only too clearly, militated hopelessly against -such an event. He was no remote, shadowy, romantic -possibility to her—a closed casket of wonders, -difficult and dangerous to open. He was simply a -passionate and assiduous lover. The fact that he -<em>could</em> love her, lowered him a little in Lacrima’s -esteem. True to her Pariah instincts she felt that -such passion was a sign of weakness in him; and if she -did not actually despise him for it, it materially lessened -the interest she took in the workings of his mind. -Maurice Quincunx drew her to him for the very reason -that he was so sexless, so cold, so wayward, so full of -whimsical caprices. Maurice, a Pariah himself, excited -at the same time her maternal tenderness and her -imaginative affection. If she did not feel the passion -for him that she might have felt for Andersen, had -Andersen remained inaccessible; that was only because -there was something in Maurice’s peculiar egoism -which chilled such feelings at their root.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span></p> - -<p>Another almost equally effective cause of her lack -of response to the stone-carver’s emotion was the -cynical and world-deep weariness that had fallen upon -her, since this dreadful marriage with Goring had become -a settled event. Face to face with this, she -felt as though nothing mattered very much, and as -though any feeling she herself might excite in another -person must needs be like the passing of a shadow -across a mirror—something vague, unreal, insubstantial—something -removed to a remote distance, -like the voice of a person at the end of a long -tunnel, or as the dream of someone who is himself a -figure in a dream. If anyone, she felt, broke into -the enchanted circle that surrounded her, it was as if -they sought to make overtures to a person dead and -buried.</p> - -<p>It was almost with the coldness and detachment of -the dead that she now answered him, and her voice -went sighing across the wet fields with a desolation -that would have struck a more normal mind than -Andersen’s as the incarnation of tragedy. He was -himself, however, strung up to such a tragic note, -that the despair in her tone affected him less than it -would have affected another.</p> - -<p>“I have come to feel,” said she, “that I have no -heart, and I feel as though this country of yours -had no heart. It ought to be always cloudy and dark -in this place. Sunshine here is a kind of bitter -mockery.”</p> - -<p>“You do not know—you do not know what you -say,” cried the poor stone-carver, quickening his -pace in his excitement so that it became difficult for -her to keep up with him. “I have loved you, since I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span> -first saw you—that day—down at our works—when -the hawthorn was out. <em>My</em> heart at any rate is -deep enough, deep enough to be hurt more than you -would believe, Lacrima. Oh, if things were only -different! If you could only bring yourself to care -for me a little—just a little! Lacrima, listen to me.”</p> - -<p>He stopped abruptly in the middle of a field and made -her turn and face him. He laid his hand solemnly -and imploringly upon her wrist. “Why need you -put yourself under this frightful yoke? I know -something of what you have had to go through. I -know something, though it may be only a little, of -what this horrible marriage means to you. Lacrima, -for your own sake—as well as mine—for the sake of -everyone who has ever cared for you—don’t let them -drag you into this atrocious trap.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span></p> -<p>“Trust me, give yourself boldly into my care. -Let’s go away together and try our fortune in some -new place! All places are not like Nevilton. I am a -strong man, I know my trade, I could earn money -easily to keep us both. Lacrima, don’t turn away, -don’t look so helpless! After all, things might be -worse, you might be already married to that man, -and be buried alive forever! It is not yet too late. -You are still free. I beg and implore you, by everything -you hold sacred, to stop and escape before it is -too late. It doesn’t matter that you don’t love me -now. As long as you don’t utterly hate me all can -be put right. I don’t ask you to return what I feel -for you. I won’t ask it if you agree to marry me. -I’ll make any contract with you you please, and -swear any vow. I won’t come near you when we are -together. We can live under one roof as brother -and sister. The wedding-ring will be nothing between -us. It will only protect you from the rest of -the world. I won’t interfere with your life at all, -when once I have freed you from this devil’s hole. -It will only be a marriage in form, in name; everything -else will be just as you please. I will obey -your least wish, your least fancy. If you want to -go back to your own country and to go alone, I will -save up money enough to make that possible. In -fact, I have now got money enough to pay your -journey and I would send out more to you. Lacrima, -let me help you to break away from all this. You -must, Lacrima, you must and you shall! If you -prefer it, we needn’t ever be married. I don’t want -to take advantage of you. I’ll give you every -penny I have and help you out of the country and -then send you more as I earn it. It is madness, -this devilish marriage they are driving you into. It -is madness and folly to submit to it. It is monstrous. -It is ridiculous. You are free to go, they have no -hold upon you. Lacrima, Lacrima! why are you so -cruel to yourself, to me, to everyone who cares for -you?”</p> - -<p>He drew breath at last, but continued to clutch -her wrist with a trembling hand, glancing anxiously, -as he waited, at the lessening distance that separated -them from the others.</p> - -<p>Lacrima looked at him with a pale troubled face, -but her large eyes were full of tears and when she -spoke her voice quivered.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span></p> -<p>“I was wrong, my friend, to say that none of you -here had any heart. Your heart is large and noble. -I shall never—never forget what you have now said -to me. But James—but James, dear,” and her voice -shook still more, “I cannot, I cannot do it. There -are more reasons than I can explain to you, why -this thing must happen. It <em>has</em> to happen, and we -must bow our heads and submit. After all, life is -not very long, or very happy, at the best. Probably,”—and -she smiled a sad little smile,—“I should disappoint -you frightfully if we did go together. I am -not such a nice person as you suppose. I have queer -moods—oh, such strange, strange moods!—and I know -for certain that I should not make you happy.</p> - -<p>“Shall I tell you a horrible secret, James?” Here -her voice sank into a curious whisper and she laughed -a low distressing laugh. “I have really got the soul, -the <em>soul</em> I say, not the nerves or sense, of a girl who -has lost everything,—I wish I could make you understand—who -has lost self-respect and everything,—I -have thought myself into this state. I don’t care -now—I really don’t—<em>what</em> happens to me. James, -dear—you wouldn’t want to marry a person like that, -a person who feels herself already dead and buried? -Yes, and worse than dead! A person who has lost -all pity, all feeling, even for herself. A person who -is past even caring for the difference between right -and wrong! You wouldn’t want to be kind to a -person like that, James, would you?”</p> - -<p>She stopped and gazed into his face, smiling a woeful -little smile. Andersen mechanically noticed that -their companions had observed their long pause, and -had delayed to advance, resting beneath the shelter -of a wind-tossed ash-tree. The stone-carver began -to realize the extraordinary and terrible loneliness -of every human soul. Here he was, face to face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span> -with the one being of all beings whose least look or -word thrilled him with intolerable excitement, and -yet he could not as much as touch the outer margin -of her real consciousness.</p> - -<p>He had not the least idea, even at that fatal moment, -what her inner spirit was feeling; what thoughts, -what sensations, were passing through her soul. Nor -could he ever have. They might stand together thus, -isolated from all the world, through an eternity of -physical contact, and he would never attain such -knowledge. She would always remain aloof, mysterious, -evasive. He resolved that at all events as -far as he himself was concerned, there should be no -barrier between them. He would lay open to her -the deepest recesses of his heart.</p> - -<p>He began a hurried incoherent history of his passion, -of its growth, its subtleties, its intensity. He -tried to make her realize what she had become for -him, how she filled every hour of every day with her -image. He explained to her how clearly and fully -he understood the difficulty, the impossibility, of his -ever bringing her to care for him as he cared for -her.</p> - -<p>He even went so far as to allude to Mr. Quincunx, -and implored her to believe that he would be well -content if she would let him earn money enough to -support both her and Maurice, either in Nevilton or -elsewhere, if it would cut the tragic knot of her fate -to join her destiny to that of the forlorn recluse.</p> - -<p>It almost seemed as though this final stroke of -self-abnegation excited more eloquence in him than -all the rest. He begged and conjured her to cut -boldly loose from the Romer bonds, and marry her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span> -queer friend, if he, rather than any other, were the -choice she made. His language became so vehement, -his tone so impassioned and exalted, that the -girl began to look apprehensively at him. Even -this apprehension, however, was a thing strangely -removed from reality. His reckless words rose and -fell upon the air and mixed with the rising wind as -if they were words remembered from some previous -existence. The man’s whole figure, his gaunt frame, -his stooping shoulders, his long arms and lean fingers, -seemed to her like something only half-tangible, -something felt and seen through a dim medium of -obscuring mist.</p> - -<p>Lacrima felt vaguely as though all this were happening -to someone else, to someone she had read -about in a book, or had known in remote childhood. -The overhanging clouds, the damp grass, the distant -ash-tree with the forms of their friends beneath -it, all these things seemed to group themselves in -her mind, as if answering to some strange dramatic -story, which was not the story of her life at all, but -of some other harassed and troubled spirit.</p> - -<p>In the depths of her mind she shrank away -half-frightened and half-indifferent from this man’s -impassioned pleading and heroic proposals. The humorously -cynical image of the hermit of Dead Man’s -Lane crossed her mental vision as a sort of wavering -Pharos light in the dreamy twilight of her consciousness. -How well she knew with what goblin-like -quiver of his nostrils, with what sardonic gleam of -his eyes, he would have listened to his rival’s exalted -rhetoric.</p> - -<p>In some strange way she felt almost angry with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span> -this bolder, less cautious lover, for being what her -poor nervous Maurice never could be. She caught -herself shuddering at the thought of the drastic -effort, the stern focussing of will-power which the -acceptance of any one of his daring suggestions would -imply. Perhaps, who can say, there had come to -be a sort of voluptuous pleasure in thus lying back -upon her destiny and letting herself be carried forward, -at the caprice of other wills than her own.</p> - -<p>Mingled with these other complex reactions, there -was borne in upon her, as she listened to him, a -queer sense of the absolute unimportance of the -whole matter. The long strain upon her nerves, of -her sojourn in Nevilton House, had left her physically -so weary that she lacked the life-energy to supply -the life-illusion. The ardour and passion of -Andersen’s suggestions seemed, for all their dramatic -pathos, to belong to a world she had left—a world -from which she had risen or sunk so completely, that -all return was impossible. Her nature was so hopelessly -the true Pariah-nature, that the idea of the -effort implied in any struggle to escape her doom, -seemed worse than the doom itself.</p> - -<p>This inhibition of any movement of effective resistance -in the Pariah-type is the thing that normal -temperaments find most difficult of all to understand. -It would seem almost incredible to a healthy -minded person that Lacrima should deliberately let -herself be driven into such a fate without some last -desperate struggle. Those who find it so, however, -under-estimate that curious passion of submission -from which these victims of circumstance suffer, a -passion of submission which is itself, in a profoundly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span> -subtle way, a sort of narcotic or drug to the wretchedness -they pass through.</p> - -<p>“I cannot do it,” she repeated in a low tired voice, -“though I think it’s generous, beyond description, -what you want to do for me. But I cannot do it. -It’s difficult somehow to tell you why, James dear; -there are certain things that are hard to say, even -to people that we love as much as I love you. For -I do love you, in spite of everything. I hope you -realize that. And I know that you have a deep -noble heart.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him with wistful and appealing -tenderness, and let her little fingers slip into his -feverish hand.</p> - -<p>When she said the words, “I do love you,” a shivering -ecstasy shot through the stone-carver’s veins, -followed by a ghastly chilliness, like the hand of -death, as he grasped their complete meaning. The -most devastating tone, perhaps, of all, for an impassioned -lover to hear, is that particular tone of -calm tender affection. It has the power of closing -up vistas of hope more effectively than the expression -of the most vigorous repulsion. There was a -ring of weary finality in her voice that echoed through -his mind, like the tread of coffin-bearers through a -darkened passage. Things had reached their hopeless -point, and the two were standing mute and -silent, in the attitude of persons taking a final farewell -of one another, when a noisy group of village -maids, on their dilatory road to the glove-factory, -made their voices audible from the further side of -the nearest hedge.</p> - -<p>They both turned instantaneously to see how this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span> -danger of discovery affected their friends, and neither -of them was surprised to note that the younger -Andersen had left his companion and was strolling -casually in the direction of the voices. As soon as -he saw that they had observed this manœuvre he -began beckoning to James.</p> - -<p>“We’d better separate, my friend,” whispered -Lacrima hastily. “I’ll go back to Gladys. She and -I must take the lane way and you and Luke the -path by the barn. We’ll meet again before—before -anything happens.”</p> - -<p>They separated accordingly and as the two girls -passed through the gate that led into the Nevilton -road, they could distinctly hear, across the fields, -the ringing laughter of the high-spirited glove-makers -as they chaffed and rallied the two stone-carvers -through the thick bramble hedge which intervened -between them.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII<br /> -<span class="smaller">SAGITTARIUS</span></h2> - -<p>The summer of the year whose events, in so far -as they affected a certain little group of Nevilton -people we are attempting to describe, -seemed, to all concerned, to pass more and more -rapidly, as the days began again to shorten. July -gave place to August, and Mr. Goring’s men were -already at work upon the wheat-harvest. In the -hedges appeared all those peculiar signals of the -culmination of the season’s glory, which are, by one -of nature’s most emphatic ironies, the signals also of -its imminent decline.</p> - -<p>Old-man’s-beard, for instance, hung its feathery -clusters on every bush; and, in shadier places, white -and black briony twined their decorative leaves and -delicate flowers. The blossom of the blackberry -bushes was already giving place to unripe fruit, and -the berries of traveller’s-joy were beginning to turn -red. Hips and haws still remained in that vague -colourless state which renders them indistinguishable -to all eyes save those of the birds, but the juicy -clusters of the common night-shade—“green grapes -of Proserpine”—greeted the wanderer with their -poisonous Circe-like attraction, from their thrones of -dog-wood and maple, and whispered of the autumn’s -approach. In dry deserted places the scarlet splendour -of poppies was rapidly yielding ground to all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span> -those queer herbal plants, purplish or whitish in hue—the -wild hyssop, or marjoram, being the most noticeable -of them—which more than anything else denote -the coming on of the equinox. From dusty heaps of -rubbish the aromatic daisy-like camomile gave forth -its pungent fragrance, and in damper spots the tall -purple heads of hemp-agrimony flouted the dying -valerian.</p> - -<p>An appropriate date at the end of the month had -been fixed for the episcopal visit to Nevilton; and -the candidates for confirmation were already beginning, -according to their various natures and temperaments, -to experience that excited anticipation, which, -even in the dullest intelligence, such an event arouses.</p> - -<p>The interesting ceremony of Gladys Romer’s baptism -had been fixed for a week earlier than this, -a fanciful sentiment in the agitated mind of Mr. -Clavering having led to the selection of this particular -day on the strange ground of its exact coincidence -with the anniversary of a certain famous saint.</p> - -<p>The marriage of Gladys with Dangelis, and of -Lacrima with John Goring, was to take place early -in September, Mrs. Romer having stipulated for -reasons of domestic economy that the two events -should be simultaneous.</p> - -<p>Another project of some importance to at least -three persons in Nevilton, was now, as one might -say, in the air; though this was by no means a -matter of public knowledge. I refer to Vennie Seldom’s -fixed resolution to be received into the Catholic -Church and to become a nun.</p> - -<p>Ever since her encounter in the village street with -the loquacious Mr. Wone, Vennie had been oppressed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span> -by an invincible distaste for the things and people -that surrounded her. Her longing to give the world -the slip and devote herself completely to the religious -life had been incalculably deepened by her -disgust at what she considered the blasphemous introduction -of the Holy Name into the Christian Candidate’s -political canvassing. The arguments of Mr. -Taxater and the conventional anglicanism of her -mother, were, compared with this, only mild incentives -to the step she meditated. The whole fabric -of her piety and her taste had been shocked to their -foundations by the unctuous complacency of Mr. -Romer’s evangelical rival.</p> - -<p>Vennie felt, as she stood aside, in her retired routine, -and watched the political struggle sway to and -fro in the village, as though the champions of both -causes were odiously and repulsively in the wrong. -The sly conservatism of the quarry-owner becoming, -since the settlement of the strike, almost fulsome -in its flattery of the working classes, struck her as -the most unscrupulous bid for power that she had -ever encountered; and when, combined with his new -pose as the ideal employer and landlord, Mr. Romer -introduced the imperial note, and talked lavishly of -the economic benefits of the Empire, Vennie felt -as though all that was beautiful and sacred in her -feeling for the country of her birth, was blighted and -poisoned at the root.</p> - -<p>But Mr. Wone’s attitude of mind struck her as -even more revolting. The quarry-owner was at -least frankly and flagrantly cynical. He made no -attempt—unless Gladys’ confirmation was to be regarded -as such—to conciliate religious sentiment. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span> -never went to church, and in private conversation he -expressed his atheistic opinions with humorous and -careless shamelessness. But Mr. Wone’s intermingling -of Protestant unction with political chicanery -struck the passionate soul of the young girl as something -very nearly approaching the “unpardonable -sin.” Her incisive intelligence, fortified of late by -conversations with Mr. Taxater, revolted, too, against -the vague ethical verbiage and loose democratic -sentiment with which Mr. Wone garnished his lightest -talk. Since Philip’s release from prison and his reappearance -in the village, she had taken the opportunity -of having several interviews with the Christian -Candidate’s son, and these interviews, though they -saddened and perplexed her, increased her respect -for the young man in proportion as they diminished -it for his father. With true feminine instinct Vennie -found the anarchist more attractive than the socialist, -and the atheist less repugnant than the -missionary.</p> - -<p>One afternoon, towards the end of the first week -in August, Vennie persuaded Mr. Taxater to accompany -her on a long walk. They made their way -through the wood which separates the fields around -Nevilton Mount from the fields around Leo’s Hill. -Issuing from this wood, along the path followed by -every visitor to the hill who wishes to avoid its -steeper slopes, they strolled leisurely between the -patches of high bracken-fern and looked down upon -the little church of Athelston.</p> - -<p>Athelston was a long, rambling village, encircling -the northern end of the Leonian promontory and -offering shelter, in many small cottages all heavily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span> -built of the same material, to those of the workmen -in the quarries who were not domiciled in Nevilton.</p> - -<p>“It would be rather nice,” said Vennie to the -theologian, “if it wouldn’t spoil our walk, to go -and look at that carving in the porch, down there. -They say it has been cleaned lately, and the figures -show up more clearly.”</p> - -<p>The papal champion gravely surveyed the outline -of the little cruciform church, as it shimmered, warm -and mellow, in the misty sunshine at their feet.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know,” he remarked. “I met our friend -Andersen there the other day. He told me he had -been doing the work quite alone. He said it was one -of the most interesting things he had ever done. -By the way, I am confident that that rumour we -heard, of his getting unsettled in his mind, is absolutely -untrue. I have never found him more sensible—you -know how silent he is as a rule? When I -met him he was quite eloquent on the subject of -mediæval carving.”</p> - -<p>Vennie looked down and smiled—a sad little smile. -“I’m afraid,” she said; “that his talking so freely -is not quite a good sign. But do let’s go. I have -never looked at those queer figures with anyone but -my mother; and you know the way she has of -making everything seem as if it were an ornament -on her own mantelpiece.”</p> - -<p>They began descending the hill, Mr. Taxater displaying -more agility than might have been expected -of him, as they scrambled down between furze-bushes, -rabbit-holes, and beds of yellow trefoil.</p> - -<p>“How dreadfully I shall miss you, dear child,” he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span> -said. “No one could accuse me of selfishness in furthering -your wish for the religious life. Half the pleasant -discoveries I’ve made in this charming country -have been due to you.”</p> - -<p>The young girl turned and regarded him affectionately. -“You have been more than a father to -me,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Vennie, Vennie!” he protested, “you mustn’t -talk like that. After all, the greatest discovery we -have made, is the discovery of your calling for -religion. I have much to be thankful for. It is -not often that I have been permitted such a privilege. -If we had not been thrown together, who knows but -that the influence of our good Clavering——”</p> - -<p>Vennie blushed scarlet at the mention of the priest’s -name, and to hide her confusion, buried her head -in a great clump of rag-wort, pressing its yellow -clusters vehemently against her cheeks, with agitated -trembling hands.</p> - -<p>When she lifted up her face, the fair hair under her -hat was sprinkled with dewy moisture. “The turn -of the year has come,” she said. “There’s mist on -everything today.” She smiled, with a quick embarrassed -glance at her companion.</p> - -<p>“The turn of the year has come,” repeated the -champion of the papacy.</p> - -<p>They descended the slope of yet another field, and -then paused again, leaning upon a gate.</p> - -<p>“Have you ever thought how strange it is,” remarked -the girl, as they turned to survey the scene -around them, “that those two hills should still, in -a way, represent the struggle between good and -evil? I always wish that my ancestors had built a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span> -chapel on Nevilton Mount instead of that silly little -tower.”</p> - -<p>The theologian fixed his eyes on the two eminences -which, from the point where they stood, -showed so emphatically against the smouldering -August sky.</p> - -<p>“Why do you call Leo’s Hill evil?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Vennie frowned. “I always have felt like that -about it,” she answered. “It’s an odd fancy I’ve got. -I can’t quite explain it. Perhaps it’s because I know -something of the hard life of the quarry-men. Perhaps -it’s because of Mr. Romer. I really can’t tell -you. But that’s the feeling I have!”</p> - -<p>“Our worthy Mr. Wone would thank you, if you -lent him your idea for use in his speeches,” remarked -the theologian with a chuckle.</p> - -<p>“That’s just it!” cried Vennie. “It teases me, -more than I can say, that the cause of the poor -should be in his hands. I can’t associate <em>him</em> with -anything good or sacred. His being the one to -oppose Mr. Romer makes me feel as though God had -left us completely, left us at the mercy of the false -prophets!”</p> - -<p>“Child, child!” expostulated Mr. Taxater—“<i>Custodit -Dominus animas sanctorum suorum; de manu -peccatoris liberabit eos</i>.”</p> - -<p>“But it is so strange,” continued Vennie. “It is -one of the things I cannot understand. Why should -God have to use other means than those His church -offers to defeat the designs of wicked people? I wish -miracles happened more often! Sometimes I dream -of them happening. I dreamt the other night that -an angel, with a great silver sword, stood on the top<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span> -of Nevilton Mount, and cried aloud to all the dead -in the churchyard. Why can’t God send real angels -to fight His battles, instead of using wolves in -sheep’s clothing like that wretched Mr. Wone?”</p> - -<p>The champion of the papacy smiled. “You are -too hard on our poor Candidate, Vennie. There’s -more of the sheep than the wolf about our worthy -Wone, after all. But you touch upon a large question, -my dear; a large question. That great circle, -whose centre is everywhere and its circumference -nowhere, as St. Thomas says, must needs include -many ways to the fulfilment of His ends, which are -mysterious to us. God is sometimes pleased to use -the machinations of the most evil men, even their -sensual passions, and their abominable vices, to -bring about the fulfilment of His will. And we, dear -child,” he added after a pause, “must follow God’s -methods. That is why the church has always condemned -as a dangerous heresy that Tolstoyan doctrine -of submission to evil. We must never submit -to evil! Our duty is to use against it every weapon -the world offers. Weapons that in themselves are -unholy, become holy—nay! even sacred—when -used in the cause of God and His church.”</p> - -<p>Vennie remained puzzled and silent. She felt a -vague, remote dissatisfaction with her friend’s argument; -but she found it difficult to answer. She -glanced sadly up at the cone-shaped mount above -them, and wished that in place of that heathen-looking -tower, she could see her angel with the -silver sword.</p> - -<p>“It is all very confusing,” she murmured at last,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span> -“and I shall be glad when I am out of it.”</p> - -<p>The theologian laid his hand—the hand that -ought to have belonged to a prince of the church—upon -his companion’s.</p> - -<p>“You will be out of it soon, child,” he said, “and -then you will help us by your prayers. We who are -the temporal monks of the great struggle are bound -to soil our hands in the dust of the arena. But -your prayers, and the prayers of many like you, -cleanse them continually from such unhappy stains.”</p> - -<p>Even at the moment he was uttering these profound -words, Mr. Taxater was wondering in his heart -how far his friend’s inclination to a convent depended -upon an impulse much more natural and feminine -than the desire to avoid the Mr. Romers and Mr. -Wones of this poor world. He made a second rather -brutal experiment.</p> - -<p>“We must renounce,” he said, “all these plausible -poetic attempts to be wiser than God’s Holy Church. -That is one of the faults into which our worthy -Clavering falls.”</p> - -<p>Once more the tell-tale scarlet rushed into the -cheeks of Nevilton’s little nun.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered, stooping to pluck a spray of -wild basil, “I know.”</p> - -<p>They opened the gate, and very soon found themselves -at the entrance to Athelston church. Late -summer flowers, planted in rows on each side of -the path, met them with a ravishing fragrance. -Stocks and sweet-williams grew freely among the -graves; and tall standard roses held up the wealth -of their second blossoming, like chalices full of -red and white wine. Heavy-winged brown butterflies -fluttered over the grass, like the earth-drawn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span> -spirits, Vennie thought, of such among the dead as -were loath to leave the scene of their earthly pleasures. -Mounted upon a step-ladder in the porch was -the figure of James Andersen, absorbed in removing -the moss and lichen from the carving in the central -arch.</p> - -<p>He came down at once when he perceived their -approach. “Look!” he said, with a wave of his hand, -“you can see what it is now.”</p> - -<p>Obedient to his words they both gazed curiously -at the quaint early Norman relief. It represented -a centaur, with a drawn bow and arrow, aiming at -a retreating lion, which was sneaking off in humorously -depicted terror.</p> - -<p>“That is King Stephen,” said the stone-carver, -pointing to the centaur. “And the beast he is -aiming at is Queen Maud. Stephen’s zodiacal sign -was Sagittarius, and the woman’s was Leo. Hence -the arrow he is aiming.”</p> - -<p>Vennie’s mind, reverting to her fanciful distinction -between the two eminences, and woman-like, associating -everything she saw with the persons of her -own drama, at once began to discern, between the -retreating animal and the fair-haired daughter of the -owner of Leo’s Hill, a queer and grotesque resemblance.</p> - -<p>She heaved a deep sigh. What would she not give -to see her poor priest-centaur aim such an arrow of -triumph at the heart of his insidious temptress!</p> - -<p>“I think you have made them stand out wonderfully -clear,” she said gently. “Hasn’t he, Mr. -Taxater?”</p> - -<p>The stone-carver threw down the instrument he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span> -was using, and folded his arms. His dark, foreign-looking -countenance wore a very curious expression.</p> - -<p>“I wanted to finish this job,” he remarked, in a -slow deep voice, “before I turn into stone myself.”</p> - -<p>“Come, come, my friend,” said Mr. Taxater, while -Vennie stared in speechless alarm at the carver’s -face. “You mustn’t talk like that! You people -get a wrong perspective in things. Remember, this -is no longer the Stone Age. The power of stone was -broken once for all, when certain women of Palestine -found that stone, which we’ve all heard of, lifted -out of its place! Since then it is to wood—the -wood out of which His cross was made—not to -stone, that we must look.”</p> - -<p>The carver raised his long arm and pointed in the -direction of Leo’s Hill. “Twenty years,” he said, -“have I been working on this stone. I used to despise -such work. Then I grew to care for it. Then -there came a change. I loved the work! It was the -only thing I loved. I loved to feel the stone under -my hands, and to watch it yielding to my tools. I -think the soul of it must have passed into my soul. -It seemed to know me; to respond to me. We became -like lovers, the stone and I!” He laughed an -uneasy, disconcerting laugh; and went on.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span></p> -<p>“But that is not all. Another change came. <em>She</em> -came into my life. I needn’t tell you, Miss Seldom, -who I mean. You know well enough. These things -cannot be hidden. Nothing can be hidden that -happens here! She came and was kind to me. -She is kind to me still. But they have got hold of -her. She can’t resist them. Why she can’t, I cannot -say; but it seems impossible. She talks to me like -a person in a dream. They’re going to marry her -to that brute Goring. You’ve heard that I suppose? -But of course it’s nothing to you! Why should it be?”</p> - -<p>He paused, and Vennie interrupted him sharply. -“It is a great deal to us, Mr. Andersen! Every -cruel thing that is done in a place affects everyone -who lives in the place. If Mr. Taxater and—and -Mr. Clavering—thought that Miss Traffio was -being driven into this marriage, I’m sure they would -not allow it! They would do something—everything—to -stop such an outrage. Wouldn’t you, Mr. -Taxater?”</p> - -<p>“But surely, Vennie,” said the theologian, “you -have heard something of this? You can’t be quite -so oblivious, as all that, to the village scandal?”</p> - -<p>He spoke with a certain annoyance as people are -apt to do, when some disagreeable abuse, which they -have sought to forget, is brought vividly before them.</p> - -<p>Vennie, too, became irritable. The question of -Lacrima’s marriage had more than once given her -conscience a sharp stab. “I think it is a shame to -us all,” she cried vehemently, “that this should be -allowed. It is only lately that I’ve heard rumours -of it, and I took them for mere gossip. It’s been on -my mind.” She looked almost sternly at the theologian. -“I meant to talk to you about it. But -other things came between. I haven’t seen Lacrima -for several weeks. Surely, if it is as Mr. Andersen -says, something ought to be done! It is a horrible, -perfectly horrible idea!” She covered her face with -her hands as if to shut out some unbearable vision.</p> - -<p>James Andersen watched them both intently, leaning -against the wood-work of the church-door.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I thought you all knew of this,” he said presently. -“Perhaps you did; but the devil prompted you to -say nothing. There are a great many things in this -world which are done while people—good people—look -on—and nothing said. Do you wonder now -that the end of this business will be a curious one; -I mean for me? For you know, of course, what -is going to happen? You know why I have been -chosen to work at this particular piece of carving? -And why, ever since I quarrelled with Luke and -drank in Hullaway Inn, I have heard voices in my -head? The reason of that is, that Leo’s Hill is angry -because I have deserted it. Every stone I touch is -angry, and keeps talking to me and upbraiding me. -The voices I hear are the voices of all the stones I -have ever worked with in my life. But they needn’t -fret themselves. The end will surprise even them. -<em>They</em> do not know,”—here his voice took a lower -tone, and he assumed that ghastly air of imparting -a piece of surprising, but quite natural, information, -which is one of the most sinister tokens of monomania,—“that -I shall very soon be, even as they are! -Isn’t it funny they don’t know that, Miss Seldom? -Isn’t it a curious thing, Mr. Taxater? I thought of -that, just now, as I chipped the dirt from King -Stephen. Even <em>he</em> didn’t know, the foolish centaur! -And yet he has been up there, seeing this sort of -thing done, for seven hundred years! I expect he -has seen so many girls dragged under this arch, with -sick terror in their hearts, that he has grown callous -to it. A callous king! A knavish-smiling king! It -makes me laugh to think how little he cares!”</p> - -<p>The unfortunate man did indeed proceed to laugh;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[443]</a></span> -but the sound of it was so ghastly, even to himself, -that he quickly became grave.</p> - -<p>“Luke will be here soon,” he said. “Luke has -always come for me, these last few days, when his -work is over. It’ll be over soon now, I think. He -may be here any moment; so I’d better finish the -job. Don’t you worry about Lacrima, ladies and -gentlemen! She’ll fly away with the rooks. This -centaur-king will never reach <em>her</em> with his arrows. -It’ll be me, not her, he’ll turn into stone!”</p> - -<p>He became silent and continued his labour upon the -carving. The wonder was that with his head full of -such mad fancies he could manage so delicate a -piece of work. Mr. Taxater and Vennie watched -him in amazement.</p> - -<p>“I think,” whispered the latter presently, “we’d -better wait in the churchyard till his brother comes. -I don’t like leaving him in this state.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater nodded, and retreating to the further -end of the path, they sat down together upon a -flat tombstone.</p> - -<p>“I am sorry,” said Mr. Taxater, after a minute -or two’s silence, “that I spoke rather crossly to you -just now. The truth is, the man’s reference to that -Italian girl made me feel ashamed of myself. I have -not your excuse of being ignorant of what was going -on. I have, in fact, been meaning to talk to you -about it for some weeks; but I hesitated, wishing to -be quite sure of my ground first.</p> - -<p>“Even now, you must remember, we have no certain -authority to go upon. But I’m afraid—I’m -very much afraid—what Andersen says is true. -It is evidently his own certain knowledge of it that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[444]</a></span> -has upset his brain. And I’m inclined to take his -word for it. I fear the girl must have told him herself; -and it was the shock of hearing it from her -that had this effect.</p> - -<p>“There’s no doubt he’s seriously ill. But if I know -anything of these things, it’s rather a case of extreme -nervous agitation than actual insanity. In any -event, it’s a relief to remember that this kind of -mania is, of all forms of brain-trouble, the easiest -cured.”</p> - -<p>Vennie made an imperious little gesture. “We -<em>must</em> cure him!” she cried. “We must! We must! -And the only way to do it, as far as I can see, is to -stop this abominable marriage. Lacrima can’t be -doing it willingly. No girl would marry a man like -that, of her own accord.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater shook his head. “I’m afraid there -are few people,” he remarked, “that some girl or -other wouldn’t marry if the motive were strong -enough! The question is, What is the motive in this -instance?”</p> - -<p>“What can Mr. Quincunx be thinking of?” said -Vennie. “He hasn’t been up to see mother lately. -In fact, I don’t think he has been in our house since -he began working in Yeoborough. That’s another -abominable shame! It seems to me more and more -clear that there’s an evil destiny hanging over this -place, driving people on to do wicked things!”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid we shall get small assistance from -Mr. Quincunx,” said the theologian. “The relations -between him and Lacrima are altogether beyond my -power of unravelling. But I cannot imagine his -taking any sort of initiative in any kind of difficulty.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[445]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Then what are we to do?” pleaded Vennie, looking -anxiously into the diplomatist’s face.</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater rested his chin upon the handle of his -cane and made no reply.</p> - -<p>At this moment the gate clicked behind them, and -Luke Andersen appeared. He glanced hastily towards -the porch; but his brother was absorbed in -his work and apparently had heard nothing. Stepping -softly along the edge of the path he approached -the two friends. He looked very anxious and -troubled.</p> - -<p>Raising his hat to Vennie, he made a gesture with -his hand in his brother’s direction. “Have you seen -him?” he enquired. “Has he talked to you?”</p> - -<p>The theologian nodded.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I think all this is dreadful!” whispered Vennie. -“I’m more distressed than I can tell you. I’m -afraid he’s very, very ill. And he keeps talking -about Miss Traffio. Surely something can be done, -Mr. Andersen, to stop that marriage before it’s too -late?”</p> - -<p>Luke turned upon her with an expression completely -different from any she had ever seen him wear before. -He seemed to have suddenly grown much older. -His mouth was drawn, and a little open; and his -cheeks were pale and indented by deep lines.</p> - -<p>“I would give my soul,” he said with intense emphasis,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[446]</a></span> -“to have this thing otherwise. I have already -been to Lacrima—to Miss Traffio, I mean—but -she will do nothing. She is mad, too, I think. -I hoped to get her to marry my brother, off-hand, -anyhow; and leave the place with him. But she -won’t hear of it. I can’t understand her! It almost -seems as if she <em>wanted</em> to marry that clown. But -she can’t really; it’s impossible. I’m afraid that -fool Quincunx is at the bottom of it.”</p> - -<p>“Something must be done! Something must be -done!” wailed Vennie.</p> - -<p>“<i>Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus!</i>” muttered Mr. -Taxater. “<i>Speravit anima mea in Domino.</i>”</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t mind so much the state he’s in,” -continued Luke, “if I didn’t remember how my -mother went. She got just like this before she died. -It’s true my father was a brute to her. But this -different kind of blow seems to have just the same -effect upon James. Fool that I am, I must needs -start a miserable quarrel with him when he was most -worried. If anything happens, I tell you I shall feel -I’m responsible for the whole thing, and no one else!”</p> - -<p>All this while Mr. Taxater had remained silent, -his chin on the handle of his cane. At last he lifted -up his head.</p> - -<p>“I think,” he began softly, “I should rather like a -word alone with Mr. Luke, Vennie. Perhaps you -wouldn’t mind wandering down the lane a step or -two? Then I can follow you; and we’ll leave this -young man to get his brother home.”</p> - -<p>The girl rose obediently and pressed the youth’s -hand. “If anyone can help you,” she said with a -look of tender sympathy, “it is Mr. Taxater. He has -helped me in my trouble.”</p> - -<p>As soon as Vennie was out of hearing the theologian -looked straight into Luke’s face.</p> - -<p>“I have an idea,” he said, “that if any two people -can find a way out of this wretched business, it is -you and I together.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[447]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Well, sir,” said Luke, seating himself by Mr. -Taxater’s side and glancing apprehensively towards -the church-porch; “I have tried what I can do with -Miss Romer, but she maintains that nothing she can -say will make any difference to Miss Traffio.”</p> - -<p>“I fancy there is one thing, however, that would -make a difference to Mr. Quincunx,” remarked the -theologian significantly. “I am taking for granted,” -he added, “that it is this particular marriage which -weighs so heavily on your brother. He would -not suffer if he saw her wedded to a man she -loved?”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” exclaimed Luke, “your idea is to appeal to -Quincunx. I’ve thought of that, too. But I’m -afraid it’s hopeless. He’s such an inconceivably -helpless person. Besides, he’s got no money.”</p> - -<p>“Suppose we secured him the money?” said Mr. -Taxater.</p> - -<p>Luke’s countenance momentarily brightened; but -the cloud soon settled on it again.</p> - -<p>“We couldn’t get enough,” he said with a sigh. -“Unless,” he added, with a glimmer of humour, “you -or some other noble person have more cash to dispose -of than I fancy is at all likely! To persuade Quincunx -into any bold activity we should have to guarantee -him a comfortable annuity for the rest of his -life, and an assurance of his absolute security from -Romer’s vengeance. It would have to be enough -for Lacrima, too, you understand!”</p> - -<p>The theologian shook the dew-drops from a large -crimson rose which hung within his reach.</p> - -<p>“What precise sum would you suggest,” he asked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[448]</a></span> -“as likely to be a sufficient inducement?”</p> - -<p>The stone-carver meditated. “Those two could -live quite happily,” he remarked at last, “on two -hundred a year.”</p> - -<p>“It is a large amount to raise,” said Mr. Taxater. -“I fear it is quite beyond my power and the power of -the Seldoms, even if we combined our efforts. How -right Napoleon was, when he said that in any campaign, -the first, second, and third requisite was -money!</p> - -<p>“It only shows how foolish those critics of the -Catholic Church are, who blame her for laying stress -upon the temporal side of our great struggle against -evil. In this world, as things go, one always strikes -sooner or later against the barrier of money. The -money-question lies at the bottom of every subterranean -abuse and every hidden iniquity that we -unmask. It’s a wretched thing that it should be -so, but we have to accept it; until one of Vennie’s -angels”—he added in an undertone—“descends -to help us! Your poor brother began talking just -now about the power of stone. I referred him to -the Cross of our Lord—which is made of another -material!</p> - -<p>“But unfortunately in the stress of this actual -struggle, you and I, my dear Andersen, find ourselves, -as you see, compelled to call in the help, not of wood, -but of gold. Gold, and gold alone, can furnish us -with the means of undermining these evil powers!”</p> - -<p>The texture of Mr. Taxater’s mind was so nicely -inter-threaded with the opposite strands of metaphysical -and Machiavellian wisdom, that this discourse, -fantastic as it may sound to us, fell from -him as naturally as rain from a heavy cloud. Luke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[449]</a></span> -Andersen’s face settled into an expression of hopeless -gloom.</p> - -<p>“The thing is beyond us, then,” he said. “I certainly -can’t provide an enormous sum like that. -James’ and my savings together only amount to a -few hundreds. And if no quixotic person can be -discovered to help us, we are bound hand and foot.</p> - -<p>“Oh I should like,” he cried, “to make this place -ring and ting with our triumph over that damned -Romer!”</p> - -<p>“<i>Quis est iste Rex gloriæ?</i>” muttered the Theologian. -“<i>Dominus fortis et potens; Dominus potens in prœlio.</i>”</p> - -<p>“I shall never dare,” went on the stone-carver, -“to get my brother away into a home. The least -thought of such a thing would drive him absolutely -out of his mind. He’ll have to be left to drift about -like this, talking madly to everyone he meets, till -something terrible happens to him. God! I could -howl with rage, to think how it all might be saved if -only that ass Quincunx had a little gall!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater tapped the young man’s wrist with -his white fingers. “I think we can put gall into him -between us,” he said. “I think so, Andersen.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve got some idea, sir!” cried Luke, looking -at the theologian. “For Heaven’s sake, let’s have -it! I am completely at the end of my tether.”</p> - -<p>“This American who is engaged to Gladys is immensely -rich, isn’t he?” enquired Mr. Taxater.</p> - -<p>“Rich?” answered Luke. “That’s not the word -for it! The fellow could buy the whole of Leo’s -Hill and not know the difference.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater was silent, fingering the gold cross -upon his watch-chain.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[450]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It remains with yourself then,” he remarked at -last.</p> - -<p>“What!” cried the astonished Luke.</p> - -<p>“I happen to be aware,” continued the diplomatist, -calmly, “that there is a certain fact which our friend -from Ohio would give half his fortune to know. He -certainly would very willingly sign the little document -for it, that would put Mr. Quincunx and Miss -Traffio into a position of complete security. It is -only a question of ‘the terrain of negotiation,’ as we -say in our ecclesiastical circles.”</p> - -<p>Luke Andersen’s eyes opened very widely, and the -amazement of his surprise made him look more like -an astounded faun than ever—a faun that has -come bolt upon some incredible triumph of civilization.</p> - -<p>“I will be quite plain with you, young man,” said -the theologian. “It has come to my knowledge -that you and Gladys Romer are more than friends; -have been more than friends, for a good while past.</p> - -<p>“Do not wave your hand in that way! I am not -speaking without evidence. I happen to know as -a positive fact that this girl is neither more nor less -than your mistress. I am also inclined to believe—though -of this, of course, I cannot be sure—that, as -a result of this intrigue, she is likely, before the -autumn is over, to find herself in a position of considerable -embarrassment. It is no doubt, with a -view to covering such embarrassment—you understand -what I mean, Mr. Andersen?—that she is -making preparations to have her marriage performed -earlier than was at first intended.”</p> - -<p>“God!” cried the astounded youth, losing all self-possession,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[451]</a></span> -“how, under the sun, did you get to -know this?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater smiled. “We poor controversialists,” he -said, “have to learn, in self-defence, certain innocent -arts of observation. I don’t think that you and your -mistress,” he added, “have been so extraordinarily discreet, -that it needed a miracle to discover your secret.”</p> - -<p>Luke Andersen recovered his equanimity with a vigorous -effort. “Well?” he said, rising from his seat and -looking anxiously at his brother, “what then?”</p> - -<p>As he uttered these words the young stone-carver’s -mind wrestled in grim austerity with the ghastly -hint thrown out by his companion. He divined with -an icy shock of horror the astounding proposal that -this amazing champion of the Faith was about to -unfold. He mentally laid hold of this proposal as a -man might lay hold upon a red-hot bar of iron. -The interior fibres of his being hardened themselves -to grasp without shrinking its appalling treachery.</p> - -<p>Luke had it in him, below his urbane exterior, to -rend and tear away every natural, every human -scruple. He had it in him to be able to envisage, -with a shamelessness worthy of some lost soul of the -Florentine’s Inferno, the fire-scorched walls of such a -stark dilemma. The palpable suggestion which now -hung, as it were, suspended in the air between them, -was a suggestion he was ready to grasp by the throat.</p> - -<p>The sight of his brother’s gaunt figure, every line of -which he knew and loved so well, turned his conscience -to adamant. Sinking into the depths of his soul, as a -diver might sink into an ice-cold sea, he felt that there -was literally <em>nothing</em> he would not do, if his dear Daddy -James could be restored to sanity and happiness.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[452]</a></span></p> - -<p>Gladys? He would walk over the bodies of a hundred -Gladyses, if that way, and that alone, led to -his brother’s restoration!</p> - -<p>“What then?” he repeated, turning a bleak but -resolute face upon Mr. Taxater.</p> - -<p>The theologian continued: “Why, it remains for -you, or for someone deputed by you, to reveal to our -unsuspecting American exactly how his betrothed has -betrayed him. I have no doubt that in the disturbance -this will cause him we shall have no difficulty -in securing his aid in this other matter. It -would be a natural, an inevitable revenge for him to -take. Himself a victim of these Romers, what more -appropriate, what more suitable, than that he should -help us in liberating their other victims? If he is as -wealthy as you say, it would be a mere bagatelle for -him to set our good Quincunx upon his feet forever, and -Lacrima with him! It is the kind of thing it would -naturally occur to him to do. It would be a revenge; -but a noble revenge. He would leave Nevilton then, -feeling that he had left his mark; that he had made -himself felt. Americans like to make themselves felt.”</p> - -<p>Luke’s countenance, in spite of his interior acquiescence, -stiffened into a haggard mask of dismay.</p> - -<p>“But this is beyond anything one has ever heard of!” -he protested, trying in vain to assume an air of levity. “It -is beyond everything. Actually to convey, to the very -man one’s girl is going to marry, the news of her seduction! -Actually to ‘coin her for drachmas,’ as it says -somewhere! It’s a monstrous thing, an incredible -thing!”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit more monstrous than your original sin -in seducing the girl,” said Mr. Taxater.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[453]</a></span></p> - -<p>“That is the usual trick,” he went on sternly, “of -you English people! You snatch at your little pleasures, -without any scruple, and feel yourselves quite -honourable. And then, directly it becomes a question -of paying for them, by any form of public confession, -you become fastidiously scrupulous.”</p> - -<p>“But to give one’s girl away, to betray her in this -shameless manner oneself! It seems to me the ultimate -limit of scurvy meanness!”</p> - -<p>“It only seems to you so, because the illusion of -chivalry enters into it; in other words, because public -opinion would condemn you! This honourable -shielding of the woman we have sinned with, at -every kind of cost to others, has been the cause of -endless misery. Do you think you are preparing a -happy marriage for your Gladys in your ‘honourable’ -reticence? By saving her from this union with Mr. -Dangelis—whom, by the way, she surely cannot love, -if she loves you—you will be doing her the best service -possible. Even if she refuses to make you her husband -in his place—and I suppose her infatuation would -stop at that!—there are other ways, besides marriage, -of hiding her embarrassed condition. Let her travel -for a year till her trouble is well over!”</p> - -<p>Luke Andersen reflected in silence, his drooping figure -indicating a striking collapse of his normal urbanity.</p> - -<p>At last he spoke. “There may be something in -what you suggest,” he remarked slowly. “Obviously, -<em>I</em> can’t be the one,” he added, after a further pause, -“to strike this astounding bargain with the American.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why not,” said the theologian, with -a certain maliciousness in his tone, “I don’t see why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[454]</a></span> -not. You have been the one to commit the sin; -you ought naturally to be the one to perform the -penance.”</p> - -<p>The luckless youth distorted his countenance into -such a wry grimace, that he caused it to resemble -the stone gargoyles which protruded their lewd -tongues from the church roof above them.</p> - -<p>“It’s a scurvy thing to do, all the same,” he -muttered.</p> - -<p>“It is only relatively—‘scurvy,’ as you call it,” -replied Mr. Taxater. “In an absolute sense, the -‘scurviness’ would be to let your Gladys deceive -an honest man and make herself unhappy for life, -simply to save you two from any sort of exposure. -But as a matter of fact, I am <em>not</em> inclined to place -this very delicate piece of negotiation in your hands. -It would be so fatally easy for you—under the circumstances—to -make some precipitate blunder that -would spoil it all.</p> - -<p>“Don’t think,” he went on, observing the face of his -interlocutor relapsing into sudden cheerfulness, “that I -let you off this penance because of its unchivalrous -character. You break the laws of chivalry quite as completely -by putting me into the possession of the facts.</p> - -<p>“I shall, of course,” he added, “require from you -some kind of written statement. The thing must be -put upon an unimpeachable ground.”</p> - -<p>Luke Andersen’s relief was not materially modified -by this demand. He began to fumble in his -pocket for his cigarette-case.</p> - -<p>“The great point to be certain of,” continued -Mr. Taxater, “is that Quincunx and Lacrima will -accept the situation, when it is thus presented to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[455]</a></span> -them. But I don’t think we need anticipate any -difficulty. In case of Dangelis’ saying anything to -Mr. Romer, though I do not for a moment imagine -he will, it would be well if you and your brother -were prepared to move, if need were, to some other -scene of action. There is plenty of demand for skilled -workmen like yourselves, and you have no ties here.”</p> - -<p>The young man made a deprecatory movement -with his hands.</p> - -<p>“We neither of us should like that, very much, -sir. James and I are fonder of Nevilton than you -might imagine.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well,” responded the theologian, “we can -discuss that another time. Such a thing may not be -necessary. I am glad to see, my friend,” he added, -“that whatever wrong you have done, you are willing -to atone for it. So I trust our little plan will work -out successfully. Perhaps you will look in, tomorrow -night? I shall be at leisure then, and we can make -our arrangements. Well, Heaven protect you, ‘<i>a sagitta -volante in die, a negotio perambulante in tenebris</i>.’”</p> - -<p>He crossed himself devoutly as he spoke, and giving -the young man a friendly wave of the hand, and -an encouraging smile, let himself out through the -gate and proceeded to follow the patient Vennie.</p> - -<p>He overtook his little friend somewhere not far -from the lodge of that admirable captain, whose -neatly-cut laurel hedge had witnessed, according to -the loquacious Mrs. Fringe, the strange encounter -between Jimmy Pringle and his Maker. Vennie -was straying slowly along by the hedge-side, trailing -her hand through the tall dead grasses. Hearing Mr. -Taxater’s footsteps, she turned eagerly to meet him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[456]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Well,” she asked, “what does Luke say about his -brother? Is it as bad as we feared?”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t think,” responded the theologian, -“any more than I do, that the thing has gone further -than common hallucination.”</p> - -<p>“And Lacrima—poor little Lacrima!—have you -decided what we must do to intervene in her case?”</p> - -<p>“I think it may be said,” responded the scholar -gravely, “that we have hit upon an effective way of -stopping that marriage. But perhaps it would be -pleasanter and easier for you to remain at present -in ignorance of our precise plan. I know,” he added, -smiling, “you do not care for hidden conspiracies.”</p> - -<p>Vennie frowned. “I don’t see why,” she said, -“there should be anything hidden about it! It seems -to me, the thing is so abominable, that one would -only have to make it public, to put an end to it -completely.</p> - -<p>“I hope”—she clasped her hands—“I do hope, -you are not fighting the evil one with the weapons -of the evil one? If you are, I am sure it will end -unhappily. I am sure and certain of it!”</p> - -<p>She spoke with a fervour that seemed almost -prophetic; and as she did so, she unconsciously -waved—with a pathetic little gesture of protest—the -bunch of dead grasses which she held in her hand.</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater walked gravely by her side; his profile, -in its imperturbable immobility, resembling the -mask of some great mediæval ecclesiastic. The only -reply he made to her appeal was to quote the famous -Psalmodic invocation: “<i>Nisi Dominus ædificaverit domum, -in vanum laboraverunt qui ædificant eam.</i>”</p> - -<p>It would have been clear to anyone who had overheard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[457]</a></span> -his recent conversation with Luke, and now -watched his reception of Vennie’s instinctive protest, -that whatever the actions of this remarkable man -were, they rested upon a massive foundation of unshakable -philosophy.</p> - -<p>There was little further conversation between -them; and at the vicarage gate, they separated with -a certain air of estrangement. With undeviating -feminine clairvoyance, Vennie was persuaded in the -depths of her mind that whatever plan had been hit -upon by the combined wits of the theologian and -Luke, it was one whose nature, had she known it, -would have aroused her most vehement condemnation. -Nor in this persuasion will the reader of our curious -narrative regard her as far astray from the truth.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the two brothers were also returning -slowly along the road to Nevilton. Had Mr. Clavering, -whose opinion of the younger stone-carver was -probably lower than that of any of his other critics, -seen Luke during this time, he might have formed a -kindlier judgment of him. Nothing could have -exceeded the tact and solicitude with which he -guided the conversation into safe channels. Nothing -could have surpassed, in affectionate tenderness, the -quick, anxious glances he every now and then cast -upon his brother. There are certain human expressions -which flit suddenly across the faces of men and -women, which reveal, with the seal of absolute authenticity, -the depth of the emotion they betray. -Such a flitting expression, of a love almost maternal -in its passionate depth, crossed the face of Luke -Andersen at more than one stage of their homeward -walk.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[458]</a></span></p> - -<p>James seemed, on the whole, rather better than -earlier in the day. The most ominous thing he did -was to begin a long incoherent discourse about the -rooks which kept circling over their heads on their -way to the tall trees of Wild Pine. But this particular -event of the rooks’ return to their Nevilton roosting-place -was a phase of the local life of that spot -calculated to impress even perfectly sane minds -with romantic suggestion. It was always a sign of -the breaking up of the year’s pristine bloom when -they came, a token of the not distant approach of -the shorter equinoctial days. They flew hither, these -funereal wayfarers, from far distant feeding-grounds. -They did not nest in the Nevilton woods. Nevilton -was to them simply a habitation of sleep. Many of -them never even saw it, except in its morning and -evening twilight. The place drew them to it at night-fall, -and rejected them at sunrise. In the interval -they remained passive and unconscious—huddled -groups of black obscure shapes, tossed to and fro in -their high branches, their glossy heads full of dreams -beyond the reach of the profoundest sage. Before -settling down to rest, however, it was their custom, -even on the stormiest evenings, to sweep round, -above the roofs of the village, in wide airy circles of -restless flight, uttering their harsh familiar cries. -Sailing quietly on a peaceful air or roughly buffeted -by rainy gusts of wind—those westerly winds that -are so wild and intermittent in this corner of England—these -black tribes of the twilight give a character -to their places of favourite resort which resembles -nothing else in the world. The cawing of rooks is -like the crying of sea-gulls. It is a sound that more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[459]</a></span> -than anything flings the minds of men back to -“old unhappy far-off things.”</p> - -<p>The troubled soul of the luckless stone-carver went -tossing forth on this particular night of embalmed -stillness, driven in the track of those calmly circling -birds, on the gust of a thought-tempest more formidable -than any that the fall of the leaves could -bring. But the devoted passion of the younger -brother followed patiently every flight it took; and -by the time they had reached the vicarage-gate, and -turned down the station-hill towards their lodging, -the wild thoughts had fallen into rest, and like the -birds in the dusk of their sheltering branches, were -soothed into blessed forgetfulness.</p> - -<p>Luke had recourse, before they reached their dwelling, -to the magic of old memories; and the end of -that unforgettable day was spent by the two brothers -in summoning up childish recollections, and in evoking -the images and associations of their earliest compacts -of friendship.</p> - -<p>When he left his brother asleep and stood for a -while at the open window, Luke prayed a vague -heathen prayer to the planetary spaces above his -head. A falling star happened to sweep downward -at that moment behind the dark pyramid of Nevilton -Mount, and this natural phenomenon seemed to his -excited nerves a sort of elemental answer to his invocation; -as if it had been the very bolt of Sagittarius, -the Archer, aimed at all the demons that -darkened his brother’s soul!</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[460]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">VOICES BY THE WAY</span></h2> - -<p>The morning which followed James Andersen’s -completion of his work in Athelston church-porch, -was one of the loveliest of the season. -The sun rose into a perfectly cloudless sky. Every -vestige of mist had vanished, and the half-cut corn-fields -lay golden and unshadowed in the translucent -air. Over the surface of every upland path, the -little waves of palpable ether vibrated and quivered. -The white roads gleamed between their tangled hedges -as if they had been paved with mother-of-pearl. The -heat was neither oppressive nor sultry. It penetrated -without burdening, and seemed to flow forth upon -the earth, as much from the general expanse of the -blue depths as from the limited circle of the solar -luminary.</p> - -<p>James Andersen seemed more restored than his -brother had dared to hope. They went to their -work as usual; and from the manner in which the -elder stone-carver spoke to his mates and handled -his tools, none would have guessed at the mad fancies -which had so possessed him during the previous -days.</p> - -<p>Luke was filled with profound happiness and relief. -It is true that, like a tiny cloud upon the surface of -this clear horizon, the thought of his projected betrayal -of his mistress remained present with him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[461]</a></span> -But in the depths of his heart he knew that he would -have betrayed twenty mistresses, if by that means -the brother of his soul could be restored to sanity.</p> - -<p>He had already grown completely weary of Gladys. -The clinging and submissive passion with which the -proud girl had pursued him of late had begun to -irritate his nerves. More than once—especially -when her importunities interrupted his newer pleasures—he -had found himself on the point of hating -her. He was absolutely cynical—and always had -been—with regard to the ideal of faithfulness in -these matters. Even the startling vision of the -indignant Dangelis putting into her hands—as he -supposed the American might naturally do—the -actual written words with which he betrayed her, -only ruffled his equanimity in a remote and even -half-humorous manner. He recalled her contemptuous -treatment of him on the occasion of their first -amorous encounter and it was not without a certain -malicious thrill of triumph that he realized how -thoroughly he had been revenged.</p> - -<p>He had divined without difficulty on the occasion -of their return from Hullaway that Gladys was on -the point of revealing to him the fact that she was -likely to have a child; and since that day he had -taken care to give her little opportunity for such -revelations. Absorbed in anxiety for James, he -had been anxious to postpone this particular crisis -between them till a later occasion.</p> - -<p>The situation, nevertheless, whenever he had -thought of it, had given him, in spite of its complicated -issues, an undeniable throb of satisfaction. -It was such a complete, such a triumphant victory,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[462]</a></span> -over Mr. Romer. Luke in his heart had an unblushing -admiration for the quarry-owner, whose -masterly attitude towards life was not so very different -from his own. But this latent respect for his -employer rather increased than diminished his complacency -in thus striking him down. The remote -idea that, in the whirligig of time, an offspring of -his own should come to rule in Nevilton house—as -seemed by no means impossible, if matters were -discreetly managed—was an idea that gave him a -most delicate pleasure.</p> - -<p>As they strolled back to breakfast together, across -the intervening field, and admired the early dahlias -in the station-master’s garden, Luke took the risk -of testing his brother on the matter of Mr. Quincunx. -He was anxious to be quite certain of his ground -here, before he had his interview with the tenant -of the Gables.</p> - -<p>“I wish,” he remarked casually, “that Maurice -Quincunx would show a little spirit and carry Lacrima -off straight away.”</p> - -<p>James looked closely at him. “If he would,” he -said, “I’d give him every penny I possess and I’d -work day and night to help them! O Luke—Luke!” -he stretched out his arm towards Leo’s Hill and pronounced -what seemed like a vow before the Eumenides -themselves; “if I could make her happy, if I -could only make her happy, I would be buried tomorrow -in the deepest of those pits.”</p> - -<p>Luke registered his own little resolution in the -presence of this appeal to the gods. “Gladys? -What is Gladys to me compared with James? All -girls are the same. They all get over these things.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[463]</a></span></p> - -<p>Meanwhile James Andersen was repeating in a -low voice to himself the quaint name of his rival.</p> - -<p>“He is an ash-root, a tough ash-root,” he muttered. -“And that’s the reason he has been chosen. -There’s nothing in the world but the roots of trees -that can undermine the power of Stone! The trees -can do it. The trees will do it. What did that -Catholic say? He said it was Wood against Stone. -That’s the reason I can’t help her. I have worked -too long at Stone. I am too near Stone. That’s -the reason Quincunx has been chosen. She and I -are under the power of Stone, and we can’t resist it, -any more than the earth can! But ash-tree roots -can undermine anything. If only she would take -my money, if only she would.”</p> - -<p>This last aspiration was uttered in a voice loud -enough for Luke to hear; and it may be well believed -that it fortified him all the more strongly in his -dishonourable resolution.</p> - -<p>During breakfast James continued to show signs -of improvement. He talked of his mother, and -though his conversation was sprinkled with somewhat -fantastic imagery, on the whole it was rational -enough.</p> - -<p>While the meal was still in progress, the younger -brother observed through the window the figure of -a woman, moving oddly backwards and forwards -along their garden-hedge, as if anxious at the same -time to attract and avoid attention. He recognized -her in a moment as the notorious waif of the neighborhood, -the somewhat sinister Witch-Bessie. He -made an excuse to his brother and slipped out to -speak to her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[464]</a></span></p> - -<p>Witch-Bessie had grown, if possible, still more -dehumanized since when two months ago she had -cursed Gladys Romer. Her skin was pallid and -livid as parchment. The eyes which stared forth -from her wrinkled expressionless face were of a dull -glaucous blue, like the inside of certain sun-bleached -sea-shells. She was dressed in a rough sack-cloth -petticoat, out of which protruded her stockingless -feet, only half concealed by heavy labourer’s boots, -unlaced and in large holes. Over her thin shoulders -she wore a ragged woolen shawl which served the office -not only of a garment, but also of a wallet; for, in -the folds of it, were even now observable certain -half-eaten pieces of bread, and bits of ancient cheese, -which she had begged in her wanderings. In one of -her withered hands she held a large bunch of magenta-coloured, -nettle-like flowers, of the particular species -known to botanists as marsh-wound-wort. As soon -as Luke appeared she thrust these flowers into his -arms.</p> - -<p>“Gathered ’un for ’ee,” she whispered, in a thin -whistling voice, like the soughing of wind in a bed -of rushes. “They be capital weeds for them as be -moon-smitten. Gathered ’un, up by Seven Ashes, -where them girt main roads do cross. Take ’un, -mister; take ’un and thank an old woman wot loves -both of ’ee, as heretofore she did love your long-sufferin’ -mother. I were bidin’ down by Minister’s -back gate, expectin’ me bit of oddments, when they -did tell I, all sudden-like, as how he’d been taken, -same as <em>she</em> was.”</p> - -<p>“It’s most kind of you, Bessie,” said Luke graciously.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[465]</a></span> -“You and I have always been good friends.”</p> - -<p>The old woman nodded. “So we be, mister, and -let none say the contrary! I’ve a dangled ’ee, afore-now, -in these very arms. Dost mind how ’ee drove -that ramping girt dog out of Long-Load Barton when -the blarsted thing were for laying hold of I?”</p> - -<p>“But what must I do with these?” asked the -stone-carver, holding the bunch of pungent scented -flowers to his face.</p> - -<p>“That’s wot I was just a-going to tell ’ee,” whispered -the old woman solemnly. “I suppose <em>he’s</em> -in there now, eh? Let ’un be, poor man. Let ’un -be. May-be the Lord’s only waitin’ for these ’ere -weeds to mend ’is poor swimey wits. You do as I -do tell ’ee, mister, and ’twill be all smoothed out, -as clean as church floor. You take these blessed -weeds,—‘viviny-lobs’ my old mother did call ’em—and -hang ’em to dry till they be dead and brown. -Then doddy a sprinkle o’ good salt on ’em, and dip -’em in clear water. Be you followin’ me, mister -Luke?”</p> - -<p>The young man nodded.</p> - -<p>“Then wot you got to do, is for to strike ’em -against door-post, and as you strikes ’em, you says, -same as I says now.” And Witch-Bessie repeated -the following archaic enchantment.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">Marshy hollow woundy-wort,</div> -<div class="verse">Growing on the holy dirt,</div> -<div class="verse">In the Mount of Calvary</div> -<div class="verse">There was thou found.</div> -<div class="verse">In the name of sweet Jesus</div> -<div class="verse">I take thee from the ground.</div> -<div class="verse">O Lord, effect the same,</div> -<div class="verse">That I do now go about.</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[466]</a></span></p> - -<p>Luke listened devoutly to these mysterious words, -and repeated them twice, after the old woman. -Their two figures, thus concerted in magical tutelage, -might, for all the youth’s modern attire, have suggested -to a scholarly observer some fantastic heathen -scene out of Apuleius. The spacious August sunshine -lay splendid upon the fields about them, and -light-winged swallows skimmed the surface of the -glittering railway-line as though it had been a flowing -river.</p> - -<p>When she was made assured in her mind that her -pupil fully understood the healing incantation, Witch-Bessie -shuffled off without further words. Her -face, as she resumed her march in the direction of -Hullaway, relapsed into such corpse-like rigidity, -that, but for her mechanical movement, one might -have expected the shameless flocks of starlings who -hovered about her, to settle without apprehension -upon her head.</p> - -<p>The two brothers labored harmoniously side by -side in their work-shop all that forenoon. It was -Saturday, and their companions were anxious to -throw down their tools and clear out of the place on -the very stroke of the one o’clock bell.</p> - -<p>James and Luke were both engaged upon a new -stone font, the former meticulously chipping out its -angle-mouldings, and the latter rounding, with chisel -and file, the capacious lip of its deep basin. It was -a cathedral font, intended for use in a large northern -city.</p> - -<p>Luke could not resist commenting to his brother, -in his half-humorous half-sentimental way, upon the -queer fact that they two—their heads full of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[467]</a></span> -own anxieties and troubles—should be thus working -upon a sacred font which for countless generations, -perhaps as long as Christianity lasted, would be associated -with so many strange and mingled feelings of -perturbation and hope.</p> - -<p>“It’s a comical idea,” he found himself saying, -though the allusion was sufficiently unwise, “this -idea of Gladys’ baptism.”</p> - -<p>He regretted his words the moment they were out -of his mouth; but James received them calmly.</p> - -<p>“I once heard,” he answered, “I think it was on -the sands at Weymouth, two old men discussing -quite reverently and gravely whether an infant, -baptized before it was born, would be brought under -the blessing of the Church. I thought, as I listened -to them, how vulgar and gross-minded our age had -become, that I should have to tremble with alarm -lest any flippant passer-by should hear their curious -speculation. It seemed to me a much more important -matter to discuss, than the merits of the black-faced -Pierrots who were fooling and howling just -beyond. This sort of seriousness, in regard to the -strange borderland of the Faith, has always seemed -to me a sign of pathetic piety, and the very reverse -of anything blasphemous.”</p> - -<p>Luke had made an involuntary movement when -his brother’s anecdote commenced. The calmness -and reasonableness with which James had spoken -was balm and honey to the anxious youth; but he -could not help speculating in his heart whether his -brother was covertly girding at him. Did he, he -wondered, realize how far things had gone between -him and the fair-haired girl?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[468]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It’s the sort of question, at any rate,” he remarked -rather feebly, “that would interest our friend Sir -Thomas Browne. Do you remember how we read -together that amazing passage in the Urn Burial?”</p> - -<p>“‘But the iniquity of oblivion,’” quoted James in -answer, “‘blindly scattereth her Poppy, and deals -with the memory of men without distinction to merit -of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the -Pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the temple -of Diana; he is almost lost that built it. Time has -spared the epitaph of Hadrian’s Horse, confounded -that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by -the advantage of our good names, since bad have -equal durations; and Thersites is like to live as long -as Agamemnon without the favour of the everlasting -register.… Darkness and light divide the course of -time, and oblivion shares with memory a great part -even of our living beings; we slightly remember our -felicities and the smartest strokes of affliction leave -but short smart upon us. To weep into Stones are -fables.’”</p> - -<p>He pronounced these last words with a slow and -emphatic intonation.</p> - -<p>“Fables?” he repeated, resting his hand upon the -rim of the font, and lowering his voice, so as not to -be heard by the men outside. “He calls them fables -because he has never worked as we do—day in and -day out—among nothing else. The reason he says -that to weep into Stones are fables is that his own -life, down at that pleasant Norwich, was such a -happy one. To weep into Stones! He means, of -course, that when you have endured more than you -can bear, you become a Stone. But that is no fable!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[469]</a></span> -Or if it was once, it isn’t so today. Mr. Taxater said -the Stone-Age was over. In my opinion, Luke, the -Stone-Age is only now beginning. The reason of -that is, that whereas, in former times, Stone was -moulded by men; now, men are moulded by Stone. -We have receded, instead of advancing; and the -iniquity of Time which turned animals into men, is -now turning men back into the elements!”</p> - -<p>Luke cursed bitterly in his heart the rhythmic incantations -of the old Norwich doctor. He had been -thinking of a very different passage from that which -his brother recalled. To change the conversation he -asked how James wished to spend their free afternoon.</p> - -<p>Andersen’s tone changed in a moment, and he -grew rational and direct. “I am going for a walk,” -he said, “and I think perhaps, if you don’t mind, -I’ll go alone. My brain feels clouded and oppressed. -A long walk ought to clear it. I think it will clear -it; don’t you?” This final question was added -rather wistfully.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure it will. Oh, it certainly will! I expect -the sun has hit you a bit; or perhaps, as Mr. Taxater -would say, your headache is a relative one, due to -my dragging in such things as Urn Burial. But I -don’t quite like your going alone, Daddy James.”</p> - -<p>The elder brother smiled affectionately at him, but -went on quietly with his work without replying.</p> - -<p>When they had finished their mid-day meal they -both loitered out into the field together, smoking and -chatting. The afternoon promised to be as clear and -beautiful as the morning, and Luke’s spirits rose high. -He hoped his brother, at the last moment, would not -have the heart to reject his company.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[470]</a></span></p> - -<p>The fineness of the weather, combined with the -Saturday half-holiday, was attracting abroad all -manner of Nevilton folk. Lads and maids, in merry -noisy groups, passed and repassed. The platform of -the little station was crowded with expectant passengers -waiting for the train to Yeoborough.</p> - -<p>As the brothers stood together, carelessly turning -over with their sticks the fetid heads of a patch of -meadow fungi, they observed two separate couples -issuing, one after another, from the little swing-gate -that opened on the level-crossing. They recognized -both couples almost simultaneously. The first pair -consisted of Annie Bristow and Phyllis Santon; the -second of Vennie Seldom and Mr. Clavering.</p> - -<p>The two girls proceeded, arm-in-arm, up the sloping -path that led in the direction of Hullaway. Vennie -and Mr. Clavering advanced straight towards the -brothers. Luke had time to wonder vaguely whether -this conjunction of Vennie and her Anglican pastor -had any connection with last night’s happenings.</p> - -<p>He was too closely associated with that Gargantuan -gossip, Mrs. Fringe, not to be aware that for many -weeks past Miss Seldom and the young clergyman had -studiously avoided one another. That they should -now be walking together, indicated, to his astute -mind, either a quarrel between the young lady and -Mr. Taxater, or an estrangement between the vicar -and Gladys. Luke was the sort of philosopher who -takes for granted that in all these situations it is love -for love, or hate for hate, which propels irresistibly -the human mechanism and decides the most trifling -incidents.</p> - -<p>James looked angry and embarrassed at the appearance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[471]</a></span> -of the pair; but they were too close upon -them for any escape to be possible.</p> - -<p>“How are you today, Andersen?” began Mr. -Clavering, with his usual well-meaning but indiscreet -impulsiveness. “Miss Seldom tells me she was -nervous about you last night. She was afraid you -were working too hard.”</p> - -<p>Vennie gave him a quick reproachful glance, and -made a deprecatory movement with her hands. “Are -all men,” she thought, “either without scruple or -without common-sense?”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad to see that I was quite mistaken,” she -hastened to add. “You don’t look at all tired today, -Mr. Andersen. And no wonder, with such a perfectly -lovely afternoon! And how are you, Mr. Luke? I -haven’t been down to see how that Liverpool font is -getting on, for ever so long. I believe you’ll end by -being quite as famous as your father.”</p> - -<p>Luke received this compliment in his most courtly -manner. He was always particularly anxious to -impress persons who belonged to the “real” upper -classes with his social sang-froid.</p> - -<p>He was at this precise moment, however, a little -agitated by the conduct of the two young people who -had just passed up the meadow. Instead of disappearing -into the lane beyond, they continued to loiter -at the gate, and finally, after an interlude of audible -laughter and lively discussion, they proceeded to -stretch themselves upon the grass. The sight of two -amiable young women, both so extremely well known -to him, and both in evident high spirits, thus enjoying -the sunshine, filled our faun-like friend’s mind with -the familiar craving for frivolity. He caught Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[472]</a></span> -Clavering’s glance fixed gravely upon him. He also, -it appeared, was not oblivious of the loitering villagers.</p> - -<p>“I think there are other members of your flock, -sir,” said James Andersen to the young vicar, “who -are at the present moment more in need of your help -than I am. What I need at this moment is air—air. -I should like to be able to wander over the -Quantocks this afternoon. Or better still, by the -edge of the sea! We all need more air than we get -here. It is too shut-in here—too shut-in and oppressive. -There’s too much stone about; and too much -clay. Yes, and the trees grow too close together. -Do you know, Miss Seldom, what I should like to do? -I should like to pull down all the houses—I mean -all the big houses—and cut down all the trees, and -then perhaps the wind would be free to blow. It’s -wind we want—all of us—wind and air to clear -our brains! Do you realize”—his voice once more -took that alarming tone of confidential secretiveness, -which had struck them so disagreeably the preceding -evening;—“do you realize that there are evil spirits -abroad in Nevilton, and that they come from the Hill -over there?” He pointed towards the Leonian escarpments -which could be plainly seen from where they -stood, slumbering in the splendid sunshine.</p> - -<p>“It looks more like a sphinx than a lion today, -doesn’t it, Miss Seldom? Oh, I should like to tear it -up, bodily, from where it lies, and fling it into the -sea! It blocks the horizon. It blocks the path of -the west-wind. I tell you it is the burden that -weighs upon us all! But I shall conquer it yet; -I shall be master of it yet!” He was silent a few<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[473]</a></span> -seconds, while a look of supreme disappointment -clouded the face of his brother; and the two new-comers -gazed at him in alarm.</p> - -<p>“I must start at once,” he exclaimed abruptly. -“I must get far, far off. It is air I need, air and the -west-wind! No,” he cried imperiously, when Luke -made a movement, as if to take leave of their companions. -“I must go alone. Alone! That is what I -must be today: alone—and on the hills!”</p> - -<p>He turned impatiently as he spoke; and without -another word strode off towards the level-crossing.</p> - -<p>“Surely you will not let him go like that, Mr. -Andersen?” cried Vennie, in great distress.</p> - -<p>“It would do no good,” replied Luke, watching his -brother pass through the gate and cross the track. -“I should only make him much worse if I tried to -follow him. Besides, he wouldn’t let me. I don’t -think he’ll come to any harm. I should have a -different instinct about it if there were real danger. -Perhaps, as he says, a good long walk may really clear -his brain.”</p> - -<p>“I do pray your instinct is to be relied on,” said -Vennie, anxiously watching the tall figure of the -stone-carver, as he ascended the vicarage hill.</p> - -<p>“Well, if you’re not going to do your duty, Andersen, -I’m going to do mine!” exclaimed the vicar of -Nevilton, setting off, without further parley, in -pursuit of the fugitive.</p> - -<p>“Stop! Mr. Clavering, I’ll come with you,” cried -Vennie. And she followed her impulsive friend -towards the gate.</p> - -<p>As they ascended the hill together, keeping Andersen -in sight, Clavering remarked to his companion, “I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[474]</a></span> -believe that dissolute young reprobate refused to -look after his brother simply because he wanted to -talk to those two girls.”</p> - -<p>“What two girls?” enquired Vennie.</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you see them?” muttered the clergyman -crossly. “The Bristow girl and little Phyllis Santon. -They were hanging about, waiting for him.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure you are quite wrong,” replied Vennie. -“Luke may have his faults, but he is devoted—madly -devoted—to his brother.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all,” cried Clavering almost rudely. “I -know the man better than you do. He is entirely -selfish. He is a selfish, sensual pleasure-seeker! He -may be fond of his brother in his fashion, just because -he <em>is</em> his brother, and they have the same tastes; but -his one great aim is his own pleasure. He has been -the worst influence I have had to contend with, in -this whole village, for some time back!”</p> - -<p>His voice trembled with rage as he spoke. It was -impossible, even for the guileless Vennie, not to help -wondering in her mind whether the violence of her -friend’s reprobation was not impelled by an emotion -more personal than public. Her unlucky knowledge -of what the nature of such an emotion might be did -not induce her to yield meekly to his argument.</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe he saw the people you speak of -any more than I did,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Saw them?” cried the priest wrathfully, quickening -his pace, as Andersen disappeared round the -corner of the road, so that Vennie had to trot by his -side like a submissive child. “I saw the look he -fixed on them. I know that look of his! I tell you -he is the kind of man that does harm wherever he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[475]</a></span> -goes. He’s a lazy, sensual, young scoundrel. He -ought to be kicked out of the place.”</p> - -<p>Vennie sighed deeply. Life in the world of men -was indeed a complicated and entangled matter. She -had turned, in her agitation about the stone-carver, -and in her reaction from Mr. Taxater’s reserve, -straight to the person she loved best of all; and this -was her reward,—a mere crude outburst of masculine -jealousy!</p> - -<p>They rounded the corner by her own gate, where -the road to Athelston deviates at right angles. James -Andersen was no longer in sight.</p> - -<p>“Where the devil has the man got to?” cried the -astonished clergyman, raging at himself for his ill-temper, -and raging at Vennie for having been the -witness of it.</p> - -<p>The girl glanced up the Athelston road; and hastening -forward a few paces, scanned the stately slope of -the Nevilton west drive. The unfortunate man was -nowhere to be seen.</p> - -<p>From where they now stood, the whole length of -the village street was visible, almost as far as the -Goat and Boy. It was full of holiday-making -young people, but there was no sign of Andersen’s -tall and unmistakable figure.</p> - -<p>“Oh, this is dreadful!” cried Vennie. “What are -we to do? Where can he have gone?”</p> - -<p>Hugh Clavering looked angrily round. He was -experiencing that curious sense, which comes to the -best of men sometimes, of being the special and -selected object of providential mockery.</p> - -<p>“There are only two ways,” he said. “Either he’s -slipped down through the orchards, along your wall,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[476]</a></span> -or he’s made off to Nevilton Mount! If that’s what -he’s done, he must be now behind that hedge, over -there. We should see him otherwise.”</p> - -<p>Vennie gazed anxiously in the direction indicated. -“He can’t have gone into our garden?” she said. -“No, he’d never do that! He talked about air and -hills. I expect he’s where you say. Shall we go on?”</p> - -<p>They hurried down the road until they reached a -gate, on the further side of the hedge which ran to -the base of Nevilton Mount. Here they entered the -field. There was no sign of the fugitive; but owing to -certain inequalities in the ground, and the intervention -of some large elm-trees, it was still quite possible -that he was only a few hundred yards in front of -them. They followed the line of the hedge with all -the haste they could; trusting, at every turn it made, -that they would discover him. In this manner they -very soon arrived at the base of the hill.</p> - -<p>“I feel sure he’s somewhere in front of us!” muttered -Clavering. “How annoying it is! It was -outrageous of that young scoundrel to let him go like -this;—wandering about the country in that mad -state! If he comes to any harm, I shall see to it that -that young man is held responsible.”</p> - -<p>“Quick!” sighed Vennie breathlessly, “we’d better -climb straight to the top. We <em>must</em> find him there!”</p> - -<p>They scrambled over the bank and proceeded to -make their way as hurriedly as they could through -the entangled undergrowth. Hot and exhausted they -emerged at last upon the level summit. Here, the -grotesque little tower mocked at them with its impassive -grey surface. There was no sign of the man they -sought; but seated on the grass with their backs to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[477]</a></span> -the edifice were the figures of the complacent Mr. Wone -and one of his younger children, engaged in the -agreeable occupation of devouring a water-melon. -The mouth and chin of the Christian Candidate were -bespattered with the luscious juice of this delectable -fruit, and laid out carefully upon a magazine on his -knees, was a pleasing arrangement of rind-peelings -and well-sucked pips.</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone waved his hand in polite acknowledgment -of Clavering’s salute. He removed his hat to -Vennie, but apologized for not rising. “Taking a -little holiday, you observe!” he remarked with a -satisfied smile. “I see you also are inclined to -make the most of this lovely summer day.”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t by any chance seen the elder Andersen, -have you?” enquired Clavering.</p> - -<p>“Not a bit of it,” replied the recumbent man. “I -suppose I cannot offer you a piece of melon, Miss -Seldom?”</p> - -<p>The two baffled pursuers looked at one another in -hopeless disappointment.</p> - -<p>“We’ve lost him,” muttered the priest. “He must -have gone through your orchard after all.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Wone did not miss this remark. “You were -looking for our good James? No. We haven’t seen -anything of him. No doubt he is with his brother -somewhere. I believe they usually spend their -Saturdays out at Hullaway.”</p> - -<p>“When does the election come off, Mr. Wone?” -enquired Vennie, hastily, extremely unwilling that her -tactless companion should disclose the purpose of -their search.</p> - -<p>“In a week’s time from next Monday,” replied the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[478]</a></span> -Candidate. “This will be my last free day till then. -I have to make thirty speeches during the next seven -days. Our cause goes well. I believe, with God’s -great help, we are practically certain of victory. It -will be a great event, Miss Seldom, a great event.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Clavering made a hopeless sign to Vennie, -indicative of the uselessness of any further steps to -retake the runaway.</p> - -<p>“I think your side will win in the country generally,” -he remarked. “As to this district, I cannot -tell. Mr. Romer has strengthened himself considerably -by his action after the strike.”</p> - -<p>The candidate placed a carefully selected piece of -fruit in his mouth, and called to his little boy, who -was scratching his initials with a knife upon the base -of the tower.</p> - -<p>“He will be beaten all the same,” he said. “He -is bound to be beaten. The stars in their courses -must fight against a man like that. I feel it in the -air; in the earth; in these beautiful trees. I feel it -everywhere. He has challenged stronger powers than -you or me. He has challenged the majesty of God -Himself. I’ll give you the right”—he went on in a -voice that mechanically assumed a preacher’s tone—“to -call me a liar and a false prophet, if by this time, -in ten days, the oppressor of the poor does not find -himself crushed and beaten!”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid right and wrong are more strangely -mixed in this world than all that, Mr. Wone,” Vennie -found herself saying, with a little weary glance over -the wide sun-bathed valleys extended at their feet.</p> - -<p>“Pardon me, pardon me, young lady,” cried the -Candidate. “In this great cause there can be no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[479]</a></span> -doubt, no question, no ambiguity. The evolution of -the human race has reached a point when the will of -God must reveal itself in the triumph of love and -liberty. Nothing else matters. All turns upon this. -That is why I feel that my campaign is more than a -political struggle. It is a religious struggle, and on -our side are the great moral forces that uphold the -world!”</p> - -<p>Vennie’s exhausted nerves completely broke down -upon this.</p> - -<p>“Shall we go?” she said, touching her companion -on the sleeve.</p> - -<p>Clavering nodded, and bade the melon-eater “good -afternoon,” with a brusque gesture.</p> - -<p>As they went off, he turned on his heel. “The will -of God, Mr. Wone, is only to be found in the obedient -reception of His sacraments.”</p> - -<p>The Christian candidate opened his mouth with -amazement. “Those young people,” he thought to -himself, “are up to no good. They’ll end by becoming -papists, if they go on like this. It’s extraordinary -that the human mind should actually <em>prefer</em> slavery -to freedom!”</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the man whose mysterious evasion of -his pursuers had resulted in this disconcerting encounter -was already well-advanced on his way -towards the Wild Pine ridge. He had, as a matter of -fact, crossed the field between the West drive and -the Vicarage-garden, and skirting the orchards below -Nevilton House, had plunged into the park.</p> - -<p>A vague hope of meeting Lacrima—an instinctive -rather than a conscious feeling—had led him in this -direction. Once in the park, the high opposing ridge,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[480]</a></span> -crowned with its sentinel-line of tall Scotch-firs, -arrested his attention and drew him towards it. He -crossed the Yeoborough road and ascended the incline -of Dead Man’s Lane.</p> - -<p>As he passed the cottage of his rival, he observed -Mr. Quincunx energetically at work in his garden. -On this occasion the recluse was digging up, not weeds, -but young potatoes. He was in his shirt-sleeves and -looked hot and tired.</p> - -<p>Andersen leaned upon the little gate and observed -him with curious interest. “Why isn’t she here?” -he muttered to himself. Then, after a pause: “He -is an ash-root. Let him drag that house down! -Why doesn’t he drag it down, with all its heavy -stones? And the Priory too? And the Church;—yes; -and the Church too! He burrows like a root. -He looks like a root. I must tell him all these things. -I must tell him why he has been chosen, and I have -been rejected!” He opened the gate forthwith and -advanced towards the potato-digger.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx might have struck the imagination -of a much less troubled spirit than that of the poor -stone-carver as having a resemblance to a root. His -form was at once knotted and lean, fibrous and -delicate. His face, by reason of his stooping position, -was suffused with a rich reddish tint, and his beard -was dusty and unkempt. He rose hastily, on observing -his visitor.</p> - -<p>“People like you and me, James, are best by ourselves -at these holiday-times,” was his inhospitable -greeting. “You can help me with my potatoes if you -like. Or you can tell me your news as I work. Or -do you want to ask me any question?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[481]</a></span></p> - -<p>He uttered these final words in such a tone as the -Delphic oracle might have used, when addressing -some harassed refugee.</p> - -<p>“Has <em>she</em> been up here today?” said the stone-carver.</p> - -<p>“I like the way you talk,” replied the other. -“Why should we mention their names? When I say -people, I mean girls. When I say persons, I mean -girls. When I say young ladies, I mean girls. And -when you say ‘she’ you mean our girl.”</p> - -<p>“Yours!” cried the demented man; “she is yours—not -ours. She is weighed down by this evil Stone,—weighed -down into the deep clay. What has she -to do with me, who have worked at the thing so long?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx leant upon his hoe and surveyed the -speaker. It occurred to him at once that something -was amiss. “Good Lord!” he thought to himself, -“the fellow has been drinking. I must get him out of -this garden as quickly as possible.”</p> - -<p>“She loves you,” Andersen went on, “because you -are like a root. You go deep into the earth and no -stone can resist you. You twine and twine and -twine, and pull them all down. They are all haunted -places, these houses and churches; all haunted and -evil! They make a man’s head ache to live in them. -They put voices into a man’s ears. They are as full -of voices as the sea is full of waves.”</p> - -<p>“You are right there, my friend,” replied Mr. -Quincunx. “It’s only what I’ve always said. Until -people give up building great houses and great -churches, no one will ever be happy. We ought to -live in bushes and thickets, or in tents. My cottage -is no better than a bush. I creep into it at night,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[482]</a></span> -and out again in the morning. If its thatch fell on -my head I should hardly feel it.”</p> - -<p>“You wouldn’t feel it, you wouldn’t!” cried the -stone-carver. “And the reason of that is, that you -can burrow like a root. I shouldn’t feel it either, but -for a different reason.”</p> - -<p>“I expect you’d better continue your walk,” remarked -Mr. Quincunx. “I never fuss myself about -people who come to see me. If they come, they -come. And when they go, they go.”</p> - -<p>The stone-carver sighed and looked round him. -The sun gleamed graciously upon the warm earth, -danced and sparkled upon the windows of the cottage, -and made the beads of sweat on Mr. Quincunx’s brow -shine like diamonds.</p> - -<p>“Do you think,” he said, while the potato-digger -turned to his occupation, “that happiness or unhappiness -predominates in this world?”</p> - -<p>“Unhappiness!” cried the bearded man, glaring at -his acquaintance with the scowl of a goblin. “Unhappiness! -Unhappiness! Unhappiness! That is why -the only wise way to live is to avoid everything. -That’s what I always do. I avoid people, I avoid -possessions, I avoid quarrels, I avoid lust, and I -avoid love! My life consists in the art of avoiding -things.”</p> - -<p>“She doesn’t want happiness,” pleaded the obsessed -stone-carver. “And <em>her</em> love is enough. She only -wants to escape.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you keep bringing Lacrima in?” cried -the recluse. “She is going to marry John Goring. -She is going to be mistress of the Priory.”</p> - -<p>A convulsive shock of fury flashed across the face of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[483]</a></span> -Andersen. He made a movement that caused his -interlocutor to step hurriedly backwards. But the -emotion passed as rapidly as it had come.</p> - -<p>“You would avoid everything,” he said cunningly. -“You would avoid everything you hate, if someone—myself -for instance—or Luke—made it easy for you -to save her from these houses and these churches! -Luke will arrange it. He is not like us. He is wise. -He knows the world. And you will only have to go -on just as before, to burrow and twine! But you’ll -have done it. You’ll have saved her from them. -And then it will not matter how deep they bury me -in the quarries of Leo’s Hill!”</p> - -<p>“Is he drunk? Or is he not drunk?” Mr. Quincunx -wondered. The news of Andersen’s derangement, -though it had already run like wild-fire through the -village, had not yet reached his ears. For the last -few days he had walked both to and from his office, -and had talked to no one.</p> - -<p>A remarkable peculiarity in this curious potato-digger -was, however, his absolute and unvarying -candour. Mr. Quincunx was prepared to discuss his -most private concerns with any mortal or immortal -visitor who stepped into his garden. He would have -entered into a calm philosophical debate upon his -love-affairs with a tramp, with a sailor, with the post-man, -with the chimney-sweep, with the devil; or, -as in this case, with his very rival in his sweetheart’s -affection! There was really something touching and -sublime about this tendency of his. It indicated the -presence, in Mr. Quincunx, of a certain mystical -reverence for simple humanity, which completely -contradicted his misanthropic cynicism.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[484]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Certainly,” he remarked, on this occasion, forgetting, -in his interest in the subject, the recent -strange outburst of his companion. “Certainly, if -Lacrima and I had sufficient money to live upon, I -would be inclined to risk marrying. You would -advise me to, then; wouldn’t you, Andersen? Anyone -would advise me to, then. It would be absurd not -to do it. Though, all the same, there are always -great risks in two people living together, particularly -nervous people,—such as we are. But what do you -think, Andersen? Suppose some fairy god-mother did -give us this money, would you advise us to risk it? -Of course, we know, girls like a large house and a lot -of servants! She wouldn’t get that with me, because -I hate those things, and wouldn’t have them, even if -I could afford it. What would you advise, Andersen, -if some mad chance did make such a thing possible? -Would it be worth the risk?”</p> - -<p>An additional motive, in the queerly constituted -mind of the recluse, for making this extraordinary -request, was the Pariah-like motive of wishing to -propitiate the stone-carver. Parallel with his humorous -love of shocking people, ran, through Mr. Quincunx’s -nature, the naive and innocent wish to win -them over to his side; and his method of realizing this -wish was to put himself completely at their mercy, -laying his meanest thoughts bare, and abandoning -his will to their will, so that for very shame they -could not find it in them to injure him, but were -softened, thrown off their guard, and disarmed. Mr. -Quincunx knew no restraint in these confessions by -the way, in these appeals to the voices and omens of -casual encounter. He grew voluble, and even shameless.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[485]</a></span> -In quiet reaction afterwards, in the loneliness -of his cottage, he was often led to regret with gloomy -remorse the manner in which he had betrayed himself. -It was then that he found himself hating, with the -long-brooding hatred of a true solitary, the persons -to whom he had exposed the recesses of his soul. At -the moment of communicativeness, however, he was -never able to draw rein or come to a pause. If he -grew conscious that he was making a fool of himself, -a curious demonic impulse in him only pressed him -on to humiliate himself further.</p> - -<p>He derived a queer inverted pleasure from thus -offering himself, stripped and naked, to the smiter. -It was only afterwards, in the long hours of his loneliness, -that the poison of his outraged pride festered -and fermented, and a deadly malice possessed him -towards the recipients of his confidences. There was -something admirable about the manner in which this -quaint man made, out of his very lack of resistant -power, a sort of sanctity of dependence. But this -triumph of weakness in him, this dissolution of the -very citadel of his being, in so beautiful and mystical -an abandonment to the sympathy of our common -humanity, was attended by lamentable issues in its -resultant hatred and malice. Had Mr. Quincunx -been able to give himself up to this touching candour -without these melancholy and misanthropic reactions, -his temper would have been very nearly the temper -of a saint; but the gall and wormwood of the hours -that followed, the corroding energy of the goblin of -malice that was born of such unnatural humiliations, -put a grievous gulf between him and the heavenly -condition.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[486]</a></span></p> - -<p>It must also be remembered, in qualification of the -outrageousness, one might almost say the indecency, -of his appeal to Andersen, that he had not in the -remotest degree realized the extent of the stone-carver’s -infatuation with the Italian. Neither physical -passion, nor ideal passion, were things that entered -into his view of the relations between the sexes. -Desire with him was of a strange and complicated -subtlety, generally diffused into a mild and brooding -sentiment. He was abnormally faithful, but at the -same time abnormally cold; and though, very often, -jealousy bit him like a viper, it was a jealousy of the -mind, not a jealousy of the senses.</p> - -<p>What in other people would have been gross and -astounding cynicism, was in Mr. Quincunx a perfectly -simple and even childlike recognition of elemental -facts. He could sweep aside every conventional -mask and plunge into the very earth-mould of reality, -but he was quite unconscious of any shame, or any -merit, in so doing. He simply envisaged facts, and -stated the facts he envisaged, without the conventional -unction of worldly discretion. This being so, -it was in no ironic extravagance that he appealed to -Andersen, but quite innocently, and without consciousness -of anything unusual.</p> - -<p>Of the two men, some might have supposed, -considering the circumstances, that it was Mr. Quincunx -who was mad, and his interlocutor who was -sane. On the other hand, it might be said that only -a madman would have received the recluse’s appeal -in the calm and serious manner in which Andersen -received it. The abysmal cunning of those who have -only one object in life, and are in sight of its attainment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[487]</a></span> -actuated the unfortunate stone-carver in his -attitude to his rival at this moment.</p> - -<p>“If some fairy or some god,” he said, “did lift the -stone from her sepulchre and you from your sepulchre, -my advice to you and to her would be to go away, -to escape, to be free. You would be happy—you -would both be happy! And the reason of your -happiness would be that you would know the Devil -had been conquered. And you would know that, -because, by gathering all the stones in the world upon -my own head, and being buried beneath them, I -should have made a rampart higher than Leo’s Hill -to protect you from the Evil One!”</p> - -<p>Andersen’s words were eager and hurried, and when -he had finished speaking, he surveyed Mr. Quincunx -with wild and feverish eyes. It was now borne in -for the first time upon that worthy philosopher, that -he was engaged in conversation with one whose wits -were turned, and a great terror took possession of him. -If the cunning of madmen is deep and subtle, it is -sometimes surpassed by the cunning of those who are -afraid of madmen.</p> - -<p>“The most evil heap of stones I know in Nevilton,” -remarked Mr. Quincunx, moving towards his gate, -and making a slight dismissing gesture with his hand,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[488]</a></span> -“is the heap in the Methodist cemetery. You know -the one I mean, Andersen? The one up by Seven -Ashes, where the four roads meet. It is just inside -the entrance, on the left hand. They throw upon it -all the larger stones they find when they dig the -graves. I have often picked up bits of bones there, -and pieces of skulls. It is an interesting place, a -very curious place, and quite easy to find. There -haven’t been many burials there lately, because most -of the Methodists nowadays prefer the churchyard. -But there was one last spring. That was the burial -of Glory Lintot. I was there myself, and saw her -put in. It’s an extraordinary place. Anyone who -likes to look at what people can write on tombstones -would be delighted with it.”</p> - -<p>By this time, by means of a series of vague ushering -movements, such as he might have used to get rid of -an admirable but dangerous dog, Mr. Quincunx had -got his visitor as far as the gate. This he opened, -with as easy and natural an air as he could assume, -and stood ostentatiously aside, to let the unfortunate -man pass out.</p> - -<p>James Andersen moved slowly into the road. -“Remember!” he said. “You will avoid everything -you hate! There’s more in the west-wind than you -imagine, these strange days. That’s why the rooks -are calling. Listen to them!”</p> - -<p>He waved his hand and strode rapidly up the lane.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx gazed after the retreating figure till -it disappeared, and then returned wearily to his work. -He picked up his hoe and leaned heavily upon it, -buried in thought. Thus he remained for the space -of several minutes.</p> - -<p>“He is right,” he muttered, raising his head at -last. “The rooks are beginning to gather. That -means another summer is over,—and a good thing, -too! I suppose I ought to have taken him back to -Nevilton. But he is right about the rooks.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[489]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX<br /> -<span class="smaller">PLANETARY INTERVENTION</span></h2> - -<p>The long summer afternoon was nearly over by -the time James Andersen reached the Seven -Ashes. The declining sun had sunk so low -that it was invisible from the spot where he stood, -but its last horizontal rays cast a warm ruddy light -over the tree-tops in the valley. The high and -exposed intersection of sandy lanes, which for time -immemorial had borne this title, was, at the epoch -which concerns us, no longer faithful to its name.</p> - -<p>The ash-trees which Andersen now surveyed, with -the feverish glance of mental obsession, were not -seven in number. They were indeed only three; and, -of these three, one was no more than a time-worn -stump, and the others but newly-planted saplings. -Such as they were, however, they served well enough -to continue the tradition of the place, and their -presence enhanced with a note of added melancholy -the gloomy character of the scene.</p> - -<p>Seven Ashes, with its cross-roads, formed indeed -the extreme northern angle of the high winding ridge -which terminated at Wild Pine. Approached from -the road leading to this latter spot,—a road darkened -on either hand by wind-swept Scotch-firs—it was -the sort of place where, in less civilized times, one -might have expected to encounter a threatening -highwayman, or at least to have stumbled upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[490]</a></span> -some sinister witch-figure stooping over an unholy -task or groping among the weeds. Even in modern -times and in bright sunshine the spot was not one -where a traveller was induced to linger upon his way -or to rest himself. When overcast, as it was at the -moment of Andersen’s approach, by the coming on of -twilight, it was a place from which a normal-minded -person would naturally be in haste to turn. There -was something ominous in its bleak exposure to the -four quarters of the sky, and something full of ghostly -suggestiveness in the gaping mouths of the narrow -lanes that led away from it.</p> - -<p>There was, however, another and a much more -definite justification for the quickening, at this point, -of any wayfarer’s steps who knew the locality. A -stranger to the place, glancing across an empty field, -would have observed with no particular interest the -presence of a moderately high stone wall protecting -a small square enclosure. Were such a one acquainted -with the survivals of old usage in English villages, he -might have supposed these walls to shut in the now -unused space of what was formerly the local “pound,” -or repository for stray animals. Such travellers as -were familiar with Nevilton knew, however, that -sequestered within this citadel of desolation were no -living horses nor cattle, but very different and much -quieter prisoners. The Methodist cemetery there, -dates back, it is said, to the days of religious persecution, -to the days of Whitfield and Wesley, if not even -further.</p> - -<p>Our fugitive from the society of those who regard -their minds as normally constituted, cast an excited -and recognizant eye upon this forlorn enclosure.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[491]</a></span> -Plucking a handful of leaves from one of the ash-trees -and thrusting them into his pocket, some queer -legend—half-remembered in his agitated state—impelling -him to this quaint action, he left the roadway, -crossed the field, and pushing open the rusty -iron gate of the little burying-ground, burst hurriedly -in among its weather-stained memorials of the -dead.</p> - -<p>Though not of any great height, the enclosing walls -of the place were sufficient to intensify by several -degrees the gathering shadows. Outside, in the open -field, one would have anticipated a clear hour of -twilight before the darkness fell; but here, among -the graves of these humble recalcitrants against -spiritual authority, it seemed as though the plunge -of the planet into its diurnal obscuring was likely to -be retarded for only a few brief moments.</p> - -<p>James Andersen sat down upon a nameless mound, -and fixed his gaze upon the heap of stones referred -to by Mr. Quincunx. The evening was warm and -still, and though the sky yet retained much of its -lightness of colour, the invading darkness—like a -beast on padded feet—was felt as a palpable presence -moving slowly among the tombs.</p> - -<p>The stone-carver began muttering in a low voice -scattered and incoherent repetitions of his conversation -with the potato-digger. But his voice suddenly -died away under a startling interruption. He became -aware that the heavy cemetery gate was being -pushed open from outside.</p> - -<p>Such is the curious law regulating the action of -human nerves, and making them dependent upon -the mood of the mind to which they are attached,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[492]</a></span> -that an event which to a normal consciousness is -fraught with ghostly terror, to a consciousness already -strained beyond the breaking point, appears as something -natural and ordinary. It is one of the privileges -of mania, that those thus afflicted should be -freed from the normal oppression of human terror. -A madman would take a ghost into his arms.</p> - -<p>On this occasion, however, the most normal nerves -would have suffered no shock from the figure that -presented itself in the entrance when the door was -fully opened. A young girl, pale and breathless, -rushed impulsively into the cemetery, and catching -sight of Andersen at once, hastened straight to him -across the grave-mounds.</p> - -<p>“I was coming back from the village,” she gasped, -preventing him with a trembling pressure of her hand -from rising from his seat, and casting herself down -beside him, “and I met Mr. Clavering. He told me -you had gone off somewhere and I guessed at once -it was to Dead Man’s Lane. I said nothing to him, -but as soon as he had left me, I ran nearly all the -way to the cottage. The gentleman there told me -to follow you. He said it was on his conscience that -he had advised you to come up here. He said he -was just making up his mind to come on after you, -but he thought it was better for me to come. So -here I am! James—dear James—you are not really -ill are you? They frightened me, those two, by what -they said. They seemed to be afraid that you would -hurt yourself if you went off alone. But you wouldn’t -James dear, would you? You would think of me a -little?”</p> - -<p>She knelt at his side and tenderly pushed back the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[493]</a></span> -hair from his brow. “Oh I love you so!” she murmured, -“I love you so! It would kill me if anything -dreadful happened to you.” She pressed his head -passionately against her breast, hardly conscious in -her emotion of the burning heat of his forehead as -it touched her skin.</p> - -<p>“You will think of me a little!” she pleaded, -“you will take care of yourself for my sake, Jim?”</p> - -<p>She held him thus, pressed tightly against her, for -several seconds, while her bosom rose and fell in -quick spasms of convulsive pity. She had torn off -her hat in her agitation, and flung it heedlessly down -at her feet, and a heavy tress of her thick auburn -hair—colourless now as the night itself—fell loosely -upon her bowed neck. The fading light from the -sky above them seemed to concentrate itself upon -the ivory pallor of her clasped fingers and the dead-white -glimmer of her impassioned face. She might -have risen out of one of the graves that surrounded -them, so ghostly in the gloom did her figure look.</p> - -<p>The stone-carver freed himself at length, and took -her hands in his own. The shock of the girl’s emotion -had quieted his own fever. From the touch of -her flesh he seemed to have derived a new and rational -calm.</p> - -<p>“Little Ninsy!” he whispered. “Little Ninsy! It -is not I, but you, who are ill. Have you been up, -and about, many days? I didn’t know it! I’ve had -troubles of my own.” He passed his hand across his -forehead. “I’ve had dreams, dreams and fancies! -I’m afraid I’ve made a fool of myself, and frightened -all sorts of people. I think I must have been -saying a lot of silly things today. My head feels<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[494]</a></span> -still queer. It’s hurt me so much lately, my head! -And I’ve heard voices, voices that wouldn’t stop.”</p> - -<p>“Oh James, my darling, my darling!” cried the girl, -in a great passion of relief. “I knew what they said -wasn’t true. I knew you would speak gently to me, -and be your old self. Love me, James! Love me as -you used to in the old days.”</p> - -<p>She rose to her feet and pulled him up upon his. -Then with a passionate abandonment she flung her -arms round him and pressed him to her, clinging to -him with all her force and trembling as she clung.</p> - -<p>James yielded to her emotion more spontaneously -than he had ever done in his life. Their lips met in -a long in-drawing kiss which seemed to merge their -separate identities, and blend them indissolubly -together. She clung to him as a bind-weed, with its -frail white flowers, might cling to a stalk of swaying -corn, and not unlike such an entwined stalk, he -swayed to and fro under the clinging of her limbs. -The passion which possessed her communicated -itself to him, and in a strange ecstasy of oblivion he -embraced her as desperately as her wild love could -wish.</p> - -<p>From sheer exhaustion their lips parted at last, -and they sank down, side by side, upon the dew-drenched -grass, making the grave-mount their pillow. -Obscurely, through the clouded chamber of -his brain, passed the image of her poppy-scarlet -mouth burning against the whiteness of her skin. -All that he could now actually see of her face, in the -darkness, was its glimmering pallor, but the feeling -of her kiss remained and merged itself in this impression. -He lay on his back with closed eyes, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[495]</a></span> -she bent over him as he lay, and began kissing him -again, as if her soul would never be satisfied. In the -intervals of her kisses, she pressed her fingers against -his forehead, and uttered incoherent and tender -whispers. It seemed to her as though, by the very -magnetism of her devotion, she <em>must</em> be able to restore -his shattered wits.</p> - -<p>Nor did her efforts seem in vain. After a while -the stone-carver lifted himself up and looked round -him. He smiled affectionately at Ninsy and patted -her, almost playfully, upon the knee.</p> - -<p>“You have done me good, child,” he said. “You -have done me more good than you know. I don’t -think I shall say any more silly things tonight.”</p> - -<p>He stood up on his feet, heaved a deep, natural -sigh, and stretched himself, as one roused from a long -sleep.</p> - -<p>“What have you managed to do to me, Ninsy?” -he asked. “I feel completely different. Those -voices in my head have stopped.” He turned tenderly -towards her. “I believe you’ve driven the evil -spirit out of me, child,” he said.</p> - -<p>She flung her arms round him with a gasping cry. -“You do like me a little, Jim? Oh my darling, I love -you so much! I love you! I love you!” She clung -to him with frenzied passion, her breast convulsed -with sobs, and the salt tears mingling with her -kisses.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, as he held her body in his arms, he felt -a shuddering tremor run through her, from head to -foot. Her head fell back, helpless and heavy, and -her whole frame hung limp and passive upon his -arm. It almost seemed as though, in exorcising, by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[496]</a></span> -the magnetic power of her love, the demon that -possessed him, she had broken her own heart.</p> - -<p>Andersen was overwhelmed with alarm and remorse. -He laid her gently upon the ground, and chafed the -palms of her hands whispering her name and uttering -savage appeals to Providence. His appeals, however, -remained unanswered, and she lay deadly still, her -coils of dusky hair spread loose over the wet -grass.</p> - -<p>He rose in mute dismay, and stared angrily round -the cemetery, as if demanding assistance from its -silent population. Then with a glance at her motionless -form, he ran quickly to the open gate and -shouted loudly for help. His voice echoed hollowly -through the walled enclosure, and a startled flutter -of wings rose from the distant fir-trees. Somewhere -down in the valley, a dog began to bark, but no -other answer to his repeated cry reached his ears. -He returned to the girl’s side.</p> - -<p>Frantically he rent open her dress at the throat -and tore with trembling fingers at the laces of her -bodice. He pressed his hand against her heart. A -faint, scarcely discernible tremor under her soft -breast reassured him. She was not dead, then! He -had not killed her with his madness.</p> - -<p>He bent down and made an effort to lift her in -his arms, but his limbs trembled beneath him and -his muscles collapsed helplessly. The reaction from -the tempest in his brain had left him weak as an -infant. In this wretched inability to do anything -to restore her he burst into a fit of piteous tears, and -struck his forehead with his clenched hand.</p> - -<p>Once more he tried desperately to lift her, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[497]</a></span> -once more, fragile as she was, the effort proved -hopelessly beyond his strength. Suddenly, out of -the darkness beyond the cemetery gate, he heard the -sound of voices.</p> - -<p>He shouted as loudly as he could and then listened -intently, with beating heart. An answering shout -responded, in Luke’s well-known voice. A moment -or two later, and Luke himself, followed by Mr. -Quincunx, hurried into the cemetery.</p> - -<p>Immediately after Ninsy’s departure the recluse -had been seized with uncontrollable remorse. Mixed -with his remorse was the disturbing consciousness that -since Ninsy knew he had advised Andersen to make -his way to Seven Ashes, the knowledge was ultimately -sure to reach the younger brother’s ears. Luke was -one of the few intimates Mr. Quincunx possessed in -Nevilton. The recluse held him in curious respect -as a formidable and effective man of the world. He -had an exaggerated notion of his power. He had -grown accustomed to his evening visits. He was -fond of him and a little afraid of him.</p> - -<p>It was therefore an extremely disagreeable thought -to his mind, to conceive of Luke as turning upon -him with contempt and indignation. Thus impelled, -the perturbed solitary had summoned up all his -courage and gone boldly down into the village to -find the younger Andersen. He had met him at the -gate of Mr. Taxater’s house.</p> - -<p>Left behind in the station field by James and his -pursuers, Luke had reverted for a while with the -conscious purpose of distracting his mind, to his old -preoccupation, and had spent the afternoon in a -manner eminently congenial, making love to two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[498]</a></span> -damsels at the same time, and parrying with evasive -urbanity their combined recriminations.</p> - -<p>At the close of the afternoon, having chatted for -an hour with the station-master’s wife, and shared -their family tea, he had made his way according to -his promise, into Mr. Taxater’s book-lined study, -and there, closely closeted with the papal champion, -had smoothed out the final threads of the conspiracy -that was to betray Gladys and liberate Lacrima.</p> - -<p>Luke had been informed by Mr. Quincunx of every -detail of James’ movements and of Ninsy’s appearance -on the scene. The recluse, as the reader may believe, -did not spare himself in any point. He even exaggerated -his fear of the agitated stone-carver, and as they -hastened together towards Seven Ashes, he narrated, -down to the smallest particular, the strange conversation -they had had in his potato-garden.</p> - -<p>“Why do you suppose,” he enquired of Luke, as -they ascended the final slope of the hill, “he talked -so much of someone giving me money? Who, on -earth, is likely to give me money? People don’t as -a rule throw money about, like that, do they? And -if they did, I am the last person they would throw it -to. I am the sort of person that kind and good -people naturally hate. It’s because they know I -know the deep little vanities and cunning selfishness -in their blessed deeds.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[499]</a></span></p> -<p>“No one in this world really acts from pure motives. -We are all grasping after our own gain. We are all -pleased when other people come to grief, and sorry -when things go well with them. It’s human nature, -that’s what it is! Human nature is always vicious. -It was human nature in me that made me send your -brother up this hill, instead of taking him back to -the village. It was human nature in you that made -you curse me as you did, when I first told you.”</p> - -<p>Luke did his best to draw Mr. Quincunx back from -these general considerations to his conversation with -James.</p> - -<p>“What did you say,” he enquired, “when he asked -you about marrying Lacrima, supposing this imaginary -kind person were available? Did you tell him -you would do it?”</p> - -<p>“You mean, was he really jealous?” replied the -other, with one of his goblin-like laughs.</p> - -<p>“It was a strange question to ask,” pursued Luke. -“I can’t imagine how you answered it.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Mr. Quincunx, “we know very -well what he was driving at. He wanted to sound -me. Whatever may be wrong with him he was -clever enough to want to sound me. We are all like -that! We are all going about the world trying to -find out each other’s weakest points, with the idea -that it may be useful to us to know them, so as to -be able to stick knives into them when we want to.”</p> - -<p>“It was certainly rather a strange question considering -that he is a bit attracted to Lacrima himself,” -remarked Luke. “I should think you were -very cautious how you answered.”</p> - -<p>“Cautious?” replied Mr. Quincunx. “I don’t believe -in caution. Caution is a thing for well-to-do -people who have something to lose. I answered him -exactly as I would answer anyone. I said I should -be a fool not to agree. And so I should. Don’t you -think so, Andersen? I should be a fool not to marry, -under such circumstances?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[500]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It depends what your feelings are towards Lacrima,” -answered the wily stone-carver.</p> - -<p>“Why do you say that, in that tone?” said the -recluse sharply. “You know very well what I feel -towards Lacrima. Everyone knows. She is the one -little streak of romance that the gods have allowed -to cross my path. She is my only girl-friend in -Nevilton.”</p> - -<p>At that moment the two men reached Seven Ashes -and the sound of their voices was carried to the cemetery, -with the result already narrated.</p> - -<p>It will be remarked as an interesting exception to -the voluble candour of Mr. Quincunx, that in his -conversation with Luke he avoided all mention of -Lacrima’s fatal contract with Mr. Romer. He had -indeed, on an earlier occasion, approached the outskirts -of this affair, in an indirect manner and with -much manœuvring. From what he had hinted then, -Luke had formed certain shrewd surmises, in the -direction of the truth, but of the precise facts he -remained totally ignorant.</p> - -<p>The shout for help which interrupted this discussion -gave the two men a shock of complete surprise. -They were still more surprised, when on entering -the cemetery they found James standing over the -apparently lifeless form of Ninsy Lintot, her clothes -torn and her hair loose and dishevelled. Their astonishment -reached its climax when they noticed the -sane and rational way in which the stone-carver -addressed them. He was in a state of pitiful agitation, -but he was no longer mad.</p> - -<p>By dint of their united efforts they carried the girl -across the field, and laid her down beneath the ash-trees.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[501]</a></span> -The fresher air of this more exposed spot -had an immediate effect upon her. She breathed -heavily, and her fingers, under the caress of James’ -hands, lost their rigidity. Across her shadowy white -face a quiver passed, and her head moved a little.</p> - -<p>“Ninsy! Ninsy, dear!” murmured Andersen as he -knelt by her side. By the light of the clear stars, -which now filled the sky with an almost tropical -splendour, the three men gazing anxiously at her -face saw her eyes slowly open and her lips part in -a tender recognitory smile.</p> - -<p>“Thank God!” cried James, “You are better now, -Ninsy, aren’t you? Here is Luke and Mr. Quincunx. -They came to find us. They’ll help me to get you -safe home.”</p> - -<p>The girl murmured some indistinct and broken -phrase. She smiled again, but a pathetic attempt -she made to lift her hand to her throat proved her -helpless weakness. Tenderly, as a mother might, -James anticipated her movement, and restored to as -natural order as he could her torn and ruffled -dress.</p> - -<p>At that moment to the immense relief of the three -watchers the sound of cart-wheels became audible. -The vehicle proved to be a large empty wagon driven -by one of Mr. Goring’s men on the way back from -an outlying hamlet. They all knew the driver, who -pulled up at once at their appeal.</p> - -<p>On an extemporized couch at the bottom of the -wagon, made of the men’s coats,—Mr. Quincunx -being the first to offer his,—they arranged the girl’s -passive form as comfortably as the rough vehicle -allowed. And then, keeping the horses at a walking-pace,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[502]</a></span> -they proceeded along the lane towards Wild -Pine.</p> - -<p>For some while, as he walked by the cart’s side, -his hand upon its well-worn edge, James experienced -extreme weariness and lassitude. His legs shook -under him and his heart palpitated. The demon -which had been driven out of him, had left him, it -seemed, like his biblical prototype, exhausted and -half-dead. By the time, however, that they reached -the corner, where Root-Thatch Lane descends to the -village, and Nevil’s Gully commences, the cool air -of the night and the slow monotonous movement -had restored a considerable portion of his strength.</p> - -<p>None of the men, as they went along, had felt in -a mood for conversation. Luke had spent his time, -naming to himself, with his accustomed interest in -such phenomena, the various familiar constellations -which shone down upon them between the dark -boughs of the Scotch-firs.</p> - -<p>The thoughts of Mr. Quincunx were confused and -strange. He had fallen into one of his self-condemnatory -moods, and like a solemn ghost moving by his -side, a grim projection of his inmost identity kept -rebuking and threatening him. As with most retired -persons, whose lives are passed in an uninterrupted -routine, the shock of any unusual or unforseen accident -fell upon him with a double weight.</p> - -<p>He had been much more impressed by the wild -agitation of James, and by the sight of Ninsy’s unconscious -and prostrate figure, than anyone who -knew only the cynical side of him would have supposed -possible. The cynicism of Mr. Quincunx was -indeed strictly confined to philosophical conversation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[503]</a></span> -In practical life he was wont to encounter any sudden -or tragic occurrence with the unsophisticated sensitiveness -of a child. As with many other sages, whose -philosophical proclivities are rather instinctive than -rational, Mr. Quincunx was liable to curious lapses -into the most simple and superstitious misgivings.</p> - -<p>The influence of their slow and mute advance, -under the majestic heavens, may have had something -to do with this reaction, but it is certain that -this other Mr. Quincunx—this shadowy companion -with no cabbage-leaf under his hat—pointed a most -accusing finger at him. Before they reached Nevil’s -Gully, the perturbed recluse had made up his mind -that, at all costs, he would intervene to prevent this -scandalous union of his friend with John Goring. -Contract or no contract, he must exert himself in -some definite and overt manner to stave off this -outrage.</p> - -<p>To his startled conscience the sinister figure of -Mr. Romer seemed to extend itself, Colossus-like, -from the outstretched neck of Cygnus, the heavenly -Swan, to the low-hung brilliance of the “lord-star” -Jupiter, and accompanying this Satanic shadow across -his vision, was a horrible and most realistic image of -the frail Italian, struggling in vain against the brutal -advances of Mr. Goring. He seemed to see Lacrima, -lying helpless, as Ninsy had been lying, but with no -protecting forms grouped reassuringly around her.</p> - -<p>The sense of the pitiful helplessness of these girlish -beings, thrust by an indifferent fate into the midst -of life’s brute forces, had pierced his conscience with -an indelible stab when first he had seen her prostrate -in the cemetery. For a vague transitory moment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[504]</a></span> -he had wondered then, whether his sending her in -pursuit of a madman had resulted in a most lamentable -tragedy; and though Andersen’s manner had -quickly reassured him as it had simultaneously reassured -Luke, the original impression of the shock -remained.</p> - -<p>At that moment, as he helped to lift Ninsy out of -the wagon, and carry her through the farm-yard to -her father’s cottage, the cynical recluse felt an almost -quixotic yearning to put himself to any inconvenience -and sacrifice any comfort, if only one such soft -feminine creature as he supported now in his arms, -might be spared the contact of gross and violating -hands.</p> - -<p>James Andersen, as well as Mr. Quincunx, remained -silent during their return towards the village. In -vain Luke strove to lift off from them this oppression -of pensive and gentle melancholy. Neither his stray -bits of astronomical pedantry, nor his Rabelaisean -jests at the expense of a couple of rural amorists -they stumbled upon in the overshadowed descent, -proved arresting enough to break his companion’s -silence.</p> - -<p>At the bottom of Root-Thatch Lane Mr. Quincunx -separated from the brothers. His way led directly -through the upper portion of the village to the Yeoborough -road, while that of the Andersens passed -between the priory and the church.</p> - -<p>The clock in St. Catharine’s tower was striking -ten as the two brothers moved along under the -churchyard wall. With the departure of Mr. Quincunx -James seemed to recover his normal spirits. -This recovery was manifested in a way that rejoiced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[505]</a></span> -the heart of Luke, so congruous was it with all their -old habits and associations; but to a stranger overhearing -the words, it would have seemed the reverse -of promising.</p> - -<p>“Shall we take a glance at the grave?” the elder -brother suggested, leaning his elbows on the moss-grown -wall. Luke assented with alacrity, and the -ancient stones of the wall lending themselves easily -to such a proceeding, they both clambered over into -the place of tombs.</p> - -<p>Thus within the space of forty-eight hours the -brothers Andersen had been together in no less than -three sepulchral enclosures. One might have supposed -that the same destiny that made of their -father a kind of modern Old Mortality—less pious, it -is true, than his prototype, but not less addicted to -invasions of the unprotesting dead—had made it -inevitable that the most critical moments of his sons’ -lives should be passed in the presence of these mute -witnesses.</p> - -<p>They crossed over to where the head-stone of -their parents’ grave rose, gigantic and imposing in -the clear star light, as much larger than the other -monuments as the beaver, into which Pau-Puk-Keewis -changed himself, was larger than the other -beavers. They sat down on a neighbouring mound -and contemplated in silence their father’s work. The -dark dome of the sky above them, strewn with -innumerable points of glittering light, attracted Luke -once more to his old astronomical speculations.</p> - -<p>“I have an idea,” he said, “that there is more in -the influence of these constellations than even the -astrologers have guessed. Their method claims to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[506]</a></span> -a scientific one, mathematical in the exactness of its -inferences. My feeling about the matter is, that -there is something much more arbitrary, much more -living and wayward, in the manner in which they -work their will upon us. I said ‘constellations,’ -but I don’t believe, as a matter of fact, that it is -from them at all that the influences come. The -natural and obvious thing is that the <em>planets</em> should -affect us, and affect us very much in the same way -as we affect one another. The ancient races recognized -this difference. The fixed stars are named -after animals, or inanimate objects, or after powerful, -but not more than human, heroes. The planets -are all named from immortal gods, and it is as gods,—as -wilful and arbitrary gods—that they influence -our destinies.”</p> - -<p>James Andersen surveyed the large and brilliant -star which at that moment hung, like an enormous -glow-worm, against the southern slope of Nevilton -Mount.</p> - -<p>“Some extremely evil planet must have been very -active during these last weeks with Lacrima and with -me,” he remarked. “Don’t get alarmed, my dear,” -he added, noticing the look of apprehension which -his brother turned upon him. “I shan’t worry you -with any more silly talk. Those voices in my head -have quite ceased. But that does not help Lacrima.” -He laughed a sad little laugh.</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” he added, “no one can help her in -this devilish situation,—except that queer fellow -who’s just left us. I would let him step over my -dead body, if he would only carry her off and fool -them all!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[507]</a></span></p> - -<p>Luke’s mind plunged into a difficult problem. His -brother’s wits were certainly restored, and he seemed -calm and clear-headed. But was he clear-headed -enough to learn the details of the curious little conspiracy -which Mr. Taxater’s diplomatic brain had -evolved? How would this somewhat ambiguous -transaction strike so romantic a nature as his?</p> - -<p>Luke hesitated and pondered, the tall dark tower -of St. Catharine’s Church affording him but scant -inspiration, as it rose above them into the starlit -sky. Should he tell him or should he keep the matter -to himself, and enter into some new pretended scheme -with his brother, to occupy his mind and distract it, -for the time being?</p> - -<p>So long did he remain silent, pondering this question, -that James, observing his absorbed state and -concluding that his subtle intelligence was occupied -in devising some way out of their imbroglio, gave -up all thought of receiving an answer, and moving -to a less dew-drenched resting-place, leaned his head -against an upright monument and closed his eyes. -The feeling that his admired brother was taking -Lacrima’s plight so seriously in hand filled him with -a reassuring calm, and he had not long remained in -his new position before his exhausted senses found -relief in sleep.</p> - -<p>Left to himself, Luke weighed in his mind every -conceivable aspect of the question at stake. Less -grave and assured than the metaphysical Mr. Taxater -in this matter of striking at evil persons with evil -weapons, Luke was not a whit less unscrupulous.</p> - -<p>No Quincunx-like visitings of compunction had followed, -with him, their rescue of Ninsy. If the scene<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[508]</a></span> -at Seven Ashes had printed any impression at all -upon his volatile mind, it was merely a vague and -agreeable sense of how beautiful the girl’s dead-white -skin had looked, contrasted with the disturbed -masses of her dusky hair. Beyond this, except for a -pleasant memory of how lightly and softly she had -lain upon his arm, as he helped to carry her across -the Wild Pine barton, the occurrence had left him -unaffected.</p> - -<p>His conscience did not trouble him in the smallest -degree with regard to Gladys. According to Luke’s -philosophy of life, things in this world resolved -themselves into a reckless hand-to-hand struggle between -opposing personalities, every one of them seeking, -with all the faculties at his disposal, to get the -better of the others. It was absurd to stop and -consider such illusive impediments as sentiment or -honour, when the great, casual, indifferent universe -which surrounds us knows nothing of these things!</p> - -<p>Out of the depths of this chaotic universe he, Luke -Andersen, had been flung. It must be his first concern -to sweep aside, as irrelevant and meaningless, -any mere human fancies, ill-based and adventitious, -upon which his free foot might stumble. To strike -craftily and boldly in defence of the person he loved -best in the world seemed to him not only natural but -commendable. How should he be content to indulge -in vague sentimental shilly-shallying, when the whole -happiness of his beloved Daddy James was at stake?</p> - -<p>The difference between Luke’s attitude to their -mutual conspiracy, and that of Mr. Taxater, lay in -the fact that to the latter the whole event was -merely part of an elaborate, deeply-involved campaign,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[509]</a></span> -whose ramifications extended indefinitely on -every side; while to the former the affair was only one -of those innumerable chaotic struggles that a whimsical -world delighted to evoke.</p> - -<p>An inquisitive observer might have wondered what -purpose Mr. Taxater had in mixing himself up in -the affair at all. This question of his fellow-conspirator’s -motive crossed, as a matter of fact, Luke’s -own mind, as his gaze wandered negligently from the -Greater to the Lesser Bear, and from Orion to the -Pleiades. He came to the characteristic conclusion -that it was no quixotic impulse that had impelled -this excellent man, but a completely conscious and -definite desire—the desire to add yet one more wanderer -to his list of converts to the Faith.</p> - -<p>Lacrima was an Italian and a Catholic. United to -Mr. Quincunx, might she not easily win over that -dreamy infidel to the religion of her fathers? Luke -smiled to himself as he thought how little the papal -champion could have known the real character of -the solitary of Dead Man’s Lane. Sooner might the -sea at Weymouth flow inland, and wash with its -waves the foot of Leo’s Hill, than this ingrained -mystic bow his head under the yoke of dogmatic -truth!</p> - -<p>After long cogitation with himself, Luke came to -the conclusion that it would be wiser, on the whole, -to say nothing to his brother of his plan to work out -Lacrima’s release by means of her cousin’s betrayal. -Having arrived at this conclusion he rose and stretched -himself, and glanced at the sleeping James.</p> - -<p>The night was warm and windless, but Luke began -to feel anxious lest the cold touch of the stone, upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[510]</a></span> -which his brother rested, should strike a chill into -his blood. At the same time he was extremely loth -to disturb so placid and wholesome a slumber. He -laid his hand upon the portentous symbol of mortality -which crowned so aggressively his parents’ -monument, and looked round him. His vigil had -already been interrupted more than once by the -voices of late revellers leaving the Goat and Boy. -Such voices still recurred, at intermittent moments, -followed by stumbling drunken footsteps, but in the -intervals the silence only fell the deeper.</p> - -<p>Suddenly he observed, or fancied he observed, the -aspect of a figure extremely familiar to him, standing -patiently outside the inn door. He hurried across -the churchyard and looked over the wall. No, he -had not been mistaken. There, running her hands -idly through the leaves of the great wistaria which -clung to the side of the house, stood his little friend -Phyllis. She had evidently been sent by her mother,—as -younger maids than she were often sent—to -assist, upon their homeward journey, the unsteady -steps of Bill Santon the carter.</p> - -<p>Luke turned and glanced at his brother. He could -distinguish his motionless form, lying as still as ever, -beyond the dark shape of his father’s formidable -tombstone. There was no need to disturb him yet. -The morrow was Sunday, and they could therefore -be as late as they pleased.</p> - -<p>He called softly to the patient watcher. She -started violently at hearing his voice, and turning -round, peered into the darkness. By degrees she -made out his form, and waved her hand to him.</p> - -<p>He beckoned her to approach. She shook her head,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[511]</a></span> -and indicated by a gesture that she was expecting -the appearance of her father. Once more he called -her, making what seemed to her, in the obscurity, -a sign that he had something important to communicate. -Curiosity overcame piety in the heart of the -daughter of Bill Santon and she ran across the road.</p> - -<p>“Why, you silly thing!” whispered the crafty Luke, -“your father’s been gone this half hour! He went a -bit of the way home with Sam Lintot. Old Sam will -find a nice little surprise waiting for him when he -gets back. I reckon he’ll send your father home-along -sharp enough.”</p> - -<p>It was Luke’s habit, in conversation with the villagers, -to drop lightly into many of their provincial -phrases, though both he and his brother used, thanks -to their mother’s training, as good English as any of -the gentlefolk of Nevilton.</p> - -<p>The influence of association in the matter of -language might have afforded endless interesting -matter to the student of words, supposing such a -one had been able to overhear the conversations of -these brothers with their various acquaintances. Poor -Ninsy, for instance, fell naturally into the local dialect -when she talked to James in her own house; and assumed, -with equal facility, her loved one’s more -colourless manner of speech, when addressing him on -ground less familiar to her.</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact the universal spread of board-school -education in that corner of the country had -begun to sap the foundations of the old local peculiarities. -Where these survived, in the younger generation, -they survived side by side with the newer tricks -of speech. The Andersens’ girl-friends were, all of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[512]</a></span> -them, in reality, expert bilinguists. They spoke -the King’s English, and they spoke the Nevilton -English, with equal ease, if with unequal expressiveness.</p> - -<p>The shrewd fillip to her curiosity, which Luke’s -reference to Lintot’s home-coming had given, allured -Phyllis into accepting without protest his audacious -invention about her father. The probability of such -an occurrence seemed sealed with certainty, when -turning, at a sign from her friend, she saw, against -the lighted window the burly form of the landlord -engaged in closing his shutters. It was not the custom, -as Phyllis well knew, of this methodical dispenser of -Dionysian joys to “shutter up house,” as he called -it, until every guest had departed. How could she -guess—little deluded maid!—that, stretched upon -the floor in the front parlor, stared at by the landlord’s -three small sons, was the comatose body of -her worthy parent breathing like one of Mr. Goring’s -pigs?</p> - -<p>“Tain’t no good my waiting here then,” she whispered. -“What do ’ee mean by Sam Lintot’s being -surprised-like? Be Ninsy taken with her heart -again?”</p> - -<p>“Let me help you over here,” answered the stone-carver, -“that Priory wench was talking, just now, -just across yon wall. She’ll be hearing what we say -if we don’t move on a bit.”</p> - -<p>“Us don’t mind what a maid like her do hear, do -us, Luke dear?” whispered the girl in answer. “Give -me a kiss, sonny, and let me be getting home-along!”</p> - -<p>She stood on tiptoe and raised her hands over the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[513]</a></span> -top of the wall. Luke seized her wrists, and retained -them in a vicious clutch.</p> - -<p>“Put your foot into one of those holes,” he said, -“and we’ll soon have you across.”</p> - -<p>Unwilling to risk a struggle in such a spot, and not -really at all disinclined for an adventure, the girl -obeyed him, and after being hoisted up upon the -wall, was lifted quickly down on the other side, and -enclosed in Luke’s gratified arms. The amorous -stone-carver remembered long afterwards the peculiar -thrill of almost chaste pleasure which the first touch -of her cold cheeks gave him, as she yielded to his -embrace.</p> - -<p>“<em>Is</em> Nin Lintot bad again?” she enquired, drawing -herself away at last.</p> - -<p>Luke nodded. “You won’t see her about, this -week—or next week—or the week after,” he said. -“She’s pretty far gone, this time, I’m afraid.”</p> - -<p>Phyllis rendered to her acquaintance’s misfortune -the tribute of a conventional murmur.</p> - -<p>“Oh, let’s go and look at where they be burying -Jimmy Pringle!” she suddenly whispered, in an awe-struck, -excited tone.</p> - -<p>“What!” cried Luke, “you don’t mean to say he’s -dead,—the old man?”</p> - -<p>“Where’s ’t been to, then, these last days?” she -enquired. “He died yesterday morning and they -be going to bury him on Monday. ’Twill be a monstrous -large funeral. Can’t be but you’ve heard tell -of Jimmy’s being done for.” She added, in an amazed -and bewildered tone.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been very busy this last week,” said Luke.</p> - -<p>“You didn’t seem very busy this afternoon, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[514]</a></span> -you were with Annie and me up at station-field,” -she exclaimed, with a mischievous little laugh. Then -in a changed voice, “Let’s go and see where they’re -going to put him. It’s somewhere over there, under -South Wall.”</p> - -<p>They moved cautiously hand in hand between the -dark grassy mounds, the heavy dew soaking their -shoes.</p> - -<p>Suddenly Phyllis stopped, her fingers tightening, -and a delicious thrill of excitement quivering through -her. “There it is. Look!” she whispered.</p> - -<p>They advanced a step or two, and found themselves -confronted by a gloomy oblong hole, and an -ugly heap of ejected earth.</p> - -<p>“Oh, how awful it do look, doesn’t it, Luke darling?” -she murmured, clinging closely to him.</p> - -<p>He put his arm round the girl’s waist, and together, -under the vast dome of the starlit sky, the two -warm-blooded youthful creatures contemplated the -resting-place of the generations.</p> - -<p>“It’s queer to think,” remarked Luke pensively, -“that just as we stand looking on this, so, when -we’re dead, other people will stand over our graves, -and we know nothing and care nothing!”</p> - -<p>“They dug this out this morning,” said Phyllis, -more concerned with the immediate drama than with -general meditations of mortality. “Old Ben Fursling’s -son did it, and my father helped him in his dinner-hour. -They said another hot day like this would -make the earth too hard.”</p> - -<p>Luke moved forward, stepping cautiously over the -dark upturned soil. He paused at the extreme edge -of the gaping recess.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[515]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What’ll you give me,” he remarked turning to -his companion, “if I climb down into it?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk like that, Luke,” protested the girl. -“’Tisn’t lucky to say them things. I wouldn’t give -you nothing. I’d run straight away and leave -you.”</p> - -<p>The young man knelt down at the edge of the -hole, and with the elegant cane he had carried in his -hand all that afternoon, fumbled profanely in its -dusky depths. Suddenly, to the girl’s absolute horror, -he scrambled round, and deliberately let himself -down into the pit. She breathed a sigh of unutterable -relief, when she observed his head and shoulders -still above the level of the ground.</p> - -<p>“It’s all right,” he whispered, “they’ve left it -half-finished. I suppose they’ll do the rest on -Monday.”</p> - -<p>“Please get out of it, Luke,” the girl pleaded. -“I don’t like to see you there. It make me think -you’re standing on Jimmy Pringle.”</p> - -<p>Luke obeyed her and emerged from the earth -almost as rapidly as he had descended.</p> - -<p>When he was once more by her side, Phyllis gave -a little half-deliberate shudder of exquisite terror. -“Fancy,” she whispered, clinging tightly to him, “if -you was to drag me to that hole, and put me down -there! I think I should die of fright.”</p> - -<p>This conscious playing with her own girlish fears -was a very interesting characteristic in Phyllis -Santon. Luke had recognized something of the sort -in her before, and now he wondered vaguely, as he -glanced from the obscurity of Nevilton Churchyard -to the brilliant galaxy of luminous splendour surrounding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[516]</a></span> -the constellation Pegasus, whether she really -wanted him to take her at her word.</p> - -<p>His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of -voices at the inn-door. They both held their breath, -listening intently.</p> - -<p>“There’s father!” murmured the girl. “He must -have come back from Lintot’s and be trying to get -into the public again! Come and help me over the -wall, Luke darling. Only don’t let anybody see us.”</p> - -<p>As they hurried across the enclosure, Phyllis whispered -in his ears a remark that seemed to him either -curiously irrelevant, or inspired in an occult manner -by psychic telepathy. She had lately refrained from -any reference to Lacrima. The Italian’s friendliness -to her under the Hullaway elms had made her reticent -upon this subject. On this occasion, however, -though quite ignorant of James’ presence in the -churchyard, she suddenly felt compelled to say to -Luke, in an intensely serious voice:</p> - -<p>“If some of you clever ones don’t stop that marriage -of Master Goring, there’ll be some more holes -dug in this place! There be some things what them -above never will allow.”</p> - -<p>He helped her over the wall, and watched her overtake -her staggering parent, who had already reeled -some distance down the road. Then he returned to -his brother and roused him from his sleep. James -was sulky and irritable at being so brusquely restored -to consciousness, but the temperature of his mind -appeared as normal and natural as ever.</p> - -<p>They quitted the place without further conversation, -and strode off in silence up the village street. -The perpendicular slabs of the crowded head stones,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[517]</a></span> -and the yet more numerous mounds that had neither -name nor memory, resumed their taciturn and lonely -watch.</p> - -<p>To no human eyes could be made visible the poor -thin shade that was once Jimmy Pringle, as it swept, -bat-like, backwards and forwards, across the dew-drenched -grass. But the shade itself, endowed with -more perception than had been permitted to it while -imprisoned in the “muddy vesture” of our flesh -and blood, became aware, in its troubled flight, of -a singular spiritual occurrence.</p> - -<p>Rising from the base of that skull-crowned monument, -two strange and mournful phantoms flitted -waveringly, like huge ghost-moths, along the protruding -edge of the church-roof. Two desolate and -querulous voices, like the voices of conflicting winds -through the reeds of some forlorn salt-marsh, quivered -across the listening fields.</p> - -<p>“It is strong and unconquered—the great heart -of my Hill,” one voice wailed out. “It draws them. -It drives them. The earth is with it; the planets are -for it, and all their enchantments cannot prevail -against it!”</p> - -<p>“The leaves may fall and the trees decay,” moaned -the second voice, “but where the sap has once -flowed, Love must triumph.”</p> - -<p>The fluttering shadow of Jimmy Pringle fled in -terror from these strange sounds, and took refuge -among the owls in the great sycamore of the Priory -meadow. A falling meteorite swept downwards from -the upper spaces of the sky and lost itself behind -the Wild Pine ridge.</p> - -<p>“Strength and cunning,” the first voice wailed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[518]</a></span> -forth again, “alone possess their heart’s desire. All -else is vain and empty.”</p> - -<p>“Love and Sacrifice,” retorted the other, “outlast -all victories. Beyond the circle of life they rule the -darkness, and death is dust beneath their feet.”</p> - -<p>Crouched on a branch of his protecting sycamore, -the thin wraith of Jimmy Pringle trembled and shook -like an aspen-leaf. A dumb surprise possessed the -poor transmuted thing to find itself even less assured -of palpable and familiar salvation, than when, after -drinking cider at the Boar’s Head in Athelston, he -had dreamed dreams at Captain Whiffley’s gate.</p> - -<p>“The Sun is lord and god of the earth,” wailed -the first voice once more. “The Sun alone is master -in the end. Lust and Power go forth with him, and -all flesh obeys his command.”</p> - -<p>“The Moon draws more than the tides,” answered -the second voice. “In the places of silence where -Love waits, only the Moon can pass; and only the -Moon can hear the voice of the watchers.”</p> - -<p>From the red planet, high up against the church-tower, -to the silver planet low down among the -shadowy trees, the starlit spaces listened mutely to -these antiphonal invocations. Only the distant expanse -of the Milky Way, too remote in its translunar -gulfs to heed these planetary conflicts, shimmered -haughtily down upon the Wood and Stone of Nevilton—impassive, -indifferent, unconcerned.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[519]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX<br /> -<span class="smaller">VOX POPULI</span></h2> - -<p>James Andersen’s mental state did not fall -away from the restored equilibrium into which -the unexpected intervention of Ninsy Lintot had -magnetized and medicined him. He went about his -work as usual, gloomier and more taciturn, perhaps, -than before, but otherwise with no deviation from -his normal condition.</p> - -<p>Luke noticed that he avoided all mention of Lacrima, -and, as far as the younger brother knew, made -no effort to see her. Luke himself received, two -days after the incident in the Methodist cemetery, a -somewhat enigmatic letter from Mr. Taxater. This -letter bore a London post-mark and informed the -stone-carver that after a careful consideration of -the whole matter, and an interview with Lacrima, the -writer had come to the conclusion that no good purpose -would be served by carrying their plan into execution. -Mr. Taxater had, accordingly, so the missive -declared, destroyed the incriminating document which -he had induced Luke to sign, and had relinquished -all thought of an interview with Mr. Dangelis.</p> - -<p>The letter concluded by congratulating Luke on his -brother’s recovery—of which, it appeared, the diplomatist -had been informed by the omniscient Mrs. -Wotnot—and assuring him that if ever, in any way, -he, the writer, could be of service to either of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[520]</a></span> -two brothers, they could count on his unfailing regard. -An obscure post-script, added in pencil in a -very minute and delicate hand, indicated that the -interview with Lacrima, referred to above, had confirmed -the theologian in a suspicion that hitherto -he had scrupulously concealed, namely, that their -concern with regard to the Italian’s position was less -called for than appearances had led them to suppose.</p> - -<p>After reading and weighing this last intimation, -before he tore up the letter into small fragments, -the cynical Luke came to the conclusion that the -devoted champion of the papacy had found out that -his co-religionist had fallen from grace; in other words, -that Lacrima Traffio was no longer a Catholic. It -could hardly be expected, the astute youth argued, -that Mr. Taxater should throw himself into a difficult -and troublesome intrigue in order that an apostate -from the inviolable Faith, once for all delivered -to the Saints, should escape what might reasonably -be regarded as a punishment for her apostacy.</p> - -<p>The theologian’s post-script appeared to hint that -the girl was not, after all, so very unwilling, in this -matter of her approaching marriage. Luke, in so far -as he gave such an aspect of the affair any particular -thought, discounted this plausible suggestion as a -mere conscience-quieting salve, introduced by the -writer to smooth over the true cause of his reaction.</p> - -<p>For his own part it had been always of James and -not of Lacrima he had thought, and since James had -now been restored to his normal state, the question -of the Italian’s moods and feelings affected him very -little. He was still prepared to discuss with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[521]</a></span> -brother any new chance of intervention that might -offer itself at the last moment. He desired James’ -peace of mind before everything else, but in his -heart of hearts he had considerable doubt whether -the mood of self-effacing magnanimity which had -led his brother to contemplate Lacrima’s elopement -with Mr. Quincunx, would long survive the return -of his more normal temper. Were he in James’ -position, he told himself grimly, he should have much -preferred that the girl should marry a man she hated -rather than one she loved, as in such a case the field -would be left more open for any future “rapprochement.”</p> - -<p>Thus it came about that the luckless Pariah, by -the simple accident of her inability to hold fast to -her religion, lost at the critical moment in her life -the support of the one friendly power, that seemed -capable, in that confusion of opposed forces, of bringing -to her aid temporal as well as spiritual, pressure. -She was indeed a prisoner by the waters of Babylon, -but her forgetfulness of Sion had cut her off from the -assistance of the armies of the Lord.</p> - -<p>The days passed on rapidly now, over the heads of -the various persons involved in our narrative. For -James and Lacrima, and in a measure for Mr. Quincunx, -too,—since it must be confessed that the -shock of Ninsy’s collapse had not resulted in any -permanent tightening of the recluse’s moral fibre,—they -passed with that treacherous and oblivious -smoothness which dangerous waters are only too -apt to wear, when on the very verge of the cataract.</p> - -<p>In the stir and excitement of the great political -struggle which now swept furiously from one end of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[522]</a></span> -the country to the other, the personal fortunes of a -group of tragically involved individuals, in a small -Somersetshire village, seemed to lose, for all except -those most immediately concerned, every sort of -emphasis and interest.</p> - -<p>The polling day at last arrived, and a considerable -proportion of the inhabitants of Nevilton, both men -and women, found themselves, as the end of the -fatal hours approached, wedged and hustled, in a -state of distressing and exhausted suspense, in the -densely crowded High Street in front of the Yeoborough -Town Hall.</p> - -<p>Mr. Clavering himself was there, and in no very -amiable temper. Perverse destiny had caused him -to be helplessly surrounded by a noisy high-spirited -crew of Yeoborough factory-girls, to whom the event -in progress was chiefly interesting, in so far as it -afforded them an opportunity to indulge in uproarious -chaff and to throw insulting or amorous challenges -to various dandified youths of their acquaintance, -whom they caught sight of in the confusion. Mr. -Clavering’s ill-temper reached its climax when he -became aware that a good deal of the free and indiscreet -badinage of his companions was addressed to -none other than his troublesome parishioner, Luke -Andersen, whose curly head, surmounted by an -aggressively new straw hat, made itself visible not -far off.</p> - -<p>The mood of the vicar of Nevilton during the last -few weeks had been one of accumulative annoyance. -Everything had gone wrong with him, and it was -only by an immense effort of his will that he had -succeeded in getting through his ordinary pastoral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[523]</a></span> -labour, without betraying the unsettled state of his -mind and soul.</p> - -<p>He could not, do what he might, get Gladys out -of his thoughts for one single hour of the day. She -had been especially soft and caressing, of late, in -her manner towards him. More submissive than of -old to his spiritual admonitions, she had dropped her -light and teasing ways, and had assumed, in her -recent lessons with him, an air of pliable wistfulness, -composed of long, timidly interrupted glances from -her languid blue eyes, and little low-voiced murmurs -of assent from her sweetly-parted lips.</p> - -<p>It was in vain that the poor priest struggled against -this obsession. The girl was as merciless as she was -subtle in the devices she employed to make sure of -her hold upon him. She would lead him on, by hesitating -and innocent questions, to expound some difficult -matter of faith; and then, just as he was launched -out upon a high, pure stream of mystical interpretation, -she would bring his thoughts back to herself -and her deadly beauty, by some irresistible feminine -trick, which reduced all his noble speculations to so -much empty air.</p> - -<p>Ever since that night when he had trembled so -helplessly under the touch of her soft fingers beneath -the cedars of the South Drive, she had sought opportunities -for evoking similar situations. She would -prolong the clasp of her hand when they bade one -another good night, knowing well how this apparently -natural and unconscious act would recur in throbs -of adder’s poison through the priest’s veins, long after -the sun had set behind St. Catharine’s tower.</p> - -<p>She loved sometimes to tantalize and trouble him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[524]</a></span> -by relating incidents which brought herself and her -American fiancé into close association in his mind. -She would wistfully confide to him, for example, -how sometimes she grew weary of love-making, -begging him to tell her whether, after all, she were -wise in risking the adventure of marriage.</p> - -<p>By these arts, and others that it were tedious to -enumerate, the girl gradually reduced the unfortunate -clergyman to a condition of abject slavery. The -worst of it was that, though his release from her -constant presence was rapidly approaching—with the -near date of the ceremonies for which he was preparing -her—instead of being able to rejoice in this, -he found himself dreading it with every nerve of his -harassed senses.</p> - -<p>Clavering had felt himself compelled, on more than -one occasion, to allude to the project of Lacrima’s -marriage, but his knowledge of the Italian’s character -was so slight that Gladys had little difficulty in making -him believe, or at least persuade himself he -believed, that no undue pressure was being put upon -her.</p> - -<p>It was of Lacrima that he suddenly found himself -thinking as, hustled and squeezed between two -obstreperous factory-girls, he watched the serene -and self-possessed Luke enjoying with detached -amusement the vivid confusion round him. The -fantastic idea came into his head, that in some sort -of way Luke was responsible for those sinister rumours -regarding the Italian’s position in Nevilton, -which had thrust themselves upon his ears as he -moved to and fro among the villagers.</p> - -<p>He had learnt of the elder Andersen’s recovery from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[525]</a></span> -Mrs. Fringe, but even that wise lady had not been -able to associate this event with the serious illness -of Ninsy Lintot, to whose bed-side the young clergyman -had been summoned more than once during the -last week.</p> - -<p>Clavering felt an impulse of unmitigated hatred -for the equable stone-carver as he watched him bandying -jests with this or the other person in the crowd, -and yet so obviously holding himself apart from it -all, and regarding the whole scene as if it only existed -for his amusement.</p> - -<p>A sudden rush of some extreme partisans of the -popular cause, making a furious attempt to over-power -the persistent taunts of a group of young -farmers who stood above them on a raised portion -of the pavement, drove a wedge of struggling humanity -into the midst of the crowd who surrounded -the irritable priest. Clavering was pushed, in spite -of his efforts to extricate himself, nearer and nearer -to his detested rival, and at last, in the most grotesque -and annoying manner possible, he found himself -driven point-blank into the stone-carver’s very -arms. Luke smiled, with what seemed to the heated -and flustered priest the last limit of deliberate impertinence.</p> - -<p>But there was no help for it. Clavering was -forced to accept his proffered hand, and return, with -a measure of courtesy, his nonchalant greeting. -Squeezed close together—for the crowd had concentrated -itself now into an immoveable mass—the fortunate -and the unfortunate lover of Gladys Romer -listened, side by side, to the deafening shouts, which, -first from one party and then from the other, heralded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[526]</a></span> -the appearance of the opposing candidates upon the -balcony above.</p> - -<p>“I really hardly know,” said Luke, in a loud whisper, -“which side you are on. I suppose on the Conservative? -These radicals are all Nonconformists, -and only waiting for a chance of pulling the Church -down.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” retorted the priest raising his voice -so as to contend against the hubbub about them. -“I happen to be a radical myself. My own hope is -that the Church <em>will</em> be pulled down. The Church -I believe in cannot be touched. Its foundations are -too deep.”</p> - -<p>“Three cheers for Romer and the Empire!” roared -a voice behind them.</p> - -<p>“Wone and the People! Wone and the working-man!” -vociferated another.</p> - -<p>“You’ll be holding your confirmation soon, I -understand,” murmured Luke in his companion’s ear, -as a swaying movement in the crowd squeezed them -even more closely together.</p> - -<p>Hugh Clavering realized for the first time in his -life what murderers feel the second before they strike -their blow. He could have willingly planted his -heel at that moment upon the stone-carver’s face. -Surely the man was intentionally provoking him. He -must know—he could not help knowing—the agitation -in his nerves.</p> - -<p>“Romer and Order! Romer and Sound Finance!” -roared one portion of the mob.</p> - -<p>“Wone and Liberty! Wone and Justice!” yelled -the opposing section.</p> - -<p>“I love a scene like this,” whispered Luke.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[527]</a></span> -“Doesn’t it make you beautifully aware of the contemptible -littleness of the human race?”</p> - -<p>“I am not only a radical,” retorted Clavering, -“but I happen also to be a human being, and one who -can’t take so airy a view of an occasion of this kind. -The enthusiasm of these people doesn’t at all amuse -me. I sympathize with it.”</p> - -<p>The stone-carver was not abashed by this rebuke. -“A matter of taste,” he said, “a matter of taste.” -Then, freeing his arm which had got uncomfortably -wedged against his side, and pushing back his hat, -“I love to associate these outbursts of popular feeling -with the movements of the planets. Tonight, -you know, one ought to be able to see—”</p> - -<p>Clavering could no longer contain himself. “Damn -your planets!” he cried, in a tone so loud, that an -old lady in their neighbourhood ejaculated, “Hush! -hush!” and looked round indignantly.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon,” muttered the priest, a little -ashamed. “What I mean is, I am most seriously -concerned about this contest. I pray devoutly Wone -will win. It’ll be a genuine triumph for the working -classes if he does.”</p> - -<p>“Romer and the Empire!” interpolated the thunderous -voice behind them.</p> - -<p>“I don’t care much for the man himself,” he went -on, “but this thing goes beyond personalities.”</p> - -<p>“I’m all for Romer myself,” said Luke. “I have -the best of reasons for being grateful to him, though -he is my employer.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean? What reasons?” cried -Clavering sharply, once more beginning to feel the -most unchristian hatred for this urbane youth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[528]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m sure I needn’t tell you that, sir,” responded -Luke; “I’m sure you know well enough how much I -admire our Nevilton beauty.”</p> - -<p>Gladys’ unhappy lover choked with rage. He had -never in his life loathed anything so much as he -loathed the way Luke’s yellow curls grew on his -forehead. His fingers clutched convulsively the palms -of his hands. He would like to have seized that -crop of hair and beaten the man’s head against the -pavement.</p> - -<p>“I think it’s abominable,” he cried, “this forcing -of Miss Traffio to marry Goring. For a very little, -I’d write to the bishop about it and refuse to marry -them.”</p> - -<p>The causes that led to this unexpected and irrelevant -outburst were of profound subtlety. Clavering -forgot, in his desire to make his rival responsible for -every tragedy in the place, that he had himself -resolved to discount, as mere village gossip, all the -dark rumours he had heard. The blind anger which -plunged him into this particular outcry, sprang, in -reality, from the bitterness of his own conscience-stricken -misgivings.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think you will,” remarked Luke, lowering -his voice to a whisper, though the uproar about them -rendered such a precaution quite unnecessary. “It -is not as a rule a good thing to interfere in these -matters. Miss Gladys has told me herself that the -whole thing is an invention of Romer’s enemies, -probably of this fellow Wone.”</p> - -<p>“She’s told me the same story,” burst out the -priest, “but how am I to believe her?”</p> - -<p>A person unacquainted with the labyrinthine convolutions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[529]</a></span> -of the human mind would have been staggered -at hearing the infatuated slave thus betray -his suspicion of his enchantress, and to his own -rival; but the man’s long-troubled conscience, driven -by blind anger, rendered him almost beside himself.</p> - -<p>“To tell you the truth,” said Luke, “I think -neither you nor I have anything to do with this -affair. You might as well agitate yourself about -Miss Romer’s marriage with Dangelis! Girls must -manage these little problems for themselves. After -all, it doesn’t really matter much, one way or the -other. What they want, is to be married. The -person they choose is quite a secondary thing. We -have to learn to regard all these little incidents as -of but small importance, my good sir, as our world -sweeps round the sun!”</p> - -<p>“The sun—the sun!” cried Clavering, with difficulty -restraining himself. “What has the sun to -do with it? You are too fond of bringing in your -suns and your planets, Andersen. This trick of -yours of shelving the difficulties of life, by pretending -you’re somehow superior to them all, is a habit I -advise you to give up! It’s cheap. It’s vulgar. -It grows tiresome after a time.”</p> - -<p>Luke’s only reply to this was a sweet smile; and -the two were wedged so closely together that the -priest was compelled to notice the abnormal whiteness -and regularity of the young man’s teeth.</p> - -<p>“I confess to you,” continued Luke, with an air -of unruffled detachment, as if they had been discussing -the tint of a flower or the marks upon a -butterfly’s wing, “I have often wondered what the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[530]</a></span> -relations really are between Mr. Romer and Miss -Traffio; but that is the sort of question which, as -Sir Thomas Browne would say, lends itself to a -wide solution.”</p> - -<p>“Romer and Prosperity!” “Wone and Justice!” -yelled the opposing factions.</p> - -<p>“Our pretty Gladys’ dear parent,” continued the -incorrigible youth, completely disregarding the fact -that his companion, speechless with indignation, was -desperately endeavouring to extricate himself from -the press, “seems born under a particularly lucky star. -I notice that every attempt which people make to -thwart him comes to nothing. That’s what I admire -about him: he seems to move forward to his end -like an inexorable fate.”</p> - -<p>“Rubbish!” ejaculated the priest, turning his -angry face once more towards his provoking rival. -“Fiddlesticks and rubbish! The man is a man, like -the rest of us. I only pray Heaven he’s going to -lose this election!”</p> - -<p>“Under a lucky star,” reiterated the stone-carver. -“I wish I knew,” he added pensively, “what his star -is. Probably Jupiter!”</p> - -<p>“Wone and Liberty!” “Wone and the Rights of -the People!” roared the crowd.</p> - -<p>“Wone and God’s Vengeance!” answered, in an -indescribably bitter tone, a new and different voice. -Luke pressed his companion’s arm.</p> - -<p>“Did you hear that?” he whispered eagerly. -“That’s Philip. Who would have thought he’d have -been here? He’s an anarchist, you know.”</p> - -<p>Clavering, who was taller than his companion, -caught sight of the candidate’s son. Philip’s countenance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[531]</a></span> -was livid with excitement, and his arms were -raised as if actually invoking the Heavens.</p> - -<p>“Silly fool!” muttered Luke. “He talks of God as -glibly as any of his father’s idiotic friends. But -perhaps he was mocking! I thought I detected a -tang of irony in his tone.”</p> - -<p>“Most of you unbelievers cry upon God when the -real crisis comes,” remarked the priest. “But I like -Philip Wone. I respect him. He, at least, takes his -convictions seriously.”</p> - -<p>“I believe you fancy in your heart that some -miracle is going to be worked, to punish my worthy -employer,” observed Luke. “But I assure you, -you’re mistaken. In this world the only way our -Mr. Romers are brought low is by being out-matched -on their own ground. He has a lucky star; but other -people”—this was added in a low, significant tone— -“other people may possibly have stars still more -lucky.”</p> - -<p>At this moment the cheering and shouting became -deafening. Some new and important event had evidently -occurred. Both men turned and glanced up -at the stucco-fronted edifice that served Yeoborough -as a city-hall. The balcony had become so crowded -that it was difficult to distinguish individual figures; -but there was a general movement there, and people -were talking and gesticulating eagerly. Presently all -these excited persons fell simultaneously into silence, -and an attitude of intense expectation. The crowd -below caught the thrill of their expectancy, and with -upturned faces and eager eyes, waited the event. -There was a most formidable hush over the whole -sea of human heads; and even the detached Luke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[532]</a></span> -felt his heart beating in tune to the general tension.</p> - -<p>In the midst of this impressive silence the burly -figure of the sheriff of the parliamentary district -made his way slowly to the front of the balcony. -With him came the two candidates, each accompanied -by a lady, and grouped themselves on either side -of him. The sheriff standing erect, with a sheet of -paper in his hand, saluted the assembled people, and -proceeded to announce, in simple stentorian words, -the result of the poll.</p> - -<p>Clavering had been stricken dumb with amazement -to observe that the lady by Mr. Romer’s side was -not Mrs. Romer, as he had thoughtlessly assumed it -would be, but Gladys herself, exquisitely dressed, and -looking, in her high spirits and excitement, more -lovely than he had ever seen her.</p> - -<p>Her fair hair, drawn back from her head beneath a -shady Gainsborough hat, shone like gold in the sunshine. -Her cheeks were flushed, and their delicate -rose-bloom threw into beautiful relief the pallor of -her brow and neck. Her tall girlish figure looked -soft and arresting amid the black-coated politicians -who surrounded her. Her eyes were brilliant.</p> - -<p>Contrasted with this splendid apparition at Mr. -Romer’s side, the faded primness of the good spouse -of the Christian Candidate seemed pathetic and grotesque. -Mrs. Wone, in her stiff black dress and -old-fashioned hat, looked as though she were attending -a funeral. Nor was the appearance of her husband -much more impressive or imposing.</p> - -<p>Mr. Romer, with his beautiful daughter’s hand -upon his arm, looked as noble a specimen of sage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[533]</a></span> -authority and massive triumph, as any of that assembled -crowd were likely to see in a life-time. A -spasmodic burst of cheering was interrupted by -vigorous hisses and cries of “Hush! hush! Let the -gentleman speak!”</p> - -<p>Lifting his hand with an appropriate air of grave -solemnity, the sheriff proceeded to read: “Result of -the Election in this Parliamentary Division—Mr. -George Wone, seven thousand one hundred and fifty -nine! Mr. Mortimer Romer, nine thousand eight -hundred and sixty-one! I therefore declare Mr. -Mortimer Romer duly elected.”</p> - -<p>A burst of incredible cheering followed this proclamation, -in the midst of which the groans and hisses -of the defeated section were completely drowned. -The cheering was so tremendous and the noisy reaction -after the hours of expectancy so immense, that -it was difficult to catch a word of what either the -successful or the unsuccessful candidate said, as -they made their accustomed valedictory speeches.</p> - -<p>Clavering and Luke were swept far apart from -one another in the mad confusion; and it was well -for them both, perhaps, that they were; for before -the speeches were over, or the persons on the balcony -had disappeared into the building, a very strange -and disconcerting event took place.</p> - -<p>The unfortunate young Philip, who had received -the announcement of his father’s defeat as a man -might receive a death-sentence, burst into a piercing -and resounding cry, which was clearly audible, not -only to those immediately about him, but to every -one of the ladies and gentlemen assembled on the -balcony. There is no need to repeat in this place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[534]</a></span> -the words which the unhappy young man hurled at -Mr. Romer and his daughter. Suffice it to say that -they were astounding in their brutality and grossness.</p> - -<p>As soon as he had uttered them, Philip sank down -upon the ground, in the miserable convulsions of -some species of epileptic fit. The tragic anxiety of -poor Mrs. Wone, who had not only heard his words, -but seen his collapse, broke up the balcony party in -disorder.</p> - -<p>Such is human nature, that though not one of the -aristocratic personages there assembled, believed for -a moment that Philip was anything but a madman; -still, the mere weight of such ominous words, though -flung at random and by one out of his senses, had -an appreciable effect upon them. It was noticed -that one after another they drew away from the -two persons thus challenged; and this, combined -with the movement about the agitated Mrs. Wone, -soon left the father and daughter, the girl clinging to -her parent’s arm, completely isolated.</p> - -<p>Before he led Gladys away, however, Mr. Romer -turned a calm and apparently unruffled face upon the -scene below. Luke, who, it may be well believed, -had missed nothing of the subtler aspects of the -situation, was so moved by the man’s imperturbable -serenity that he caught himself on the point of -raising an admiring and congratulatory shout. He -stopped himself in time, however; and in place of -acclaiming the father, did all he could to catch the -eye of the daughter.</p> - -<p>In this he was unsuccessful; for the attention of -Gladys, during the brief moment in which she followed -Mr. Romer’s glance over the heads of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[535]</a></span> -people, was fixed upon the group of persons who -surrounded the prostrate Philip. Among these persons -Luke now recognized, and doubtless the girl had -recognized too, the figure of the vicar of Nevilton.</p> - -<p>Luke apostrophized his rival with an ejaculation -of mild contempt. “A good man, that poor priest,” -he muttered, “but a most unmitigated fool! As to -Romer, I commend him! But I think I’ve put a -spoke in the wheel of his good fortune, all the same, -in spite of the planet Jupiter!”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[536]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI<br /> -<span class="smaller">CAESAR’S QUARRY</span></h2> - -<p>Mr. Romer’s victory in the election was -attended by a complete lull in the political -world of Nevilton. Nothing but an unavoidable -and drastic crisis, among the ruling circles -of the country, could have precipitated this formidable -struggle in the middle of the holiday-time; -and as soon as the contest was over, the general relaxation -of the season made itself doubly felt.</p> - -<p>This lull in the political arena seemed to extend -itself into the sphere of private and individual -emotion, in so far as the persons of our drama were -concerned. The triumphant quarry-owner rested -from his labors under the pleasant warmth of the -drowsy August skies; and as, in the old Homeric -Olympus, a relapse into lethargy of the wielder -of thunder-bolts was attended by a cessation of -earthly strife, so in the Nevilton world, the elements -of discord and opposition fell, during this -siesta of the master of Leo’s Hill, into a state of -quiescent inertia.</p> - -<p>But though the gods might sleep, and the people -might relax and play, the watchful unwearied fates -spun on, steadily and in silence, their ineluctable -threads.</p> - -<p>The long process of “carrying the corn” was over -at last, and night by night the magic-burdened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[537]</a></span> -moon grew larger and redder above the misty stubble-fields.</p> - -<p>The time drew near for the reception of the successful -candidate’s daughter into the historic church -of the country over which he was now one of the -accredited rulers. A few more drowsy sunshine-drugged -days remained to pass, and the baptism -of Gladys—followed, a week later, by the formal -imposition of episcopal hands—would be the signal -for the departure of August and the beginning of -the fall of the leaves.</p> - -<p>The end of the second week in September had been -selected for the double marriage, partly because it -synchronized with the annual parish feast-day, and -partly because it supplied Ralph Dangelis with an -excuse for carrying off his bride incontinently to New -York by one of his favourite boats.</p> - -<p>Under the quiet surface of this steadily flowing -flood of destiny, which seemed, just then, to be -casting a drowning narcotic spell upon all concerned, -certain deep and terrible misgivings troubled not a -few hearts.</p> - -<p>It may be frequently noticed by those whose interest -it is to watch the strange occult harmonies between -the smallest human dramas and their elemental -accomplices, that at these peculiar seasons when -Nature seems to pause and draw in her breath, men -and women find it hard to use or assert their normal -powers of resistance. The planetary influences seem -nearer earth than usual;—nearer, with the apparent -nearness of the full tide-drawing moon and the -heavy scorching sun;—and for those more sensitive -souls, whose nerves are easily played upon, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[538]</a></span> -is produced a certain curious sense of lying back -upon fate, with arms helplessly outspread, and wills -benumbed and passive.</p> - -<p>But though some such condition as this had -narcotized all overt resistance to the destiny in store -for her in the heart of Lacrima, it cannot be said -that the Italian’s mind was free from an appalling -shadow. Whether by reason of a remote spark -of humanity in him, or out of subtle fear lest by any -false move he should lose his prey, or because of -some diplomatic and sagacious advice received from -his brother-in-law, Mr. John Goring had, so far, conducted -himself extremely wisely towards his prospective -wife, leaving her entirely untroubled by any -molestations, and never even seeing her except in the -presence of other people. How far this unwonted -restraint was agreeable to the nature of the farmer, -was a secret concealed from all, except perhaps from -his idiot protégé, the only human being in Nevilton -to whom the unattractive man ever confided his -thoughts.</p> - -<p>Lacrima had one small and incidental consolation -in feeling that she had been instrumental in sending -to a home for the feeble-minded, the unfortunate -child of the game-keeper of Auber Lake. In this -single particular, Gladys had behaved exceptionally -well, and the news that came of the girl’s steady -progress in the direction of sanity and happiness -afforded some fitful gleam of light in the obscurity -that surrounded the Pariah’s soul.</p> - -<p>The nature of this intermittent gleam, its deep -mysterious strength drawn from spiritual sources, -helped to throw a certain sad and pallid twilight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[539]</a></span> -over her ordained sacrifice. This also she felt was -undertaken, like her visit to Auber Lake, for the sake -of an imprisoned and fettered spirit. If by means of -such self-immolation her friend of Dead Man’s Lane -would be liberated from his servitude and set permanently -upon his feet, her submission would not -be in vain.</p> - -<p>She had come once more to feel as though the impending -event were, as far as she was concerned, a -sort of final death-sentence. The passing fantasy, -that in a momentary distortion of her mind had -swept over her of the new life it might mean to have -children of her own, even though born of this unnatural -union, had not approached again the troubled -margin of her spirit.</p> - -<p>Even the idea of escaping the Romers was only -vaguely present. She would escape more than the -Romers; she would escape the whole miserable coil of -this wretched existence, if the death she anticipated -fell upon her; for death, and nothing less than -death, seemed the inevitable circumference of the -iron circle that was narrowing in upon her.</p> - -<p>Had those two strange phantoms that we have -seen hovering over Nevilton churchyard, representing -in their opposite ways the spiritual powers of the -place, been able to survey—as who could deny they -might be able?—the fatal stream which was now -bearing the Pariah forward to the precipice, they -would have been, in their divers tempers, struck -with delight and consternation at the spectacle presented -to them. There was more in this spectacle, -it must be admitted, to bring joy into the heart of -a goblin than into that of an angel. Coincidence,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[540]</a></span> -casualty, destiny—all seemed working together to -effect the unfortunate girl’s destruction.</p> - -<p>The fact that, by the recovery of his brother, the -astute Luke Andersen, the only one of all the Nevilton -circle capable of striking an effective blow in -her defence, had been deprived of all but a very -shadowy interest in what befell, seemed an especially -sinister accident. Equally unfortunate was the luckless -chance that at this critical moment had led -the diplomatic Mr. Taxater to see fit to prolong his -stay in London. Mr. Quincunx was characteristically -helpless. James Andersen seemed, since the recovery -of his normal mind, to have subsided like a person -under some restraining vow. Lacrima was a little -surprised that he made no attempt to see her or to -communicate with her. She could only suppose she -had indelibly hurt him, by her rejection of his quixotic -offers, on their way back from Hullaway.</p> - -<p>Thus to any ordinary glance, cast upon the field -of events as they were now arranging themselves, it -would have looked as though the Italian’s escape from -the fate hanging over her were as improbable as it -would be for a miracle to intervene to save her.</p> - -<p>In spite of the wild threat flung out by Mr. Clavering -in his sudden anger as he waited with Luke in the -Yeoborough street, the vicar of Nevilton made no -attempt to interfere. Whether he really managed to -persuade his conscience that all was well, or whether -he came to the conclusion that without some initiative -from the Italian it would be useless to meddle, not -the most subtle psychologist could say. The fact -remained that the only step he took in the matter -was to assure himself that the girl’s nominal Catholicism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[541]</a></span> -had so far lapsed into indifference, that she was -likely to raise no objection to a ceremony according -to Anglican ritual.</p> - -<p>The whole pitiful situation, indeed, offered only -one more terrible and branding indictment, against -the supine passivity of average human nature in the -presence of unspeakable wrongs. The power and -authority of the domestic system, according to which -the real battle-field of wills takes place out of sight of -the public eye, renders it possible for this inertia of -the ordinary human crowd to cloak itself under a -moral dread of scandal, and under the fear of any -drastic breach of the uniformity of social usage.</p> - -<p>A visitor from Mars or Saturn might have supposed, -that in circumstances of this kind, every -decent-thinking person in the village would have -rushed headlong to the episcopal throne, and called -loudly for spiritual mandates to stop the outrage. -Where was the delegated Power of God—so the forlorn -shadows of the long-evicted Cistercians might -be imagined crying—whose absolute authority could -be appealed to in face of every worldly force? What -was the tender-souled St. Catharine doing, in her -Paradisiac rest, that she could remain so passively indifferent -to such monstrous and sacrilegious use of -her sacred building? Was it that such transactions -as this, should be carried through, under its very -shelter, that the gentle spirits who guarded the Holy -Rood had made of Nevilton Mount their sacred -resting-place? Must the whole fair tradition of the -spot remain dull, dormant, dumb, while the devotees -of tyranny worked their arbitrary will—“and nothing -said”?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[542]</a></span></p> - -<p>Such imaginary appeals, so fantastic in the utterance, -were indeed, as that large August-moon rose -night by night upon the stubble-fields, far too remote -from Nevilton’s common routine to enter the -heads of any of that simple flock. The morning -mists that diffused themselves, like filmy dream-figures, -over the watchful promontory of Leo’s Hill, -were as capable as any of these villagers of crying aloud -that wrong was being done.</p> - -<p>The loneliness in the midst of which Lacrima -moved on her way—groping, as her enemy had -taunted her with doing, so helplessly with her wistful -hands—was a loneliness so absolute that it sometimes -seemed to her as if she were already literally -dead and buried. Now and then, with a pallid -phosphorescent glimmer like the gleam of a corpse-light, -the mortal dissolution of all the ties that -bound her to earthly interests, itself threw a fitful -illumination over her consciousness.</p> - -<p>But Mr. Romer had over-reached himself in his -main purpose. The moral disintegration which he -looked for, and which the cynical apathy of Mr. -Quincunx encouraged, had, by extending itself to -every nerve of her spirit, rounded itself off, as it -were, full circle, and left her in a mental state rather -beyond both good and evil, than delivered up to the -latter as opposed to the former. The infernal power -might be said to have triumphed; but it could -scarcely be said to have triumphed over a living -soul. It had rather driven her soul far off, far away -from all these contests, into some mysterious -translunar region, where all these distinctions lapsed -and merged.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[543]</a></span></p> - -<p>Leo’s Hill itself had never crouched in more taciturn -intentness than it did under that sweltering -August sunshine, which seemed to desire, in the -gradual scorching of the green slopes, to reduce even -the outward skin of the monster to an approximate -conformity with its tawny entrails.</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater’s departure from the scene at this -juncture was not only, little as she knew it, a loss of -support to Lacrima, it was also a very serious blow to -Vennie Seldom.</p> - -<p>The priest in Yeoborough, who at her repeated -request had already begun to give her surreptitious -lessons in the Faith, was not in any sense fitted to -be a young neophyte’s spiritual adviser. He was -fat. He was gross. He was lethargic. He was indifferent. -He also absolutely refused to receive her -into the Church without her mother’s sanction. This -refusal was especially troublesome to Vennie. She -knew enough of her mother to know that while it -was her nature to resist blindly and obstinately any -deviation from her will, when once a revolt was an -established fact she would resign herself to it with a -surprising equanimity. To ask Valentia for permission -to be received into the Church would mean -a most violent and distressing scene. To announce -to her that she had been so received, would mean -nothing but melancholy and weary acquiescence.</p> - -<p>She felt deeply hurt at Mr. Taxater’s desertion of -her at this moment of all moments. It was incredible -that it was really necessary for him to be so -long in town. As a rule he never left the Gables -during the month of August. His conduct puzzled -and troubled her. Did he care nothing whether she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[544]</a></span> -became a Catholic or not? Were his lessons mere -casual by-play, to fill up his spare hours in an interesting -and pleasant diversion? Was he really the -faithful friend he called himself? Not only had he -absented himself, but he had done so without sending -her a single word.</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact it was extremely rare for Mr. -Taxater to write a letter, even to his nearest friends, -except under the stress of theological controversy. -But Vennie knew nothing of this. She simply felt -hurt and injured; as though the one human being, -upon whom she had reposed her trust, had deserted -and betrayed her. He had spoken so tenderly, so -affectionately to her, too, during their last walk together, -before the unfortunate encounter with James -Andersen in the Athelston porch!</p> - -<p>It is true that his attitude over that matter of -Andersen’s insanity, and also in the affair of Lacrima’s -marriage, had a little shocked and disconcerted her. -He had bluntly refused to take her into his confidence, -and she felt instinctively that the conversation with -Luke, from which she had been so curtly dismissed, -was of a kind that would have hurt and surprised her.</p> - -<p>It seemed unworthy of him to absent himself from -Nevilton, just at the moment when, as she felt certain -in her heart, some grievous outrage was being committed. -She had learned quickly enough of Andersen’s -recovery; but nothing she could learn either lessened -her terrible apprehension about Lacrima, or gave her -the least hint of a path she could follow to do anything -on the Italian’s behalf.</p> - -<p>She made a struggle once to see the girl and to -talk to her. But she came away from the hurried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[545]</a></span> -interview as perplexed and troubled in her mind as -ever. Lacrima had maintained an obstinate and impenetrable -reserve. Vennie made up her mind that she -would postpone for the present her own religious -revolt, and devote herself to keeping a close and careful -watch upon events in Nevilton.</p> - -<p>Mr. Clavering’s present attitude rendered her profoundly -unhappy. The pathetic overtures she had -made to him recently, with a desperate hope of renewing -their friendship on a basis that would be -unaffected even by her change of creed, had seemed -entirely unremarked by the absorbed clergyman. -She could not help brooding sometimes, with a feeling -of wretched humiliation, over the brusqueness and -rudeness which characterized his manner towards her.</p> - -<p>She recalled, more often than the priest would -have cared to have known, that pursuit of theirs, of -the demented Andersen, and how in his annoyance -and confusion he had behaved to her in a fashion -not only rough but positively unkind.</p> - -<p>It was clear that he was growing more and more -slavishly infatuated with Gladys; and Vennie could -only pray that the days might pass quickly and the -grotesque blasphemy of the confirmation service be -carried through and done with, so that the evil spell -of her presence should be lifted and broken.</p> - -<p>Prayer indeed—poor little forlorn saint!—was all -that was left to her, outside her mother’s exacting -affection, and she made a constant and desperate use -of it. Only the little painted wooden image, in her -white-washed room, a pathetic reproduction of the -famous Nuremburg Madonna, could have betrayed -how long were the hours in which she gave herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[546]</a></span> -up to these passionate appeals. She prayed for -Clavering in that shy heart-breaking manner—never -whispering his name, even to the ears of Our Lady, -but always calling him “He” and “Him”—in which -girls are inclined to pray for the man to whom they -have sacrificed their peace. She prayed desperately -for Lacrima, that at the last moment, contrary to all -hope, some intervention might arrive.</p> - -<p>Thus it came about, that beneath the roofs of -Nevilton—for neither James Andersen nor Mr. -Quincunx were “praying men”—only one voice -was lifted up, the voice of the last of the old race -of the place’s rulers, to protest against the flowing -forward to its fatal end, of this evil tide.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, things moved steadily and irresistibly -on; and it seemed as though it were as improbable -that those shimmering mists which every evening -crept up the sides of Leo’s Hill should endure the -heat of the August noons, as that the prayers of this -frail child should change the course of ordained -destiny.</p> - -<p>If none but her little painted Madonna knew how -passionate were Vennie’s spiritual struggles; not even -that other Vennie, of the long-buried royal court, -whose mournful nun’s eyes looked out upon the great -entrance-hall, knew what turbulent thoughts and -anxieties possessed the soul of Gladys Romer.</p> - -<p>Was Mr. Taxater right in the formidable hint he -had given the young stone-carver, as to the result -of his amour with his employer’s daughter? Was -Gladys not only the actual mistress of Luke, but the -prospective mother of a child of their strange love?</p> - -<p>Whatever were the fair-haired girl’s thoughts and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[547]</a></span> -apprehensions, she kept them rigidly to herself; and -not even Lacrima, in her wildest imagination, ever -dreamed that things had gone as far as that. If it -had chanced to be, as Mr. Taxater supposed, and -as Luke seemed willing to admit, Gladys was apparently -relying upon some vague accident in the -course of events, or upon some hidden scheme of her -own, to escape the exposure which the truth of such -a supposition seemed to render inevitable.</p> - -<p>The fact remained that she let matters drift on, -and continued to prepare—in her own fashion—not -only for her reception into the Church of England, -but for her marriage to the wealthy American.</p> - -<p>Dangelis was continually engaged now in running -backwards and forwards to town on business connected -with his marriage; and with a view to making these -trips more pleasantly and conveniently he had acquired -a smart touring-car of his own, which he soon -found himself able to drive without assistance. The -pleasure of these excursions, leading him, in delicious -solitude, through so many unvisited country places -and along such historic roads, had for the moment -distracted his attention from his art.</p> - -<p>He rarely took Gladys with him; partly because he -regarded himself as still but a learner in the science -of driving, but more because he felt, at this critical -moment of his life, an extraordinary desire to be alone -with his own thoughts. Most of these thoughts, it is -true, were such as it would not have hurt the feelings -of his fiancée to have surprised in their passage -through his mind; but not quite all of them. Ever -since the incident of Auber Lake, an incident which -threw the character of his betrothed into no very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[548]</a></span> -charming light, Dangelis had had his moments of -uneasiness and misgiving. He could not altogether -conceal from himself that his attraction to Gladys -was rather of a physical than of a spiritual, or even -of a psychic nature.</p> - -<p>Once or twice, while the noble expanses of Salisbury -Plain or the New Forest thrilled him with a -pure dilation of soul, as he swept along in the clear -air, he was on the verge of turning his car straight -to the harbour of Southampton and taking the first -boat that offered itself, bound East, West, North or -South—it mattered nothing the direction!—so that -an impassable gulf of free sea-water should separate -him forever from the hot fields and woods of Nevilton.</p> - -<p>Once, when reaching a cross-road point, where the -name of the famous harbour stared at him from a -sign-post, he had even gone so far as to deviate to -the extent of several miles from his normal road. -But that intolerable craving for the girl’s soft-clinging -arms and supple body, with which she had at last -succeeded in poisoning the freedom of his mind, drew -him back with the force of a magnet.</p> - -<p>The day at length approached, when, on the -festival of his favorite saint, Mr. Clavering was to -perform the ceremony, to which he had looked forward -so long and with such varied feelings. It was -Saturday, and on the following morning, in a service -especially arranged to take place privately, between -early celebration and ordinary matins, Gladys was -to be baptized.</p> - -<p>Dangelis had suddenly declared his intention of -making his escape from a proceeding which to his -American mind seemed entirely uncalled for, and to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[549]</a></span> -his pagan humour seemed not a little grotesque. He -had decided to start, immediately after breakfast, -and motor to London, this time by way of Trowbridge -and Westbury.</p> - -<p>The confirmation ceremony, for reasons connected -with the convenience of the Lord Bishop, had been -finally fixed for the ensuing Wednesday, so that only -two days were destined to elapse between the girl’s -reception into the Church, and her admission to its -most sacred rites. Dangelis was sufficiently a heathen -to desire to be absent from this event also, though -he had promised Mr. Clavering to support his betrothed -on the occasion of her first Communion on -the following Sunday, which would be their last -Sunday together as unwedded lovers.</p> - -<p>On this occasion, Gladys persuaded him to let her -ride by his side a few miles along the Yeoborough -road. They had just reached the bridge across the -railway-line, about a mile and a half from the village, -when they caught sight of Mr. John Goring, returning -from an early visit to the local market.</p> - -<p>Gladys made the artist stop the car, and she got -out to speak to her uncle. After a minute or two’s -conversation, she informed Dangelis that she would -return with Mr. Goring by the field-path, which left -the road at that point and followed the track of the -railway. The American, obedient to her wish, set -his car in motion, and waving her a gay good-bye, disappeared -swiftly round an adjacent corner.</p> - -<p>Gladys and her uncle proceeded to walk slowly -homeward, across the meadows; neither of them, -however, paying much attention to the charm of the -way. In vain from the marshy hollows between their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[550]</a></span> -path and the metal track, certain brilliant clumps of -ragged robin and red rattle signalled to them to -pause and admire. Gladys and Mr. Goring strolled -forward, past these allurements, with a superb absorption -in their own interests.</p> - -<p>“I can’t think, uncle,” Gladys was saying, “how -it is that you can go on in the way you’re doing; -you, a properly engaged person, and not seeing anything -of your young lady?”</p> - -<p>The farmer laughed. “Ah! my dear, but what -matter? I shall see her soon enough; all I want to, -may-be.”</p> - -<p>“But most engaged people like to see a little of -one another before they’re married, don’t they, -uncle? I know Ralph would be quite mad if he -couldn’t see <em>me</em>.”</p> - -<p>“But, my pretty, this is quite a different case. -When Bert and I”—he spoke of the idiot as if -they had been comrades, instead of master and -servant—“have bought a new load of lop-ears, we -never tease ’em or fret ’em before we get ’em home.”</p> - -<p>“But Lacrima isn’t a rabbit!” cried Gladys impatiently; -“she’s a girl like me, and wants what all -girls want, to be petted and spoilt a little before -she’s plunged into marriage.”</p> - -<p>“She didn’t strike me as wanting anything of that -kind, when I made up to her in our parlour,” replied -Mr. Goring.</p> - -<p>“Oh you dear old stupid!” cried his niece, “can’t -you understand that’s what we’re all like? We all -put on airs, and have fancies, and look cross; but -we want to be petted all the same. We want it all -the more!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[551]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I reckon I’d better leave well alone all the same, -just at present,” observed the farmer. “If I was to -go stroking her and making up to her, while she’s -on the road, may-be when we got her into the hutch -she’d bite like a weasel.”</p> - -<p>“She’d never really bite!” retorted his companion. -“You don’t know her as well as I do. I tell you, -uncle, she’s got no more spirit than a tame pigeon.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not so sure of that,” said the farmer.</p> - -<p>Gladys flicked the grass impatiently with the end -of her parasol.</p> - -<p>“You may take my word for it, uncle,” she continued. -“The whole thing’s put on. It’s all affectation -and nonsense. Do you think she’d have agreed -to marry you if she wasn’t ready for a little fun? -Of course she’s ready! She’s only waiting for you to -begin. It makes it more exciting for her, when she -cries out and looks injured. That’s the only reason -why she does it. Lots of girls are like that, you -know!”</p> - -<p>“Are they, my pretty, are they? ’Tis difficult to -tell that kind, may-be, from the other kind. But -I’m not a man for too much of these fancy ways.”</p> - -<p>“You’re not drawing back, uncle, are you?” cried -Gladys, in considerable alarm.</p> - -<p>“God darn me, no!” replied the farmer. “I’m -going to carry this business through. Don’t you fuss -yourself. Only I like doing these things in my own -way—dost understand me, my dear?—in my own -way; and then, if so be they go wrong, I can’t put -the blame on no one else.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder you aren’t more keen, uncle,” began -Gladys insinuatingly, following another track, “to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[552]</a></span> -see more of a pretty girl you’re just going to marry. -I don’t believe you half know how pretty she is! -I wish you could see her doing her hair in the -morning.”</p> - -<p>“I shall see her, soon enough, my lass; don’t -worry,” replied the farmer.</p> - -<p>“I should so love to see you give her one kiss,” -murmured Gladys. “Of course, she’d struggle and -make a fuss, but she’d really be enjoying it all the -time.”</p> - -<p>“May-be she would, my pretty, and may-be she -wouldn’t. I’m not one that likes hearing either -rabbits or maidens start the squealing game. It fair -gives me the shivers. Bert, he can stand it, but I -never could. It’s nature, I suppose. A man can’t -change his nature no more than a cow nor a horse.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t understand you, uncle,” observed Gladys. -“If I were in your place, I’m sure I shouldn’t be -satisfied without at least kissing the girl I was going -to marry. I’d find some way of getting round her, -however sulky she was. Oh, I’m sure you don’t half -know how nice Lacrima is to kiss!”</p> - -<p>“I suppose she isn’t so mighty different, come to -that,” replied the farmer, “than any other maid. I -don’t mind if I give <em>you</em> a kiss, my beauty!” he -added, encircling his niece with an affectionate embrace -and kissing her flushed cheek. “There—there! -Best let well alone, sweetheart, and leave your old -uncle to manage his own little affairs according to -his own fashion!”</p> - -<p>But Gladys was not so easily put off. She had -recourse to her fertile imagination.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[553]</a></span></p> -<p>“You should have heard what she said to me the -other night, uncle. You know the way girls talk? -or you ought to, anyhow! She said she hoped you’d -go on being the same simple fool, after you were -married. She said she’d find it mighty easy to twist -you round her finger. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘I can do -what I like with him now. He treats me as if I -were a high-born lady and he were a mere common -man. I believe he’s downright afraid of me!’ That’s -the sort of things she says about you, uncle. She -thinks in her heart that you’re just a fool, a simple -frightened fool!”</p> - -<p>“Darn her! she does, does she?” cried Mr. Goring, -touched at last by the serpent’s tongue. “She thinks -I’m a fool, does she? Well! Let her have her laugh. -Them laughs best as laughs last, in my thinking!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she thinks you’re a great big silly fool, uncle. -Of course it’s all pretence, her talk about wanting -you to be like that; but that’s what she thinks you -are. What she’d really like—only she doesn’t say -so, even to me—would be for you to catch her -suddenly round the waist and kiss her on the mouth, -and laugh at her pretendings. I expect she’s waiting -to give you a chance to do something of that sort; -only you don’t come near her. Oh, she must think -you’re a monstrous fool! She must chuckle to herself -to think what a fool you are.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll teach her what kind of a fool I am,” muttered -Mr. Goring, “when I’ve got her to myself, up at the -farm. This business of dangling after a maid’s -apron strings, this kissing and cuddling, don’t suit -somehow with my nature. I’m not one of your -fancy-courting ones and never was!”</p> - -<p>“Listen, uncle!” said Gladys eagerly, laying her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[554]</a></span> -hand on his arm. “Suppose I was to take her up -to Cæsar’s Quarry this afternoon? That would be a -lovely chance! You could come strolling round about -four o’clock. I’d be on the watch; and before she -knew you were there, I’d scramble out, and you -could climb down. She couldn’t get away from you, -and you’d have quite a nice little bit of love-making.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Goring paused, and prodded the ground with -the end of his stick.</p> - -<p>“What a little devil you are!” he exclaimed. -“Darn me if this here job isn’t a queer business! -Here are you, putting yourself out and fussing -around, only for a fellow to have what’s due to him. -You leave us alone, sweetheart, my young lady and -me! I reckon we know what’s best for ourselves, -without you thrusting your hand in.”</p> - -<p>“But you might just walk up that way, uncle; it -isn’t far over the hill. I’d give—oh, I don’t know -what!—to see you two together. She wants to be -teased a little, you know! She’s getting too proud -and self-satisfied for anything. It would do her ever -so much good to be taught a lesson. It isn’t much -to do, is it? Just to give the girl you’re going to -marry one little kiss?”</p> - -<p>“But how do I know you two wenches aren’t -fooling me, even now?” protested the cautious -farmer. “’Tis just the sort of maids’ trick ye might -set out to play upon a man. How do I know ye -haven’t put your two darned little heads together -over this job?”</p> - -<p>Gladys looked round. They were approaching the -Mill Copse.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[555]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Please, uncle,” she cried, “don’t say such things -to me. You know I wouldn’t join with anyone -against you. Least of all with her! Just do as I -tell you, and stroll up to Cæsar’s Quarry about four -o’clock. I promise you faithfully I haven’t said a -word to her about it. Please, uncle, be nice and -kind over this.”</p> - -<p>She threw her arms round Mr. Goring’s neck. -“You haven’t done anything for me for a long time,” -she murmured in her most persuasive tone. “Do -you remember how I used to give you butterfly-kisses -when I was a little girl, and you kept apples -for me in the big loft?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Goring’s nature may, or may not have been, -as he described it; it is certain that the caresses and -cajoleries of his lovely niece had an instantaneous -effect upon him. His slow-witted suspicions melted -completely under the spell of her touch.</p> - -<p>“Well, my pretty,” he said, as they moved on, -under the shadowy trees of the park, “may-be, if -I’ve nothing else to do and things seem quiet, I’ll -take a bit of a walk this afternoon. But you mustn’t -count on it. If I do catch sight of ’ee, ’round -Cæsar’s way, I’ll let ’ee know. But ’tisn’t a downright -promise, mind!”</p> - -<p>Gladys clapped her hands. “You’re a perfect love, -uncle!” she cried jubilantly. “I wish I were Lacrima; -I’d be ever, ever so nice to you!”</p> - -<p>“Ye can be nice to me, as ’tis, sweetheart,” replied -the farmer. “You and me have always been -kind of fond of each other, haven’t us? But I reckon -ye’d best be slipping off now, up to your house. I -never care greatly for meeting your father by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[556]</a></span> -accident-like. He’s one of these sly ones that always -makes a fellow feel squeamy and leery.”</p> - -<p>That afternoon it happened that the adventurous -Luke had planned a trip down to Weymouth, with a -new flame of his, a certain Polly Shadow, whose -parents kept a tobacco-shop in Yeoborough.</p> - -<p>He had endeavoured to persuade his brother to -accompany them on this little excursion, in the hope -that a breath of sea-air might distract and refresh -him; but James had expressed his intention of paying -a visit to his gentle restorer, up at Wild Pine, -who was now sufficiently recovered to enable her to -sit out in the shade of the great trees.</p> - -<p>The church clock had just struck three, when James -Andersen approached the entrance to Nevil’s Gully.</p> - -<p>He had not advanced far into the shadow of the -beeches, when he heard the sound of voices. He -paused, and listened. The clear tones of Ninsy -Lintot were unmistakable, and he thought he detected—though -of this he was not sure—the -nervous high-pitched voice of Philip Wone. From the -direction of the sounds, he gathered that the two -young people were seated somewhere on the bracken-covered -slope above the barton, where, as he well -knew, there were several shady terraces overlooking -the valley.</p> - -<p>Unwilling to plunge suddenly into a conversation -that appeared, as far as he could catch its purport, -to be of considerable emotional tension, Andersen -cautiously ascended the moss-grown bank on his -left, and continued his climb, until he had reached -the crest of the hill. He then followed, as silently as -he could, the little grassy path between the stubble-field<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[557]</a></span> -and the thickets, until he came to the open -space immediately above these fern-covered terraces.</p> - -<p>Yes, his conjecture had been right. Seated side -by side beneath the tall-waving bracken, the auburn-haired -Ninsy and her anarchist friend were engaged -in an absorbing and passionate discussion. Both of -them were bare-headed, and the young man’s hand -rested upon the motionless fingers of his companion, -which were clasped demurely upon her lap. Philip’s -voice was raised in intense and pitiful supplication.</p> - -<p>“I’d care for you day and night,” Andersen heard -him cry. “I’d nurse you when you were ill, and -keep you from every kind of annoyance.”</p> - -<p>“But, Philip dear,” the girl’s voice answered, “you -know what the doctor said. He said I mustn’t marry -on any account. So even if I had nothing against it, -it wouldn’t be possible for us to do this.”</p> - -<p>“Ninsy, Ninsy!” cried the youth pathetically, -“don’t you understand what I mean? I can’t bear -having to say these things, but you force me to, -when you talk like that. The doctor meant that it -would be wrong for you to have children, and he took -it for granted that you’d never find anyone ready -to live with you as I’d live with you. It would only -be a marriage in name. I mean it would only be a -marriage in name in regard to children. It would be -a real marriage to me, it would be heaven to me, to -live side by side with you, and no one able any more -to come between us! I can’t realize such happiness. -It makes me feel dizzy even to think of it!”</p> - -<p>Ninsy unclasped her hands, and gently repulsing -him, remained buried in deep thought. Standing erect -above them, like a sentry upon a palisade, James<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[558]</a></span> -Andersen stared gloomily down upon this little drama. -In some strange way,—perhaps because of some -sudden recurrence of his mental trouble,—he seemed -quite unconscious of anything dishonourable or base -in thus withholding from these two people the knowledge -that he was overhearing them.</p> - -<p>“I’ll take care of you to the end of my life!” the -young man repeated. “I’m doing quite well now -with my work. You’ll be able to have all you want. -You’ll be better off than you are here, and you know -perfectly well that as soon as your father’s free -he’ll marry that friend of his in Yeoborough. I -saw him with her last Sunday. I’m sure it’s only for -your sake that he stays single. She’s got three -children, and that’s what holds him back—that, -and the thought that you two mightn’t get on together. -You’d be doing your father a kindness if you -said yes to me, Ninsy. Please, please, my darling, -say it, and make me grateful to you forever!”</p> - -<p>“I can’t say it,—Philip, dear, I can’t, I can’t”; -murmured the girl, in a voice so low that the sentinel -above them could only just catch her words. “I do -care for you, and I do value your goodness to me, -but I can’t say the words, Philip. Something seems -to stop me, something in my throat.”</p> - -<p>It was not to her throat however, that the agitated -Ninsy raised her thin hands. As she pressed -them against her breast a look of tragic sorrow came -into her face. Philip regarded her wistfully.</p> - -<p>“You’re thinking you don’t love me, dear,—and -never can love me. I know that, well enough! I -know you don’t love me as I love you. But what -does that matter? I’ve known that, all the time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[559]</a></span> -The thing is, you won’t find anyone who loves you as -I do,—ready to live with you as I’ve said I will, -ready to nurse you and look after you. Other people’s -love will be always asking and demanding from you. -Mine—oh, it’s true, my darling, it’s true!—mine -only wants to give up everything to make you -happy.”</p> - -<p>Ninsy was evidently more than a little moved by -the boy’s appeal. There was a ring of passionate -sincerity in his tone which went straight to her -heart. She bent down and covered her face with her -hands. When at length she lifted up her head and -answered him, there were tears on her cheeks, and -the watchful listener above them did not miss the -quiver in her tone.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry, Philip boy, more sorry than I can -say, that I can’t be nicer to you, that I can’t show -my gratitude to you, in the way you wish. But -though I do care for you, and—and value your -dear love—something stops me, something makes -it impossible that this should happen.”</p> - -<p>“I believe it’s because you love that fellow Andersen!” -cried the excited youth, leaping to his feet in -his agitation.</p> - -<p>In making this movement, the figure of the stone-carver, -silhouetted with terrible distinctness against -the sky-line, became visible to him. Instinctively he -uttered a cry of surprise and anger.</p> - -<p>“What do you want here? You’ve been listening! -You’ve been spying on us! Get away, can’t you! -Get back to your pretty young lady—her that’s -going to marry John Goring for the sake of his -money! Clear out of this, do you hear? Ninsy’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[560]</a></span> -sick of you and your ways. Clear off! or I’ll make you—eavesdropper!”</p> - -<p>By this time Ninsy had also risen, and stood facing -the figure above them. Every vestige of colour had -left her cheeks, and her hand was pressed against her -side. Andersen made a curious incoherent sound and -took a step towards them.</p> - -<p>“Get away, can’t you!” reiterated the furious -youth. “You’ve caused enough trouble here already. -Look at her,—can’t you see how ill she is? Get -back—damn you!—unless you want to kill her.”</p> - -<p>Ninsy certainly looked as though in another moment -she were going to fall. She made a piteous -little gesture, as if to ward off from Andersen the -boy’s savage words, but Philip caught her passionately -round the waist.</p> - -<p>“Get away!” he cried once more. “She belongs to -me now. You might have had her, you coward—you -turn-coat!—but you let her go for your newer -prey. Oh, you’re a fine gentleman, James Andersen, -a fine faithful gentleman! <em>You</em> don’t hold with -strikes. <em>You</em> don’t hold with workmen rising against -masters. <em>You</em> hold with keeping in with those that -are in power. Clear off—eavesdropper! Get back -to Mistress John Goring and your nice brother! -He’s as pretty a gentleman as you are, with his dear -Miss Gladys!”</p> - -<p>Ninsy’s feet staggered beneath her and she began -to hang limp upon his arm. She opened her mouth -to speak, but could only gasp helplessly. Her wide-open -eyes—staring from her pallid face—never left -Andersen for a moment. Of Philip she seemed absolutely -unconscious. The stone-carver made another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[561]</a></span> -step down the hill. His eyes, too, were fixed intently -on the girl, and of his rival’s angry speeches he seemed -utterly oblivious.</p> - -<p>“Get away!” the boy reiterated, beside himself -with fury, supporting the drooping form of his companion -as if its weight were nothing. “We’ve had -enough of your shilly-shallying and trickery! We’ve -had enough of your fine manners! A damned cowardly -spy—that’s what I call you, you well-behaved -gentleman! Get back—can’t you!”</p> - -<p>The drooping girl uttered some incoherent words -and made a helpless gesture with her hand. Andersen -seemed to read her meaning in her eyes, for he paused -abruptly in his approach and stretched out his arms.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Ninsy!” he murmured in a low voice. -He said no more, and turning on his heel, scrambled -swiftly back over the crest of the ridge and disappeared -from view.</p> - -<p>Philip flung a parting taunt after him, and then, -lifting the girl bodily off her feet, staggered down -the slope to the cottage, holding her in his arms.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile James Andersen walked swiftly across -the stubble-field in the direction of Leo’s Hill. At -the pace he moved it only took him some brief -minutes to reach the long stone wall that separates, -in this quarter, the quarried levels of the promontory -from the high arable lands which abut upon it.</p> - -<p>He climbed over this barrier and strode blindly -and recklessly forward among the slippery grassy -paths that crossed one another along the edges of -the deeper pits.</p> - -<p>The stone-carver was approaching, though quite -unconsciously, the scene of a very remarkable drama.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[562]</a></span> -Some fifteen minutes before his approach, the two -girls from Nevilton House had reached the precipitous -edge of what was known in that locality as -Cæsar’s Quarry. Cæsar’s Quarry was a large disused -pit, deeper and more extensive than most of the old -excavations on the Hill, and surrounded, on all but -one side, by blank precipitous walls of weather-stained -sandstone. These walls of smooth stone -remained always dark and damp, whatever the temperature -might be of the air above them; and the -floor of the Quarry was composed of a soft verdant -carpet of cool moist moss, interspersed by stray -heaps of discoloured rubble, on which flourished, at -this particular season of the year, masses of that -sombre-foliaged weed known as wormwood.</p> - -<p>On the northern side of Cæsar’s Quarry rose a high -narrow ridge of rock, divided, at uneven spaces, by -deeply cut fissures or chasms, some broad and some -narrow, but all overgrown to the very edge by short -slippery grass. This ridge, known locally as Claudy’s -Leap, was a favourite venture-place of the more -daring among the children of the neighbourhood, who -would challenge one another to feats of courage and -agility, along its perilous edge.</p> - -<p>On the side of Claudy’s Leap, opposite from Cæsar’s -Quarry, was a second pit, of even deeper descent than -the other, but of much smaller expanse. This second -quarry, also disused for several generations, remained -so far nameless, destiny having, it might seem, withheld -the baptismal honour, until the place had earned -a right to it by becoming the scene of some tragic, -or otherwise noteworthy, event.</p> - -<p>Gladys and Lacrima approached Cæsar’s Quarry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[563]</a></span> -from the western side, from whose slope a little -winding path—the only entrance or exit attainable—led -down into its shadowy depths. The Italian -glanced with a certain degree of apprehension into -the gulf beneath her, but Gladys seemed to take the -thing so much for granted, and appeared so perfectly -at her ease, that she was ashamed to confess her -tremors. The elder girl, indeed, continued chatting -cheerfully to her companion about indifferent matters, -and as she clambered down the little path in front -of her, she turned once or twice, in her fluent discourse, -to make sure that Lacrima was following. -The two cousins stood for awhile in silence, side by -side, when they reached the bottom.</p> - -<p>“How nice and cool it is!” cried Gladys, after a -pause. “I was getting scorched up there! Let’s sit -down a little, shall we,—before we start back? I -love these old quarries.”</p> - -<p>They sat down, accordingly, upon a heap of stones, -and Gladys serenely continued her chatter, glancing -up, however, now and again, to the frowning ridges -of the precipices above them.</p> - -<p>They had not waited long in this way, when the -quarry-owner’s daughter gave a perceptible start, and -raised her hand quickly to her lips.</p> - -<p>Her observant eye had caught sight of the figure -of Mr. John Goring peering down upon them from -the opposite ridge. Had Lacrima observed this -movement and lifted her eyes too, she would have -received a most invaluable warning, but the Powers -whoever they may have been, who governed the -sequence of events upon Leo’s Hill, impelled her to -keep her head lowered, and her interest concentrated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[564]</a></span> -upon a tuft of curiously feathered moss. Gladys -remained motionless for several moments, while the -figure on the opposite side vanished as suddenly as it -had appeared. Then she slowly rose.</p> - -<p>“Oh, how silly I am,” she cried; “I’ve dropped that -bunch of marjoram. Stop a minute, dear. Don’t -move! I’ll just run up and get it. It was in the -path. I know exactly where!”</p> - -<p>“I’ll come with you if you like,” said Lacrima -listlessly, “then you won’t have to come back. Or -why not leave it for a moment?”</p> - -<p>“It’s on the path, I tell you!” cried her cousin, -already some way up the slope; “I’m scared of someone -taking it. Marjoram isn’t common about here. -Oh no! Stay where you are. I’ll be back in a -second.”</p> - -<p>The Italian relapsed into her former dreamy unconcern. -She listlessly began stripping the leaves -from a spray of wormwood which grew by her side. -The place where she sat was in deep shadow, though -upon the summit of the opposite ridge the sun lay hot. -Her thoughts hovered about her friend in Dead Man’s -Lane. She had vaguely hoped to get a glimpse of -him this afternoon, but the absence of Dangelis had -interfered with this.</p> - -<p>She began building fantastic castles in the air, -trying to call up the image of a rejuvenated Mr. -Quincunx, freed from all cares and worries, living the -placid epicurean life his heart craved. Would he, -she wondered, recognize then, what her sacrifice -meant? Or would he remain still obsessed by this -or the other cynical fantasy, as far from the real -truth of things as a madman’s dream? She smiled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[565]</a></span> -gently to herself as she thought of her friend’s -peculiarities. Her love for him, as she felt it now, -across a quivering gulf of misty space, was a thing -as humorously tolerant and tender as it might have -been had they been man and wife of many years’ -standing. In these things Lacrima’s Latin blood gave -her a certain maturity of feeling, and emphasized -the maternal element in her attachment.</p> - -<p>She contemplated dreamily the smooth bare walls -of the cavernous arena in which she sat. Their -coolness and dampness was not unpleasant after the -heat of the upper air, but there was something -sepulchral about them, something that gave the girl -the queer impression of a colossal tomb—a tomb -whose scattered bones might even now be lying, -washed by centuries of rain, under the rank weeds of -these heaps of rubble.</p> - -<p>She heard the sound of someone descending the -path behind her but, taking for granted that it was -her cousin, she did not turn her head. It was only -when the steps were quite close that she recognized -that they were too heavy to be those of a girl.</p> - -<p>Then she leapt to her feet, and swung round,—to -find herself confronted by the sturdy figure of Mr. -John Goring. She gave a wild cry of panic and fled -blindly across the smooth floor of the great quarry. -Mr. Goring followed her at his leisure.</p> - -<p>The girl’s terror was so great, that, hardly conscious -of what she did, she ran desperately towards the remotest -corner of the excavation, where some ancient -blasting-process had torn a narrow crevice out of -the solid rock. This direction of her flight made the -farmer’s pursuit of her a fatally easy undertaking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[566]</a></span> -for the great smooth walls closed in, at a sharp angle, -at that point, and the crevice, where the two walls -met, only sank a few feet into the rock.</p> - -<p>Mr. Goring, observing the complete hopelessness -of the girl’s mad attempt to escape him, proceeded -to advance towards her as calmly and leisurely as if -she had been some hare or rabbit he had just shot. -The fact that Lacrima had chosen this particular -cul-de-sac, on the eastern side of the quarry, was a -most felicitous accident for Gladys, for it enabled -her to watch the event with as much ease as if she -had been a Drusilla or a Livia, seated in the Roman -amphitheatre. The fair-haired girl crept to the -extreme brink of the steep descent and there, lying -prone on the thyme-scented grass, her chin propped -upon her hands, she followed with absorbed interest -the farmer’s movements as he approached his recalcitrant -fiancée.</p> - -<p>The terrified girl soon found out the treachery of -the panic-instinct which had led her into this trap. -Had she remained in the open, it is quite possible -that by a little manœuvring she could have escaped; -but now her only exit was blocked by her advancing -pursuer.</p> - -<p>Turning to face him, and leaning back against the -massive wall of stone, she stretched out her arms on -either side of her, seizing convulsively in her fingers -some tufts of knot-grass which grew on the surface -of the rock. Here, with panting bosom and pallid -cheeks, she awaited his approach. Her tense figure -and terror-stricken gaze only needed the imprisoning -fetters to have made of her an exact modern image -of the unfortunate Andromeda. She neither moved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[567]</a></span> -nor uttered the least cry, as Mr. Goring drew near -her.</p> - -<p>At that moment a wild and unearthly shout reverberated -through the quarry. The sound of it—caught -up by repeated echoes—went rolling away across -Leo’s Hill, frightening the sheep and startling the cider-drinkers -in the lonely Inn. Gladys leapt to her feet, -ran round to where the path descended, and began -hastily scrambling down. Mr. Goring retreated hurriedly -into the centre of the arena, and with his hand -shading his eyes gazed up at the intruder.</p> - -<p>It was no light-footed Perseus, who on behalf of this -forlorn child of classic shores, appeared as if from the -sky. It was, indeed, only the excited figure of James -Andersen that Mr. Goring’s gaze, and Lacrima’s -bewildered glance, encountered simultaneously. The -stone-carver seemed to be possessed by a legion of -devils. His first thundering shout was followed by -several others, each more terrifying than the last, -and Gladys, rushing past the astonished farmer, -seized Lacrima by the arm.</p> - -<p>“Come!” she cried. “Uncle was a brute to frighten -you. But, for heaven’s sake, let’s get out of this, -before that madman collects a crowd! They’ll all -be down here from the inn in another moment. -Quick, dear, quick! Our only chance is to get away -now.”</p> - -<p>Lacrima permitted her cousin to hurry her across -the quarry and up the path. As they neared the -summit of the slope the Italian turned and looked -back. Mr. Goring was still standing where they had -left him, gazing with petrified interest at the wild -gestures of the man above him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[568]</a></span></p> - -<p>Andersen seemed beside himself. He kept frantically -waving his arms, and seemed engaged in some -incoherent defiance of the invisible Powers of the -air. Lacrima, as she looked at him, became convinced -that he was out of his mind. She could not even -be quite clear if he recognized her. She was certain -that it was not against her assailant that his wild -cries and defiances were hurled. It did not appear -that he was even aware of the presence of the farmer. -Whether or not he had seen her and known her when -he uttered his first cry, she could not tell. It -was certainly against no earthly enemies that the -man was struggling now.</p> - -<p>Vennie Seldom might have hazarded the superstitious -suggestion that his fit was not madness at all -but a sudden illumination, vouchsafed to his long -silence, of the real conditions of the airy warfare that -is being constantly waged around us. At that moment, -Vennie might have said, James Andersen was -the only perfectly sane person among them, for to his -eyes alone, the real nature of that heathen place and -its dark hosts was laid manifestly bare. The man, -according to this strange view, was wrestling to the -death, in his supreme hour, against the Forces that -had not only darkened his own days and those of -Lacrima, but had made the end of his mother’s life -so tragic and miserable.</p> - -<p>Gladys dragged Lacrima away as soon as they -reached the top of the ascent but the Pariah had -time to mark the last desperate gesture of her deliverer -before he vanished from her sight over the -ridge.</p> - -<p>Mr. Goring overtook them before they had gone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[569]</a></span> -far, and walked on with them, talking to Gladys -about Andersen’s evident insanity.</p> - -<p>“It’s no good my trying to do anything,” he remarked. -“But I’ll send Bert round for Luke as soon -as I get home. Luke’ll bring him to his senses. They -say he’s been taken like this before, and has come -round. He hears voices, you know, and fancies -things.”</p> - -<p>They walked in silence along the high upland road -that leads from the principal quarries of the Hill to -the Wild Pine hamlet and Nevil’s Gully. When they -reached the latter place, the two girls went on, down -Root-Thatch Lane, and Mr. Goring took the field-path -to the Priory.</p> - -<p>Before they separated, the farmer turned to his -future bride, who had been careful to keep Gladys -between herself and him, and addressed her in the -most gentle voice he knew how to assume.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be angry with me, lass,” he said. “I was -only teasing, just now. ’Twas a poor jest may-be, -and ye’ve cause to look glowering. But when we -two be man and wife ye’ll find I’m a sight better -to live with than many a fair-spoken one. These -be queer times, and like enough I seem a queer fellow, -but things’ll settle themselves. You take my -word for it!”</p> - -<p>Lacrima could only murmur a faint assent in reply -to these words, but as she entered with Gladys the -shadow of the tunnel-like lane, she could not help -thinking that her repulsion to this man, dreadful -though it was, was nothing in comparison with the -fear and loathing with which she regarded Mr. -Romer. Contrasted with his sinister relative, Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[570]</a></span> -John Goring was, after all, no more than a rough -simpleton.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, on Leo’s Hill, an event of tragic significance -had occurred. It will be remembered that -the last Lacrima had seen of James Andersen was the -wild final gesticulation he made,—a sort of mad -appeal to the Heavens against the assault of invisible -enemies,—before he vanished from sight on the -further side of Claudy’s Leap. This vanishing, just -at that point, meant no more to Lacrima than that -he had probably taken a lower path, but had Gladys -or Mr. Goring witnessed it,—or any other person -who knew the topography of the place,—a much -more startling conclusion would have been inevitable. -Nor would such a conclusion have been incorrect.</p> - -<p>The unfortunate man, forgetting, in his excitement, -the existence of the other quarry, the nameless one; -forgetting in fact that Claudy’s Leap was a razor’s -edge between two precipices, had stepped heedlessly -backwards, after his final appeal to Heaven, and -fallen, without a cry, straight into the gulf.</p> - -<p>The height of his fall would, in any case, have -probably killed him, but as it was “he dashed his -head,” in the language of the Bible, “against a stone”; -and in less than a second after his last cry, his soul, -to use the expression of a more pagan scripture, -“was driven, murmuring, into the Shades.”</p> - -<p>It fell to the lot, therefore, not of Luke, who did -not return from Weymouth till late that evening, -but of a motley band of holiday-makers from the -hill-top Inn, to discover the madman’s fate. Arriving -at the spot almost immediately after the girls’ -departure, these honest revellers—strangers to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[571]</a></span> -locality—had quickly found the explanation of the -unearthly cries they had heard.</p> - -<p>The eve of the baptism of Mr. Romer’s daughter -was celebrated, therefore, by the baptism of the -nameless quarry. Henceforth, in the neighbourhood -of Nevilton, the place was never known by any -other appellation than that of “Jimmy’s Drop”; and -by that name any future visitors, curious to observe -the site of so singular an occurrence, will have to -enquire for it, as they drink their pint of cider in the -Half-Moon Tavern.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[572]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII<br /> -<span class="smaller">A ROYAL WATERING-PLACE</span></h2> - -<p>Luke Andersen’s trip to Weymouth proved -most charming and eventful. He had scarcely -emerged from the crowded station, with its -row of antique omnibuses and its lethargic phalanx -of expectant out-porters and bath-chair men,—each -one of whom was a crusted epitome of ingrained -quaintness,—when he caught sight of Phyllis Santon -and Annie Bristow strolling laughingly towards the -sea-front. They must have walked to Yeoborough -and entered the train there, for he had seen nothing -of them at Nevilton Station.</p> - -<p>The vivacious Polly, a lively little curly-haired -child, of some seventeen summers, was far too happy -and thrilled by the adventure of the excursion and -the holiday air of the sea-side, to indulge in any jealous -fits. She was the first of the two, indeed, to greet -the elder girls, both of them quite well known to -her, running rapidly after them, in her white stiffly-starched -print frock, and hailing them with a shout -of joyous recognition.</p> - -<p>The girls turned quickly and they all three awaited, -in perfect good temper, the stone-carver’s deliberate -approach. Never had the spirits of this latter been -higher, or his surroundings more congenial to his mood.</p> - -<p>Anxious not to lose any single one of the exquisite -sounds, sights, smells, and intimations, which came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[573]</a></span> -pouring in upon him, as he leisurely drifted out upon -the sunny street, he let his little companion run after -his two friends as fast as she wished, and watched with -serene satisfaction the airy flight of her light figure, -with the deep blue patch of sea-line at the end of -the street as its welcome background.</p> - -<p>The smell of sea-weed, the sound of the waves -on the beach, the cries of the fish-mongers, and the -coming and going of the whole heterogeneous crowd, -filled Luke’s senses with the same familiar thrill of -indescribable pleasure as he had known, on such an -occasion, from his earliest childhood. The gayly -piled fruit heaped up on the open stalls, the little -tobacco-shops with their windows full of half-sentimental -half-vulgar picture-cards, the weather-worn -fronts of the numerous public-houses, the wood-work -of whose hospitable doors always seemed to him -endowed with a peculiar mellowness of their own,—all -these things, as they struck his attentive senses, -revived the most deeply-felt stirrings of old associations.</p> - -<p>Especially did he love the sun-bathed atmosphere, -so languid with holiday ease, which seemed to float -in and out of the open lodging-house entrances, -where hung those sun-dried sea-weeds and wooden -spades and buckets, which ever-fresh installments of -bare-legged children carried off and replaced. Luke -always maintained that of all mortal odours he loved -best the indescribable smell of the hall-way of a sea-side -lodging-house, where the very oil-cloth on the -floor, and the dead bull-rushes in the corner, seemed -impregnated with long seasons of salt-burdened sun-filled -air.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[574]</a></span></p> - -<p>The fish-shops, the green-grocer’s shops, the second-hand -book-shops, and most of all, those delicious -repositories of sea-treasures—foreign importations all -glittering with mother-of-pearl, dried sea-horses, sea-sponges, -sea-coral, and wonderful little boxes all -pasted over with shimmering shells—filled him with -a delight as vivid and new as when he had first -encountered them in remote infancy.</p> - -<p>This first drifting down to the sea’s edge, after -emerging from the train, always seemed to Luke -the very supremacy of human happiness. The bare -legs of the children, little and big, who ran laughing -or crying past him and the tangled curls of the -elder damsels, tossed so coquettishly back from their -sun-burnt faces, the general feeling of irresponsibility -in the air, the tang of adventure in it all, of the unexpected, -the chance-born, always wrapped him about -in an epicurean dream of pleasure.</p> - -<p>That monotonous splash of the waves against the -pebbles,—how he associated it with endless exquisite -flirtations,—flirtations conducted with adorable shamelessness -between the blue sky and the blue sea! The -memory of these, the vague memory of enchanting -forms prone or supine upon the glittering sands, with -the passing and re-passing of the same plump bathing-woman,—he -had known her since his childhood!—and -the same donkeys with their laughing -burdens, and the same sweet-sellers with their trays, -almost made him cry aloud with delight, as emerging -at length upon the Front, and overtaking his friends -at the Jubilee Clock-Tower, he saw the curved expanse -of the bay lying magically spread out before him. How -well he knew it all, and how inexpressibly he loved it!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[575]</a></span></p> - -<p>The tide was on its outward ebb when the four -happy companions jumped down, hand in hand, from -the esplanade to the shingle. The long dark windrow -of broken shells and sea-weed drew a pleasant dividing -line between the dry and the wet sand. Luke always -associated the stranded star-fish and jelly-fish and -bits of scattered drift-wood which that windrow -offered, with those other casually tossed-up treasures -with which an apparently pagan-minded providence -had bestrewn his way!</p> - -<p>Once well out upon the sands, and while the girls, -with little shrieks and bursts of merriment, were -pushing one another into the reach of the tide, Luke -turned to survey with a deep sigh of satisfaction, the -general appearance of the animated scene.</p> - -<p>The incomparable watering-place,—with its charming -“after-glow,” as Mr. Hardy so beautifully puts -it, “of Georgian gaiety,”—had never looked so -fascinating as it looked this August afternoon.</p> - -<p>The queer old-fashioned bathing-machines, one of -them still actually carrying the Lion and Unicorn -upon its pointed roof, glittered in the sunshine with -an air of welcoming encouragement. The noble sweep -of the houses behind the crescent-shaped esplanade, -with the names of their terraces—Brunswick, -Regent, Gloucester, Adelaide—so suggestive of the -same historic epoch, gleamed with reciprocal hospitality; -nor did the tall spire of St. John’s Church, a -landmark for miles round, detract from the harmony -of the picture.</p> - -<p>On Luke’s left, as he turned once more and faced -the sea, the vibrating summer air, free at present -from any trace of mist, permitted a wide and lovely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[576]</a></span> -view of the distant cliffs enclosing the bay. The -great White Horse, traced upon the chalk hills, seemed -within an hour’s walk of where he stood, and the -majestic promontory of the White Nore drew the -eye onward to where, at the end of the visible coast-line, -St. Alban’s Head sank into the sea.</p> - -<p>On Luke’s right the immediate horizon was blocked -by the grassy eminence known to dwellers in Weymouth -as “the Nothe”; but beyond this, and beyond -the break-water which formed an extension of it, -the huge bulk of Portland—Mr. Hardy’s Isle of the -Slingers—rose massive and shadowy against the -west.</p> - -<p>As he gazed with familiar pleasure at this unequalled -view, Luke could not help thinking to himself -how strangely the pervading charm of scenes of -this kind is enhanced by personal and literary association. -He recalled the opening chapters of “The -Well-Beloved,” that curiously characteristic fantasy-sketch -of the great Wessex novelist; and he also -recalled those amazing descriptions in Victor Hugo’s -“L’Homme qui Rit,” which deal with these same -localities.</p> - -<p>Shouts of girlish laughter distracted him at last -from his exquisite reverie, and flinging himself down on -the hot sand he gave himself up to enjoyment. Holding -her tight by either hand, the two elder girls, their -skirts already drenched with salt-water, were dragging -their struggling companion across the foamy sea-verge. -The white surf flowed beneath their feet and -their screams and laughter rang out across the bay.</p> - -<p>Luke called to them that he was going to paddle, -and implored them to do the same. He preferred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[577]</a></span> -to entice them thus into the deeper water, rather -than to anticipate for them a return home with -ruined petticoats and wet sand-filled shoes. Seeing -him leisurely engaged in removing his boots and socks -and turning up his trousers, the three exuberant -young people hurried back to his side and proceeded -with their own preparations.</p> - -<p>Soon, all four of them, laughing and splashing one -another with water, were blissfully wading along the -shore, interspersing their playful teasing with alternate -complimentary and disparaging remarks, relative -to the various bathers whose isolation they invaded.</p> - -<p>Luke’s spirits rose higher and higher. No youthful -Triton, with his attendant Nereids, could have -expressed more vividly in his radiant aplomb, the -elemental energy of air and sea. His ecstatic delight -seemed to reach its culmination as a group of extraordinarily -beautiful children came wading towards -them, their sunny hair and pearl-bright limbs gleaming -against the blue water.</p> - -<p>At the supreme moment of this ecstasy, however, -came a sudden pang of contrary emotion,—of dark -fear and gloomy foreboding. For a sudden passing -second, there rose before him,—it was now about -half-past four in the afternoon,—the image of his -brother, melancholy and taciturn, his heart broken -by Lacrima’s trouble. And then, like a full dark -tide rolling in upon him, came that ominous reaction, -spoken of by the old pagan writers, and regarded by -them as the shadow of the jealousy of the Immortal -Gods, envious of human pleasure—the reaction to the -fare of the Eumenides.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[578]</a></span></p> - -<p>His companions remained as gay and charming as -ever. Nothing could have been prettier than to -watch the mixture of audacity and coyness with -which they twisted their frocks round them, nothing -more amusing than to note the differences of character -between the three, as they betrayed their naive souls -in their childish abandonment to the joy of the hour.</p> - -<p>Both Phyllis and Annie were tall and slender and -dark. But there the likeness between them ceased. -Annie had red pouting lips, the lower one of which -protruded a little beyond its fellow, giving her face -in repose a quite deceptive look of sullenness and petulance. -Her features were irregular and a little heavy, -the beauty of her countenance residing in the shadowy -coils of dusky hair which surmounted it, and in the -velvet softness of her large dark eyes. For all the -heaviness of her face, Annie’s expression was one of -childlike innocence and purity; and when she flirted -or made love, she did so with a clinging affectionateness -and serious gravity which had much of the -charm of extreme youth.</p> - -<p>Phyllis, on the contrary, had softly outlined features -of the most delicate regularity, while from her hazel -eyes and laughing parted lips perpetual defiant provocations -of alluring mischief challenged everyone -she approached. Annie was the more loving of the -two, Phyllis the more lively and amorous. Both of -them made constant fun of their little curly-headed -companion, whose direct boyish ways and whimsical -speeches kept them in continual peals of merriment.</p> - -<p>Tired at last of paddling, they all waded to the -shore, and crossing the warm powdery sand, which is -one of the chief attractions of the place, they sat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[579]</a></span> -down on the edge of the shingle and dried their feet -in the sun.</p> - -<p>Reassuming their shoes and stockings, and demurely -shaking down their skirts, the three girls -followed the now rather silent Luke to the little tea-house -opposite the Clock-Tower, in an upper room of -which, looking out on the sea, were several pleasant -window-seats furnished with convenient tables.</p> - -<p>The fragrant tea, the daintiness of its accessories, -the fresh taste of the bread and butter, not to speak -of the inexhaustible spirits of his companions, soon -succeeded in dispelling the stone-carver’s momentary -depression.</p> - -<p>When the meal was over, as their train was not -due to leave till nearly seven, and it was now hardly -five, Luke decided to convey his little party across -the harbour-ferry. They strolled out of the shop -into the sunshine, not before the stone-carver had -bestowed so lavish a tip upon the little waitress that -his companions exchanged glances of feminine dismay.</p> - -<p>They took the road through the old town to reach -the ferry, following the southern of the two parallel -streets that debouch from the Front at the point -where stands the old-fashioned equestrian statue of -George the Third. Luke nourished in his heart a -sentimental tenderness for this simple monarch, -vaguely and quite erroneously associating the royal -interest in the place with his own dreamy attachment -to it.</p> - -<p>When they reached the harbour they found it in a -stir of excitement owing to the arrival of the passenger-boat -from the Channel Islands, one of the -red-funneled modern successors to those antique<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[580]</a></span> -paddle-steamers whose first excursions must have -been witnessed from his Guernsey refuge by the author -of the “Toilers of the Deep.” Side by side with the -smartly painted ship, were numerous schooners and -brigs, hailing from more northern regions, whose -cargoes were being unloaded by a motley crowd of -clamorous dock-hands.</p> - -<p>Luke and his three companions turned to the left -when they reached the water’s edge and strolled along -between the warehouses and the wharves until they -arrived at the massive bridge which crosses the -harbour. Leaning upon the parapet, whose whitish-grey -fabric indicated that the dominion of Leo’s -Hill gave place here to the noble Portland Stone, -they surveyed with absorbed interest the busy scene -beneath them.</p> - -<p>The dark greenish-colored water swirled rapidly -seaward in the increasing ebb of the tide. White-winged -sea-gulls kept swooping down to its surface -and rising again in swift air-cutting curves, balancing -their glittering bodies against the slanting sunlight. -Every now and then a boat-load of excursionists -would shoot out from beneath the shadow of the -wharves and shipping, and cross obliquely the swift-flowing -tide to the landing steps on the further shore.</p> - -<p>The four friends moved to the northern parapet of -the bridge, and the girls gave little cries of delight, -to see, at no great distance, where the broad expanse -of the back-water began to widen, a group of stately -swans, rocking serenely on the shining waves. They -remained for some while, trying to attract these -birds by flinging into the water bits of broken cake, -saved by the economic-minded Annie from the recent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[581]</a></span> -repast. But these offerings only added new spoil to -the plunder of the greedy sea-gulls, from whose -rapid movements the more aristocratic inland creatures -kept haughtily aloof.</p> - -<p>Preferring to use the ferry for their crossing rather -than the bridge, Luke led his friends back, along the -wharves, till they reached the line of slippery steps -about which loitered the lethargic owners of the ferry-boats. -With engaging alarm, and pretty gasps and -murmurs of half-simulated panic, the three young -damsels were helped down into one of these rough -receptacles, and the bare-necked, affable oarsman proceeded, -with ponderous leisureliness, to row them across.</p> - -<p>As the heavy oars rattled in their rowlocks, and the -swirling tide gurgled about the keels, Luke, seated -in the stern, between Annie and Phyllis, felt once -more a thrilling sense of his former emotion. With -one hand round Phyllis’ waist, and the other caressing -Annie’s gloveless fingers, he permitted his gaze to -wander first up, then down, the flowing tide.</p> - -<p>Far out to sea, he perceived a large war-ship, like -a great drowsy sea-monster, lying motionless between -sky and wave; and sweeping in, round the little -pier’s point, came a light full-sailed skiff, with the -water foaming across its bows.</p> - -<p>With the same engaging trepidation in his country-bred -comrades, they clambered up the landing-steps, -the lower ones of which were covered with green -sea-weed, and the upper ones worn smooth as marble -by long use, and thence emerged upon the little -narrow jetty, bordering upon the harbour’s edge.</p> - -<p>Here were a row of the most enchanting eighteenth -century lodging-houses, interspersed, at incredibly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[582]</a></span> -frequent spaces, by small antique inns, bearing quaint -names drawn from British naval history.</p> - -<p>Skirting the grassy slopes of the Nothe, with its -old-fashioned fort, they rounded the small promontory -and climbed down among the rocks and rock-pools -which lay at its feet. It was pretty to observe -the various flutterings and agitations, and to hear -the shouts of laughter and delight with which the -young girls followed Luke over these perilous and -romantic obstacles, and finally paused at his side -upon a great sun-scorched shell-covered rock, surrounded -by foamy water.</p> - -<p>The wind was cool in this exposed spot, and holding -their hats in their hands the little party gave -themselves up to the freedom and freshness of air -and sea.</p> - -<p>But the wandering interest of high-spirited youth -is as restless as the waves. Very soon Phyllis and -Polly had drifted away from the others, and were -climbing along the base of the cliff above, filling their -hands with sea-pinks and sea-lavender, which attracted -them by their glaucous foliage.</p> - -<p>Left to themselves, Luke removed his shoes and -stockings, and dangled his feet over the rock’s edge, -while Annie, prone upon her face, the sunshine -caressing her white neck and luxuriant hair, stretched -her long bare arms into the cool water.</p> - -<p>Leaning across the prostrate form of his companion, -and gazing down into the deep recesses of the tidal -pool which separated the rock they reclined on from -the one behind it, the stone-carver was able to make -out the ineffably coloured tendrils and soft translucent -shapes of several large sea-anemones, submerged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[583]</a></span> -beneath the greenish water. He pointed these out -to his companion, who moving round a little, and -tucking up her sleeves still higher, endeavoured to -reach them with her hand. In this she was defeated, -for the deceptive water was much deeper than either -of them supposed.</p> - -<p>“What are those darling little shells, down there -at the bottom, Luke?” she whispered. Luke, with -his arm round her neck, and his head close to hers, -peered down into the shadowy depths.</p> - -<p>“They’re some kind of cowries,” he said at last, -“shells that in Africa, I believe, they use as money.”</p> - -<p>“I wish they were money here,” murmured the -girl, “I’d buy mother one of those silver brushes -we saw in the shop.”</p> - -<p>“Listen!” cried Luke, and taking a penny from -his pocket he let it fall into the water. They both -fancied they heard a little metallic sound when it -struck the bottom.</p> - -<p>Suddenly Annie gave a queer excited laugh, shook -herself free from her companion’s arm, and scrambled -up on her knees. Luke lay back on the rock and -gazed in wonder at her flushed cheeks and flashing -eyes.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter, child?” he enquired.</p> - -<p>She fumbled at her bosom, and Luke noticed for the -first time that she was wearing round her neck a -little thin metal chain. At last with an impatient -movement of her fingers she snapped the resisting -cord and flung it into the tide. Then she held out -to Luke a small golden object, which glittered in the -palm of her hand. It was a weather-stained ring, -twisted and bent out of all shape.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[584]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It’s <em>her</em> ring!” she cried exultantly. “Crazy Bert -got it out of that hole, with a bit of bent wire, and -Phyllis squirmed it away from him by letting him -give her a lift in the wagon. He squeezed her dreadful -hard, she do say, and tickled her awful with -straws and things, but before evening she had the -ring away from him. You can bet I kissed her and -thanked her, when I got it! Us two be real friends, -as you might call it! Phyllis cried, in the night, -dreaming the idiot was pinching her, and she not -able to slap ’im back. But I got the ring, and there’t -be, Luke, glittering-gold as ever, though ’tis sad -bended and battered.”</p> - -<p>Luke made a movement to take the object, but -the girl closed her fingers tightly upon it and held it -high above his head. With her arm thus raised and -the glitter of sea and sun upon her form, she resembled -some sweetly-carved figure-head on the bows of -a ship. The wind fanned her hot cheeks and caressed, -with cool touch, her splendid coils of hair. Luke was -quite overcome by her beauty, and could only stare -at her in dazed amazement, while she repeated, in -clear ringing tones, the words of the old country -game.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“My lady’s lost her golden ring;</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Her golden ring, her golden ring;</div> -<div class="verse">My lady’s lost her golden ring;</div> -<div class="verse indent1">I pitch upon you to find it!”</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The song’s refrain died away over the waves, and -was answered by the scream of an astonished cormorant, -and by a mocking shout from a group of -idle soldiers on the grassy terrace above the cliff.</p> - -<p>“Shall us throw her ring out to sea?” cried Annie.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[585]</a></span> -“They say a ring lost so, means sorrow for her that -owns it. Say ‘yes,’ and it’s gone, Luke!”</p> - -<p>While the girl’s arm swung backwards and forwards -above him, the stone-carver’s thoughts whirled even -more rapidly through his brain. A drastic and bold -idea, that had often before crossed the threshold of -his consciousness, now assumed a most dominant -shape. Why not ask Annie to marry him?</p> - -<p>He was growing a little weary of his bachelor-life. -The wayward track of his days had more than once, -of late, seemed to have reached a sort of climax. -Why not, at one reckless stroke, end this epoch of -his history, and launch out upon another? His close -association with James had hitherto stood in the way -of any such step, but his brother had fallen recently -into such fits of gloomy reticence, that he had found -himself wondering more than once whether such a -drastic troubling of the waters, as the introduction -of a girl into their ménage, would not ease the situation -a little. It was not for a moment to be supposed -that he and James could separate. If Annie -did marry him, she must do so on the understanding -of his brother’s living with them.</p> - -<p>Luke began to review in his mind the various cottages -in Nevilton which might prove available for this -adventure. It tickled his fancy a great deal, the -thought of having a house and garden of his own, and -he was shrewd enough to surmise that of all his -feminine friends, Annie was by far the best fitted to -perform the functions of the good-tempered companion -of a philosophical sentimentalist. The gentle creature -had troubled him so little by jealous fits in her rôle -of sweetheart, that it did not present itself as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[586]</a></span> -probable that she would prove a shrewish wife. -Glancing across the blue water to the great Rock-Island -opposite them, Luke came rapidly to the conclusion -that he would take the risk and make the -eventful plunge. He knew enough of himself to have -full confidence in his power of dealing with the delicate -art of matrimony, and the very difficulties of the -situation, implied in the number of his contemporary -amours, only added a tang and piquancy to the -enterprise.</p> - -<p>“Well,” cried Annie. “Shall us throw the pretty -lady’s ring into the deep sea? It’ll mean trouble -for her, trouble and tears, Luke! Be ’ee of a mind -to do it, or be ’ee not? ’Tis your hand must fling it, -and with the flinging of it, her heart’ll drop, splash—splash—into -deep sorrow. She’ll cry her eyes -out, for this ’ere job, and that’s the truth of it, -Luke darling. Be ’ee ready to fling it, or be ’ee -not ready? There’ll be no getting it back, once us -have throwed it in.”</p> - -<p>She held out her arm towards him as she spoke, -and with her other hand pushed back her hair from -her forehead. For so soft and tender a creature as -the girl was, it was strange, the wild Maenad-like -look, which she wore at that moment. She might -have been an incarnation of the avenging deities of -sea and air, threatening disaster to some unwitting -Olympian.</p> - -<p>Luke scrambled to his feet, and seizing her wrist -with both his hands, forced her fingers apart, and -possessed himself of the equivocal trinket.</p> - -<p>“If I throw it,” he cried, in an excited tone, “will -you be my wife, Annie?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[587]</a></span></p> - -<p>At this unexpected word a complete collapse overtook -the girl. All trace of colour left her cheeks and -a sudden trembling passed through her limbs. She -staggered, and would have fallen, if Luke had not -seized her in his arms.</p> - -<p>In the shock of saving her, the stone-carver’s hand -involuntarily unclosed, and the piece of gold, slipping -from his fingers, fell down upon the slope of the rock, -and sliding over its edge, sank into the deep water.</p> - -<p>“Annie! Annie! What is it, dear?” murmured -Luke, making the trembling girl sit down by his side, -and supporting her tenderly.</p> - -<p>For her only answer she flung her arms round his -neck and kissed him passionately again and again. It -was not only of kisses that Luke became conscious, -for, as she pressed him to her, her breast heaved -pitifully under her print frock, and when she let him -go, the taste of her tears was in his mouth. For the -first time in his life the queer wish entered the stone-carver’s -mind that he had not, in his day, made love -quite so often.</p> - -<p>There was something so pure, so confiding, and -yet so passionately tender, about little Annie’s -abandonment, that it produced, in the epicurean -youth’s soul, a most quaint sense of shame and embarrassment. -It was deliciously sweet to him, all -the same, to find how, beyond expectation, he had -made so shrewd a choice. But he wished some -humorous demon at the back of his mind wouldn’t -call up before him at that moment the memory of -other clinging arms and lips.</p> - -<p>With an inward grin of sardonic commentary upon -his melting mood, the cynical thought passed through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[588]</a></span> -his mind, how strange it was, in this mortal world, -that human kisses should all so lamentably resemble -one another, and that human tears should all leave -behind them the same salt taste! Life was indeed a -matter of “eternal recurrence,” and whether with -Portland and its war-ships as the background, or -with Nevilton Mount and its shady woods, the same -emotions and the same reactions must needs come -and go, with the same inexorable monotony!</p> - -<p>He glanced down furtively into the foam-flecked -water, but there was no sign of the lost ring. The -tide seemed to have turned now, and the sea appeared -less calm. Little flukes of white spray surged up -intermittently on the in-rolling waves, and a strong -breath of wind, rising with the sinking of the sun, -blew cool and fresh upon their foreheads.</p> - -<p>“Her ring’s gone,” whispered Annie, pulling down -her sleeves over her soft arms, and holding out her -wrists, for him to fasten the bands, “and you do -belong to none but I now, Luke. When shall us be -married, dear?” she added, pressing her cool cheek -against his, and running her fingers through his hair.</p> - -<p>The words, as well as the gesture that accompanied -them, jarred upon Luke’s susceptibilities.</p> - -<p>“Why is it,” he thought, “that girls are so extraordinarily -stupid in these things? Why do they -always seem only waiting for an opportunity to drop -their piquancy and provocation, and become confident, -assured, possessive, complacent? Have I,” he said to -himself, “made a horrible blunder? Shall I regret -this day forever, and be ready to give anything for -those fatal words not to have been uttered?”</p> - -<p>He glanced down once more upon the brimming,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[589]</a></span> -in-rushing tide that covered Gladys’ ring. Then with -a jerk he pulled out his watch.</p> - -<p>“Go and call the others,” he commanded, “I’m -going to have a dip before we start.”</p> - -<p>Annie glanced quickly into his face, but reassured -by his friendly smile, proceeded to obey him, with -only the least little sigh.</p> - -<p>“Don’t drown yourself, dear,” she called back to -him, as she made her way cautiously across the rocks.</p> - -<p>Luke hurriedly undressed, and standing for a moment, -a slim golden figure, in the horizontal sunlight, -swung himself lightly down over the rock’s edge and -struck out boldly for the open sea.</p> - -<p>With vigorous strokes he wrestled with the inflowing -tide. Wave after wave splashed against his -face. Pieces of floating sea-weed and wisps of surf -clung to his arms and hair. But he held resolutely -on, breathing deep breaths of liberty and exultation, -and drinking in, as if from a vast wide-brimmed cup, -the thrilling spaciousness of air and sky.</p> - -<p>Girls, love-making, marriage,—the whole complication -of the cloying erotic world,—fell away from -him, like the too-soft petals of some great stifling -velvet-bosomed flower; and naked of desire, as he was -naked of human clothes, he gave himself up to the -free, pure elements. In later hours, when once more -the old reiterated tune was beating time in his brain, -he recalled with regret the large emancipation of that -moment.</p> - -<p>As he splashed and spluttered, and turned over -deliciously in the water, like some exultant human-limbed -merman, returning, after a long inland exile, -to his natural home, he found his thoughts fantastically<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[590]</a></span> -reverting to those queer, mad ideas, about the -evil power of the stone they both worked upon, to -which James Andersen had given expression when his -wits were astray. Here at any rate, in the solid -earth’s eternal antagonist, was a power capable of -destroying every sinister spell.</p> - -<p>He remorsefully blamed himself that he had not -compelled his brother to come down with them to -the sea. He recalled the half-hearted invitation he -had extended to James, not altogether sorry to have -it refused, and not repeating it. He had been a selfish -fool, he thought. Were James swimming now by his -side, his pleasure in that violet-coloured coast-line and -that titanic rock-monster, would have been doubled -by the revival of indescribably appealing memories.</p> - -<p>He made a vigorous resolution that never again—whatever -mood his brother might be in—would he -allow the perilous lure of exquisite femininity, to come -between him and the nobler classic bond, of the -love that “passeth the love of women.”</p> - -<p>Conscious that he must return without a moment’s -further delay if they were to catch their train, he -swung round in the water and let the full tide bear -him shoreward.</p> - -<p>On the way back he was momentarily assailed by -a slight touch of cramp in his legs. It quickly -passed, but it was enough to give the life-enamoured -youth a shock of cold panic. Death? <em>That</em>, after -all, he thought, was the only intolerable thing. As -long as one breathed and moved, in this mad world, -nothing that could happen greatly mattered! One -was conscious,—one could note the acts and scenes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[591]</a></span> -of the incredible drama; and in this mere fact of -consciousness, one could endure anything. But to be -dead,—to be deprived of the sweet air,—that -remained, that must always remain, the one absolute -Terror!</p> - -<p>Reaching his starting-place, Luke was amused to -observe that the tide was already splashing over -their rock, and in another minute or two would have -drenched his clothes. He chuckled to himself as he -noted how this very practical possibility jerked his -mind into a completely different vein. Love, philosophy, -friendship, all tend to recede to the very depths -of one’s invaluable consciousness, when there appears -a risk of returning to a railway station in a drenched -shirt.</p> - -<p>He collected his possessions with extreme rapidity, -and holding them in a bundle at arm’s length from -his dripping body, clambered hastily up the shore, -and humorously waving back his modest companions, -who were now being chaffed by quite a considerable -group of soldiers on the cliff above, he settled himself -down on a bank of sea-weed and began hurriedly to -dry, using his waistcoat as a towel.</p> - -<p>He was soon completely dressed, and, all four of -them a little agitated, began a hasty rush for the -train.</p> - -<p>Phyllis and Polly scolded him all the way without -mercy. Had he brought them out here, to keep them -in the place all night? What would their mothers -say, and their fathers, and their brothers, and their -aunts?</p> - -<p>Annie, alone of the party, remained silent, her full -rich lips closed like a sleepy peony, and her heavy-lidded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_592" id="Page_592">[592]</a></span> -velvety eyes casting little timid affectionate -glances at her so unexpectedly committed lover.</p> - -<p>The crossness of the two younger girls grew in -intensity when, the ferry safely crossed, Luke dragged -them at remorseless speed through the crowded town. -Pitiful longing eyes were cast back at the glittering -shops and the magical picture-shows. Why had he -taken them to those horrid rocks? Why hadn’t he -given them time to look at the shop-windows? -They’d promised faithfully to bring back something -for Dad and Betty and Queenie and Dick.</p> - -<p>Phyllis had ostentatiously flung into the harbour -her elaborately selected bunch of sea-flora, and the -poor ill-used plants, hot from the girl’s hand, were -now tossing up and down amid the tarry keels and -swaying hawsers. The girl regretted this action -now,—regretted it more and more vividly as the -station drew near. Mummy always loved a bunch -o’ flowers, and they were so pretty! She was sure it -was Luke who had made her lose them. He had -pushed her so roughly up those nasty steps.</p> - -<p>Tears were in Polly’s eyes as, bedraggled and -panting, they emerged on the open square where the -gentle monarch looks down from his stone horse. -There were sailors now, mixed with the crowd on the -esplanade,—such handsome boys! It was cruel, it -was wicked, that they had to go, just when the real -sport began.</p> - -<p>The wretched Jubilee Clock—how they all hated -its trim appearance!—had a merciless finger pointing -at the very minute their train was due to start, as -Luke hurried them round the street-corner. Polly -fairly began to cry, as they dragged her from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_593" id="Page_593">[593]</a></span> -alluring scene. She was certain that the Funny Men -were just going to begin. She was sure that that -distant drum meant Punch and Judy!</p> - -<p>Breathlessly they rushed upon the platform. -Wildly, with anxious eyes and gasping tones, they -enquired of the first official they encountered, whether -the Yeoborough train had gone.</p> - -<p>Observing the beauty of the three troubled girls, -this placid authority proceeded to tantalize them, -asking “what the hurry was,” and whether they -wanted a “special,” and other maddening questions. -It was only when Luke, who had rushed furiously to -the platform’s remote end, was observed to be cheerfully -and serenely returning, that Phyllis recovered -herself sufficiently to give their disconcerted insulter -what she afterwards referred to as “a bit of lip in -return for his blarsted sauce.”</p> - -<p>No,—the train would not be starting for another -ten minutes. Fortunate indeed was this accident of -a chance delay on the Great Western Railroad,—the -most punctual of all railroads in the world,—for it -landed Luke with three happy, completely recovered -damsels, and in a compartment all to themselves, -when the train did move at last. Abundantly -fortified with ginger-pop and sponge-cake,—how -closely Luke associated the savour of both these -refreshments with such an excursion as this!—and -further cheered by the secure possession of chocolates, -bananas, “Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday,” and the “Illustrated -London News,”—the girls romped, and sang, -and teased each other and Luke, and whispered -endearing mockeries out of the window to sedately -unconscious gentlemen, at every station where they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_594" id="Page_594">[594]</a></span> -stopped until the aged guard’s paternal benevolence -changed to irritable crossness, and Luke himself was -not altogether sorry when the familiar landscape of -Yeoborough, dusky and shadowy in the twilight, -hove in sight.</p> - -<p>Little Polly left them at the second of the two -Yeoborough stations, and the others, crowding at -the window to wave their good-byes, were carried on -in the same train to Nevilton.</p> - -<p>During this final five minutes, Annie slipped softly -down upon her lover’s knees and seemed to wish to -indicate to Phyllis, without the use of words, that her -relations with their common friend were now on a -new plane,—at once more innocent and less reserved.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_595" id="Page_595">[595]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">AVE ATQUE VALE!</span></h2> - -<p>James Andersen lay dead in the brothers’ -little bedroom at the station-master’s cottage. -It could not be maintained that his face wore the -unruffled calm conventionally attributed to mortality’s -last repose. On the other hand, his expression was not -that of one who has gone down in hopeless despair.</p> - -<p>What his look really conveyed to his grief-worn -brother, as he hung over him all that August night, -was the feeling that he had been struck in mid-contest, -with equal chance of victory or defeat, and -with the indelible imprint upon his visage of the stress -and strain of the terrific struggle.</p> - -<p>It was a long and strange vigil that Luke found -himself thus bound to keep, when the first paroxysm -of his grief had subsided and his sympathetic landlady -had left him alone with his dead.</p> - -<p>He laughed aloud,—a merciless little laugh,—at -one point in the night, to note how even this blow, -rending as it did the very ground beneath his feet, -had yet left quite untouched and untamed his irresistible -instinct towards self-analysis. Not a single -one of the innumerable, and in many cases astounding, -thoughts that passed through his mind, but he -watched it, and isolated it, and played with it,—just -in the old way.</p> - -<p>Luke was not by any means struck dumb or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_596" id="Page_596">[596]</a></span> -paralyzed by this event. His intelligence had never -been more acute, or his senses more responsive, than -they remained through those long hours of watching.</p> - -<p>It is true he could neither eat nor sleep. The influence -of the motionless figure beside him seemed to -lie in a vivid and abnormal stimulation of all his -intellectual faculties.</p> - -<p>Not a sound arose from the sleeping house, from -the darkened fields, from the distant village, but he -noted it and made a mental record of its cause. He -kept two candles alight at his brother’s head, three -times refilling the candlesticks, as though the guttering -and hissing of the dwindling flames would tease -and disturb the dead.</p> - -<p>He had been careful to push the two windows of -the room wide open; but the night was so still that -not a breath of wind entered to make the candles -flicker, or to lift the edge of the white sheet stretched -beneath his brother’s bandaged chin. This horrible -bandage,—one of the little incidents that Luke -marked as unexpectedly ghastly,—seemed to slip its -knot at a certain moment, causing the dead man’s -mouth to fall open, in a manner that made the -watcher shudder, so suggestive did it seem of one -about to utter a cry for help.</p> - -<p>Luke noted, as another factor in the phenomena of -death, the peculiar nature of the coldness of his -brother’s skin, as he bent down once and again to -touch his forehead. It was different from the coldness -of water or ice or marble. It was a clammy coldness; -the coldness of a substance that was neither—in the -words of the children’s game—“animal, vegetable, -nor mineral.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_597" id="Page_597">[597]</a></span></p> - -<p>Luke remembered the story of that play of Webster’s, -in which the unhappy heroine, in the blank -darkness of her dungeon, is presented with a dead -hand to caress. The abominably wicked wish crossed -his mind once, as he unclosed those stark fingers, that -he could cause the gentle Lacrima, whom he regarded,—not -altogether fairly,—as responsible for his -brother’s death, to feel the touch of such a hand.</p> - -<p>There came over him, at other times, as he inhaled -the cool, hushed air from the slumbering fields, and -surveyed the great regal planet,—Mr. Romer’s star, -he thought grimly,—as it hung so formidably close -to the silvery pallid moon, a queer dreamy feeling -that the whole thing were a scene in a play or a -story, absolutely unreal; and that he would only -have to rouse himself and shake off the unnatural -spell, to have his brother with him again, alive and in -full consciousness.</p> - -<p>The odd thing about it was that he found himself -refusing to believe that this was his brother at all,—this -mask beneath the white sheet,—and even -fancying that at any moment the familiar voice -might call to him from the garden, and he have to -descend to unlock the door.</p> - -<p>That thought of his brother’s voice sent a pang -through him of sick misgiving. Surely it couldn’t -be possible, that never, not through the whole of -eternity, would he hear that voice again?</p> - -<p>He moved to the window and listened. Owls were -hooting somewhere up at Wild Pine, and from the -pastures towards Hullaway came the harsh cry of a -night-jar.</p> - -<p>He gazed up at the glittering heavens, sprinkled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_598" id="Page_598">[598]</a></span> -with those proud constellations whose identity it was -one of his pastimes to recognize. How little they -cared! How appallingly little they cared! What a -farce, what an obscene, unpardonable farce, the whole -business was!</p> - -<p>He caught the sound of an angry bark in some -distant yard.</p> - -<p>Luke cursed the irrelevant intrusive noise. “Ah! -thou vile Larva!” he muttered. “What! Shall a dog, -a cat, a rat, have life; and thou no breath at all?”</p> - -<p>He leant far out of the window, breathing the -perfumes of the night. He noticed, as an interesting -fact, that it was neither the phloxes nor the late roses -whose scent filled the air, but that new exotic tobacco-plant,—a -thing whose sticky, quickly-fading, trumpet-shaped -petals were one of his brother’s especial -aversions.</p> - -<p>The immense spaces of the night, as they carried -his gaze onward from one vast translunar sign to -another, filled him with a strange feeling of the -utter unimportance of any earthly event. The -Mythology of Power and the Mythology of Sacrifice -might wrestle in desperate contention for the mastery; -but what mattered, in view of this great dome which -overshadowed them, the victory or the defeat of -either? Mythologies were they both; both woven -out of the stuff of dreams, and both vanishing like -dreams, in the presence of this stark image upon the -bed!</p> - -<p>He returned to his brother’s side, and rocked himself -up and down on his creaking bedroom chair. -“Dead and gone!” he muttered, “dead and gone!”</p> - -<p>It was easy to deal in vague mystic speculation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_599" id="Page_599">[599]</a></span> -But what relief could he derive, he who wanted his -brother back as he was, with his actual tones, and -ways and looks, from any problematic chance that -some thin “spiritual principle,” or ideal wraith, of the -man were now wandering through remote, unearthly -regions? The darling of his soul—the heart of his -heart—had become forever this appalling waxen -image, this thing that weighed upon him with its -presence!</p> - -<p>Luke bent over the dead man. What a personality, -what a dominant and oppressive personality, a corpse -has! It is not the personality of the living man, but -another—a quite different one—masquerading in -his place.</p> - -<p>Luke felt almost sure that this husk, this shell, -this mockery of the real James, was possessed of some -detestable consciousness of its own, a consciousness -as remote from that of the man he loved as that -pallid forehead with the deep purple gash across it, -was remote from the dear head whose form he knew -so well. How crafty, how malignant, a corpse was!</p> - -<p>He returned to his uncomfortable chair and pondered -upon what this loss meant to him. It was -like the burying alive of half his being. How could -he have thoughts, sensations, feelings, fancies; how -could he have loves and hates, without James to tell -them to? A cold sick terror of life passed through -him, of life without this companion of his soul. He -felt like a child lost in some great forest.</p> - -<p>“Daddy James! Daddy James!” he cried, “I want -you;—I want you!”</p> - -<p>He found himself repeating this infantile conjuration -over and over again. He battered with clenched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_600" id="Page_600">[600]</a></span> -hand upon the adamantine wall of silence. But there -was neither sign nor voice nor token nor “any that -regarded.” There was only the beating of his own -heart and the ticking of the watch upon the table. -And all the while, with its malignant cunning, the -corpse regarded him, mute, derisive, contemptuous.</p> - -<p>He thought, lightly and casually, as one who at the -grave of all he loves plucks a handful of flowers, of -the girls he had just parted from, and of Gladys and -all his other infatuations. How impossible it seemed -to him that a woman—a girl—that any one of -these charming, distracting creatures—should strike -a man down by their loss, as he was now stricken -down.</p> - -<p>He tried to imagine what he would feel if it were -Annie lying there, under the sheet, in place of James. -He would be sorry; he would be bitterly sad; he would -be angry with the callous heavens; but as long as -James were near, as long as James were by his side,—his -life would still be his life. He would suffer, and -the piteous tragedy of the thing would smite and -sicken him; but it would not be the same. It would -not be like this!</p> - -<p>What was there in the love of a man that made -the loss of it—for him at least—so different a -thing? Was it that with women, however much one -loved them, there was something equivocal, evasive, -intangible; something made up of illusion and -sorcery, of magic and moonbeams; that since it could -never be grasped as firmly as the other, could never -be as missed as the other, when the grasp had to -relax? Or was it that, for all their clear heads,—heads -so much clearer than poor James’!—and for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_601" id="Page_601">[601]</a></span> -all their spiritual purity,—there was lacking in -them a certain indescribable mellowness of sympathy, -a certain imaginative generosity and tolerance, which -meant the true secret of the life lived in common?</p> - -<p>From the thought of his girls, Luke’s mind wandered -back to the thought of what the constant -presence of his brother as a background to his life -had really meant. Even as he sat there, gazing so -hopelessly at the image on the bed, he found himself -on the point of resolving to explain all these matters -to James and hear his opinion upon them.</p> - -<p>By degrees, as the dawn approached, the two -blank holes into cavernous darkness which the -windows of the chamber had become, changed their -character. A faint whitish-blue transparency grew -visible within their enclosing frames, and something -ghostly and phantom-like, the stealthy invasion of a -new presence, glided into the room.</p> - -<p>This palpable presence, the frail embryo of a new -day, gave to the yellow candle-flames a queer sickly -pallor and intensified to a chalky opacity the dead -whiteness of the sheet, and of the folded hands -resting upon it. It was with the sound of the first -twittering birds, and the first cock-crow, that the ice-cold -spear of desolation pierced deepest of all into -Luke’s heart. He shivered, and blew out the candles.</p> - -<p>A curious feeling possessed him that, in a sudden -ghastly withdrawal, that other James, the James he -had been turning to all night in tacit familiar appeal, -had receded far out of his reach. From indistinct -horizons his muffled voice moaned for a while, like -the wind in the willows of Lethe, and then died away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_602" id="Page_602">[602]</a></span> -in a thin long-drawn whisper. Luke was alone; -alone with his loss and alone with the image of -death.</p> - -<p>He moved to the window and looked out. Streaks -of watery gold were already visible above the eastern -uplands, and a filmy sea of white mist swayed and -fluttered over the fields.</p> - -<p>All these things together, the white mist, the white -walls of the room, the white light, the white covering -on the body, seemed to fall upon the worn-out -watcher with a weight of irresistible finality. James -was dead—“gone to his death-bed;—he never -would come again!”</p> - -<p>Turning his back wearily upon those golden sky-streaks, -that on any other occasion would have -thrilled him with their magical promise, Luke observed -the dead bodies of no less than five large moths -grouped around the extinct candles. Two of them -were “currant-moths,” one a “yellow under-wing,” and -the others beyond his entomological knowledge. -This was the only holocaust, then, allowed to the -dead man. Five moths! And the Milky Way had -looked down upon their destruction with the same -placidity as upon the cause of the vigil that slew -them.</p> - -<p>Luke felt a sudden desire to escape from this room, -every object of which bore now, in dimly obscure -letters, the appalling handwriting of the ministers of -fate. He crept on tiptoe to the door and opened it -stealthily. Making a mute valedictory gesture towards -the bed, he shut the door behind him and slipped -down the little creaking stairs.</p> - -<p>He entered his landlady’s kitchen, and as silently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_603" id="Page_603">[603]</a></span> -as he could collected a bundle of sticks and lit the -fire. The crackling flames produced an infinitesimal -lifting of the cloud which weighed upon his spirit. -He warmed his hands before the blaze. From some -remote depth within him, there began to awake once -more the old inexpugnable zest for life.</p> - -<p>Piling some pieces of coal upon the burning wood -and drawing the kettle to the edge of the hob, he left -the kitchen; and crossing the little hall, impregnated -with a thin sickly odor of lamp-oil, he shot back the -bolts of the house-door, and let himself out into the -morning air.</p> - -<p>A flock of starlings fluttered away over the meadow, -and from the mist-wreathed recesses of Nevilton -House gardens came the weird defiant scream of a -peacock.</p> - -<p>He glanced furtively, as if such a glance were -almost sacrilegious, at the open windows of his -brother’s room; and then pushing open the garden-gate -emerged into the dew-drenched field. He could -not bring himself to leave the neighbourhood of the -house, but began pacing up and down the length of -the meadow, from the hedge adjacent to the railway, -to that elm-shadowed corner, where not so many -weeks ago he had distracted himself with Annie and -Phyllis. He continued this reiterated pacing,—his -tired brain giving itself up to the monotony of a -heart-easing movement,—until the sun had risen -quite high above the horizon. The great fiery orb -pleased him well, in its strong indifference, as with its -lavish beams it dissipated the mist and touched the -tree-trunks with ruddy colour.</p> - -<p>“Ha!” he cried aloud, “the sun is the only God!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_604" id="Page_604">[604]</a></span> -To the sun must all flesh turn, if it would live and -not die!”</p> - -<p>Half ashamed of this revival of his spirits he obeyed -the beckoning gestures of the station-master’s wife, -who now appeared at the door.</p> - -<p>The good woman’s sympathy, though not of the -silent or tactful order, was well adapted to prevent -the immediate return of any hopeless grief.</p> - -<p>“’Tis good it were a Saturday when the Lord took -him,” she said, pouring out for her lodger a steaming -cup of excellent tea, and buttering a slice of bread; -“he’ll have Sunday to lie up in. It be best of all -luck for these poor stiff ones, to have church bells -rung over ’em.”</p> - -<p>“I pray Heaven I shan’t have any visitors today,” -remarked Luke, sipping his tea and stretching out his -feet to the friendly blaze.</p> - -<p>“That ye’ll be sure to have!” answered the woman; -“and the sooner ye puts on a decent black coat, and -washes and brushes up a bit, the better ’twill be for -all concerned. I always tells my old man that when -he do fall stiff, like what your brother be, I shall put -on my black silk gown and sit in the front parlour -with a bottle of elder wine, ready for all sorts and -conditions.”</p> - -<p>Luke rose, with a piece of bread-and-butter in his -hand, and surveyed himself in the mirror.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do need a bit of tidying,” he said. “Perhaps -you wouldn’t mind my shaving down here?”</p> - -<p>Even as he spoke the young stone-carver could not -help recalling those sinister stories of dead men whose -beards have grown in their coffins. The landlady -nodded.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_605" id="Page_605">[605]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’ll make ’ee up a bed for these ’ere days,” she -said, “in Betty’s room. As for shaving and such like, -please yourself, Master Luke. This house be thy -house with him lying up there.”</p> - -<p>Between nine and ten o’clock Luke’s first visitor -made his appearance. This was Mr. Clavering, who -showed himself neither surprised nor greatly pleased -to find the bereft brother romping with the children -under the station-master’s apple-trees.</p> - -<p>“I cannot express to you the sympathy I feel,” -said the clergyman, “with your grief under this -great blow. Words on these occasions are of little -avail. But I trust you know where to turn for true -consolation.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, sir,” replied Luke, who, though carefully -shaved and washed, still wore the light grey -flannel suit of his Saturday’s excursion.</p> - -<p>“Give Mr. Clavering an apple, Lizzie!” he added.</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t for a moment,” continued the Reverend -Hugh, “intrude upon you with any impertinent -questions. But I could not help wondering as I -walked through the village how this tragedy would -affect you. I prayed it might,”—here he laid a -grave and pastoral hand on the young man’s arm,—“I -prayed it might give you a different attitude to -those high matters which we have at various times -discussed together. Am I right in my hope, Luke?”</p> - -<p>Never had the superb tactlessness of Nevilton’s -vicar betrayed him more deplorably.</p> - -<p>“Death is death, Mr. Clavering,” replied the -stone-carver, lifting up the youngest of the children -and placing her astride on an apple-branch. “It’s -about the worst blow fate’s ever dealt me. But when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_606" id="Page_606">[606]</a></span> -it comes to any change in my ideas,—no! I can’t -say that I’ve altered.”</p> - -<p>“I understand you weren’t with him when this -terrible thing happened,” said the clergyman. “They -tell me he was picked up by strangers. There’ll be -no need, I trust, for an inquest, or anything of that -kind?”</p> - -<p>Luke shook his head. “The doctor was up here -last night. The thing’s clear enough. His mind -must have given way again. He’s had those curst -quarries on his nerves for a long while past. I wish -to the devil—I beg your pardon, sir!—I wish I’d -taken him to Weymouth with me. I was a fool not -to insist on that.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I heard you were away,” remarked Hugh, -with a certain caustic significance in his tone. “One -or two of our young friends were with you, I believe?”</p> - -<p>Luke did not fail to miss the implication, and he hit -back vindictively.</p> - -<p>“I understand you’ve had an interesting little service -this morning, sir, or perhaps it’s yet to come off? -I can’t help being a bit amused when I think of it!”</p> - -<p>An electric shock of anger thrilled through Clavering’s -frame. Controlling himself with a heroic effort, -he repelled the malignant taunt.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know you concerned yourself with these -observances, Andersen,” he remarked. “But you’re -quite right. I’ve just this minute come from receiving -Miss Romer into our church. Miss Traffio was with -her. Both young ladies were greatly agitated over -this unhappy occurrence. In fact it cast quite a -gloom over what otherwise is one of the most beautiful -incidents of all, in our ancient ritual.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_607" id="Page_607">[607]</a></span></p> - -<p>Luke swung the little girl on the bough backwards -and forwards. The other children, retired to a -discreet distance, stared at the colloquy with wide-open -eyes.</p> - -<p>“This baptizing of adults,” continued Luke,—“you -call ’em adults, don’t you, on these occasions?—is -really a little funny, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Funny!” roared the angry priest. “No, sir, it -isn’t funny! The saving of an immortal soul by -God’s most sacred sacrament may not appeal to you -infidels as an essential ceremony,—but only a thoroughly -vulgar and philistine mind could call it -funny!”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid we shall never agree on these topics, -Mr. Clavering,” replied Luke calmly. “But it was -most kind of you to come up and see me. I really -appreciate it. Would it be possible,”—his voice -took a lower and graver tone,—“for my brother’s -funeral to be performed on Wednesday? I should be -very grateful to you, sir, if that could be arranged.”</p> - -<p>The young vicar frowned and looked slightly -disconcerted. “What time would you wish it to be, -Andersen?” he enquired. “I ask you this, because -Wednesday is—er—unfortunately—the date fixed -for another of these ceremonies that you scoff at. -The Lord Bishop comes to Nevilton then. It is his -own wish. I should myself have preferred a later -date.”</p> - -<p>“Ha! the confirmation!” ejaculated Luke, with a -bitter little laugh. “You’re certainly bent on striking -while the iron’s hot, Mr. Clavering. May I ask what -hour has been fixed for <em>this</em> beautiful ceremony?”</p> - -<p>“Eleven o’clock in the morning,” replied the priest,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_608" id="Page_608">[608]</a></span> -ignoring with a dignified wave of his hand the stone-carver’s -jeering taunt.</p> - -<p>“Well then—if that suits you—and does not -interfere with the Lord Bishop—” said Luke, “I -should be most grateful if you could make the hour -for James’ funeral, ten o’clock in the morning? <em>That</em> -service I happen to be more familiar with than the -others,—and I know it doesn’t take very long.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Clavering bent his head in assent.</p> - -<p>“It shall certainly be as you wish,” he said. “If -unforeseen difficulties arise, I will let you know. But -I have no doubt it can be managed.</p> - -<p>“I am right in assuming,” he added, a little uneasily, -“that your brother was a baptized member of -our church?”</p> - -<p>Luke lifted the child from the bough and made her -run off to play with the others. The glance he then -turned upon the vicar of Nevilton was not one of -admiration.</p> - -<p>“James was the noblest spirit I’ve ever known,” -he said sternly. “If there is such a thing as another -world, he is certain to reach it—church or no -church. As a matter of fact, if it is at all important -to you, he was baptized in Nevilton. You’ll find his -name in the register—and mine too!” he added with -a laugh.</p> - -<p>Mr. Clavering kept silence, and moved towards the -gate. Luke followed him, and at the gate they shook -hands. Perhaps the same thought passed through -the minds of both of them, as they went through this -ceremony; for a very queer look, almost identical in -its expression on either face, was exchanged between -them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_609" id="Page_609">[609]</a></span></p> - -<p>Before the morning was over Luke had a second -visit of condolence. This was from Mr. Quincunx, -and never had the quaint recluse been more warmly -received. Luke was conscious at once that here was -a man who could enter into every one of his feelings, -and be neither horrified nor scandalized by the most -fantastic inconsistency.</p> - -<p>The two friends walked up and down the sunny -field in front of the house, Luke pouring into the -solitary’s attentive ears every one of his recent impressions -and sensations.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx was evidently profoundly moved by -James’ death. He refused Luke’s offer to let him -visit the room upstairs, but his refusal was expressed -in such a natural and characteristic manner that the -stone-carver accepted it in perfect good part.</p> - -<p>After a while they sat down together under the -shady hedge at the top of the meadow. Here they -discoursed and philosophized at large, listening to the -sound of the church-bells and watching the slow-moving -cattle. It was one of those unruffled Sunday -mornings, when, in such places as this, the drowsiness -of the sun-warmed leaves and grasses seems endowed -with a kind of consecrated calm, the movements of -the horses and oxen grow solemn and ritualistic, the -languor of the heavy-winged butterflies appears holy, -and the stiff sabbatical dresses of the men and women -who shuffle so demurely to and fro, seem part of a -patient liturgical observance.</p> - -<p>Luke loved Mr. Quincunx that morning. The -recluse was indeed precisely in his element. Living -habitually himself in thoughts of death, pleased—in -that incomparable sunshine—to find himself still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_610" id="Page_610">[610]</a></span> -alive, cynical and yet considerate, mystical and yet -humorous, he exactly supplied what the wounded -heart of the pagan mourner required for its comfort.</p> - -<p>“Idiots! asses! fools!” the stone-carver ejaculated, -apostrophizing in his inmost spirit the various persons, -clever or otherwise, to whom this nervous and eccentric -creature was a mere type of failure and superannuation. -None of these others,—not one of them,—not -Romer nor Dangelis nor Clavering nor Taxater—could -for a moment have entered into the peculiar -feelings which oppressed him. As for Gladys or -Phyllis or Annie or Polly,—he would have as soon -thought of relating his emotions to a row of swallows -upon a telegraph-wire as to any of those dainty -epitomes of life’s evasiveness!</p> - -<p>A man’s brain, a man’s imagination, a man’s -scepticism, was what he wanted; but he wanted it -touched with just that flavour of fanciful sentiment of -which the Nevilton hermit was a master. A hundred -quaint little episodes, the import of which none but -Mr. Quincunx could have appreciated, were evoked -by the stone-carver. Nothing was too blasphemous, -nothing too outrageous, nothing too bizarre, for the -solitary’s taste. On the other hand, he entered with -tender and perfect clairvoyance into the sick misery -of loss which remained the background of all Luke’s -sensations.</p> - -<p>The younger man’s impetuous confidences ebbed -and dwindled at last; and with the silence of the -church-bells and the receding to the opposite corner -of the field of the browsing cattle, a deep and melancholy -hush settled upon them both.</p> - -<p>Then it was that Mr. Quincunx began speaking of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_611" id="Page_611">[611]</a></span> -himself and his own anxieties. In the tension of the -moment he even went so far as to disclose to Luke, -under a promise of absolute secrecy, the sinister story -of that contract into which Lacrima had entered with -their employer.</p> - -<p>Luke was all attention at once. This was indeed a -piece of astounding news! He couldn’t have said -whether he wondered more at the quixotic devotion -of Lacrima for this quaint person, or at the solitary’s -unprecedented candour in putting him “en rapport” -with such an amazing situation.</p> - -<p>“Of course we know,” murmured Mr. Quincunx, -in his deep subterranean voice, “that she wouldn’t -have promised such a thing, unless in her heart she -had been keen, at all costs, to escape from those -people. It isn’t human nature to give up everything -for nothing. Probably, as a matter of fact, she -rather likes the idea of having a house of her own. -I expect she thinks she could twist that fool Goring -round her finger; and I daresay she could! But the -thing is, what do you advise <em>me</em> to do? Of course I’m -glad enough to agree to anything that saves me from -this damnable office. But what worries me about it -is that devil Romer put it into her head. I don’t -trust him, Luke; I don’t trust him!”</p> - -<p>“I should think you don’t!” exclaimed his companion, -looking with astonishment and wonder into -the solemn grey eyes fixed sorrowfully and intently -upon his own. What a strange thing, he thought to -himself, that this subtle-minded intelligence should be -so hopelessly devoid of the least push of practical -impetus.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” Mr. Quincunx continued, “neither<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_612" id="Page_612">[612]</a></span> -you nor I would fuss ourselves much over the idea of a -girl being married to a fool like this, if there weren’t -something different from the rest about her. This -nonsense about their having to ‘love,’ as the little -simpletons call it, the man they agree to live with, is -of course all tommy-rot. No one ‘loves’ the person -they live with. She wouldn’t love me,—she’d -probably hate me like poison,—after the first week -or so! The romantic idiots who make so much of -‘love,’ and are so horrified when these little creatures -are married without it, don’t understand what this -planet is made of. They don’t understand the feelings -of the girls either.</p> - -<p>“I tell you a girl <em>likes</em> being made a victim of in this -particular kind of way. They’re much less fastidious, -when it comes to the point, than we are. As a matter -of fact what does trouble them is being married to a -man they really have a passion for. Then, jealousy -bites through their soft flesh like Cleopatra’s serpent, -and all sorts of wild ideas get into their heads. It’s -not natural, Luke, it’s not natural, for girls to marry -a person they love! That’s why we country dogs -treat the whole thing as a lewd jest.</p> - -<p>“Do you think these honest couples who stand -giggling and smirking before our dear clergyman every -quarter, don’t hate one another in their hearts? Of -course they do; it wouldn’t be nature if they didn’t! -But that doesn’t say they don’t get their pleasure -out of it. And Lacrima’ll get her pleasure, in some -mad roundabout fashion, from marrying Goring,—you -may take my word for that!”</p> - -<p>“It seems to me,” remarked Luke slowly, “that -you’re trying all this time to quiet your conscience.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_613" id="Page_613">[613]</a></span> -I believe you’ve really got far more conscience, -Maurice, than I have. It’s your conscience that -makes you speak so loud, at this very moment!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx got up on his feet and stroked his -beard. “I’m afraid I’ve annoyed you somehow,” he -remarked. “No person ever speaks of another person’s -conscience unless he’s in a rage with him.”</p> - -<p>The stone-carver stretched out his legs and lit a -cigarette. “Sit down again, you old fool,” he said, -“and let’s talk this business over sensibly.”</p> - -<p>The recluse sighed deeply, and, subsiding into his -former position, fixed a look of hopeless melancholy -upon the sunlit landscape.</p> - -<p>“The point is this, Maurice,” began the young -man. “The first thing in these complicated situations -is to be absolutely certain what one wants oneself. -It seems to me that a good deal of your agitation -comes from the fact that you haven’t made up your -mind what you want. You asked my advice, you -know, so you won’t be angry if I’m quite plain with -you?”</p> - -<p>“Go on,” said Mr. Quincunx, a remote flicker of -his goblin-smile twitching his nostrils, “I see I’m in -for a few little hits.”</p> - -<p>Luke waved his hand. “No hits, my friend, no -hits. All I want to do, is to find out from you what -you really feel. One philosophizes, naturally, about -girls marrying, and so on; but the point is,—do you -want this particular young lady for yourself, or don’t -you?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx stroked his beard. “Well,”—he -said meditatively, “if it comes to that, I suppose I do -want her. We’re all fools in some way or other, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_614" id="Page_614">[614]</a></span> -fancy. Yes, I do want her, Luke, and that’s the -honest truth. But I don’t want to have to work -twice as hard as I’m doing now, and under still more -unpleasant conditions, to keep her!”</p> - -<p>Luke emitted a puff of smoke and knocked the -ashes from his cigarette upon the purple head of a -tall knapweed.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” he ejaculated. “Now we’ve got something -to go upon.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx surveyed the faun-like profile of -his friend with some apprehension. He mentally -resolved that nothing,—nothing in heaven nor -earth,—should put him to the agitation of making -any drastic change in his life.</p> - -<p>“We get back then,” continued Luke, “to the -point we reached on our walk to Seven Ashes.”</p> - -<p>As he said the words “Seven Ashes” the ice-cold -finger of memory pierced him with that sudden stab -which is like a physical blow. What did it matter, -after all, he thought, what happened to any of these -people, now Daddy James was dead?</p> - -<p>“You remember,” he went on, while the sorrowful -grey eyes of his companion regarded him with wistful -anxiety, “you told me, in that walk, that if some -imaginary person were to leave you money enough -to live comfortably, you would marry Lacrima without -any hesitation?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx nodded.</p> - -<p>“Well,”—Luke continued—“in return for your -confession about that contract, I’ll confess to you -that Mr. Taxater and I formed a plan together, when -my brother first got ill, to secure you this money.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx made a grimace of astonishment.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_615" id="Page_615">[615]</a></span></p> - -<p>“The plan has lapsed now,” went on Luke, “owing -to Mr. Taxater’s being away; but I can’t help feeling -that something of that kind might be done. I feel -in a queer sort of fashion,” he added, “though I can’t -quite tell you why, that, after all, things’ll so work -themselves out, that you <em>will</em> get both the girl and -the money!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx burst into a fit of hilarious merriment, -and rubbed his hands together. But a moment -later his face clouded.</p> - -<p>“It’s impossible,” he murmured with a deep sigh; -“it’s impossible, Luke. Girls and gold go together -like butterflies and sunshine. I’m as far from either, -as the sea-weed under the arch of Weymouth Bridge.”</p> - -<p>Luke pondered for a moment in silence.</p> - -<p>“It’s an absurd superstition,” he finally remarked, -“but I can’t help a sort of feeling that James’ spirit -is actively exerting itself on your side. He was -a romantic old truepenny, and his last thoughts were -all fixed—of that I’m sure—upon Lacrima’s -escaping this marriage with Goring.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx sighed. He had vaguely imagined -the possibility of some grand diplomatic stroke on his -behalf, from the astute Luke; and this relapse into -mysticism, on the part of that sworn materialist, did -not strike him as reassuring.</p> - -<p>The silence that fell between them was broken by -the sudden appearance of a figure familiar to them -both, crossing the field towards them. It was Witch-Bessie, -who, in a bright new shawl, and with a mysterious -packet clutched in her hand, was beckoning to -attract their attention. The men rose and advanced -to meet her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_616" id="Page_616">[616]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’ll sit down a bit with ’ee,” cried the old woman, -waving to them to return to their former position.</p> - -<p>When they were seated once more beneath the -bank,—the old lady, like some strange Peruvian -idol, resting cross-legged at their feet,—she began, -without further delay, to explain the cause of her -visit.</p> - -<p>“I know’d how ’twould be with ’ee,” she said, -addressing Luke, but turning a not unfriendly eye -upon his companion. “I did know well how ’twould -be. I hear’d tell of brother’s being laid out, from -Bert Leerd, as I traipsed through Wild Pine this -morning.</p> - -<p>“Ninsy Lintot was a-cryin’ enough to break her -poor heart. I hear’d ’un as I doddered down yon -lane. She were all lonesome-like, under them girt -trees, shakin’ and sobbin’ terrible. She took on so, -when I arst what ailed ’un, that I dursn’t lay finger -on the lass.</p> - -<p>“She did right down scare I, Master Luke, and -that’s God’s holy truth! ‘Let me bide, Bessie,’ says -she, ‘let me bide.’ I telled her ’twas a sin to He -she loved best, to carry on so hopeless; and with that -she up and says,—‘I be the cause of it all, Bessie,’ -says she, ‘I be the cause he throw’d ’isself away.’ -And with that she set herself cryin’ again, like as -’twas pitiful to hear. ‘My darlin’, my darlin’,’ she -kept callin’ out. ‘I love no soul ’cept thee—no -soul ’cept thee!’</p> - -<p>“’Twas then I recollected wot my old Mother used -to say, ’bout maids who be cryin’ like pantin’ hares. -‘Listen to me, Ninsy Lintot,’ I says, solemn and slow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_617" id="Page_617">[617]</a></span> -like as us were in church. ‘One above’s been talking -wi’ I, this blessed morn, and He do say as Master -James be in Abram’s Bosom, with them shining ones, -and it be shame and sin for mortals like we to wish -’un back.’</p> - -<p>“That quieted the lass a bit, and I did tell she -then, wot be God’s truth, that ’tweren’t her at all -turned brother’s head, but the pleasure of the -Almighty. ‘’Tis for folks like us,’ I says to her, ‘to -take wot His will do send, and bide quiet and still, -same as cows, drove to barton.’</p> - -<p>“’Twere a blessing of providence I’d met crazy -Bert afore I seed the lass, else I’d a been struck dazed-like -by wot she did tell. But as ’twas, thanks be -to recollectin’ mother’s trick wi’ such wendy maids, -I dried her poor eyes and got her back home along. -And she gave I summat to put in brother’s coffin -afore they do nail ’un down.”</p> - -<p>Before either Luke or Mr. Quincunx had time to -utter any comment upon this narration, Witch-Bessie -unfastened the packet she was carrying, and produced -from a card-board box a large roughly-moulded -bracelet, or bangle, of heavy silver, such as may be -bought in the bazaars of Tunis or Algiers.</p> - -<p>“There,” cried the old woman, holding the thing -up, and flashing it in the sun, “that’s wot she gave -I, to bury long wi’ brother! Be pretty enough, -baint ’un? Though, may-be, not fittin’ for a quiet -home-keeping lass like she. She had ’un off some -Gipoo, she said; and to my thinkin’ it be a kind of -heathen ornimint, same as folks do buy at Roger-town -Fair. But such as ’tis, that be wot ’tis bestowed -for, to put i’ the earth long wi’ brother. Seems<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_618" id="Page_618">[618]</a></span> -somethin’ of a pity, may-be, but maid’s whimsies be -maids’ whimsies, and God Almighty’ll plague the -hard-hearted folk as won’t perform wot they do cry -out for.”</p> - -<p>Luke took the bangle from the old woman’s -hand.</p> - -<p>“Of course I’ll do what she wants, Bessie,” he said. -“Poor little Ninsy, I never knew how much she -cared.”</p> - -<p>He permitted Mr. Quincunx to handle the silver -object, and then carefully placed it in his -pocket.</p> - -<p>“Hullo!” he cried, “what else have you got, -Bessie?” This exclamation was caused by the fact -that Witch-Bessie, after fumbling in her shawl had -produced a second mysterious packet, smaller than -the first and tightly tied round with the stalks of some -sort of hedge-weed.</p> - -<p>“Cards, by Heaven!” exclaimed Luke. “Oh Bessie, -Bessie,” he added, “why didn’t you bring these -round here twenty-four hours ago? You might have -made me take him with me to Weymouth!”</p> - -<p>Untying the packet, which contained as the stone-carver -had anticipated, a pack of incredibly dirty -cards, the old woman without a word to either of -them, shuffled and sifted them, according to some -secret rule, and laid aside all but nine. These, almost, -but not entirely, consisting of court cards, -she spread out in a carefully concerted manner on -the grass at her feet.</p> - -<p>Muttering over them some extraordinary gibberish, -out of which the two men could only catch the -following words,</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_619" id="Page_619">[619]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Higgory, diggory, digg’d</div> -<div class="verse indent2">My sow has pigg’d.</div> -<div class="verse">There’s a good card for thee.</div> -<div class="verse">There’s a still better than he!</div> -<div class="verse">There is the best of all three,</div> -<div class="verse">And there is Niddy-noddee!”—</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Witch-Bessie picked up these nine cards, and shuffled -them long and fast.</p> - -<p>She then handed them to Luke, face-downward, and -bade him draw seven out of the nine. These she once -more arranged, according to some occult plan, upon -the grass, and pondered over them with wrinkled brow.</p> - -<p>“’Tis as ’twould be!” she muttered at last. “Cards -be wonderful crafty, though toads and efties, to my -thinkin’, be better, and a viper’s innards be God’s -very truth.”</p> - -<p>Making, to Luke’s great disappointment, no further -allusion to the result of her investigations, the old -woman picked up the cards and went through the -whole process again, in honour of Mr. Quincunx.</p> - -<p>This time, after bending for several minutes over -the solitary’s choice, she became more voluble.</p> - -<p>“Thy heart’s wish be thine, dearie,” she said. -“But there be thwartings and blastings. Three -tears—three kisses—and a terrible journey. Us -shan’t have ’ee long wi’ we, in these ’ere parts. Thee -be marked and signed, master, by fallin’ stars and -flyin’ birds. There’s good sound wood gone to ship’s -keel wot’ll carry thee fast and far. Blastings and -thwartings! But thy heart’s wish be thine, dearie.”</p> - -<p>The humourous nostrils of Mr. Quincunx and the -expressive curves of his bearded chin had twitched -and quivered as this sorcery began, but the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_620" id="Page_620">[620]</a></span> -woman’s reference to a “terrible journey” clouded -his countenance with blank dismay.</p> - -<p>Luke pressed the sybil to be equally communicative -with regard to his own fate, but the old woman gathered -up her cards, twisted the same faded stalks -round the packet, and returned it to the folds of -her shawl. Then she struggled up upon her feet.</p> - -<p>“Don’t leave us yet, Bessie,” said Luke. “I’ll -bring you out something to eat presently.”</p> - -<p>Witch-Bessie’s only reply to this hospitable invitation -was confounding in its irrelevance. She -picked up her draggled skirt with her two hands, displaying -her unlaced boots and rumpled stockings, -and then, throwing back her wizened head, with its -rusty weather-bleached bonnet, and emitting a pallid -laugh from her toothless gums, she proceeded to -tread a sort of jerky measure, moving her old feet -to the tune of a shrill ditty.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Now we dance looby, looby, looby,</div> -<div class="verse">Now we dance looby, looby, light;</div> -<div class="verse">Shake your right hand a little,</div> -<div class="verse">Shake your left hand a little,</div> -<div class="verse">And turn you round about.”</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>“Ye’ll both see I again, present,” she panted, when -this performance was over, “but bide where ’ee be, -bide where ’ee be now. Old Bessie’s said her say, -and she be due long of Hullaway Cross, come noon.”</p> - -<p>As she hobbled off to the neighbouring stile, Luke -saw her kiss the tips of her fingers in the direction -of the station-master’s house.</p> - -<p>“She’s bidding Daddy James good-bye,” he -thought. “What a world! ‘Looby, looby, looby!’ -A proper Dance of Death for a son of my mother!”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_621" id="Page_621">[621]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE GRANARY</span></h2> - -<p>Luke persuaded Mr. Quincunx to stay with -him for the station-master’s Sunday dinner, -and to stroll with him down to the churchyard -in the afternoon to decide, in consultation with the -sexton, upon the most suitable spot for his brother’s -interment. The stone-carver was resolved that this -spot should be removed as far as possible from the -grave of their parents, and the impiety of this resolution -was justified by the fact that Gideon’s tomb -was crowded on both sides by less aggressive sleepers.</p> - -<p>They finally selected a remote place under the -southern wall, at the point where the long shadow -of the tower, in the late afternoon, flung its clear-outlined -battlements on the waving grass.</p> - -<p>Luke continued to be entirely pleased with Mr. -Quincunx’s tact and sympathy. He felt he could -not have secured a better companion for this task -of selecting the final resting-place of the brother of -his soul. “Curse these fools,” he thought, “who rail -against this excellent man!” What mattered it, -after all, that the fellow hated what the world calls -“work,” and loved a peaceful life removed from -distraction?</p> - -<p>The noble attributes of humour, of imagination, -of intelligence,—how much more important they were, -and conducive to the general human happiness, than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_622" id="Page_622">[622]</a></span> -the mere power of making money! Compared with -the delicious twists and diverting convolutions in -Mr. Quincunx’s extraordinary brain, how dull, how -insipid, seemed such worldly cleverness!</p> - -<p>The death of his brother had had the effect of -throwing these things into a new perspective. The -Machiavellian astuteness, which, in himself, in Romer, -in Mr. Taxater, and in many others, he had, until -now, regarded as of supreme value in the conduct -of life, seemed to him, as he regretfully bade the -recluse farewell and retraced his steps, far less essential, -far less important, than this imaginative sensitiveness -to the astounding spectacle of the world.</p> - -<p>He fancied he discerned in front of him, as he -left the churchyard, the well-known figure of his newly -affianced Annie, and he made a detour through the -lane, to avoid her. He felt at that moment as -though nothing in the universe were interesting or -important except the sympathetic conversation of the -friends of one’s natural choice—persons of that -small, that fatally small circle, from which just now -the centre seemed to have dropped out!</p> - -<p>Girls were a distraction, a pastime, a lure, an -intoxication; but a shock like this, casting one back -upon life’s essential verities, threw even lust itself -into the limbo of irrelevant things. All his recent -preoccupation with the love of women seemed to -him now, as though, in place of dreaming over the -mystery of the great tide of life, hand in hand with -initiated comrades, he were called upon to go launching -little paper-boats on its surface, full of fretful -anxiety as to whether they sank or floated.</p> - -<p>Weighed down by the hopeless misery of his loss,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_623" id="Page_623">[623]</a></span> -he made his way slowly back to the station-master’s -house, too absorbed in his grief to speak to anyone.</p> - -<p>After tea he became so wretched and lonely, that -he decided to walk over to Hullaway on the chance -of getting another glimpse of Witch-Bessie. Even -the sympathy of the station-master’s wife got on his -nerves and the romping of the children fretted and -chafed him.</p> - -<p>He walked fast, swinging his stick and keeping his -eyes on the ground, his heart empty and desolate. -He followed the very path by which Gladys and he, -some few short weeks before, had returned in the -track of their two friends, from the Hullaway stocks.</p> - -<p>Arriving at the village green, with its pond, its -elms, its raised pavement, and its groups of Sunday -loiterers, he turned into the churchyard. As we have -noted many times ere now, the appealing silence of -these places of the dead had an invincible charm for -him. It was perhaps a morbid tendency inherited -from his mother, or, on the other hand, it may have -been a pure æsthetic whim of his own, that led him, -with so magnetic an attraction, towards these oases -of mute patience, in the midst of the diurnal activities; -but whatever the spell was, Luke had never -found more relief in obeying it than he did at this -present hour.</p> - -<p>He sat down in their favourite corner and looked -with interest at the various newly-blown wild-flowers, -which a few weeks’ lapse had brought to light. How -well he loved the pungent stringy stalks, the grey -leaves, the flat sturdy flowers of the “achillea” or -“yarrow”! Perhaps, above all the late summer blooms,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_624" id="Page_624">[624]</a></span> -he preferred these—finding, in their very coarseness -of texture and toughness of stem, something that -reassured and fortified. They were so bitter in their -herbal fragrance, so astringent in the tang of their -pungent taste, that they suggested to him the kind -of tonic cynicism, the sort of humorous courage and -gay disdain, with which it was his constant hope to -come at last to accept life.</p> - -<p>It pleased him, above all when he found these -plants tinged with a delicious pink, as though the -juice of raspberries had been squeezed over them, -and it was precisely this tint he noticed now in a -large clump of them, growing on the sun-warmed -grave of a certain Hugh and Constance Foley, -former occupants of the old Manor House behind -him.</p> - -<p>He wondered if this long-buried Hugh—a mysterious -and shadowy figure, about whom James and he -had often woven fantastic histories—had felt as -forlorn as he felt now, when he lost his Constance. -Could a Constance, or an Annie, or a Phyllis, ever -leave quite the void behind them such as now ached -and throbbed within him? Yes, he supposed so. -Men planted their heart’s loves in many various -soils, and when the hand of fate tugged them away, -it mattered little whether it was chalk, or sand, or -loam, that clung about the roots!</p> - -<p>He looked long and long at the sunlit mounds, -over which the tombstones leaned at every conceivable -angle and upon which some had actually fallen prostrate. -These neglected monuments, and these tall -uncut grasses and flowers, had always seemed to -him preferable to the trim neatness of an enclosure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_625" id="Page_625">[625]</a></span> -like that of Athelston, which resembled the lawn of -a gentleman’s house.</p> - -<p>James had often disputed with him on this point, -arguing, in a spirit of surly contradiction, in favour -of the wondrous effect of those red Athelston roses -hanging over clear-mown turf. The diverse suggestiveness -of graveyards was one of the brothers’ best-loved -topics, and innumerable cigarettes had they -both consumed, weighing this subject, on this very -spot.</p> - -<p>Once more the hideous finality of the thing pierced -the heart of Luke with a devastating pang. On Wednesday -next,—that is, after the lapse of two brief -days,—he would bid farewell, for ever and ever and -ever, to the human companion with whom he had -shared all he cared for in life!</p> - -<p>He remembered a little quarrel he once had with -James, long ago, in this very place, and how it had -been the elder and not the younger who had made -the first overtures of reconciliation, and how James -had given him an old pair of silver links,—he was -wearing them at that moment!—as a kind of peace-offering. -He recollected what a happy evening they -had spent together after that event, and how they -had read “Thus spake Zarathustra” in the old formidable -English translation—the mere largeness of the -volume answering to the largeness of the philosopher’s -thought.</p> - -<p>Never again would they two “take on them,” in -the sweet Shakespearean phrase, “the mystery of -things, as though they were God’s spies.”</p> - -<p>Luke set himself to recall, one by one, innumerable -little incidents of their life together. He remembered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_626" id="Page_626">[626]</a></span> -various occasions in which, partly out of pure contrariness, -but partly also out of a certain instinctive bias -in his blood, he had defended their father against -his brother’s attacks. He recalled one strange conversation -they had had, under the withy-stumps of -Badger’s Bottom, as they returned through the dusk -of a November day, from a long walk over the -southern hills. It had to do with the appearance of -a cloud-swept crescent moon above the Auber woods.</p> - -<p>James had maintained that were he a pagan of -the extinct polytheistic faith, he would have worshipped -the moon, and willingly offered her, night -by night,—he used the pious syllables of the great -hedonist,—her glittering wax tapers upon the sacred -wheaten cake. Luke, on the contrary, had sworn -that the sun, and no lesser power, was the god of -his idolatry, and he imagined himself in place of his -brother’s wax candles, pouring forth, morning by -morning, a rich libation of gold wine to that bright -lord of life.</p> - -<p>This instinctive division of taste between the two, -had led, over and over again, to all manner of friendly -dissension.</p> - -<p>Luke recalled how often he had rallied James upon -his habit of drifting into what the younger brother -pertinently described as a “translunar mood.” He -was “translunar” enough now, at any rate; but now -it was in honour of that other “lady of the night,” -of that dreadful “double” of his moon-goddess—the -dark pomegranate-bearer—that the candles must -be lit!</p> - -<p>Luke revived in his mind, as he watched the slow-shifting -shadows move from grave to grave, all those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_627" id="Page_627">[627]</a></span> -indescribable “little things” of their every-day life -together, the loss of which seemed perhaps worst -of all. He recalled how on gusty December evenings -they would plod homeward from some Saturday -afternoon’s excursion to Yeoborough, and how the -cheerful firelight from the station-master’s house -would greet them as they crossed the railway.</p> - -<p>So closely had their thoughts and sensations grown -together, that there were many little poignant memories, -out of the woven texture of which he found -himself quite unable to disentangle the imaginative -threads that were due to his brother, from such as -were the evocation of his own temperament.</p> - -<p>One such concentrated moment, of exquisite memory, -he associated with an old farm-house on the -edge of the road leading from Hullaway to Rogerstown. -This road,—a forlorn enough highway of -Roman origin, dividing a level plain of desolate rain-flooded -meadows,—was one of their favourite haunts. -“Halfway House,” as the farm-dwelling was called, -especially appealed to them, because of its romantic -and melancholy isolation.</p> - -<p>Luke remembered how he had paused with his -brother one clear frosty afternoon when the puddles -by the road-side were criss-crossed by little broken -stars of fresh-formed ice, and had imagined how they -would feel if such a place belonged to them by hereditary -birthright, what they would feel were they even -now returning there, between the tall evergreens -at the gate, to spend a long evening over a log fire, -with mulled claret on the hob, and cards and books -on the table, and a great white Persian cat,—this -was James’ interpolation!—purring softly, and rubbing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_628" id="Page_628">[628]</a></span> -its silky sides against Chinese vases full of -rose-leaves.</p> - -<p>Strange journeys his mind took, that long unforgettable -afternoon,—the first of his life spent without -his brother! He saw before him, at one moment, -a little desolate wooden pier, broken by waves and -weather, somewhere on the Weymouth coast. The indescribable -pathos of things outworn and done with, -of things abandoned by man and ill-used by nature, -had given to this derelict pile of drift-wood a curious -prominence in his House of Memory. He remembered -the look with which James had regarded it, and how -the wind had whistled through it and how they had -tried in vain to light their cigarettes under its -shelter.</p> - -<p>At another moment his mind swung back to the -daily routine in their pleasant lodging. He recalled -certain spring mornings when they had risen together -at dawn and had crept stealthily out, for fear of waking -their landlady. He vividly remembered the peculiar -smell of moss and primroses with which the air seemed -full on one of these occasions.</p> - -<p>The place Luke had chosen for summoning up all -these ghosts of the past held him with such a spell -that he permitted the church-bells to ring and the -little congregation to assemble for the evening -service without moving or stirring. “Hugh and -Constance Foley” he kept repeating to himself, as the -priest’s voice, within the sacred building, intoned the -prayers. The sentiment of the plaintive hymn with -which the service closed,—he hardly moved or stirred -for the brief hour of the liturgy’s progress,—brought -tears, the first he had shed since his brother’s death,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_629" id="Page_629">[629]</a></span> -to this wanton faun’s eyes. What is there, he thought, -in these wistful tunes, and impossible, too-sweet -words, that must needs hit the most cynical of -sceptics?</p> - -<p>He let the people shuffle out and drift away, and -the grey-haired parson and his silk-gowned wife follow -them and vanish, and still he did not stir. For -some half-an-hour longer he remained in the same -position, his chin upon his knees, staring gloomily -in front of him. He was still seated so, when, to -the eyes of an observer posted on the top of the -tower, two persons, the first a woman and the second -a man, would have been observed approaching, -by a rarely-traversed field-path, the side of the enclosure -most remote from Hullaway Green.</p> - -<p>The path upon which these figures advanced was -interrupted at certain intervals by tall elm-trees, and -it would have been clear to our imaginary watcher -upon the tower that the second of the two was glad -enough of the shelter of these trees, of which it was -evident he intended to make use, did the first figure -turn and glance backward.</p> - -<p>Had such a sentinel been possessed of local knowledge -he would have had no difficulty in recognizing -the first of these persons as Gladys Romer and the -second as Mr. Clavering.</p> - -<p>Gladys had, in fact, gone alone to the evening -service, on the ground of celebrating the close of her -baptismal day. Immediately after the service she -had slipped off down the street leading to the railroad, -directing her steps towards Hullaway, whither -a sure instinct told her Luke had wandered.</p> - -<p>She was still in sight, having got no further than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_630" id="Page_630">[630]</a></span> -the entrance to Splash Lane, when Clavering, who -had changed his surplice with lightning rapidity, -issued forth into the street. In a flash he remarked -the direction of her steps, and impelled by an impulse -of mad jealousy, began blindly following her.</p> - -<p>Not a few heads were inquisitively turned, and not -a few whispering comments were exchanged, as first -the squire’s daughter, and then the young clergyman, -made their way through the street.</p> - -<p>As soon as Gladys had crossed the railroad and -struck out at a sharp pace up the slope of the meadow -Clavering realized that wherever she intended to go -it was not to the house in which lay James Andersen. -Torn with intolerable jealousy, and anxious, at all -risks, to satisfy his mind, one way or the other, as -to her relations with Luke, he deliberately decided to -follow the girl to whatever hoped-for encounter, or -carefully plotted assignation, she was now directing -her steps. How true, how exactly true, to his interpretation -of Luke’s character, was this astutely arranged -meeting, on the very day after his brother’s -death!</p> - -<p>At the top of the station-field Gladys paused for -a moment, and, turning round, contemplated the -little dwelling which was now a house of the dead.</p> - -<p>Luckily for Mr. Clavering, this movement of hers -coincided with his arrival at the thick-set hedge separating -the field from the metal track. He waited at -the turn-stile until, her abstraction over, she passed -into the lane.</p> - -<p>All the way to Hullaway Mr. Clavering followed -her, hurriedly concealing himself when there seemed -the least danger of discovery, and at certain critical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_631" id="Page_631">[631]</a></span> -moments making slight deviations from the direct -pursuit.</p> - -<p>As she drew near the churchyard the girl showed -evident signs of nervousness and apprehension, -walking more slowly, and looking about her, and sometimes -even pausing as if to take breath and collect -her thoughts.</p> - -<p>It was fortunate for her pursuer at this final moment -of the chase that the row of colossal elms, of -which mention has been made, interposed themselves -between the two. Clavering was thus able to approach -quite close to the girl before she reached her destination, -for, making use of these rugged trunks, as an -Indian scout might have done, he was almost within -touch of her by the time she clambered over the -railings.</p> - -<p>The savage bite of insane jealousy drove from the -poor priest’s head any thought of how grotesque he -must have appeared,—could any eyes but those of -field-mice and starlings have observed him,—with his -shiny black frock-coat and broad-brimmed hat, peeping -and spying in the track of this fair young person.</p> - -<p>With a countenance convulsed with helpless fury -he watched the girl walk slowly and timidly up to -Luke’s side, and saw the stone-carver recognize her -and rise to greet her. He could not catch their -words, though he strained his ears to do so, but their -gestures and attitudes were quite distinguishable.</p> - -<p>It was, indeed, little wonder that the agitated -priest could not overhear what Gladys said, for the -extreme nervousness under which she laboured made -her first utterances so broken and low that even -her interlocutor could scarcely follow them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_632" id="Page_632">[632]</a></span></p> - -<p>She laid a pleading hand on Luke’s arm. “I was -unhappy,” she murmured, “I was unhappy, and I -wanted to tell you. I’ve been thinking about you all -day. I heard of his death quite early in the morning. -Luke,—you’re not angry with me any more, are -you? I’d have done anything that this shouldn’t -have happened!”</p> - -<p>Luke looked at her searchingly, but made, at the -same time, an impatient movement of his arm, so -that the hand she had placed upon his sleeve fell -to her side.</p> - -<p>“Let’s get away from here, Luke,” she implored; -“anywhere,—across the fields,—I told them at -home I might go for a walk after church. It’ll be -all right. No one will know.”</p> - -<p>“Across the fields—eh?” replied the stone-carver. -“Well—I don’t mind. What do you say to a walk -to Rogerstown? I haven’t been there since I went -with James, and there’ll be a moon to get home by.” -He looked at her intently, with a certain bitter humour -lurking in the curve of his lips.</p> - -<p>Under ordinary circumstances it was with the -utmost difficulty that Gladys could be persuaded to -walk anywhere. Her lethargic nature detested that -kind of exercise. He was amazed at the alacrity with -which she accepted the offer.</p> - -<p>Her eyes quite lit up. “I’d love that, Luke, I’d -simply love it!” she cried eagerly. “Let’s start! I’ll -walk as fast as you like—and I don’t care how late -we are!”</p> - -<p>They moved out of the churchyard together, by the -gate opening on the green.</p> - -<p>Luke was interested, but not in the least touched,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_633" id="Page_633">[633]</a></span> -by the girl’s chastened and submissive manner. His -suggestion about Rogerstown was really more of a -sort of test than anything else, to see just how far -this clinging passivity of hers would really go.</p> - -<p>As they followed the lane leading out of one of the -side-alleys of the village towards the Roman Road, -the stone-carver could not help indulging in a certain -amount of silent psychological analysis in regard to -this change of heart in his fair mistress. He seemed -to get a vision of the great world-passions, sweeping -at random through the universe, and bending the -most obstinate wills to their caprice.</p> - -<p>On the one hand, he thought, there is that absurd -Mr. Clavering,—simple, pure-minded, a veritable -monk of God,—driven almost insane with Desire, -and on the other, here is Gladys,—naturally as -selfish and frivolous a young pagan as one could -wish to amuse oneself with,—driven almost insane -with self-oblivious love! They were like earthquakes -and avalanches, like whirlpools and water-spouts, -he thought, these great world-passions! They could -overwhelm all the good in one person, and all the -evil in another, with the same sublime indifference, -and in themselves—remain non-moral, superhuman, -elemental!</p> - -<p>In the light of this vision, Luke could not resist a -hurried mental survey of the various figures in his -personal drama. He wondered how far his own love -for James could be said to belong to this formidable -category. No! He supposed that both he and Mr. -Quincunx were too self-possessed, or too epicurean, -ever to be thus swept out of their path. His brother -was clearly a victim of these erotic Valkyries, so was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_634" id="Page_634">[634]</a></span> -Ninsy Lintot, and in a lesser degree, he shrewdly -surmised, young Philip Wone. He himself, he supposed, -was, in these things, amorous and vicious -rather than passionate. So he had always imagined -Gladys to have been. But Gladys had been as completely -swept out of the shallows of her viciousness, -by this overpowering obsession, as Mr. Clavering -had been swept out of the shallows of his puritanism, -by the same power. If that fantastic theory of Vennie -Seldom’s about the age-long struggle between the two -Hills—between the stone of the one and the wood of -the other—had any germ of truth in it, it was clear -that these elemental passions belonged to a region -of activity remote from either, and as indifferent to -both, as the great zodiacal signs were indifferent to -the solar planets.</p> - -<p>Luke had just arrived at this philosophical, or, if -the reader pleases, mystical conclusion, when they -emerged upon the Roman Road.</p> - -<p>Ascending an abrupt hill, the last eminence between -Hullaway and far-distant ranges, they found themselves -looking down over an immense melancholy -plain, in the centre of which, on the banks of a muddy -river, stood the ancient Roman stronghold of Rogerstown, -the birth-place, so Luke always loved to remind -himself, of the famous monkish scientist Roger -Bacon.</p> - -<p>The sun had already disappeared, and the dark line -of the Mendip Hills on the northern horizon were -wrapped in a thick, purple haze.</p> - -<p>The plain they looked down upon was cut into two -equal segments by the straight white road they were -to follow,—if Luke was serious in his intention,—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_635" id="Page_635">[635]</a></span> -all along the edges of the road, and spreading in -transverse lines across the level fields, were deep, -reedy ditches, bordered in places by pollard willows.</p> - -<p>The whole plain, subject, in autumn and winter, -to devastating floods, was really a sort of inlet or -estuary of the great Somersetshire marshes, lying -further west, which are collectively known as -Sedgemoor.</p> - -<p>Gladys could not refrain from giving vent to a -slight movement of instinctive reluctance, when she -saw how close the night was upon them, and how long -the road seemed, but she submissively suppressed any -word of protest, when, with a silent touch upon -her arm, her companion led her forward, down the -shadowy incline.</p> - -<p>Their figures were still visible—two dark isolated -forms upon the pale roadway—when, hot and panting, -Mr. Clavering arrived at the same hill-top. With a -sigh of profound relief he recognized that he had not -lost his fugitives. The only question was, where -were they going, and for what purpose? He remained -for several minutes gloomy and watchful at his post -of observation.</p> - -<p>They were now nearly half a mile across the plain, -and their receding figures had already begun to grow -indistinct in the twilight, when Mr. Clavering saw -them suddenly leave the road and debouch to the -left. “Ah!” he muttered to himself, “They’re going -home by Hullaway Chase!”</p> - -<p>This Hullaway Chase was a rough tract of pasturage -a little to the east of the level flats, and raised -slightly above them. From its southern extremity a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_636" id="Page_636">[636]</a></span> -long narrow lane, skirting the outlying cottages of -the village, led straight across the intervening uplands -to Nevilton Park. It was clearly towards this lane, -by a not much frequented foot-path over the ditches, -that Gladys and Luke were proceeding.</p> - -<p>To anyone as well acquainted as Clavering was -with the general outline of the country the route that -the lovers—or whatever their curious relation -justifies us in calling them—must needs take, to -return to Nevilton, was now as clearly marked as -if it were indicated on a map.</p> - -<p>“Curse him!” muttered the priest, “I hope he’s -not going to drown her in those brooks!”</p> - -<p>He let his gaze wander across the level expanse at -his feet. How could he get close to them, he wondered, -so as to catch even a stray sentence or two of -what they were saying.</p> - -<p>His passion had reached such a point of insanity -that he longed to be transformed into one of those -dark-winged rooks that now in a thin melancholy line -were flying over their heads, so that he might swoop -down above them and follow them—follow them—every -step of the way! He was like a man drawn to -the edge of a precipice and magnetized by the very -danger of the abyss. To be near them, to listen to -what they said,—the craving for that possessed him -with a fixed and obstinate hunger!</p> - -<p>Suddenly he shook his cane in the air and almost -leaped for joy. He remembered the existence, at -the spot where the lane they were seeking began, of -a large dilapidated barn, used, by the yeoman-farmer -to whom the Chase belonged, as a rough store-house -for cattle-food. The spot was so attractive a resting-place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_637" id="Page_637">[637]</a></span> -for persons tired with walking, that it seemed -as though it would be a strange chance indeed if the -two wanderers did not take advantage of it. The -point was, could he forestall them and arrive there -first?</p> - -<p>He surveyed the landscape around him with an -anxious eye. It seemed as though by following the -ridge of the hill upon which he stood, and crossing -every obstacle that intervened, he ought to be able -to do so—and to do so without losing sight of the -two companions, as they unsuspiciously threaded their -way over the flats.</p> - -<p>Having made his resolution, he lost no time in -putting it into action. He clambered without difficulty -into the meadow on his right, and breaking, -in his excitement, into a run, he forced his way -through three successive bramble-hedges, and as -many dew-drenched turnip-fields, without the least -regard to the effect of this procedure upon his Sunday -attire.</p> - -<p>Every now and then, as the contours of the ground -served, he caught a glimpse of the figures in the valley -below, and the sight hastened the impetuosity of his -speed. Once he felt sure he observed them pause -and exchange an embrace, but this may have been -an illusive mirage created by the mad fumes of the -tempestuous jealousy which kept mounting higher -and higher into his head. Recklessly and blindly he -rushed on, performing feats of agility and endurance, -such as in normal hours would have been utterly -impossible.</p> - -<p>From the moment he decided upon this desperate -undertaking, to the moment, when, hot, breathless,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_638" id="Page_638">[638]</a></span> -and dishevelled, he reached his destination, only a -brief quarter of an hour had elapsed.</p> - -<p>He entered the barn leaving the door wide-open -behind him. In its interior tightly packed bundles -of dark-coloured hay rose up almost to the roof. The -floor was littered with straw and newly-cut clover.</p> - -<p>On one side of the barn, beneath the piled-up hay, -was a large shelving heap of threshed oats. Here, obviously, -was the sort of place, if the lovers paused at -this spot at all, where they would be tempted to recline.</p> - -<p>Directly opposite these oats, in the portion of the -shed that was most in shadow, Clavering observed -a narrow slit between the hay-bundles. He approached -this aperture and tried to wedge himself -into it. The protruding stalks of the hay pricked his -hands and face, and the dust choked him.</p> - -<p>With angry coughs and splutters, and with sundry -savage expletives by no means suitable to a priest of -the church, he at length succeeded in firmly imbedding -himself in this impenetrable retreat. He worked himself -so far into the shadow, that not the most cautious -eye could have discerned his presence. His sole -danger lay in the fact that the dust might very easily -give him an irresistible fit of sneezing. With the -cessation of his violent struggles, however, this danger -seemed to diminish; for the dust subsided as quickly -as it had been raised, and otherwise, as he leant -luxuriously back upon his warm-scented support, his -position was by no means uncomfortable.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile Luke and Gladys were slowly and deliberately -crossing the darkening water-meadows.</p> - -<p>Gladys, whose geographical knowledge of the district -was limited to the immediate vicinity of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_639" id="Page_639">[639]</a></span> -home had not the remotest guess as to where she -was being led. For all she knew Luke might have -gone crazy, like his brother, and be now intending to -plunge both himself and her into the depths of some -lonely pool or weir. Nevertheless, she continued -passively and meekly following him, walking, when -the path along the dyke’s edge narrowed, at some few -paces behind him, with that peculiar air of being a -led animal, which one often observes in the partners -of tramps, as they plod the roads in the wake of their -masters.</p> - -<p>The expanse they traversed in this manner was -possessed of a peculiar character of its own, a character -which that especial hour of twilight seemed to -draw forth and emphasize. It differed from similar -tracts of marsh-land, such as may be found by the -sea’s edge, in being devoid of any romantic horizon -to afford a spiritual escape from the gloom it diffused.</p> - -<p>It was melancholy. It was repellant. It was sinister. -It lacked the element of poetic expansiveness. -It gave the impression of holding grimly to some -dark obscene secret, which no visitation of sun or -moon would ever cajole it into divulging.</p> - -<p>It depressed without overwhelming. It saddened -without inspiring. With its reeds, its mud, its willows, -its livid phosphorescent ditches, it produced -uneasiness rather than awe, and disquietude rather -than solemnity.</p> - -<p>Bounded by rolling hills on all sides save one, it -gave the persons who moved across it the sensation -of being enclosed in some vast natural arena.</p> - -<p>Gladys wished she had brought her cloak with -her, as the filmy white mists rose like ghosts out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_640" id="Page_640">[640]</a></span> -the stagnant ditches, and with clammy persistence -invaded her unprotected form.</p> - -<p>It was one of those places that seem to suggest the -transaction of no stirring or heroic deeds, but of -gloomy, wretched, chance-driven occurrences. A betrayed -army might have surrendered there.</p> - -<p>Luke seemed to give himself up with grim reciprocity -to the influences of the spot. He appeared -totally oblivious of his meek companion, and except -to offer her languid, absent-minded assistance across -various gates and dams, he remained as completely -wrapped in reserve as were the taciturn levels over -which they passed.</p> - -<p>It was with an incredible sense of relief that Gladys -found herself in the drier, more wholesome, atmosphere -of Hullaway Chase. Here, as they walked -briskly side by side over the thyme-scented turf, it -seemed that the accumulated heat of the day, which, -from the damp marsh-land only drew forth miasmic -vapours, flung into the fragrant air delicious waftings -of warm earth-breath. With still greater relief, and -even with a little cry of joy, she caught sight of the -friendly open door of the capacious barn, and the -shadowy inviting heap of loose-flung oats lying beneath -its wall of hay.</p> - -<p>“Oh, we must go in here!” she cried, “what an -adorable place!”</p> - -<p>They entered, and the girl threw upon Luke one of -her slow, long, amorous glances. “Kiss me!” she -said, holding up her mouth to him beseechingly.</p> - -<p>The faint light of the dying day fell with a pale -glimmer upon her soft throat and rounded chin. -Luke found himself disinclined to resist her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_641" id="Page_641">[641]</a></span></p> - -<p>There were tears on the girl’s cheek when, loosening -her hold upon his neck, she sank down on the idyllic -couch offered them, and closed her eyes in childish -contentment.</p> - -<p>Luke hung over her thoughtfully and sadly. There -is always something sad,—something that seems to -bring with it a withering breath from the ultimate -futility of the universe,—about a lover’s recognition -that the form which formerly thrilled him with -ecstasy, now leaves him cold and unmoved. Such -sadness, chilly and desolate as the hand of death -itself, crept over the stone-carver’s heart, as he looked -at the gently-stirring breast and softly-parted lips -of his beautiful mistress. He bent down and kissed -her forehead, caressing her passively yielded fingers.</p> - -<p>She opened her eyes and smiled at him, the lingering -smile of a soothed and happy infant.</p> - -<p>They remained thus, silent and at rest, for several -moments. It was not long, however, before the -subtle instinct of an enamoured woman made the -girl aware that her friend’s responsiveness had been -but a momentary impulse. She started up, her eyes -wide-open and her lips trembling.</p> - -<p>“Luke!” she murmured, “Luke, darling,—” Her -voice broke, in a curious little sob.</p> - -<p>Luke gazed at her blankly, thankful that the weight -of weary foreknowledge upon his face was concealed -from her by the growing darkness.</p> - -<p>“I want to say to you, my dear love,” the girl -went on, her bosom rising and falling in pitiful embarrassment, -and her white fingers nervously scooping -up handful after handful of the shadowy grain.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_642" id="Page_642">[642]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I want to say to you something that is—that -is very serious—for us both, Luke,—I want to -tell you,——”</p> - -<p>Her voice once more died away, in the same inarticulate -and curious gurgle, like the sob of water -running under a weir.</p> - -<p>Luke rose to his feet and stood in front of her. -“It’s all right,” he said calmly. “You needn’t agitate -yourself. I understand.”</p> - -<p>The girl covered her face with her hands. “But -what shall I do? What shall I do?” she sobbed. “I -can’t marry Ralph like this. He’ll kill me when he -finds out. I’m so afraid of him, Luke—you don’t -know,—you don’t know,—”</p> - -<p>“He’ll forgive you,” answered the stone-carver -quietly. “He’s not a person to burst out like that. -Lots of people have to confess these little things after -they’re married. Some men aren’t half so particular -as you girls think.”</p> - -<p>Gladys raised her head and gave her friend a long -queer look, the full import of which was concealed -from him in the darkness. She made a futile little -groping movement with her hand.</p> - -<p>“Luke,” she whispered, “I must just say this to -you even if it makes you angry. I shouldn’t be happy -afterwards—whatever happens—if I didn’t say it. -I want you to know that I’m ready, if you wish, if—if -you love me enough for that, Luke,—to go away -with you anywhere! I feel it isn’t as it used to be. -I feel everything’s different. But I want you to know,—to -know without any mistake—that I’d go at -once—willingly—wherever you took me!</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_643" id="Page_643">[643]</a></span></p> -<p>“It’s not that I’m begging you to marry me,” -she wailed, “it’s only that I love you, love you and -want you so frightfully, my darling!</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t worry you, Luke,” she added, in a low, -pitiful little voice, that seemed to emerge rather from -the general shadowiness of the place than from a -human being’s lips, “I wouldn’t tease you, or scold -you when you enjoyed yourself! It’s only that I -want to be with you, that I want to be near you. -I never thought it would come to this. I thought—” -Her voice died away again into the darkness.</p> - -<p>Luke began pacing up and down the floor of the -barn.</p> - -<p>Once more she spoke. “I’d be faithful to you, -Luke, married or unmarried,—and I’d work, -though I know you won’t believe that. But I can -do quite hard work, when I like!”</p> - -<p>By some malignity of chance, or perhaps by a -natural reaction from her pleading words, Luke’s mind -reverted to her tone and temper on that June morning -when she insulted him by a present of money.</p> - -<p>“No, Gladys,” he said. “It won’t do. You and -I weren’t made for each other. There are certain -things—many things—in me that you’ll never -understand, and I daresay there are things in you -that I never shall. We’re not made for one another, -child, I tell you. We shouldn’t be happy for a week. -I know myself, and I know you, and I’m sure it -wouldn’t do.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you fret yourself about Dangelis. If he -finds out, he finds out—and that’s the end of it. -But I swear to you that I know <em>him</em> well enough to -know that you’ve nothing to be afraid of—even if -he does find out. He’s not the kind of man to make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_644" id="Page_644">[644]</a></span> -a fuss. I can see exactly the way he’d take it. He’d -be sorry for you and laugh at himself, and plunge -desperately into his painting.</p> - -<p>“I like Dangelis, I tell you frankly. I think he’s -a thoroughly generous and large-minded fellow. Of -course I’ve hardly seen him to speak to, but you -can’t be mistaken about a man like that. At least -I can’t! I seem to know him in and out, up hill and -down dale.</p> - -<p>“Make a fuss? Not he! He’ll make this country -ring and ting with the fame of his pictures. That’s -what he’ll do! And as for being horrid to you—not -he! I know him better than that. He’ll be too much -in love with you, too,—you little demon! That’s -another point to bear in mind.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’ll have the whip-hand of him, never fear,—and -our son,—I hope it <em>is</em> a son my dear!—will -be treated as if it were his own.</p> - -<p>“I know him, I tell you! He’s a thoroughly decent -fellow, though a bit of a fool, no doubt. But we’re -all that!</p> - -<p>“Don’t you be a little goose, Gladys, and get -fussed up and worried over nothing. After all, what -does it matter? Life’s such a mad affair anyway! -All we can do is to map things to the best of our -ability, and then chance it.</p> - -<p>“We’re all on the verge of a precipice. Do you -think I don’t realize that? But that’s no reason why -we should rush blindly up to the thing, and throw -ourselves over. And it would be nothing else than -that, nothing else than sheer madness, for you and I -to go off together.</p> - -<p>“Do you think your father would give us a penny?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_645" id="Page_645">[645]</a></span> -Not he! I detect in your father, Gladys, an extraordinary -vein of obstinacy. You haven’t clashed -up against it yet, but try and play any of these games -on him, and you’ll see!</p> - -<p>“No; one thing you may be perfectly sure of, and -that is, that whatever he finds out, Dangelis will -never breathe a word to your father. He’s madly in -love with you, girl, I tell you; and if I’m out of the -way, you’ll be able to do just what you like with -him!”</p> - -<p>It was completely dark now, and when Luke’s -oration came to an end there was no sound in the -barn except a low sobbing.</p> - -<p>“Come on, child; we must be getting home, or -you’ll be frightfully late. Here! give me your hand. -Where are you?”</p> - -<p>He groped about in the darkness until his sleeve -brushed against her shoulder. It was trembling under -her efforts to suppress her sobs.</p> - -<p>He got hold of her wrists and pulled her to her -feet. “Come on, my dear,” he repeated, “we must -get out of this now. Give me one nice kiss before -we go.”</p> - -<p>She permitted herself to be caressed—passive and -unresisting in his arms.</p> - -<p>In the darkness they touched the outer edge of -Mr. Clavering’s hiding-place, and the girl, swaying -a little backwards under Luke’s endearments, felt -the pressure of the hay-wall behind her. She did not, -however, feel the impassioned touch of the choking -kiss which the poor imprisoned priest desperately -imprinted on a loose tress of her hair.</p> - -<p>It was one of those pitiful and grotesque situations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_646" id="Page_646">[646]</a></span> -which seem sometimes to arise,—as our fantastic -planet turns on its orbit,—for no other purpose -than that of gratifying some malign vein of goblin-like -irony in the system of things.</p> - -<p>That at the moment when Luke, under the spell -of the shadowy fragrance of the place, and the pliant -submissiveness of the girl’s form, threw something -of his old ardour into his kiss, her other, more desperate -love should have dared such an approach, was -a coincidence apparently of the very kind to appeal -to the perverse taste of this planetary humour.</p> - -<p>The actual result of such a strange consentaneousness -of rival emotion was that the three human -heads remained for a brief dramatic moment in close -juxtaposition,—the two fair ones and the dark one -so near one another, that it might have seemed almost -inevitable that their thoughts should interact in that -fatal proximity.</p> - -<p>The pitiful pathos of the whole human comedy -might well have been brought home to any curious -observer able to pierce that twilight! Such an observer -would have felt towards those three poor obsessed -craniums the same sort of tenderness that -they themselves would have been conscious of, had -they suddenly come across a sleeping person or a -dead body.</p> - -<p>Strange, that the ultimate pity in these things,—in -this blind antagonistic striving of human desires -under such gracious flesh and blood—should only -arouse these tolerant emotions when they are no longer -of any avail! Had some impossible bolt from heaven -stricken these three impassioned ones in their tragic -approximation, how,—long afterwards,—the discoverer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_647" id="Page_647">[647]</a></span> -of the three skeletons would have moralized -upon their fate! As it was, there was nothing but -the irony of the gods to read what the irony of the -gods was writing upon that moment’s drowning -sands.</p> - -<p>When Luke and Gladys left the barn, and hurriedly, -under the rising moon, retook their way towards -Nevilton, Clavering emerged from his concealment -dazed and stupefied. He threw himself down in the -darkness on the heap of oats and strove to give form -and coherence to the wild flood of thoughts which -swept through him.</p> - -<p>So this was what he had come out to learn! This -was the knowledge that his mad jealousy had driven -him to snatch!</p> - -<p>He thought of the exquisite sacredness—for him—of -that morning’s ritual in the church, and of how -easily he had persuaded himself to read into the -girl’s preoccupied look something more than natural -sadness over Andersen’s death. He had indeed,—only -those short hours ago,—allowed himself the -sweet illusion that this religious initiation really -meant, for his pagan love, some kind of Vita -Nuova.</p> - -<p>The fates had rattled their dice, however, to a -different tune. The unfortunate girl was indeed -entering upon a Vita Nuova, but how hideously different -a one from that which had been his hope!</p> - -<p>On Wednesday came the confirmation service. -How could he,—with any respect for his conscience -as a guardian of these sacred rites,—permit Gladys -to be confirmed now? Yet what ought he to do? -Drops of cold sweat stood upon his forehead as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_648" id="Page_648">[648]</a></span> -wondered whether it was incumbent upon him to -take the first train the following morning for the -bishop’s palace and to demand an interview.</p> - -<p>No. Tomorrow the prelate would be starting on -his episcopal tour. Clavering would have to pursue -him from one remote country village to another, and -what a pursuit that would be! He recoiled from the -idea with sick aversion.</p> - -<p>Could he then suppress his fatal knowledge and let -the event take place without protest? To act in -such a manner would be nothing less than to play -the part of an accomplice in the girl’s sin.</p> - -<p>Perhaps when the bishop actually appeared he -would be able to secure a confidential interview with -him and lay the whole matter before him. Or should -he act on his own responsibility, and write to Gladys -himself, telling her that under the circumstances it -would be best for her to stay away from the ceremony?</p> - -<p>What reason could he give for such an extraordinary -mandate? Could he bluntly indicate to her, in black -and white, the secret he had discovered, and the -manner of its discovery? To accuse her on the ground -of mere village gossip would be to lay himself open -to shameful humiliation. Was he, in any case, justified -in putting the fatal information, gathered in this -way, to so drastic a use? It was only in his madness -as a jealous lover that he had possessed himself of -this knowledge. As priest of Nevilton he knew -nothing.</p> - -<p>He had no right to know anything. No; he must -pay the penalty of his shameful insanity by bearing -this burden in silence, even though his conscience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_649" id="Page_649">[649]</a></span> -groaned and cracked beneath the weight. Such a -silence, with its attendant misery of self-accusation -and shame, was all he could offer to his treacherous -enchantress as a tacit recompense for having stolen -her secret.</p> - -<p>He rose and left the granary. As he walked homeward, -along the Nevilton road, avoiding by a sort -of scrupulous reaction the shorter route followed by -the others, it seemed to him as though the night had -never been more sultry, or the way more loaded with -the presence of impendent calamity.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_650" id="Page_650">[650]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV<br /> -<span class="smaller">METAMORPHOSIS</span></h2> - -<p>The day of James Andersen’s funeral and of -Gladys’ confirmation happened to coincide with -a remarkable and unexpected event in the life -of Mr. Quincunx. Whatever powers, lurking in air -or earth, were attempting at that moment to influence -the fatal stream of events in Nevilton, must -have been grimly conscious of something preordained -and inevitable about this eccentric man’s drift towards -appalling moral disaster.</p> - -<p>It seemed as though nothing on earth now could -stop the marriage of Lacrima and Goring, and from -the point of view of the moralist, or even of the person -of normal decency, such a marriage, if it really -did lead to Mr. Quincunx’s pensioning at the hands -of his enemy, necessarily held over him a shame and -a disgrace proportionate to the outrage done to the -girl who loved him. What these evil powers played -upon, if evil powers they were,—and not the blind -laws of cause and effect,—was the essential character -of Mr. Quincunx, which nothing in heaven nor earth -seemed able to change.</p> - -<p>There are often, however, elements in our fate, -which lie, it might seem, deeper than any calculable -prediction, deeper, it may be, than the influence of -the most powerful supernatural agents, and these -elements—unstirred by angel or devil—are sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_651" id="Page_651">[651]</a></span> -roused to activity by the least expected cause. -It is, at these moments, as though Fate, in the incalculable -comprehensiveness of her immense designs, -condescended to make use of Chance, her elfish -sister, to carry out what the natural and normal -stream of things would seem to have decreed as an -impossibility.</p> - -<p>Probably not a living soul who knew him,—certainly -not Lacrima,—had the least expectation of -any chance of change in Mr. Quincunx. But then -none of these persons had really sounded the depths -in the soul of the man. There were certain mysterious -and unfathomable gulfs in the sea-floor of Mr. Quincunx’s -being which would have exhausted all the sorceries -of Witch-Bessie even to locate.</p> - -<p>So fantastic and surprising are the ways of destiny, -that,—as shall be presently seen,—what -neither gods nor devils, nor men nor angels, could -effect, was effected by nothing more nor less than a -travelling circus.</p> - -<p>The day of the burying of James and the confirmation -of Gladys brought into Nevilton a curious -cortège of popular entertainers. This cortège consisted -of one of those small wandering circuses, which, -during the month of August are wont to leave the -towns and move leisurely among the remoter country -villages, staying nowhere more than a night, and -taking advantage of any local festival or club-meeting -to enhance their popularity.</p> - -<p>The circus in question,—flamingly entitled -Porter’s Universal World-Show,—was owned and -conducted by a certain Job Love, a shrewd and avaricious -ruffian, who boasted, though with little justification,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_652" id="Page_652">[652]</a></span> -the inheritance of gipsy blood. As a matter -of fact, the authentic gipsy tribes gave Mr. Love an -extremely wide berth, avoiding his path as they would -have avoided the path of the police. This cautious -attitude was not confined, however, to gipsies. Every -species of itinerant hawker and pedler avoided the -path of Mr. Love, and the few toy-booths and sweet-stalls -that followed his noisy roundabouts were a -department of his own providing.</p> - -<p>It was late on Tuesday night when the World-Show -established itself in Nevilton Square. The sound of -hammers and the barking of dogs was the last thing -that the villagers heard before they slept, and the -first thing they heard when they awoke.</p> - -<p>The master of the World-Show spent the night -according to his custom in solitary regal grandeur -in the largest of his caravans. The sun had not, -however, pierced the white mists in the Nevilton -orchards before Mr. Love was up and abroad. The -first thing he did, on descending the steps of his -caravan, was to wash his hands and face in the basin -of the stone fountain. His next proceeding was to -measure out into a little metal cup which he produced -from his pocket a small quantity of brandy -and to pour this refreshment, diluted with water from -the fountain, down his capacious throat.</p> - -<p>Mr. Love was a lean man, of furtive and irascible -appearance. His countenance, bleached by exposure -into a species of motley-coloured leather, shone after -its immersion in the fountain like the knob of a well-worn -cudgel. His whitish hair, cut in convict style -close to his head, emphasized the polished mahogany -of his visage, from the upper portion of which his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_653" id="Page_653">[653]</a></span> -sky-blue eyes, small and glittering, shone out defiantly -upon the world, like ominous jewels set in the -forehead of an obscene and smoke-darkened idol.</p> - -<p>Having replaced his cup and flask in his pocket, -the master of the World-Show looked anxiously at -the omens of the weather, snuffing the morning breeze -with the air of one not lightly to be fooled either by -rain or shine. Returning to the still silent circus, -he knocked sharply with his knuckles at the door of -the smallest of the three caravans.</p> - -<p>“Flick!” he shouted, “let me in! Flick! Old -Flick! Darn ’ee, man, for a blighting sand-louse! -Open the door, God curse you! Old Flick! Old -Flick! Old Flick!”</p> - -<p>Thus assaulted, the door of the caravan was opened -from within, and Mr. Love pushed his way into the -interior. A strange enough sight met him when -once inside.</p> - -<p>The individual apostrophized as “Old Flick” closed -and bolted the door with extraordinary precaution, -as soon as his master had entered, and then turned -and hovered nervously before him, while Mr. Love -sank down on the only chair in the place. The -caravan was bare of all furniture except a rough -cooking-stove and a three-legged deal table. But it -was at neither of these objects that Job Love stared, -as he tilted back his chair and waved impatiently -aside the deprecatory old man.</p> - -<p>Stretched on a ragged horse-blanket upon the floor -lay a sleeping child. Clothed in little else than a -linen bodice and a short flannel petticoat, she turned -restlessly in her slumber under Mr. Love’s scrutiny, -and crossing one bare leg over the other, flung out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_654" id="Page_654">[654]</a></span> -a long white arm, while her dark curls, disturbed by -her movement, fell over her face and hid it from -view.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” remarked Mr. Love. “Quieter now, I see. -She must dance today, Flick, and no mistake about it! -You must take her out in the fields this morning, -like you did that other one. I can’t have no more -rampaging and such-like, in my decent circus. But -she must dance, there’s no getting over that,—she -must dance, Old Flick! ’Twas your own blighting -notion to take her on, remember; and I can’t have no -do-nothing foreigners hanging around, specially now -August be come.</p> - -<p>“What did she say her nonsense-name was? Lores,—Dolores? -Whoever heard tell of such a name as -that?”</p> - -<p>The sound of his voice seemed to reach the child -even in her sleep; for flinging her arms over her head, -and turning on her back, she uttered a low indistinguishable -murmur. Her eyes, however, remained -closed, the dark curves of her long eye-lashes contrasting -with the scarlet of her mouth and the ivory -pallor of her skin.</p> - -<p>Even Job Love—though not precisely an æsthete—was -struck by the girl’s beauty.</p> - -<p>“She’ll make a fine dancer, Flick, a fine dancer! -How old dost think she be? ’Bout twelve, or may-be -more, I reckon.</p> - -<p>“’Tis pity she won’t speak no Christian word. ’Tis -wonderful, how these foreign childer do hold so -obstinate by their darned fancy-tongue!</p> - -<p>“We must trim her out in them spangle-gauzes of -Skipsy Jane. <em>She</em> were the sort of girl to make the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_655" id="Page_655">[655]</a></span> -boys holler. But this one’ll do well enough, I reckon, -if so be she goes smilin’ and chaffin’ upon the boards.</p> - -<p>“But no more of that devil’s foolery, Flick? Dost -hear, man? Take her out into the fields;—take her -out into the fields! She must dance and she must -smile, all in Skipsy Jane’s spangles, come noon this -day. She must do so, Flick—or I ain’t Jobie Love!”</p> - -<p>The old man paused in his vague moth-like hovering, -and surveyed the outstretched figure. His own -appearance was curious enough to excite a thrill of -intense curiosity, had any less callous eye but that of -his master been cast upon him.</p> - -<p>He produced the effect not so much of a living -person, animated by natural impulses, as of a dead -body possessed by some sort of wandering spirit -which made use of him for its own purposes.</p> - -<p>If by chance this spirit were to desert him, one -felt that what would be left of Old Flick would be -nothing but the mask of a man,—a husk, a shard, a -withered stalk, a wisp of dried-up grass! The old -creature was as thin as a lathe; and his cavernous, -colourless eyes and drooping jaw looked, in that -indistinct light, as vague and shadowy as though they -belonged to some phantasmal mirage of mist and -rain drifted in from the sleeping fields.</p> - -<p>“How did ’ee ever get Mother Sterner to let ’ee -have so dainty a bit of goods?” went on Mr. Love, -continuing his survey of their unconscious captive. -“The old woman must have been blind-scared of the -police or summat, so as to want to be free of the -maid. ’Tisn’t every day you can pick up a lass so -cut out for the boards as she be.”</p> - -<p>At intervals during his master’s discourse the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_656" id="Page_656">[656]</a></span> -parchment-like visage of the old man twisted and -contorted itself, as if with the difficulty of finding -words.</p> - -<p>When Job Love at last became silent, the words -issued from him as if they had been rustling eddies of -chaff, blown through dried stalks.</p> - -<p>“I’ve tried her with one thing, Mister, and I’ve -tried her with another,—but ’tis no use; she do cry -and cry, and there’s no handling her. I guess I must -take her into them fields, as you do say. ’Tis because -of folks hearing that she do carry on so.”</p> - -<p>Job Love frowned and scratched his forehead.</p> - -<p>“Damn her,” he cried, “for a limpsy cat! Well—Old -Flick—ye picked her up and ye must start her -off. This show don’t begin till nigh along noon,—so -if ye thinks ye can bring her to reason, some ways -or t’other ways, off with ’ee, my man! Get her a -bite of breakfast first,—and good luck to ’ee! Only -don’t let’s have no fuss, and don’t let’s have no -onlookers. I’m not the man to stand for any law-breaking. -This show’s a decent show, and Job -Love’s a decent man. If the wench makes trouble, -ye must take her back where she did come from. -Mother Sterner’ll have to slide down. I can’t have -no quarrels with King and Country, over a limpsy -maid like she!”</p> - -<p>Uttering these words in a tone of formidable -finality, Mr. Love moved to the entrance and let -himself out.</p> - -<p>Their master gone, Old Flick turned waveringly to -the figure on the floor. Taking down a faded coat -from its peg on the wall, he carefully spread it over -the child, tucking it round her body with shaking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_657" id="Page_657">[657]</a></span> -hands. He then went to the stove in the corner, lit -it, and arranged the kettle. From the stove he -turned to the three-legged table; and removing from -a hanging cupboard a tea-pot, some cups and plates, -a loaf of bread and a pat of butter, he set out these -objects with meticulous nicety, avoiding the least -clatter or sound. This done, he sat down upon the -solitary chair, and waited the boiling of the water with -inscrutable passivity.</p> - -<p>From outside the caravan came the shuffle of -stirring feet and the murmur of subdued and drowsy -voices. The camp was beginning to enter upon its -labour of preparation.</p> - -<p>When he had made tea, Old Flick touched his -sleeping captive lightly on the shoulder.</p> - -<p>The girl started violently, and sat up, with wide-open -eyes. She began talking hurriedly, protesting -and imploring; but not a word of her speech was -intelligible to Old Flick, for the simple reason that it -was Italian,—Italian of the Neapolitan inflexion.</p> - -<p>The old man handed her a strong cup of tea, together -with a large slice of bread-and-butter, uttering -as he did so all manner of soothing and reassuring -words. When she had finished her breakfast he -brought her water and soap.</p> - -<p>“Tidy thee-self up, my pretty,” he said. “We be -goin’ out, along into them fields, present.”</p> - -<p>Bolting the caravan door on the outside, he shuffled -off to the fountain to perform his own ablutions, and -to assist his companions in unloading the stage-properties, -and setting up the booths and swings. -After the lapse of an hour he climbed the caravan-steps -and re-entered softly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_658" id="Page_658">[658]</a></span></p> - -<p>He found the girl crouched in a corner, her hands -clasped over her knees, and traces of tears upon her -cheeks. Before leaving her, the old man had placed -shoes and stockings by her side, and these she now -wore, together with a dark-coloured skirt and a scarlet -gipsy-shawl.</p> - -<p>“Come,” he said. “Thee be goin’ wi’ I into the -fields. Thee be goin’ to learn a dancin’ trick or two. -Show opens along of noon; and Master, he’s goin’ to -let ’ee have Skipsy Jane’s spangles.”</p> - -<p>How much of this the child understood it is impossible -to say; but the old man’s tone was not -threatening, and the idea of being taken away—somewhere—anywhere—roused -vague hopes in her -soul. She pulled the red shawl over her head and -let him lead her by the hand.</p> - -<p>Down the steps they clambered, and hurriedly -threaded their way across the square.</p> - -<p>The old man took the road towards Yeoborough, -and turned with the girl up Dead Man’s Lane. He -was but dimly acquainted with the neighbourhood; -but once before, in his wanderings as a pedler, he had -encamped in a certain grassy hollow bordering on the -Auber Woods, and the memory of the seclusion of -this spot drew him now.</p> - -<p>As they passed Mr. Quincunx’s garden they encountered -the solitary himself, who, in his sympathy -with Luke Andersen on this particular day, had -resolved to pay the young man an early morning -visit.</p> - -<p>The recluse looked with extreme and startled -interest at this singular pair. The child’s beauty -struck him with a shock that almost took his breath<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_659" id="Page_659">[659]</a></span> -away. There was something about the haunting -expression of her gaze as she turned it upon him that -roused an overpowering flood of tenderness and pity -in untouched abysses of his being.</p> - -<p>There must have been some instantaneous reciprocity -in the eccentric man’s grey eyes, for the young -girl turned back after they had passed, and throwing -the shawl away from her head, fixed upon him what -seemed a deliberate and beseeching look of appeal.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx was so completely carried out of his -normal self by this imploring look that he went so -far as to answer its inarticulate prayer by a wave of -his hand, and by a sign that indicated,—whether -she understood it or not,—that he intended to render -her assistance.</p> - -<p>In his relations with Lacrima Mr. Quincunx was -always remotely conscious that the girl’s character -was stronger than his own, and—Pariah-like—this -had the effect of lessening the emotion he felt towards -her.</p> - -<p>But now—in the look of the little Dolores—there -was an appeal from a weakness and helplessness much -more desperate than his own,—an appeal to him from -the deepest gulfs of human dependence. The glance -she had given him burned in his brain like a coal of -white fire. It seemed to cry out to him from all the -flotsam and jetsam, all the drift and wreckage of -everything that had ever been drowned, submerged, -and stranded, by the pitilessness of Life, since the -foundation of the world.</p> - -<p>The child’s look had indeed the same effect upon -Mr. Quincunx that the look of his Master had upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_660" id="Page_660">[660]</a></span> -the fear-stricken Apostle, in the hall of Caiaphas the -high priest. In one heart-piercing stab it brought to -his overpowered consciousness a vision of all the -victims of cruelty who had ever cried aloud for help -since the generations of men began their tragic -journey.</p> - -<p>Perhaps to all extremely sensitive natures of Mr. -Quincunx’s type, a type of morbidly self-conscious -weakness as well as sensitiveness, the electric stir -produced by beauty and sex can only reach a culmination -when the medium of its appearance approximates -to the extreme limit of fragility and helplessness.</p> - -<p>Hell itself, so to speak, had to display to him its -span-long babes, before he could be aroused to descend -and “harrow” it! But once roused in him, this -latent spirit of the pitiful Son of Man became formidable, -reckless, irresistible. The very absence in him -of the usual weight of human solidity and “character” -made him the more porous to this divine mood.</p> - -<p>Anyone who watched him returning hastily to his -cottage from the garden-gate would have been amazed -by the change in his countenance. He looked and -moved like a man under a blinding illumination. So -must the citizen of Tarsus have looked, when he -staggered into the streets of Damascus.</p> - -<p>He literally ran into his kitchen, snatched up his -hat and stick, poured a glass of milk down his throat, -put a couple of biscuits into his pocket, and re-issued, -ready for his strange pursuit. He hurried up the -lane to the first gate that offered itself, and passing -into the field continued the chase on the further side -of the hedge.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_661" id="Page_661">[661]</a></span></p> - -<p>The old man evidently found the hill something -of an effort, for it was not long before Mr. Quincunx -overtook them.</p> - -<p>He passed them by unremarked, and continued his -advance along the hedgerow till he reached the -summit of the ridge between Wild Pine and Seven -Ashes. Here, concealed behind a clump of larches, -he awaited their approach. To his surprise, they -entered one of the fields on the opposite side of the -road, and began walking across it.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx watched them. In a corner of the -field they were crossing lay a spacious hollow,—once -the bed of a pond,—but now quite dry and overgrown -with moss and clover.</p> - -<p>Old Flick’s instinct led him to this spot, as one -well adapted to the purpose he had in mind, both by -reason of its absolute seclusion and by reason of its -smooth turf-floor.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx waited till their two figures vanished -into this declivity, and then he himself crossed the -field in their track.</p> - -<p>Having reached the mossy level of the vanished -pond,—a place which seemed as though Nature herself -had designed it with a view to his present intention,—Old -Flick assumed a less friendly air towards -his captive. A psychologist interested in searching -out the obscure workings of derelict and submerged -souls, would have come to the speedy conclusion as -he watched the old man’s cadaverous face that the -spirit which at present animated his corpse-like body -was one that had little commiseration or compunction -in it.</p> - -<p>The young Dolores had not, it seemed, to deal at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_662" id="Page_662">[662]</a></span> -this moment with an ordinary human scoundrel, but -with a faded image of humanity galvanized into life -by some conscienceless Larva.</p> - -<p>In proportion as this unearthly obsession grew upon -Old Flick, his natural countenance grew more and -more dilapidated and withered. Innumerable years -seemed suddenly added to the burden he already -carried. The lines of his face assumed a hideous and -Egyptian immobility; only his eyes, as he turned them -upon his companion, were no longer colourless.</p> - -<p>“Doll,” said he, “now thee must try thee’s steps, -or ’twill be the worse for thee!”</p> - -<p>The girl only answered by flinging herself down on -her knees before him, and pouring forth unintelligible -supplications.</p> - -<p>“No more o’ this,” cried the old man; “no more o’ -this! I’ve got to learn ’ee to dance,—and learn ’ee -to dance I will. Ye’ll have to go on them boards -come noon, whether ’ee will or no!”</p> - -<p>The child only clasped her hands more tightly -together, and renewed her pleading.</p> - -<p>It would have needed the genius of some supreme -painter, and of such a painter in an hour of sheer -insanity, to have done justice to the extraordinary -expression that crossed the countenance of Old Flick -at that moment. The outlines of his face seemed to -waver and decompose. None but an artist who had, -like the insatiable Leonardo, followed the very dead -into their forlorn dissolution, could have indicated -the setting of his eyes; and his eyes themselves, -madness alone could have depicted.</p> - -<p>With a sudden vicious jerk the old man snatched -the shawl from the girl’s shoulders, flung it on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_663" id="Page_663">[663]</a></span> -ground, and seizing her by the wrists pulled her up -upon her feet.</p> - -<p>“Dance, ye baggage!” he cried hoarsely;—“dance, -I tell ’ee!”</p> - -<p>It was plain that the luckless waif understood -clearly enough now what was required of her, and it -was also plain that she recognized that the moment -for supplication had gone by. She stepped back a -pace or two upon the smooth turf, and slipping off -her unlaced shoes,—shoes far too large for her small -feet,—she passed the back of her hand quickly -across her eyes, shook her hair away from her forehead, -and began a slow, pathetic little dance.</p> - -<p>“Higher!” cried Old Flick in an excited voice, -beating the air with his hand and humming a strange -snatch of a tune that might have inspired the dances -of Polynesian cannibals. “Higher, I tell ’ee!”</p> - -<p>The girl felt compelled to obey; and putting one -hand on her hip and lifting up her skirt with the -other, she proceeded, shyly and in forlorn silence, to -dance an old Neapolitan folk-dance, such as might be -witnessed, on any summer evening, by the shores of -Amalfi or Sorrento.</p> - -<p>It was at this moment that Mr. Quincunx made his -appearance against the sky-line above them. He -looked for one brief second at the girl’s bare arms, -waving curls, and light-swinging body, and then leapt -down between them.</p> - -<p>All nervousness, all timidity, seemed to have fallen -away from him like a snake’s winter-skin under the -spring sun. He seized the child’s hand with an air -of indescribable gentleness and authority, and made -so menacing and threatening a gesture that Old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_664" id="Page_664">[664]</a></span> -Flick, staggering backwards, nearly fell to the -ground.</p> - -<p>“Whose child is this?” he demanded sternly, -soothing the frightened little dancer with one hand, -while with the other he shook his cane in the direction -of the gasping and protesting old man.</p> - -<p>“Whose child is this? You’ve stolen her, you old -rascal! You’re no Italian,—anyone can see that! -You’re a damned old tramp, and if you weren’t so -old and ugly I’d beat you to death; do you hear?—to -death, you villain! Whose child is she? Can’t -you speak? Take care; I’m badly tempted to make -you taste this,—to make <em>you</em> skip and dance a little!</p> - -<p>“What do you say? Job Love’s circus? Well,—he’s -not an Italian either, is he? So if you haven’t -stolen her, he has.”</p> - -<p>He turned to the child, stooping over her with -infinite tenderness, and folding the shawl of which she -had again possessed herself, with hands as gentle as a -mother’s, about her shoulders and head.</p> - -<p>“Where are your parents, my darling?” he asked, -adding with a flash of amazing presence of mind,—“your -‘padre’ and ‘madre’?”</p> - -<p>The girl seemed to get the drift of the question, and -with a pitiful little smile pointed earthward, and -made a sweeping gesture with both her hands, as if -to indicate the passing of death’s wings.</p> - -<p>“Dead?—both dead, eh?” muttered Mr. Quincunx. -“And these rascals who’ve got hold of you -are villains and rogues? Damned rogues! Damned -villains!”</p> - -<p>He paused and muttered to himself. “What the -devil’s the Italian for a god-forsaken rascal?—‘Cattivo!’<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_665" id="Page_665">[665]</a></span> -‘Tutto cattivo!’—the whole lot of -them a set of confounded scamps!”</p> - -<p>The child nodded her head vigorously.</p> - -<p>“You see,” he cried, turning to Old Flick, “she -disowns you all. This is clearly a most knavish -piece of work! What were you doing to the child? -eh? eh? eh?” Mr. Quincunx accompanied these final -syllables with renewed flourishes of his stick in the air.</p> - -<p>Old Flick retreated still further away, his legs -shaking under him. “Here,—you can clear out of -this! Do you understand? You can clear out of -this; and go back to your damned master, and tell -him I’m going to send the police after him!</p> - -<p>“As for this girl, I’m going to take her home with -me. So off you go,—you old reprobate; and thankful -you may be that I haven’t broken every bone in -your body! I’ve a great mind to do it now. Upon -my soul I’ve a great mind to do it!</p> - -<p>“Shall I beat him into a jelly for you,—my darling? -Shall I make him skip and dance for you?”</p> - -<p>The child seemed to understand his gestures, if not -his words; for she clung passionately to his hands, and -pressing them to her lips, covered them with kisses; -shaking her head at the same time, as much as to -say, “Old Flick is nothing. Let Old Flick go to the -devil, as long as I can stay with you!” In some such -manner as this, at any rate, Mr. Quincunx interpreted -her words.</p> - -<p>“Sheer off, then, you old scoundrel! Shog off back -to your confounded circus! And when you’ve got -there, tell your friends,—Job Love and his gang,—that -if they want this little one they’d better come -and fetch her!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_666" id="Page_666">[666]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Dead Man’s Lane,—that’s where I live. It’s -easily enough found; and so is the police-station in -Yeoborough,—as you and your damned kidnappers -shall discover before you’ve done with me!”</p> - -<p>Uttering these words in a voice so menacing that -the old man shook like an aspen-leaf, Mr. Quincunx -took the girl by the hand, and, ascending the grassy -slope, walked off with her across the field.</p> - -<p>Old Flick seemed reduced to a condition bordering -upon imbecility. He staggered up out of that -unpropitious hollow, and stood stock-still, like one -petrified, until they were out of sight. Then, very -slowly and mumbling incoherently to himself, he made -his way back towards the village.</p> - -<p>He did not even turn his head as he passed Mr. -Quincunx’s cottage. Indeed, it is extremely doubtful -how far he had recognized him as the person they -encountered on their way, and still more doubtful -how far he had heard or understood, when the tenant -of Dead Man’s Lane indicated the place of his abode.</p> - -<p>The sudden transformation of the timid recluse -into a formidable man of action did not end with his -triumphant retirement to his familiar domain. Some -mysterious fibre in his complicated temperament had -been struck, and continued to be struck, by the little -Dolores, which not only rendered him indifferent to -personal danger, but willing and happy to encounter -it.</p> - -<p>The event only added one more proof to the sage -dictum of the Chinese philosopher,—that you can -never tell of what a man is capable until he is stone-dead.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_667" id="Page_667">[667]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI<br /> -<span class="smaller">VARIOUS ENCOUNTERS</span></h2> - -<p>During the hours when Mr. Quincunx was -undergoing this strange experience, several -other human brains under the roofs of Nevilton -were feeling the pressure of extreme perturbation.</p> - -<p>Gladys, after a gloomy breakfast, which was -rendered more uncomfortable, not only by her father’s -chaffing references to the approaching ceremony, -but by a letter from Dangelis, had escaped to her -room to be assisted by Lacrima in dressing for the -confirmation.</p> - -<p>In his letter the artist declared his intention of -spending that night at the Gloucester Hotel in Weymouth, -and begged his betrothed to forgive this delay -in his return to her side.</p> - -<p>This communication caused Gladys many tremors -of disquietude. Could it be possible that the American -had found out something and that he had gone -to Weymouth to meditate at leisure upon his course -of action?</p> - -<p>In any case this intimation of a delay in his return -irritated the girl. It struck her in her tenderest spot. -It was a direct flouting of her magnetic power. It -was an insult to her sex-vanity.</p> - -<p>She had seen nothing of Luke since their Sunday’s -excursion; and as Lacrima, with cold submissive -fingers, helped her to arrange her white dress and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_668" id="Page_668">[668]</a></span> -virginal veil, she could hear the sound of the bell -tolling for James Andersen’s funeral.</p> - -<p>Mingled curiously enough with this melancholy -vibration falling at protracted intervals upon the air, -like the stroke of some reiterated hammer of doom, -came another sound, a sound of a completely opposite -character,—the preluding strains, namely, of the -steam roundabouts of Porter’s Universal Show.</p> - -<p>It was as though on one side of the village the -angel of death were striking an iron-threatening gong, -while, on the other side, the demons of life were -howling a brazen defiance.</p> - -<p>The association of the two sounds as they reached -her at this critical hour brought the figure of Luke -vividly and obsessingly into her mind. How well she -knew the sort of comment he would make upon the -bizarre combination! Beneath the muslin frills of -her virginal dress,—a dress that made her look fairer -and younger than usual,—her heart ached with sick -longing for her evasive lover.</p> - -<p>The wheel had indeed come full circle for the fair-haired -girl. She could not help the thought recurring -again and again, as Lacrima’s light fingers adjusted -her veil, that the next time she dressed in this manner -it would be for her wedding-day. Her one profound -consolation lay in the knowledge that her cousin, -even more deeply than herself, dreaded the approach -of that fatal Thursday.</p> - -<p>Her hatred for the pale-cheeked Italian re-accumulated -every drop of its former venom, as with an air -of affectionate gratitude she accepted her assistance.</p> - -<p>It is a psychological peculiarity of certain human -beings that the more they hate, the more they crave,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_669" id="Page_669">[669]</a></span> -with a curious perverted instinct, some sort of physical -contact with the object of their hatred.</p> - -<p>Every touch of Lacrima’s hand increased the -intensity of Gladys’ loathing; and yet, so powerful is -the instinct to which I refer, she lost no opportunity -of accentuating the contact between them, letting -their fingers meet again and again, and even their -breath, and throwing back her rounded chin to make -it easier for those hated wrists to busy themselves -about her throat. Her general air was an air of -playful passivity; but at one moment, imprinting a kiss -on the girl’s arm as, in the process of arranging her -veil, it brushed across her cheek, she seemed almost -anxious to convey to Lacrima the full implication of -her real feeling.</p> - -<p>Never has a human caress been so electric with the -vibrations of antipathy, as was that kiss. She followed -up this signal of animosity by a series of feline -taunts relative to John Goring, one of which, from -its illuminated insight into the complex strata of the -girl’s soul, delighted her by its effect.</p> - -<p>Lacrima winced under it, as if under the sting of a -lash, and a burning flood of scarlet suffused her -cheeks. She dropped her hands and stepped back, -uttering a fierce vow that nothing—nothing on -earth—would induce her to accompany a girl who -could say such things, to such a ceremony!</p> - -<p>“No, I wouldn’t,—I wouldn’t!” cried Gladys -mockingly. “I wouldn’t dream of coming with me! -Tomorrow week, anyway, we’re bound to go to church -side by side. Father wanted to drive with me then, -you know, and to let mother go with you,—but I -wouldn’t hear of it! I said they must go in one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_670" id="Page_670">[670]</a></span> -carriage, and you and I in another, so that our last -drive together we should be quite by ourselves. -You’ll like that, won’t you, darling?”</p> - -<p>Lacrima’s only answer to this was to turn her back -to her cousin, and begin putting on her hat and -gloves.</p> - -<p>“I know where you’re going,” said Gladys. “You’re -going to see your dear Maurice. Give him my love! -I should be ashamed to let such a wretched coward -come near me.</p> - -<p>“James—poor boy!—was a fellow of a different -metal. He’d some spirit in him. Listen! When that -bell stops tolling they’ll be carrying him into the -church. I expect you’re thinking now, darling, that -it would have been better if you’d treated him -differently. Of course you know it’s you that killed -him? Oh, nobody else! Just little Lacrima and her -coy, demure ways!</p> - -<p>“<em>I’ve</em> never killed a man. I can say that, at all -events.</p> - -<p>“That’s right! Run off to her dear Maurice,—her -dear brave Maurice! Perhaps he’ll take her on -his knees again, and she’ll play the sweet little innocent,—like -that day when I peeped through the -window!”</p> - -<p>This final dart had hardly reached its objective -before Lacrima without attempting any retort rushed -from the room.</p> - -<p>“I <em>will</em> go and see Maurice. I will! I will!” she -murmured to herself as she ran down the broad oak -staircase, and slipped out by the East door.</p> - -<p>Simultaneously with these events, a scene of equal -dramatic intensity, though of a very different character,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_671" id="Page_671">[671]</a></span> -was being enacted in the vicarage drawing-room.</p> - -<p>Vennie, as we have noted, had resolved to postpone -for the present her reception into the Catholic Church. -She had also resolved that nothing on earth should -induce her to reveal to her mother her change of -creed until the thing was an accomplished fact. The -worst, however, of the kind of mental suppression in -which she had been living of late, is that it tends to -produce a volcanic excitement of the nerves, liable at -any moment to ungovernable upheavals. Quite little -things—mere straws and bagatelles—are enough to -set this eruption beginning; and when once it begins, -the accumulated passion of the long days of fermentation -gives the explosion a horrible force.</p> - -<p>One perpetual annoyance to Vennie was her -mother’s persistent fondness for family prayers. It -seemed to the girl as though Valentia insisted on this -performance, not so much out of a desire to serve -God, as out of a sense of what was due to herself as -the mistress of a well-conducted establishment.</p> - -<p>Vennie always fancied she discerned a peculiar -tone of self-satisfaction in her mother’s voice, as, -rather loudly, and extremely clearly, she read her -liturgical selections to the assembled servants.</p> - -<p>On this particular morning the girl had avoided -the performance of this rite, by leaving her room -earlier than usual and taking refuge in the furthest -of the vicarage orchards. Backwards and forwards -she walked, in that secluded place, with her hands -behind her and her head bent, heedless of the drenching -dew which covered every grass-blade and of the -heavy white mists that still hung about the tree-trunks. -She was obliged to return to her room and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_672" id="Page_672">[672]</a></span> -change her shoes and stockings before joining her -mother at breakfast, but not before she had prayed -a desperate prayer, down there among the misty trees, -for the eternal rest of James Andersen’s soul.</p> - -<p>This little incident of her absence from prayers -was the direct cause of the unfortunate scene that -followed.</p> - -<p>Valentia hardly spoke to her daughter while the -meal proceeded, and when at last it was over, she -retired to the drawing-room and began writing letters.</p> - -<p>This was an extremely ill-omened sign to anyone -who knew Mrs. Seldom’s habits. Under normal -conditions, her first proceeding after breakfast was to -move to the kitchen, where she engaged in a long -culinary debate with both cook and gardener; a course -of action which was extremely essential, as without it,—so -bitter was the feud between these two worthies,—it -is unlikely that there would have been any vegetables -at all, either for lunch or dinner. When anything -occurred to throw her into a mood of especially good -spirits, she would pass straight out of the French -window on to the front lawn, and armed with a pair -of formidable garden-scissors would make a selection -of flowers and leaves appropriate to a festival temper.</p> - -<p>But this adjournment at so early an hour to the -task of letter-writing indicated that Valentia was in a -condition of mind, which in anyone but a lady of her -distinction and breeding could have been called nothing -less than a furious rage. For of all things in the -world, Mrs. Seldom most detested this business of -writing letters; and therefore,—with that perverse -self-punishing instinct, which is one of the most -artful weapons of offence given to refined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_673" id="Page_673">[673]</a></span> -gentlewomen,—she took grim satisfaction in setting herself -down to write; thus producing chaos in the kitchen, -where the gardener refused to obey the cook, and -miserable remorse in the heart of Vennie, who wandered -up and down the lawn meditating a penitential -apology.</p> - -<p>Satisfied in her heart that she was causing universal -annoyance and embarrassment by her proceeding, -and yet quite confident that there was nothing but -what was proper and natural in her writing letters -at nine o’clock in the morning, Valentia began, by -gentle degrees, to recover her lost temper.</p> - -<p>The only real sedative to thoroughly aggravated -nerves, is the infliction of similar aggravation upon -the nerves of others. This process is like the laying -on of healing ointment; and the more extended the -disturbance which we have the good fortune to create, -the sooner we ourselves recover our equanimity.</p> - -<p>Valentia had already cast several longing glances -through the window at the heavy sunshine falling -mistily on the asters and petunias, and in another -moment she would probably have left her letter and -joined her daughter in the garden, had not Vennie -anticipated any such movement by entering the room -herself.</p> - -<p>“I ought to make you understand, mother,” the -girl began as soon as she stepped in, speaking in that -curious strained voice which people assume when they -have worked themselves up to a pitch of nervous -excitement, “that when I don’t appear at prayers, it -isn’t because I’m in a sulky temper, or in any mad -haste to get out of doors. It’s—it’s for a different -reason.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_674" id="Page_674">[674]</a></span></p> - -<p>Valentia gazed at her in astonishment. The tone -in which Vennie spoke was so tense, her eyes shone -with such a strange brilliance, and her look was altogether -so abnormal, that Mrs. Seldom completely -forgot her injured priestess-vanity, and waited in -sheer maternal alarm for the completion of the girl’s -announcement.</p> - -<p>“It’s because I’ve made up my mind to become a -Catholic, and Catholics aren’t allowed to attend any -other kind of service than their own.”</p> - -<p>Valentia rose to her feet and looked at her daughter -in blank dismay. Her first feeling was one of overpowering -indignation against Mr. Taxater, to whose -treacherous influence she felt certain this madness -was mainly due.</p> - -<p>There was a terrible pause during which Vennie, -leaning against the back of a chair, was conscious that -both herself and her mother were trembling from -head to foot. The soft murmur of wood-pigeons -wafted in from the window, was now blended with -two other sounds, the sound of the tolling of the -church-bell and the sound of the music of Mr. -Love’s circus, testing the efficiency of its roundabouts.</p> - -<p>“So this is what it has come to, is it?” said the -old lady at last. “And I suppose the next thing -you’ll tell me, in this unkind, inconsiderate way, is -that you’ve decided to become a nun!”</p> - -<p>Vennie made a little movement with her head.</p> - -<p>“You have?” cried Valentia, pale with anger.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_675" id="Page_675">[675]</a></span> -“You have made up your mind to do that? Well—I -wouldn’t have believed it of you, Vennie! In spite -of everything I’ve done for you; in spite of everything -I’ve taught you; in spite of everything I’ve prayed -for;—you can go and do this! Oh, you’re an unkind, -ungrateful girl! But I know that look on your face. -I’ve known it from your childhood. When you look -like that there’s no hope of moving you. Go on, -then! Do as you wish to do. Leave your mother in -her old age, and destroy the last hope of our family. -I won’t speak another word. I know nothing I can -say will change you.” She sank down upon the -chintz-covered sofa and covered her face with her -hands.</p> - -<p>Vennie cursed herself for her miserable want of -tact. What demon was it that had tempted her to -break her resolution? Then, suddenly, as she looked -at her mother swaying to and fro on the couch, a -strange impulse of hard inflexible obstinacy rose up -in her.</p> - -<p>These wretched human affections,—so unbalanced -and selfish,—what a relief to escape from them -altogether! Like the passing on its way, across a -temperate ocean, of some polar iceberg, there drove, -at that moment, through Vennie’s consciousness, a -wedge of frozen, adamantine contempt for all these -human, too-human clingings and clutchings which -would fain imprison the spirit and hold it down with -soft-strangling hands.</p> - -<p>In her deepest heart she turned almost savagely -away from this grey-haired woman, sitting there so -hurt in her earthly affections and ambitions. She -uttered a fierce mental invocation to that other -Mother,—her whose heart, pierced by seven swords, -had submitted to God’s will without a groan!</p> - -<p>Valentia, who, it must be remembered, had not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_676" id="Page_676">[676]</a></span> -only married a Seldom, but was herself one of that -breed, felt at that moment as though this girl of -hers were reverting to some mad strain of Pre-Elizabethan -fanaticism. There was something mediæval -about Vennie’s obstinacy, as there was something -mediæval about the lines of her face. Valentia -recalled a portrait she had once seen of an ancestor -of theirs in the days before the Reformation. He, the -great Catholic Baron, had possessed the same thin -profile and the same pinched lips. It was a curious -revenge, the poor lady thought, for those evicted -Cistercians, out of whose plundered house the Nevilton -mansion had been built, that this fate, of all -fates, should befall the last of the Seldoms!</p> - -<p>The tolling of the bell, which hitherto had gone on, -monotonously and insistently, across the drowsy -lawn, suddenly stopped.</p> - -<p>Vennie started and ran hurriedly to the door.</p> - -<p>“They are burying James Andersen,” she cried, -“and I ought to be there. It would look unkind and -thoughtless of me not to be there. Good-bye, mother! -We’ll talk of this when I come back. I’m sorry to -be so unsatisfactory a daughter to you, but perhaps -you’ll feel differently some day.”</p> - -<p>Left to herself, Valentia Seldom rose and went back -to her letter. But the pen fell from her limp fingers, -and tears stained the already written page.</p> - -<p>The funeral service had only just commenced when -Vennie reached the churchyard. She remained at the -extreme outer edge of the crowd, where groups of -inquisitive women are wont to cluster, wearing their -aprons and carrying their babies, and where the bigger -children are apt to be noisy and troublesome. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_677" id="Page_677">[677]</a></span> -caught a glimpse of Ninsy Lintot among those standing -quite close to where Mr. Clavering, in his white -surplice, was reading the pregnant liturgical words. -She noticed that the girl held her hands to her face -and that her slender form was shaking with the stress -of her emotion.</p> - -<p>She could not see Luke’s face, but she was conscious -that his motionless figure had lost its upright grace. -The young stone-carver seemed to droop, like a -sun-flower whose stalk has been bent by the wind.</p> - -<p>The words of the familiar English service were -borne intermittently to her ears as they fell from the -lips of the priest who had once been her friend. It -struck her poignantly enough,—that brave human -defiance, so solemn and tender, with which humanity -seems to rise up in sublime desperation and hoist its -standard of hope against hope!</p> - -<p>She wondered what the sceptical Luke was feeling -all this while. When Mr. Clavering began to read the -passage which is prefaced in the Book of Common -Prayer by the words, “Then while the earth be cast -upon the Body by some standing by, the priest shall -say,”—the quiet sobs of poor little Ninsy broke -into a wail of passionate grief, grief to which Vennie, -for all her convert’s aloofness from Protestant heresy, -could not help adding her own tears.</p> - -<p>It was the custom at Nevilton for the bearers of -the coffin, when the service was over, to re-form in -solemn procession, and escort the chief mourners back -to the house from which they had come. It was her -knowledge of this custom that led Vennie to steal -away before the final words were uttered; and her -hurried departure from the churchyard saved her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_678" id="Page_678">[678]</a></span> -from being a witness of the somewhat disconcerting -event with which the solemn transaction closed.</p> - -<p>The bringing of James’ body to the church had -been unfortunately delayed at the start by the -wayward movements of a luggage-train, which persisted -in shunting up and down over the level-crossing, -at the moment when they were carrying the coffin from -the house. This delay had been followed by others, -owing to various unforeseen causes, and by the time -the service actually began it was already close upon -the hour fixed for the confirmation.</p> - -<p>Thus it happened that, soon after Vennie’s departure, -at the very moment when the procession of -bearers, followed by Luke and the station-master’s -wife, issued forth into the street, there drove up to -the church-door a two-horsed carriage containing -Gladys and her mother, the former all whitely veiled, -as if she were a child-bride. Seeing the bearers troop -by, the fair-haired candidate for confirmation clutched -Mrs. Romer’s arm and held her in her place, but -leaning forward in the effort of this movement she -presented her face at the carriage window, just as -Luke himself emerged from the gates.</p> - -<p>The two young people found themselves looking -one another straight in the eyes, until with a shuddering -spasm that shook her whole frame, Gladys sank -back into her seat, as if from the effect of a crushing -blow received full upon the breast.</p> - -<p>Luke passed on, following the bearers, with something -like the ghost of a smile upon his drawn and -contorted lips.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_679" id="Page_679">[679]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII<br /> -<span class="smaller">VENNIE SELDOM</span></h2> - -<p>It was not towards her mother’s house that -Vennie directed her steps when she left the -churchyard. She turned sharp to the west, and -walked rapidly down the central street of the village -into the square at the end of it.</p> - -<p>Here she found an arena of busy and stirring -confusion, dominated by hissing spouts of steam, -hoarse whistlings from the “roundabout” engines, and -occasional bursts of extravagant melody, as the -circus-men made their musical experiments, pending -the opening of the show.</p> - -<p>Vennie’s intention, in crossing the square, was to -pay a morning visit to Mr. Quincunx, whose absence -from Andersen’s funeral had struck her mind as -extraordinary and ominous. She feared that the -recluse must be ill. Nothing less than illness, she -thought, would have kept him away from such an -event. She knew how closely he and the younger -stone-carver were associated, and it was inconceivable -that any insane jealousy of the dead could have held -him at home. Of course it was possible that he had -been compelled to go to work at Yeoborough as usual, -but she did not think this likely.</p> - -<p>It was, however, not only anxiety lest her mother’s -queer friend should be ill that actuated her. She -felt,—now that her ultimatum had been delivered,—that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_680" id="Page_680">[680]</a></span> -the sooner she entered the Catholic Church and -plunged into her novitiate, the better it would be. -When events had <em>happened</em>, Mrs. Seldom accepted -them. It was during the days of uncertain waiting -that her nerves broke down. Once the daughter -were actually a postulant in a convent, she felt sure -the mother would resign herself, and resume her -normal life.</p> - -<p>Valentia was a very independent and self-sufficient -woman. With her favourite flowers and her favourite -biographies of proconsular personages, the girl felt -convinced she would be much less heart-broken than -she imagined.</p> - -<p>Her days in Nevilton being thus numbered, Vennie -could not help giving way to a desire that had lately -grown more and more definite within her, to have a -bold and unhesitating interview with Mr. Quincunx. -Perhaps even at this last hour something might be -done to save Lacrima from her fate!</p> - -<p>Passing along the outskirts of the circus, she could -not resist pausing for a moment to observe the numerous -groups of well-known village characters, whom -curiosity had drawn to the spot.</p> - -<p>She was amazed to catch sight of the redoubtable -Mr. Wone, holding one of his younger children by -the hand and surveying with extreme interest the -setting up of a colossal framework of gilded and -painted wood, destined to support certain boat-shaped -swings. She felt a little indignant with the -worthy man for not having been present at Andersen’s -funeral, but the naive and childlike interest with -which, with open mouth and eyes, he stood gaping at -this glittering erection, soothed her anger into a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_681" id="Page_681">[681]</a></span> -smile. He really was a good sort of man, this poor -Wone! She wondered vaguely whether he intended -himself to indulge in the pastime of swinging in a -boat-shaped swing or whirling round upon a wooden -horse. She felt that if she could see him on one of -these roundabouts,—especially if he retained that -expression of guileless admiration,—she could really -forgive him everything.</p> - -<p>She caught a glimpse of two other figures whose -interest in the proceedings appeared extremely vivid, -no less persons than Mr. John Goring and his devoted -henchman, Bert Leerd. These two were -engaged in reading a glaring advertisement which depicted -a young woman clad in astounding spangles -dancing on a tight-rope, and it was difficult to say -whether the farmer or the idiot was the more -absorbed.</p> - -<p>She was just turning away, when she heard herself -called by name, and from amid a crowd of women -clustering round one of Mr. Love’s bric-a-brac stalls, -there came towards her, together, Mrs. Fringe and -Mrs. Wotnot.</p> - -<p>Vennie was extremely surprised to find these two -ladies,—by no means particularly friendly as a rule,—thus -joined in partnership of dissipation, but she -supposed the influence of a circus, like the influence -of religion, has a dissolvent effect upon human animosity. -That these excellent women should have -preferred the circus, however, to the rival entertainment -in the churchyard, did strike her mind as extraordinary. -She did not know that they had, as a -matter of fact, “eaten their pot of honey” at the -one, before proceeding, post-haste, to enjoy the other.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_682" id="Page_682">[682]</a></span></p> - -<p>“May we walk with you, miss, a step?” supplicated -Mrs. Fringe, as Vennie indicated her intention -of moving on, as soon as their salutations were -over.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, you are very kind, Mrs. Fringe. -Perhaps,—a little way, but I’m rather busy this -morning.”</p> - -<p>“Oh we shan’t trouble you long,” murmured Mrs. -Wotnot, “It’s only,—well, Mrs. Fringe, here, had -better speak.”</p> - -<p>Thus it came about that Vennie began her advance -up the Yeoborough road supported by the two housekeepers, -the lean one on the left of her, and the fat -one on the right of her.</p> - -<p>“Will I tell her, or will you tell her?” murmured -the plump lady sweetly, when they were clear of the -village.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Wotnot made a curious grimace and clasped -and unclasped her hands.</p> - -<p>“Better you; much, much better, that it should -be you,” she remarked.</p> - -<p>“But ’twas thy tale, dearie; ’twas thy tale and -surprisin’ discoverin’s,” protested Mrs. Fringe.</p> - -<p>“Those that knows aren’t always those that tells,” -observed the other sententiously.</p> - -<p>“But you do think it’s proper and right the young -lady should know?” said Mr. Clavering’s housekeeper.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Wotnot nodded. “If ’taint too shameful for -her, ’tis best what she’d a’ ought to hear,” said the -lean woman.</p> - -<p>Vennie became conscious at this moment that -whenever Mrs. Wotnot opened her mouth there -issued thence a most unpleasant smell of brandy, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_683" id="Page_683">[683]</a></span> -it flashed upon her that this was the explanation of -the singular converging of these antipodal orbits. In -the absence of her master, Mrs. Wotnot had evidently -“taken to drink,” and it was doubtless out of her -protracted intoxication that Mrs. Fringe had derived -whatever scandalous piece of gossip it was that she -was now so anxious to impart.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell ’ee, miss,” said Mrs. Fringe, “with no -nonsense-fangles and no shilly-shally. I’ll tell ’ee -straight out and sober,—same as our dear friend -did tell it to me. ’Tis along of Miss Romer,—ye -be to understand, wot is to be confirmed this same -blessed day.</p> - -<p>“The dear woman, here, was out a-gatherin’ laurel-leaves -one fine evenin’, long o’ some weeks since, and -who should she get wind of, in the bushes near-by, -but Mr. Luke and Miss Gladys. I been my own self -ere now, moon-daft on that there lovely young man, -but Satan’s ways be Satan’s ways, and none shall -report that I takes countenance of <em>such</em> goings on. -Mrs. Wotnot here, she heerd every Jack word them -sinful young things did say,—and shameful-awful -their words were, God in Heaven do know!</p> - -<p>“They were cursin’ one another, like to split, that -night. She were cryin’ and fandanderin’ and he -were laughin’ and chaffin’. ’Twas God’s terror to hear -how they went on, with the holy bare sky over their -shameless heads!”</p> - -<p>“Tell the young lady quick and plain,” ejaculated -Mrs. Wotnot at this point, clutching Vennie’s arm -and arresting their advance.</p> - -<p>“I <em>am</em> ’a tellin’ her,” retorted Mrs. Fringe, “I’m -a tellin’ as fast as my besom can breathe. Don’t ’ee<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_684" id="Page_684">[684]</a></span> -push a body so! The young lady ain’t in such a -tantrum-hurry as all that.”</p> - -<p>“I am <em>rather</em> anxious to get on with my walk,” -threw in Vennie, looking from one to another with -some embarrassment, “and I really don’t care very -much about hearing things of this kind.”</p> - -<p>“Tell ’er! Tell ’er! Tell ’er!” cried Mrs. Wotnot.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fringe cast a contemptuous look at her rival -housekeeper.</p> - -<p>“Our friend baint quite her own self today, miss,” -she remarked with a wink at Vennie, “the weather -or summat’ ’ave moved ’er rheumatiz from ’er legs, -and settled it in ’er stummick.”</p> - -<p>“Tell her! Tell her!” reiterated the other.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Fringe lowered her voice to a pregnant -whisper.</p> - -<p>“The truth be, miss, that our friend here heered -these wicked young things talk quite open-like about -their gay goings on. So plain did they talk, that -all wot the Blessed Lord ’is own self do know, of -such as most folks keeps to ’emselves, went burnin’ -and shamin’ into our friend’s ’stonished ears. And wot -she did gather was that Miss Gladys, for certin’ and -sure, be a lost girl, and Mr. Luke ’as ’ad ’is bit of -fun down to the uttermost drop.”</p> - -<p>The extraordinary solemnity with which Mrs. -Fringe uttered these words and the equally extraordinary -solemnity with which Mrs. Wotnot nodded -her head in corroboration of their truth had a devastating -effect upon Vennie. There was no earthly -reason why these two females should have invented -this squalid story. Mrs. Fringe was an incurable -scandal-monger, but Vennie had never found her a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_685" id="Page_685">[685]</a></span> -liar. Besides there was a genuine note of shocked -sincerity about her tone which no mere morbid suspicion -could have evoked.</p> - -<p>The thing was true then! Gladys and Luke were -lovers, in the most extreme sense of that word, and -Dangelis was the victim of an outrageous betrayal.</p> - -<p>Vennie had sufficient presence of mind to avoid the -eyes of both the women, eyes fixed with ghoulish and -lickerish interest upon her, as they watched for the -effect of this revelation,—but she was uncomfortably -conscious that her cheeks were flaming and her voice -strained as she bade them good-bye. Comment, of -any kind, upon what they had revealed to her she -found absolutely impossible. She could only wish -them a pleasant time at the circus if they were -returning thither, and freedom from any ill effects -due to their accompanying her so far.</p> - -<p>When she was alone, and beginning to climb the -ascent of Dead Man’s Lane, the full implication of -what she had learnt thrust itself through her brain -like a red-hot wedge. Vennie’s experience of the -treacherousness of the world had, as we know, gone -little deeper than her reaction from the rough discourtesy -of Mr. Clavering and the evasive aloofness -of Mr. Taxater. This sudden revelation into the -brutishness and squalour inherent in our planetary -system had the effect upon her of an access of physical -nausea. She felt dizzy and sick, as she toiled up the -hill, between the wet sun-pierced hedges, and under -the heavy September trees.</p> - -<p>The feeling of autumn in the air, so pleasant under -normal conditions to human senses, seemed to associate -itself just now with this dreadful glance she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_686" id="Page_686">[686]</a></span> -had had into the basic terrors of things. The whole -atmosphere about her seemed to smell of decay, of -decomposition, of festering mortality. The pull and -draw of the thick Nevilton soil, its horrible demonic -gravitation, had never got hold of her more tenaciously -than it did then. She felt as though some -vast octopus-like tentacles were dragging her earthward.</p> - -<p>Vennie was one of those rare women for whom, -even under ordinary conditions, the idea of sex is -distasteful and repulsive. Presented to her as it was -now, mingled with treachery and deception, it obsessed -her with an almost living presence. Sensuality -had always been for her the one unpardonable sin, -and sensuality of this kind, turning the power of sex -into a mere motive for squalid pleasure-seeking, filled -her with a shuddering disgust.</p> - -<p>So this was what men and women were like! This -was the kind of thing that went on, under the “covert -and convenient seeming” of affable lies!</p> - -<p>The whole of nature seemed to have become, in -one moment, foul and miasmic. Rank vapours rose -from the ground at her feet, and the weeds in the -hedge took odious and indecent shapes.</p> - -<p>An immense wave of distrust swept over her for -everyone that she knew. Was Mr. Clavering himself -like this?</p> - -<p>This thought,—the thought of what, for all she -could tell, might exist between her priest-friend and -this harlot-girl,—flushed her cheeks with a new -emotion. Mixed at that moment with her virginal -horror of the whole squalid business, was a pang of -quite a different character, a pang that approached,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_687" id="Page_687">[687]</a></span> -if it did not reach, the sharp sting of sheer physical -jealousy.</p> - -<p>As soon as she became aware of this feeling in -herself it sickened her with a deeper loathing. Was -she also contaminated, like the rest? Was no living -human being free from this taint?</p> - -<p>She stopped and passed her hand across her forehead. -She took off her hat and made a movement -with her arms as if thrusting away some invisible -assailant. She felt she could not encounter even -Mr. Quincunx in this obsessed condition. She had -the sensation of being infected by some kind of -odious leprosy.</p> - -<p>She sat down in the hedge, heedless of the still -clinging dew. Strange and desperate thoughts whirled -through her brain. She longed to purge herself in -some way, to bathe deep, deep,—body and soul,—in -some cleansing stream.</p> - -<p>But what about Gladys’ betrothed? What about -the American? Vennie had scarcely spoken to -Dangelis, hardly ever seen him, but she felt a wave of -sympathy for the betrayed artist surge through her -heart. It could not be allowed,—it could not,—that -those two false intriguers should fool this innocent -gentleman!</p> - -<p>Struck by a sudden illumination as if from the -unveiled future, she saw herself going straight to -Dangelis and revealing the whole story. He should -at least be made aware of the real nature of the girl -he was marrying!</p> - -<p>Having resolved upon this bold step, Vennie recovered -something of her natural mood. Where was Mr. -Dangelis at this moment? She must find that out,—perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_688" id="Page_688">[688]</a></span> -Mr. Quincunx would know. She must make -a struggle to waylay the artist, to get an interview -with him alone.</p> - -<p>She rose to her feet, and holding her hat in her -hand, advanced resolutely up the lane. She felt -happier now, relieved, in a measure, of that odious -sense of confederacy with gross sin which had weighed -her down. But there still beat vaguely in her brain -a passionate longing for purification. If only she -could escape, even for a few hours, from this lust-burdened -spot! If only she could cool her forehead -in the sea!</p> - -<p>As she approached Mr. Quincunx’s cottage she experienced -a calm and restorative reaction from her -distress of mind. She felt no longer alone in the -world. Having resolved on a drastic stroke on behalf -of clear issues, she was strangely conscious, as she -had not been conscious for many months, of the -presence, near her and with her, of the Redeemer of -men.</p> - -<p>It suddenly was borne in upon her that that other -criminal abuse, which had so long oppressed her soul -with a dead burden,—the affair of Lacrima and -Goring,—was intimately associated with what she -had discovered. It was more than likely that by -exposing the one she could prevent the other.</p> - -<p>Flushed with excitement at this thought she opened -Mr. Quincunx’s gate and walked up his garden-path. -To her amazement, she heard voices in the cottage -and not only voices, but voices speaking in a language -that vaguely reminded her of the little Catholic -services in the chapel at Yeoborough.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx himself answered her knock and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_689" id="Page_689">[689]</a></span> -opened the door. He was strangely agitated. The hand -which he extended to her shook as it touched her fingers.</p> - -<p>But Vennie herself was too astonished at the sight -which met her eyes to notice anything of this. Seated -opposite one another, on either side of the solitary’s -kitchen-fire, were Lacrima and the little Dolores. -Vennie had interrupted a lively and impassioned -colloquy between the two Italians.</p> - -<p>They both rose at her entrance, and their host, -in hurried nervous speech, gave Vennie an incoherent -account of what had happened.</p> - -<p>When they were all seated,—Vennie in the little -girl’s chair, and the child on Mr. Quincunx’s knees,—the -embarrassment of the first surprise quickly subsided.</p> - -<p>“I shall adopt her,” the solitary kept repeating,—as -though the words were uttered in a defiance of -universal opposition, “I shall adopt her. You’d -advise me to do that, wouldn’t you Miss Seldom?</p> - -<p>“I shall get a proper document made out, so that -there can be no mistake. I shall adopt her. Whatever -anyone likes to say, I shall adopt her!</p> - -<p>“Those circus-scoundrels will hold their tongues and -let me alone for their own sakes. I shall have no -trouble. Lacrima will explain to the police who -the child is, and who her parents were. That is, if -the police come. But they won’t come. Why should -they come? I shall have a document drawn out.”</p> - -<p>It seemed as though the little Neapolitan knew by -instinct what her protector was saying, for she nestled -down against his shoulder and taking one of his hands -in both of hers pressed it against her lips.</p> - -<p>Vennie gazed at Lacrima, and Lacrima gazed at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_690" id="Page_690">[690]</a></span> -Vennie, but neither of them spoke. There was an -inner flame of triumphant concentration in Vennie’s -glance, but Lacrima’s look was clouded and sad.</p> - -<p>“Certainly no one will interfere with you,” said -Vennie at last. “We shall all be so glad to think -that the child is in such good hands.</p> - -<p>“The only difficulty I can see,” she paused a moment, -while the grey eyes of Mr. Quincunx opened -wide and an expression of something like defiance -passed over his face, “is that it’ll be difficult for you -to know what to do with her while you are away in -Yeoborough. You could hardly leave her alone in -this out-of-the-way place, and I’m afraid our Nevilton -National School wouldn’t suit her at all.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx freed his hand and stroked his beard. -His fingers were quivering, and Vennie noticed a -certain curious twitching in the muscles of his face.</p> - -<p>“I shan’t go to Yeoborough any more,” he cried. -“None of you need think it!</p> - -<p>“That affair is over and done with. I shan’t stay -here, any more, either, to be bullied by the Romers -and made a fool of by all these idiots. I shall go -away. I shall go—far away—to London—to -Liverpool,—to—to Norwich,—like the Man in the -Moon!”</p> - -<p>This final inspiration brought a flicker of his old -goblin-humour to the corners of his mouth.</p> - -<p>Lacrima looked at Vennie with an imperceptible -lifting of her eyebrows, and then sighed deeply.</p> - -<p>The latter clasped the arms of her high-backed -chair with firm hands.</p> - -<p>“I think it is essential that you should know <em>where</em> -you are going, Mr. Quincunx. I mean for the child’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_691" id="Page_691">[691]</a></span> -sake. You surely don’t wish to drag her aimlessly -about these great cities while you look for work?</p> - -<p>“Besides,—you won’t be angry will you, if I -speak plainly?—what work, exactly, have you in -your mind to do? It isn’t, I’m afraid, always easy—”</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx interrupted her with an outburst of -unexpected fury.</p> - -<p>“That’s what I knew you’d say!” he cried in a -loud voice. “That’s what <em>she</em> says.” He indicated -Lacrima. “But you both say it, only because you don’t -want me to have the pleasure of adopting Dolores!</p> - -<p>“But I <em>shall</em> adopt her,—in spite of you all. Yes, in -spite of you all! Nothing shall stop me adopting her!”</p> - -<p>Once more the little Italian nestled close against -him, and took possession of his trembling hand.</p> - -<p>Vennie perceived an expression of despairing hopelessness -pass like an icy mist over Lacrima’s face.</p> - -<p>The profile of the Nevilton nun assumed those lines -of commanding obstinacy which had reminded -Valentia a few hours ago of the mediæval baron. -She rose to her feet.</p> - -<p>“Listen to me, Mr. Quincunx,” she said sternly. -“You are right; you are quite right, to wish to save -this child. No one shall stop you saving her. No -one shall stop you adopting her. But there are other -people whose happiness depends upon what you do, -besides this child.”</p> - -<p>She paused, and glanced from Mr. Quincunx to -Lacrima, and from Lacrima to Mr. Quincunx. Then -a look of indescribable domination and power passed -into her face. She might have been St. Catharine -herself, magnetizing the whole papal court into -obedience to her will.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_692" id="Page_692">[692]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh you foolish people!” she cried, “you foolish -people! Can’t you see where God is leading you? -Can’t you see where His Spirit has brought you?”</p> - -<p>She turned upon Mr. Quincunx with shining eyes, -while Lacrima, white as a phantom and with drooping -mouth, watched her in amazement.</p> - -<p>“It’s not only this child He’s helped you to save,” -she went on. “It’s not only this child! Are you -blind to what He means? Don’t you understand the -cruelty that is being done to your friend? Don’t -you understand?”</p> - -<p>She stretched out her arm and touched Mr. Quincunx’s -shoulder.</p> - -<p>“You must do more than give this little one a father,” -she murmured in a low tone, “you must give her -a mother. How can she be happy without a mother?</p> - -<p>“Come,” she went on, in a voice vibrating with -magnetic authority, “there’s no other way. You and -Lacrima must join hands. You must join hands at -once, and defy everyone. Our little wanderer must -have both father and mother! That is what God -intends.”</p> - -<p>There was a long and strange silence, broken only -by the ticking of the clock.</p> - -<p>Then Mr. Quincunx slowly rose, allowed the child -to sink down into his empty chair, and crossed over -to Lacrima’s side. Very solemnly, and as if registering -a sacred vow, he took his friend’s head between his -hands and kissed her on the forehead. Then, searching -for her hand and holding it tightly in his own, he -turned towards Vennie, while Lacrima herself, pressing -her face against his shabby coat, broke into convulsive -crying.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_693" id="Page_693">[693]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’ll take your advice,” he said gravely. “I’ll -take it without question. There are more difficulties -in the way than you know, but I’ll do,—we’ll do,—just -what you tell us. I can’t think—” he hesitated -for a moment, while a curious smile flickered -across his face, “how on earth I’m going to manage. -I can’t think how we’re going to get away from here. -But I’ll take your advice and we’ll do exactly as -you say.</p> - -<p>“We’ll do what she says, won’t we, Lacrima?”</p> - -<p>Lacrima’s only answer was to conceal her face still -more completely in his dusty coat, but her crying -became quieter and presently ceased altogether.</p> - -<p>At that moment there came a sharp knock a the -door.</p> - -<p>The countenance of Mr. Quincunx changed. He -dropped his friend’s hand, and moved into the centre -of the room.</p> - -<p>“That must be the circus-people,” he whispered. -“They’ve come for Dolores. You’ll support me won’t -you?” He looked imploringly at Vennie. “You’ll -tell them they can’t have her—that I refuse to give -her up—that I’m going to adopt her?”</p> - -<p>He went out and opened the door.</p> - -<p>It was not the circus-men he found waiting on his -threshold. Nor was it the police. It was only one -of the under-gardeners from Nevilton House. The -youth explained that Mr. Romer had sent him to fetch -Lacrima.</p> - -<p>“They be goin’ to lunch early, mistress says, and -the young lady ’ave to come right along ’ome wi’ I.”</p> - -<p>Vennie intervened at this moment between her -agitated host and the intruder.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_694" id="Page_694">[694]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’ll bring Miss Traffio home,” she said sternly, -“when she’s ready to come. You may go back and -tell Mrs. Romer that she’s with me,—with Miss -Seldom.”</p> - -<p>The youth touched his hat, and slouched off, -without further protest.</p> - -<p>Vennie, returning into the kitchen, found Mr. -Quincunx standing thoughtfully by the mantelpiece, -stroking his beard, and the two Italians engaged in -an excited conversation in their own tongue.</p> - -<p>The descendant of the lords of Nevilton meditated -for a moment with drooping head, her hands characteristically -clasped behind her back. When she -lifted up her chin and began to speak, there was the -same concentrated light in her eyes and the same -imperative tone in her voice.</p> - -<p>“The thing for us to do,” she said, speaking hurriedly -but firmly, “is to go—all four of us—straight -away from here! I’m not going to leave you until -things are settled. I’m going to get you all clean -out of this,—clean away!”</p> - -<p>She paused and looked at Lacrima. “Where’s Mr. -Dangelis?” she asked.</p> - -<p>Lacrima explained how the artist had written to -Gladys that he was staying until the following day at -the Gloucester Hotel in Weymouth.</p> - -<p>Vennie’s face became radiant when she heard this. -“Ah!” she cried, “God is indeed fighting for us! -It’s Dangelis that I must see, and see at once. Where -better could we all go,—at any rate for tonight—than -to Weymouth? We’ll think later what must be -done next. Dangelis will help us. I’m perfectly -certain he’ll help us.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_695" id="Page_695">[695]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh yes, we’ll go to Weymouth at once,—before -there’s any risk of the Romers stopping us! We’ll -walk to Yeoborough—that’ll give us time to think -out our plans—and take the train from there.</p> - -<p>“I’ll send a telegram to my mother late tonight, -when there’s no chance of her communicating with -the House. As to being seen in Yeoborough by any -Nevilton people, we must risk that! God has been -so good to us today that I can’t believe He won’t -go on being good to us.</p> - -<p>“Oh what a relief it’ll be,—what a relief,—to get -away from Nevilton! And I shall be able to dip my -hands in the sea!”</p> - -<p>While these rapid utterances fell from Vennie’s -excited lips, the face of Mr. Quincunx was a wonder -to look upon. It was the crisis of his days, and he -displayed his knowledge that it was so by more -convulsive changes of expression, than perhaps, in -an equal stretch of time, had ever crossed the visage -of a mortal man.</p> - -<p>“We’ll take your advice,” he said, at last, with -immense solemnity.</p> - -<p>Lacrima looked at him wistfully. Her face was -very pale and her lips trembled.</p> - -<p>“It isn’t only because of the child, is it, that he’s -ready to go?” she murmured, clutching at Vennie’s -arm, as Mr. Quincunx retired to make his brief -preparations. “I shouldn’t like to think it was only -that. But he <em>is</em> fond of me. He <em>is</em> fond of me!”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_696" id="Page_696">[696]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII<br /> -<span class="smaller">LODMOOR</span></h2> - -<p>It was Mr. Quincunx who had to find the money -for their bold adventure. Neither Vennie nor -Lacrima could discover a single penny on their -persons. Mr. Quincunx produced it from the bottom -of an old jam-pot placed in the interior recesses of -one of his deepest cupboards. He displayed to his -three friends, with not a little pride, the sum he was -possessed of,—no less in fact than five golden -sovereigns.</p> - -<p>Their walk to Yeoborough was full of thrilling little -excitements. Three times they concealed themselves -on the further side of the hedge, to let certain suspicious -pedestrians, who might be Nevilton people, -pass by unastonished.</p> - -<p>Once well upon their way, they all four felt a -strange sense of liberation and expansion. The little -Neapolitan walked between Mr. Quincunx and Lacrima, -a hand given to each, and her childish high -spirits kept them all from any apprehensive brooding.</p> - -<p>Once and once only, they looked back, and Mr. -Quincunx shook his fist at the two distant hills.</p> - -<p>“You are right,” he remarked to Vennie, “it’s the -sea we’re in want of. These curst inland fields have -the devil in their heavy mould.”</p> - -<p>They found themselves, when they reached the -town, with an hour to spare before their train started,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_697" id="Page_697">[697]</a></span> -and entering a little dairy-shop near the station, -they refreshed themselves with milk and bread-and-butter. -Here Mr. Quincunx and the child waited -in excited expectation, while the two girls went -out to make some necessary purchases—returning -finally, in triumph, with a light wicker-work suit-case, -containing all that they required for several days -and nights.</p> - -<p>They were in the train at last, with a compartment -to themselves, and, as far as they could tell, quite -undiscovered by anyone who knew them.</p> - -<p>Vennie had hardly ever in her life enjoyed anything -more than she enjoyed that journey. She felt that -the stars were fighting on her side or, to put it in -terms of her religion, that God Himself was smoothing -the road in front of her.</p> - -<p>She experienced a momentary pang when the train, -at last, passing along the edge of the back-water, -ran in to Weymouth Station. It was so sweet, so -strangely sweet, to know that three living souls -depended upon her for their happiness, for their -escape from the power of the devil! Would she feel -like this, would she ever feel quite like this, when -the convent-doors shut her away from this exciting -world?</p> - -<p>They emerged from the crowded station,—Mr. -Quincunx carrying the wicker-work suit-case—and -made their way towards the Esplanade.</p> - -<p>The early afternoon sun lay hot upon the pavements, -but from the sea a strong fresh wind was -blowing. Both the girls shivered a little in their -thin frocks, and as the red shawl of the young Italian -had already excited some curiosity among the passers-by,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_698" id="Page_698">[698]</a></span> -they decided to enter one of the numerous drapery -shops, and spend some more of Mr. Quincunx’s -money.</p> - -<p>They were so long in the shop that the nervous -excitement of the recluse was on the point of changing -into nervous irritation, when at last they reappeared. -But he was reconciled to the delay when he perceived -the admirable use they had made of it.</p> - -<p>All three were wearing long tweed rain-cloaks of -precisely the same tint of sober grey. They looked -like three sisters, newly arrived from some neighbouring -inland town,—Dorchester, perhaps, or Sherborne,—with -a view to spending a pleasant afternoon at -the sea-side. Not only were they all wrapped in -the same species of cloak. They had purchased three -little woollen caps of a similar shade, such things as -it would have been difficult to secure in any shop -but a little unfashionable one, where summer and -winter vogues casually overlapped.</p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx, whose exaltation of mood had not -made him forget to bring his own overcoat with him, -now put this on, and warmly and comfortably clad, -the four fugitives from Nevilton strolled along the -Esplanade in the direction of St. John’s church.</p> - -<p>To leave his three companions free to run down to -the sea’s edge, Mr. Quincunx possessed himself of -the clumsy paper parcels containing the hats they -had relinquished and also of the little girl’s red shawl, -and resting on a seat with these objects piled up by -his side he proceeded to light a cigarette and gaze -placidly about him. The worst of his plunge into -activity being over,—for, whatever happened, the -initial effort was bound to be the worst,—the wanderer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_699" id="Page_699">[699]</a></span> -from Dead Man’s Lane chuckled to himself with -bursts of cynical humour as he contemplated the -situation they were in.</p> - -<p>But what a relief it was to see the clear-shining -foam-sprinkled expanse of water lying spread out -before him! Like the younger Andersen, Mr. Quincunx -had a passionate love of Weymouth, and never -had he loved it more than he did at that moment! -He greeted the splendid curve of receding cliffs—the -White Nore and St. Alban’s Head—with a sigh -of profound satisfaction, and he looked across to the -massive bulk of Portland, as though in its noble -uncrumbling stone—stone that was so much nearer -to marble than to clay—there lurked some occult -talisman ready to save him from everything connected -with Leo’s Hill.</p> - -<p>Yes, the sea was what he wanted just then! How -well the salt taste of it, the smell of its sun-bleached -stranded weeds, its wide horizons, its long-drawn -murmur, blent with the strange new mood into which -that morning’s events had thrown him!</p> - -<p>How happy the little Dolores looked, between -Lacrima and Vennie, her dark curls waving in the -wind from beneath her grey cap!</p> - -<p>All at once his mind reverted to James Andersen, -lying now alone and motionless, under six feet of -yellow clay. Mr. Quincunx shivered. After all it -was something to be alive still, something to be still -able to stroke one’s beard and stretch one’s legs, -and fumble in one’s pocket for a “Three Castles” -cigarette!</p> - -<p>He wondered vaguely how and when this young -St. Catharine of theirs intended to marry him to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_700" id="Page_700">[700]</a></span> -Lacrima. And then what? Would he have to work -frightfully, preposterously hard?</p> - -<p>He chuckled to himself to think how blank Mr. -Romer would look, when he found that both his -victims had been spirited away in one breath. What -a girl this Vennie Seldom was!</p> - -<p>He tried to imagine what it would be like, this -business of being married. After all, he was very -fond of Lacrima. He hoped that dusky wavy hair -of hers were as long as it suggested that it was! He -liked girls to have long hair.</p> - -<p>Would she bring him his tea in the morning, -sometimes, with bare arms and bare feet? Would -she sit cross-legged at the foot of his bed, while he -drank it, and chatter to him of what they would do -when he came back from his work?</p> - -<p><em>His work!</em> That was an aspect of the affair which -certainly might well be omitted.</p> - -<p>And then, as he stared at the three girlish figures -on the beach, there came over him the strange illusion -that both Vennie and Lacrima were only dream-people—unreal -and fantastic—and that the true -living persons of his drama were himself and his little -Neapolitan waif.</p> - -<p>Suppose the three girls were to take a boat—one -of those boats whose painted keels he saw glittering -now so pleasantly on the beach—and row out into -the water. And suppose the boat were upset and -both Vennie and Lacrima drowned? Would he be -so sad to have to live the rest of his life alone with -the little Dolores?</p> - -<p>Perhaps it would be better if this event occurred -after Vennie had helped him to secure some work to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_701" id="Page_701">[701]</a></span> -do—some not too hard work! Well—Vennie, at -any rate, <em>was</em> going to be drowned in a certain sense, -at least she was meditating entering a convent, and -that was little different from being drowned, or being -buried in yellow clay, like James Andersen!</p> - -<p>But Lacrima was not meditating entering a convent. -Lacrima was meditating being married to -him, and being a mother to their adopted child. He -hoped she would be a gentle mother. If she were -not, if she ever spoke crossly to Dolores, he would -lose his temper. He would lose his temper so much -that he would tremble from head to foot! He called -up an imaginary scene between them, a scene so -vivid that he found himself trembling now, as his -hand rested upon the paper parcel.</p> - -<p>But perhaps, if by chance they left England and -went on a journey,—Witch-Bessie had found a -journey, “a terrible journey,” in the lines of his -hand,—Lacrima would catch a fever in some foreign -city, and he and Dolores would be left alone, quite -as alone as if she were drowned today!</p> - -<p>But perhaps it would be he, Maurice Quincunx, -who would catch the fever. No! He did not like -these “terrible journeys.” He preferred to sit on a -seat on Weymouth Esplanade and watch Dolores -laughing and running into the sea and picking up -shells.</p> - -<p>The chief thing was to be alive, and not too tired, -or too cold, or too hungry, or too harassed by insolent -aggressive people! How delicious a thing life -could be if it were only properly arranged! If cruelty, -and brutality, and vulgarity, and <em>office-work</em>, were -removed!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_702" id="Page_702">[702]</a></span></p> - -<p>He could never be cruel to anyone. From that -worst sin,—if one could talk of such a thing as sin -in this mad world,—his temperament entirely saved -him. He hoped when they were married that Lacrima -would not want him to be too sentimental -about her. And he rather hoped that he would still -have his evenings to himself, to turn over the pages -of Rabelais, when he had kissed Dolores good night.</p> - -<p>His meditations were interrupted at this point by -the return of his companions, who came scrambling -across the shingle, threading their way among the -boats, laughing and talking merrily, and trailing long -pieces of sea-weed in their hands.</p> - -<p>Vennie announced that since it was nearly four -o’clock it would be advisable for them to secure their -lodging for the night, and when that was done she -would leave them to their own devices for an hour -or two, while she proceeded to the Gloucester Hotel -to have her interview with Ralph Dangelis.</p> - -<p>Their various sea-spoils being all handed over to -the excited little foundling, they walked slowly along -the Esplanade, still bearing to the east, while they -surveyed the appearance of the various “crescents,” -“terraces,” and “rows” on the opposite side of the -street. It was not till they arrived at the very end -of these, that Vennie, who had assumed complete -responsibility for their movements, piloted them -across the road.</p> - -<p>The houses they now approached were entitled -“Brunswick Terrace,” and they entirely fulfilled their -title by suggesting, in the pleasant liberality of their -bay-windows and the mellow dignity of their well-proportioned -fronts, the sort of solid comfort which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_703" id="Page_703">[703]</a></span> -the syllables “Brunswick” seem naturally to convey. -They began their enquiries for rooms, about five -doors from the end of the terrace, but it was not till -they reached the last house,—the last except two -reddish-coloured ones of later date,—that they -found what they wanted.</p> - -<p>It was arranged that the two Italians should share -a room together. Vennie elected to sleep in a small -apartment adjoining theirs, while Mr. Quincunx was -given a front-room, looking out on the sea, on the -third floor.</p> - -<p>Vennie smiled to herself as she thought how amazed -her mother would have been could she have seen her -at that moment, as she helped Lacrima to unpack -their solitary piece of luggage, while Mr. Quincunx -smoked cigarettes in the balcony of the window!</p> - -<p>She left them finally in the lodging-house parlour, -seated on a horse-hair sofa, watching the prim landlady -preparing tea. Vennie refused to wait for this -meal, being anxious—she said—to get her interview -with the American well over, for until that moment -had been reached, she could neither discuss their -future plans calmly, nor enjoy the flavour of the -adventure.</p> - -<p>When Vennie had left them, and the three were all -comfortably seated round the table, Mr. Quincunx -found Lacrima in so radiant a mood that he began -to feel a little ashamed of his ambiguous meditations -on the Esplanade. She was, after all, quite beautiful -in her way,—though, of course, not as beautiful -as the young Neapolitan, whose eyes had a look in -them, even when she was happy, which haunted one -and filled one with vague indescribable emotions.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_704" id="Page_704">[704]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mr. Quincunx himself was in the best of spirits. -His beard wagged, his nostrils quivered, his wit -flowed. Lacrima fixed her eyes upon him with delighted -appreciation,—and led him on and on, -through a thousand caprices of fancy. The poor -Pariah’s heart was full of exquisite happiness. She -felt like one actually liberated from the tomb. For -the first time since she had known anything of England -she was able to breathe freely and spontaneously -and be her natural self.</p> - -<p>For some queer reason or other, her thoughts kept -reverting to James Andersen, but reverting to him -with neither sadness nor pity. She felt no remorse -for not having been present when he was buried that -morning. She did not feel as though he were buried. -She did not feel as though he were dead. She felt, -in some strange way, that he had merely escaped from -the evil spells of Nevilton, and that in the power of -his new strength he was the cause of her own -emancipation.</p> - -<p>And what an emancipation it was! It was like suddenly -becoming a child again—a child with power -to enjoy the very things that children so often miss.</p> - -<p>Everything in this little parlour pleased her. The -blue vases on the mantelpiece containing dusty -“everlasting flowers,” the plush-framed portraits of -the landlady’s deceased parents, enlarged to a magnitude -of shadowy dignity by some old-fashioned -photographic process, the quaint row of minute -china elephants that stood on a little bracket in the -corner, the glaring antimacassar thrown across the -back of the arm-chair, the sea-scents and sea-murmurs -floating in through the window, the melodious crying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_705" id="Page_705">[705]</a></span> -of a fish-pedler in the street; all these things thrilled -her with a sense of freedom and escape, which over-brimmed -her heart with happiness.</p> - -<p>What matter, after all, she thought, that her little -compatriot with the wonderful eyes had been the -means of arousing her friend from his inertia! Her -long acquaintance with Mr. Quincunx had mellowed -her affection for him into a tenderness that was -almost maternal. She could even find it in her to -be glad that she was to be saved from the burden of -struggling alone with his fits of melancholia. With -Dolores to keep him amused, and herself to look after -his material wants, it seemed probable that, whatever -happened, the dear man would be happier than -he had ever dreamed of being!</p> - -<p>The uncertainty of their future weighed upon her -very little. She had the true Pariah tendency to -lie back with arms outstretched upon the great tide, -and let it carry her whither it pleased. She had done -this so long, while the tide was dark and evil, that -to do it where the waters gleamed and shone was a -voluptuous delight.</p> - -<p>While her protégées were thus enjoying themselves -Vennie sought out and entered, with a resolute bearing, -the ancient Gloucester Hotel. The place had -recently been refitted according to modern notions -of comfort, but in its general lines, and in a certain -air it had of liberal welcoming, it preserved the -Georgian touch.</p> - -<p>She was already within the hall-way when, led by an -indefinable impulse to look back, she caught sight of -Dangelis himself walking rapidly along the Esplanade -towards the very quarter from which she had just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_706" id="Page_706">[706]</a></span> -come. Without a moment’s hesitation she ran down -the steps, crossed the road and followed him.</p> - -<p>The American seemed to be inspired by some mania -for fast walking that afternoon. Vennie was quite -breathless before she succeeded in approaching him, -and she did not manage to do this until they were -both very nearly opposite Brunswick Terrace.</p> - -<p>Just here she was unwilling to make herself known, -as her friends might at any moment emerge from their -lodging. She preferred to follow the long strides of -the artist still further, till, in fact he had led her, -hot and exhausted in her new cloak, quite beyond the -limits of the houses.</p> - -<p>Where the town ceases, on this eastern side, a long -white dusty road leads across a mile or two of level -ground before the noble curve of cliffs ending in St. -Alban’s Head has its beginning. This road is bounded -on one hand by a high bank of shingle and on the -other by a wide expanse of salt-marshes known in -that district under the name of Lodmoor. It was -not until the American had emerged upon this solitary -road that his pursuer saw fit to bring him to -a halt.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Dangelis!” she called out, “Mr. Dangelis!”</p> - -<p>He swung round in astonishment at hearing his -name. For the first moment he did not recognize -Vennie. Her newly purchased attire,—not to speak -of her unnaturally flushed cheeks,—had materially -altered her appearance. When she held out her hand, -however, and stopped to take breath, he realized -who she was.</p> - -<p>“Oh Mr. Dangelis,” she gasped, “I’ve been following -you all the way from the Hotel. I so want to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_707" id="Page_707">[707]</a></span> -talk to you. You <em>must</em> listen to me. It’s very, very -important!”</p> - -<p>He held his hat in his hand, and regarded her with -smiling amazement.</p> - -<p>“Well, Miss Seldom, you <em>are</em> an astonishing person. -Is your mother here? Are you staying at Weymouth? -How did you catch sight of me? Certainly—by all -means—tell me your news! I long to hear this thing -that’s so important.”</p> - -<p>He made as if he would return with her to the -town, but she laid her hand on his arm.</p> - -<p>“No—no! let’s walk on quietly here. I can talk -to you better here.”</p> - -<p>The roadway, however, proved so disconcerting, -owing to great gusts of wind which kept driving the -sand and dust along its surface, that before Vennie had -summoned up courage to begin her story, they found -it necessary to debouch to their left and enter the -marshy flats of Lodmoor. They took their way along -the edge of a broad ditch, whose black peat-bottomed -waters were overhung by clumps of “Michaelmas -daisies” and sprinkled with weird glaucous-leafed -plants. It was a place of a singular character, owing -to the close encounter in it of land and sea, and it -seemed to draw the appeal of its strange desolation -almost equally from both these sources.</p> - -<p>Vennie, on the verge of speaking, found her senses -in a state of morbid alertness. Everything she felt -and saw at that moment lodged itself with poignant -sharpness in her brain and returned to her mind long -afterwards. So extreme was her nervous tension that -she found it difficult to disentangle her thoughts from -all these outward impressions.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_708" id="Page_708">[708]</a></span></p> - -<p>The splash of a water-rat became an episode in -her suspended revelation. The bubbles rising from -the movements of an eel in the mud got mixed with -the image of Mrs. Wotnot picking laurel-leaves. The -flight of a sea-gull above their heads was a projection -of Dangelis’ escape from the spells of his false mistress. -The wind shaking the reeds was the breath of -her fatal news ruffling the man’s smiling attention. -The wail of the startled plovers was the cry of her own -heart, calling upon all the spirits of truth and justice, -to make him believe her words.</p> - -<p>She told him at last,—told him everything, walking -slowly by his side with her eyes cast down and her -hands clasped tight behind her.</p> - -<p>When she had finished, there was an immense -intolerable silence, and slowly, very slowly, she -permitted her glance to rise to her companion’s -face, to grasp the effect of her narration upon -him.</p> - -<p>How rare it is that these world-shaking revelations -produce the impression one has anticipated! To -Vennie’s complete amazement,—and even, it must -be allowed, a little to her dismay,—Dangelis regarded -her with a frank untroubled smile.</p> - -<p>“You,—I—” she stammered, and stopped -abruptly. Then, before he could answer her, “I -didn’t know you knew all this. Did you really know -it,—and not mind? Don’t people mind these things -in—in other countries?”</p> - -<p>Dangelis spoke at last. “Oh, yes of course, we -mind as much as any of you; that is to say, if we -<em>do</em> mind,—but you must remember, Miss Seldom, -there are circumstances, situations,—there are, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_709" id="Page_709">[709]</a></span> -fact feelings,—which make these things sometimes -rather a relief than otherwise!”</p> - -<p>He threw up his stick in the air, as he spoke, and -caught it as it descended.</p> - -<p>“Pardon me, one moment, I want—I want to -see if I can jump this ditch.”</p> - -<p>He threw both stick and hat on the ground, and -to Vennie’s complete amazement, stepped back a -pace or two, and running desperately to the brink -of the stream cleared it with a bound. He repeated -this manœuvre from the further bank, and returned, -breathing hard and fast, to the girl’s side.</p> - -<p>Picking up his hat and stick, he uttered a wild -series of barbaric howls, such howls as Vennie had -never, in her life, heard issuing from the mouth of -man or beast. Had Gladys’ treachery turned his -brain?</p> - -<p>But no madman could possibly have smiled the -friendly boyish smile with which he greeted her when -this performance was over.</p> - -<p>“So sorry if I scared you,” he said. “Do you -know what that is? It’s our college ‘yell.’ It’s what -we do at base-ball matches.”</p> - -<p>Vennie thought he was going to do it again, and in -her apprehension she laid a hand on his sleeve.</p> - -<p>“But don’t you really mind Miss Romer’s being like -this? Did you know she was like this?” she enquired.</p> - -<p>“Don’t let’s think about her any more,” cried the -artist. “I don’t care what she’s like, now I can get -rid of her. To tell you the honest truth, Miss Seldom, -I’d come down here for no other reason than -to think over this curst hole I’ve got myself into, -and to devise some way out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_710" id="Page_710">[710]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What you tell me,—and I believe every word of -it, I want to believe every word of it!—just gives -me the excuse I need. Good-bye, Miss Gladys! -Good-bye, Ariadne! ‘Ban-ban, Ca-Caliban, Have a -new master, get a new man!’ No more engagements -for me, dear Miss Seldom! I’m a free lance now, a -free lance,—henceforward and forever!”</p> - -<p>The exultant artist was on the point of indulging -once more in his college yell, but the scared and -bewildered expression on Vennie’s face saved her from -a second experience of that phenomenon.</p> - -<p>“Shall I tell you what I was thinking of doing, -as I strolled along the Front this afternoon?”</p> - -<p>Vennie nodded, unable to repress a smile as she remembered -the difficulty she had in arresting this stroll.</p> - -<p>“I was thinking of taking the boat for the Channel -Islands tomorrow! I even went so far as to make -enquiries about the time it started. What do you -think of that?”</p> - -<p>Vennie thought it was extremely singular, and she -also thought that she had never heard the word -“enquiries” pronounced in just that way.</p> - -<p>“It leaves quite early, at nine in the morning. And -it’s <em>some</em> boat,—I can tell you that!”</p> - -<p>“Well,” continued Vennie, recovering by degrees -that sense of concentrated power which had accompanied -her all day, “what now? Are you still going -to sail by it?”</p> - -<p>“That’s—a—large—proposition,” answered her -interlocutor slowly. “I—I rather think I am!”</p> - -<p>One effect of his escape from his Nevilton enchantress -seemed to be an irrepressible tendency to relapse -into the American vernacular.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_711" id="Page_711">[711]</a></span></p> - -<p>They continued advancing along the edge of the -ditch, side by side.</p> - -<p>Vennie plunged into the matter of Lacrima and -Mr. Quincunx.</p> - -<p>She narrated all she knew of this squalid and sinister -story. She enlarged upon the two friends’ long -devotion to one another. She pictured the wickedness -and shame of the projected marriage with John -Goring. Finally she explained how it had come about -that both Mr. Romer’s slaves, and with them the -little circus-waif, were at that moment in Weymouth.</p> - -<p>“And so you’ve carried them off?” cried the Artist -in high glee. “Bless my soul, but I admire you for -it! And what are you going to do with them now?”</p> - -<p>Vennie looked straight into his eyes. “That is -where I want <em>your</em> help, Mr. Dangelis!”</p> - -<p>It was late in the evening before the citizen of -Toledo, Ohio, and the would-be Postulant of the -Sacred Heart parted from one another opposite the -Jubilee Clock.</p> - -<p>A reassuring telegram had been sent to Mrs. Seldom -announcing Vennie’s return in the course of the following -day.</p> - -<p>As for the rest, all had been satisfactorily arranged. -The American had displayed overpowering generosity. -He seemed anxious to do penance for his obsession -by the daughter, by lavishing benefactions upon the -victims of the father. Perhaps it seemed to him that -this was the best manner of paying back the debt, -which his æsthetic imagination owed to the suggestive -charms of the Nevilton landscape.</p> - -<p>He made himself, in a word, completely responsible -for the three wanderers. He would carry them off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_712" id="Page_712">[712]</a></span> -with him to the Channel Isles, and either settle them -down there, or make it possible for them to cross -thence to France, and from France, if so they pleased, -on to Lacrima’s home in Italy. He would come to -an arrangement with his bankers to have handed over -definitely to Mr. Quincunx a sum that would once -and for all put him into a position of financial -security.</p> - -<p>“I’d have paid a hundred times as much as that,” -he laughingly assured Vennie, “to have got clear of -my mix-up with that girl.”</p> - -<p>Thus it came about that at nine o’clock on the day -which followed the burial of James Andersen, Vennie, -standing on the edge of the narrow wharf, between -railway-trucks and hawsers, watched the ship with the -red funnels carry off the persons who—under Heaven—were -the chief cause of the stone-carver’s death.</p> - -<p>As the four figures, waving to her over the ship’s -side grew less and less distinct, Vennie felt an extraordinary -and unaccountable desire to burst into a fit -of passionate weeping. She could not have told why -she wept, nor could she have told whether her tears -were tears of relief or of desolation, but something in -the passing of that brightly-painted ship round the -corner of the little break-water, gave her a different -emotion from any she had ever known in her life.</p> - -<p>When at last she turned her back to the harbour, -she asked the way to the nearest Catholic Church, -but in place of following the directions given her, she -found herself seated on the shingles below Brunswick -Terrace, watching the in-drawing and out-flowing -waves.</p> - -<p>How strange this human existence was! Long after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_713" id="Page_713">[713]</a></span> -the last block of Leonian stone had been removed -from its place—long after the stately pinnacles of -Nevilton House had crumbled into shapeless ruins,—long -after the memory of all these people’s troubles -had been erased and forgotten,—this same tide would -fling itself upon this same beach, and its voice then -would be as its voice now, restless, unsatisfied, -unappeased.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_714" id="Page_714">[714]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX<br /> -<span class="smaller">THE GOAT AND BOY</span></h2> - -<p>It was the middle of October. Francis Taxater -and Luke Andersen sat opposite one another -over a beer-stained table in the parlour of the -Goat and Boy. The afternoon was drawing to its -close and the fire in the little grate threw a warm -ruddy light through the darkening room.</p> - -<p>Outside the rain was falling, heavily, persistently,—the -sort of rain that by long-continued importunity -finds its way through every sort of obstacle. For -nearly a month this rain had lasted. It had come in -with the equinox, and Heaven knew how long it was -going to stay. It had so thoroughly drenched all -the fields, woods, lanes, gardens and orchards of -Nevilton, that a palpable atmosphere of charnel-house -chilliness pervaded everything. Into this -atmosphere the light sank at night like a thing -drowned in deep water, and into this atmosphere the -light rose at dawn like something rising from beneath -the sea.</p> - -<p>The sun itself, as a definite presence, had entirely -disappeared. It might have fallen into fathomless -space, for all the visible signs it gave of its existence. -The daylight seemed a pallid entity, diffused through -the lower regions of the air, unconnected with any -visible fount of life or warmth.</p> - -<p>The rain seemed to draw forth from the earth all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_715" id="Page_715">[715]</a></span> -the accumulated moisture of centuries of damp -autumns, while between the water below the firmament -and the water above the firmament,—between -the persistent deluge from the sky and the dampness -exuded from the earth,—the death-stricken multitudinous -leaves of Nevilton drifted to their morgue -in the cart-ruts and ditches.</p> - -<p>The only object in the vicinity whose appearance -seemed to suffer no change from this incursion of -many waters was Leo’s Hill. Leo’s Hill looked as -if it loved the rain, and the rain looked as if it loved -Leo’s Hill. In no kind of manner were its familiar -outlines affected, except perhaps in winning a certain -added weight, by reason of the fact that its rival -Mount had been stripped of its luxuriant foliage.</p> - -<p>“So our dear Mr. Romer has got his Freight Bill -through,” said Luke, sipping his glass of whiskey -and smiling at Mr. Taxater. “He at any rate then -won’t be worried by this rain.”</p> - -<p>“I’m to dine with him tomorrow,” answered the -papal champion, “so I shall have an opportunity of -discovering what he’s actually gained by this.”</p> - -<p>“I wish I’d had James cremated,” muttered Luke, -staring at the fire-place, into which the rain fell down -the narrow chimney.</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater crossed himself.</p> - -<p>“What do you really feel,” enquired the younger -man abruptly, “about the chances in favour of a life -after death?”</p> - -<p>“The Church,” answered Mr. Taxater, stirring his -rum and sugar with a spoon, “could hardly be -expected to formulate a dogma denying such a hope. -The true spirit of her attitude towards it may perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_716" id="Page_716">[716]</a></span> -be best understood in the repetition of her -requiem prayer, ‘Save us from eternal death!’ We -none of us want eternal death, my friend, though -many of us are very weary of this particular life. I -do not know that I am myself, however. But that -may be due to the fact that I am a real sceptic. To -love life, Andersen, one cannot be too sceptical.”</p> - -<p>“Upon my soul I believe you!” answered the stone-carver, -“but I cannot quite see how <em>you</em> can make -claim to that title.”</p> - -<p>“You’re not a philosopher my friend,” said Mr. -Taxater, leaning his elbows on the table and fixing -a dark but luminous eye upon his interlocutor.</p> - -<p>“If you were a philosopher you would know that -to be a true sceptic it is necessary to be a Catholic. -You, for instance, aren’t a sceptic, and never can be. -You’re a dogmatic materialist. You doubt everything -in the world except doubt. I doubt doubt.”</p> - -<p>Luke rose and poked the fire.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid my little Annie’ll be frightfully wet,” -he remarked, “when she gets home tonight. I wish -that last train from Yeoborough wasn’t quite so late.”</p> - -<p>“Do you propose to go down to the station to -meet her?” enquired Mr. Taxater.</p> - -<p>Luke sighed. “I suppose so,” he said. “That’s the -worst of being married. There’s always something -or other interfering with the main purpose of life.”</p> - -<p>“May I ask what the main purpose of life may be?” -said the theologian.</p> - -<p>“Talking with you, of course,” replied the young -man smiling; “talking with any friend. Oh damn! I -can’t tell you how I miss going up to Dead Man’s -Cottage.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_717" id="Page_717">[717]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes,” said the great scholar meditatively, “women -are bewitching creatures, especially when they’re very -young or very old, but they aren’t exactly arresting -in conversation.”</p> - -<p>Luke became silent, meditating on this.</p> - -<p>“They throw out little things now and then,” he -said. “Annie does. But they’ve no sense of proportion. -If they’re happy they’re thrilled by everything, -and if they’re unhappy,—well, you know how it is! -They don’t bite at the truth, for the sake of biting, -and they never get to the bone. They just lick the -gloss of things with the tips of their tongues. And -they quiver and vibrate so, you never know where -they are, or what they’ve got up their sleeve that -tickles them.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater lifted his glass to his mouth and carefully -replaced it on the table. There was something -in this movement of his plump white fingers which -always fascinated Luke. Mr. Taxater’s hands looked -as though, beyond the pen and the wine-cup, they never -touched any earthly object.</p> - -<p>“Have you heard any more of Philip Wone?” -enquired the stone-carver.</p> - -<p>The theologian shook his head. “I’m afraid, -since he went up to London, he’s really got entangled -in these anarchist plots.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not unselfish enough to be an anarchist,” -said Luke, “but I sympathize with their spirit. The -sort of people I can’t stand are these Christian Socialists. -What really pleases me, I suppose, is the notion -of a genuine aristocracy, an aristocracy as revolutionary -as anarchists in their attitude to morals and -such things, an aristocracy that’s flung up out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_718" id="Page_718">[718]</a></span> -this mad world, as a sort of exquisite flower of chance -and accident, an aristocracy that is <em>worth</em> all this -damned confusion!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater smiled. It always amused him when -Luke Andersen got excited in this way, and began -catching his breath and gesticulating. He seemed -to have heard these remarks on other occasions. He -regarded them as a signal that the stone-carver had -drunk more whiskey than was good for him. When -completely himself Luke talked of girls and of death. -When a little depressed he abused either Nonconformists -or Socialists. When in the early stages of -intoxication he eulogized the upper classes.</p> - -<p>“It’s a pity,” said the theologian, “that Ninsy -couldn’t bring herself to marry that boy. There’s -something morbid in the way she talks. I met her -in Nevil’s Gully yesterday, and I had quite a long -conversation with her.”</p> - -<p>Luke looked sharply at him. “Have you yourself -ever seen her, across there?” he asked making a -gesture in the direction of the churchyard.</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater shook his head. “Have you?” he -demanded.</p> - -<p>Luke nodded.</p> - -<p>A sudden silence fell upon them. The rain beat in -redoubled fury upon the window, and they could -hear it pattering on the roof and falling in a heavy -stream from the pipe above the eaves.</p> - -<p>The younger man felt as though some tragic intimation, -uttered in a tongue completely beyond the reach -of both of them, were beating about for entry, at -closed shutters.</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater felt no sensation of this kind. “<i>Non<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_719" id="Page_719">[719]</a></span> -est reluctandum cum Deo</i>” were the sage words with -which he raised his glass to his lips.</p> - -<p>Luke remained motionless staring at the window, -and thinking of a certain shrouded figure, with hollow -cheeks and crossed hands, to whom this rain was -nothing, and less than nothing.</p> - -<p>Once more there was silence between them, as -though a flock of noiseless night-birds were flying -over the house, on their way to the far-off sea.</p> - -<p>“How is Mrs. Seldom getting on?” enquired Luke, -pushing back his chair. “Is Vennie allowed to write -to her from that place?”</p> - -<p>The theologian smiled. “Oh, the dear lady is perfectly -happy! In fact, I think she’s really happier -than when she was worrying herself about Vennie’s -future.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like these convents,” remarked Luke.</p> - -<p>“Few people like them,” said the papal champion, -“who have never entered them.</p> - -<p>“I’ve never seen an unhappy nun. They are -almost too happy. They are like children. Perhaps -they’re the only persons in existence who know what -continual, as opposed to spasmodic, happiness means. -The happiness of sanctity is a secret that has to be -concealed from the world, just as the happiness of -certain very vicious people has,—for fear there -should be no more marriages.”</p> - -<p>“Talking of marriages,” remarked Luke, “I’d give -anything to know how our friend Gladys is getting -on with Clavering. I expect his attitude of heroic -pity has worn a little thin by this time. I wonder -how soon the more earthly side of the shield will -wear thin too! But—poor dear girl!—I do feel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_720" id="Page_720">[720]</a></span> -sorry for her. Fancy having to listen to the Reverend -Hugh’s conversation by night and by day!</p> - -<p>“I sent her a picture post-card, the other afternoon, -from Yeoborough—a comic one. I wonder if -she snapped it up, and hid it, before her husband -came down to breakfast!”</p> - -<p>The jeering tone of the man jarred a little on -Mr. Taxater’s nerves.</p> - -<p>“I think I understand,” he thought to himself, -“why it is that he praises the aristocracy.”</p> - -<p>To change the conversation, he reverted to Miss -Seldom’s novitiate.</p> - -<p>“Vennie was very indignant with me for remaining -so long in London, but I am glad now that I did. -None of our little arrangements—eh, my friend?—would -have worked out so well as her Napoleonic -directness. That shows how wise it is to stand aside -sometimes and let things take their course.”</p> - -<p>“Romer doesn’t stand aside,” laughed Luke. “I’d -give a year of my life to know what he felt when -Dangelis carried those people away! But I suppose -we shall never know.</p> - -<p>“I wonder if it’s possible that there’s any truth in -that strange idea of Vennie’s that Leo’s Hill has a -definite evil power over this place? Upon my soul -I’m almost inclined to wish it has! God, how it -does rain!”</p> - -<p>He looked at his watch. “I shall have to go down -to the station in a minute,” he remarked.</p> - -<p>One curious feature of this conversation between -the two men was that there began to grow up a deep -and vague irritation in Mr. Taxater’s mind against -his companion. Luke’s tone when he alluded to that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_721" id="Page_721">[721]</a></span> -picture-card—“a comic one”—struck him as touching -a depth of cynical inhumanity.</p> - -<p>The theologian could not help thinking of that gorgeous-coloured -image of the wayward girl, represented -as Ariadne, which now hung in the entrance-hall of -her father’s house. He recalled the magnificent pose -of the figure, and its look of dreamy exultation. -Somehow, the idea of this splendid heathen creature -being the wife of Clavering struck his mind as a revolting -incongruity. For such a superb being to be -now stretching out hopeless arms towards her Nevilton -lover,—an appeal only answered by comic -post-cards,—struck his imagination as a far bitterer -commentary upon the perversity of the world than -that disappearance of Vennie into a convent which -seemed so to shock Luke.</p> - -<p>He extended his legs and fumbled with the gold -cross upon his watch-chain. He seemed so clearly -to visualize the sort of look which must now be -settling down on that pseudo-priest’s ascetic face. -He gave way to an immoral wish that Clavering -might take to drink. He felt as though he -would sooner have seen Gladys fallen to the streets -than thus made the companion of a monkish -apostate.</p> - -<p>He wondered how on earth it had been managed -that Mr. Romer had remained ignorant of the cause -of Dangelis’ flight and the girl’s precipitate marriage. -It was inconceivable that he should be aware of -these things and yet retain this imperturbable young -man in his employment. How craftily Gladys must -have carried the matter through! Well,—she was -no doubt paying the penalty of her double-dyed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_722" id="Page_722">[722]</a></span> -deceptions now. The theologian experienced a sick -disgust with the whole business.</p> - -<p>The rain increased in violence. It seemed as though -the room where they sat was isolated from the whole -world by a flood of down-pouring waves. The gods -of the immense Spaces were weeping, and man, in his -petty preoccupation, could only mutter and stare.</p> - -<p>Luke rose to his feet. “To Romer and his Stone-Works,” -he cried, emptying his glass at one gulp -down his throat, “and may he make me their -Manager!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Taxater also rose. “To the tears that wash -away all these things,” he said, “and the Necessity -that was before them and will be after them.”</p> - -<p>They went out of the house together, and the -silence that fell between them was like the silence -at the bottom of deep waters.</p> - -<p class="titlepage">THE END</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wood and Stone, by John Cowper Powys - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOOD AND STONE *** - -***** This file should be named 53157-h.htm or 53157-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/1/5/53157/ - -Produced by Stephen Rowland and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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